What role could bows play in a setting with blackpowder weapon?

>>52514933
Rate of fire, accuracy at range, affordability.

Easier to arm a thousand peasants with bows than flintlocks.

>>52514933
Whenever you get wet but you still want to kill someone from far away.

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stealth weapons, kinda like in some games nowadays

>pic related

>>52514977
Bows are terrible for this. Bowstrings can't handle moisture, and the bow is going to warp unless it's treated.

>>52515015
The amount of moisture that puts a bow out of action is enormously less than the amount of moisture that puts black powder out of action (or at least the earlier sorts of powder that you'd associate with arquebuses). You can fight with a longbow in the rain. You can't do the same with an arquebus.

>>52515093
>Less
Did you mean more? And maybe, but I feel like compared to the earliest arquebuses, they would have even better advantages.

>>52514968
Anon the opposite is true.

It takes years to build the upper body strength to use a war bow. It also takes years to learn to use one.

Guns were easy to train a peasant to use, taking a few months at most, and making lead balls is easier and cheaper than making arrows.

Accuracy at long range is a non-issue for warfare of the period. Guns would still cause more casulties than arrows simply because of their stopping power even on armoured opponents.

As for the cost involved guns were expensive at first but eventually became cheaper as time went on. A peasant in a colourful coat and a gun is cheaper to pay and equip than a soldier wearing armour and carrying a few melee weapons simply because you could make a few guns with his equipment and give them to more people.

>>52514933
Well, there are plenty of non-freedom, non-american cultures who clearly don't have the right to bear arms or the gun.

Because otherwise they'd be American.

>>52515208
>Accuracy at long range is a non-issue for warfare of the period. Guns would still cause more casulties than arrows simply because of their stopping power even on armoured opponents.

Debatable whether stopping power had anything to do with it. Both bows and guns were used for volley fire, so in warfare, accuracy was meaningless for both.

It also really depends on which generation of guns we're talking about.

>>52514933

Do you mean from the perspective of two armies confronting each other? Obviously taking real life examples the bow isn't going to cut it on the battlefield.

A bunch of adventurers who are out and about with their various skills and experiences not fighting in any sort of convential combat? A potentially useful weapon in such times conditions make the match-lock useless and vice versa.

Two words:

Rocket
Arrows

>>52515366

This. It doesn' matter if the standing army of the time uses the weapon or not, if teh PCs arn't soldiers actively fighting in war they very well may be wielding weapons not proper for war fighting because it's what they do.

That said, you can still hunt with a bow and arrow so one of them could be used to hunting and fighting with one.

>>52515366
>Obviously taking real life examples the bow isn't going to cut it on the battlefield.
You mean the real life where the bow was used alongside the gun for hundreds for years?

>>52514968
>Easier to arm a thousand peasants with bows than flintlocks.

Literally no. A simple gun can take as little as a day to produce, while a bow takes weeks. Further, shooting a gun is far easier than shooting a bow.

>>52515312
A volly of gun shots would still cause more casulties. Arrows suck at killing you dead ASAP. English/Welsh longbows could not pierce plate armour. Hell most bows can't pierce well padded armour. Look up accounts of French Knights fighting muslims during the crusades. Arrows simply suck. Even if one managed to pierce your skin it probably wouldn't kill you unless it got you somewhere important. Bone can stop an arrow.

A lead ball punched through armour easily. It went through your rib cage and you were fucked.


Arrows kill people in the days and weeks after a battle. Guns kill on the field and after too.

>>52514933
>They're inferior weapons so what niche do they play?
You can use them without going deaf.

>>52515312
Bows weren't used for volley shooting, unless you mean a bunch of people stood in one place and were shooting at the same time. They were weapons of individual accuracy, which is why people trained to be able to accurately shoot at long ranges. If they were used in volleys, there wouldn't be nearly the same emphasis on accuracy seen in their use.

>>52514933
Look at history between the late 1300's and early 1700's. There's your answer.

>>52514933

Define inferior. Do you mean ease of training peasants to use them? Stopping power? How quickly ammunition can be made? A bow is definitely inferior in those.

In terms of amount of lead and sulphur required, volume, chance to explode and blow your hands off, the ability to be used in less than perfectly dry conditions or accuracy (assuming primitive enough firearms at various levels) then a bow could be pretty superior.

If all else fails bows could remain as a sport, for recreation, or because learning archery is traditional and still done even if it has no real purpose.

>>52514933
Gunpowder weapons take a long time to reload, aren't very accurate, and are prone to malfunction.
While bows take a much longer time to learn to shot accurately and develop the proper muscles to draw a bow of significant draw weight. Less deadly; although a bow of large draw weight can be just a powerful as a early gun an arrow is a less deadly projectile.

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>>52515093
I mean, all you had to do was stick a plug (tambion) in the muzzle when you weren't using it, and cover the lock with a wrap (cow's knee) to keep rain out of it while firing

like in real life a bow is useful if you dont want to shoot your mate in the back in a fight.
indirect fire is useful

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>>52515803
That's what mortars are for

>>52514933
Horse Archers.
It wasn't until the Napoleonic era when the gunpowder equivalent of carabiniers became a thing.

>>52515366
>A bunch of adventurers who are out and about with their various skills and experiences not fighting in any sort of convential combat? A potentially useful weapon in such times conditions make the match-lock useless and vice versa.
What situations would those be? A bow just doesn't have much penetrating power compared to, say, an arquebus. And even less compared to a musket, but those were bulky and heavy weapons that required a fork to operate. I've saw a video of a man shooting a proper longbow at a gambeson at close range and the gambeson did a proper job at stopping the arrow. I mean, it's gonna hurt, but it's not going to kill you. A heavy lead ball is probably going to fuck you up badly.
In range I've heard they're more or less the same.
The accuracy aspect is also overrated for bows. There's no aiming mechanism and at longer ranges you're going to arc your shoot so it becomes even more of a guessing game. With a gun you just point and shoot.
The only thing the bow has going for is rate of fire but with low stoppage power the only situation I see it useful for is for lightly armored opponents.

Once we played in a sort of valhalla setting where all brave warriors capture castles for fun and then feast inside until morning when all dead ressurect and war starts again. Bad things happen when new brave warriors from Living World bring firearms and cannons. War stopped being fun, ww1 trench warfare boring stufg, castles destroyed, so viking, samurai, knight and stone age hunter gather party to find gods and whine about it to them.

>>52515892
uh-huh
now try and carry THAT around all day while adventuring.

>>52514933
it was a long time before black powder weapons were a more viable option than bows and crossbows.

>>52514933
Making gunpowder on a scale required to arm an army is difficult and expensive. Arrows are made mostly of plentiful wood. So while guns are superior weapons, they require a lot of industry and infrastructure that a nation doesn't necessarily have.

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>>52514933
>They're inferior weapons
Nope, just different advantages and aplications.

Bows would be better for scouts, snipers and skirmishers if your army is mostly made of arquebusiers and/or musketeers.

If in an eastern setting, bows have a status that guns don't.

The 1683 Siege of Vienna ottoman forces had both guns and bows.

>>52514977
>>52515093
http://greatmingmilitary.blogspot.com.br/2015/12/weather-proofed-arquebuses-of-ming.html

>>52515416

One more word:

Bo-hiya

>>52515208
Addendum: an underfed and sickly peasant can still be an effective arquebusier. Try doing the same with knights and archers, you may lose the battle.

>>52515685
It goes a bit earlier. The mongols used trenches to siege a chinese city around 1230, because it used incendiary and explosive grenades, plus trebuchet ammo against the invaders. It seems to be the first registry of trench warfare.

>>52516271
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hand_mortar
Had lots of fun with one of these.

>>52516347
Use all those unemployed fletchers. Plus, it can't be any wood. England imported wood staves, and even demanded that ships at its ports brought them. And not habing to wait that said staves dry for up to a year sounds nice.

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>>52516271
That's what hand gonnes and hand mortars are for

The question of bows being a more physical training-intensive weapon isn't really reflected in most RPGs. Ranged characters are usually alternatives to strength based characters, so bows don't generally have a strength requirement, but in reality you have to be pretty jacked in one arm to make use of a combat-quality bow.

>>52516591
>Nope, just different advantages and aplications.
Eh, history doesn't really reflect this. A quick look at, say, England, the Ottoman Empire, or even Japan refutes this. Were bows still in use? Yes but it was probably because they were still around and a lot cheaper. Here's the cost of weapons in 1566 England.

>According to the historian C. G. Cruickshank, in 1566 a high quality bow of imported yew cost 6 shillings and 8 pence, a bow of second quality was 3 shillings and 4 pence, while a bows of English yew cost a mere 2 shillings. During the latter part of the Queen’s reign, calivers ranged from 12 to 30 shillings and muskets from 18 shillings to £2. With the average cost of a bow being 3 shillings, and a firearm 30 shillings (not including all the associated items that went with musketry), then the cost of refitting a company with gunpowder weapons was very considerable indeed.

So me thinks that bows were still in use because guns were expensive and bows were cheaper. Hence why the Ottoman had both weapons.

Also I don't think a bow would be a sniper weapon or even a skirmish weapon since that was the role of the gunners.

>>52514933
Stealth. Also, flaming arrows - you can't set a building on fire with a firearm, unless you pull some crazy shenanigans.
Watch Brotherhood of the Wolf. Firearms were all the rage, but the guy killed more people with a bow than everyone else did with firearms, just because people were dying before figuring out what was happening.

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>>52514933

Better question what role would bows/crossbows play in a modern/futuristic setting?

They're inferior weapons so what niche do they play?

>They're inferior weapons so what niche do they play?
Fucking rate of fire.
I'm in a TL4 GURPS campaign and reloading his musket would take my dwarf about three times as long as any combat situation we've been in over the last IRL year, which is why we just carry a few spare loaded muskets—which are heavy and not always in reach, so after one shot he needs to go melee.
Meanwhile our elf gets to shoot one or two arrows every damn round if she doesn't fumble her quick draw.

>>52516892
Being legal where guns are not.
t. oppressed unfree yuropoor

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>>52516868

>>52514933
Skirmishing, ambushing, hunting, indirect fire from behind the lines, thus more rounds down range. Find the advantages of flintlocks and bows and their disadvantages, compare to fit them appropriately.

>>52515667
They were trained in accuracy for volley fire, man.

They weren't shooting at targets, they were shooting at markers.

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If you're not slaved to the technological level of some specific point in our history, you can always just go back far enough in time to when guns weren't all that good, at which point they can be overall similar, or even inferior if you so desire, to bows.

Or I guess just slap on some stats that seem to make sense to you and then have the two of them occupy niches in the setting based upon what those stat blocks make them good at.

>>52516868
>you can't set a building on fire with a firearm, unless you pull some crazy shenanigans.

Early on they were quite fond of using firearms to launch bolts instead of bullets, including incendiary ones. This goes for both handheld ones and cannons, with the earliest depiction of a cannon (1326) showing it with a bolt stuffed arse first down the muzzle.

Here's an illustration form 1442 showing it in action.

>>52516802
The fundamental cost of bows was in requiring twenty years of training. One can scrounge up more money, but more time? France attempted longbowmen with half-assed training, it didn't pay off.

The whole concept of the double-armed man shows that England liked its bows despite guns being perfected beyond the dead-end of longbow technology. Composite bows lasted somewhat longer.

Guns eventually become the better choice, but only about the 18th century.

Ottomans spent a lot on their bows, importing the materials from several different regions. It is one of the regions why modern turk archery can't surpass the historical records, they don't know exactly which cattle breed horns to use, or a certain bird is extinct.

>>52514933
Bowmen could be used as second or third line infantry. If distance is properly measured by their officer, they could simply loose over the first line into enemy ranks while the first line advances or shoots.

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>>52515904
You had pistoleers and people did use light weight guns on horseback.

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Incendiary cannon bolt, ca 1330. A metal plate (kinda visible here if you know it's there) nailed to the but keeps it from being blown to splinters on launch.

>>52516892
Because silencers don't work the way video games and TV says they do.

>>52516967

Shotgun shells are incredibly versatile. You can do so much with them because it's really only a matter of what you can reasonably cram into the things. Pellets, granulated materials in general, needles, jury rigged or high quality incendiary compounds. You could probably even use them to deliver straight up explosives, too.

>>52515312
>Debatable whether stopping power had anything to do with it.

Hans von Seldeck remarked on gun's superior penetrative power vs crossbows in letters written during the late 1400s already. He wasn't talking about infantry though, but about mounted crossbowmen who basically were supposed to ride up to other mounted troops and shoot them right in the face.

Which does bear out with what ballistic tests showed.

>>52517318
But apart from youtube videos and the odd lock buster round what actually gets used is pellets or slugs, because that's what works.

>>52514933

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HD3uP_LNQ5g

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>>52517083
The folks dealing with gunpower were called "masters of fireworks" and were in charge of incendaries and explosives.

And really, the first thing anyone with half a mind would notice was that you could make really fricking small arrow launching engines with blackpowder.

10/10, the Romans would adapt.

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>>52517089
>Guns eventually become the better choice, but only about the 18th century.

Unless you either had the power of the English monarchy or an archery culture, guns and crossbows pretty much always were the better choice.

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>>52514933
>What role could bows play in a setting with blackpowder weapon?

Bows are a good way to tie off things, like hair or belts, don't see how gunpowder would change that.

>>52517669
The English for all purposes dropped the longbow by the 16th century. All one has to do is look at cargo found in the Mary Rose ship in 1545 and the Alderney ship in 1592. The Mary Rose had numerous longbows while the Alderney had no longbows and was packed with guns. England had overgone a weapons revolution spurred by their conflict the Spaniards in the Low Countries. Military veterans like Humphrey Barwick, a mercenary and man who trained to use a longbow from childhood, toted the superiority of the arquebus and especially the Spanish heavy musket, which he claimed would be the ultimate weapon if it could be used on horseback. Pretty much by the end of the 16th century anyone showing up to muster with a longbow was considered unarmed.

>>52517089
If the training aspect was the only factor in favoring the gun then why did the elite of various militaries adopt the gun? The Ottoman Janissaries, the Japanese samurai, etc. In Japan the Tanegashima became a central weapon in uniting the country during the sengoku era. Takeda Shingen proclaimed ""Hereafter, the guns will be the most important arms, therefore decrease the number of spears per unit, and have your most capable men carry guns", and the gun had broken the elite cavalry forces of the Takeda clan in the battle of Nagashino. I really doubt training was the only aspect people sought to acquire these expensive weapons, and the fact that even the elite warriors of these societies made use of them says a lot.
The double armed men you mentioned were more of a novelty too.

>>52514933
>What role could bows play in a setting with blackpowder weapon?
bows are accurate, shoot farther, and don't produce a god-awful racket and cloud of smoke when fired. I'm sure you can find a use for that.

1. Early firearms did not reliably penetrate plate. This is demonstrated in hundreds of museum pieces. Even by the late 1600s, a musket could be stopped with a breastplate.

As late as the fucking Napoleonic wars, breastplates (cuirasses) could stop small cartridges fired from pistols.

2. Accuracy was relatively unreliable for hundreds of years. Remember that rifling wasn't a thing until the mid 19th century.

3. The musket didn't make heavy cavalry obsolete. The pike square did. The battle of white mountain was the death knell of the armoured knight.

>>52514977
then you want a crossbow

>>52517939
Samurai infantry generally fought from behind prepared positons, from hiding or from the cover of pavis, defensive positions that really favour the short-ranged power of guns. They didn't drop bows completely though because their volume of fire still was relevant sometimes.

>>52518006
>2. Accuracy was relatively unreliable for hundreds of years. Remember that rifling wasn't a thing until the mid 19th century.

Rifling was a thing during the 1500s already. There's just little point in mass-adaption as black poweder fouls barrels like crazy and rifling makes loading a pain in the butt. And - as some German noticed and pointed out in that nice book'o war that nobody read before the outbreak of WW1: Infantry without officers will always and reliably grab the lighter, faster-firing gun.

>1. Early firearms did not reliably penetrate plate. This is demonstrated in hundreds of museum pieces. Even by the late 1600s, a musket could be stopped with a breastplate.

We got tests, we got documentations of historic useage and we got acutal period comments on the subjects - at close range, guns absolutely did penetrate armour. Body armour noticably changed in reaction to the threat of firearms.

>3. The musket didn't make heavy cavalry obsolete. The pike square did. The battle of white mountain was the death knell of the armoured knight.

It's more likely that the wheellock pistol wielded by cavalry was what reduced lanciers to specialist roles.

>>52514933
as long as we are talking front loading guns a bow can fire much faster then a powder weapon
>>52516099
adventurers lay a trap and the archer can shoot 4 times before the attacked even cocked their flintlocks
>but with low stoppage power
depends entirely on the used bow, you have to be strong to use the stronger ones properly tho

>>52518006
>Remember that rifling wasn't a thing until the mid 19th century.

For military weapons we should add. Hunting and target shooting weapon were the early adopters there, as reload speed and fouling issues form sustained firing weren't so important.

>>52518198
>Infantry without officers will always and reliably grab the lighter, faster-firing gun.

Before promptly dropping it and running for the hills.

>>52518198
>at close range

This is the key sentence here.

>1500s rifling

Was not in any way significant to warfare until the 19th century.

>Wheelock cavalry
Used to attack & redirect said pike squares that rendered knights obsolete.

>>52518006
Anon, none of these things you mention make a bow sound better than a gun. We're not picking away the flaws of early blackpowder weapons but why would one pick a bow over one in a setting that features them.

I mean all three points you made can easily be applied to a bow. Well, maybe not 2 but the bow wasn't an accurate weapon either. Try aiming a 180+ pound warbow, it's not possible to aim it like a rifle and those bows didn't have anything to help aim and if you nock your arrows at an arc it's even more unreliable.

>>52518521
>Used to attack & redirect said pike squares that rendered knights obsolete.

They weren't considered effective against pike squads. They're lightly armed cavalry with relatively little shock power and paltry firepower, heck that Swede actually told his cavalry to draw swords and just ride the infantry down exactly because guns weren't enough.

>>52518521
>This is the key sentence here.

Yeah, but the key issue isn't rifling or black powder but Minié bullets. The first significant leap in range and power came from the switch from non-sealing ball ammo to self-sealing conical projectiles.

>>52517669
As you're including the crossbow and dismissing archery cultures, I agree.

>>52517939
It wasn't, this very thread shows more factors. Try to read the thread you're posting in.

And if poor training is a problem, it's obvious that better training can solve that.

One reason why the gun X bow debate can find historical cases and testimonies in favor of both is that even up to the Napoleonic Wars, even counting only Europe, there was a very unbalanced mix of training and quality both of equipment and recruits when it comes to musketeers and arquebusiers. The very same country could have both kinds at the same time.

But poorly trained firearm troops could still be effective, it simply wasn't possible to poorly train archers and expect something of them.

And I know they were more of a novelty. As I said, longbows reached the dead-end.

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Shock cav á la tatars?

>>52516892
I'm not completely sure on this, but if I am remembering correctly crossbow bolts will penetrate Kevlar.

>>52519568
Anything pointy or sharp will penetrate kevlar, it doesn't resist being stabbed much.

But most armor these days integrates solid plates for resisting rifles anyway.

>>52516591
Ottomans still used bows because they had trouble getting enough gunpowder.

>>52514933
The earlier versions of blackpowder weapons were really shitty for a long, long time. And so were crossbows. Bows were better but required more training, basically.

Fun fact : even in the 18th century, bows STILL had more range than your average musquet.

>>52515803
If a bowshot has any sort of significant arc it is going to have very little power behind it.

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>>52515093
If they've moved on to wheellocks, the advantage is negated.

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Ganz an sheit

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I know that even late into the 20th century in China, the bow had a lot of social and dare I say spiritual importance - it was considered a civilized weapon for nobles to use, and a rigorous amount of training was spent on just learning the proper stance, let alone how to draw and shoot. It was brought into battle, but by the time guns started becoming common, it wasn't expected to be used.

You can't really see this in modern China at all because they pretty much dropped bow shooting entirely, whereas Japan managed to keep the practice alongside their practices of modernization.

>>52519693
range != effective range

The range a warbow could actually reasonably hurt someone at was lower than a gun for most of the time period they were used together.

>>52515803
But you can't see shite from behind your mate. You'll be shooting blindly.

>>52514933
Silence is good

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>>52519693
>The earlier versions of blackpowder weapons were really shitty for a long, long time. And so were crossbows.

This is the earliest documented version of the crossbow in Yrop. It's already a dedicated siege weapon.

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>>52519693
>>52520407
This variant is probably two hundred years younger than that one.

>>52514933
>They're inferior weapons so what niche do they play?

The niche of inferior people (technologically), duh.

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>>52519693
>>52520407
>>52520461
And this one's another two hundred years younger.

>>52520525
>>52520461
>>52520407
Anybody got one of them Han Dynasty crossbows in a pic to compare?

>>52519949
Thanks Mao!

>>52514968
This

Cost aside, early blackpowder weapons were horrible, you were just as likely to miss the target completely as you were to have the weapon blow up in your face. Guns were only easier to train with as advancements in weapon technology were made.

>>52520613
Aren't Han way more recent than classic greeks?

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>>52514968
>accuracy at range
Bows are complete shit at range.

>>52514933
>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Churchill
>Churchill resumed his commission after Germany invaded Poland in September 1939. As part of the British Expeditionary Force to France, in May 1940 Churchill and his unit, the Manchester Regiment, ambushed a German patrol near L'Épinette (near Richebourg in the Pas-de-Calais), France. Churchill gave the signal to attack by cutting down the enemy Feldwebel (staff sergeant) with a barbed arrow, becoming the only British soldier known to have felled an enemy with a longbow in the war.[10] According to his son Malcolm, "He and his section were in a tower and as the Germans approached he said 'I will shoot that first German with an arrow,' and that's exactly what he did."[11] After fighting at Dunkirk, he volunteered for the Commandos.

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>>52514933
Thank you anon for making this thread. The knife-eared faggots who know nothing about real archery is fucking hilarious.

>>52520784
Depends on how early you're talking about? If you're talking about handgonnes which were basically metal tubes filled with gunpowder, maybe.
But weapons like the OP were game changers and not only because of the training aspect. You have a weapon that has better penetrating power and is easier to operate. Armor technology at that point was pretty good. Most armor could deflect arrows, especially plate armor. Even a gambeson could protect you and adding a shield makes arrows less effective.
Later you had even heavier guns that required a rest to use but those had even further range, more stopping power and better accuracy.
Also, guns weren't cheap if that's what you're implying. That's a myth.

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>>52520798
>>52520613
Crossbows in China date back to at least the eastern Zhou (770-221 BC), which could easily place them between one and two hundred years before the greek crossbow (around 300 BC).

>>52517669
>>52520891
Look at all those handgonnes. Seems that with proper preparations, they were good enough to give a crusading army or three a run for their money.

>>52514933
>What role could bows play in a setting with blackpowder weapon?

Weapon used by those of backwards barbarian shitters who can't afford guns.

>They're inferior weapons so what niche do they play?

Saving money by not expending your gunpowder when hunting, and that's about all. Even assuming completely unarmored opponents bows are just straight up inferior against enemy that shoots back.

So I'm currently running a 5e game in a world with relatively gunpowder weapons used in war - cannon are common, while personal weapons are arquebuses and early flintlocks.
If the PCs go sailing or try to build a base, I have to problem with giving them a few cannons or a troop of gunners to command. But guns are explicitly impractical in situations adventurers get up to. Confined spaces, places full of water, fireball-flinging wizards and such.

If they do want to shoot a gun, easy: it's about on par with bows and crossbows in terms of range and damage, but take a DC 15 Sleight of Hand (Dex) check to reload.

's alright?

>>52516318
>it was a long time before black powder weapons were a more viable option than bows and crossbows.

Actually it was pretty much immediately after Europeand came up with matchlocks in the later quarter of XV century, and even before that handgonnes were strong competitors.

The key was penetrating power and lethality. Guns BTFOed every type of armor but the best European plate. Even the best, most complicated man-portable crossbows were weaker, and bows could not compete at all - even against opponents with scarcely more protection that clothing (i.e., an average XVI century Japanese or Korean footsoldier) their effective range was noticeably lower.

>>52516937
And that is only possible by giving the bow a very unrealistic rate of fire. Rapid-firing a bow drastically reduces its stopping power (same for those Chinese repeating crossbows).

>>52514933
Well, in most GW games, the Handgun/Bow/Crossbow balance is something like

Handgun: More power and ignores armor
Crossbow: Cheaper, less damage and more range
Bow: Cheapest, least damage, all ranks can fire in volleys rather than just the first two ranks

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>>52519514
Shock cav á la Reiters

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Guys, when are you supposed to stop bowing whne you make a crossbow? I'm up to six and not sure if I should continue or not.

>>52523470
20 is a good place to stop

>>52514933
>They're inferior weapons
Wrong, until repeating firearms are invented bows still compete just fine. The only real downside of a bow is that it requires more training and a certain level of physicality to use correctly.

If you're talking specifically about military weapons for use in a pitched battle then firearms are superior, because any peasant with functioning hands and eyes can be trained to use one inside of a week, and they're better at penetrating heavy armor.

>>52514933

Bows are cheaper, and break less. A gun can be broken by dropping it and bending the barrel a small amount , a bow takes some damage but works until it is in half.

Also you can usually reload a bow/ crossbow faster; but the gun is deadlier.

Bows were perfectly viable when plate armor was virtually bulletproof.

Well, the invention of firearms renders most armour obsolete, which can be a good thing for bows.
Bows/crossbows also have the advantage of being quiet, which is useful when you're trying to sneak up on an enemy camp.

In a real-life military context, the balance is in favour of guns, but for RPG purposes, they're still useful.*

*Depending on the system.

>>52517178
Silent or not, a guy hit by an arrow is almost never (I'm talking unless you somehow manage to hit his brainstem or something) going to immediately die from getting hit by an arrow, so the shot might be silent but the dude you just hit with an arrow certainly isn't going to be.

Quieter perhaps. Bows don't wake babies next door when they fired.

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>>52514933
Rate of fire, availability of materials/ammo.

In a fantasy setting, one could argue that guns are less conductive to magical enhancement due to their high iron content, or that arrows can hold fancier spells due to their larger size, or that certain races have enough upper-body strength to use bows which outperform primitive firearms.

People seem to forget that early guns produce a lot of noise and smoke. Fine on an open battlefield, but after a couple of shots indoors you can't see or hear much. Also, if stealth is a concern, it's hard to tell where an arrow or quarrel came from in the dark; a gunshot, not as hard.

>>52524009
>Well, the invention of firearms renders most armour obsolete

Not true, it took like almost 2 centuries for firearms powerful enough that plate armor could no longer protect against it, which is why we had knights and guns on the battlefield at the same time for a while. After all the word "bulletproof" came from the fact that armor had to be tested to stop bullets.

I think Cortez's war with the Aztecs showed the issues with guns. Yes the smoke and loud BANG was scary to people who'd never seen it before, but that as a surprise only works once, maybe twice. And guns at the time took so long to reload that it was more efficient to just have a second row of guys with guns behind them for another volley.

>>52514933
Guns didn't really replace bows until they were far easier to mass produce

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>>52514933
I have a setting with black powder weapons, except they're all being used by skeleton cowboys that want to keep people the fuck out of the death god's desert. Some countries have middling intrest in black powder techniques, but the prevalence of magic keeps it niche

>>52517089
>Guns eventually become the better choice, but only about the 18th century.

You mean the 16th century. You know, the era of pike and shot. I fucking hate people on /tg/ who post like they have authority on the subject and they're just a retard with an opinion.

>>52525853
so, just like you?

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>>52514933
>They're inferior weapons so what niche do they play?

>>52525853
Great facts there, surely convinced me of your authority.

>>52519656
Source?

To my knowledge they had vast reserves of saltpetre and earned plenty through trade, but the Tatars just didn't use guns when they had bows (up until the 1900s afaik), and yes, archery had a big place in Ottoman society.

>>52526420
>>52527302
All you have to do is look at history family. You were duped by Anglo propaganda and yewaboos.

>>52514933
actually when early firearms first came out, people still used bows and crossbows a lot, I don't remember exactly why, but apparently they had some sort of advantage, so if your setting is using some thing like the arquebus then I'd say bows/crossbows might still be relevant but if you're using flintlocks and muskets or later firearms then they might be obsolete, don't forget the reload time on crossbows and powder based firearms, bows are quicker.

>>52515208
>it takes years to build the upper body strength to use a warbow

Well i guess its a good thing they are always plowing fields, delivering heavy cargo by land or boat, and other such heavy tasks.

>>52515208
guns only became cheaper after the mass production method was used by manufacturers, it used to be that a master Smith would create a gun from start to finish all by himself, which was impractical since each Smith used different measurements for different guns as they pleased.

but once people realize they can fix the measurements for each part and mass produce each part by itself and then have trained people assemble the firearms easily, since all of them assemble the same, it became cheaper and easier, so it depends on the time period and whether firearms are evolved enough or if they're a relatively new concoction.

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>>52527593
You do realize there's more to factors as to why a weapon is adopted/used beyond simply how 'good' it is? It's not like a videogame, where you get an upgrade in a tech tree and it's automatically better.

For instance, with early guns, even into the early 19th century, a trained bowmen would be able to shoot faster than a trained soldier with a musket. It might be stretching things, but a history book I once read asserted that if Napoleon had soldiers armed with (and trained in the use of) longbows at Waterloo, he would have won.

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>>52516960
>you need permits and license to obtain a crossbow in your cunt
>unless you're a refugee then you get one for free

J U S T
U
S
T

>>52516892

I suppose you could use lots of bows to fire a hail of arrows over obstacles, which is something you really can't do as well with modern firearms, unless you have mortars or grenade launchers or shit...

>>52529370
Which is complete bullshit as that would not only lead to people simply using cloth armor to render bows ineffective, but also bows lacking killing power and RANGE. A musket may not be accurate at long range but it will take a fucking fist sized chunk out of you- these are .60 caliber lead balls. You get shot by a musket , you are either disabled or dead. You get shot by a bow, especially at range? You can probably keep firing.

>>52514933
>guns and bows co-existed for a huge span of actual real world human history
>wtf that doesn't make any sense to my amateur misinterpretation of how the world works based on a couple hours research watching movies and playing games

>>52529370
Anon the bow lacked the killing power of the gun. Even looking at Agincourt there were accounts of knights who led the charge coming out of unharmed because their armor was so effective in protecting them from arrow fire. The English took in a large amount of prisoners during that battle too.

Even a gambeson is good enough to protect from arrow fire.
https://youtu.be/CULmGfvYlso
Here they shoot at a gambeson in what I believe is a close range and the arrow couldn't penetrate it. At longer ranges arrows lose their effectiveness even more and if you add in a shield it becomes even less effective.

In comparison those lead balls will totally fuck you up if they hit you. You should look up videos on just how powerful those musket balls are, it's insane.

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>>52529859
>>52530079
The example was with Napoleon's army at Waterloo suddenly having longbows and the training to know how to use them, alright? I know the longbow has flaws, but the example doesn't imagine the Duke of Wellington sewing up some gambesons or scraping up some armor and shields. Book didn't go that in-depth into it, it was just making a point at how fast one could reload and fire a longbow with proper training, and how that would have fucked up musket armed line infantry of 1815.

The point is really that bows do have some uses over gunpowder weapons in some cases, and a musket - or an older gun, like a matchlock or wheellock - is not automatically better than a bow.

Also, this is a pedantic note, but caliber size doesn't mean that much. It's just the diameter of the barrel. The shot itself might be large, but you have to remember that most muskets weren't rifled, and were using balls instead of bullets, and were mashing everything together in the barrel instead of having it all neatly in a later cartridge. I'm no gun expert, and it would take someone smarter than me to really argue it, but if there can be a .22 caliber rifle and a .22 caliber pistol, and they're obviously not the same power, I think that takes away from the .60 caliber lead ball argument a bit.

>>52530435
https://youtu.be/OSxFY917UH8

>>52530435
Anon you don't know anything about guns. .60 caliber is still .60 caliber. It may not have the sheer modern power of .60 caliber (which is actually not really used anymore, that's more an anti-tank sniper rifle from WWII), it's still a lead ball over half an inch in diameter flying near or at supersonic speeds. It will punch a gigantic hole through you, and spread lead poisoning throughout your body.

https://youtu.be/ZyW_K7rkGls?t=520

>>52529637
Seriously where the hell do you live?

>>52516099
>What situations would those be?
Let's see...

When you need stealth, speed, precision, or just a cheap weapon. Like, when you want to hunt for game so you can eat something other than trail rations, or just taking out the orc guarding the poorly locked treasure chest WITHOUT alerting the entire place to your position.

Poisoned arrows against exotic foes you need poison for some reason. Or silver headed arrows (arrowheads are probably more reusable than bullets). Flame arrows. Possibly magick-ing bows is easier.

>>52514933
as far as the revolutionary war people considered using longbows instead of flintlocks, only vetoing it since they didnt have time to raise an army of them

an adventurer, being an incredibly skilled fighter, and incredibly good at small group fighting, would find a bow more useful than an arquebus

>>52529370
>if Napoleon had soldiers armed with (and trained in the use of) longbows at Waterloo, he would have won.
wew son

>>52531163
he would have won the battle not the war, since he would have been unable to sustain his losses, and he would have run his treasury dry trying to make enough arrows

>Longbows going from "can pierce plate" to "stopped by cloth"

what a crazy fucking ride.

>>52531153
>people considered using longbows instead of flintlocks
Are we talking about the same Revolutionary War? Where one of the most famed parts of American guerilla tactics was their ability to snipe with Kentucky rifles?

>>52514933
Look to history. Bows were used almost into the 18th century in the Border Marches between England and Scotland by reiver clans on both sides of the border. They were used because they were cheaper to acquire than firearms, quieter during their cattle raids and had a higher rate of fire. In addition they could take the time to properly train with them.

>>52515904
Absolute nonsense. People were using guns on horseback the moment guns became light enough to shoot on horseback

>>52531185
the redcoats seriously considered using the longbow, since it had an amazing RoF and was silent

it was discarded since it was too expensive to consider

also, said rifles were not a good comparison, firing far slower than a standard musket, needing a hammer to use the ramrod

>>52531185
You mean a few untrained skirmishers who didn't get shit done until the French funded then, trained them and they got muskets?

>>52531228
A few documents quickly raised and discarded does not seriously consider make.

>>52514933
Bows can shoot over things. Walls, hills, trees, any sort of terrain or obstacles.

>>52531274
The ratio of people that had muskets to people that didn't was not ideal, but there were a few crack shots in between the mass stupidity that was the revolutionary military. Also, the Kentucky rifle was based on German rifles, so we can tack that onto the list of things stolen innovated by Americans.

the last predominantly longbow battle was fought in 1644, well into the age of pike and shot

it was suggested for use as late as the 1700s, with an archer company actually existing at the time, although it was now a niche weapon

for the purposes of most RPGs, where you play as a skilled individual, fighting at relativle close ranges with small groups, a longbow would be very tempting offer, especially when the repeating rifle does not yet exist

>>52524142
Even if the guy who is dying from an arrow is screaming their lungs out, in the middle of the night, a bow gives nothing away about which direction people are being attacked from, whereas a gun has noise and flash. Furthermore, the opening advantage will still persist for a few rounds while the ambushed party ascertain that Bob didn't just stub his toe, and he's suddenly actually fucking dying, in the absence of any detectable gunshot or bullet noises.

I mean, I'm not saying that a Bow is even remotely comparable in killing power to a gun, and to be similarly accurate you'd need an order of magnitude more training, but in a situation where you are attacking people in low light or with obscured vision so that seeing the shooter isn't just a given, the lack of noise from a bow prevents people from identifying where to search for the shooter. Sure, you can eventually figure it out from the orientation of the arrows, but that requires quite a number of missed arrows before you get a good idea, arrows can easily tumble or spin as they embed in surfaces, and ones that hit people tell you next to nothing.

Basically you get an extra 10 to 20 seconds more than with a firearm before your shooting position is identified, in an ambush under ideal conditions.

>>52520847
>who fought throughout the Second World War armed with a longbow, bagpipes, and a basket-hilted Scottish broadsword.

>Nicknamed "Fighting Jack Churchill" and "Mad Jack", he is known for the motto:
>"Any officer who goes into action without his sword is improperly dressed."

If Shogun 2 taught me anything, is that you can shoot over the hills with a bow

Also more precision

>>52531854
please don't take that as a good reference for how real combat works, nor historical accuracy for that matter.

One of the few things i will give that game though, is the morale impact of small arms fire

>>52529370
>but a history book I once read asserted that if Napoleon had soldiers armed with (and trained in the use of) longbows at Waterloo, he would have won.
anglos shouldn't be allowed to publish shit anymore if it relates to the napoleonic era

>>52527728
Random manual labour doesn't train the required muscle anon. There was a reason the english required archers to train with the thing from childhood. Your examples would be like taking an olympic swimmer and expecting him to be an effective olympic runner. They just aren't teained for it.

>>52514933
It punches through plate armor. Unlike bows
>inb4 muhbodkinarro-
stop
https://youtu.be/Ej3qjUzUzQg

>>52531975

Why not? We won, and the victor always gets to write the histories.

More seriously, the quote you made actually refers to a specific example which assumes as the two armies marched into firing range, the French were magically suddenly equipped with excellent longbows, all French soldiers suddenly had twenty years experience shooting them, and their enemies had no time to adjust tactics or equipment. The argument is that their rate of fire and accuracy could then have made the difference in the battle and swung the outcome, which is arguably (only arguably) true.

Obviously if Napoleon had actually tried to equip his forces with longbows that wouldn't have worked for a huge list of reasons, but the example isn't trying to argue it would.

Lots of anons in this thread are assuming accuracy and rate of fire are important factors in a large battle.

When armies faced one another they would do it for hours, even days at a time and often not even engage in combat. Before guns entered the stage arrows and cross bows would be used to skirmish/bait/damage the enemy during this time.

It happened like this because both commanders didn't want to make the first and possibly fatal move. Eventually one side would charge and the skirmishers would step back to retire or join the fighting as regular troops.

As other Anons have pointed out arrows have an awful kill ratio to shots fired. This is where even early guns had an advantage.

Gunners would fire at the enemy army while it simply stood there. This would either push the enemy back or envourage them to attack.

Accuracy doesn't matter. The enemy are directly in front of you in a large formation.

Rate of fire does not matter every one of your hits is a kill or a serious wound. They're going to continue to stand there, move away or attack. All of which are good results.

>They will just use their archers to shoot your gunners

Early gunners also wore padding and armour. Arrows wouldn't kill them.

In small skirmish battles an early gun is an idiotic weapon to bring along. You need the protection of a formation, just like all skirmish troops, yes even archers.

Similar examples are how Romans liked to fight. They would encourage undisciplined enemies to attack because the Romans were firing all sorts of crazy shit at them.

>>52532025
cause they've seriously corrupted the general perception of the era thanks to dominance of the English language.
They've downplayed all their allies massively , demonized the french
and act self righteous about the whole thing to boot
the example of longbows was just so innately retarded to warrant a hyperbole

>>52532194
>Lots of anons in this thread are assuming accuracy and rate of fire are important factors in a large battle.

I think the more fallacious base assumption is that every conflict the players get into is one of a large battle, and that weapons should only be evaluated by their usefulness of such situations.

>>52514979
Arrows aren't silent, nor are they instantly lethal. Sure the guy you shot with an arrow screaming in pain is much quieter than a gunshot, but it's still enough so set an alarm.

>>52532025
I say it's nonsense. Even if they had these longbowmen they would be at a very severe disadvantage. First they wouldn't have a bayonet so not much defense against cavalry.
Second accuracy doesn't mean much. Both musketeers and longbowmen weren't going for accuracy but to unleash as much ammo into the enemy as possible. Napoleonic era muskets were less accurate than their predecessors but they could be loaded faster.
Third is for how long can the longbowmen maintain their battlefield efficiency? They're going to tire a lot faster than musket armed troops since shooting a longbow would be a tiring affair. Loading a gun on the other hand is less tiresome.
Fourth the longbows would lack the killing power of a musket.

>>52531416
>a bow gives nothing away about which direction people are being attacked from
Apart from an arrow flyin out of your position clearly visible to anyone with a functioning set of eyes. It's like using a sniper rifle with tracer rounds - your position would be instantly compromised.

>>52532361
>First they wouldn't have a bayonet so not much defense against cavalry.
AFAIK historically longbowmen carried (war)hammers and wooden spikes to set up anti-cavaly spike lines.

>>52532374
If you are looking for the arrow, sure. If you just hear a "thud" as bob hits the ground with an arrow sticking out of his throat, less so.

Arrows also don't glow like tracer rounds, so a lot harder to see in the dark.

>>52531153
Depends on how the group the adventurer is fighting is armed.
If the group has decent armor I'd wager a gun might provide to be more useful. Of its lightly armored targets I'm sure the bow could be efficient but if they're armed with shields it might prove to be problematic.

>>52516099

You can shoot a bow very accurately. Modern methods include string-walking and gapping (modern archery tech not actually necessary for either) and instinctive shooting's been around forever.

Arrows actually penetrate very well - more depth of penetration in flesh than through hard armour though. Points are sharp and non-deforming and arrows are heavy, long and skinny.

>>52514933
For many years, the bow remained the better weapon. It had a higher accuracy and rate of fire. However, it took years of training and upper body strength to use effectively. Guns on the other hand could be mass produced and distributed to peasants. These peasants could be trained within a few weeks.

>>52518198
What exactly is this German Book o' War? I always enjoy reading books that accurately predict future developements ten years in advance.

>>52533057
I'm guessing he's talking Carl von Clausewitz's -''Vom Kriege''

>>52514968
Reliability, silence, usability in inclement weather (low vs. none).

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>>52514968
>Bow
>Accuracy
>At range
>Affordability
>Easier to arm a thousand peasants with bows than flintlocks

>>52533101
Are you at least aware bow relies on the flexibility, which is related with the fact the wood is not soaked, just like the string?
Weather kills bows more than it kills blackpowder weapons, you fucking moron

>>52532653

Problem is that rate of fire of guns until the 18th century was in shots per minute. IF THAT.
So, the Bow had a better rate of fire and could be fired over the heads of intervening infantry.
On the other hand, as people rightly point out, archery training took time.

One English king was so impressed by Welsh Longbows that after he was finished murdering everyone, salting their earth, burning their villages to the ground and leaving nothing but a destitute people with statisically the highest suicide rates to this day in all of Europe he decided to make Archery Training and Church the ONLY things you could do on a sunday.
But this is a famous and well known story.

>>52533124

Well, bows DO have fewer industrial and mechanical processes to make. I mean, a gun doesn't need skill to use, but it DOES need skill to make, plus you need a powder mill capable of supplying you with enough powder on top of all the lead balls you're going to need.

Bows, by comparison, practically grow on trees.

>>52533156
making a good bow takes more than just having some good wood huehuehue
It took some skill to make a bow meant for more than hunting small game.
It wasnt a laymans skill to make a military-use bow.


I still support your argument, but i just wanted to point that out.

>>52514933
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEG-ly9tQGk
For an army, gunpowder weapons are great.
But for individual heroes, having a bow would be a huge advantage.

>>52533242

I think we've also got to make sure people know the difference with amount of time and training people need for normal shortbows versus the fucking English Memebow, which is different from the Longbow in the same sense that the Bastard Longsword statblock doesn't accurately portray a Japanese Katana in D&D.

>>52533156
>Well, bows DO have fewer industrial and mechanical processes to make
>Bows, by comparison, practically grow on trees.
Yeah, if you want to make a TOY. Not even hunting bow is that easy to make and it's still unsuitable for combat.

If you seriously think that bowmaking = picking a branch and adding a string, then you are fucking retarded and shouldn't be allowed to speak about the subject.

Bows went almost extinct by 1450s in warfare, replaced almost entirely by crossbows, which were - wait for it - CHEAPER to make and easier to train people using them....
... and by 1540s, guns were already so cheap and widespread, your town militia in random German town was having them, because they were 4 times cheaper than even most primitive crossbow.

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>>52533156
>Bows, by comparison, practically grow on trees.
Please tell us already you are just pretending to be retarded

>>52533139
Please learn basic English, bpfag.

>>52533342
Can you provide a source on the prices? Seems unrealistic that the loading gear and other ironwork would be more expensive than a bow.

>>52533380
He's not wrong.

>>52533531
>Seems unrealistic that the loading gear and other ironwork would be more expensive than a bow.
How new to /tg/ are you?

We literally have this thread on DAILY basis. It's been discussed to death at this point. What next? Plate armor being heavy and constricting?

>>52533531
To make a gun you need:
- iron
- iron worker
- piece of elastic metal for spring, could go without it
- piece of carved wood, any wood would do
- roughtly a day of work with anyone who knows how to make a gun and has most basic tools

For bow you need
- specific type of wood
- seasoning it for few years in proper condition
- putting it in special "cast" to bend properly, assuming the wood itself was free from any imperfections
- stay in the cast for few weeks/months
- all done by experienced bowyer, who will need to guide the entire process

The sole fact you need to have specific type of wood stored in specific conditions and for guns you can use casted iron pretty much makes bow absurdly costly to make due to demand for very specific materials that can't be easily get and most importantly - can't be get on a whim.

>>52533284
That entire video is faked and not real. He even came out later about it and said it was an experimental video to see how easily people can be taken for a ride.

>>52514933
Well in my campaign guns have pretty much completely supplanted the bow and crossbow in military usage but for civilians including my adventurers, bows and crossbows still have a use.

The campaign does only have wheel and match lock guns though which makes them impractical for impromptu use and hunting or alternatively phenomenally expensive. Once flint based ignition systems become accessible I can't really see archery as being much more than a hobby.

Other than that sound, smoke and smell might be reasons to not use a gun. Especially in enclosed spaces or when trying to be discrete.

A world where gunpowder is expensive

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>>52533458
Please fuck off

>>52533687
Literally impossible, since the ingredients are one of the most common resources in nature. And removing them from nature would pretty much kill the life on the planet that lack them.

>>52533716
salt is one of the most common resources in nature and that was valuable at one point in time

>>52533342
>Bows went almost extinct by 1450s in warfare
In Western Europe, that happend half a century earlier. And the only people using bows in Eastern were horseback raiders, since, duh, they were all Tatar auxiliaries anyway.

>>52533744
>Being this retarded
Why didn't you post already the meme pasta about salt being valued more than silver and that salary comes from the Roman pay of soldiers in salt, yada yada yada...

... salt became cheap by High Medieval, you fucking scrub. And has absolutely zero relation with the fact it's piss-easy to get charcoal, sulphur and saltpeter.

>>52533716
>just because the ingredient is abundant in nature must mean that it is easily attained by all cultures around the world in equally large quantities
I surely hope you don't believe this

>>52516937
>I am going to use a table top game mechanics as evidence for a real world situation

Wow. Never thought I would actually see someone this retarded on /tg/.

>>52533793
>What role could bows play in a setting with blackpowder weapon?
>in a setting
stop comparing everything to real life autist, it is perfectly reasonable for a world to exist where those resources are either not available for everyone in equal amounts or mostly hoarded by some sort of entity

>>52533836
>I am going to use a real world situation to stop any discussion about fantasy scenarios
this is /tg/, not /k/

if everything stopped at "no, it's unrealistic, it doesn't make sense in real life" then there would be nothing to fucking discuss on this board.

>>52516937

That's not modern OR futuristic, learn to read.

>>52516892
Stealth perhaps, or maybe a hunting weapon, or maybe a weapon that can get around most weapon license laws. Maybe you need to go "inna woods" for such a long time you'd be better off crafting arrows than trying to conserve bullets.

>>52515208
99% of English longbowmen in history wouldn't meet your entry requirements. Can you lift a 30kg object off the floor with one hand?
If you answered yes you're strong enough to be a bowman.
What you're describing are retinue archers with their strings twisted 1000 times and bows our current worlds strongest men couldn't draw.
A bow is a cheap peasants weapon, easily made and maintained.

>>52515208
>It takes years to build the upper body strength to use a war bow. It also takes years to learn to use one.
Not every country needs to field professional longbowmen. Let a few thousand peasants use simple hunting short bows, teach them how to draw and fire the bow and you are good.

>>52532017
>It punches through plate armor.
Actually i don't. High-caliber muskets punch through plate, but pistols and low-caliber guns only dent it.

>>52514933
They could be used to check for traps and snapping for dramatic effect.

as soon as states actually got their shit together and managed to govern even half-efficiently, gunpowder became a lot harder to acquire. Not saying that makes bows necessarily entirely viable, but if you're going for a early-modern setting its certainly something to think about.

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>>52533981
I wonder why we had to make 16kg helmets only to hope to stop a bullet

>>52534071
Historically "bulletproofing" is firing at armor piece with a pistol at point-blank. In Germany people often bulletproofed armor right in the armorers shop before buying it, and armorer was even expected to fix the dent at no additional cost.

>>52534141
The one impact on this helmet is due to bulletproofing actually

>>52533935
>with their strings twisted 1000 times

Forgive me

Right lads, I've had enough. I'm through with all this "large shortbow" pish-posh that's going on in the d20 system right now. The noble Longbows deserve much better than that. Much, much better than that.

I should know what I'm talking about. I myself commissioned a genuine yeoman's Longbow in England for £1,000.00 (that's about $1,245.20, for you colonial heathens) and have been practicing with it for almost 2 years now. I can even pierce slabs of solid plate armour with my Longbow.

English bowyers spend days working on a single Longbow and twist its strings over 1,000 times to produce some of the finest weapons known to man.

Longbows are thrice as easy to train as a musket and thrice as deadly for that matter, too. Anything a musket ball can punch through, a Longbow's arrow can punch through better, and more accurately too. I'm quite certain a Longbow could easily pierce the lung of a French knight wearing full plate armour.

Ever wonder why medieval Europe never bothered conquering England? Quite right, they were too scared to fight the disciplined Yeomen and their implements of destruction. Even during the Hundred Years' War, which the English won, the French were scared of English longbowmen because their killing power was feared and respected. Hence why the English won.

So what am I saying? Longbows are simply the best ranged weapon that the world has ever seen, and thus, require better stats in the d20 system. Here is the stat block I propose for Longbows:

Light Longbow (Two-Handed Martial Weapon) 1d12 Damage 19-20 x4 Crit +2 to hit and damage Range 200ft

Heavy Longbow (Two-Handed Exotic Weapon) 2d10 Damage 17-20 x4 Crit +5 to hit and damage Range 280ft

Now that seems a lot more representative of the piercing power of Longbows in real life, don't you think?

tl;dr = Longbows need to do more damage in d20, see my new stat block. Now get me some tea.

>>52534165
>Even during the Hundred Years' War, which the English won,

I lost it here

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>>52534165
Modernized longbows when.

>>52534229
Anon, you don't understand. I've actually had Englishmen try and convince me that the English won the Hundred Years' War. I've also had to deal with my dad, who is Irish (and a Dubliner, at that) try and convince me of the same thing.

Their arguments are beautiful - like, even better than the best American argument that we didn't "lose" the Vietnam War - but they always fall apart over one very simple fact: The war was fought over the English Crown trying to retain control over Aquitaine, and at the end of the war, the English did not control Aquitaine.

Ipso facto, the English lost.

>>52529370
This sounds like a copypasta.

>>52533935
>their strings twisted 1000 times
Gloriuos Saxon strings. Twisted one thousand times!

>>52533678
I don't believe that's true. He said that yes, he isn't using a high poundage bow (but a hero with more strength / more training should be able to do it).
He did a few retakes, so yes he is not 100% accurate (Shocking, I know)
Maybe he misunderstood some of his historical sources, but that's largely not the point. His technique works.

>>52534165
>Ever wonder why medieval Europe never bothered conquering England?
1060s-70s – Sweyn Estridsson invades in the north, then East Anglia (2)
1208 – Channel Islands seized by Eustace the Monk (1)
1216 – French invasion of Kent, which sees their leader crowned (1)
1217 – Eustace the Monk invades near Sandwich (1)
1338/9 – Attack on Harwich, Southampton, Plymouth, Jersey (twice), Guernsey, Alderney and Sark (8)
1340 – French raids along the south coast, at least six landings (6)
1360 – Attacks on Sandwich, Rye, Hastings and Winchelsea (4)
1373 – Another French invasion of Jersey (1)
1376 – Attack on Rye (1)
1377 – Raids on Rye (twice), Rottingdean, Portsmouth, Dartmouth, Plymouth, Isle of Wight, Winchelsea, Folkestone, Southampton, Poole) (11)
1380 – Winchelsea attacked again (1)
1386 – Winchelsea attacked once more. There were also landings in Kent (2)
1415 – Isle of Wight attacked (1)
1408-1415 – Raids on Isle of Wight and two on Dartmouth by French privateers (3)
1418 – Winchelsea raided once more (1)
1461 – French invade Jersey (1)
1487 – Lambert Simnel, the pretender to the throne, landed in Lancashire, backed by a foreign force (1)
1491 – Perkin Warbeck, another pretender, lands in Ireland to gain support for his claim (1)
1495 – Warbeck invades in Kent (1)
1497 – Warbeck invades in Cornwall (1)
1545 – Isle of Wight, invaded by French in campaign which also saw the loss of the Mary Rose (1)
1595 – Cornwall invaded by the Spanish (1)
1601 – Spanish landings at Cork (1)
1627 – Barbary pirates land and occupy Lundy (1)
1620s – Barbary attacks around Conwy (1)
1631 – Barbary sacking of Baltimore, Ireland (1)
1636 – Barbary raid on St Keverne, Cornwall (1)
1640 – Barbary attack on Penzance (1)
1667 – Dutch landings at Sheerness and Felixstowe (2)
1688 – William of Orange lands, leading to the Glorious Revolution (1)
1690 – French raid Teignmouth (1)

>>52514933

Whatever Role you want, if your DMing it's your world if you want arrows to say NIGGER as you shoot you can

>>52534641
Those are invasions or raids. That's not the same thing as conquering a place.

Also, surely you recognize the "Katanas are underpowered in d20" copypasta.

>>52534641
It's a meme you dip

>>52534687
>>52534695
>It's a meme
I know. So is 'never been raided since 1066'.

>>52534686
I get what your saying anon but bullets can fuck shit up good and shred organs and so on.

>>52527728
Know what the draw weight on a english longbow is?
100-185lbs.
today's hunting bows are usually around 60lbs.

>[My yeoman father] taught me how to draw, how to lay my body in my bow ... not to draw with strength of arms as divers other nations do ... I had my bows bought me according to my age and strength, as I increased in them, so my bows were made bigger and bigger. For men shall never shoot well unless they be brought up to it.

>>52534687
>Those are invasions or raids. That's not the same thing as conquering a place.

Remind me.. when was the last time the Islands weren't ruled by the Romans, the French, the Dutch or the Germans?

300-400 AD?

>>52537243
1066. The Normans weren't Romans, French, Dutch, or Germans. They were descended from Norse people from Denmark, Iceland, and Norway.

>>52515208
>take some years to build up the upper body strength

This was true for the English longbow but for some reason people now assume it was true for all bows. Standard hunting bows and composite bows used across the world were fairly easy to draw and incredibly easy to use. True they didn't have to he same stopping power or armour penetration as a longbow but used on mass or at short range they were simple and easy to use. Posted from phone so sorry about typos.

>>52516099
A bit of an autistic nitpick but arquebusiers didn't use supporting stands, early musketeers did, as the early musket was a heavy arquebus.

>>52537339
>French-speaking people with vast holdings in France and a claim to the French crown aren't French guise

The strongest Reality Marble.

>>52537921
If we use that logic, >>52537243's logic is also faulty because then England has been ruled by the English since time immemorial, since the Normans, Germans, French, and so on, just married into and became subsumed in the local population. Remember that the English language is the result of Norman men-at-arms trying to pick up Anglo-Saxon tavern wenches.

I don't do double standards, but I am willing to adjust my standards to meet someone else.

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>>52537339
>1066. The Normans weren't Romans, French, Dutch, or Germans. They were descended from Norse people from Denmark, Iceland, and Norway.
Stop fucking reaching britbong. The Normans had lived in Normandy for over a century and had been mixing with the locals since the first day. By 1066 they would have barely had any norse blood left in them, and they were assimilated by French culture. They were the French version of weirdo Appalachians speaking boonie French, but you still got conquered by Frogs.

Oh yeah and the Queen can trace her bloodline straight back to William, so you're still ruled by frogs.

>setting teaming with fairytale nastiness
>Why WOULDN'T your average woodsy wanderer want to use a weapon that can be heard for literally miles around?

I haven't the foggiest.

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>>52534165
There is nothing to forgive.

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>>52533674
To be fair, if you're making a gun with the worst materials, you are going to get a crappy gun. And you can see from the Chinese Mystery Pistols on Forgotten Weapons, or similar cottage industry weapons in some areas, that you can range from 'surprisingly okay' to 'do not even try shooting this.' Even obviously skilled metalworkers didn't always know quite what various parts meant if they were just handed a gun and told to make copies.

In the same vein, you could make a bow a lot more cheaply than what you're describing. It would just be very very crappy.

>>52516271
Just to illustrate how broken some fantasy strength systems are, I had a character that actually could carry that around all day.

I played Arduin and got some half-djinn blood in character creation and ended up with some stupid high strength stat and ended up being kinda tall, too. Arduin is easy to break, but it's supposed to be used in groups where RPing and balance is treated carefully by trusted players and GMs. Dude was some sort of leviathan hunting pirate braggard, and mainly used rapiers because for reasons he felt it gave him an air of aristocratic legitimacy. He broke them every crit, so instead of a sheath on his belt, he had a quiver of cheap rapiers. All that is beside the point, though... He also carried a naval-warfare grade, normally ship-mounted arbalest, cocked and loaded (with a safety) and two extra missiles. (Didn't use it much in the city. Being all STR and moderate DEX, he hit about 50% of his shots, and the misses caused collateral damage. That was alright at sea or well outside the town, but he was banned from setting foot in one major port city because a missed shot caused the collapse of a stone tower in some low level encounter with street punks.)

I think I was the third most powerful PC that campaign.

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>obvious false flag OP brings all the bowfags and their misconceptions about early gunpowder weapons

>>52538274
>Distinct identities and ethnicities don't fucking matter because muh melting pot ideology

Thanks burger.

>>52534641
So yeah. Why did Medieval Europe never bother conquering England?

>>52534719
Never been successfully invaded. No one said not raided.

>its a people sperg out because Britain is mentioned thread.

Nope.

>>52532340
Try screaming with a sucking chest wound.

>>52545308
They don't matter when the Normans were speaking French, ate French food, fucked French women, wrote French, were practicing Catholics, had French names, and wore French fashion.

They were as Danish as my "Irish" friend who is in fact mostly latino yet claims to be Irish because 100 years ago one great grand parent was an Irish immigrant.

Face it Limey, you're ruled by French. The Saxons haven't even held high status since the invasion, statistically Saxons are less likely to be high income earners than Normans.

>>52514933
Because you want to.

>>52545406
Okay.

>>52545406
>>52546328
I find this exceedingly difficult.

>>52514933
Most of this thread seems to ignore the fact that pre-modern and early modern firearms were hardly static technology, and it's hard to argue the relative merits of bows and guns without knowing what kind of guns we're talking about, and what application we're considering them for, for that matter. What may be an effective weapon when used en masse by soldiers on a relatively open field for a set piece battle may be comparatively inferior when used at the skirmish level by a squad of explorers sneaking around ruins, where an ambush could lie around any corner. "Oh, shit! We're being ambushed! Let me spark this fucker up. Give me a minute here, guys." Also, guns were loud and produced a lot of smoke, which might be problematic indoors. Speaking of firing indoors, how attached to being able to hear are you? And finally, even if firearm technology is such that it's generally superior to bows for the application you're considering, at least in the hands of common men (cost, easy of use, etc.), it doesn't necessarily follow that it will be superior in the hands of experts.

>>52522821
Caracole is for pussies.
CHARGE!

>>52516892
>Better question what role would bows/crossbows play in a modern/futuristic setting?
To beat people over the head with after you've fired an arrow or two for dramatic effect?

>>52542188
So in the end you will end up with a weapon that is crap and easy to use, easy to train and still has consistent stopping power AND a weapon that is crap, hard to use, hard to train and with no stopping power.

See how gun won this one too?

>>52545308
>Identities
Normans identified themselves as French, so where are you going with this?

Your own fucking language is ever since running on French loans. You ever wondered why all meat words in your language has French background? Because that's what the lord ate in his manor. How it's girlfriend when it's non-commitment relationship, but fiancee when it's serious stuff? Should I continue with this?
Go fucking figure.

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>>52514933
>What role could bows play in a setting with blackpowder weapon?

OH I DUNNO
MAYBE THE ROLE THEY PLAYED ALONGSIDE BLACKPOWDER WEAPONRY FOR 500 YEARS OF HUMAN HISTORY

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>>52547719
>How to die in stupid charge: 101

>>52514933
If your setting has magic, it might be possible for mages to use a simple charm that sparks gunpowder from a distance, making it ineffective to field en masse against an army that might have a mage, whereas bows don't suffer that weakness.

>>52545329
Well, it's a bow thread, so it's a given it will attract angry Anglos with their memebows

Advantages of bows: quiet, lighter than all but the smallest black powder firearms, handle water better, arrows are potentially re-usable.

There is also the issue of cleaning black-powder guns. Black gunpowder is very corrosive so anything which fires it needs to be cleaned very regularly. Has your engagement with the foe ended? If you're committed to the whole RP thing you are going to spend one hour in-game time cleaning the damn thing. This also means carrying around some sort of solvent and/or gun oil, a real stiff (ideally fine wire) brush, a bore brush of some sort and dedicated cloth.

>>52548390
>bow
>handle water better
>arrows are potentially re-usable
I fucking hate Hollywood for selling this to people.

Also, did you've just implied bows don't need extensive conservation effort to keep them is useful conditions?
And if you are going to clean a gun for a hour, then your character is probably disabled, both mentally and physically.

>>52538972
>Have you seen that monster still charging at us with 20 arrows in it's body?
>It only stopped when Greg blown its fucking head off with his handcanon
I don't know either

>>52533810
>Implying sulphor, saltpeter and charcoal aren't easily obtainable by just about anyone, anywhere
All three of those require presence of two things: humans and wood.
As long as you are human and have wood, you can get all three of those.

So yeah, it's easy to get.

>>52533855
Oh, so let me get this straight - we are suppose to judge your head-canon, which you never bothered to share with anyone, rather than use the data everyone can access on their own.
Marvelous!

>it is perfectly reasonable for a world to exist where those resources are either not available
Read above reply. That's how "gunpowder is impossible to make, because you don't have resources" is a total bullshit.

>>52533867
Did you just tried to invaluat the entire argument by saying "lol, wizard did this"?
Question was asked. Answers were given. Nobody gives a fuck if you like them.

>if everything stopped at "no, it's unrealistic, it doesn't make sense in real life" then there would be nothing to fucking discuss on this board.
No, it would simply remove the faggots meming bows as useful weapons from making threads like this once per odd day

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>>52516892
Sports and recreation

>>52514968
>affordability.

If we are talking Europe in say the 14th thru 17th century the firearms of period were cheaper then English longbows. That is the reason why the English Army moved to the gun in the 1570s.

>Easier to arm a thousand peasants with bows than flintlocks.

To use a bow, especially in mass combat , effectively needed a fair amount of training. Flintlock armed line infantry is usable in as little as 3 weeks and is "very well drilled" in 8 weeks.

I know, I know, vidya example on /tg/, but still, I always find it a great game mechanics
Have anyone of you played Age of Wonders? Ranged units there can be roughtly divided on 5 groups:
- darts
- bows
- crossbows
- guns
- siege engines

Each unit has two stats governing their attack (attack and damage), and two representing their defense against them (defense and HP).
So while darts can be thrown 4-5 times per round and bows can be fired 3 times, they both have pretty abysmal attack stat, meaning most units will simply resist the attack with no damage dealt. They are thus great for killing fodder. Crossbows and guns fire once, but they both pack a serious punch both in damage and attack stat. Crossbows might deal less damage (slightly) than guns, but they have better (slightly) range than them and are usually used by low-tier units, so they are easier to access early on. And then there are siege engines, which all fire once per round, but they pack a serious punch both in damage and attack, but depending on weapon, their aiming might be problematic. Still, a single ballista (basic siege engine) can hit reliably things that darts and arrows won't even scratch and crossbows and handguns are unreliable against, but obviously cannon is even better than that.

Simple, reliable, fun.
tl;dr - bows are shit against anything that isn't small animal and unarmored humanoid, crossbows and guns are great against everything bigger/armored/both

>>52548749
>Flintlock armed line infantry is usable in as little as 3 weeks
The firing training takes about two days. The rest of that period is spend on making them fire on command and in time, rather than anything else.
So it's even faster when you want to just get some auxiliary militia or similar cannon fodder, like the French did in the initial stages of their wars against different coalitions (pre-Napoleon)

The entire argument is invalidated by simple logic.
Shields can block arrows and bolts. They can't stop bullets, unless you want to turn your shield into impractically heavy object attatched to your arm

>>52514933
Easier to use off horse back ( not by very much), better at focus firing down one part of the line via firing in up to 6 ranks deep in arches at high speed, in the age of matchlocks are a fire hazards when used on ships. Ottoman and French navies in the 16th century were late in changing over to firearms for that reason. Italian sailors on the other hand were very welling to take that risk.

>>52515667
>They were weapons of individual accuracy

Not to the English in field battles. They would focus on part of the line and fire up to 16 volleys a minute. They would be out of ammo in about 2 minutes. Then there would be a charge in the weakened part of the enemy line which after 2 minutes of pure hell and terror before would break most of the time. From there the bowmen would then join the melee. Most horse nomads and eastern Europeans would also take a volume based outlook to archery. It not that they were bad shoots and their warriors could do individual accuracy. Rather it is that their game plans for the opening phase of battle centered on started a route in part of the enemy army over ammo efficiency or body count.

The only people that I can think of that was like what you are talking about is the Japanese. It which case you are right, bows weren't used for volley shooting by the Japanese. They were into the idea ammo efficiency. However that was because their archery had a disfavorable match up to their armor design for a good part of their history. It forced the Japanese archer to try to place their shots if possible, if firing at a Samurai or other high ranking warrior.

Bows fucking suck.
They're only good against unarmored shits.
If a unit of bowmen were to encounter a fully armed and armored retinue of dismounted 15th or even 14th and maybe even 13th century knights, all they could hope to do is fire volley upon volley, praying to God that some of their arrows hit some gaps in the retinue's armor.
Hell, you could equip a whole army in nothing but thick gambeson and give them fully-covering helmets and they'd probably turn out ok.
In the context of fantasy settings, archers would suck even more.
Now instead of knights donned in iron and steel you have green barbarians with skin as tough as iron wearing iron or at the least thick hides on top of that, gigantic monstrosities that would probably be only be tickled by a 60 arrows flying at it, and nigh-immortal dragons that could flap their wings and send all the arrows launched at it right back and with a gusto.
A lone archer would be worth jackshit, especially considering how innacurate and innefectual the bow ultimately is.
Frankly, there is no logical reason for the bow to exist in fantasy settings, considering the only advantages bows have over crossbows are range and rate of fire and over guns only have rate of fire.

>>52538972
Ah, so that's why everyone still goes on bear-hunts with bows.
It doesn't matter if everything can hear you if you can one shot it with a heavy lead ball.

>>52517136
Reiters and pistoleers weren't particularly viable until the tercio age though.

>>52549263
Because they didn't have pistols or carbines in the middle ages. As soon as they did, they started using them on horseback.

>>52514933

You need to be swole as fuck to succesfully use a warbow/longbow. Only benders and tossers fire pisspowder poofters.

>>52549288
>>52549263
>Because they didn't have pistols or carbines in the middle ages.

Crossbows used to fill that nieche and folks in the business suggested replacing those with guns as early as the 1400s.

>>52548749
Anon this isn't true. See:
>>52516802
As a matter of fact the English were reluctant to switch over because of how expensive arming a company was.

>>52517318
I bet you indulge in Tiborasaurus' YT channel. [So do I]

>>52517397
True, shot and slugs are the most common things we use a, but we don't live in an RPG setting. If a PC wants/needs novelty rounds to deal with threats other than flesh and blood, then a shotgun is the easiest way to deliver them.

>>52530607
what about velocity

>>52549747
How to address this...
For starts the "average cost of a bow being 3 shilling" is truthful but misleading. The hundred years war and the war of rose destroyed the high quality domestic stock of Yew so that 2 shillings would likely not be a of needed quality for war, rather being for hunting, sport, or training. Not even all imported Yew bow staves made the grade for military use. Is the up fort cost of that bow still lower? Sure but there is more.

Lets take about arrows and training. Every year the crown would give 72 arrows each bowmen to train with, and some command felt the need to give up to 24 arrows extra. Small order of war arrows would go for about a pence per and very large order for about for about 3/4 of that. Even discounting the commander buying more out of regimental funds that gives 4 shillings 6 pence per bowman per year on just ammo for training. Not saying that shot and powder was free but still that is a high cost of ownership for the crown.

Lastly, and this was a big issue, the English crown was basically subsiding the imported of yew bow staves. It starting in 1340 and it was a harbor tax of two unfinished yew bow staves. Odd? Very much so, but it worked. The agents of the crown would then turn around and sell the bow staves to craftsmen at just under the price they wanted the merchant to important it at. Go to high over and the merchant could effective sell his stock of bow staves he has about and over the amount needed for harbor tax. He will need a supplies it just to do business in England so why not get extra? In the 1370s that was up to 5 and then 10 bow staves to press the merchants harder on the subject. However it also gave England very high harbor fees for the period and a inefficient area of royal revenue. It was cheaper in some cases to land in Scotland and just move the goods overland.

At that point a gun could costs more the a bow but arming a army with bows costs more then arming them with guns.

>>52534165
fuck off lindybeige

>>52549942
Velocity isn't that important unless you're shooting super thick steel armor or very long distances. Otherwise you're firing at human flesh protected by mere cloth, and even padded armor is doing fuck-all at 200 yards.

>>52516802
>So me thinks that bows were still in use because guns were expensive and bows were cheaper. Hence why the Ottoman had both weapons.

This is not statement on prices but I read a claim that a Turkish primary source from the mid 16th century noted that the reason why they had bows in their army still was to limit the stress on their gunpowder supplies. I came across it in "The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II, Vol. 1" by Fernand Braudel

That book is ancient and it was not quoting its source it just gave a footnote. So it may be wrong.

>>52516868
>flaming arrows

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zTd_0FRAwOQ

>>52523470
more about this?

>>52534641
>invading england
>1208 – Channel Islands seized by Eustace the Monk (1)

i'm triggered

>>52520809
Have you seen a Musket sir? Effective range, 30ft.

>>52550339
After a little math based on caliber and muzzle energy from video he is firing a 324 grain bullet. At around 550 J of energy most of the time a bullet will only cause a flesh wound barring shot placement or luck. It slows to that point at 200 yards.

>>52550596
That grain is reduced to represent it being fired at fifty yards.

>>52549245

I'm pretty sure the traditional weapon for bear hunting was spear, or maybe shovel.

However I seem to recall an amusing behavioral trait exhibited by Brown Bears in Alaska, heading towards the sound of gunfire as there's likely to be a fresh kill to scavenge.

Which puts a fun little timer field dressing a buck.

>>52550586
Hes right tho, bows might have a longer range but they're only effective up close, guns had a shorter range but their effective range was greater.

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>>52550586
>Musket
>Range 30ft
Which tabletop are you using as a reference?
Effective AIMING distance for smooth, long-bore weapon is between 70 to 110 meters, depending on how well the weapon was loaded and how well the charge was measured (so pre-measured charges by default will increase the range). The round itself could travel another 20 to 50 meters and then quickly lost velocity.

Now I don't know much about imperial, but last time I've checked, 30 feet was roughtly something around 10 meters.
Which is a distance on which you can easily put down a candle with a smooth-bore muzzle-loading pistol.
As in - perform precision, trick shooting.

>>52514933
I'd tell you why you're a retard but you don't desserve knowledge.

>>52550586
Go watch the Capandball channel on youtube.

>>52551378
70m is pushing it for military style of undersized balls against a single man sized target, but 110m is doable with civilian style bore sized balls from a smooth bore. there's just a lot of ifs and buts when it comes to muskets.

>>52514933
>implying the arquebus is actually a better weapon than a bow.
>what is maintenance?
>what is accuracy?
>what is wet powder?
>what is no rifling bore?
Are you even trying to make an argument?

Cannon is the ONLY thing mildly good about blackpowder.

>>52515208
>Stopping power
>When you can't even hit the target to begin with, without line firing
What is wrong with you pseudo-historian fucks?

>>52551378
>Firing distance and effective range are the same now
My sides.

>>52551785
>Missing the point this bad
Not even him, but did you notice he was talking about effective aiming range, aka the range at which you can still aim the gun and hit what you want to hit, thus not even what qualifies as effective range of the weapon itself?

Or are you too retarded to realise what's the talk about?

>>52551766
What's wrong with faggots who think any gun before mid-19th century couldn't hit a broad side of a barn?

>>52551481
Still doesn't change the fact you can effortlessly shoot at few times the distance the other anon implied as effective range of a musket.

>>52551766
>Complaining about early guns and their accuracy
>Calls other about being pseudo-historians
Oh the irony

>>52551864
Absolutely wasn't arguing against muskets just adding a bit to, buck and ball loads also help stretch out effective range and make it much easier to hit a 70m target.

>>52551747
>I'll post in a 2 day old thread without bothering to read it first, no way this could backfire

>>52515524
Depends on what you have available. Bows and arrows, much like knights in heavy armor, existed alongside guns for centuries because no one had the scale of production needed to arm armies with guns and supply them with gunpowder.

>>52551972
>existed alongside guns for centuries because no one had the scale of production needed to arm armies with guns and supply them with gunpowder

Wrong.

They coexisted with blackpower weaponry for about 500 years because they filled a different niche. Bows could fire in arcs. Crossbows were powerful volley fire weaponry. Blackpowder hand cannons could also be used for volley fire, but were even more susceptible to weather conditions than traditional bows and were very slow to fire. Additionally, their effective range was quite limited in comparison. All three of these weapons had their pros and cons for hundreds of years until firearms developed enough to eclipse bows/crossbows completely.

Ah, this topic again.

I like Matt Easton's take on this. He's a guy that reads the old documents and has experience handling old weapons. He may not be the final say but I trust his opinion and history seems to reflect this as well.

https://youtu.be/W__flifZMiA?t=502

Some of his points:
>Blackpowder weapons were not that inaccurate
>Blackpowder weapons had about longer or equal range as a warbow
>Blackpowder weapons were easier to operate and aim
>The most important point, blackpowder weapons were devastating

I feel the last point can not be emphasized enough. What good is a bow that can fire a bunch of shots when it won't kill the guy you're fighting? A gambeson is decent protection against arrows, a shield is an excellent way to protect yourself as well, metal armor is very good for this too. There's accounts that during the Crusades the crusaders came out of battles looking like pincushions because their mail and gambeson they wore were very good at protecting them from Saracen arrows. Add formations like the shieldwall and you have a way of protecting yourself from volleys of arrows. There's videos ITT on what the damage gunpowder weapons could cause. It's pretty devastating.

Even on an individual level if you're facing an opponent armed with a shield, or say, a beast with a thicker hide why would you want to take a bow if you have a better weapon available? People keep saying that a bow would be a better adventurer weapon but I don't really see it.

>>52551747
>what is wet powder?
Anon a wet bow is just as useless as wet powder.

>>52552173
A couple flaws in your and his argument
>bows, crossbows and blackpowder weapons coexisted in military engagement for centuries so history itself has already destroyed any argument you have
>matchlock blackpower weapons were even more susceptible to weather conditions than bows and crossbows
>blackpower weapons were indeed markedly more inaccurate
>early blackpower weapons were not commonly fatal and unless you were close, armor could and did stop them
>blackpowder weapons took a very long time to fire
>talking about using blackpowder weaponry on an individual level is beyond stupid, since they were mostly deadweight outside of squad engagements
And again, history itself ruins any argument you may have. Bows, crossbows and blackpowder weaponry coexisted for centuries because they all filled different niches. People can speculate and LARP with weapons all they want, but real history is the final say full stop.

>>52552273
>>early blackpower weapons were not commonly fatal and unless you were close, armor could and did stop them
Frankly, custom made plate armour could stand up to just about every kind of ranged weapon short of (small) cannons.

>>52552028
Except no, means of production was a major factor. You can make a bow and arrows in any po dunk village with few issues. To manufacture guns you need a fairly advanced understanding of metallurgy, a steady supply of coal and iron, and locksmiths or tinkerers skilled enough to make the trigger mechanisms.

Gunpowder production was a whole other can of beans. Saltpeter in particular was something that took a great deal of infrastructure to produce.

>>52517089
>20 years of training
Bullshit, you could be trained and proficient in archery in less than a year of focused training with a proper teacher and equipment
If you were training people for volley usage, as some other anons have argued, and taught the archers to shoot at preset angles, 4-5 months for a mass group.

>>52552356
>To manufacture guns you need a fairly advanced understanding of metallurgy, a steady supply of coal and iron, and locksmiths or tinkerers skilled enough to make the trigger mechanisms.
>Gunpowder production was a whole other can of beans. Saltpeter in particular was something that took a great deal of infrastructure to produce.

Which is something civilizations had during those time periods. Blackpowder weaponry was never in short supply in the military.

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>>52534165
>during the Hundred Years' War, which the English won

>>52552273
Anon I'd implore you to read this.
http://www.alderneywreck.com/index.php/artefacts/firearms/from-lngbow-to-matchlock
This one talks about on why the English switched over to the Harquebus and Musket over to longbow. One of the primary reasons why they didn't switch sooner was because it was expensive to arm soldiers with those weapons.

Here's an essay written by a English mercenary who fought in France and Spain. He's someone who used both the longbow and the gun and he is sharing his experience in response to the works of Sir John Smythe

http://the-norseman.livejournal.com/13230.html?nojs=1

And yes, they did co-exist but generally once guns improved the bow and crossbow generally disappeared from the battlefield except for a few places. One technology allowed for something better than handgonnes people were quick to adapt the gun.

>>52552482
Also some points from Barwick.

>The harquebus requires a lot of training to use properly, many English do not trust it yet because they are not yet used to the weapon.
>The Spanish have a great deal of yew, if the longbow was that the spanish would have adopted it by now.
>The English are overly attached to the longbow due to their history and culture.
>Most of the great longbow victories Sir John Smythe lists happened over 200 years ago.
>In the past battles usually devolved into melees, now they are usually decided at range with positioning and fire.
>Noble men can't understand the effect of weapons as well as common soldiers do. Particularly those who use firearms since those professions are considered beneath noblemen.
>An instance where Captain Brode claims a harquebuser can fire only 10 shots an hour, Barwick offers to demonstrate firing 40 shots in that same amount of time.
>If loaded properly with good powder, a musket will kill a man in proofed armor at 200 yards, common armor at 400 yards, and an unarmored man at 600 yards.
>Sir John Smythe's concerns about bullets not being properly sized to their weapon or the powder/match getting wet are not a problem if skilled soldiers are using the weapons.
>If the weather is so wet that everything gets damp then it is also a disadvantage for the other side. In this case the soldiers can either wait it out or engage in melee.
>Responding to John Smythe's claims that the longbow was uncomparibly more accurate than firearms, Barwick points out that he two practiced with the longbow until he was 17 and was a good shot, but after 4 or 5 months of practice with his harquebus he believed he could shoot more accurately than the best bowman in England.
>A gun can be more easily aimed and steadied than a bow or crossbow, especially with a stand.

>>52552173
>People keep saying that a bow would be a better adventurer weapon but I don't really see it.
okay imagine you have a loaded wheel-lock carbine, a short bow and a short sword. you and your caravan are travelling through a mountain pass and wander straight into an ambush with a half a dozen goblin pelting you with rock and arrows from above and another pack advancing on you 20 meters further down the pass.

>>52552515
>Sir John Smythe claims that harquebusers would never shoot at a target more than 8, 10 or 12 yards, Barwick counters that no skilled soldier would fail to hit a target the size of a dinner plate at that range
>All soldiers know how to judge the range of a target and adjust their sight accordingly.
>Barwick claims he has never seen anyone slain outright by an arrow and only a few by crossbow quarrels, but has seen 20,000 killed by gunshots.
>Barwick describes a conversation with a french soldier where he tries to defend the strength of the longbow, the frenchman in unimpressed since even the weakest man with a firearm is more powerful than the strongest archer.
>When Barwick attempts to defend the longbow by bring up its hail of arrows, the French soldier responds that he only need to tilt his head forward to protect his face and he has nothing to fear from the arrows.
>Barwick discusses the siege of Lieth in which 448 English soldiers were killed. When he asked how many of the defenders were killed by arrows he learns that there were none over the course of the entire siege, except for one man who was still recovering from his wound.
>A loaded firearm may be fired more quickly than a nocked arrow may be drawn and loosed.
>If musketeers really did wait until 8-12 yards like Sir John Smythe claims, then they would not have time to discharge their weapons against charging cavalry.
>There is no archer who can shoot more than 2 arrows for every 1 bullet from a well trained harquebuser.
>Musketeers can deliver their first volley at 480 yards, and then deliver another volley every time the enemy has advanced 80 yards.
>Bowmen cannot start shooting until the enemy is within 160 yards.
>A gun will deliver more bullets with greater force than a bow can whether in the short term or the long term. At close range the harquebusers may load an extra shot into their weapons and fire two at once.

>>52552404
That still means you have archers that will do jackshit compared to say, longbowmen. Or arbalestiers.

>>52552534
>At close range, firearms are aimed by rule, while bows are aimed by guesswork.
>while guns sometimes misfire, Archers frequently become stressed and fail to draw their arrows back all the way.
>If an archer is not well fed or has stiff joints from sleeping in the cold he can become too weak to draw his bow.
>in wet weather, the glue on a bow and it's arrows may dissolve.
>firearms are far more feared and 100 men are killed by them for every 1 killed by arrows.
>arrows rarely kill, and only wound in the face and unarmored places.
>Sir John Smythe claims that arrowheads are left to rust so that their wounds become infected, Barwick admits to seeing many archers with rusty arrowheads, but says that rusty arrows cannot penetrate even a padded doublet.
>England's lack of skilled musketeers makes it vulnerable to invaders.
>Humfrey Barwick proposes a challenge where the best archer in England stands at 120 yards and shoots 10 arrows at him before he returns fire with 2 shots from a musket or harquebus.

>>52552482
>after 1588
That's roughly 500 years after the invention of blackpowder weaponry and the article even goes on to make a point that bows had supporters all the way into the 18th century. Not to mention that article is specifically about the longbow and the English, rather than a broader view of blackpowder/bow history.

Again, bows, crossbows and blackpowder weaponry coexisted on the battlefield for centuries and it was not because the weapons were hard to produce.

>>52552534
>>When Barwick attempts to defend the longbow by bring up its hail of arrows, the French soldier responds that he only need to tilt his head forward to protect his face and he has nothing to fear from the arrows.

I'm reminded of something Matt Easton discussed in one of his videos on the 100-Year War. The only thing that scared the French knights about the English longbowmen, was getting arrows stuck in your visor. As soon as you're done lancing, and the melee starts, you want your visor off, to better use your sidearm. But if there's a fucking arrow that jammed your visor shut, that means you'll lose valuable seconds, trying to open that fucking thing.

>>52552515
>If loaded properly with good powder, a musket will kill a man in proofed armor at 200 yards, common armor at 400 yards, and an unarmored man at 600 yards.
Damn

>>52552534
>the frenchman in unimpressed since even the weakest man with a firearm is more powerful than the strongest archer.
Literal shots fired

>>52516347
The big issue is producing saltpeter in large quantities, the guns themselves are actually quite easy to make, much easier then bows or even swords. They're just metal tubes on sticks, so long as it's thick enough to contain the explosion you're good.

>>52552722
What about the firing mechanism? The only weapons that applies to is the early hand cannons.

>>52552722
>They're just metal tubes on sticks, so long as it's thick enough to contain the explosion you're good.
You're a fucking idiot, leave this thread.

>>52552516
>Here is a situation where numerous unarmored opponents are attacking you
Sure showed him.


The situation could just as easily be
>A large troll with thick skin jumps out of the bushes, you have a loaded wheel-lock carbine, a short bow and a short sword. What do?
Realistically speaking a bow wouldn't be very effective either assuming those goblins had shields. Even if they didn't have shields and armour the arrows would need to hit vitals to kill them. People don't die as soon as they're shot like in the movies.

>>52517169
And in every test these things go out before they make it to the target.

>>52552554
>in wet weather, the glue on a bow and it's arrows may dissolve.

Linothorax status : Fukin rekt.

>>52552769
Some dude tested the original recipes and those did keep on burning.

>>52517178
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PSS_silent_pistol
These do, better in fact.

>The cartridge contains an internal piston and a propelling charge, with the stem of the piston against the base of the bullet. On firing, the piston delivers enough impulse to project the bullet from the barrel to an effective range of 25 meters. The piston then seals the cartridge neck, preventing noise, smoke, or blast from escaping the barrel.

>>52552838
>PSS, nothing personnel, kid

Wasn't the Welrod so effective it kept being used till modern times?

>>52518232
>depends entirely on the used bow, you have to be strong to use the stronger ones properly tho
No, in order to make a bow strong enough to equal the power output of the strongest musket it wouldn't be physically possible for a human being to even pull it back anymore, assuming the materials it's made of can even handle that stress.

>>52526335
No because their opinion was actually correct, read a fucking history book some time.

>>52527698
>actually when early firearms first came out, people still used bows and crossbows a lot, I don't remember exactly why, but apparently they had some sort of advantage,
It was mainly that saltpeter wasn't easily available, blackpowder needs specific ingredients while you can make bows out of all kinds of things and they're good enough most of the time, especially crossbows that were easier to train with, more accurate and capable of being more powerful.

>>52553077
Compared to a bow that is, forgot to add that at the end.

>>52529637
We're not even allowed crossbows in my shitty state.

>>52531184
Never
trust
the
english

>>52532025
>We won,
No, the russians did. Napoleon was kicking everybody's asses, including the poms, and then he tried to take on russia and got his shit pushed in so hard his whole empire collapsed and then the poms took advantage of that fact and claimed all the glory. Where have I heard that story before?

>>52532025
>The argument is that their rate of fire and accuracy could then have made the difference in the battle and swung the outcome, which is arguably (only arguably) true.

What about cannons though? A shell into a formation of longbowman would do terrible things and there wasn't really an equivalent of that in medieval times when the bow was popular, at least not on nearly the same scale.

>>52532314
Sets of pistols would be handy though, didn't blackbeard used to carry like six of the things?

>>52533836
GURPS is a game that HEAVILY stresses being accurate to real life, a bow only takes two actions to reload while a gun can take up to 60 actions, it's not like D&D where any resemblance to real life is purely incidental. It's the autist's rpg.

>>52553264
Early cannons were hilariously inaccurate and so slow they could only be fire every hour or so.

>>52537921
Leave 'em alone it's feudalism's fault, shit's confusing. Like how come England didn't just become a part of France after it was conquered by a french duke who swore fealty to the french king? By modern standards that just seems bizarre, like the governor of texas conquering mexico and the federal government just having nothing to do with it, sort of you can't make direct comparisons with feudalism it's too weird.

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>>52553437
fuck off