HYW - Longbows, etc.?

[paulsmodellingworkshop]

Cricket is extremely dangerous!

I (still) play as a wicket keeper and get head wounds at least twice a season.

But back on topic, I believe I have also read that the decline of the use of the longbow can be attributed to the social changes at the time as much as the improvement of black powder weapons. ie not so many 'had enough time' -- to use a modern phrase, to continue the training/practice required to effectively use the longbow.

[janner]

sorry, no irony intended. I really meant that I'd missed it.

Stop that you crazy! I know you just missed it, I wasn't poking at you!

[jazbo]

For our WoR games we have given retinue longbows 5 dice at short range and 4 at long range. We have extended their range to 24" and given them the marksmen rule.

For shire levy, we give them 5/4 dice, but no marksmen rule and a stamina of 5.

For the mounted MAA we made them small units with a standard sized clash and wild fighters, but a small unit sustained and stamina, giving them a powerful charge if they get in, ut if they dont break the opponent then they get bogged down and beaten.

We did not have mixed bill/bow units as we do not feel it was a reality, more a gamers mechanism. So bow units just had to fall back causing possible disorder, or getting caught out in front, which we though far more realistic considering the poor drill most WoR participants would have had.

Has worked well in the two games played so far.

For HYW I would do as for the retinue but give them 6 dice at short range and 5 at long range.

[DeanMoto]

Wow! I neglect this post for a couple of days and see how far it's gone. Great - even got the author himself to wade in. AND, I now can use my French handgunners too!

We also counted handguns as crossbows but made the enemy take a break test each time a casualty was inflicted as well as on the usual 6 rolls.

Thank you all again for the great discussion - and answers! Now I think I'll wait a few before I post anything about Sengoku period warfare Best, Dean

[BigMike]

I stand by my post of, oh, about a million years ago. I'd treat handgunners as unmodified slingers. An early handgun had absolutely no chance of hitting a target at anywhere near the range of a contemporary crosssbow.

[clivethecelt]

There's a marvellous quote from one Revd. William Harrison in 1588 berating the English for not practicing his longbow, stating that 'Reiters' were 'deriding our archery' and 'turn up their tails and cry "Shoot, English", and all because our strong shooting is decayed and laid in bed'. He goes on to say that 'if some of our Englishmen now lived that served King Edward III ... the breach of such a varlet be nailed to his back with one arrow; and another feathered in his bowels before he should have turned about to see who shot the first'!
The growing availability of hand-held firearms must've been the main driver for this decline, but the cost of an arquebus in 1600 was 30s, vs a bow with arrows at 6s 8d; also, at the start of Elizabeth's reign, archers were putting 12 shots a minute into a target at 200 paces, against an arquebus' 10-12 shots an hour - though this had risen to 35-40 by 1600. As far as the Borders are concerned, the Earl of Sussex (on the Border in 1569) demanded archers, not "ill-furnished harquebusiers", and as late as 1580 it's recorded that the store at Newcastle held 1100 bows and strings and 4900 arrows. In Leith Ward, Cumberland, in 1580, the muster roll showed over 800 bowmen to 9 arquebusiers, and the 1583 must in the English West March counted 2500 archers and no mention of firearms. Hundreds of "gonnes" were sent to the garrison at Berwick in 1592, but many remained in storage and were allowed to fall into disrepair, as the powder was unreliable, and "when they were shot in, some of them brake, and hurte divers mennes hands". In the same year, Richard Lowther asked for only bows for the defence of Carlisle. By 1600 it was a different story, with many reivers were carrying a pair of daggs and a caliver, wheel-lock pistols and carbines, much more reliable than before, usable in damp conditions, and highly effective in close-range fighting. The longbow was still used for stealth or by small groups, but the large bands then raiding across the borders cared little for that.
The Scots had a distinct prejudice against firearms: George MacDonald Fraser suggests that this was possibly due to James II of Scotland being killed by a bursting cannon in 1460. Hertford wrote in the 1540s that "Scotishe borderers ... love no gonnes, ne will abyde withyn the hearyng of the same".

[Eljas]

Added onto this - I am after a set of rules to cover WOTR & I have taken onboard suggestions for Longbow but what are peoples opinions on early handgunners and bombards/artillery ?

peoples ideas/opinions would be appreciated then I can get on and buy a set of rules that cover the period sufficiently.

[Eljas]

Ignore my above post as I have started a new thread which will hopefully attract more responses!

[Invisible officer]

In theory Rose war armies archers should kill all the enemies with the high rate of accurate "fire" claimed by the advocates of the bow. Same with the Burgundian army against the Swiss.
But this did not happen.

We get the most astonishing informations about the elite archer that shot 12 arrows a minute hitting a target that small that the movie Robin Hoods would get ashamed. But the average archer was like the average shooting soldier of today. Hitting more or less on the target range but missing the target in action.
And the professional archer needed a lot of physical training. The skeletons show strong developed shoulders on relatively small persons.
We read that the English played Rover, a game with bow and arrow , a little bit like todays Golf. (And Wimbledon was in the good old time a Volunteers shooting competition, not a strawberry selling....) But that was not just fun. The authorities gave the winners prices and the best archers received wages higher than a knight.
The prices had been gained by the same men year after year. Only the professionals gained money and lived from that occupation. But with some 500 or much less men you can't form an army. The little trained others just wasted most arrows, the storm of arrows looking formidable but it was hardly effective. Not enough drwing power and missing the target.

For the ordinary recruit the new arms became very attractive. If the call to arms came they could join without painfull (and not profitable) training in peace.

[clivethecelt]

Aye, quite agree - I thought I was OK at the butts, but DTL ... well, we'd be going hungry!
Tried one of these in Austria a few yrs ago, much more effective and accurate - would love one, but too many toys already:
http://www.nomad-art.hu
You're right, the average archer in battle probably wouldn't get that ROF (he'd run out of arrows) or that level of marksmanship - with constant practice and competition, he might have got close, though. But it does show the (significant) difference between that and arquebus ROF, and early firearms weren't noted for their accuracy or reliability - that's all.
As for the Borders - well, for "ordinary" folk, as in much of Central Europe, I suppose, there was little noticeable difference between war and peace - not so much guerilla warfare, but guerilla living, as GMF puts it. Even the meanest peasant would have had some fighting skills - reiving was as much part of life as agriculture was elsewhere - and the Borders provided a ready supply of hardened, experienced fighting men bred to raiding, theft and murder for 250-300 years. Profitable? Sometimes. Painful?