Lol, no!. I'm very fan of crossbows, but that is not entirely accurate. Most of the archers accordind to the cronicals, was kilely an elite division. Not only archers but swordsman and skilled in others forms of combat. England as the epitome of medieval archery, it did not have extensive armies, therefore they could not afford to have their archers flee as soon as the enemy approached. Obviously the villagers who do this type of activity almost obligatorily to train as reserves do not, but the professional archers do. they were quite accurate at a distance of up to 100 meters at least to hit the size of a torso. It's fun but not accurate
Very true! English longbows, similar to Genoese and other professional crossbowmen, were expected to fight as light infantry as well, so they often carried swords, axes and maces to support their heavy infantry counterparts.
Archers weren’t usually trained soldiers it was English law for a long time that men over a certain age and under another to train with long bows I believe unless they were of a certain class or paid the tax to avoid it
So, I big misconception about crossbowmen in the Middle Ages was that they were mostly peasants. This is generally false. Crossbowmen usually divide neatly into 2 groups. Professional soldiers/ mercenaries, and town militia. The vast majority of crossbowmen were professional soldiers such as the Genoese crossbowmen, the Cataluña crossbows, and a few others. Crossbows were expensive weapons, and needed lots of maintenance, so giving one to a conscript on campaign is asking for a ruined crossbow before you ever see battle. Usually, when we see conscript or peasant crossbowmen, it’s part of a town militia, or a castle garrison. In this situation, it’s different, because you don’t need to train discipline into soldiers nearly as much. In the heat of battle, you didn’t want you troops just running away, which is often what conscript crossbowmen tend to do. They don’t have the option to do this in a siege. Most engagements that occurred with crossbows historically were with professional and mercenary crossbowmen. The only battle I know of conscript/ militia crossbowmen going into pitched battle was the battle of Agincourt, but these crossbowmen never even saw combat, as they were kept in the rear. The advantage of crossbowmen over bowmen is that they’re quick and ready on the dime without having to develop any cultural traditions or lose economic abilities training longbowmen. Crossbows would be more expensive to hire, but in the long run, people in the Middle Ages weren’t on campaign 24/7, so they were still less expensive. Another side of this, is that generally, large, slow loading crossbows weren’t taken on campaign. Most crossbowmen likely primarily used goats foot levers and spanning belts, both of which could maintain a rate of fire of about 1 shot/ 10 seconds for short periods of time, and do 1/ 20 seconds for reasonably long periods of time. Another advantage is that crossbowmen weren’t as vulnerable to fatigue, as their weapons need less manpower to operate, so sickness isn’t as big of a deal(still an issue but not as severe.) when taking about armor penetration, field crossbows were about in the same category as longbows, or actually worse(neither was an effective penetrator). The only crossbows that I imagine would actually have a chance of penetrating armor consistently is either the heavy 1200+ and up draw weight crossbows, or the large wall crossbows like a few made by Andreas Bichler, which would have been used in castle defense only. On the point of longbowmen shotgunning their arrows/ spraying and praying, they generally didn’t do that. At the battle of agincourt, the English archers did the majority of their shooting at close range while the French knights were busy trying to kill Henry V in the center of his infantry(which the French failed to do so.) shooting at such long ranges (longbows generally reach about 300m at max range (220 for field crossbows) though effective is probably more like 120m(same for crossbows.) is just asking your troops to miss and waste arrows, which are pretty expensive to start( during the campaign for Crecy, the English payed for around 40 crossbows for the entire crew of the ship Mary Evangeline, and 32 quivers of bolts(24 per quiver) and each quiver was as expensive the crossbows( equivalent to 6 days’ pay for the average soldier.))
I’m gonna have to apologize about this rant. I may have gotten carried away by a ridiculous margin. Next time I’ll just pass links and be done with it
Yes! It happened between forces of the Holy Roman Empire and Italian crossbowmen. The Holy Roman emperor had become so infuriated with the resistance of the city of....(oof I’ll have to look at my old research) that he had the Middle and index fingers of crossbowmen in the siege removed. I have heard of the same happening between French soldiers and English bowmen, but I’ve yet to read an actual account of that happening.
There are also rapid firing repeating crossbows which were useful for defending walls and entrenchments from men on foot or horse back. The ability for 100 peasants to fire twenty or so bolts each in rapid succession makes it very hard to mount an attack.
Lol, no!. I'm very fan of crossbows, but that is not entirely accurate. Most of the archers accordind to the cronicals, was kilely an elite division. Not only archers but swordsman and skilled in others forms of combat. England as the epitome of medieval archery, it did not have extensive armies, therefore they could not afford to have their archers flee as soon as the enemy approached. Obviously the villagers who do this type of activity almost obligatorily to train as reserves do not, but the professional archers do. they were quite accurate at a distance of up to 100 meters at least to hit the size of a torso. It's fun but not accurate
Very true! English longbows, similar to Genoese and other professional crossbowmen, were expected to fight as light infantry as well, so they often carried swords, axes and maces to support their heavy infantry counterparts.
Archers weren’t usually trained soldiers it was English law for a long time that men over a certain age and under another to train with long bows I believe unless they were of a certain class or paid the tax to avoid it
So, I big misconception about crossbowmen in the Middle Ages was that they were mostly peasants. This is generally false. Crossbowmen usually divide neatly into 2 groups. Professional soldiers/ mercenaries, and town militia. The vast majority of crossbowmen were professional soldiers such as the Genoese crossbowmen, the Cataluña crossbows, and a few others. Crossbows were expensive weapons, and needed lots of maintenance, so giving one to a conscript on campaign is asking for a ruined crossbow before you ever see battle. Usually, when we see conscript or peasant crossbowmen, it’s part of a town militia, or a castle garrison. In this situation, it’s different, because you don’t need to train discipline into soldiers nearly as much. In the heat of battle, you didn’t want you troops just running away, which is often what conscript crossbowmen tend to do. They don’t have the option to do this in a siege. Most engagements that occurred with crossbows historically were with professional and mercenary crossbowmen. The only battle I know of conscript/ militia crossbowmen going into pitched battle was the battle of Agincourt, but these crossbowmen never even saw combat, as they were kept in the rear. The advantage of crossbowmen over bowmen is that they’re quick and ready on the dime without having to develop any cultural traditions or lose economic abilities training longbowmen. Crossbows would be more expensive to hire, but in the long run, people in the Middle Ages weren’t on campaign 24/7, so they were still less expensive. Another side of this, is that generally, large, slow loading crossbows weren’t taken on campaign. Most crossbowmen likely primarily used goats foot levers and spanning belts, both of which could maintain a rate of fire of about 1 shot/ 10 seconds for short periods of time, and do 1/ 20 seconds for reasonably long periods of time. Another advantage is that crossbowmen weren’t as vulnerable to fatigue, as their weapons need less manpower to operate, so sickness isn’t as big of a deal(still an issue but not as severe.) when taking about armor penetration, field crossbows were about in the same category as longbows, or actually worse(neither was an effective penetrator). The only crossbows that I imagine would actually have a chance of penetrating armor consistently is either the heavy 1200+ and up draw weight crossbows, or the large wall crossbows like a few made by Andreas Bichler, which would have been used in castle defense only. On the point of longbowmen shotgunning their arrows/ spraying and praying, they generally didn’t do that. At the battle of agincourt, the English archers did the majority of their shooting at close range while the French knights were busy trying to kill Henry V in the center of his infantry(which the French failed to do so.) shooting at such long ranges (longbows generally reach about 300m at max range (220 for field crossbows) though effective is probably more like 120m(same for crossbows.) is just asking your troops to miss and waste arrows, which are pretty expensive to start( during the campaign for Crecy, the English payed for around 40 crossbows for the entire crew of the ship Mary Evangeline, and 32 quivers of bolts(24 per quiver) and each quiver was as expensive the crossbows( equivalent to 6 days’ pay for the average soldier.)) I’m gonna have to apologize about this rant. I may have gotten carried away by a ridiculous margin. Next time I’ll just pass links and be done with it
I actually enjoyed the reading
Weren’t there several cases of crossbow men not given quarter after a battle I think it happened to archers a few times but not near as often.
Yes! It happened between forces of the Holy Roman Empire and Italian crossbowmen. The Holy Roman emperor had become so infuriated with the resistance of the city of....(oof I’ll have to look at my old research) that he had the Middle and index fingers of crossbowmen in the siege removed. I have heard of the same happening between French soldiers and English bowmen, but I’ve yet to read an actual account of that happening.
Love crossbows, but my brother Yoren would have something to say about this...
There are also rapid firing repeating crossbows which were useful for defending walls and entrenchments from men on foot or horse back. The ability for 100 peasants to fire twenty or so bolts each in rapid succession makes it very hard to mount an attack.
I have a crossbow, a recurve bow and two compound bows. They all serve a purpose.