The Bow VS the Musket

shawn91481

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Feb 7, 2015
I was thinking what would have happened if the South employed something like the English longbow. Sounds crazy right? Maybe, maybe not.

Longbow

Pros:
1. Similar range versus the Springfield. In fact Henry III was able to exceed the range of the musket at 400 yards with skilled archers.

2. Rate of fire would have easily been 3:1 or greater. In a matter of minutes a 100 archers can have fired over 10,000 arrows. Federal Troops would be completely unprotected.

3. Relatively cheap and required non-industrial resources. Valuable steel would be minimized to just the arrow tips. Arrows can be made at home or in the field. Something impossble to do with gun powder.

Cons:

1. Would require increased training.

2. Reduced accuracy.

3. Reduced stopping power.

4. Useless in close quarters combat.

Now I don't think the longbow could have replaced the musket but a couple of equipped companies in a regiment I think could have caused considerable casualties and strike fear as they could see the thousands of arrows raining down on them. Crazy thought I know but I don't think it would have been impractical considering the time it took to load and fire a muzzle loader.
 
Yawn... this again? There isn't that much Yew wood in North America, there aren't that many willing to take the time to learn how to shoot a longbow. It's a lot easier, cheaper and faster to manufacture a minnie ball than an arrow. How well has the bow worked out when used against firearms in the last two hundred years?
 
I was thinking what would have happened if the South employed something like the English longbow. Sounds crazy right? Maybe, maybe not.

Longbow

Pros:
1. Similar range versus the Springfield. In fact Henry III was able to exceed the range of the musket at 400 yards with skilled archers.

2. Rate of fire would have easily been 3:1 or greater. In a matter of minutes a 100 archers can have fired over 10,000 arrows. Federal Troops would be completely unprotected.

3. Relatively cheap and required non-industrial resources. Valuable steel would be minimized to just the arrow tips. Arrows can be made at home or in the field. Something impossble to do with gun powder.

Cons:

1. Would require increased training.

2. Reduced accuracy.

3. Reduced stopping power.

4. Useless in close quarters combat.

Now I don't think the longbow could have replaced the musket but a couple of equipped companies in a regiment I think could have caused considerable casualties and strike fear as they could see the thousands of arrows raining down on them. Crazy thought I know but I don't think it would have been impractical considering the time it took to load and fire a muzzle loader.

I remember reading year ago that Benjamin Franklin proposed arming rebel colonists with long bows. The only problem is that the long bow takes years to develop the strength and deadly proficiency so characteristic of the English yeomanry.
 
Even if they were willing, we're talking such a ridiculous amount of time that it would be a bad idea.

Getting "thousands of arrows" takes a lot of archers.


Rate of fire is something like twelve shots a minute, or faster if you fire as fast as you can pull (which cannot be sustained) - but twelve shots a minute means it takes a hundred archers to have merely "over a thousand" arrows fired in a minute, which is not the same as darkening the sky with your shafts.


I'm sure a longbow corps could give a good account for itself if one was around to be used, but I wouldn't raise one as an alternative to the rifles of the day even if I could.
 
You'd need to arm the archers with something to use to defend themselves in hand to hand combat. An arrow takes up a lot more room than a cartridge, so more wagons would need to be devoted to ammunition transport. An archer needs to stand to use his bow which makes him more vulnerable than a rifleman who can shoot from a kneeling or prone position, at times.
 
I agree with the others. It wouldn't have worked well at all.
However, I wonder if the Georgia Governor considered archers when he ordered all of those pikes. :D
pike.jpg

A nice original Civil War era Georgia pike polearm. The blade is in somewhat pitted condition, and the shaft appears to be an early replacement. But definitely a piece that saw some action and with a lot of good salty history.
http://armsandantiques.com/civil-war-era-confederate-georgia-pike-polearm-a89

BTW interesting first post, welcome to CivilWarTalk.
 
Interesting points. None that I disagree with. It is an insane idea I get that. But given the supply shortages that faced the southern army I would have been suprised it at least wasn't even considered in passing.
 
I know from reading English history that the training factor was no small thing... there was a time when there was a requirement for men to keep in training with the longbow, since it wasn't something that could be picked up and used by someone with no practice. (Hence the popularity of the crossbow, which required less training, even though an experienced archer with a longbow could usually outperform one with a crossbow.)
 
Yawn... this again?
Wait, you mean this has come up before?!?
I know from reading English history that the training factor was no small thing... there was a time when there was a requirement for men to keep in training with the longbow, since it wasn't something that could be picked up and used by someone with no practice. (Hence the popularity of the crossbow, which required less training, even though an experienced archer with a longbow could usually outperform one with a crossbow.)
English training and the ubiquity of the bow was a large part of their stunning success at Agincourt (you know, not counting the weather, the terrain, and the appalling disorganization, ego, and outright arrogance of the French Army choosing to make almost exactly the same mistake they had previously made at Crécy); in not other country in Europe did so much of the population, from peasants to gentry, train in proper use of the longbow (something for which the English really should be thanking the Welsh). Bowmen in the English army outnumbered men-at-arms 2- or 3-to-1, allowing them to inflict mass casualties at a distance before having to fight hand-to-hand against superior numbers. In the French army, the numbers were reversed, meaning that most of their troops were not a fighting force at all until they reached hand-to-hand range.
 
Wait, you mean this has come up before?!?

English training and the ubiquity of the bow was a large part of their stunning success at Agincourt (you know, not counting the weather, the terrain, and the appalling disorganization, ego, and outright arrogance of the French Army choosing to make almost exactly the same mistake they had previously made at Crécy); in not other country in Europe did so much of the population, from peasants to gentry, train in proper use of the longbow (something for which the English really should be thanking the Welsh). Bowmen in the English army outnumbered men-at-arms 2- or 3-to-1, allowing them to inflict mass casualties at a distance before having to fight hand-to-hand against superior numbers. In the French army, the numbers were reversed, meaning that most of their troops were not a fighting force at all until they reached hand-to-hand range.
It's been on this site 3-4 times...
 
(something for which the English really should be thanking the Welsh).

In the name of my probable ancestor Philip Ap Thomas Jenkin (who may or may not have been at Agincourt) and his older brother William Ap Thomas Jenkin (who seems to have been, though the documentation is not rock-solid), the English are welcome. :wink:
 
You should really go shoot an original type Long Bow, for only then will you fully appreciate why the English archers were trained from near infancy to draw a bow. Skeletal remains show that their elbows were deformed and their forearm bones were extremely enlarged from a lifetime of Long Bow use. To issue a Long Bow to a common ma with no experience, it just wouldn't work.
J.
 
I'm honestly not sure he would be able to draw it (depending, but if we want the best archery we can do, we need to have strong archers to provide the power to those bows). This is truly amazing arm strength, not just able bodied farmers.
 
I wonder how dangerous it would be to be hit with one of those arrows compared to a bullet of the day.

That bow is a far cry away from the Agincourt bows.
 
I wonder how dangerous it would be to be hit with one of those arrows compared to a bullet of the day.

That bow is a far cry away from the Agincourt bows.

Arrows have little knockdown power compared to a bullet, but even a relatively light drawing bow can still make you a human pincushion. It's not unusual to shoot completely through a deer with a 50 lb. bow.

English longbows were designed to cast very heavy arrows that could penetrate armor.

There's no need for 100 lb. + draw weights against an unarmored opponent. I believe the longbow distance record is well over 1,000 yards, a 50 lb. recurve should shoot 400 yards with a proper arrow.

OOPS edit: Let's make that distance about 250 yds. for a recurve.
 
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I've done both competitive archery and bow hunting. At 400 yards, you aren't aiming in the sense that someone aims with a firearm, you're lofting. Very effective against masses of horses, not so much against lines of men. And yes, it takes training, not just one time training but constant working out. My husband when we met couldn't even draw my competition bow without wobbling, and it's not that heavy a bow compared to what English longbowmen were using. There used to be laws requiring the peasantry to train every weekend. There's a reason the civilized world swapped to firearms.
 
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