3 ms·

Around the halfway point of the article: > The main reason most European armies switched from bows to crossbows and then firearms was the short learning curves

Around the halfway point of the article: > The main reason most European armies switched from bows to crossbows and then firearms was the short learning curves of these weapons. Crossbowmen and musketeers required little or no training, while it took many years of practice to build an archer skillful and strong enough to be of use in warfare. The crossbow and the firearm thus expanded the number of people in a given population that could become soldiers.

gonzo41 4y ago
He's sort of omiting the part of history where the non skilled farmers who got pressed into the military just beat each other to death with sticks and swords whilst archers shot arrows into the mix.
- ch4s3 4y ago
  Not to mention the advent or heavily armored pike formations that shrugged off arrows. Muskets we’re after som trial na error able to punch through the best plate armor.
philwelch 4y ago
This is not very good history. Firearms didn’t replace bows and crossbows, nor did crossbows ever fully replace bows. Almost all premodern and early modern Western armies predominantly used melee weapons; eventually, they standardized on the pike. Most Western armies first used firearms in pike-and-shot formations that combined pikemen and arquebusiers. Over time, especially as the arquebus gave way to the flintlock musket, the relative proportions of pikes to firearms shifted towards firearms more and more. The invention of bayonets, which allowed the musket to be used similarly to a pike in close combat, led to the end of pikes. The musket, and especially the arquebus, was not the lethal and precise kind of firearm we have today. There is a reason the Patriots at Bunker Hill held their fire until they could see the whites of the redcoats’ eyes: if you lost your nerve and shot any sooner than that, you were unlikely to make a lethal hit. The reason musket battles took the form of formations of line infantry exchanging volleys of gunfire is because that was the best way to use the musket, not because Western armies and the men who organized them were stupid. Which also ties into the training question. Most training at the time focused on close-order formation drills, not on individual prowess. This was true for Napoleonic infantry just as it had been true for pikemen, Roman legions, and Greek phalanxes. Victory depended on line infantry working as a cohesive, disciplined unit that wouldn’t break or shatter easily. Okay, so what about archers? In the Western context, archers were part of what we today would call “combined arms” to supplement line melee infantry. The idea that “it took many years of practice to build an archer skillful and strong enough to be of use in warfare” is partially true. It was especially true of the English longbow, but that was an outlier in many ways in being an unusually long and heavy bow which could pierce armor. The English longbow requires years of training mostly because of the extreme draw weight, which was atypical among Western bows. It was kind of true for steppe horse archers, except it was less training and more of a way of life for them. As for “expanding the number of people in a given population that could become soldiers”, training was never a meaningful bottleneck for that in the pre-firearms era. Training time was important for professional soldiers, but the bulk of medieval armies were poorly trained peasants armed with melee weapons, and the bottleneck on calling them up had more to do with the need for farm labor.
poulpy123 4y ago
But the armies were small and professional until the XIXth century

gonzo41 4y ago

He's sort of omiting the part of history where the non skilled farmers who got pressed into the military just beat each other to death with sticks and swords whilst archers shot arrows into the mix.

ch4s3 4y ago
Not to mention the advent or heavily armored pike formations that shrugged off arrows. Muskets we’re after som trial na error able to punch through the best plate armor.

philwelch 4y ago

This is not very good history. Firearms didn’t replace bows and crossbows, nor did crossbows ever fully replace bows. Almost all premodern and early modern Western armies predominantly used melee weapons; eventually, they standardized on the pike. Most Western armies first used firearms in pike-and-shot formations that combined pikemen and arquebusiers. Over time, especially as the arquebus gave way to the flintlock musket, the relative proportions of pikes to firearms shifted towards firearms more and more. The invention of bayonets, which allowed the musket to be used similarly to a pike in close combat, led to the end of pikes. The musket, and especially the arquebus, was not the lethal and precise kind of firearm we have today. There is a reason the Patriots at Bunker Hill held their fire until they could see the whites of the redcoats’ eyes: if you lost your nerve and shot any sooner than that, you were unlikely to make a lethal hit. The reason musket battles took the form of formations of line infantry exchanging volleys of gunfire is because that was the best way to use the musket, not because Western armies and the men who organized them were stupid. Which also ties into the training question. Most training at the time focused on close-order formation drills, not on individual prowess. This was true for Napoleonic infantry just as it had been true for pikemen, Roman legions, and Greek phalanxes. Victory depended on line infantry working as a cohesive, disciplined unit that wouldn’t break or shatter easily. Okay, so what about archers? In the Western context, archers were part of what we today would call “combined arms” to supplement line melee infantry. The idea that “it took many years of practice to build an archer skillful and strong enough to be of use in warfare” is partially true. It was especially true of the English longbow, but that was an outlier in many ways in being an unusually long and heavy bow which could pierce armor. The English longbow requires years of training mostly because of the extreme draw weight, which was atypical among Western bows. It was kind of true for steppe horse archers, except it was less training and more of a way of life for them. As for “expanding the number of people in a given population that could become soldiers”, training was never a meaningful bottleneck for that in the pre-firearms era. Training time was important for professional soldiers, but the bulk of medieval armies were poorly trained peasants armed with melee weapons, and the bottleneck on calling them up had more to do with the need for farm labor.

poulpy123 4y ago

But the armies were small and professional until the XIXth century