Wesnoth archers need an upgrade

[Midnight_Carnival]

Thank.
I've just read my last post and realised how full of <something> I came across as in it(?)
To summarise what I was saying so it doesn't look like I was picking a fight:

-any armor was better than none and some types were better than others, but mostly you got what you paid for or you were lucky enough to find and had to make do.

-it is easier to kill someone with a gun than with a longbow, but longbows kill just as dead, armor doesn't make it impossible for someone to kill you, it just makes them have to work harder.
Plate armor has been used to deflect bullets too as seen with Ned Kelley.

Landsknechts have almost as much mythology surrounding them as Samurai and it can be hard to distinguish fact from fiction. My personal feeling that they used a lot of -um "liquid armor"

[Mabuse]

Nobody gives me bonus points for not dragging the infamous historical european martial arts troll "could plate armor be penetrated by arrows?" into the mix

Secondly, I've met several people who made their own chainmail, even if it was out of modern materials (in once case split ring washers) a friend of mine covered his leg with home made chainmail and was stabbed with a kinfe - he wore nothing underneath it - he was not even bruised despite the force of the attack. I don't know how that kinfe attack holds up against the force of an arrow (again, avoiding the longbows vs plate armor flamewar) but I can tell you that if chainmail offered no protection they would simply not have used it since it takes a long time to make and is quite heavy.

Anyway, look things up on wikipedia, go and pick a fight with people on historical european martial arts forums, etc...
enjoy

I didnt tell that chainmail offers NO protection.
In fact it offers a lot of protection, but it needs to be combined with a padded armor.

Fortuanately i was a bit involved years ago in that matter, also wore chainmail and had chainmail (of very poor quality) and i say that quality-chainmail (and surely they had quality chaiumail back in time) offer a lot of protection if properly combined, than it is very effective

as a standalone: NO

but hf wearing chainmail and beat yourself with a baseball-bat, and a sword, if it cannot cut through your flesh is still some kind of metal club (and the early swords more than the later, light ones)



abut the landsknechts and myth, well, myth is also part of the longbow-saga.
whatever you call it, bows werent so effective against footsoldiers -

since longbow-mecenaries in the post-crecy (post-100 year-war) era got several times overrun for example also by switzer footunits (landsknechts)

but the fact that people were willing to pay for longbow mercenaries also shows that they had at least a good reputation.



i just say that anyone who praise the bow as a wonder weapon should ask himslef why it was exchanged at some point with slow-rate, non precise fireweapons - was it all just the ignorance of the warlords?

or was the longbow at some point quite obsolete in an era when footsoldiers dominated the battlefields?
(also if we think about that you need tons of training to be a battle ready longbowmen, and that time you could also spend in trianing other stuff, and use some cheap-ass crap firearms as ranged support)

[Midnight_Carnival]

(also if we think about that you need tons of training to be a battle ready longbowmen, and that time you could also spend in trianing other stuff, and use some cheap-ass crap firearms as ranged support)

Yup, but why go to all that trouble to train them if they were so obsolete?
Seriously, can you imagine India, Brazil or Vietnam changing military spending so that most of their budget was devoted to cavalry in 2015?

Spoiler:

I'm trying to find modern countries in a similar state now to England back then -help me out?

Perhaps you should consider that the yew longbows could have a draw weight of 80kgs - can you life 80kgs with your arms alone? (if so respect, seriously best I'd manage is to keep it from falling on my foot for about five seconds ) I've heard you could tell which English skeletons from the period were archers because of the massive sinews which attached outsized arm muscles to bone.

As for:

abut the landsknechts and myth, well, myth is also part of the longbow-saga.
whatever you call it, bows werent so effective against footsoldiers -

since longbow-mecenaries in the post-crecy (post-100 year-war) era got several times overrun for example also by switzer footunits (landsknechts)

Ok, about "Swiss Landsknechts" - the swiss had these guys called - well, it looks like it's pronounced something like "rice-runner" - they were professional soldiers turned mercenary not just mercenaries - highly prised for their dicipline (not so for the Landsknechts!) Well drilled with pikes in formation, etc. I can only assume that they had to adapt their tactics to fight longbow archers.

As for bows not being that effective against footsoldiers: I'm sorry, I respectfully disagree.
Countermeasures could be taken, but when the English fought the French, the English Longbowmen proved devastating against all parts of the French army including (mounted?) knights, infantry and crossbowmen they'd hired. I don't think militaristic monarchs would pass a law making it compulsary for every man to train for a certain number of hours a week for propaganda purposes or to build national spirit! I'm not English and just saying these things becasue I'm British and think that "my country" was the best - actually, my country had our asses kicked by the British and while I don't mind them as individuals, as a nation and especially as an empire... I'm not a fan.
I think that people were good at somethings, while I can't say much about English foreign policy, their archers certainly seem to have been good based on what I've read.

Seriously, an 80kg draw weight, I mean that must have been quite a powerful weapon.

[Mabuse]

Perhaps you should consider that the yew longbows could have a draw weight of 80kgs - can you life 80kgs with your arms alone? (if so respect, seriously best I'd manage is to keep it from falling on my foot for about five seconds ) I've heard you could tell which English skeletons from the period were archers because of the massive sinews which attached outsized arm muscles to bone.

Seriously, an 80kg draw weight, I mean that must have been quite a powerful weapon.

well, you are not telling me something new. in fact i had so many discissions about this topic and read quite a huge number of articles about that topic. so im just sticking with the facts.


i think you just overestimate the longbow, all i read is longbow, 80kg, longbow, 80kg, longbow.
but perhaps also the tactic of the english at crecy was superior to the french tactic, who just assaulted the well prepared uphill english position, with dismounted knights, british pikeman and the like.

and at this very moment, in this very position the longbow had its shining moment, when french, arrogant knights, tried an assault over a muddy field, stomping their own crossbowman, while arrows rained from above killed horses, blocking way for knight that came after that, the few that reached the hills got slaughtered by english knights and so on.


also when you say somthing like this:

Countermeasures could be taken, but when the English fought the French, the English Longbowmen proved devastating against all parts of the French army including (mounted?) knights, infantry and crossbowmen they'd hired.

it would be cool if you could backup your claims with serious sources, that the longbow simply came across the battlefield at every enounter in the 100 yeras war, and the french coulnd do anyhting and died, while the rest of the english army had a break, watching the longbows win the battle.

or was it just crecy you are talking about?

so where are your sources? 100 year war wasnt just crecy, and there was atime beyond 100 years war.
english longbows had a great reputation, but failed to decide any battle in the post-100 year-war era.

"The English longbow was mostly used in a defensive arangment with unhorsed cavalary in as the stiffening factor. Under this arrangement it was very powerful, the French made this very effective by blindly attcking on a narrow front head on."

"The heydey of the longbowmen was in the early and middle part of the Hundred Year's War, but by the end, French armies generally consisting of Italian mercenaries and regular troops and not the impetious noble knights that could not follow a battle plan if their lives depended on it, and that's literally. This new type of army, also supported by early artillery, made short work of English armies in the latter part of the war."

"The point is the french developed ways to deal with english bowmen. It just didn't involved rushing headlong into massive arrowflights launched from fortifications on hilltops."

im really curious, since the sources i have read simply state something different.
well, and thats basically the same with all these "myths"

i have even read about some lost longbow-battles can you imagine
superior strategy/tactic is what made the longbow so dangerous. any army that wanted to stand against a vicious cavaly assault has to develope a good tactic and turn other factors (terrain, etc) to their favor.


the complete opposite are the swiss pikemen, by the way, they used pikes as offensive wepaons on open field and just overrun anything in sight for about a century

also some heretics say that british pikeman had an impact in the 100 years war.



But we can be sure that the LONGBOW was indeed the reason why the english won a couple of battles while inferior in number inflicting huge casualties to the enemy.

But also, you should consider that there might be a reason why the longbow is mystified:

"We need to be very cautious about the longbow stories since most of the sources come from after the weapon fell out of use and were collected by those who deplored that development. "

[Midnight_Carnival]

for greater entertainment value (for the spectators who've gone home by now) and because I can see I'm dealing with someone who actually HAS read up on what he's talking about (beyond a brief skim-read of a wikipedia article or the first site they got on the serach engine) I omitted giving refernces. I know that you'll check up on what I have told you and make your own mind up about how reliable the sources are. It is a token of my restpect.

All I got to say is 80kg longbow PWNZZZZ!!!!111!!!

That and that the pike was used in England but not favored there, they enjoyed the "welsh bill" which was a weapon of agricultural origin used in similar fashion to helbard, check what Silver said about the 4 defensive wards and 4 offensive wards with the head and the 4 defensive wards and 4 offenisve wards with the haft.

Got to agree with you on tactics having a much bigger impact on the outcome of the battle than longbows, but the same can be said of any technology. David and Goliath principle: a lot of power misdirected is less effective than a small amount of power used wisely.

Longbows do not make armies invincible, interestingly enough I heard that the ammount booze rationed to English soldiers during the various anti-French wars had an impact as well. It seems that Englismen fight better when drunk

Oh and one more thing: be careful, when discussing historical events, about pulling out and flashing "facts" too soon. What we have are texts, they were written by someone with specifc agenda, what we more often rely on are other people's opinions of people's opinions of what was reported by those who saw what happened. From these it is often possible to draw just about any conclusion we like. Here is the opinion I drew:
Was the longbow effective in war? If used correctly, yes
Did the longbow win wars? No, people win wars, not weapons
Was the longbow the most effective weapon of the time? - it's complicated, animal which kills most people in Africa is not the lion but the tsetse fly. I'd not be surprised to hear that most French knights were killed by a rondel dagger through the visor or a falchion, but I feel that they wouldn't have been put into a position where they could be finished off in such an inglorious way if it weren't for the longbow's effectiveness on the battlefield.
Further: I feel that what I understood you to have said about the longbow being more effective as propaganda(? correct me if I'm wrong) to be totally unfounded and nonsensical. Since you're the one who wants to pull out your accademic sources and wave them around while nobody else is comparing, I suggest you find something supporting this. Apart from this, I don't see the relevance of whether it won the war by - um let's see... demoralising the enemy troops due to it's sheer awsomeness(? ) or because the French lost face when the English said "my bow's bigger than your bow!" and whipped out an 80kg longbow. As I said, daggers, clubs, infection and tsetse flies...
It is also my opinion that 80kg longbows PWN. They even work as an effective propaganda tool these days, why do you think England didn't adopt the Euro, the EU was like "you gotta" and the English were like "80kg longbow motha-<censored> what!" - it is even an effective nuclear deterant today, ICBM, 80kg lonbow - no contest!

[Mabuse]

i almost forgot what this topic was all about.
i think we agree that tactic and strategy win battles, if supported with the right equipment and manpower.

also i think we can agree that the english longbowman were responsible for a couple of humilating defeats of the french nobility, where outnumbered english armies defeated larger armies of the best heavy cavalry of western europe - won with superior tactics build around a terrible weapon - the english longbow


but i dont think if english-bowman would have discovered "ancient technologies of archery" that their results would have been any better. they were as superb as they could have been.

concluding that:
i also think that wesnoth archers as good as they are, and they already do their very best -

[Midnight_Carnival]

Agreed.