Repeating crossbows

>>34166202
They were the ancient equivalent of an SMG. Do you think that has no battlefield application?

>muh range

It was not until the 14th century AD or later that you begin to see the development and proliferation of mechanical loading devices/crossbows with extremely high draw weights. Any crossbow that could be loaded by the human body unaided is not going to have an especially great range.

>>34166202
These were basically town militia weapons...stronger Chinese crossbows existed and were used more often than we think but the repeating crossbow was meant for town guards or villagers to shower low power and cheap bolts on invaders from the walls.

>>34166450
>Implying I was Implying

They were used by 100's of soldiers in order to make a real bolt rain

>>34166202
Probably not since that design didn't replace traditional, single shot crossbows. It's pulling the bow that takes time, not really placing the bolt.

>>34166202
without poison i suspect they weren't more than an annoyance.

>>34166202
they were meant to provide high volume of fire against slightly/unarmored opponents, and usually poisoned as the bolts didn't do serious damage.

they seem nice, but they also seem pretty situational in usefulness.

File: 2017-06-05-16-10-55--1587266099.jpg (19KB, 265x191px)

19KB, 265x191px

>not having a repeating crossbow embedded in a metal arm
It's like they're not even trying

Fuck no, it's not the lack of a magazine that makes crossbows slow to reload it's the heavy af spring, and without heavy af spring your crossbow is useless for all but inflicting shallow wounds on unarmored opponents at very close range.