Muskets vs. Crossbows - Why do firearms exist?

[Speaker to Animals]

Yeah, if heavy infantry is on you, and you are not yourselves heavy infantry, that's pretty much it. You're not going home.

[Smitty-48]

Yeah, if heavy infantry is on you, and you are not yourselves heavy infantry, that's pretty much it. You're not going home.

Unless somehow they don't have cavalry and you can run, but that's pretty much how it worked, the heavy infantry breaks your lines, then the cavalry runs you down from behind when you try to flee.

[Smitty-48]

Thing is, none of this has actually changed much at the conceptual level, it's industrialized and mechanized and the scale of the battlefields is much larger, but it still to this day comes down to light infantry skirmishing, mechanized infantry assault, light armoured cavalry, heavy armoured cavalry, field artillery and siege artillery.

There's still skirmishing, it's just the 101st Airborne (Air Assault), and there's still a phalanx, it's just rolling in Abrams and Bradleys now.

[DBTrek]

Modern battlefield has moved beyond that.
Now it's all asymmetrical, hit-and-run, horizontally organized, attacks of opportunity.

[Smitty-48]

Modern battlefield has moved beyond that.
Now it's all asymmetrical, hit-and-run, horizontally organized, attacks of opportunity.

Nah, it's always been like that, asymmetrical is just a new word for a very old way of fighting, asymmetrical is the original warfare, decisive warfare is invented by the Ancient Greeks, but the Viet Cong or whatever, that's how warfare started out, so really you've just come back to the future.

Nothing has changed at the strategic level, when you can effect decision by decisive warfare, you roll on Saigon with the NVA, in the meantime, while you're working towards that ultimate end state in the face of the B-52's, you fight asymmetrically, and there can be a fusion between the two, mix of Viet Cong and NVA, where you can hug the belt and close with the enemy decisively under the triple canopy jungle when he can't bring his firepower to bear.

But this all went down in antiquity as well, there's always been a mix of symmetrical and asymmetrical, ideally with the two types of forces mutually complementing each other.

More recently here in North America we have the French and Indian Wars, with the British and French as the opposing NVA's, each with their own Indian Viet Cong in support.

[C-Mag]

Interesting video of a test on exactly the subject at hand:



Tells quite clearly why a matchlock musket is so superior to the crossbow.

A medieval longbowman would still be able to shoot you right in the face at that range no problem. Also, his longbow seemed laughably weak, though maybe he is super strong, not sure. An English longbow could have a draw weight in the 180 lbs range. The longbow he used seemed like a bloody toy to me. I have one like that. It's 50 lbs draw weight. That's not a war bow.

Nice Video.

Yeah, that doesn't seem to be the Longbow or Longbowman that France put a bounty on. But that's kind of demonstrates why you go to firearms. The English Longbowman was trained from an early age. Every man was in the militia from 16-60, had to have his bow and practice. Every village had a range. Their bows ranged from 80# to 200# draw weight.

To have an effective Longbow force you needed an entire bow culture. Probably the same with the mongols and their hefty Horn Bows.

WIth Gun Powder anyone can penetrate defenses, be they personal of fixed fortifications.

[Smitty-48]

This is the thing about the American Revolution, the two issues which brought it to a head were taxation to pay for French and Indian War IV a.k.a the Seven Years War, and the British were still maintaining their Indian Viet Cong from that war, up in the Ohio Valley as an insurance policy, in contravention of the desires of land speculators in the colonies to go up there and ethnically cleanse them off the land.

Then when Britain goes to war with its own colonists, those Americans fight just like the North Vietnamese would 200 years later, Continental Army (NVA), Minuteman Militia's (Viet Cong).

In Indochina, America flipped to the Redcoats and the shoe was on the other foot, mind you, I don't know how George Washington & Co would have reacted to being bombed with B-52s, all due respect, but I bet they would have surrendered then, the Virginia Seceshes did after all surrender at Appomattox Courthouse in the end.

[C-Mag]

This is the thing about the American Revolution, the two issues which brought it to a head were taxation to pay for French and Indian War IV a.k.a the Seven Years War, and the British were still maintaining their Indian Viet Cong from that war, up in the Ohio Valley as an insurance policy, in contravention of the desires of land speculators in the colonies to go up there and ethnically cleanse them off the land.

The when Britain goes to war with its own colonists, those Americans fight just like the North Vietnamese would 200 years later, Continental Army (NVA), Minuteman Militia's (Viet Cong).

Mostly Agree.
Taxation without representation was a big problem for the Yanks.
The Yanks were getting a bad taste in their mouths from the Crown acting like, well rulers. They wanted to have representation to fix a bunch of issues. Judiciary, revenue collection, tax rates, military infringements on civilians, a ton of shit. The Yanks were willing to negotiate everything, except the freedom to Keep and Bear Arms. April 19th, 1775 !

Yankee guerilla warfare is where it was won and lost. The Continental Army was not as effective, but necessary. The entire war was touched off by a bunch of farmers who had had a few to drink.

[Smitty-48]

This is the thing about the American Revolution, the two issues which brought it to a head were taxation to pay for French and Indian War IV a.k.a the Seven Years War, and the British were still maintaining their Indian Viet Cong from that war, up in the Ohio Valley as an insurance policy, in contravention of the desires of land speculators in the colonies to go up there and ethnically cleanse them off the land.

The when Britain goes to war with its own colonists, those Americans fight just like the North Vietnamese would 200 years later, Continental Army (NVA), Minuteman Militia's (Viet Cong).

Mostly Agree.
Taxation without representation was a big problem for the Yanks.
The Yanks were getting a bad taste in their mouths from the Crown acting like, well rulers. They wanted to have representation to fix a bunch of issues. Judiciary, revenue collection, tax rates, military infringements on civilians, a ton of shit. The Yanks were willing to negotiate everything, except the freedom to Keep and Bear Arms. April 19th, 1775 !

Nah, that's mostly bullshit, just like most of the American historical narrative which is taught to Americans, the colonists didn't care about that shit, that was all amongst the elites, the American revolutionaries were Jacobins, a revolt by a wealthy land owning aristrocracy, revolutions are not actually incited from the streets, the American revolution was no popular uprising, the country went into civil war, with the majority actually siding with the British.

You Americans drink your own Kool-Aid, sho nuff, but that don't make it true.

[C-Mag]

You're all wet on this one Smitty.