I am a lifelong archer and avid marksman. Bows are a lot of fun and you really have to “use the force” to a certain extent. But firearms are significantly more precise and efficient.
Now, historical firearms is a different story. For like a solid 100 years it really was a training thing. But atp, guns obviously far exceed the capabilities of bows.
Edit: i should say the first ~100 years of western adaption of firearms. Powder driven handheld projectiles have been a thing for a LONG time
Guns replaced bows because they became better weapons. The reason people developed guns is because they saw potential, and because the loud bang bang noise is scary, not because they were better at killing than bows.
Spearman, now and forever.
Modern problems require ancient solutions.
I mean… modern guns, for sure, but early firearms? How were they superior, do you suppose?
edit: lots of replies seem to be missing the point of my question: OP is implying that “logistics and training time” were not the factors that led to the gun’s superiority. If that’s the case, what was?
The killing power of a bow depends on the archer’s ability to draw it. An English longbow had a draw strength of at least 81 lbs:
Longbows were very difficult to master because the force required to deliver an arrow through the improving armour of medieval Europe was very high by modern standards. Although the draw weight of a typical English longbow is disputed, it was at least 81 pounds-force (360 newtons) and possibly more than 130 lbf (600 N). Considerable practice was required to produce the swift and effective combat shooting required. Skeletons of longbow archers are recognisably affected, with enlarged left arms and often osteophytes on left wrists, left shoulders and right fingers.
To kill someone with a bow like this basically required training from childhood, and produced substantial physical changes in the body. If you didn’t train from childhood, your skeleton wouldn’t develop structurally over the years to have the proper strength.
Along with the improving ability of gunfire to penetrate plate armour, it was the long training needed by longbowmen that eventually led to their being replaced by musketeers.
The killing power of a gun depends on the powder charge and the mass of the ammunition. It’s not necessary for the troops to train for a decade or more to kill targets with muskets, even armored targets. You can train someone to load, aim & fire a musket in a day, and they could be fully trained to clean it, replace the flint, wrap their own powder charges, and cast their own musket balls within a week.
What about crossbows?
Guess why they did gain popularity over time, too (Even though they were banned for use against non-heathens by the pope himself), until firearms made them obsolete.
Just like firearms, crossbows require very short training to become effective. The crossbow, however, was quickly outclassed by firearms, as the amount of power in a modest powder charge propelling a lead ball easily surpasses even the power of a very potent crossbow, which, on top of that, becomes increasingly difficult to load with increasing power. The draw weight of more powerful crossbows capable of defeating armour requires a detachable lever, or even a winch with pulleys to draw. A lot can go wrong with such complex equipment. Improperly stowing the drawing winch of a heavy crossbow between shots can easily foul the pulley system. Also, there is a significant amount of energy in a drawn (but not yet loaded) heavy crossbow. The trigger mechanism has to withstand the bow’s entire draw weight, while still having a manageably light trigger pull, and you have to handle the weapon extensively between drawing an actually shooting (detach the drawing mechanism, load the bolt), which risks accidental discharge.
With a musket, you have excessively less complexity, and a safer process, because before you cock the hammer and put the priming powder into the pan, there is little chance of even a loaded musket going off accidentally. Most of the risk can be mitigated by teaching your troops the simple trick of already pointing the thing into the enemy’s general direction, or at least away from themselves and their friends, when cocking and priming. And after cocking and priming, there is little handling required until you can fire.
On top of that, the ammunition for muskets is superior to that for crossbows, because it requires a significantly simpler manufacturing process. Powder can be manufactured in bulk from very few simple ingredients, and requires only the correct mixing of its ingredients. Lead balls can be easily cast by anyone who can light a fire and handle a pot, given you equip them with a suitable mould. They can also be cast in bulk. all you need is a bigger fire, a bigger pot, and more moulds.
Making crossbow bolts, on the other hand, requires quite a bit of skilled labour, and time. You need woodworking skills to make straight, uniformly shaped and sized shafts that can withstand the energy of being shot out of a powerful crossbow without breaking. The bolt heads need to be made out of iron (or steel) by a skilled blacksmith to ensure both quality and equal size. The fletching has to be uniformly cut and carefully fitted to the bolts, and so need the heads. Both have to be fitted in a durable manner that not only survives prolonged storage, but also prevents either of them from falling off when being shot out of a high-powered crossbow. It’s quite an involved process.
Crossbows existed alongside firearms in places like China for a very long time. Crossbows likely go back to at least the 6th century with hand cannons going back to around the 1300s. Crossbows existed alongside firearms for a very long time, and they were not made obsolete until at the earliest the 16th century.
While the musket is more effective than a crossbow, the materials require a higher level of technology. Crossbows can be made with a small amount of low quality metal, and the bolts don’t have to use metal to be effective unless the troops are armored.
While the musket offers more velocity and range the crossbow would be quicker for reloading. Also, while a cocked crossbow has a lot of potential energy, so does gunpowder. How many people throughout time have been injured by a musket exploding.
Considering factors like muzzle velocity and range though, it is clear crossbows can’t even come close. This is probably why they were eventually phased out and replaced by the musket.
It requires considerable strength (or a good amount of time) to reset a crossbow.
Well the Church outlawed crossbows for battle … And whaddaya know I haven’t seen one in a while.
They were better because of logistics of training time.
And simple logistics of making ammunition.
Making arrows is quite an involved process that requires a whole bunch of quite specialised skills. Especially arrowheads, which need to be made by a blacksmith of some skill, and expensive resources (iron/steel). But making the shafts also needs some woodworking skills, first you need to select the right wood, then it has to be straightened and given the correct shape. The fletching has to be of uniform size, too, and needs to be attached securely and precisely, or the arrow won’t fly straight.
Making powder requires the correct grinding and mixing of three simple ingredients, which requires some skill, but can be easily done in bulk. The biggest skill involved is not accidentally blowing yourself to smithereens. Casting lead bullets of uniform size and quality in bulk needs the skill of lighting a fire and handling a pot, in order to melt lead and pour it into a pre-made, reusable mould. This can also be done in the field with very limited equipment.
Lookit mr-fancy-pants lead projectile!
Just throw a rock in there and let fly!
…but that’s not what OP’s meme implies?
The format is usually that the first is right, just for the wrong reasons, while the second is wrong for the right (or at least more well-informed) reasons. In this case, its that the bow performs better than a firearm on an individual level making it seem better at first glance, but in a war that isn’t as important as logistics so the gun is still a better weapon.
Right, that’s what I’m asking: if the second (middle) is wrong, (i.e., logistics was not the influential factor) then what is the real reason that earlier guns were superior?
The reasoning is correct in that bow has much better range, better accuracy, and more lethality. Its the oversight or dismissal of logistics as a factor in the power of a weapon that is the mistake, and results in the incorrect conclusion. Basically, knowning enough to know that an archer is more dangerous than an early firearm user, but not enough to factor in logistics in the value of a weapon.
How early are we talking?
14th century small arms were terror weapons more than anything.
But by the 15th century, early guns did offer advantages over bows and crossbows, albeit not necessarily decisive ones. For one, they had a flatter ballistic trajectory than either - meaning aiming is much easier. Lethality means little if you don’t hit the target, after all. Troops could also carry more ammunition, as a lead ball and powder take up much less room than even a crossbow bolt, and lead balls, for that matter, could be cast by even laymen with a few basic tools (since lead has a low melting point). And bullets had superior penetrative power in comparison to most non-English bows and probably even the majority of crossbows - important in a period when metal armor was widespread. On top of all of that, firearms require very little in the way of physical attributes to use.
Basically, you get a weapon that’s as deadly as a crossbow, but easier to use, able to sustain fire for a longer period during battle, better against professionally-equipped troops, and terrifying to boot.
Every development from that point on increased the advantages of firearms, and decreased the disadvantages, until firearms were no longer ‘competitive’ with bows and crossbows, but explicitly out-competing them for military purposes.
Big scary noise. Imagine being a footman walking into battle, then hearing a sound like a mountain falling over, then a dozen men in your formation fall over dead while a cloud of smoke erupts from behind the enemy pike wall. I’d be pretty concerned.
But in terms of killing effectiveness, bows at the time were better.
Well, yes, logistics and training time made them better. And then eventually they became better in every way.
This is absolutely not how the bell curve for this situation looks
Still, spears were always better than bows.
(Yes I know they had different uses)
Doesnt matter. The next world war will be fought with bows again.
Is that asuming we are already in ww3?
No. It’s assuming theres a nuclear solution before we have big clashes of nations militaries.
Even if the were to be a WWIII, the tech to produce guns and bullets is so ubiquitous and cheap that no, it won’t
How were early bows better than javelins?
You could easily carry more arrows than javelins and even early bows had an accuracy advantage at range. Bows replaced slings, which were very effective but bows left sticks stuck through people when they didn’t kill and disabling some is as good as killing them on a battlefield.
It wasn’t all upsides since bows are more likely to be affected by moisture.
Javelins had their end times when shield walls stopped being a thing, the key function of a javelin was to bend on impact and make it arwkard to move.
Accuracy wasnt great but hitting a shield was easier than a person. Once people stopped using shield walls hitting someone with a javelin became much harder.
Arrows you can throw 500 into the air and a 25% hit rate will be seen as a success, you also do it from a greater range.
Enter the gun and you get even longer range and arguably better accuracy.
Guns and bows were used in parraell until guns gained the ability to be reloaded quickly - one step after muskets and one shot hand guns.
This is most of you with AI.
LLMs are not AI.
Let’s maybe not use AI to shoot people
