Nemowork

Yeah, paper wrapped cartridges might be waxed but theyre still only paper, any moisture gets in and your shot is ruined. Good luck trying to draw a bullet and remove a wet charge in the middle of a battle. Similarly if rain gets in the firing pan your stuffed. On the plus side exactly the same thing would be happening to the other side so if you were lucky rain would stop play for the day and everyone would go somewhere dry and wait for good weather.

Another factor to consider is population change. Back in the early centuries the British population was largely village subsistence based, most men would have to find a little extra for the pot with either a sling or bow, they got regular practice.

By the 15th and 16th centuries there are large urban areas, crowded streets dont make for good bow practice, theres very little to shoot at and and not much space to do it so unless the government makes laws to force people out and make the effort they wont.

That means you have a large number of potential urban recruits who arent familiar with the bow, you have to do something with them if you need a mass army in a hurry. Billmen or pikemen are one solution, two weeks training to fire a musket is another.

its also a factor that an English longbow is cut from a single tree, that means you have to sustain and nurture the right sort of tree for decades, cut and fashion it with craftsmen and still each bow is going to be individual .

Cities are full of craftsmen but short on yew trees, it is relatively easy though to grab the craftsmen and the iron from a bell foundry and divert them to casting cannon or the guys beating out cooking pots to hammering out gun barrels, its less easy to divert a forest growing trees for barrel staves into one filled with viable yew trees when you need a mass army in a hurry.

Good longbowmen are well trained specialists, thats good when the army is a lords retinue of a few hundred men or even the Kings force of a few thousand, as the military started to become a national effort with massed forces production of bows and the availability of good bowmen simply couldnt keep up.

Monash

What I meant to say was that a firearm woudn't rot or warp if continually exposed to wet weather for days on end. A firearm could rust of course but regular cleaning would keep this at bay.

Monash

[QUOTE=Nemowork;452682]Yeah, paper wrapped cartridges might be waxed but theyre still only paper, any moisture gets in and your shot is ruined. Good luck trying to draw a bullet and remove a wet charge in the middle of a battle. Similarly if rain gets in the firing pan your stuffed. On the plus side exactly the same thing would be happening to the other side so if you were lucky rain would stop play for the day and everyone would go somewhere dry and wait for good weather.[QUOTE]

Neither a muskateer or an archer is going to perform very well in a rainstorm but as noted above the powder will dry out and be perfectly usable a day or so later. And not forgetting most of the armies powder, cartridge paper, shot and fuses are going to be stored safely in the baggage train in barrels and crates not carried on the muskateer's person.

I have read sources (sorry I can't quote them here as I should) that imply rapid urbanisation as once of the factors leading to a gradual reduction in the supply of trained longbowmen. However these sources did not mention this being a problem for the supply of crossbowmen who were far and away the dominant "archer" type on the continent proper.

Tuor

Mmm, I don;t think a bow would warp, unless it was kept submerged in water or something, the problem more came from wet bowstrings.

sturm

Musket.
To use a bow people need a good deal of training, to be accurate, to hit a target far away, and to calculate the distance of the target, that all required experiance with that weapon.
While anybody can shot the musket, people only need to know how to reload it, the other part is just pointing the rifle at the enemy and pulling the trigger. Its easier to use, any peasent could use it.

Monash

Bowstrings yes but I was also thinking thinking more about the body of the crossbow and (we need an expert here to confirm this ) I not sure how "strong" a longbow would be either after a few months of continuous campaining in the field under damp/wet weather conditions. Anyone???

Nemowork

Don't know, how much does your patio furniture deform after a summer outdoors? I don't know how many years a longbow would last before it had to be replaced but im sure the owner would take great care of it, either oiling or treating the wood or making some sort of cover for it?

One of the great stories of Agincourt that we were told at school that the English (alright, and Welsh) archers had removed their bowstrings and kept them dry during the rain the night before, the crossbows of the French were permanently strung so they got wet, weakened and werent as effective on the big day.

I'm not sure how much of that is myth but i do know it was normal for archers to keep several spare strings either in their hats or inside their clothes where they'd be dry and easily available in a battle.

blacksmit049

The case always depends.

The events of the European situation during the middle ages are changing, wars occur often, so there was no training possible for archery. And the longbow is really hard to use but effective in the hands of a skilled archer.

Musket for an instance is easy but expensive. The bonus is the fear of gunshot noise (Conquest of Aztecs). Crossbow are also easy to use, powerful but short range. The musket really was the technology at that time. But if wars don't occur to much, then probably muskets will be late to developed since there is no competition in firearms technology.

Cannon is a fine example too.

Monash

Not much, firstly its a generally a lot thicker than a longbow and is under cover anyway. Secondly summer is probably the wrong time of year for this question as far as we are concerned here is Aus - lots of hot, dry sunny days (though sometimes humid). We only get the cold/wet weather in winter and sometimes not even then so unless we question - how long would it take a longbowmans weapon to rot while he if he was lying on the beach catching rays and surfing I don't think I can answer.

Aranticus

Anyone fired a pistol or rifle before? It doesn't really take much proficiency for one to be able to use firearms. This especially when you have the standard 2 row (1 kneeling, 1 standing) formation. With that many people firing at once, someone is going to die

With the longbow, what it takes is a person who must have trained for many years before being able to draw the bow. In fact, the skeleton of a longbowman can be identified by growth of bone spurs on one of the arms

With the invention of firearms, mass production capability outweighs finesse. In the time 1000 longbowman is trained, 100000 musketeers is churned out