Which was most effective in battle - the longbow or the crossbow?

Question

Please substantiate your choice.

Answer 1

The longbow was unsophisticated, simple to make and easy to mass produce. Made out of Yew, it was up to 6 foot long, with a pull of up to one hundred and eighty (180) pounds being drawn through a distance of about three (3) feet. This simple weapon could accurately hurl an armour piercing arrow up to two hundred (200) yards and kill or maim an armoured knight. A skilled Yeoman (archer) could fire off up to twenty arrows a minute.

The opposing French had no comparable weapon to the longbow - their archers being Italian or Swiss mercenaries using the much more sophisticated (i.e. complicated) crossbow that could only fire a bolt about half the distance of a longbow (i.e. 100 yards) at a fire rate of about one or two bolts a minute.

The overwhelming fire power of English longbow archers (yeomen) decimated the French army during the first major battle between the English and the French at Crecy in August 1346, with nearly half the French army being killed or severely wounded, including over 1000 French Knights, for the loss of only a handful of English soldiers.

Im sure this battle speaks for itself........

Answer 2

The most deadly of the two is the crossbow. It's bolt was armour piercing and could kill at a couple of hundred years with ease. The major draw-back to this weapon was litterally the time it took to load. The soldier had to place the weapon downwards, foot through the metal loop and turn two handles until the metal draw bow was drawn back.

Most effective weapon in any battle is undoubtedly the Longbow with it's 200 yard range. The Welsh bowmen at the Battle of Agincourt, all 1,000 of them, could loose arrows on the King's command and have in the air something like 9,000 arrows in the first minute. Each bowman would loose off about 9 arrows in the first minute.

An attacking army would be seriously damaged by such a flood of arrows. Indeed, one witness at the Battle of Agincourt described the sky being 'black with arrows'.

Drawback to the longbow is that none of the ingenious arrow heads developed, particularly by the English, were ever armour piercing.

However, at the Battle of Agincourt, the Welsh archers had a secret weapon. Since each archer was an artisan, he carried a heavy sledge hammer, probably 16 to 20lb in weight. If an armoured knight got among the bowmen, he would be torn from his horse and smashed to bits while still in his armour.

The Welsh archers and the English infanty were absolutely ruthless, so much so in fact that the French demanded that the longbow be banned from all wars.

Nuts. We're winning, why should we throw away our most effective and dirt cheap weapon? So cheap to make is the longbow that boys of 9 were given them to practise with at home while dad went out to chastise the French, again!

It eventually became the case by English law that all men and boys will do archery practise at least once a week. Not sure if there was ever a specific day for this - it happened. Result, the British became victorious in almost every conflict they had in Europe. Well, the French eventually kept France, mainly because we had lost interest.

Answer 3

The crossbow was more effective.

Reason:

A good long bowman took alot of time to train. Years in some cases. It's not as easy firing a longbow as most people think and the fitness level needed is higher than most people think.

Imagine firing 6 arrows a min for 20 mins straight even on today's compound bows, then imagine doing it on a longbow.

Crossbow's allowed the untrained common soldiers to be as effective as long bowman. It took very little time to train a crossbowman.

Of course crossbows didn't have the range of longbows, but their bolts at shorter ranges could penetrate most armor.

But the largest factor, is the time it took to train the soldier.

Crossbows allowed relatively untrained soldiers to become instant specialist and be effective on the battlefield.

Answer 4

It depends partly on the conditions. Almost all the time, the longbow was superior due to being simple to build and very quick to load and fire. However, if there was some kind of reason for the battle to be fought at very long range (for example a wall, a valley, a river, or whatever), the crossbow would have an easier time getting bolts all the way to the enemy due to being more powerful.

Answer 5

As others have stated, it depends.
The crossbow was easy to use and train any user to be effective, effective in all terrains, not cumbersome to carry, and accurate (for its day), but it had to be manufactured by skilled workers (bolts could be made in the field in emergencies) and was not along range weapon. It could be carried at the same time as a sword and shield and even used one handed but wasn't very effective in firing over castle walls. It was useful in water, marshes, on horseback, in woods or anywhere else.
The long bow was a very effective weapon. It's range was several times that of the crossbow but it was not accurate and required massed fire formations. Its rate of fire was slightly faster than the crossbow and each person carried more 'rounds', arrows, than a crossbow bearer would because the arrows were lighter. However, it was almost useless in forest and firing directly down hill. It was a high trajectory weapon and capable of firing over castle walls and onto wall tops or into towers but wasn't very accurate in any but the most skilled users hands. Since the distance the arrows traveled required judgement in how far back to pull the arrow, what angles to use and the ability to sense wind and obstacles, the users required more individual training than those using a crossbow. And these users had to be generally large. Also, due to the bulkiness of the longbow in use and transport they carried no other weapons (maybe a dagger) and had to be protected from direct assault. It was too cumbersome to fire from horseback or when standing in water, marshes, tall grasses, etc.

Answer 6

Both were good for different things. The longbow could go for hundreds of metres, and could be fired very quickly but required you to be incredibly strong.

The crossbow took time to reload and couldn't go as far, but was able to be used by many more people because it required less strength and less skill.

The longbow was incredibly powerful. There is a tale of an Englishman hit by a Welsh arrow which went through the inside and outside of the iron armour on his leg, the leather undergarment, the saddle of his horse and went far enough into the horse to kill it. (Itinerarium Cambriae, (1191)) The main problem with it was it took years of practice to master. Indeed, so powerful were longbows that they had a greater range and refire rate than gunpowder weapons for many hundreds of years.

Therefore I'd say they were both equally valuable, but for different uses, the longbow as a kind of heavy machinegun killing many enemies from a long distance, and the crossbow as a rifle, being able to be easily used, but at a short distance.

Answer 7

The long bow was by far the most effective. It was able to put arrows onto a target long before a crossbow could get within range.

It was also a lot cheaper than the crossbow and easier to mass produce.

If you look at the battles of Agincourt and Crecy, you can see how effective the two were when facing each other.

Answer 8

The longbow was extremely effective in battle.It was used to shower the enemy in mass but could be fired directly at them.In fact the longbow was far more accurate and quicker o fire than later muskets but it took years of practice to develop the upper body strength to be proficient and in fact many archers were full time paid troops who contracted out to the crown or various lords.The Welsh were very famous archers and Edward 9the hammer of the Scots)employed them against the Scots.Against the longbow the crossbow wasn't effective but it was against infantry and cavalry and again many specialist crossbowmen sold their services especially the Genoese who were often employed by the French.

Answer 9

If you are talking killing power, then both are as effective as both will kill equally well.

If you are talking outright number of kills per hour of use, then the longbow wins as numerous (>10-15) arrows per minute could be shot by English bowmen in battle. A crossbow is substantially less as it is a more involved process to reload.

If you are talking accuracy over long distances then either could be as accurate depending on the skill of the archer.

Note: any weapon in archery is SHOT, not fired; no fire is involved in moving the projectile, unlike a FIREarm (answer is in the name) where combustion is needed to eject the projectile.

Answer 10

I hate to say it depends, but it depends on a lot of factors. How much time do you have to train for battle, what’s the terrain, how much skill do your archers have? Are you going to use the archers as fodder?

A longbow takes a lot of time and practice to become really proficient, so they would be professional archers and very expensive. But with a crossbow you wouldn’t need as much time to train, they wouldn’t need as much upper body strength. Depending on the design of the crossbow, they would use both hands do draw the string back or a windlass or other such device.

Of course the trade off is that a crossbow is much slower to shoot, you could loose 2 to 5 times as fast with a longbow then with crossbow. And over distance the longbow is more accurate then the crossbow. But you would need less training and less expense with the crossbow, even though the crossbow itself was expensive.

Given all of that I’d pick the crossbow. Reasons, it doesn’t take long to train archers. The archers aren’t as skilled and therefore cheaper. I could train the peasants to fire them if need be. I could build up my arms overtime (crossbows were expensive), but with a little training you could achieve a decent rate of fire, using techniques similar to those used when single shot black power firearms were used. You divide up your ranks in to three, a front, middle, and a back line. To attack the front line would loose, stop to reload while the second line stepped in front of the first loosed, stop reload, while the third line stepped in front of the second loosed stop reload, first line would step in front of the third loose, etc. To retreat same thing backwards first line would loose and step back behind third line and reload, second line would loose and step back behind first line and loose, etc.

The idea would be to break the line and allow the cavalry, knights, to charge in and route the enemy.

For defense of a castle I would have a stash of arms, and in case of my archers died, I could replace them with less experience archers or train them while the castle was being defended. I could even train the fairer sex if necessary. With a longbow, even if I had sufficient numbers of arms everyone it would take years to train them, and I couldn’t use most of the women, sorry gals, because they don’t have the upper body strength needed.

So my vote it the crossbow.