D&D General D&D weapons vs reality

[Zardnaar]

Absolutely. My point is that bows were better at penetration than crossbows. Armor was effective for many reasons, but no armor in history reliably stopped a direct good hit from a contemporary ranged weapon. If they did, armor would have been even more widespread and/or those weapons would have fallen out of use, obviously.

The armor could stop an arrow but it assumes the right angle. Much like tank armor it was sloped and curved. Angle changes slighlt or the armor hits 45 degrees into the side where its 1mm thick vs 3mm and you're in trouble. Modern comparison was the IS-3 tank pike nose. Front on very thick, angle changes its thinner. Height difference (attacker is up higher eg a hill) and you are in big trouble.

Most armies didn't have powerful bows though. English longbow is famous for a reason. In antiquity the bows were comparatively weak. Hence why heavy infantry dominated in Europe for 1000 odd years.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Another reason was resources. High quality bow requires specific wood and you're going to denude your local forests assuming you even have the required wood.

Yeah and crossbows and muskets didn’t take nearly as specific or high quality materials, especially as metallurgy got better and better.

Or you lacked the knowledge and resources steppe nomads had for composite bows.

I mean hardly just them. There are examples of similarly ranged bows that are usuable on horseback or are simply smaller all over the world.

For mid-range, hunting, and “normal” war bows, Europe did fine, though.

The armor could stop an arrow but it assumes the right angle. Much like tank armor it was sloped and curved. Angle changes slighlt or the armor hits 45 degrees into the side where it’s 1mm thick vs 3mm and you're in trouble. Modern comparison was the IS-3 tank pike nose. Front on very thick, angle changes its thinner. Height difference (attacker is up higher eg a hill) and you are in big trouble.

Absolutely. Thats the thing. A breastplate is worth it because you aren’t just standing there letting archers pick the perfect shot, and so most hits aren’t dead on against your weakest points, but most of the design of heavy armor is taking melee into account much more than ranged enemies. Your best defense against a cadre of skilled archers is tactics.

Most armies didn't have powerful bows though. English longbow is famous for a reason. In antiquity the bows were comparatively weak. Hence why heavy infantry dominated in Europe for 1000 odd years.

Kinda. Europeans had good strong war bows all the way back to Ancient Greece, but the “longbow” is the first time they reached quite the same strength as other regions’ heaviest bows.
A minor distinction maybe, but IMO an important one.

 

[Cadence]

I mean hardly just them. There are examples of similarly ranged bows that are usuable on horseback or are simply smaller all over the world.

Found this interesting about outside of Europe The Interesting Reason Why Bows Were Replaced With Guns