7 ms·

tl;dr: The abstract does a wonderful job. It is will worth reading. Longbow was cheap and technically superior, but required training. Crossbow more expensi

by zhte415 11y ago

tl;dr: The abstract does a wonderful job. It is will worth reading. Longbow was cheap and technically superior, but required training. Crossbow more expensive, required less training. Rulers of England less worried about rebellion, OK to invest in training. Rulers of France/Scotland not so happy because of fear to give potential of overthrow to the people (Scotland not in title, but in article along with France). Perhaps an analogy could be painted with companies today. Those that churn, and those that nurture skills.

lifeisstillgood 11y ago
The Sharpe author Bernard Cornwell wrote a couple of novels set in / around Agincourt and from memory there are a few extras to throw in - but I love your last sentence's conclusion 1. The extra training was enormous - thik of an army of a thousand Arnold Schwarzeneggers - these guys cold deliver hundreds of foot pounds from their arms. Robin Hood would have been built like The Rock, not Kevin Costner. 2. The "cheap" idea is misleading - in preparation ofr agincourt a huge amount of the English economny was turned over to making arrows. During Agincourt an estimated 3/4 million arrows were fired. When looking at economics of ranged weapons, don't compare Bows to guns, think RPGs 3. Agincourt changed everything for a generation. Thanks to mud, foolishness, and yes, longbows, France lost an entire generation of aristocracy in one day. The english were being chased out of the country and suddenly ... owned everything. 4. finally, crossbows really are the better weapon - once you start factory-making them, your army can be raised and trained faster, you are not tied down to a specfific class of army recruits and you dont have to feed Arnie.
- noir-york 11y ago
  > finally, crossbows really are the better weapon - once you start factory-making them, your army can be raised and trained faster But the army you raise is less effective; quantity vs quality. A country which did not want or could not afford to train longbow men may have had a deeper flaw: its model. Perhaps the real reason England could beat France had been a long time in the making: a strong economy, and politically society that afforded it a more equipped better trained army. I wonder if the advantages of a democracy - political stability and a (usually) advanced economy - also translate into the modern battlefield.
  - kltpzyxm 11y ago
    That last sentence is the conclusion of 'The Logic of Political Survival', by Bruce Bueno de Mesquita, Alastair Smith, et al. Unfortunately, I haven't gone through it in ten years, and I have a sneaking suspicion that it might have some faulty methodology.
  - marktangotango 11y ago
    The quote from Stalin comes to mind, quantity has a quality of it's own.
    - noir-york 11y ago
      Yep I also thought of that as I wrote that line. I wonder how that sounded to his cannon fodde^H^H^H soldiers...
      - the_af 11y ago
        It probably didn't sound like anything because it's most likely a misattribution (see the more detailed answers here: https://www.quora.com/Who-said-Quantity-has-a-quality-all-its-own https://www.quora.com/Who-said-Quantity-has-a-quality-all-it...). Not saying that Quora or Wikipedia are authoritative sources, but many of this sort of alleged quotes by Stalin are usually either what someone thought Stalin might have said, or coined by Western authors writing about Stalin and later misattributed to him. Most references I've found point to an American saying this quote (or similar) in the 70s.
  - lifeisstillgood 11y ago
    At Agincourt, England beat France on pure fluke. We were effectively running away to Calais when the French trapped the English and attacked. The battle was lost more than won - the French just bunched up and got stuck in mud, and got slaughtered It was not a reflection on any economic models. Ps on the crossbow front - the cost of arrows relative to the firing mechanism is key
  - afarrell 11y ago
    > I wonder if the advantages of a democracy - political stability and a (usually) advanced economy - also translate into the modern battlefield. Yes. There was an article that reached the top page here about the cultural/organizational problems of information-age Arab armies from the perspective of a US Army soldier who had worked with several. Let me see if I can dig it up.
- mhd 11y ago
  You need some pretty specific muscles for bowmanship, which don't really equate to a bodybuilder's physique. That goes both way, I wouldn't be sure whether Arnie in his best days could draw a 150 lbs bow, and I'm dead certain that Daffyd Longbowman didn't look like a candidate for Mr. Universe. But you still had some pretty healthy specimens, which brings to mind one important factor that's often forgotten: It's not like archers were suddenly useless when they couldn't fire their bows anymore. They were decently well armed and armored, and if you're swarmed by guys with mauls (and possibly deep in mud), your fancy chain & plate doesn't really help you all that much.
  - cmdkeen 11y ago
    The wreck of the Mary Rose has provided numerous well preserved skeletons of well trained longbowmen, and sailors (for comparison) and allowed studies of the effect upon their body. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-17309665 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-17309665 - they found a significant difference in the lower arm bones of archers and non-archers.
    - mannykannot 11y ago
      Very interesting. I see that asymmetry is one of the indicators: "In fact, on one of the skeletons we have looked at, the surface area of the joint between the lower arm and elbow is 48% larger than on the joint on the other arm." I believe there was a lot of arm-and-hand labor in being a sailor, but without the bias that archery creates.
- vidarh 11y ago
  > thik of an army of a thousand Arnold Schwarzeneggers - these guys cold deliver hundreds of foot pounds from their arms. Robin Hood would have been built like The Rock As a nitpick: No, he would not. You don't achieve anything near build of Arnold or The Rock without steroids (both have admitted to steroid use), nor do you achieve it with more endurance focused training rather than maximising load for a low number of reps. Big and strong, sure, but much more compact. A boxer would be a more natural comparison.
  - cjcole 11y ago
    Maybe professional arm wrestler would be even more apt. Here is Devon Larratt (225 lbs) easily beating Hafthor Bjornsson ("The Mountain" from Game of Thrones; 419 lbs) without breaking a sweat. Specialization wins. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IkkL-bAH8H4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IkkL-bAH8H4
thearn4 11y ago
If I remember correctly (and I'm still looking for a better source than this[1]), the Duke Of Wellington had requested a corps of longbowmen be made ready for use against the French in the Napoleonic wars, but was advised that no one with the skill needed to train them still existed (the training being the most difficult part of the technology). The last use of trained english longbowmen seemed to have been by some of the royalists during the English Civil War, and after the parliamentary victory practical knowledge of longbow archery as a military arm had been lost without anyone really noticing. It's hard for me to imagine a pivotal art or technology being lost like that, but I'm willing to bet its not at all uncommon if we look across history. For another military technology example, the art of dogfighting was deemed to have been lost for a brief period between WWII and the air war over Vietnam, and had to be re-engineered. [1] http://everything.explained.today/English_longbow/ http://everything.explained.today/English_longbow/
- matwood 11y ago
  > the art of dogfighting was deemed to have been lost for a brief period between WWII and the air war over Vietnam, and had to be re-engineered. That's the premise laid out at the start of the Top Gun movie. That the Top Gun school was created to bring back the art of dogfighting.
  - thearn4 11y ago
    As an aside, I have wondered how universally true this was. For instance, did the USAF recognize a similar issue during this period?
    - yborg 11y ago
      USAF kill:loss ratios were as low as near 1:1 initially in Vietnam while Top Gun trained Navy/Marine Corps pilots were achieving 4:1 or better. The F4 was purpose-designed as a missile-launching platform and was initially fielded without any kind of cannon.
    - Spooky23 11y ago
      Remember they had reorganized to wage nuclear war. Many people thought that conventional fighting was dead, and that the Air Force of the future would be intercepting bombers with nuclear rockets. A conflict like Vietnam was seen as a sideshow from a 1950s point of view, and wasn't really planned for.
vacri 11y ago
> Perhaps an analogy could be painted with companies today. Those that churn, and those that nurture skills. Those that nurture skills would only be powerful in their own niche, and unable to significantly project power without a cohort of allies? In the age of the longbow, England dominated the British Isles, whose other denizens were significantly smaller in population and economy. The French, on the other hand, kicked England out of the continent, and were a continental power. The English won some key battles, but at the end of the age of the longbow, the scorecard was in France's favour.
thesz 11y ago
You forget that there is no citation of any of medieval sources that support their claims. I cannot believe that rulers decide on something important like war technology without leaving history trails in literature.
- mannykannot 11y ago
  Not entirely; see, for example, page 703.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]

by zhte415 11y ago

lifeisstillgood 11y ago

The Sharpe author Bernard Cornwell wrote a couple of novels set in / around Agincourt and from memory there are a few extras to throw in - but I love your last sentence's conclusion 1. The extra training was enormous - thik of an army of a thousand Arnold Schwarzeneggers - these guys cold deliver hundreds of foot pounds from their arms. Robin Hood would have been built like The Rock, not Kevin Costner. 2. The "cheap" idea is misleading - in preparation ofr agincourt a huge amount of the English economny was turned over to making arrows. During Agincourt an estimated 3/4 million arrows were fired. When looking at economics of ranged weapons, don't compare Bows to guns, think RPGs 3. Agincourt changed everything for a generation. Thanks to mud, foolishness, and yes, longbows, France lost an entire generation of aristocracy in one day. The english were being chased out of the country and suddenly ... owned everything. 4. finally, crossbows really are the better weapon - once you start factory-making them, your army can be raised and trained faster, you are not tied down to a specfific class of army recruits and you dont have to feed Arnie.

noir-york 11y ago
> finally, crossbows really are the better weapon - once you start factory-making them, your army can be raised and trained faster But the army you raise is less effective; quantity vs quality. A country which did not want or could not afford to train longbow men may have had a deeper flaw: its model. Perhaps the real reason England could beat France had been a long time in the making: a strong economy, and politically society that afforded it a more equipped better trained army. I wonder if the advantages of a democracy - political stability and a (usually) advanced economy - also translate into the modern battlefield.
- kltpzyxm 11y ago
  That last sentence is the conclusion of 'The Logic of Political Survival', by Bruce Bueno de Mesquita, Alastair Smith, et al. Unfortunately, I haven't gone through it in ten years, and I have a sneaking suspicion that it might have some faulty methodology.
- marktangotango 11y ago
  The quote from Stalin comes to mind, quantity has a quality of it's own.
  - noir-york 11y ago
    Yep I also thought of that as I wrote that line. I wonder how that sounded to his cannon fodde^H^H^H soldiers...
    - the_af 11y ago
      It probably didn't sound like anything because it's most likely a misattribution (see the more detailed answers here: https://www.quora.com/Who-said-Quantity-has-a-quality-all-its-own https://www.quora.com/Who-said-Quantity-has-a-quality-all-it...). Not saying that Quora or Wikipedia are authoritative sources, but many of this sort of alleged quotes by Stalin are usually either what someone thought Stalin might have said, or coined by Western authors writing about Stalin and later misattributed to him. Most references I've found point to an American saying this quote (or similar) in the 70s.
- lifeisstillgood 11y ago
  At Agincourt, England beat France on pure fluke. We were effectively running away to Calais when the French trapped the English and attacked. The battle was lost more than won - the French just bunched up and got stuck in mud, and got slaughtered It was not a reflection on any economic models. Ps on the crossbow front - the cost of arrows relative to the firing mechanism is key
- afarrell 11y ago
  > I wonder if the advantages of a democracy - political stability and a (usually) advanced economy - also translate into the modern battlefield. Yes. There was an article that reached the top page here about the cultural/organizational problems of information-age Arab armies from the perspective of a US Army soldier who had worked with several. Let me see if I can dig it up.
mhd 11y ago
You need some pretty specific muscles for bowmanship, which don't really equate to a bodybuilder's physique. That goes both way, I wouldn't be sure whether Arnie in his best days could draw a 150 lbs bow, and I'm dead certain that Daffyd Longbowman didn't look like a candidate for Mr. Universe. But you still had some pretty healthy specimens, which brings to mind one important factor that's often forgotten: It's not like archers were suddenly useless when they couldn't fire their bows anymore. They were decently well armed and armored, and if you're swarmed by guys with mauls (and possibly deep in mud), your fancy chain & plate doesn't really help you all that much.
- cmdkeen 11y ago
  The wreck of the Mary Rose has provided numerous well preserved skeletons of well trained longbowmen, and sailors (for comparison) and allowed studies of the effect upon their body. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-17309665 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-17309665 - they found a significant difference in the lower arm bones of archers and non-archers.
  - mannykannot 11y ago
    Very interesting. I see that asymmetry is one of the indicators: "In fact, on one of the skeletons we have looked at, the surface area of the joint between the lower arm and elbow is 48% larger than on the joint on the other arm." I believe there was a lot of arm-and-hand labor in being a sailor, but without the bias that archery creates.
vidarh 11y ago
> thik of an army of a thousand Arnold Schwarzeneggers - these guys cold deliver hundreds of foot pounds from their arms. Robin Hood would have been built like The Rock As a nitpick: No, he would not. You don't achieve anything near build of Arnold or The Rock without steroids (both have admitted to steroid use), nor do you achieve it with more endurance focused training rather than maximising load for a low number of reps. Big and strong, sure, but much more compact. A boxer would be a more natural comparison.
- cjcole 11y ago
  Maybe professional arm wrestler would be even more apt. Here is Devon Larratt (225 lbs) easily beating Hafthor Bjornsson ("The Mountain" from Game of Thrones; 419 lbs) without breaking a sweat. Specialization wins. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IkkL-bAH8H4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IkkL-bAH8H4

thearn4 11y ago

If I remember correctly (and I'm still looking for a better source than this[1]), the Duke Of Wellington had requested a corps of longbowmen be made ready for use against the French in the Napoleonic wars, but was advised that no one with the skill needed to train them still existed (the training being the most difficult part of the technology). The last use of trained english longbowmen seemed to have been by some of the royalists during the English Civil War, and after the parliamentary victory practical knowledge of longbow archery as a military arm had been lost without anyone really noticing. It's hard for me to imagine a pivotal art or technology being lost like that, but I'm willing to bet its not at all uncommon if we look across history. For another military technology example, the art of dogfighting was deemed to have been lost for a brief period between WWII and the air war over Vietnam, and had to be re-engineered. [1] http://everything.explained.today/English_longbow/ http://everything.explained.today/English_longbow/

matwood 11y ago
> the art of dogfighting was deemed to have been lost for a brief period between WWII and the air war over Vietnam, and had to be re-engineered. That's the premise laid out at the start of the Top Gun movie. That the Top Gun school was created to bring back the art of dogfighting.
- thearn4 11y ago
  As an aside, I have wondered how universally true this was. For instance, did the USAF recognize a similar issue during this period?
  - yborg 11y ago
    USAF kill:loss ratios were as low as near 1:1 initially in Vietnam while Top Gun trained Navy/Marine Corps pilots were achieving 4:1 or better. The F4 was purpose-designed as a missile-launching platform and was initially fielded without any kind of cannon.
  - Spooky23 11y ago
    Remember they had reorganized to wage nuclear war. Many people thought that conventional fighting was dead, and that the Air Force of the future would be intercepting bombers with nuclear rockets. A conflict like Vietnam was seen as a sideshow from a 1950s point of view, and wasn't really planned for.

vacri 11y ago

> Perhaps an analogy could be painted with companies today. Those that churn, and those that nurture skills. Those that nurture skills would only be powerful in their own niche, and unable to significantly project power without a cohort of allies? In the age of the longbow, England dominated the British Isles, whose other denizens were significantly smaller in population and economy. The French, on the other hand, kicked England out of the continent, and were a continental power. The English won some key battles, but at the end of the age of the longbow, the scorecard was in France's favour.

thesz 11y ago

You forget that there is no citation of any of medieval sources that support their claims. I cannot believe that rulers decide on something important like war technology without leaving history trails in literature.

mannykannot 11y ago
Not entirely; see, for example, page 703.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]