bunyip

Yup.The US colonial rebels had a distinct advantage over the British; they had rifled muskets,the Brits did not. The Americans used that advantage,especially in sniping. They used the practical if unsporting tactic of shooting the British officers from ambush.

OtherElse

riffled musket was more difficult in charge and it took 2-3 times more than in common musket case.

Leccy

I just found reference to a weapon that was used from 1780 to 1815 by the Austrian Army that could have been a very good weapon if the tech support had been good enough to maintain and supply it.

Girandoni Air Rifle

Description I have found so far of its capabilities
Capable of 20 rounds in 30 seconds (20 or 22 round magazine seen different amounts)
Accurate range 100 to 150 m (Rifled air powered weapon)
No smoke and little noise
30 to 40 shots before needing re-charge of air bottle (each soldier carries 2 spare bottles and 100 rounds in 20 round tubes)
Could be fired and re-loaded in the prone position (magazine was gravity fed)
1500 pumps to charge each bottle (eek towards the end a cart mounted charger was developed)

Never heard of this weapon before

Bart Dale

The power of the air rifle was significantly less than power of a rifle using gun powder. The muzzle velocity of a Pennsylvania (Kentucky) long rifle bullet was 1235 feet per second (wikipedia ) for a 0.60 cal bullet, while the muzzle velocity of the air rifles seemed to be something like 500 to 900 fps (http://www.beemans.net/Austrian%20airguns.htm) for similar size 1/2" bullet. Since the energy of a bullet is proportional to the square of the velocity, a gunpowdered rifle bullet had significantly energy and stopping power than a bullet from an air rifle. Still, it was its higher cost and that the "dependability of the gun for lethal combat, under field conditions, especially without the backup of dozens of other airguns, was not high." that prevented it from being a signifcant weapon.

yorkshirerepublic

id say a longbow, but obviously it would be impractical to train thousands of men to use a longbow from adulthood

Leccy

The power was less with the air rifles but was enough to kill a man still at its stated range of 100 to 150 m.
Was more thinking along the lines of volley fire from these, trying to imagine the effect of Battalion fire from these (claimed RoF up to 20 in 30 secs so halve it for combat situation).
600 men firing 20 rounds per min is 12,000 rounds
Musket equipped Battalion 2 rounds per min so 1200 rounds.
Both have similar effective range.

Pity about the bad points as I bet it sounded like a weapon too good to be true at the time.

Patrick Mullins

I think you guys really missed the difference in getting hit by an arrow and getting hit by a musket ball. A musket hit just about anywhere and you're down for the count. An arrow loses velocity rapidly and would only be fatal if it hit a vital spot. Ask anyone who hunts deer with a bow - you have to track down and find your deer after you hit them. With a rifle or even musket, the deer is down.

Another thing you bow advocates are forgetting is the cloud of smoke from the muskets would seriously effect your accuracy. Yes, the muskets wouldn't be accurate either - but then they don't have to be since random hits would be a lot more disabling.

Nemowork

As has been mentioned above it wasnt as powerful as a musket but it had the advantage of being quieter making it useful for hunting and the rapid fire capability along with the ability to carry a spare air tank and magazines made it usefully rapid fire.

I'm not sure if its mentioned in the feature but the early American explorers Lewis and Clarke carried at least one. It got as much use as a party piece to impress the native tribes both with a cool toy and as a firepower demonstration to not mess with them. They seemed to do quite well with field maintenance but it was a quite expensive rarity for the time, its got too many fine parts compared to a musket and the amount of craftwork to make a sealed high pressure air tank with early metal beating and sealing techniques must have been quite prohibitive.

Thegn Ansgar

The big issue with longbow training is building the muscles required to pull the exceptionally heavy bows. Accuracy is not difficult to train, as it generally comes fairly easily with lighter bows and proper form.

It's why most archery trainers stress to start with a bow only as heavy as you're comfortably and competently able to pull. If you go with something that is too heavy for you before your muscles are built up, your form will be off, your accuracy will be off, and you can also cause damage to your body.

Mangekyou

This is the crux of the matter imo. Mass production and less training required. The Longbow was more effective and still produced better results than early firearms imo, but the former views prevailed.