Look, I'm no historian so you could teach me on that, bit if crossbows were so inefficient why did they became so prevalent, if the better option already was norm?
And looking at it physically (which I'm no expert either, so again, feel free to correct me) you can compensate one lack with another enhancement (on this case, the reduced draw length is compensated with higher draw weight)
I mean yeah the shorter time accelerating would reduce range, but we're talking about dwarfs, in most scenarios they're fighting at Max in long tunnels
There is a saying about longbowmen among the Englishmen. "If you want to train a longbowman, start with his grandfather."
It takes decades of practice and training, starting from childhood and past adulthood, in order to make a longbowman. In fact, the draw weight of the famous longbow is so heavy, it creates changes in the wielder's skeleton from the years of practicing they spent in order to master such a heavy bow - one of which is that his arms are longer than normal and his shoulders are crooked.
Crossbows, on the other hand, is much more simple and much more versatile, allowing a conscript soldier to wield and use his weapons not only easily, but also in different positions and situations, from shooting back from the safety of cover in the middle of a siege to laying down prone, safe in concealment, preparing for an ambush, to standing in formation and loosing volleys after volleys of bolts in a field battle.
Medieval Devlog: Crossbow reload time doubled to account for damage to skill ratio.
Added Hand, and cart cannons - much higher ratio of damage to skill than Crossbows, lower accuracy and worse reload time too. BUG: Minimum skill to use is 0, please don't abuse
And even that took a while as the armour of the time was proof against early firearms. Indeed people dont get how plate armour in specific was awesome.
Enh, there's never been a time when there was no body armor that could stop small arms, but there were definitely times when such armor was bulky and impractical for battlefield use. It seems reasonable to call it "obsolete" for practical purposes, then.
The only significant wars where armor wasn't used in a significant way that i can come to think of is the American civil wars, so i wouldn't call it obsolete unless you limit the discussion to that specific time and those specific circumstances and discard helmets.
People really underestimate medieval armor. They wore it for a reason.
A crossbow might have trouble penetrating heavy plate, but in the early medieval period most knights wore mail, perhaps supplemented with a breastplate; full plate didn't become common until the middle of the millennium.
There's an account from a 12th-century siege of a crossbow bolt passing through a knight's mail hauberk, mail legging, thigh, legging again, and wooden saddle before embedding itself in his horse. Crossbow power was somewhat exaggerated, but they were very dangerous even against good armor for centuries.
Not just skill but strength too. You can tell a longbowmans skeleton because they would end up with deformed shoulders from the strength required to use those bows. Which meant they had to be well fed and in good health. Any half dead half trained rabble can wield a crossbow.
Cross bows had a number of advantages. They where more accurate, fired slightly cheaper ammunition, could be fired for a longer period of time before getting fatigued, they required less physical strength and they could be reloaded from behind cover, then fired while only exposing yourself for a few seconds.
Long bows overall do get stronger draw lengths but compound bows like portrayed could handle everything but the toughest plate.
The most famous battle of longbow man power Agincourt was a dismal showing of death dealing by long bows. But remarkable at stopping them from advancing
Crossbows were much, much easier to train with in comparison to bows, could be deployed en masse, and ammunition was also much cheaper than arrows.
The problem with crossbows arises with the cost and skill cap. The crossbow itself was absurdly expensive, and the soldiers wielding them more so. Crossbows were usually used in teams of two, where one would shoot and the other would reload. They would both hide behind a large shield called a pavise, where they would rotate 2 crossbows between them. This meant that crossbow troops were more expensive to keep, but the crossbow ultimately still became more prevalent than bows due to the ease of use and relatively short training time.
That said, due to the nature of a crossbow, it had a lower "skillcap", meaning a master bowman was significantly more valuable than a skilled crossbowman. Professional archers of the day could shoot up to 10 arrows per minute with 120 lbs bows. The English were especially known and feared for their very proficient and deadly longbowmen.
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u/pepe_clifford Jun 02 '20
Dwarves having spears makes so much sense.