D&D 5E Why do guns do so much damage?

[Ixal]

I find this an odd statement, given that the British Army was throughly modern and volunteer at the start of the war. Granted, they were in much worse shape than in the French and Indian war (or 7 years war), but the point is that in neither the previous large conflict nor in the Revolutionary War did one of the larger and better standing armies of the world deploy archers. Not even in specialized units. They instead had, like pretty much all armies of the time, organized around the musket and bayonet. The idea that longbows were better was academic at that time (and this). Franklin was not immune to silly ideas.

Because fielding archers was hard. Especially when you did not use them regularily. The bows and all the arrows needed to be hand crafted and the training to use a bow (not accuracy, but strength) took years. Good when you had those people, but when not you can't simply raise some archers when you need them.

 

[Steampunkette]

The issue with longbows isn't the effectiveness of the weapon, but the amount of training necessary. It takes years to train a good longbowman, which is decidedly not the case for crossbows or muskets. Unless you already have a culture of longbow use in enough of the population the effectiveness of the weapon is moot.

Which is why it's -so- good during many of the medieval wars before the primacy of firearms.

People used Bows of various kinds to hunt, to fish, to compete in fairs and tournaments, and to show off! So having an army's ranged units centered around archer was super effective. And if that had been the state of America during the War? WHOO DOGGY would it have been -hyper- effective at ending the war with a quickness!

But. For the better part of two centuries, the musket and pistol had usurped the place of the bow in the hands of the common man. Just an afternoon of training was enough to send your eldest son into the forest to come back with a few rabbits or a deer, after all. So much easier than learning how to use a bow!

Had the continental army tried to use archery they'd have been at some disadvantage. Enough of one to lose the war? shrugs No one alive can say. Maybe the army would've gotten "Enough" accuracy pretty quickly to be useful in killing the redcoats as they stood in their nice neat rows and the archers hid behind trees, rocks, and other objects while spread apart to limit the utility of volley fire. The fire rate certainly would have been nice.

But then there's the -cost-. Making lead balls and gunpowder had gotten fairly "Easy" by this point. But actually making arrows remained (and still remains) a time consuming process. Not just for the arrowheads, but for the shaft and fletching themselves, which took a goodly bit of expertise and delicacy to manage.

While fielding -some- soldiers with Longbows might have increased the efficacy of the Revolutionary Army simply through continuous fire, the amount of effort involved in maintaining such a military diversification would've been fairly high.

Because fielding archers was hard. Especially when you did not use them regularily. The bows and all the arrows needed to be hand crafted and the training to use a bow (not accuracy, but strength) took years. Good when you had those people, but when not you can't simply raise some archers when you need them.

Very -VERY- True. Every word.

Though... in retrospect. Recurve Bows and Composite Bows would have been a different direction to go. Get within 30ish yards of the Red Coats while they're reloading and start loosing arrows from a Recurve Bow with a 25-35 pound draw weight?

Could've been useful, at least. Still expensive for the arrows if nothing else!

 

[Ixal]

People used Bows of various kinds to hunt, to fish, to compete in fairs and tournaments, and to show off! So having an army's ranged units centered around archer was super effective. And if that had been the state of America during the War? WHOO DOGGY would it have been -hyper- effective at ending the war with a quickness!

Only very few people used bows even before the advent of firearms. The number of hunters was rather low es there was often not much to hunt around heavily farmed areas and many woods belonged to nobility and hunting were forbidden (although poachers existed). Those people often encompassed the entire ranged complement in an army apart from crossbow mercenaries.
Thats why in England there was a law to practice with your longbow each week (a law technically still in effect).

Only because of that England was able to field a significant number of longbows.
And there was a time England had to even import yew staffs to make bows as they could not grow enough of them domestically.

 

[Steampunkette]

Only very few people used bows even before the advent of firearms. The number of hunters was rather low es there was often not much to hunt around heavily farmed areas and many woods belonged to nobility and hunting were forbidden (although poachers existed). Those people often encompassed the entire ranged complement in an army apart from crossbow mercenaries.
Thats why in England there was a law to practice with your longbow each week (a law technically still in effect).

Only because of that England was able to field a significant number of longbows.
And there was a time England had to even import yew staffs to make bows as they could not grow enough of them domestically.

Definitely true about the law and the inability to do any hunting in England and several other monarchies! But I was thinking more "Globally". The Americas, Asia, Africa...

I don't think anyone in England during the middle ages did much Bow Fishing. Though I acknowledge I could be wrong!

Mmrrrr... I see how the next sentence is very problematic in light of that. The "Common Man". I mostly meant Colonists in America, for that part. But if Americans prior to the 1700s had been Bow-Hunters and Bow-Fishers, like some of their Native American neighbors, archery would've been a pretty interesting counter to the Red Coats.

Not sure how effective it would've been in the end... but... y'know. That misunderstanding was my fault, as was the unintentional racism.

 

[Ovinomancer]

The issue with longbows isn't the effectiveness of the weapon, but the amount of training necessary. It takes years to train a good longbowman, which is decidedly not the case for crossbows or muskets. Unless you already have a culture of longbow use in enough of the population the effectiveness of the weapon is moot.

Because fielding archers was hard. Especially when you did not use them regularily. The bows and all the arrows needed to be hand crafted and the training to use a bow (not accuracy, but strength) took years. Good when you had those people, but when not you can't simply raise some archers when you need them.

And this, while 100% true, means that the argument is academic, not actual. Muskets had effective ranges far in excess of the bow. They also did not exhaust the user while closing, meaning troops were fresh for hand to hand. Bows are also far harder to maintain.

The actual efficacy of bows versus muskets is not established well, either. Numerous confrontations with bow armed Native Americans during the 7 years war just prior to the American Revolution did not suggest that bows were significantly or even mildly more effective than firearms. Sure, these weren't English Longbows, but I don't think Franklin was talking about those either. If bows were so much more effective, then large standing armies would have specialist units, with additional prestige added. This is notably absent from all modern armies of the time, but other specialist weapon units did exist.

The arguments for the longbow being a superior weapon to muskets at the time of the American Revolution are rather weak, even after handicapping the training argument.

 

[Fenris-77]

I think you're conflating maximum range (ca. 1100m) with effective range (320m or far less depending on model and training) for the musket. The effective range of the longbow is 320-350m. Accuracy for the musket at the top 2/3 of it's range is a pretty pathetic fraction of that of the longbow. Add in rate of fire and I think the argument for the longbow being a better weapon is actually pretty solid. Also setting aside the training bit.

Edit: other bows don't really make the cut.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Only very few people used bows even before the advent of firearms. The number of hunters was rather low es there was often not much to hunt around heavily farmed areas and many woods belonged to nobility and hunting were forbidden (although poachers existed). Those people often encompassed the entire ranged complement in an army apart from crossbow mercenaries.
Thats why in England there was a law to practice with your longbow each week (a law technically still in effect).

Only because of that England was able to field a significant number of longbows.
And there was a time England had to even import yew staffs to make bows as they could not grow enough of them domestically.

The feilding of sufficient archers doesn't seem to be a particular problem in history. And hunting was much more important to life until the point that muskets were becoming common, and most certainly after crossbows were common. This also ignores a lot of other cultures outside Europe.

And, to this, the advent of the English Longbowman is unique in history, both in the national push for competent archers and in the design of the weapon itself. It's not replicated anywhere else. Taking this as a baseline is like taking the archery traditions of the steppes tribes as a baseline. Both are extraordinary, and, in the case of the English Longbow, short lived.

 

[Fenris-77]

Both true, but the English longbow is also the analogue for the fantasy longbow, so the whole subject is perhaps far more germane to a discussion of fantasy settings than it is real-world history.

 

[Ovinomancer]

I think you're conflating maximum range (ca. 1100m) with effective range (320m or far less depending on model and training) for the musket. The effective range of the longbow is 320-350m. Accuracy for the musket at the top 2/3 of it's range is a pretty pathetic fraction of that of the longbow. Add in rate of fire and I think the argument for the longbow being a better weapon is actually pretty solid. Also setting aside the training bit.

Edit: other bows don't really make the cut.

Effective ranges for the Brown Bess, issue weapon of the Redcoats, was just over 100m aimed and -350m volley. Maximum range is -1250m.

Meanwhile, the longest shot from an English longbow period is 340m with a hugely high draw weight, well above tge normal. The expected effective range for the longbow was 140m.

The guy that is the foremost practicing longbowman today, using period accurate replicas, could only get three shots off against a simulated charging knight across his entire range. While that's more than a musket, sure, the musket line is effectively killing archers with volley fire when the archers haven't even entered maximum range (the record isn't the average).

The English longbiw was a tremendous weapon, but it's almost as hyped as the katana. Granted, ithe longbow actually deserves some of it.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Both true, but the English longbow is also the analogue for the fantasy longbow, so the whole subject is perhaps far more germane to a discussion of fantasy settings than it is real-world history.

Is it? What a terrible job of it, then. Katana-esque indeed!