10 ms·

What if we replace guns and bullets with bows and arrows? (2022)

57 points by nivethan 3y ago

strangesmells06 3y ago
The article outlines the advantages and disadvantages of both the bow and firearm and it seemed to me that the firearm had more advantages as a combat weapon than the bow in the modern world. Now if theres a collapse the bow would be a requirement to know how to use and build.
- bell-cot 3y ago
  > Now if there's a collapse... True. But compared to the chemical / metallurgical / etc. skills and supply chain needed to keep producing modern bullets...making and using bows is trivial. [Edits - emphasis added.]
  - troupe 3y ago
    > making and using bows is trivial The using part seems like it requires a level of skill that might take longer to acquire than skill at hitting a close target with an automatic gun.
    - bell-cot 3y ago
      Sure. But given a crossbow made with salvaged spring steel, I suspect that skill (hitting close targets) would have much quicker learning curve (vs. a bow).
  - gustavus 3y ago
    I don't know if I'd agree with that. Bowyers would spend years practicing and honing their craft as apprentices, the process to make a good bow usually involved weeks or months of labor. It wasn't as simple as finding a stick and curving it, there was boiling it, gluing it, layering different types of wood, each step of which could take days. Meanwhile I can build a gun with not much more than a block of wood and a pipe, as for bullet availability. As a species we've produced a lot of those and a lot of them can be found in a lot of places, so I don't imagine a bow will become feasible until well after the collapse.
    - bluGill 3y ago
      A good bow takes that much effort, but a primitive bow from a stick works. How would you make the pipe for that gun - you have a lot of modern technology invested into that pipe. Which is to say if we got sent back 200k years to anywhere in the world of our choice, after 3 months in a library studying the books of our choice, the bow would be easier to create.
      - pixl97 3y ago
        If you spend 3 months studying you better spend the vast majority of it figuring out how to make antibiotics and gather supplies. Unless you were fighting other humans with ranged weapons, you'd be far, far better off with spears and traps.
        bluGill 3y ago
        This is a thought experiment, lacking a time machine we can't do it. You are right that bows should not be the first thing you reach for.
    - strangesmells06 3y ago
      > Meanwhile I can build a gun with not much more than a block of wood and a pipe hmm doubtful. even with a musket you need gunpowder, primer, trigger mechanism, some sort of boring inside the barrel in short a lot of specialized materials and equipment are needed for even the most basic gun A bow you just need trees and some woodworking tools and some sort of metal for arrowheads.
  - oceanplexian 3y ago
    Producing modern bullets is primitive technology, compared to any modern manufacturing process. Lots of normal gun owners do it at home to save money. Granted they usually buy the powder, bullets, and primer separately but it’s not like they are microprocessors or something. The cartridge can be re-used. Gunpowder made of three elements that are widely available. The lead bullet is one of the easiest materials to find and work with, lead is a low temperature metal used for thousands of years; you can cast the stuff in a literal campfire. The one part you might have a hard time with is the primer, but you can stock up on those or use a black powder rifle and flint (Look up successful attempts to make the Gorn gun)
tticvs 3y ago
This is a pretty interesting article but the conclusion is literally insane: > For all these reasons, rather than keeping weapons out of the sustainability discussion – they should be our focus. If we cannot imagine low-tech warfare, we cannot imagine a low-tech, sustainable, and fair society. Switching to low-tech weapons sounds unrealistic because it would require global cooperation, but the same holds for lowering the emissions from fossil fuels. Switching to low-tech weapons sounds unrealistic because it involves “uninventing” things, but this also applies to many other problematic everyday products. > Indeed, military technology is one of the few domains in which we have collectively decided not to use certain technologies. Humanity has banned many types of weapons in warfare, such as chemical and biological weapons, blinding laser weapons, and poisoned bullets. Meanwhile, no country has succeeded in outlawing SUVs, although their danger to other road users and the environment is well-known. As weird as it sounds, military technology leads by example
- Lacerda69 3y ago
  As they say, war is the father of all things
  - jareklupinski 3y ago
    i made a synthesizer once using absolutely no ill-will towards anyone
    - cnity 3y ago
      Modern electronics and computing do indeed owe much of their development to warfare.
      - pfdietz 3y ago
        The first major design win of integrated circuits was the Minuteman II guidance computer.
- fastball 3y ago
  Also, the same actually doesn't apply to lowering emissions. You can get humanity to lower emissions by introducing technologies which are just better than the fossil fuel alternatives. This in turn should not require global cooperation. But for some reason this strategy does not seem well-liked amongst climate change activists.
jareklupinski 3y ago
> The reason could not have been a better technical performance, because preindustrial firearms were in almost every respect inferior to bows.... The only technical advantage of early firearms was their lethality. shame; there's a lot more you can do with a bow and arrow than a bullet and gun, like throwing a guide line over a tree
- z2h-a6n 3y ago
  > like throwing a guide line over a tree You mean like this [0], or indeed three of the other four images in the the article I link? [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line_thrower#/media/File:US_Navy_101018-N-5538K-071_Aviation_Ordnanceman_Eric_C._Bell_fires_a_shot_line_from_the_starboard_side_of_the_forward-deployed_amphibious_assault_s.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line_thrower#/media/File:US_Na...
  - jareklupinski 3y ago
    oh wow haha fair, i never would have thought to use a gun like that I guess
- bell-cot 3y ago
  > The only technical advantage of early firearms was their lethality. The article doesn't mention it - but firearms generally have a far greater psychological "punch" than bows & arrows. Especially when used at any scale, or against opponents unfamiliar with them - as would be the case for all but veteran troops, back in the early firearms era.
anthk 3y ago
Arrows' trajectory it's highly parabolic and they are affected a lot by the wind. OTOH, a modern crossbow could be highly effective on relatively short distances.
bell-cot 3y ago
Seems like a good article about the long histories of two types of weapons, and the many deeper differences between them - accuracy, training, supply chains, etc. Beyond the the obvious (both nasty nations and scared nations will keep their guns and bullets), the article seems blind to the fact that artillery, landmines, and other non-gun weapons cause ~90% of casualties on modern battlefields. Granted that those things fall under the same "it would be so much better if only..." idealism - but omitting them throws some credibility shadow on their historical account.
- pawelmurias 3y ago
  They will be replaced by caltrops and trebuchetes.
  - bell-cot 3y ago
    Huge tank-like vehicles, with arrow slits for the crew and trebuchets for "main guns", would look really cool...
  - ProjectArcturis 3y ago
    They'll make bigger boards and bigger nails, and soon, they will make a board with a nail so big, it will destroy them all!
0xbadcafebee 3y ago
Of course this would get upvoted on HN. A blog post by an impractical contrarian outsider who's seriously suggesting that the entire world replace advanced weaponry with stuff that got phased out hundreds of years ago, because it would be "low-tech and sustainable". He even suggests that it's unrealistic not because it's the opposite of the entire point of weapons (to kill more things faster and easier), but because it would require "global cooperation" and "uninventing things". The Onion couldn't come up with this. It's so embarrassing. And yet, as I type this, dozens of people are taking this premise seriously and debating it on its merits. Humans really are doomed.
- nerdbert 3y ago
  We really are doomed because some people like to think of ways that we could kill fewer of each other?
  - Diti 3y ago
    Reverting to bow and crossbows wouldn’t reduce the amount of people killed. Look up “tactical crossbow” (or assault crossbow) in your favorite search engine.
    - pixl97 3y ago
      Honestly probably would increase it. For the last 80 or so years the nuclear weapon has likely reduced the number of deaths in war more than anything else. Of course it's hard to prove a counterfactual. This said, the cost of outright war with nukes is so terrible that the large nations of the world have avoided going toe to toe and instead engaged in smaller proxy wars, that while terrible, have had relatively low population kill rate in relation to what occurred in world wars.
  - robertlagrant 3y ago
    No, it's the ridiculous irony of thinking everyone would cooperate, but would still want to kill each other.
aeonik 3y ago
> Hand-held firearms are usually assessed or compared in terms of performance characteristics such as lethality, range, and rate of fire. Can someone link one of those assessments? Most assessments I've seen usually focus on accuracy, penetration, and reliability. Accuracy is usually measured in MoA in US. Penetration is usually measured using ballistic gel. (12 to 16 inches against an unarmored human) Reliability is measured with "Mean Rounds Between Failure". Effective and Maximum Range, and fire rate of weapon is definitely measured, but it's not something that I would think is highlighted compared the other metrics above. I'm not sure how one would measure "lethality". Debate over "stopping power" goes back a long way, but it's not something that I've seen is easily measured or compared against.
- some_random 3y ago
  It could be argued that things like lethality and range are measured when doing cartridge selection. For stuff like how lethality is measured I'd highly recommend Weapon of Choice by Dr. Matthew Ford. All that said, OP is obviously clueless and delusional
gottorf 3y ago
> Why did firearms and bullets replace bows and arrows? To many, this sounds like a stupid question with an obvious answer: the firearm succeeded the bow because it’s a superior weapon. This is objectively true now and has been for a while, though the article goes into detail about how it was far from being true in the early days of the firearm. > firearms took the skills and muscular effort out of killing someone from a distance. > 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. As with many things, economics dictate the choices we make as societies. > It would decrease the number of people in a given population who could become effective soldiers We're doing a fine enough job of that already, with sedentary lifestyles leading to fat and unhealthy people.
- pastacacioepepe 3y ago
  > As with many things, economics dictate the choices we make as societies. The materialist approach to history is always the most effective.
  - YurgenJurgensen 3y ago
    "Whatever happens, we have got, the Maxim gun, and they have not,"
denton-scratch 3y ago
> Unless the target is very close, the archer needs to compensate for gravity and shoot the arrow in an arc – hence the word archery. I always assumed the name came from the weapon invariably having the shape of an arc.
- hef19898 3y ago
  Even better, ballistics apply to firearms as well!
- adrian_b 3y ago
  Yes, it comes from Latin arcus, which was used for a bow or for any other object having the form of an arc of circle.
incomingpain 3y ago
Replace? Currently there's a choice of either. If someone wishes to use bow and arrow, they can. This is a thinly veiled 'lets ban guns' but this is naive at best and when you understand why the second amendment is literally 300 IQ. Banning guns is not even close to the realm of possible. I do have an expectation the 'free world' will inevitably adopt something similar to the second amendment. Though I expect restrictions like the lack of fully automatics will be written more explicitly. Not to mention the reality that gun manufacturing is now worldwide, achievable at home and this can never ever be regulated for the rest of history.
- pawelmurias 3y ago
  [flagged]
- InCityDreams 3y ago
  [flagged]
- metabagel 3y ago
  > I do have an expectation the 'free world' will inevitably adopt something similar to the second amendment. The second amendment experiment has been a disaster. No other country wants to replicate it. > Not to mention the reality that gun manufacturing is now worldwide, achievable at home and this can never ever be regulated for the rest of history. You can’t make illegal drugs in your home, why do you expect that the manufacture or firearms can’t be regulated? I am guessing you mean that it will not be practically feasible to prevent people from making their own firearms. I would say that it depends upon the penalty.
  - incomingpain 3y ago
    >The second amendment experiment has been a disaster. No other country wants to replicate it. There was a time when I thought the same. I very much agreed with Michael Moore, but then I learnt more. The second amendment is literally the only thing holding the USA together right now. In my opinion anyway. >You can’t make illegal drugs in your home, why do you expect that the manufacture or firearms can’t be regulated? You absolutely can make illegal drugs in your home. Many people do and they'll never be caught. The actual crime is selling those illegal drugs. If you never sell, the police are never going to catch you. Personally, the drug war has been an abject failure. In my opinion anyway. > I am guessing you mean that it will not be practically feasible to prevent people from making their own firearms. I would say that it depends upon the penalty. Rifling buttons and cnc machines are quite available at very cheap prices. 3d printed guns are even a thing. What penalty? The right to bear arms in the USA shall not be infringed. The proposed laws of requiring 3d printer owners to have background checks like firearm owners might become a thing but there won't be any infringing penalties.
nonethewiser 3y ago
Is this article serious? Can you imagine if the UN tried to prohibit Ukraine from using firearms to defend themselves? Clearing a room with a bow and arrow? This is some really ignorant, ivory tower drivel.
ortusdux 3y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020%E2%80%932021_China%E2%80%93India_skirmishes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020%E2%80%932021_China%E2%80%... While soldiers carry firearms, due to decades of tradition designed to reduce the possibility of an escalation, agreements disallowed usage of firearms, but the Chinese side was reported to possess iron rods, clubs and batons wrapped in barbed wire and clubs embedded with nails.[191][192] Hand-to-hand combat broke out, and the Indian soldiers called for reinforcements from a post about 3.2 kilometres (2 mi) away. Eventually, up to 600 men were engaged in combat using stones, batons, iron rods, and other makeshift weapons. The fighting, which took place in near-total darkness, lasted for up to six hours. The fighting resulted in the deaths of 20 Indian soldiers ... While three Indian soldiers died on the spot, others died later due to injuries and hypothermia.[199] Most of the soldiers who were killed fell to their deaths after losing their footing or being pushed off a ridge.[193] The clash took place near the fast-flowing Galwan River, and some soldiers from both sides fell into a rivulet and were killed or injured. ... According to Indian media sources, the mêlée resulted in 43 Chinese casualties.
- gattr 3y ago
  The hand-to-hand combat at the China-India LAC ([1]) features prominently in one of the plotlines of Neal Stephenson's "Termination Shock". [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line_of_Actual_Control https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line_of_Actual_Control
ksherlock 3y ago
Sounds like a slippery slope. First we replace guns and bullets with bows and arrows, then somebody will want to replace bows and arrows with slings and rocks. https://history.stackexchange.com/questions/72713/why-were-slings-phased-out-of-medieval-armies-in-favor-of-bows https://history.stackexchange.com/questions/72713/why-were-s...
- pfdietz 3y ago
  More like trying to climb a slippery slope. The natural propensity would be to backslide.
karaterobot 3y ago
I'm trying not to be mean, but this article is so naive and insular that it's almost like it was published on a solar powered website or something. Like bikes and cars, we have both bows and arrows and guns already. We use them according to our requirements and their performance characteristics. That pretty much means bows get used for fun and to get a few extra weeks of hunting season, and guns are used for everything else. We use bikes more because there are more cases when they are useful. It's not a philosophical question for anyone trying to choose the right tool for actual, real world job.
- dalbasal 3y ago
  I don't think naivety is a good description. It's something else. Mental habits that are entirely rhetorically based. Basically, George Orwell's nightmare
  - karaterobot 3y ago
    I mean that it's naive to think you can lay out an argument that governments around the world should wage war with bows and arrows instead of guns. It doesn't even stand up to the devastating counterargument: "but guns are better". There's no riposte to that except "well yes, but it's like how we should all use bikes instead of cars, which everyone I've talked to at my solar powered website agrees is self-evidently true".
    - dalbasal 3y ago
      It's a "naive" statement maybe. But idk. Were Charles Manson or the unibomber "naive" to think they could achieve their goals, their way? It's not a naive mindset, whether or not the conclusion is. I don't think it's lack of experience or depth that leads here.
      - karaterobot 3y ago
        Yeah, I was being glib and dismissive if we get right down to it. I did roll my eyes at the article, imagining how a lot of people I know would react to it. But, I appreciate someone making a spirited, essentially rational attempt at laying out a case.
gattr 3y ago
Tangentially related: in Joe Haldeman's SF novel "The Forever War", at some point "stasis field generators" are added to the arsenal. They limit the maximum speed (of matter and photons) inside a small volume of space to less than 20 m/s (not counting the insides of specially shielded space suits). If you want to root out enemy troops holed up inside the field, you need to get in with bows, arrows, javelins and swords.
- finnh 3y ago
  Similar to the shields in Dune, then.
- porkbeer 3y ago
  So, slow drones then?
  - gattr 3y ago
    Good point! I guess a properly shielded drone would work. This way you could wear the defenders down, just send in a swarm after swarm.
rstarast 3y ago
Clearly I can't carry a bow as easily as a gun when weaving through traffic on my fixed gear.
bigger_inside 3y ago
then the US would declare it part of the "rules-based order" that nobody may use guns and bullets, and then the US will use guns, bullets, missiles, and chemical weapons while expressing grave concerns about any non-allied state using as much as a musket.
senda 3y ago
is there a rhetorical question about nuclear disarmament?
chmod600 3y ago
The author misses on a few points and the article comes across as nostalgic more than realistic. First: violence was a lot worse before, so what makes the author think going back in time with weapons is actually good? Second: that guns allow the weak to be as threatening as the strong is considered a feature by many people; an equalizing force. As the saying goes: "God made men, Sam Colt made them equal." The idea that you can find vulnerable people and exploit them without fear is a big driver of violence -- but if everyone must fear violence coming back at them, that's a pacifying force. Third, the author goes on about the sustainability of guns. But arrows are a lot bigger and more expensive, so I question the idea that they'd be made sustainably. "Artisanal" means wood, I suppose, and that could be much more problematic than a few factories cranking out bullets. People would reuse arrows more, but there are also a lot more people today so that would really involve some kind of industrial process and I doubt it comes out as a net advantage. Even when it comes to public safety, I'm not quite sure it's a win. We are pretty safe most places, and in the US, violence is mostly local to known areas.
- metabagel 3y ago
  > but if everyone must fear violence coming back at them, that's a pacifying force This isn’t self-evident. In fact, evidence suggests that more guns leads to more violence. But, we continue the experiment in the U.S.
  - chmod600 3y ago
    I think you missed the point: the author is suggesting that everyone would give up guns and exchange them for bows. Including military and police. But only strong and well-trained people can use bows effectively. In other words, it's a world where the strong are in control.
- malfist 3y ago
  The author also ignores barrier to entry. He says guns are no more/less dangerous than bow and arrow when comparing the best bowman to anyone with a gun. Yeah, the best bowman can fire an arrow every 5-6 seconds. But that random person off the street that is having a mental breakdown and wants to kill a bunch of people as a type of suicide? Yeah, he's not going to be a world class bowman.
avgcorrection 3y ago
It's a nice composite bow, I'll give you that. But the engraving gives you no tactical advantage whatsoever. Unless you were planning to auction it off as a collector's item. And you're forgetting one more basic thing… You don't have what it takes to kill a home invader.
JR1427 3y ago
If you want to pop to the shops, hopping on a bicycle can be the better option. If you want to hunt small game, a bow can be the best choice. But if you're attacked by zombies, you grab a gun and get in the car.
- hef19898 3y ago
  Zombies? A bike, or horse, some body armor (bikers leather gear, medival chainmail) and polearms beat a gun and a car. No need for complex maintenance and supplys, not running out of bullets, designed to kill unarmed and unarmored human opponents.
chaostheory 3y ago
The article is strange unless its point only limited for recreational hunting. Anyways, I was wondering why we still don’t have modern lethal dart guns that can replace traditional firearms? I remember seeing them as a potential futuristic military weapon in Pop Mech. I’m guessing that reliability is the issue?
- smegsicle 3y ago
  where's my flechette pistol? i was promised flying cars and flechette pistols
  - chaostheory 3y ago
    Flying cars are here though in the style of giant drones hehe but thanks for giving me the proper name for dart based firearms
politician 3y ago
I love how this proposal assumes that everyone simultaneously forgets about armor. Joe Rohan recently lost a bet with Elon Musk about whether he could put an arrow through the cybertruck.
dbrueck 3y ago
At the introduction I thought the article was trolling. In the middle I thought it was instead just an interesting way to present info about bows and arrows. By the end I realized the author is serious and the premise is silly. If getting everyone to move to bows is feasible, why make that the goal? We should instead solve all conflicts with dance offs and rap battles. Ooh, or a walk off! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkMer1HnluU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkMer1HnluU
- martythemaniak 3y ago
  Yes, why is "low tech" magazine musing about advanced technology like composite bows when simple fists will do? Bizarre.
mrob 3y ago
>Medieval English longbow archers only used such high draw weights because their arrows had to penetrate thick steel plate armor Experimental archeology shows that this was not the case. Arrows could not penetrate thick plate, and could only defeat plate armor by shooting a large number of arrows and hoping to hit a weak point. The Youtube channel "Tod's Workshop" has done many tests with reproduction bows/arrows/armor, designed to replicate typical equipment and technique (featuring archer Joe Gibbs shooting an impressive 160lb draw weight) from the Battle of Agincourt era. Medieval plate armor was highly effective. Good introduction video is "MEDIEVAL ARMOUR TESTED! - Arrows vs Amour 2": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ds-Ev5msyzo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ds-Ev5msyzo
- bell-cot 3y ago
  First thought: Arrows that can't quite penetrate the other side's thick steel armor are still a smart strategy - because it's relatively easy to up-muscle your archers and up-draw your bows, to achieve that. Vs. the huge expense and encumbrance of the all the heavy steel armor that the other side has to wear, as protection from your arrows...
  - mrob 3y ago
    160lbs is about the limit for what humans can manage in real battle conditions. Joe Gibbs can shoot heavier than that, but not repeatedly and rapidly for minutes on end.
dimm 3y ago
I wonder how the images in the article are converted to get this "retro" and "pixelated" effect
Brian_K_White 3y ago
What if we replaced aging with cupcakes?
some_random 3y ago
So, in the firearms community there's this old argument about bolt action rifles vs modern rifles in which some naive people believe that in combat bolt action rifles could compete with modern gear. Usually phrased as "one shot is all you need" so a bolt action is "just as good". This is that argument, taken to it's absolute most naive, braindead, delusional conclusion. If a force of the best archers went up against a disorderly militia of West Virginian hillbillies with their average armament, the result would be an utter massacre. The ability to penetrate cover, fire repeatedly, fire accurately, suppress the enemy, and do so while pressed against the ground or against cover would win the day every time.
- red-iron-pine 3y ago
  situations like this happened in real life, like at Omdurman. The British brought machine guns and artillery, and the other side didn't.
cityofdelusion 3y ago
The article is ridiculous on many levels and many assertions, but a big one is downplaying the lethality of a modern bow. Even a low draw weight bow will send a modern broadhead arrow completely through a person, leaving a 2 inch long slice along the way. It’s common for deer bow hunters to instantly drop the animal or have it only make it a very small distance as they spray a literal fountain of blood from all the severed arteries. The comparison to bullets doesnt make sense as they wound in very different ways. Arrows are like knives, requiring little force to kill, it just needs to cut some vitals.
- pixl97 3y ago
  Of course as a counter to this, the deer is not shooting back so the hunter can with little fear take their time to aim. Yea, bows are insanely deadly, but it totally ignores that guns vs bows isn't really the discussion about war. Artillery (and more modern missiles) are what rack up the kills.
hwillis 3y ago
When I was in middle school and daydreamed about sci fi futures and robot wars, I wondered about a giant steel bow as a robotic sniper's weapon. A 4' tungsten needle at high subsonic speed would be a scary thing. Maximum range of 5+ km, almost silent, and able to punch through meters of concrete. It's not quite an anti-tank weapon, but if it hit a car or a person it would just leave a hole and a thump. It'd go right through an engine block and bury itself into the ground so deeply that the hole would fill itself back. I've also seen what a modern broadhead can do to a moose. Warning: this video is horrible. https://youtu.be/3VhEYvHdVa0?si=vsK_aWdSxJ3ylYpU&t=70 https://youtu.be/3VhEYvHdVa0?si=vsK_aWdSxJ3ylYpU&t=70 That arrow goes right through the ribcage and shreds a lung. The animal coughs up a pint of blood immediately. In less than a minute it passes out from blood loss. All to say... maybe we wouldn't kill people on the scale of a nuclear bomb. But if humans really tried to go to war with arrows, it would be awful. Guns are better at killing than they ever have been, but bows have also gotten better.
- MagicMoonlight 3y ago
  Or just make a gun that shoots a 4’ tungsten needle (this is what a tank cannon is)
  - hwillis 3y ago
    that doesn't sound very subsonic
  - pixl97 3y ago
    There are some benefits to not using a gun, in the sense of not having explosive power that will blow up if hit. Watching the tank turret toss competitions in the Ukraine war is a good example here.
    - MagicMoonlight 3y ago
      I don’t think it would even be possible to build a bow capable of matching a cannon. If it was, it would be so large and fragile that any decision based on fragility is meaningless.
MagicMoonlight 3y ago
I’d rather have an article about a ridiculous alternative world where explosives don’t exist. You’d still have modern metalwork and everything, just no explosives. Lots of potential for interesting weapons. Then eventually rail guns.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
sparrish 3y ago
> In the hands of skillful and strong archers, bows can thus produce a similar rate of fire as semi-automatic weapons, and they can outperform guns and pistols. This is ridiculously false on its face. Pick a novice and give them 1 hour of training and they'll be able to shoot faster and sustain that rate of fire with a modern semi-automatic pistol than any expert archer in the world.
giardini 3y ago
The opposite has been painfully experienced. Firearms supplemented the excellent bow and arrow among native Americans. But the repeating handgun was the most significant weapon advancement in the struggles between Americans and the native American indians. Here's a good Time magazine article about the bow and arrow and the arrival of the Colt "six-shooter": https://time.com/5842494/colt-gun-debate-history/ https://time.com/5842494/colt-gun-debate-history/ The bow and arrow is a great weapon and hunting tool which I learned to use as a child. But my policy is to avoid lethal confrontation until it is face-to-face. Then I can use handier weapons, e.g., a handful of dirt or a knife. That is almost always possible. So why don't we replace all our bows, arrows, rifles and pistols with knives? Bwahahahaaah!8-))
sa46 3y ago
Fun article if a little silly. As the author notes, the primary reason muskets started to overtake bows is because you can train shooting in five minutes where archery takes months. The transition is a classic example of a disruptive innovation—-initial tech is worse along every dimension (range, damage, reliability, firing rate) except one, training time. Some of the comparisons are wildly biased. The effective range of an M4 is 550m, much better than the M9’s 50m. A standard rifleman’s combat load is 180 rounds which is surely lighter than 180 arrows.
loceng 3y ago
"What if we replace guns and bullets with bows and arrows?" The people who break the rules will keep using guns and obliterate those who strictly follow the rules. This is also how tyranny can form relatively easily, when "times are good," for example, in NaZi Germany it would have been those blindly following laws-rules, so long as "it's written into law" then that is the bar of following orders, and why with the Nuremberg Trials it was determined that "I was just following orders" isn't a valid for participating in, being [blindly or willing] complicit in crimes against humanity - and that "they should have known better" is why even why some "journalists"-propagandists were hung as their punishment.
antisthenes 3y ago
Originally the guns replaced bows, because, despite its surface simplicity, the bow, as a weapon, is actually relatively difficult to make and is very time consuming to become proficient in, compared to a gun.
MilStdJunkie 3y ago
Man, that's a softball question. "The world has a lot more pipe bombs and hand grenades". More seriously, several of the assertions in this piece are seriously borked. OK, a few paras in: "a bow with a draw weight of 45 lbs can kill almost any creature on this planet". Umm, no? Maybe a "HELL naw man". It doesn't even sound true if you think about it, say, medium-hard. He's also comparing bow maximum ranges with aimed rifle precision ranges, another "the hell is this guy thinking" sort of assertion. Historical stuff: "became the dominant hand-held missile weapons from the 1500s onwards" Nope, he is at least a century too early here, possible a century and a half - hell, the Spanish colunellas was only invented in 1510, to say nothing of it being successfully implemented. I'm done. After all that we don't even touch on the actual reason for firearms in the early modern period, which is . . they're cheap as hell. It's an iron tube with special dirt. And it can be fired by a conscript peasant with a couple days' training. Every other missile weapon is orders of magnitude more costly, and only occasionally maybe marginally better in some edge cases. I totally dig on the idea of sustainable ranged weapons, but dude . . you gotta get some better background if you want to get taken serious. Sorry this sounds kinda hostile. I am sure the author is a great person and really smart. I'd probably really enjoy hanging out with him.

57 points by nivethan 3y ago

The article outlines the advantages and disadvantages of both the bow and firearm and it seemed to me that the firearm had more advantages as a combat weapon than the bow in the modern world. Now if theres a collapse the bow would be a requirement to know how to use and build.

bell-cot 3y ago
> Now if there's a collapse... True. But compared to the chemical / metallurgical / etc. skills and supply chain needed to keep producing modern bullets...making and using bows is trivial. [Edits - emphasis added.]
- troupe 3y ago
  > making and using bows is trivial The using part seems like it requires a level of skill that might take longer to acquire than skill at hitting a close target with an automatic gun.
  - bell-cot 3y ago
    Sure. But given a crossbow made with salvaged spring steel, I suspect that skill (hitting close targets) would have much quicker learning curve (vs. a bow).
- gustavus 3y ago
  I don't know if I'd agree with that. Bowyers would spend years practicing and honing their craft as apprentices, the process to make a good bow usually involved weeks or months of labor. It wasn't as simple as finding a stick and curving it, there was boiling it, gluing it, layering different types of wood, each step of which could take days. Meanwhile I can build a gun with not much more than a block of wood and a pipe, as for bullet availability. As a species we've produced a lot of those and a lot of them can be found in a lot of places, so I don't imagine a bow will become feasible until well after the collapse.
  - bluGill 3y ago
    A good bow takes that much effort, but a primitive bow from a stick works. How would you make the pipe for that gun - you have a lot of modern technology invested into that pipe. Which is to say if we got sent back 200k years to anywhere in the world of our choice, after 3 months in a library studying the books of our choice, the bow would be easier to create.
    - pixl97 3y ago
      If you spend 3 months studying you better spend the vast majority of it figuring out how to make antibiotics and gather supplies. Unless you were fighting other humans with ranged weapons, you'd be far, far better off with spears and traps.
      - bluGill 3y ago
        This is a thought experiment, lacking a time machine we can't do it. You are right that bows should not be the first thing you reach for.
  - strangesmells06 3y ago
    > Meanwhile I can build a gun with not much more than a block of wood and a pipe hmm doubtful. even with a musket you need gunpowder, primer, trigger mechanism, some sort of boring inside the barrel in short a lot of specialized materials and equipment are needed for even the most basic gun A bow you just need trees and some woodworking tools and some sort of metal for arrowheads.
- oceanplexian 3y ago
  Producing modern bullets is primitive technology, compared to any modern manufacturing process. Lots of normal gun owners do it at home to save money. Granted they usually buy the powder, bullets, and primer separately but it’s not like they are microprocessors or something. The cartridge can be re-used. Gunpowder made of three elements that are widely available. The lead bullet is one of the easiest materials to find and work with, lead is a low temperature metal used for thousands of years; you can cast the stuff in a literal campfire. The one part you might have a hard time with is the primer, but you can stock up on those or use a black powder rifle and flint (Look up successful attempts to make the Gorn gun)

tticvs 3y ago

This is a pretty interesting article but the conclusion is literally insane: > For all these reasons, rather than keeping weapons out of the sustainability discussion – they should be our focus. If we cannot imagine low-tech warfare, we cannot imagine a low-tech, sustainable, and fair society. Switching to low-tech weapons sounds unrealistic because it would require global cooperation, but the same holds for lowering the emissions from fossil fuels. Switching to low-tech weapons sounds unrealistic because it involves “uninventing” things, but this also applies to many other problematic everyday products. > Indeed, military technology is one of the few domains in which we have collectively decided not to use certain technologies. Humanity has banned many types of weapons in warfare, such as chemical and biological weapons, blinding laser weapons, and poisoned bullets. Meanwhile, no country has succeeded in outlawing SUVs, although their danger to other road users and the environment is well-known. As weird as it sounds, military technology leads by example

Lacerda69 3y ago
As they say, war is the father of all things
- jareklupinski 3y ago
  i made a synthesizer once using absolutely no ill-will towards anyone
  - cnity 3y ago
    Modern electronics and computing do indeed owe much of their development to warfare.
    - pfdietz 3y ago
      The first major design win of integrated circuits was the Minuteman II guidance computer.
fastball 3y ago
Also, the same actually doesn't apply to lowering emissions. You can get humanity to lower emissions by introducing technologies which are just better than the fossil fuel alternatives. This in turn should not require global cooperation. But for some reason this strategy does not seem well-liked amongst climate change activists.

jareklupinski 3y ago

> The reason could not have been a better technical performance, because preindustrial firearms were in almost every respect inferior to bows.... The only technical advantage of early firearms was their lethality. shame; there's a lot more you can do with a bow and arrow than a bullet and gun, like throwing a guide line over a tree

z2h-a6n 3y ago
> like throwing a guide line over a tree You mean like this [0], or indeed three of the other four images in the the article I link? [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line_thrower#/media/File:US_Navy_101018-N-5538K-071_Aviation_Ordnanceman_Eric_C._Bell_fires_a_shot_line_from_the_starboard_side_of_the_forward-deployed_amphibious_assault_s.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line_thrower#/media/File:US_Na...
- jareklupinski 3y ago
  oh wow haha fair, i never would have thought to use a gun like that I guess
bell-cot 3y ago
> The only technical advantage of early firearms was their lethality. The article doesn't mention it - but firearms generally have a far greater psychological "punch" than bows & arrows. Especially when used at any scale, or against opponents unfamiliar with them - as would be the case for all but veteran troops, back in the early firearms era.

anthk 3y ago

Arrows' trajectory it's highly parabolic and they are affected a lot by the wind. OTOH, a modern crossbow could be highly effective on relatively short distances.

bell-cot 3y ago

Seems like a good article about the long histories of two types of weapons, and the many deeper differences between them - accuracy, training, supply chains, etc. Beyond the the obvious (both nasty nations and scared nations will keep their guns and bullets), the article seems blind to the fact that artillery, landmines, and other non-gun weapons cause ~90% of casualties on modern battlefields. Granted that those things fall under the same "it would be so much better if only..." idealism - but omitting them throws some credibility shadow on their historical account.

pawelmurias 3y ago
They will be replaced by caltrops and trebuchetes.
- bell-cot 3y ago
  Huge tank-like vehicles, with arrow slits for the crew and trebuchets for "main guns", would look really cool...
- ProjectArcturis 3y ago
  They'll make bigger boards and bigger nails, and soon, they will make a board with a nail so big, it will destroy them all!

0xbadcafebee 3y ago

Of course this would get upvoted on HN. A blog post by an impractical contrarian outsider who's seriously suggesting that the entire world replace advanced weaponry with stuff that got phased out hundreds of years ago, because it would be "low-tech and sustainable". He even suggests that it's unrealistic not because it's the opposite of the entire point of weapons (to kill more things faster and easier), but because it would require "global cooperation" and "uninventing things". The Onion couldn't come up with this. It's so embarrassing. And yet, as I type this, dozens of people are taking this premise seriously and debating it on its merits. Humans really are doomed.

nerdbert 3y ago
We really are doomed because some people like to think of ways that we could kill fewer of each other?
- Diti 3y ago
  Reverting to bow and crossbows wouldn’t reduce the amount of people killed. Look up “tactical crossbow” (or assault crossbow) in your favorite search engine.
  - pixl97 3y ago
    Honestly probably would increase it. For the last 80 or so years the nuclear weapon has likely reduced the number of deaths in war more than anything else. Of course it's hard to prove a counterfactual. This said, the cost of outright war with nukes is so terrible that the large nations of the world have avoided going toe to toe and instead engaged in smaller proxy wars, that while terrible, have had relatively low population kill rate in relation to what occurred in world wars.
- robertlagrant 3y ago
  No, it's the ridiculous irony of thinking everyone would cooperate, but would still want to kill each other.

aeonik 3y ago

> Hand-held firearms are usually assessed or compared in terms of performance characteristics such as lethality, range, and rate of fire. Can someone link one of those assessments? Most assessments I've seen usually focus on accuracy, penetration, and reliability. Accuracy is usually measured in MoA in US. Penetration is usually measured using ballistic gel. (12 to 16 inches against an unarmored human) Reliability is measured with "Mean Rounds Between Failure". Effective and Maximum Range, and fire rate of weapon is definitely measured, but it's not something that I would think is highlighted compared the other metrics above. I'm not sure how one would measure "lethality". Debate over "stopping power" goes back a long way, but it's not something that I've seen is easily measured or compared against.

some_random 3y ago
It could be argued that things like lethality and range are measured when doing cartridge selection. For stuff like how lethality is measured I'd highly recommend Weapon of Choice by Dr. Matthew Ford. All that said, OP is obviously clueless and delusional

gottorf 3y ago

> Why did firearms and bullets replace bows and arrows? To many, this sounds like a stupid question with an obvious answer: the firearm succeeded the bow because it’s a superior weapon. This is objectively true now and has been for a while, though the article goes into detail about how it was far from being true in the early days of the firearm. > firearms took the skills and muscular effort out of killing someone from a distance. > 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. As with many things, economics dictate the choices we make as societies. > It would decrease the number of people in a given population who could become effective soldiers We're doing a fine enough job of that already, with sedentary lifestyles leading to fat and unhealthy people.

pastacacioepepe 3y ago
> As with many things, economics dictate the choices we make as societies. The materialist approach to history is always the most effective.
- YurgenJurgensen 3y ago
  "Whatever happens, we have got, the Maxim gun, and they have not,"

denton-scratch 3y ago

> Unless the target is very close, the archer needs to compensate for gravity and shoot the arrow in an arc – hence the word archery. I always assumed the name came from the weapon invariably having the shape of an arc.

hef19898 3y ago
Even better, ballistics apply to firearms as well!
adrian_b 3y ago
Yes, it comes from Latin arcus, which was used for a bow or for any other object having the form of an arc of circle.

incomingpain 3y ago

Replace? Currently there's a choice of either. If someone wishes to use bow and arrow, they can. This is a thinly veiled 'lets ban guns' but this is naive at best and when you understand why the second amendment is literally 300 IQ. Banning guns is not even close to the realm of possible. I do have an expectation the 'free world' will inevitably adopt something similar to the second amendment. Though I expect restrictions like the lack of fully automatics will be written more explicitly. Not to mention the reality that gun manufacturing is now worldwide, achievable at home and this can never ever be regulated for the rest of history.

pawelmurias 3y ago
[flagged]
InCityDreams 3y ago
[flagged]
metabagel 3y ago
> I do have an expectation the 'free world' will inevitably adopt something similar to the second amendment. The second amendment experiment has been a disaster. No other country wants to replicate it. > Not to mention the reality that gun manufacturing is now worldwide, achievable at home and this can never ever be regulated for the rest of history. You can’t make illegal drugs in your home, why do you expect that the manufacture or firearms can’t be regulated? I am guessing you mean that it will not be practically feasible to prevent people from making their own firearms. I would say that it depends upon the penalty.
- incomingpain 3y ago
  >The second amendment experiment has been a disaster. No other country wants to replicate it. There was a time when I thought the same. I very much agreed with Michael Moore, but then I learnt more. The second amendment is literally the only thing holding the USA together right now. In my opinion anyway. >You can’t make illegal drugs in your home, why do you expect that the manufacture or firearms can’t be regulated? You absolutely can make illegal drugs in your home. Many people do and they'll never be caught. The actual crime is selling those illegal drugs. If you never sell, the police are never going to catch you. Personally, the drug war has been an abject failure. In my opinion anyway. > I am guessing you mean that it will not be practically feasible to prevent people from making their own firearms. I would say that it depends upon the penalty. Rifling buttons and cnc machines are quite available at very cheap prices. 3d printed guns are even a thing. What penalty? The right to bear arms in the USA shall not be infringed. The proposed laws of requiring 3d printer owners to have background checks like firearm owners might become a thing but there won't be any infringing penalties.

nonethewiser 3y ago

Is this article serious? Can you imagine if the UN tried to prohibit Ukraine from using firearms to defend themselves? Clearing a room with a bow and arrow? This is some really ignorant, ivory tower drivel.

ortusdux 3y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020%E2%80%932021_China%E2%80%93India_skirmishes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020%E2%80%932021_China%E2%80%... While soldiers carry firearms, due to decades of tradition designed to reduce the possibility of an escalation, agreements disallowed usage of firearms, but the Chinese side was reported to possess iron rods, clubs and batons wrapped in barbed wire and clubs embedded with nails.[191][192] Hand-to-hand combat broke out, and the Indian soldiers called for reinforcements from a post about 3.2 kilometres (2 mi) away. Eventually, up to 600 men were engaged in combat using stones, batons, iron rods, and other makeshift weapons. The fighting, which took place in near-total darkness, lasted for up to six hours. The fighting resulted in the deaths of 20 Indian soldiers ... While three Indian soldiers died on the spot, others died later due to injuries and hypothermia.[199] Most of the soldiers who were killed fell to their deaths after losing their footing or being pushed off a ridge.[193] The clash took place near the fast-flowing Galwan River, and some soldiers from both sides fell into a rivulet and were killed or injured. ... According to Indian media sources, the mêlée resulted in 43 Chinese casualties.

gattr 3y ago
The hand-to-hand combat at the China-India LAC ([1]) features prominently in one of the plotlines of Neal Stephenson's "Termination Shock". [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line_of_Actual_Control https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line_of_Actual_Control

ksherlock 3y ago

Sounds like a slippery slope. First we replace guns and bullets with bows and arrows, then somebody will want to replace bows and arrows with slings and rocks. https://history.stackexchange.com/questions/72713/why-were-slings-phased-out-of-medieval-armies-in-favor-of-bows https://history.stackexchange.com/questions/72713/why-were-s...

pfdietz 3y ago
More like trying to climb a slippery slope. The natural propensity would be to backslide.

karaterobot 3y ago

I'm trying not to be mean, but this article is so naive and insular that it's almost like it was published on a solar powered website or something. Like bikes and cars, we have both bows and arrows and guns already. We use them according to our requirements and their performance characteristics. That pretty much means bows get used for fun and to get a few extra weeks of hunting season, and guns are used for everything else. We use bikes more because there are more cases when they are useful. It's not a philosophical question for anyone trying to choose the right tool for actual, real world job.

dalbasal 3y ago
I don't think naivety is a good description. It's something else. Mental habits that are entirely rhetorically based. Basically, George Orwell's nightmare
- karaterobot 3y ago
  I mean that it's naive to think you can lay out an argument that governments around the world should wage war with bows and arrows instead of guns. It doesn't even stand up to the devastating counterargument: "but guns are better". There's no riposte to that except "well yes, but it's like how we should all use bikes instead of cars, which everyone I've talked to at my solar powered website agrees is self-evidently true".
  - dalbasal 3y ago
    It's a "naive" statement maybe. But idk. Were Charles Manson or the unibomber "naive" to think they could achieve their goals, their way? It's not a naive mindset, whether or not the conclusion is. I don't think it's lack of experience or depth that leads here.
    - karaterobot 3y ago
      Yeah, I was being glib and dismissive if we get right down to it. I did roll my eyes at the article, imagining how a lot of people I know would react to it. But, I appreciate someone making a spirited, essentially rational attempt at laying out a case.

gattr 3y ago

Tangentially related: in Joe Haldeman's SF novel "The Forever War", at some point "stasis field generators" are added to the arsenal. They limit the maximum speed (of matter and photons) inside a small volume of space to less than 20 m/s (not counting the insides of specially shielded space suits). If you want to root out enemy troops holed up inside the field, you need to get in with bows, arrows, javelins and swords.

finnh 3y ago
Similar to the shields in Dune, then.
porkbeer 3y ago
So, slow drones then?
- gattr 3y ago
  Good point! I guess a properly shielded drone would work. This way you could wear the defenders down, just send in a swarm after swarm.

rstarast 3y ago

Clearly I can't carry a bow as easily as a gun when weaving through traffic on my fixed gear.

bigger_inside 3y ago

then the US would declare it part of the "rules-based order" that nobody may use guns and bullets, and then the US will use guns, bullets, missiles, and chemical weapons while expressing grave concerns about any non-allied state using as much as a musket.

senda 3y ago

is there a rhetorical question about nuclear disarmament?

chmod600 3y ago

The author misses on a few points and the article comes across as nostalgic more than realistic. First: violence was a lot worse before, so what makes the author think going back in time with weapons is actually good? Second: that guns allow the weak to be as threatening as the strong is considered a feature by many people; an equalizing force. As the saying goes: "God made men, Sam Colt made them equal." The idea that you can find vulnerable people and exploit them without fear is a big driver of violence -- but if everyone must fear violence coming back at them, that's a pacifying force. Third, the author goes on about the sustainability of guns. But arrows are a lot bigger and more expensive, so I question the idea that they'd be made sustainably. "Artisanal" means wood, I suppose, and that could be much more problematic than a few factories cranking out bullets. People would reuse arrows more, but there are also a lot more people today so that would really involve some kind of industrial process and I doubt it comes out as a net advantage. Even when it comes to public safety, I'm not quite sure it's a win. We are pretty safe most places, and in the US, violence is mostly local to known areas.

metabagel 3y ago
> but if everyone must fear violence coming back at them, that's a pacifying force This isn’t self-evident. In fact, evidence suggests that more guns leads to more violence. But, we continue the experiment in the U.S.
- chmod600 3y ago
  I think you missed the point: the author is suggesting that everyone would give up guns and exchange them for bows. Including military and police. But only strong and well-trained people can use bows effectively. In other words, it's a world where the strong are in control.
malfist 3y ago
The author also ignores barrier to entry. He says guns are no more/less dangerous than bow and arrow when comparing the best bowman to anyone with a gun. Yeah, the best bowman can fire an arrow every 5-6 seconds. But that random person off the street that is having a mental breakdown and wants to kill a bunch of people as a type of suicide? Yeah, he's not going to be a world class bowman.

avgcorrection 3y ago

It's a nice composite bow, I'll give you that. But the engraving gives you no tactical advantage whatsoever. Unless you were planning to auction it off as a collector's item. And you're forgetting one more basic thing… You don't have what it takes to kill a home invader.

JR1427 3y ago

If you want to pop to the shops, hopping on a bicycle can be the better option. If you want to hunt small game, a bow can be the best choice. But if you're attacked by zombies, you grab a gun and get in the car.

hef19898 3y ago
Zombies? A bike, or horse, some body armor (bikers leather gear, medival chainmail) and polearms beat a gun and a car. No need for complex maintenance and supplys, not running out of bullets, designed to kill unarmed and unarmored human opponents.

chaostheory 3y ago

The article is strange unless its point only limited for recreational hunting. Anyways, I was wondering why we still don’t have modern lethal dart guns that can replace traditional firearms? I remember seeing them as a potential futuristic military weapon in Pop Mech. I’m guessing that reliability is the issue?

smegsicle 3y ago
where's my flechette pistol? i was promised flying cars and flechette pistols
- chaostheory 3y ago
  Flying cars are here though in the style of giant drones hehe but thanks for giving me the proper name for dart based firearms

politician 3y ago

I love how this proposal assumes that everyone simultaneously forgets about armor. Joe Rohan recently lost a bet with Elon Musk about whether he could put an arrow through the cybertruck.

dbrueck 3y ago

At the introduction I thought the article was trolling. In the middle I thought it was instead just an interesting way to present info about bows and arrows. By the end I realized the author is serious and the premise is silly. If getting everyone to move to bows is feasible, why make that the goal? We should instead solve all conflicts with dance offs and rap battles. Ooh, or a walk off! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkMer1HnluU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkMer1HnluU

martythemaniak 3y ago
Yes, why is "low tech" magazine musing about advanced technology like composite bows when simple fists will do? Bizarre.

mrob 3y ago

>Medieval English longbow archers only used such high draw weights because their arrows had to penetrate thick steel plate armor Experimental archeology shows that this was not the case. Arrows could not penetrate thick plate, and could only defeat plate armor by shooting a large number of arrows and hoping to hit a weak point. The Youtube channel "Tod's Workshop" has done many tests with reproduction bows/arrows/armor, designed to replicate typical equipment and technique (featuring archer Joe Gibbs shooting an impressive 160lb draw weight) from the Battle of Agincourt era. Medieval plate armor was highly effective. Good introduction video is "MEDIEVAL ARMOUR TESTED! - Arrows vs Amour 2": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ds-Ev5msyzo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ds-Ev5msyzo

bell-cot 3y ago
First thought: Arrows that can't quite penetrate the other side's thick steel armor are still a smart strategy - because it's relatively easy to up-muscle your archers and up-draw your bows, to achieve that. Vs. the huge expense and encumbrance of the all the heavy steel armor that the other side has to wear, as protection from your arrows...
- mrob 3y ago
  160lbs is about the limit for what humans can manage in real battle conditions. Joe Gibbs can shoot heavier than that, but not repeatedly and rapidly for minutes on end.

dimm 3y ago

I wonder how the images in the article are converted to get this "retro" and "pixelated" effect

Brian_K_White 3y ago

What if we replaced aging with cupcakes?

some_random 3y ago

So, in the firearms community there's this old argument about bolt action rifles vs modern rifles in which some naive people believe that in combat bolt action rifles could compete with modern gear. Usually phrased as "one shot is all you need" so a bolt action is "just as good". This is that argument, taken to it's absolute most naive, braindead, delusional conclusion. If a force of the best archers went up against a disorderly militia of West Virginian hillbillies with their average armament, the result would be an utter massacre. The ability to penetrate cover, fire repeatedly, fire accurately, suppress the enemy, and do so while pressed against the ground or against cover would win the day every time.

red-iron-pine 3y ago
situations like this happened in real life, like at Omdurman. The British brought machine guns and artillery, and the other side didn't.

cityofdelusion 3y ago

The article is ridiculous on many levels and many assertions, but a big one is downplaying the lethality of a modern bow. Even a low draw weight bow will send a modern broadhead arrow completely through a person, leaving a 2 inch long slice along the way. It’s common for deer bow hunters to instantly drop the animal or have it only make it a very small distance as they spray a literal fountain of blood from all the severed arteries. The comparison to bullets doesnt make sense as they wound in very different ways. Arrows are like knives, requiring little force to kill, it just needs to cut some vitals.

pixl97 3y ago
Of course as a counter to this, the deer is not shooting back so the hunter can with little fear take their time to aim. Yea, bows are insanely deadly, but it totally ignores that guns vs bows isn't really the discussion about war. Artillery (and more modern missiles) are what rack up the kills.

hwillis 3y ago

When I was in middle school and daydreamed about sci fi futures and robot wars, I wondered about a giant steel bow as a robotic sniper's weapon. A 4' tungsten needle at high subsonic speed would be a scary thing. Maximum range of 5+ km, almost silent, and able to punch through meters of concrete. It's not quite an anti-tank weapon, but if it hit a car or a person it would just leave a hole and a thump. It'd go right through an engine block and bury itself into the ground so deeply that the hole would fill itself back. I've also seen what a modern broadhead can do to a moose. Warning: this video is horrible. https://youtu.be/3VhEYvHdVa0?si=vsK_aWdSxJ3ylYpU&t=70 https://youtu.be/3VhEYvHdVa0?si=vsK_aWdSxJ3ylYpU&t=70 That arrow goes right through the ribcage and shreds a lung. The animal coughs up a pint of blood immediately. In less than a minute it passes out from blood loss. All to say... maybe we wouldn't kill people on the scale of a nuclear bomb. But if humans really tried to go to war with arrows, it would be awful. Guns are better at killing than they ever have been, but bows have also gotten better.

MagicMoonlight 3y ago
Or just make a gun that shoots a 4’ tungsten needle (this is what a tank cannon is)
- hwillis 3y ago
  that doesn't sound very subsonic
- pixl97 3y ago
  There are some benefits to not using a gun, in the sense of not having explosive power that will blow up if hit. Watching the tank turret toss competitions in the Ukraine war is a good example here.
  - MagicMoonlight 3y ago
    I don’t think it would even be possible to build a bow capable of matching a cannon. If it was, it would be so large and fragile that any decision based on fragility is meaningless.

MagicMoonlight 3y ago

I’d rather have an article about a ridiculous alternative world where explosives don’t exist. You’d still have modern metalwork and everything, just no explosives. Lots of potential for interesting weapons. Then eventually rail guns.

deleted 3y ago

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sparrish 3y ago

> In the hands of skillful and strong archers, bows can thus produce a similar rate of fire as semi-automatic weapons, and they can outperform guns and pistols. This is ridiculously false on its face. Pick a novice and give them 1 hour of training and they'll be able to shoot faster and sustain that rate of fire with a modern semi-automatic pistol than any expert archer in the world.

giardini 3y ago

The opposite has been painfully experienced. Firearms supplemented the excellent bow and arrow among native Americans. But the repeating handgun was the most significant weapon advancement in the struggles between Americans and the native American indians. Here's a good Time magazine article about the bow and arrow and the arrival of the Colt "six-shooter": https://time.com/5842494/colt-gun-debate-history/ https://time.com/5842494/colt-gun-debate-history/ The bow and arrow is a great weapon and hunting tool which I learned to use as a child. But my policy is to avoid lethal confrontation until it is face-to-face. Then I can use handier weapons, e.g., a handful of dirt or a knife. That is almost always possible. So why don't we replace all our bows, arrows, rifles and pistols with knives? Bwahahahaaah!8-))

sa46 3y ago

Fun article if a little silly. As the author notes, the primary reason muskets started to overtake bows is because you can train shooting in five minutes where archery takes months. The transition is a classic example of a disruptive innovation—-initial tech is worse along every dimension (range, damage, reliability, firing rate) except one, training time. Some of the comparisons are wildly biased. The effective range of an M4 is 550m, much better than the M9’s 50m. A standard rifleman’s combat load is 180 rounds which is surely lighter than 180 arrows.

loceng 3y ago

"What if we replace guns and bullets with bows and arrows?" The people who break the rules will keep using guns and obliterate those who strictly follow the rules. This is also how tyranny can form relatively easily, when "times are good," for example, in NaZi Germany it would have been those blindly following laws-rules, so long as "it's written into law" then that is the bar of following orders, and why with the Nuremberg Trials it was determined that "I was just following orders" isn't a valid for participating in, being [blindly or willing] complicit in crimes against humanity - and that "they should have known better" is why even why some "journalists"-propagandists were hung as their punishment.

antisthenes 3y ago

Originally the guns replaced bows, because, despite its surface simplicity, the bow, as a weapon, is actually relatively difficult to make and is very time consuming to become proficient in, compared to a gun.

MilStdJunkie 3y ago

Man, that's a softball question. "The world has a lot more pipe bombs and hand grenades". More seriously, several of the assertions in this piece are seriously borked. OK, a few paras in: "a bow with a draw weight of 45 lbs can kill almost any creature on this planet". Umm, no? Maybe a "HELL naw man". It doesn't even sound true if you think about it, say, medium-hard. He's also comparing bow maximum ranges with aimed rifle precision ranges, another "the hell is this guy thinking" sort of assertion. Historical stuff: "became the dominant hand-held missile weapons from the 1500s onwards" Nope, he is at least a century too early here, possible a century and a half - hell, the Spanish colunellas was only invented in 1510, to say nothing of it being successfully implemented. I'm done. After all that we don't even touch on the actual reason for firearms in the early modern period, which is . . they're cheap as hell. It's an iron tube with special dirt. And it can be fired by a conscript peasant with a couple days' training. Every other missile weapon is orders of magnitude more costly, and only occasionally maybe marginally better in some edge cases. I totally dig on the idea of sustainable ranged weapons, but dude . . you gotta get some better background if you want to get taken serious. Sorry this sounds kinda hostile. I am sure the author is a great person and really smart. I'd probably really enjoy hanging out with him.