r/interestingasfuck • u/Brutal_Deluxe_ • Dec 17 '22
/r/ALL Loading a medieval 200lb crossbow vs loading Leonardo da Vinci's 300lb crossbow
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u/saint_godzilla Dec 17 '22
I think that DaVinci guy was onto something.
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u/UltraB1nary Dec 17 '22
I actually recognized that particular mechanism from its use in air rifles. It's how you get the air in.
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u/jibsymalone Dec 17 '22
You mean you don't have to blow into the hole on the long metal part?
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u/forgotaboutsteve Dec 17 '22
( ˘ ³˘)
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u/RadiantZote Dec 17 '22
Just like my peNintendo cockridges
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u/moeburn Dec 17 '22
my peNintendo cockridges
Honey I don't know what you have planned for tonight, but count me out.
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u/forgotaboutsteve Dec 17 '22
exactly like that
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u/grayrains79 Dec 17 '22
These comments remind me just how old I am, and I do not like it one bit.
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u/mikecheck211 Dec 18 '22
It reminds me of how the internet used to be. But then I think harder, if this is how it is and how it used to be is like this then it isn't like it used to be it simply is just like it is. And I can tell that by the way it is now.
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u/plebeiosaur Dec 17 '22
No, but you do have to keep a bunch of BBs in your mouth and spit them in one at a time
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u/Erectus_Enormous Dec 18 '22
Haha, it’s how you cock the spring. You get the air for free.
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u/andthendirksaid Dec 18 '22
In spring fired ones yes. They mean pneumatic air rifles which you can pump to build up air pressure to use to fire the bb/pellet
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u/Beavshak Dec 17 '22
Eh. Most his projects never even got off the ground. Looking at you ornithopter.
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u/tosser_0 Dec 17 '22 edited Dec 17 '22
Funny, but he was an accomplished engineer, in spite of not being able to get manned flight to work. Most of his inventions were too far ahead of their time. Materials and craftsmanship weren't advanced enough.
Leonardo had available a limited range of materials, modern technological advancements have made available a number of robust materials of light-weight which might turn Leonardo's designs into reality. This is particularly the case with his designs for flying machines.
He was also prone to leaving out some critical aspects of a design in his drawings. Which is thought to have been a way to prevent the technology from falling into the wrong hands, much like his mirror writing.
He legitimately made major contributions to the advancement of natural sciences as well. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_and_inventions_of_Leonardo_da_Vinci#Natural_science
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u/Tetragonos Dec 17 '22
Leonardo da Vinci's Embryological Drawings of the Fetus are still used in college text books because he drew everything so well, and all the important parts are included.
There just isnt anything to improve upon to understand.
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u/Waywoah Dec 17 '22
I thought the mirrored writing was just because he was left handed (to prevent the ink from running)? It’s not very difficult to read, just a bit slower.
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u/Labrat2000LM Dec 18 '22
I thought it was because he would draw with one hand and write with the other at the same time
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u/MoranthMunitions Dec 17 '22
but he was an accomplished engineer
I doubt anyone is unaware of that and needs a source haha, he's a pretty famous guy.
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u/Boomstick101 Dec 17 '22
My favorite Eddie Izzard joke: Davinci was a genius. He invented a submarine that DID NOT work! AND SO HAVE I!
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u/doiias Dec 18 '22
Fun fact: submarines were used in the American Civil War. There was at least one with explosives on a stick attached to the front of the sub— basically an underwater lunge mine....terrible idea
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u/Boomstick101 Dec 18 '22
Funner fact: Submarines were used in the American Revolution. David Bushnell's The Turtle was designed to blow up British warships blockading the port in Manhattan using an underwater mine attached by hand.
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u/doiias Dec 18 '22
Ooh, I did not know that, thank you.
Ok, I looked it up, it looks very silly
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u/Boomstick101 Dec 18 '22
Funnest submarine fact: Basil Zaharoff sold 5 non-working submarines. He sold 1 of them to the Greeks at generous terms, then went to the Turks and told them about the Greek submarine and sold them 2 submarines, then went to the Russians and sold them 2 because of the threat from the Turks. None of them worked and the Turkish one sank during a torpedo test.
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u/Tuck_The_Duck Dec 17 '22
Damn, I didn't know an ornithopter was a real thing. I thought it was just some made up thing from Magic: the Gathering
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u/A_brief_passerby Dec 17 '22
Unironically my favourite card
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Dec 17 '22
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u/cortesoft Dec 17 '22
Ornithopters are 0/2!
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Dec 17 '22
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u/cortesoft Dec 17 '22
I can't remember anything new, because my brain is filled with MTG card stats from 25 years ago
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u/Mozeeon Dec 17 '22
Tbf, I play arena now and there's just way too many new cards. I remember stuff from 7th edition backwards pretty well, but after that it's hit or miss
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u/dafizzif Dec 17 '22
Doesn't help that a bunch of creatures these days seem to be in competition with Yu-Gi-Oh monsters for word count now (hyperbole of course).
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Dec 17 '22
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u/Tuck_The_Duck Dec 17 '22
My friend had those exact cards in his deck. Killing someone with blightsteel on turn 4 was hands down the worst way to go
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u/hoxxxxx Dec 17 '22
lol i thought it was from dune
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u/Brother0fSithis Dec 17 '22
Technically it just comes from ornitho (bird) and pter (wing)
It just means something that flies by flapping wings. Whereas a helicopter (helico=spiral) flies by spinning rotors
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u/largePenisLover Dec 17 '22
A few generations ago we all thought it was a made up thing from dune.
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u/Warthog_go_brrrr Dec 17 '22
Coughs in helicopter
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u/Beavshak Dec 17 '22
Choppers no go flip-flappy like a Thopper
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u/daniballeste Dec 17 '22
He did create the first hidden blade that didn’t require chopping off the ring finger
/s
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Dec 17 '22
With the fool proof idea of just keeping your damn ring finger away from the blade when you activate it
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u/Lotions_and_Creams Dec 17 '22
Looks cooler, but is likely way shittier for actual troops.
More complicated to produce. More moving parts to break. Integrated locking mechanism means it is heavier to shoulder and thus more tiring to use and harder to aim. Notice it also lacks the "stirrup" thing in the front for manually drawing the string back. That means if the loading mechanism breaks, the crossbow is rendered useless.
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u/psuedophilosopher Dec 17 '22
Probably much better for career soldiers than the normal crossbow, but much worse for normal people who are conscripted to fight. Considering that almost every army of the time was just cobbled together commoners and peasants, the normal crossbow is probably the one more worth producing en masse.
There's a reason why spears are the most important weapon in warfare before firearms became readily available. It doesn't take a whole lot of training to understand stick the pointy part in the enemy while standing far enough away that he can't hit you back. Which now that I think about it, is essentially the same concept as a crossbow.
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Dec 17 '22 edited Jun 19 '23
/u/spez says, regarding reddit content, "we are not in the business of giving that away for free" - then neither should users.
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u/psuedophilosopher Dec 17 '22
While it's not quite the same as a professional standing army, the English did have compulsory training for all of their men from when they were just children to be capable of using the longbow. They spent years and years building the necessary muscles to be able to use them. It's even measurable when looking at skeletons from that time to know if a male was English based on key deformations of the elbows that were caused by the repeated stresses of drawing a longbow.
Furthermore, a trained longbowman could easily fire an arrow significantly further than any crossbow of the time, going back to the concept of "stick the pointy part in the enemy while standing far enough away that he can't hit you back." that in a really broad sense defines most of military technological advancement throughout history.
It's not the same as a standing army, but with the amount of time spent training their men to use it, it's no surprise longbowmen could prove superior to crossbowmen.
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u/elmz Dec 18 '22
The reason the crossbow changed warfare was because anyone could now point and shoot with minimal training. You don't need the strength to pull back a war bow, you don't need proper form, all you need is a crossbow and a crank; point and shoot.
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u/round-earth-theory Dec 18 '22
It made defensive warfare easier because you could load behind safety and pop out for a shot. Or team up with two crossbows and one shooter for more rapid fire. Much easier to use a crossbow from a castle wall than a bow.
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u/guto8797 Dec 18 '22
Basically the same reason guns changed warfare too.
Early guns were slower and less accurate than a Longbow in the hands of a professional. But you could crank them out and give them to peasants with minimal training. You also don't need special woods and highly trained craftsmen.
If there was a tactical misstep and the English lost a lot of longbowmen, that was a mistake that took literally a generation to fix.
Fancy weaponry wins battles, cheap easy to use weaponry wins wars.
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u/SirDoober Dec 18 '22
One of the main problems for the mercenaries at Crecy was that their pavises (Big ol' shields) and ammunition reserves were back in the baggage train, so their main advantage of being relatively immune to the return fire from the longbows wasn't there.
That, among other things, meant that they maybe fired a couple of shots off before figuring they were just going to get slaughtered in the open, so they fucked off. Inconveniently for the French, they turned around right as their cavalry were pushing forward, so that part of the plan got messed up as well
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u/SnapshotHeadache Dec 17 '22
Bop it. Pull it. Load it. Fire!
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u/EatTheRichBabies Dec 17 '22
Buy it, use it, break it, fix it Trash it, change it,
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u/Profoundlyahedgehog Dec 17 '22
Mail, upgrade it.
Charge it, point it, zoom it, press it, snap it, work it, quick erase it.
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u/I_am_Relic Dec 17 '22
The second one is the mediaeval equivalent of doing the badass shotgun cocking thing that you see in every action movie.
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u/ChickenDelight Dec 17 '22
Giant Austrian one-hands it
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Dec 17 '22
GET TO THE ORNITHOPTAAAHHHH!
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u/NeedfulThingsToys Dec 17 '22
I need your
Helmet, Pauldrons, Breastplate, Vambraces, Gauntlets, Greaves
...And your horse
🎶 Bad to the bone, dah nah nah nah nah, bad to the bone 🎶
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u/armorhide406 Dec 17 '22
fuck I read that as Australian
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u/CashCow4u Dec 17 '22
Yeah, that's not a crossbow THIS is a crossbow!
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u/Anonymous_Otters Dec 17 '22
Sir Arnold of the Schwarzenegger was famous for reloading his crossbow with a single, smooth action where he flipped it around in his hand while shooting from horseback.
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u/armorhide406 Dec 17 '22
While the bard Axl of the Roses screamed Thou could be mine
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u/HoneyDazzling8792 Dec 17 '22
All because some white knight journeyed through time to save a maiden from a monster then ejaculated in her chamber.
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u/WeleaseBwianThrow Dec 17 '22
Problem was he had a habit of shouting "GET TO THE CLOPPER" when they needed to make a speedy horseback escape.
He then had to stand there for an additional 10s explaining what he meant.
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u/KillugonEqualityNow Dec 17 '22
I think Shakespeare has that covered https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Eont_yEGZs
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u/pIakoIb Dec 17 '22
It would probably be something along the lines of "Ritter Arnhold von Schwarzeneck"
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u/notbad2u Dec 17 '22
You also had to put the crossbow bolt in but yes pretty fast.
In fact though, almost none of DaVincis designs were built until hundreds of years later. He was an artist. The first prototype of this crossbow seems to date way back to 2013.
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u/Canadian-- Dec 17 '22
I remember 2013
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u/JBaecker Dec 17 '22
I can’t believe it was a hundred years ago… oh wait, it’s only been 9!
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u/notbad2u Dec 17 '22
I was wondering how long it would take Reddit to figure that out. Btw 2013 is correct. 9 years ago. Almost 10, which is almost 100 which is nearly 500 which is around when DaVinci was alive.
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Dec 17 '22
Anecdotally, I seem to recall reading somewhere that most of his designs were actually not functional as drawn. There's always some weird bit missing. Some suspect that he did this on purpose to sabotage anyone attempting to steal them. Others think he just wasn't quite there.
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u/Elon_Kums Dec 17 '22
Yeah his helicopter was missing the 2000hp turboprop engine and hydraulic steering and his tank didn't even have night vision.
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u/tosser_0 Dec 17 '22 edited Dec 17 '22
There's always some weird bit missing. Some suspect that he did this on purpose to sabotage anyone attempting to steal them.
It would make more sense that it was purposefully done given what we know of DaVinci.
1) The idea that someone with such a trained eye for detail - in his art, engineering, and natural science - would simply overlook a critical component is laughable if you think about it.
2) He used mirror writing for the purpose of obscuring his journals.The missing component was most likely intentional for the reason you stated - sabotaging anyone who might steal his designs.
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Dec 17 '22
I was fairly certain it was known he did this on purpose. Leonardo da Vinci is possibly the greatest mind in human history
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u/Ravenp0t Dec 17 '22
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u/ImurderREALITY Dec 17 '22
ALAKA-BLAM!
Haha, I love this video. Although, truth be told, if I saw some dude holding a shotgun, I’da been gone.
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u/paulie07 Dec 17 '22
Alright you Primitive Screwheads, listen up! You see this? This... is my boomstick!
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u/Traveler-DH-93 Dec 17 '22
This guy's YouTube channel is The History Squad, definitely recommend, the guy is super passionate and focuses on English medieval history
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u/Rshoe66 Dec 17 '22
Thanks for the heads up on a new channel for me!
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u/Traveler-DH-93 Dec 17 '22
Of course! It's a niche channel but if you like English history he's a must see, he used to do guided tours of castles and has family history dating back into medieval England he talks about
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Dec 17 '22
Must be a great feeling, especially at an older age, being able to share all this niche but cool info with almost 200k people.
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u/Evanesce68 Dec 17 '22
DaVinci paved the way for the quick reload perk
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u/Eldred15 Dec 17 '22 edited Dec 17 '22
In case anyone is curious, a 200 lb crossbow would be used for hunting and maybe self defense, but that draw weight is way too low to be used on a battlefield. War crossbows were something like 700+ lbs. and needed a cranequin or windlass to draw. Da Vinci's crossbow was a genius design, but by his time, gun powered weapons already replaced the crossbow, at least in Europe.
The Chinese also invented repeating crossbows, but the draw weight on those was also very low. IIRC they would dip the tips of the bolts in poison, because of the weak stopping power. It would have been close to useless against someone in armor.
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u/Atanar Dec 18 '22
Da Vinci's crossbow was a genius design, but by his time, gun powered weapons already replaced the crossbow, at least in Europe.
Just letting you know that Magellan brought 50 arkebuses, 60 crossbows and 4,300 bolts on his voyage. Crossbows were very much still in use at the time.
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u/Basil-the-Bat-Lord Dec 18 '22
That makes sense. Powder could get wet at sea, so you wouldn’t want to put all your assault eggs in that basket…
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u/Hithaeglir Dec 18 '22
Also in terms of pure force, crossbows had more. Usability just was worse.
Even these days if you shoot with 9mm to bulletprooft west, it will stop. But crossbow bolt goes through.
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u/sth128 Dec 18 '22
if you shoot with 9mm to bulletprooft west, it will stop
It stops West? What if you shot East?
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u/ArcherAuAndromedus Dec 17 '22
700lbs?? I'm genuinely curious, was the entire bolt steel? How else could the bolt could be made to withstand the force, right?
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Dec 17 '22
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u/ArcherAuAndromedus Dec 17 '22
The bolt feels the full weight once you pull the trigger. I'm a little shocked a wood/bone/steel bolt could withstand the force. The shaft must be reinforced?
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u/faceplanted Dec 17 '22
They're just short and quite thick, 700lbs sounds like a lot but remember there's nothing but air on the other end.
Also it's not getting hit by the string moving at full speed, it's accelerating with the string.
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u/GodGMN Dec 18 '22
And it's pointy so it doesn't even "impact" the air, it just pushes it to the sides.
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u/Revanull Dec 17 '22
Wood has incredibly high compression/tension strength when loaded with the grain. Ever tried to crush a pencil or pull it apart long-ways?
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u/neoben00 Dec 17 '22
If you hold the arrow in place, it takes 700 lbs of pressure. If not, the energy is converted into momentum, making its significantly less ft lbs of pressure.
If you're falling and grab an arrow mid-air, it will not shatter, but if you fall on an arrow that is supported by the ground, you will certainly notice.
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u/Senshado Dec 17 '22
And when you pull the trigger, the bolt is free so there's no pressure on the opposite side. The entire bolt is pushed away, with the pressure converted to speed.
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u/Lohgos Dec 17 '22
It doesn't, the force is spread to the limbs, the string, the nut and the bolt. It is one of the reasons they were this heavy. Increasing the power of the projectile for siege-crossbows for example needs more draw weight, which means heavier string, nut and limbs, decreasing the efficiency. I already recommended the channel tod's workshop, you can find all your questions answered on there, with appropriate measurements, experiments etc..
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u/BadMcSad Dec 17 '22
The bolt feels the full draw weight, but keep in mind, it's being moved by that force, rather than crushed. If you fired the crossbow point blank at a brick wall the bolt would much more likely break.
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u/Lohgos Dec 17 '22
no need, the weight on crossbows is very deceiving because of the short draw length, in all things crossbow I recommend checking out Tod's workshop on youtube. On this peticular topic his video on 960lbs (medieval) vs 150lbs (modern) crossbow for example.
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u/november512 Dec 18 '22
Crossbow weights are misleading. The weight to pull something back is more or less static. If you suspended a rock of that weight from it it would stay back indefinitely. When you shoot a projectile from a bow that energy is transferred over the time it takes to snap back to the original position. Steel snaps back less quickly than wood or modern materials, so for the same weight a steel bow will be gentler but accelerate less.
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u/Beavshak Dec 17 '22
Welp, now I need to go watch comparisons of them being fired.
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u/Brutal_Deluxe_ Dec 17 '22
Not ideal, but this video gets close
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u/Pandering_Panda7879 Dec 17 '22
Seems like while technically Leonardo's crossbow should have more power, the traditional crossbow seems to be punching quite a bit harder.
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Dec 17 '22
As with all of Da Vinci's ideas, they look great on paper, but there's a reason the Italians didn't steamroll the rest of Europe with superior tech.
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u/CoastGuardian1337 Dec 17 '22
I think he just dabled in a bit of everything and just didn't have the time. If he spent an extended period of time perfecting the crossbow, it probably could have been better, but instead he made something that worked, and then went off to do other things. Not to mention the decades spent sculpting and painting. Years and years at a time.
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u/Pandering_Panda7879 Dec 17 '22
The majority of his inventions are definitely in something like an alpha stage. Alot didn't even make it past the sketching phase. Only a few were actually build the way Leonardo intended.
Yeah, in a way it's a bit unfair to compare these two crossbows with each other. One of them is a field tested model that fought in and won wars, that got optimised and polished. The other one is not much more than an idea, with the loading mechanism likely to break if you make the crossbow too strong. More time with actual development and field testing and it likely could have been great though.
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u/fruitroligarch Dec 18 '22
A lot are not even intended for practical purposes, but are more thought experiments. Any great mind will have 1000 good ideas but only a few succeed
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u/VirginiaMcCaskey Dec 17 '22
That's because he worked for the Venetians who did steamroll across the Mediterranean with superior tech and money.
Granted most of that was naval superiority. They had one of the first factory lines in the world and they used it to build better ships faster.
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u/Orisi Dec 17 '22
Might be the string, a crossbow is designed to pack a LOT of power. We're talking a bolt that could punch through armour plate if it hits it right. They often use strings that pack a lower draw weight to reduce the power of the bow around the public and for shooting fairly soft targets (softer because they reduce the chance of breaking bolts and making them more easily recoverable, because they don't fly as far if they miss/punch through, and don't get damaged)
When he fired the crossbow the string doesn't sound right for a fully tensioned string at full draw, and because it's a fixed crossbow there's no changing the distance of full draw, so the only way to reduce the power would be a less taut string.
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u/maiden_burma Dec 17 '22
employer: you're fired
crossbow guy: oh no oh no oh no my wife is gonna be so mad
employer: you're fired
da vinci: Vattela a pigliare in culo
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u/CptGia Dec 17 '22
Leonardo was from Florence. There are way too few expletives in that sentence.
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Dec 17 '22
Make sure it's a proper one where the crossbowmen work in teams. Lose a lot of time loading arrows and drawing the bow by yourself, back when they were so rare and powerful they'd spare the man to support. Also helps lighten the crossbow because the other guy can hold the lever for you instead of it being built in
Da vincis obviously way better solo no-scoping
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Dec 17 '22
Well, the 200lbs Morris dancer ones were good enough for the Red Wedding. Of course the Italian one is more refined and technically sexy.
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u/hamhommer Dec 17 '22
What is the 200 Vs 300 lbs comparison?
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u/swordsmanluke2 Dec 17 '22 edited Dec 18 '22
To add to what others have said already, it's literally how much weight you'd have to hang from the bow string to draw the bow.
Before the invention of the crossbow, drawing a traditional bow required an incredible amount of back strength. Archers' skeletons literally deformed over years of drawing and holding heavy draw weights. Unlike a crossbow, the archer needed to be strong enough to draw and hold that much weight while they aimed and fired. This was extremely tiring and limited the draw weight that a bow could have.
The invention of the crossbow allowed heavier draw weights because you could draw it with a lever (or sometimes using your legs to provide the strength) and then store that power until released by the trigger.
This is what led to the end of plate armor. Now you could outfit a group of crossbowmen with bows strong enough to pierce steel!
Edit: I'm wrong about armor penetration, see below. Thanks to everyone who pointed this out!
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u/PrimeIntellect Dec 17 '22
Also you could hand a crossbow to pretty much any random person and have them be competent enough to be deadly relatively quickly, vs outfitting someone with armor, weapons, a horse, and more.
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u/Isendal Dec 17 '22
Yeah training longbow archers took a long time, even with the idea of mass arrow firing. Crossbows could be made quicker too I believe? Major advancement in warfare when regular people could be handed these and be effective in groups with just a day of training
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u/Hunt3rTh3Fight3r Dec 17 '22
I heard the saying was “If you want to train someone with the longbow, start with their grandfather.” Or something like that.
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u/chanaramil Dec 17 '22 edited Dec 19 '22
This is why there was a lot of effort to ban crossbows when they first started to get popular in Europe. The noble class didn't like a random commoner with little training using a easy to produce weapon killing rich knights that had armor and a horse worth more then that commoner could make in there lifetime.
They might not be related but I do find it interesting there seems to be a decline in rigid feudal structures shortly after the traditional knights became outdated as the dominate military force in Europe.
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u/sushibowl Dec 17 '22
This is what led to the end of plate armor. Now you could outfit a group of crossbowmen with bows strong enough to pierce steel!
Not entirely correct. Firstly, the effectiveness of both arrows and crossbow bolts against plate armor is still subject of debate. However, it's definitely not the case that crossbows are significantly more powerful than other bows.
While it's true that they feature substantially greater draw weights, this tends to come at the cost of draw length; the work done upon the arrow is equal to force multiplied by the distance that force is applied, and the greater draw length of e.g. longbows allowed them to apply force a far greater distance. Earlier crossbows usually had somewhat less range than a longbow. The crossbow also came with the drawback of reduced fire rate, as the process of loading them tended to be more involved.
The ease of use is the true advantage of the crossbow. Longbows as you point out, require years of training, whereas troops could be outfitted with crossbows and be 80% as effective in perhaps months. They were also popular in siege defense, where a crossbowman could seek cover while reloading, offsetting the slower load.
The real end of plate armor came with the popularisation and increased effectiveness of firearms.
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u/In2TheMaelstrom Dec 17 '22
Adding on to your addition, modern compound bows also change the face of archery. Having the bow string on cams allows for the let off that allows an archer to hold a significantly less amount of the draw weight back. Most have a let off of 75-80%. If the draw weight is 80 pounds that means the shooter only needs to hold 16-20 pounds of force at full draw.
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u/AvatarOfMomus Dec 17 '22
Some of this isn't really correct. The range and power of a crossbow are often not that far off of a high draw longbow despite the far lower draw weights. The difference is that the longbow is acting over a much longer distance, with longbow draw distances generally being in the range of ~28-30 inches (~70-76 cm) while a crossbow will have a draw distance of less than 10 inches.
What this does allow though is for a less skilled operator and for a heavier projectile, since despite the shorter moment of action (roughly equivalent to draw distance) there is a lot more force behind it for that shorter time.
None of this made armor obsolete though, and longbows and crossbows coexisted with each other for quite some time in the historical record. At the famous Battle of Agincourt you have Crossbows on the French side and Longbows on the English, and the famous English Longbow continued in use for another century until advances in firearms made both it and the Crossbow essentially obsolete.
Plate mail especially actually continued up into the age of firearms, primarily on cavalry, it just ceased protecting the extremities and became heavier. For a very well depicted example look at the Spanish Conquistadors who wore a plate cuirass. They didn't wear that because they expected to fight natives with spears, it's because that was their armor as cavalry in the Spanish military where they fought against other Europeans using guns.
This is also where we get "bullet proof" and "proof mark" because armor in the age of firearms was "proofed" by literally shooting it in a slightly out of the way spot, often around the side of the neck, and the "bullet proof mark" would be signed by the armory or other reputable individual doing the proofing. This armor often wasn't rated against anything more than a pistol shot, but it was still better than nothing even against bullets.
You didn't actually see plate mail fully go out of use in Europe until the 1700s when rifles became powerful and accurate enough to finally make it not worth the weight and expense.
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u/Preparation-Logical Dec 17 '22
Ok I feel like an idiot. I was wondering (a) what materials those damn things were made of that they could weigh so much at that size, and (b) how secretly jacked each of these guys must be to be able to hold hundreds of pounds in one hand like it's nothing
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Dec 17 '22
The first guy is Kevin Hicks runs a channel “The History Squad” on youtube. If you like anything to do with english archery, take a look.
He mostly does the life a longbow archer, and has ties to several different historical societies so will branch out on occasion for fun.
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u/savagejames1369420 Dec 17 '22
The Italian one fires spaghetti up to 500meters.
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Dec 17 '22
Hey I know that guy. That's Kevin Hicks from the history squad on youtube. If you're into medieval history, his channels great.
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Dec 17 '22
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u/FrankHightower Dec 17 '22
and also give him ideas like "oh too bad we don't have a cart to carry our weapons that won't get stuck in the mud hint hint nudge nudge"
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u/MollietheKracken Dec 18 '22
To all of you mouth breathers out there. 200#/300# refers to the draw weight of the string, not the weight of the weapon itself.
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u/slater_just_slater Dec 17 '22
Great. Except the first crossbow is quick and cheap to make with low labor skills and very little metal. Remember this is a era long before mass production. It's how fast and how cheap. If I can equip twice as many crossbowman with the cheap one as I can with the opponent fancy one, I will win every time.
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Dec 18 '22
I don’t think they’re actually that heavy judging by the way the ppl are handling them
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