about when did guns become better than crossbows

[CyberThread]

Just about when did guns. When you include loading time m knowledge for making them. The cost in using then and the damage they could produce .

Eclipse the crossbow?

[Spiryt]

Are you asking about actual history?

[Abd al-Azrad]

God made men, but Samuel Colt made them equal.

[Fouredged Sword]

It depends on the type of gun. 1127 saw the first use of cannon in combat. Europe got their hands on gunpowder in the 1200's, and by the 1400's guns became used across Europe.

In early gunpowder days it was a cost issue. While crossbows were more accurate and in many cases more deadly, they were much more expensive and the ammunition was much more costly. You took a year to train a crossbowman, while you could train an peasant into a gunman in a month.

As time went on, powder became cheaper, guns became more accurate and harder hitting... Well, crossbows basically disappeared by the 1500's.

[Spiryt]

Generally, crossbow is something a lot different than gun, so dubbing one 'better' can be quite tricky.

In overall, in last quarter of 15th century saw pretty mass scale crossbow-> gun swapping in professional infantry squads, towns militias etc.

Speaking about more of less "Western" Europe of course, from France to Poland.

There are some detailed documents preserved, and we can track changes of proportions between crossbows and guns.
Large amount of firearms could be already seen in large quantities as early as 2nd quarter of 15th century, particularly among Czech hussites, but they generally didn't become dominant until early 16th century.

Among mounted shooters, crossbow could last longer I guess, but they also were beginning to wield firearms, particularly pistols and other shortened, specifically for cavalry purpose, guns.

Crossbow was still in use, I think that Conquistadors have been bringing large amount of crossbows to new world, but guns were already major force.

In 17th century crossbow seems already very obsolete as far as military use goes.

In hunting it lasted very long though, up to the 19th century it seems.


You took a year to train a crossbowman, while you could train an peasant into a gunman in a month.

Nothing in sources really indicates such a thing... In fact there are mentions about soldiers owning some firearm, but not knowing how to use it.

[Lightlawbliss]

I would say it never became completely better. The typical modern military prefers machine guns over crossbows for two very simple reasons: they shoot faster and they end up costing less. Crossbows exist that put a 45 cal to shame, they just fire very slowly and require a very strong guy (or multiple guys) to use. The common foot soldier just doesn't care about the difference between "He dies with a 1 inch hole in him" and "He dies with a hole the size of my kid's fist through him and his organs pulled out the other side" nearly as much as they care about the difference between "I send 10 shots a minute" and "I send 100 shots a minute".

edit:

...
Nothing in sources really indicates such a thing... In fact there are mentions about soldiers owning some firearm, but not knowing how to use it.
Yep, they typically didn't spend much time teaching people how to fire a gun before rifling came around. Not much point when all your work results in the soldiers being able to hit somewhere on the broad side of the barn at the distance you are fighting at.

Edit 2:
no clue what I was thinking when I posted this. Spoiler to prevent confusion.

[LTwerewolf]

1525 was around the time when crossbows stopped being used widely among armies, but was still very much used (and is still used) in hunting. Modern crossbows are still effective for hunting and killing, but even the strongest ones don't compare to the power of a lot of modern firearms.


I would say it never became completely better. The typical modern military prefers machine guns over crossbows for two very simple reasons: they shoot faster and they end up costing less. Crossbows exist that put a 50 cal to shame, they just fire very slowly and require a very strong guy (or multiple guys) to use. The common foot soldier just doesn't care about the difference between "He dies with a 1 inch hole in him" and "He dies with a hole the size of my kid's fist through him and his organs pulled out the other side" nearly as much as they care about the difference between "I send 10 shots a minute" and "I send 100 shots a minute".

edit:

Yep, they typically didn't spend much time teaching people how to fire a gun before rifling came around. Not much point when all your work results in the soldiers being able to hit somewhere on the broad side of the barn at the distance you are fighting at.

A good bit of this is misinformation that's popularly spread. There aren't any crossbows that are going to put a Barrett .50 cal to shame. Fire both at a 1inch steel plate. When you fire the .50 it won't be there anymore. Same happens when a .50 hits a person in the chest at a medium range. Modern crossbows also reload rather quickly, and the longest part of the reload is putting the bolt on it, as the tension is done by lever.


The reason that armies weren't very good with their firearms was because training was nearly nonexistant up until the modern era. Crossbows were easy to figure out, whereas firearms required more steps to make them work. Even in the Vietnam war training was terrible, and at that point training was the best it had ever been. It's been said by many generals that in a given war, the standard for special forces becomes the standard for general infantry 3 wars later, and that this has been a trend since the beginning of war. I'm not sure how much I agree with the specific number of wars it takes, but I do agree with the trend.

As for accuracy of blackpowder weapons, they certainly don't have the effective range that modern ones do, but the idea that they would miss entirely at almost any range is absolutely not true. The effective range on quite a few blackpowder weapons was around 175 yards (525 feet, 160 meters) which certainly isn't nothing. (For those that are not aware, effective range is the range at which you can still hit the target with reasonable certainly, removing thehuman factor).

[Fouredged Sword]

Crossbows remained much more accurate until rifling became cheap and common. Until that happened, a crossbow was a better hunting weapon. Again, cost vs benefit. It was a longterm investment and ammunition use for hunting is much lower than combat. Also, a skilled craftsmen could make hunting bolts for a crossbow without modern (for the time) infrastructure.

[darksolitaire]

Crossbows exist that put a 50 cal to shame, they just fire very slowly and require a very strong guy (or multiple guys) to use.

All right, I'll bite. What is this awesome crossbow and where do I get one?

[CyberThread]

All right, I'll bite. What is this awesome crossbow and where do I get one?


http://www.kostka-sport.de/KOSTKA_Lightning_for_crossbows_-_for_shooting_solid_lead_balls_with_your_crossbow. html

[LTwerewolf]

To clarify on the modern gun vs crossbow thing: The current most powerful crossbow shoots with around 165 foot-pounds of energy. That's more than enough to put a reasonable hole into a cinder block, and kill just about any living animal on earth. That being said, modern rifles beat that by a factor of 10. The M4 (an assault rifle and certainly not one of the more powerful ones) has 1900 foot-pounds of force. A .50 BMG is rocketing rounds off with between 10,000 and 15,000 foot-pounds. Not knocking crossbows, but there's more than a few reasons they're not used for military purposes and haven't been for a good long while.

[Fouredged Sword]

A 50cal ball is smaller than a 50cal rifle round. Also, it doesn't throw it with near the velocity of a 50 cal rifle. It's used by small game hunters to they don't pulverize their target with a rifle round.

[Spiryt]

I would say it never became completely better. The typical modern military prefers machine guns over crossbows for two very simple reasons: they shoot faster and they end up costing less. Crossbows exist that put a 50 cal to shame, they just fire very slowly and require a very strong guy (or multiple guys) to use. The common foot soldier just doesn't care about the difference between "He dies with a 1 inch hole in him" and "He dies with a hole the size of my kid's fist through him and his organs pulled out the other side" nearly as much as they care about the difference between "I send 10 shots a minute" and "I send 100 shots a minute".


???

There are absolutely no crossbows possible, within sensible size at least, that are even comparable to 0.50 caliber rifle as far as 'putting huge holes' go....

0.50 anti material rifles shoot large bullets that have at very least 12 kJ of kinetic energy after leaving barrel, comparably big momentum, and effectively combat small vehicles, even armored ones.

They can be accurate from above kilometer, with proper optics of course.

What 'holes' they do in poor human beings... Well, no point of even discussing it.

No portable, or even non portable crossbow can achieve something similar.

Neurobalistics are simply limited here.

So to put it short, there ARE NO crossbows that can put any rifles to shame.





Yep, they typically didn't spend much time teaching people how to fire a gun before rifling came around. Not much point when all your work results in the soldiers being able to hit somewhere on the broad side of the barn at the distance you are fighting at.


Rifling was around since very 15th century, though rarely with military weapons indeed.

And accurate, skilled gunners were always better than bad ones.


To clarify on the modern gun vs crossbow thing: The current most powerful crossbow shoots with around 165 foot-pounds of energy.


Those energies are attainable with very light, like 400 grains/22 grams arrows.

With heavier bolts, optimized for more energy, it could go up substantially.

Also, those modern bows are pretty light and manageable, and while going for POWAH, one would obviously make 2000 pounds bow instead of just 200 pounds.

So it would take the KE way, likely multiply times above 165 Fp.

Even though, AFAIU, those crossbows have that high KE mainly due to velocities with very light projectiles, I bet that with 'medieval' mass of the bolt there would still be huge difference.

Obviously still not in the same realm as heavy rifles.

Or even 17th century muskets, to be honest.

[Crimson Wolf]

I would def say almost no crossbow exists today that puts a well built rifle, shotgun or pistol even, to shame. Now yes a crossbow can be very silent, you can retrieve your ammo and hunt without barely making a sound just like a bow, but lethality the gun wins hand over fist. The whole "better than a .50" is a bit insane to say. Accuracy, velocity, and range a muzzleloaded 50 is a lot better though does take longer to reload but a .50 cal modern rifle can pump rounds out a lot faster, the round itself is immensely damaging (not to mention specialty rounds), and can shoot over a mile away and still be deadly.

[Lightlawbliss]

On further research, I'm not sure what I was thinking. Spoilered the above post so people don't get confused

[Soranar]

Having shot both types of weapons (while hunting with my uncle), I can tell you a crossbow is pretty similar to firing a gun (though you don't get a kick from a crossbow and its relatively silent)

A crossbow would have been more accurate than a rifle for a fairly long time but remains fairly expensive to mass produce (bolts are pricier than bullets)

But the type of wounds you get from each weapon is very different

A crossbow bolt pierces the skin and also stops the bleeding immediately. To get a kill you have to aim at an animal's lungs and hope to collapse one (preferably both) just like you would with a bow. Hunting bigger game than a deer with a crossbow is not recommended because the animal will suffer too much (cause it'll take too long to die). It might also wander off and attack someone or attack you if you're not careful.

The amount of times my uncle has had to put down a bear walking around with a few crossbow bolts or arrows in it is a testament to that.

A bullet hole never stops bleeding, creates consiredably more damage (even at smaller calibers: a .22 Long rifle will pierce through bone then slow down enough to bounce around in the body if it hits bone again, the effect is devastating). A crossbow bolt is likely to deflect on skull, a bullet is far more likely to simply punch through and that was true even with the first muskets.

In a combat situation you'd want to incapacitate your enemy as quickly as posible . So as soon as you compare armies fighting each other, crossbows simply don't measure up even to a half decent musket because a mass of innacurate crossbow bolts vs a mass of innacurate musket balls , the musket balls create far more damage.

Still, in conquistador times in south america, crossbow were sometimes preferred for their ability to function in heavy rain (muskets would become useless if the powder got wet while a crossbow remains functional in rain with only a few adjustments to the string's tension).

[JusticeZero]

George Washington was complaining because he wanted longbowmen, if that gives any indication. The advantages of a crossbow or muzzle loader aren't firepower advantages. They're "This is easier to hand to a tired and poorly trained conscript who doesn't want to be here at all, let alone be heroic, and still have the occasional hole poked in the other guy's cowardly conscripts" advantages.

[Petrocorus]

AFAIK, at the end of the Hundred Years War (1453) the crossbow were the more common ranged weapon among soldier, but guns were already common in the artillery. At the end of the Italy Wars (1559), infantry guns were already quite common.

The long bow was still common too in 1453, and AFAIK, remained used later than crossbows, thank to its shot rate.

On an unrelated note, i didn't know what is a foot-pound of force until today.

[Judge_Worm]

Guns never became better than crossbows. Just like crossbows never became better than regular bows, and bows never became better than slings.

They all do different things differently, however the gun became the most popular type of ranged weapon in Europe in the early stages of the Renaissance. It completely took over combat as late as the Enlightenment.

[LTwerewolf]

On an unrelated note, i didn't know what is a foot-pound of force until today.

You're welcome :smallsmile:

[Petrocorus]

You're welcome :smallsmile:

I had to look on wikipedia to understand your post.

[Tohsaka Rin]

Guns never became better than crossbows. Just like crossbows never became better than regular bows, and bows never became better than slings.

They all do different things differently, however the gun became the most popular type of ranged weapon in Europe in the early stages of the Renaissance. It completely took over combat as late as the Enlightenment.

Guns became better as a general rule, when the tube magazine/cylinder came into play.

Once people became able to throw 5-8 shots downfield in the time it took to reset, load, and fire a pair of bolts, crossbows had been definitively displaced as weapons of war.

Crossbows still have their place, of course, when a small amount of silent, deadly force is needed, but even a simple revolver outclasses them on nearly all fronts.

You can't double-tap a crossbow. Sustained suppressing fire is impossible.

That's just how things are, the world has moved on.

[atemu1234]

God made men, but GYGAX made them equal.

Fixed that for you.

[dascarletm]

Fixed that for you.

Unless one of them plays a T1 and the other plays a T5....

[atemu1234]

Unless one of them plays a T1 and the other plays a T5....

The joke was more about gods and DMs...

[dascarletm]

No, I like it better the other way.

[Judge_Worm]

Guns became better as a general rule, when the tube magazine/cylinder came into play.

Once people became able to throw 5-8 shots downfield in the time it took to reset, load, and fire a pair of bolts, crossbows had been definitively displaced as weapons of war.

Crossbows still have their place, of course, when a small amount of silent, deadly force is needed, but even a simple revolver outclasses them on nearly all fronts.

You can't double-tap a crossbow. Sustained suppressing fire is impossible.

That's just how things are, the world has moved on.

Sure you can double tap a crossbow, it just isn't called a crossbow anymore by that point IIRC the ancient Chinese used a multiple fire crossbow type thing.
As for guns being better as a general rule, that didn't even happen until the second Industrial Revolution. Even as late as the French Revolution bows had a higher rate of fire than most guns. Even during Shakespeare's time a bolt could still pierce armor that a bullet couldn't. But with the advent of cheap steel, manufacturing processes, repeaters, flint lock, and clip fed ammunition guns became more efficient.
Fun fact (unrelated to bows): Robert E. Lee had soldiers trained with halberds.

[LTwerewolf]

Cho-ko-nu/chu ke nu/ repeating crossbow is what you're thinking of.

[Crimson Wolf]

I would say those repeating chinese crossbows though extremely lacked both the distance, and power a normal crossbow had. Now if they made a repeater that just your a lever on the side you pulled back with a mag fed system, now that could still have the same power and such of the crossbow with faster reloads. But of course I'm getting off subject. Point being those chinese rapids lacked power/penetration, accuracy, and range. I would take a normal crossbow over one of those things any day.

[Raphite1]

In the western world, it happened when the flintlock replaced the matchlock and became widely available, sometime in the 1600s. Until then, Europeans in the Americas were getting "outgunned" by American Indians with bows.

I don't know when it happened in China.

[Fouredged Sword]

Further thoughts the restrictions of crossbows.

A crossbow is ultimately a muscle powered weapon. Without an outside power source the limit of the weapon output is hard limited by the work a human can provide. The faster you can fire the bow, the lower the power of each individual shot. You can improve the efficiency and train the human to be stronger, but there are hard and soft limits to that equation. If your opposition armors themselves, you must accept a reduction in firing speed to gain the force needed to penetrate the armor. Crossbows evolved from simple low power hunting tools to crank powered high impact monsters as time went on. The hard limit capped the advance, a crossbow that has twice the throw energy requires twice the mechanical advantage to load and thus takes twice as long to load for a person of comparable strength.

A gun, on the other hand, uses gunpowder as an outside energy source. Getting a gun to fire faster is a mechanical issue, not a power issue. In extremes a powder based gun can FAR outstrip the power output of any number of humans. Firing harder is also simply a mechanical issue of barrel pressure, recoil, and bullet grains. The firearm killed the advancement of armor as a practical battlefield tool for a while, until lower cost high strength materials that could stop bullets became a thing (silk in sufficiently thick layers could stop a bullet, but the cost was prohibitive).

[Vva70]

As many have said, guns largely replaced crossbows in general western military use even when crossbows were still better in terms of range, accuracy, rate of fire, and damage. When it comes to supplying an army, economies of production (especially in pre-industrial societies) could matter more than weapon effectiveness.

As far as guns catching up in one-on-one weapon effectiveness? The pieces were separately in place for a while. Rifled barrels gave guns increased accuracy and firepower, but rifles were slower to load because the bullet had to fit snugly into the barrel and be crammed down with enough force to deform the lead. Breach-loading weapons were faster to load, but were unreliable and had a loss of muzzle speed because sealing the breach was difficult. Breach-loaded rifled weapons were right out. All the way through the 1700s, muzzle-loaded smooth-bore weapons dominated military use.

Rifling became more practical in the early 1800s with the invention of hollow conical ammunition (the most notable being the Minie ball). These bullets would expand to fit the rifled barrel, allowing them to be reloaded as quickly as smooth-bore weapons but with all the advantages of rifling. In the mid 1800s, metal cartridges finally solved the problem of sealing breach-loaded weapons. By the late 1800s, you could arguably claim that guns had finally become overall more effective weapons than crossbows. But this was centuries after crossbows had largely disappeared from western society.

[Crimson Wolf]

One of the reasons crossbows vanished for a while (you can even google this one) the pope at the time considered them heretical and a abomination to use, and was banned.

[Xelbiuj]

Um, immediately.

Lead and gun powder was cheaper and easier to get than crossbow bolts. Making training as well as warfare less expensive.

It didn't require a lot of effort to reload, you could fight longer.

Much more effective against armor and accurate at longer ranges.

They were easier to maintain and more durable.

Probably cheaper to produce, I dunno about crossbows but IIRC a proper longbow could take years to make because of how they treated the wood.

They weren't as unwieldy as crossbows, you could pack guys into tight formations (dumb idea against people that also had guns really) and volley.

Adding a bayonet turned them into excellent stabbing weapons.
Not a first generation musket by any means but I have a mosin nagant that's heavy as crap and I have no doubts that I could thrust right into medieval breast plate with little effort.

[Spiryt]

As many have said, guns largely replaced crossbows in general western military use even when crossbows were still better in terms of range, accuracy, rate of fire, and damage. When it comes to supplying an army, economies of production (especially in pre-industrial societies) could matter more than weapon effectiveness.


It keeps getting repeated, but it's not true at all.

Differences in price between different type of guns and crossbows weren't quite large enough to make difference.

Especially that 'supplying army' in terms of 15th/16th century is still largely huge anachronism, combatants were mostly providing their weapons for themselves.

In 15th century Poland, crossbows generally cost between 30-64 groszy, while firearms 24-60.





Like mentioned above, pyrobalistics have just vastly superior kinetic capabilities than springs bows essentially are.

Even very simple firearm can give bullets KE unattainable for crossbows, especially Renaissance ones.

http://www.musketeer.ch/blackpowder/handgonne.html



As mentioned, in military use crossbows got largely dropped during 16th century, and military commanders in particular wanted more and better firearms constantly.

It was considered better weapon for most purposes by then already.



One of the reasons crossbows vanished for a while (you can even google this one) the pope at the time considered them heretical and a abomination to use, and was banned.


It had happened in 1139, details are very, very uncertain, and there's no real evidence anyone cared much at all.

There was no vanishing of crossbow at all on the battlefields.


Um, immediately.

Immediately is not accurate either, to be fair.

Hand held firearm had appeared in 14th century at least.

And crossbows were still dominant range weapons at least till the end of 15th century.



Probably cheaper to produce, I dunno about crossbows but IIRC a proper longbow could take years to make because of how they treated the wood.

This is another myth.

Longbow was simple staff of wood, and was much cheaper and easier to produce than composite or steel prod, or a gun.

Only thing that could take 'years' is proper drying of the wood, and that's too much anyway.

[ShurikVch]

Well, crossbows basically disappeared by the 1500's.

In 17th century crossbow seems already very obsolete as far as military use goes.
Not knocking crossbows, but there's more than a few reasons they're not used for military purposes and haven't been for a good long while. http://i96.photobucket.com/albums/l189/KORNET-E/161.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/VBK2UGR.jpg
http://666djw.com/uploads/allimg/130414/1-1304140125224Q.jpg
http://xmb.stuffucanuse.com/xmb/viewthread.php?action=attachment&tid=4207&pid=12285
http://i96.photobucket.com/albums/l189/KORNET-E/162.jpg
http://4tololo.ru/files/styles/large/public/images/201430011857145093.jpg?itok=bvQ8IJiP
http://armyromantic.ru/166_uchenia_kitayskogo/2.jpg
http://sayga12.ru/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/podborka_756_49.jpg
http://www.nato.int/pictures/2003/031120b/b031120dc.jpg
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_oC8TwXe4PF0/STYFqlM-ndI/AAAAAAAAAMw/NnmHm1UX3d8/s1600/450px-Peruvian_crossbow_usage.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/1003/Crotale/SF-samostrel.jpg
http://www.bharat-rakshak.com/NAVY/Images/Marines5.jpg


As for accuracy of blackpowder weapons, they certainly don't have the effective range that modern ones do, but the idea that they would miss entirely at almost any range is absolutely not true. The effective range on quite a few blackpowder weapons was around 175 yards (525 feet, 160 meters) which certainly isn't nothing. (For those that are not aware, effective range is the range at which you can still hit the target with reasonable certainly, removing thehuman factor). What's, by your opinion, is "reasonable certainly"? AFAIK, fusils unable even to kill beyond the 100 m range, arquebus range was 30 - 35 m, and musket - 50 m. Before rifling, good guns were able to hit proverbial broad side of a barn; bad guns failed to do even it.


I would def say almost no crossbow exists today that puts a well built rifle, shotgun or pistol even, to shame. I seen a video of a weapon test on plastic buckets filled with sand. Arrow shot from a bow penetrated first bucket, and stuck in second; crossbow bolt penetrated one bucket and protrude from the other side; pistol's bullet (9 mm) penetrated a bucket's side, but not go all the way through...


A bullet hole never stops bleeding, creates consiredably more damage (even at smaller calibers: a .22 Long rifle will pierce through bone then slow down enough to bounce around in the body if it hits bone again, the effect is devastating). A crossbow bolt is likely to deflect on skull, a bullet is far more likely to simply punch through and that was true even with the first muskets. From soldier's reminiscences about hunting during Chechen War : "Стрелять корову надо в шею. Ни в коем случае не в лоб - пуля 5.45 дурная, может срикошетить." (rus) - "Shoot a cow to the neck. Never to the forehead - bullet of 5.45 mm is bad, and may to bounce off"

Also, it's possible to use (and, sometimes, reload) crossbow without standing up; firearms, before cartridges, were unable to do more than one shot that way

In a local Museum of Arms I seen some weapon... It's resembled crossbow, mounted on gun! Unfortunately, no description, so I have no idea what's it may be

[Fouredged Sword]

Crossbows are used in modern times, mostly by special forces as show above, as they are subsonic munitions that lack muzzle flash and can be built to minimize the noise of the action. At night, when stealth is a priority, a crossbow can pack a much more lethal projectile than an equal quiet single action sub sonic gun, and the heavier projectile means it will can be accurate out to greater distances as well.

Rate of fire still suffers, but no weapon is perfect.

[Spiryt]

[SPOILER=Ahem!..]

20th and 21th century use in some special ops isn't exactly relevant to the question.

There were no compund bows in 17th century.



What's, by your opinion, is "reasonable certainly"? AFAIK, fusils unable even to kill beyond the 100 m range, arquebus range was 30 - 35 m, and musket - 50 m. Before rifling, good guns were able to hit proverbial broad side of a barn; bad guns failed to do even it.

Again:

-rifling was a thing since the very 15th century. Usually only used in hunting and other more 'precise' uses, but still.

There are enough evidences of very precise shots on the battlefields as well.

Your range estimates may very well apply to bows and crossbows as well.

Simply put, ancient weapons precision was not what we are accustomed to today.

In general, inaccuracy of smooth borne weapons is exaggerated.

http://www.scotwars.com/equip_smoothbore_musketry.htm

Here you have some late smoothborne accuracies.

Hitting human up to 300 yards was perfectly possible, not 30.

And most of 16th century muskets would be way more powerful than those ~1800 ones, allowing flatter trajectory, if at cost of weight and so on.



I seen a video of a weapon test on plastic buckets filled with sand. Arrow shot from a bow penetrated first bucket, and stuck in second; crossbow bolt penetrated one bucket and protrude from the other side; pistol's bullet (9 mm) penetrated a bucket's side, but not go all the way through...

Yes, different shapes and cross sections of projectiles/whatever will produce drastically different effects on different medium.

You can also take a piece of stiff wire, jab lazily and penetrate the sand bag all the way trough.

That's not really relevant to anything though.


Also, it's possible to use (and, sometimes, reload) crossbow without standing up; firearms, before cartridges, were unable to do more than one shot that way

'Cartridges' of different kinds were also brought up really early.

But yeah, as far as most people understand, the fuss with reloading firearms was obviously their biggest issue. Cleaning barrel, proper powder application, putting the bullet in, etc.

The heavier crossbows also had the same issues though, with often very clunky and unwieldy spanning devices.

[aidenn0]

A few comments about accuracy of 17th and 18th century muskets:

Barrel rifling predates the musket. It was not commonly used for troops though.

If you have a snug fit between a round ball and the rifling, then you basically have to wait for the ball to spin its way down the barrel. Furthermore you need to clean it very regularly (as in while reloading in battle) as the black powder used burned quite dirty.

Similarly an accurate smoothbore musket would have a ball very close in size to the barrel, as the barrel gets fouled, it would get harder and harder to load. The 17th and 18th century gunsmiths could certainly build either a rifle or a smoothbore musket, and corresponding ammunition that was quite accurate, but reload times would suffer and it would be much harder to use in general. The tactics of the day called for massed fire to break the formation and then either calvary or a bayonet charge to defeat the opponent once they broke ranks.

If you look at several 17th and 18th century infantry muskets you will notice many lack even rear sights. Without rear sights you are probably limited to under 50 yards of reliable accuracy for a human sized target, though you certainly have a chance at hitting even further away. Rifles from the same period will almost universally have rear sights.

It was essentially a tradeoff between reload time (including time to clean the bore) and accuracy. Rifles required the most cleaning and the longest reload time, smoothbore muskets with a ball significantly smaller than the inside diameter of the bore had the shortest reload time and the worst accuracy.

The 19th century saw the invention of the Minié ball, which was designed to expand when the powder ignited. This had two advantages: It could be smaller diameter than the rifling, allowing similar load times to the musket and it would create seal against the barrel when fired which would both increase the velocity of the bullet and somewhat reduce the fouling of the barrel.

On the other hand, the musket could deliver far more kinetic energy than a crossbow. The amount to which (and range at which) a 15th century crossbow or arquebus could defeat plate armor is debated (and complicated by the fact that there were varying designs to all of these and no two were identical). By the time you hit the late 16th century you have matchlock muskets which were clearly superior to crossbows in terms of energy delivered at range.

[Fouredged Sword]

The other thing to consider was before the percussion cap was invented, sights posed the problem that holding your head close to your gun could cause burning powder to fly into your eyes. I have read reports of soldiers being taught to close their eyes before pulling the trigger to prevent being blinded. This may have played a part in the inaccuracy reported in musket fire.

When in block formation, accuracy wasn't really needed though. A wall of flying lead dense enough to cut wheat in a field was reported during the civil war. Aiming simply wasn't needed under the auspice of such power.

[Spiryt]

On the other hand, the musket could deliver far more kinetic energy than a crossbow. The amount to which (and range at which) a 15th century crossbow or arquebus could defeat plate armor is debated (and complicated by the fact that there were varying designs to all of these and no two were identical). By the time you hit the late 16th century you have matchlock muskets which were clearly superior to crossbows in terms of energy delivered at range.

As mentioned, very first, primitive firearms were already mostly superior to crossbows in terms of kinetic energy.

You don't have to wait to 16th century.

Many 16th century musket's bullets had energies that were very high compared to many modern carbines.

They were huge, heavy beasts, shooting large bullets.

See tests of Graz Armory muskets (http://books.google.pl/books?id=mR0KAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA155&lpg=PA155&dq=graz+armory+musket+experiment&source=bl&ots=CI-5Fwlr7M&sig=z_InrM89JxaXqps2_EejmBmW1Ug&hl=pl&sa=X&ei=8J9SVKPgDKLTygOT8YHAAw&ved=0CCkQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=graz%20armory%20musket%20experiment&f=false)


Of course, 'penetration' of different targets is much more complicated than sheer energy - see example with sand bags few posts above.

Arrows and similar objects generally need less energy for penetration of many objects, but nonetheless difference was too severe.

Heavier firearms of late 15th/16th century had led to development of heaviest personal armors yet.



When in block formation, accuracy wasn't really needed though. A wall of flying lead dense enough to cut wheat in a field was reported during the civil war. Aiming simply wasn't needed under the auspice of such power.

And yet, there are countless of period sources mentioning minimal effects of such lead walls.

Like in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Prague_(1757)

There was apparently volley of 3000 Austrian huzars, where charging Prussians one apparently had suffered no casualties.

Accuracy was very important - decent fitting of the ball, proper angle of barrel and cautious trigger pull would likely be difference between deadly and missed shot.

It's of course not the same accuracy as 'aim at one particular guy' but still accuracy.

[Petrocorus]

Only thing that could take 'years' is proper drying of the wood, and that's too much anyway.

Another thing that took years, apparently, was the training of bowmen. "If you want to train an archer, start with his grandfather."
I've heard the quote comes from Edward the 1st.


What's, by your opinion, is "reasonable certainly"? AFAIK, fusils unable even to kill beyond the 100 m range, arquebus range was 30 - 35 m, and musket - 50 m. Before rifling, good guns were able to hit proverbial broad side of a barn; bad guns failed to do even it.

I seen a video of a weapon test on plastic buckets filled with sand. Arrow shot from a bow penetrated first bucket, and stuck in second; crossbow bolt penetrated one bucket and protrude from the other side; pistol's bullet (9 mm) penetrated a bucket's side, but not go all the way through...

By all means, post the link if you got it.



In a local Museum of Arms I seen some weapon... It's resembled crossbow, mounted on gun! Unfortunately, no description, so I have no idea what's it may be

Ballista?

[Hiro Protagonest]

and accurate at longer ranges.

Uh, no, not at all. Maybe in rifled muskets starting around the Civil War era, which was long after the crossbow started being phased out.

While guns have certainly evolved to more effective forms than crossbows, muskets were worse than them. They had plenty of logistical advantages, but probably the only battlefield advantages were the armor piercing (which just made the development of thicker cuirasses over full plate), and the ability to load while crouching or prone, since crossbows had to be braced against the ground to reload. Given the poor training of most pre-WWI militaries, the latter wasn't even really used except by civil war zouave units.

[Sartharina]

And from what I remember - armies didn't want individually-accurate soldiers, to keep them from shooting their own commanders.

[Spiryt]

Lead and gun powder was cheaper and easier to get than crossbow bolts. Making training as well as warfare less expensive.




Getting back, this particular part is not really true.

Neither lead nor powder were very cheap and easy.

The cost/labor of casting simple lead ball could theoretically be lesser than making even simple bolt, perhaps.

That being said, there are ceramic, clay, or even glass balls found here and there, so it seems that lead price and lack of availability could be a problem sometimes.

Main problem was powder.

Both sulfur and saltpeter were rather rare, expensive and deficit goods. Major deposits of sulfur and particular were mainly mined in Sicily in preindustrial period.

The normal production generally required mills - specialized powder mills started appearing all over biggest town centers, but in majority of places, 'normal' grain mills were producing the powder for a long time.

And, as you can easily imagine, with decently organized shooting range, you can just keep practicing bow/crossbow with absolutely negligible cost.

While every firing of a gun will, obviously cost.

Around ~1390 in Poland, stone (around 10,4kg) or powder cost 156 groshen. In Kraków around the same time, one could buy solid mail for this.

Ox cost 70 gr, crossbow or gun themselves, as mentioned could be get for 30.

Even assuming rather unrealistic amount of 10 g of powder per shot, (early guns likely required much more), quite wealthy citizen of town could shoot away his daily income in 10 shots.

In 1472 stone of powder was already worth 'only' 46 gr. Similar, almost, or over 3 times drop in price of powder can be observed in England.

Other than general growth of the market, new, more efficient ways of producing saltpeter were apparently responsible for this.

It's easy to notice than those drops in price of powder correlate, as far as time goes, with rise of popularity of firearms in infantry use. Common infantrymen usually weren't very wealthy people, of course.


Uh, no, not at all.

He is quite correct. Heavy muskets of 16th century could sometimes propel bullets with velocities approaching 600 m/s.

No realistic crossbow bolts likely even approached 90 m/s, and that's generous.

That's night and day as far as shape of trajectory goes, so actually hitting something reliably at long range could be realistic with musket.

There is huge general misconception about those firearms accuracy, to be honest.

People read period accounts about hugely inefficient single volleys, low practical range, without taking into account highly efficient ones.

Without taking into account that volleys of crossbow bolts, never mind arrows, would look just the same if not worse.


They had plenty of logistical advantages,

Can somebody really list those advantages?

Firearms were highly susceptible to whether, matchlocks used very widely up to 18th century required constantly smoldering match.

Powder was susceptible to water and general contamination as well.

In any larger quantities, it was prone to gravitational dissolution into layers of heaviest saltpeter at bottom, light coal at the top.

And so on.



And from what I remember - armies didn't want individually-accurate soldiers, to keep them from shooting their own commanders.

?:smallconfused:

Perhaps in 18th century Prussian army, and ones modeled after them, with conscript literally beaten into drill with sticks.

Still such anecdote, is not really significant in development of firearms trough the centuries.

[StreamOfTheSky]

The earliest guns overtook crossbow and bow might be 1600's, but I don't think in terms of performance they did till late 1800's. Even though pretty much every army that could was using guns as their main/only ranged personal weapon, they were still less accurate, shorter ranged and MUCH slower rate of fire than their stringed rivals. Compared to composite bows and some crossbows, probably less force, too. For hundreds of years they were adapted by armies more because they required far less training time to be decent with them, while as a bow took from childhood, and accuracy didn't matter when fired in mass against another large force as others said. 1800's saw improvements in all areas for guns and interchangeable parts, and yet still most who died in the American Civil War did from infection of their wounds, not the wound itself. And even in the 1800's a Native American warrior who trained his whole life with his bow would have the advantage over a similarly trained U.S. soldier with a gun, if "become better" includes in all situations and not just for army vs. army.
I think our society is just used to guns being rapid fire, with sight scopes, etc... and can't even comprehend that they weren't the ultimate personal weapon for several hundred years after their invention. Even Cavalry charges were still used throughout the 1800's (often successfully), it was rapid fire guns and trench warfare of WWI that largely obsoleted them.

[madtinker]

AFAIK, at the end of the Hundred Years War (1453) the crossbow were the more common ranged weapon among soldier, but guns were already common in the artillery. At the end of the Italy Wars (1559), infantry guns were already quite common.

The long bow was still common too in 1453, and AFAIK, remained used later than crossbows, thank to its shot rate.

On an unrelated note, i didn't know what is a foot-pound of energy until today.

Fixed that for you.

[Petrocorus]

Fixed that for you.

Someone used "foot-pound of force". That was very confusing because i couldn't figure out how a length times a mass could be a force. But apparently, you also use pound as a unit of force.

[TypoNinja]

They each had up and downsides for a long time, musket vs crossbow is going to depend on what you want it for. For example you are not relaoding a muzzle loading musket while lying down.

Two major innovations killed the cross bow entirely.

A breech loading mechanism. As soon as you didn't have to ram the bullet down the muzzle reloading time skyrocketed. Rifles became practical. This was really the end of the choice, a firearm was always better at this point.

Flint locks to some extent, and cartridges mostly. As soon as gunpowder and bullet were the same object (And water proof) crossbows lost their main advantage. Use in bad weather.

Early firearms basically didn't work in bad weather. If you had damp powder you could forget about shooting. As soon as that went away, we had a winner on the useability scale as well as the rate of fire.

[Yahzi]

The short answer is: rifling.

But in D&D it's not a fair comparison, because in D&D you want to kill dragons and super-heroes. So the scalability of the hand-cannon would become much, much more important. Messing around with a matchlock to kill a dude in armor might not be worth it, especially if he's on a horse and hard to hit. But against a T-Rex? Or a knight with the same hit points? Totally worth the effort.

[Fouredged Sword]

I would think DnD would see the rise of artillery cannon fairly quickly, for town defense if nothing else. 10 pounds of grapeshot makes for a very bad day if your a dragon.

[StreamOfTheSky]

I would think DnD would see the rise of artillery cannon fairly quickly, for town defense if nothing else. 10 pounds of grapeshot makes for a very bad day if your a dragon.

Cam siege weapons be magically enhanced? Dragons often have DR x / magic.

[Fouredged Sword]

A level 1 village cleric can whip out a casting of magic weapon to enchant that badboy with a bland, but sufficient +1 (or you can stock some oils of magic weapon). In pathfinder, siege weapons can be enchanted just like normal weapons.

[TypoNinja]

Cam siege weapons be magically enhanced? Dragons often have DR x / magic.

YES! It's a weapon. You can even enchant your catapult! Weapons is weapons. Hell Balista are specfically called out as being nothing more than a huge sized crossbow. Enchant the hell out of your weapons, Spell storing ammo anyone? SHBG has lots of suggestions for fun, enchant ammo to heal an area and aim at your own troops even.

The thing is siege engines suck. A barbo with power attack and an enchanted two hander does better. He can swing more often, has better accuracy, and better damage, even at hilariously low levels.

[Hecuba]

Comparative benefits:

Accuracy
In the absence of rifling, a projectile shot from a barrel will have to contend with the Magnus Effect. This causes the projectile to curve away from the plane of fire. As a result, crossbows had better precision until rifles became available for the task in question.
Rifles were available as early as the 15th century, but technical issues with their manufacture persisted until the late 18th century. They began to overtake smoothbore muskets for infantry at this point, with muskets more or less obsolete in the early to mid 19th century.
The most common technical issue was that the powder would foul a rifled barrel more quickly and it would corrode the rifling as it did so. This meant that rifled muskets had higher upkeep, shorter periods of service, slower loading time (as fouled barrels were harder to load), and that their benefits diminished quickly when they were used. Until the time-frame noted above, they were very much a niche tool.
Rate of Fire
Crossbows started with a significantly better rate of fire
The rate of fire of a gun began to catch up to that of a crossbow once firearms became self-igniting.
From a standpoint of the engineering involved, this happened with the invention of the wheellock around 1500.
From a historical standpoint, the wheellock is little more than a footnote. Several intervening technologies popped up well before it hit widespread use. By the time the matchlock was phased out in the 1600s, the flintlock was the technology of the day.

Cost
Several people in the thread have already noted cost as an issue. They are kind-of right, but misleading without further explanation.
Bolts are cheap to make from a materials standpoint, but not a time standpoint. It was important that the bolt be smooth and even, which could not be readily divorced from the woodworker's skill until the later portion of the industrial revolution (late 18th century).
Firearm ammunition was never cheaper in terms of the materials involved any historically relevant period. It did, however, eventually benefit from economies of scale that crossbow bolts did not reach until much later.
Specifically, Europeans learned how to manufacture gun powder on a large scale during the scientific revolution (17th century).
Balls/bullets were always fast (if not cheap) to manufacture.