Shad points out the biggest strength that nobody recognizes with a musket line over a group of archers. When you see a line of muskets fire, what happens on the other side? You see that first, sometimes second, line of troops drop dead and wounded. Think about that from the perspective of the 3rd or 4th lines. You are going to die if they fire again if you don’t move. And the further back in the lines you get, the more of this effect happens. Now, look at when a troop is getting shot with arrows. It’s still dangerous, don’t get me wrong, but it’s more random. Plenty of people still get hit, heck maybe even the same amount of people as the musket line in rare occasions, but it’s not the solid line of people directly in front of you getting hit and going down. That difference matters. It’s why, as guns became more and more advanced, the idea of troop deployment changed more and more into something unrecognizable to what it was before. Because people wanted less and less to be standing in the way of the shot. Which, I think we can all agree, is a fair opinion to have.
It's one of the legendary feats of the Swedish Empire. Their line infantry was trained in shock resistance, so they just sang and marched on to the enemy while they died in the frontlines, then stopped and shot back (or charged). The enemy ran away shortly after. Fighting someone without fear of death can be terrifying.
The wounds caused by .75 caliber slugs are absolutely devastating compared to arrows as well. Seeing a man go down with an arrow in his face vs seeing his entire head come apart is vastly different in terms of psychological impact.
And on top of that : arrows can be easily stopped by shields, which most regular soldiers came with in battle. So a volley of arrows, coming from the front, wasn't even that dangerous (especially if you had decent armor) Bullets pass through shields, so bringing them becomes completely useless, and only full-plate armor could stop a musket shot (had to be good quality though), so the chainmail+gambison combinaison that stop arrows effectively doesn't stop bullets either
Oh wow! This is incredibly surreal for me to see. Shad, you were one of my main inspirations to start TH-cam in the first place! This is kind of making my own online presence hit home for me in a way it has never before. And I must say, I'm relieved to hear that you don't utterly disagree and hate my guts in the first minute of the video, which was what I immediately became paranoid about when I saw that title! I don't often have time to watch 40 minute plus videos these days (kind of ironic given how longwinded I am) but I am definitely taking the time for this one! I just had to have my fangirl moment and to say 'thanks' before watching. Off I go!
A quick note of reply- Yes! The term "Volley" is appropriate to the 18th Century, and was regularly used to describe...well, exactly what you'd think it does. The 1764 Manual Exercise, for example, provides instruction on how to conduct "A Charge and Volley by Battalion." It wasn't the only form of firing though, and you could also have the men doing things like "Firing by files," or "Street firing" alongside full company or battalion volleys.
An argument I haven't seen yet is, that it's not only harder to train a proper bowman, but you also need to KEEP him trained. You can send a musketeer to a farm for harvesting season and he'd still shoot fairly accurate when he returns, but a bowman has to re-train his muscles for combat readiness. It's hard to believe, that he would put 2h of bow training in, after 8h of field work.
You are dead right. Its been a few years and a not insignificant injury since I last drew a bow. I'm dead confident with any firearm though, and its been a few years.
The best thing we, the fans, can do is take this to heart and do what we can to emulate their good nature. Don't always see this happening, sadly, but that's no excuse. It looks bad on us, and on them. "Why yes, I'd love it if it my fans were a hostile, defensive gaggle of belligerent trolls!" said no one who should have fans in the first place. I get it, people are passionate about these things, but no one has ever been convinced by having someone else vent their spleen all over them.
29:39 Fun fact: I'm actually "The guy" who was in the clip firing the bow and then shouldering it. I also edited the video. With the model of bow I had shouldering it is fairly easy so I guess I just got used to it and didn't really think if it was historical or not. One thing after another drove it from me mind as the saying goes. Kinda funny to hear Shad talk about me in a video.
Perfectly understandable. I used to wear my first bows that way, thanks to robin hood movies, and never thought much of it either before trying it with a heavy warbow. Great job on the editing overall!
@@sillygreatjaggi7946 ... one handed sword with an open hand is for posturing and grappling... what would you do with a bow staff in one hand? other than bind up your own sword, or maybe try to get slappy with the limbs? lol
The ability to re-shoot arrows that you have scavenged is less important than one of the most overlooked advantages muskets have: arrows are much heavier than powder and shot. A musketeer can carry four times as many shots as an archer for the same weight.
Could be, but even at Isandhlwana the British infantry had 40-60 cartridges on a person (not in train). I have also read somewhere (unfortunately unable to find it now) that 100 years before the number of cartridges was about 12 ("apostles") to 20.
Well consider this.....bigger and bulkier? yes....more time spent training? yes...more battles called due to rain? Not so much. Also consider in the time it takes 1 line to fire, load, fire, lood and fire again....one line of archers could have 12 flights of arrows in the air. This was compensated by having more lines of musketeers firing in sequence. But, that meant fielding more men. As the technology improved the advantage of muskets became apparent. But for a long time, bows would have been just as cost effective as muskets.
actually Shade himself said a sheaf of arrows was between 20 and 40 arrows. in the 18th century most musketmen carried a cartridge pouch that held about.... well, 20- 40 rounds. the 60 round cartridge pouch only comes about after the American War of Independence
@@malachiXX A lot of people don't realize this but rain is almost as bad for archers as it is for musketeers. Arrows were made with water-soluble glue and would start falling apart when they got wet. Furthermore, if bowstrings got wet they'd swell up and lose their elasticity. There's considerable evidence for this. During the Battle of Crecy, one of the exceedingly rare examples of a major medieval battle fought shortly after rainy conditions (normally armies would wait out bad weather, fighting in bad weather was extremely uncommon before WW1) the Genoese crossbowmen are noted to have rendered useless in battle as a result. In contrast, the English longbowmen had done a better job of sheltering from the rain, which was a significant reason for the English victory. So, basically, the English archers had to take the same precautions against rain ruining their weapons as musketmen would've.
@@dark7element I didn't know that about the glue, so that's fair. I would say that it would be more detrimental to musketeers though. Wet powder won't fire at all. In fact, if a saboteur was able to ruin the supply of powder an army was fielding, it could end the battle before it ever started. That would have to be one of the items in the supply train that was guarded even more fiercely than the food.
In all serious don't musket users have to carry a pouch of gunpowder and a ramming stick too? They don't have modern bullets that are packed in a casing with gunpower.
The damage of a musketball is not only made by its large diameter ist is also done by its shape. An Arrowhead is rather sharp and edgy, so it will cut its way into the victims body while the musquet ball will simply smash it's way through the tissue and will do incredible damage while ripping it apart. It is like cutting someones heart out with a spoon.
@@charles2703 the musketball needs not to be pointy to penetrate, it is about speed. In some ways a bullet that is designed for penetration can be less deadly because if the bullet does not hit a vital organ that causes instant incapacitation, you are relying on the hydrostatic shock of the bullet to rip, tear and concuss tissues, organs and vessels to take out your enemy and the bullet that penetrates really well usually does so because it is meeting relatively little resistance and therefor not doing everything I mentioned above.
@@brainfat1 Which is true, but a big non aerodynamically shaped bullet on record kills less then a pointy one. One of the big technological advances the Union had over the Confederate army was they were able to adopt the Minie Ball almost as soon as it was available. A musket ball is stopped a lot easier by clothing or light cover then a minie ball because dumps all its energy on impact. That’s great if your hunting a T Rex but not so great if your target is behind earthworks. You never hear of someone killing a man with a musket by shooting through something.
@@charles2703 No, being aerodynamic is the _last_ thing you want for energy transfer in soft tissue. There's a reason that hollowpoints are so much more devastating than FMJs, and it's because they _don't_ penetrate as deeply. Specifically talking of the Minie ball, the lethality advantage they give is not in damage done per hit, but in more hits on target due to the greater accuracy that a rifled musket has over a smoothbore.
As some mentions, it all comes down to training. After the Battle of Patay, it took the English years to retrain a sizable longbow force. If it have been a musket force of the same size, it could have taken months only or even weeks though at cost of being undertrained.
Even then, an untrained musketman is still MUCH more useful than an untrained longbowman, who might not even be capable of pulling the drawstring initially.
Me: *about to skip the advert section* Shad: Let me advertise this by being a wholesome dad. Me, gritting my teeth: ...hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm DAMN YOU SHAD! *watches it*
@@Ravenfox297 Don't respond. Report. Click on the three vertically aligned dots to the right of the offending comment, choose "report" and the appropriate category of complaint.
What I like about these "reply" videos is that Shad clearly and openly admits where his area of expertise is AND acknowledges the reality of history. If firearms weren't better, armies wouldn't have used them. Yes the very early firearms weren't great but once you get to flintlock muskets/pistols (with bayonets) and later advances in rifling, trigger mechanisms, etc...Then it was a no brainer to have the majority of your troops armed with firearms (even some of your cavalry). It was relatively easy to train a soldier how to use them, the effect of morale was devastating and most importantly I think, they basically negated most armour. Armour by the late medieval period had got to a level where arrows and bolts were becoming far less effective at penetrating them, to the point where many soldiers stopped using shields because they knew their armour would be able to protect from 99% of any incoming ranged damage.
I think the armor was faced out due to expenses rather than penetration. There are examples of armor made to withstand firearms and some are even dented from said firearms, but I agree if bows are so good they wouldn’t have been razed out.
@@doopdoopdopdop7424 Some renaissance era breastplates could resist pistol fire, but by that point they are getting so heavy that instead of a suit of armour you are wearing _just_ the breastplate. And muskets are more powerful than pistols.
You are not answering the question which was about MUSKETS vs bows,not firearms generally which is altogether a different argument and as an individual weapon in a one-on-one scenario an early musket even a flintlock would not be superior to a bow. The Fetterman massacre involved US troops armed with percussion muzzle-loading rifles and Breech loading carbines who were slaughtered by an Indian force armed with a few firearms but mostly traditional weapons like bows.
@@christopherfranklin972 'An Indian force armed with traditional weapons like bows _and outnumbering the US troops by ten to one',_ would be a more honest way to say that.
@@WJS774 The Indians knew that a muzzle loading rifle/musket could only be fired three to four times a minute under duress and that by well trained soldiers,despite the improvement in ignition with the percussion cap system the Springfield Civil War rifle-musket was slow to load,imagine trying to fit a cap with cold fingers when your life is under threat ... The tribes used the tactic of drawing fire then rushing during the loading interval and of course they used strength of numbers to bring about victory,that's what every good commander does. If firearms had been so superior then surely Fetterman would have won the day?
7:25 Ammunition price! When you compare the amount of work the fletcher needs to produce a single arrow with the amount of work required for production of a lead ball and a bit of black powder, you can clearly see why the price of the ammunition was very different.
Speaking as an engineer, trying to cast a metal ball to a very specific diameter (to small or too large you get a misfire) to a specific metallurgical standard (otherwise it shatters) wouldn't be a terribly easy thing to do in a medieval society (not impossible, but not easy or cheap), nevermind the business of making gunpowder. While arrows would be fair easier to make. Of course fast forward a few centuries, by which time casting methods had improved, metal quality was superior, the resources to make gunpowder were more readily available (and it was now being produced on an industrial scale), then yes ammo costs would be a lot cheaper for guns than bows.
@@paddyjoe1884 a lot more people need to study the Indian Rebellion against the East India Trading Company. It puts a lot of this stupid debate into a interesting light and particularly can be used to help show the logic of why initially hand guns would have been relatively looked down on. To achieve the speeds shown in the records Brandon and Shad are referencing, and to prevent natural soldier stupidity, special packages were made that held everything needed to load the gun, and had it all in order. The Indians rebelled because the EITC introduced a new more cost effective package that was made using Cow intestines, thus pissing off the hindi and Muslim communities in India. Bows were a bit more idiot proof in that regard thatoncw you knew how to nook, aim, draw and release, it was then all about building strength and practice, no need for a cartridge to prevent accidentally loading the gun backwards in the heat of battle. But well i basically already cited the power of industrial development that made that particular issue obsolete...ish...by the time drunk colonists were disgracing good tea.
@@habe1717 Today yes, try doing it in the middle ages. If you get the diameter wrong (and how do you propose to measure that? remember metals shrink as they cool), or its not suitably round enough will result in either A) not containing the gunpowder charge and produce an ineffective shot or B) jam in the barrel, likely leading to the gun backfiring. Also how do you ensure purity of the metal (if you don't the ball will likely shatter in the barrel). Not saying they couldn't do it in the middle ages, but it would have required a lot more skill that, say, making an arrow head and hence higher costs. And that's before we even consider the issues in making up the gunpowder charge itself. Its worth noting that a lot of progress in fields such as metallurgy, thermodynamics and mechanical design came about as a result of efforts to solve these issues.
@@paddyjoe1884 musket balls weren’t mass produced, molds were specific to batches of muskets or even individual muskets. Particularly early on. Also, they didn’t need precision, balls were undersized and wrapped in paper or cloth. Making a matching mold is way easier than making the musket itself.
Of all the things I've learned and admired about Shad I think the fact that he got his kids to eat veggies just might be the most impressive. Well done sir.
Well he is Mormon, as an Australian... I imagine he's quite good at convincing his kids anything if he can convince them to worship an Early American Colonist
@Snore Cardgage You clearly don't know what members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints believe. If you have genuine questions, any member would gladly answer them. Please stop repeating hateful rhetoric you heard from other sources that are generally very wrong.
I think the argument about a single barrage of fire causing massive damage being superior to a more spread out constant rain of fire holds true in 20th century warfare too. It never really happened, but consider if in say the Korean war, instead of a constant artillery barrage on an enemy position, they used a single, small yield atomic bomb. If you're getting shelled, you think there's a chance they'll all miss you. If you see one of your positions disappear behind a 0.8kT mushroom cloud, you maybe think about going home now. Obviously there's logistical reasons why you don't want to use atomic weapons in a land war, but my point remains.
@@destinytroll1374 There were some generals at the time who were in favour of the idea, so it's not a ridiculous or unfounded idea. But yeah, didn't actually happen.
@@TheOtherGuys2 well Douglas MacArthur did tried to convince to use the bomb and Harry S. Truman wanted to use the bomb at first but it quickly became unpopular idea so Truman had to abandon the idea but MacArthur still insisted using a bomb so this became a problem between Truman and MacArthur
Theres also a part that shad didnt mention, which is if you deal massive damage in a short amount of time instead of the same damage spread out, in your first barrage you have killed a lot of people who otherwise might have got another volley of fire off if your damage was spread out, if you had a 100 musketeers vs 100 archers and the musketeers 1st volley killed 40 people but the archers only killed 10, you now have 40 less archers shooting on the second volley so their extra rate of fire isnt giving them the full damage potential of your one volley since a lot of them died before shooting multiple times
Funnily enough, (or not) the army tested two versions a *NUCLEAR RECOILLESS RIFLE* (ye gawds) with a yield of "only" 20 tonnes of TNT. It was dubbed the XM388 "Davy Crockett" and was tested in Nevada during the test "Little Feller II." Fortunately, some bright bulb came to the conclusion that although they "could," "should" went right out the window into the midden.
An additional element to Shad's discussion of the psychological effect of musket volleys is the noise. A volley of bows is relatively silent compared to the sudden roar of a gun volley. When paired with the casualties Shad describes, this is a massive psychological blow. As David Grossman points out in On Combat, BANG beats Thwip any day of the week.
The weirdest thing is that at the very moment that muskets replace longbows, the military writers of the 16th-early 17th century specifically don't mention at all is training being easier for musketeers. They do contrastingly mention repeatedly the vital importance of training for musketeers. Which makes a lot of sense when considering large groups of matchlock armed troops in close order.
I suspect this might be because you cannot really go to war and then decide to train longbowmen, you go to war with the longbowmen you already have. You can have laws to ensure you will have longbowmen when you go to war but once war is declared you are more or less stuck with what you have. On the other hand it is definitely possible to train up some muskets to acceptable levels of quality during a war. So knowing about training becomes a larger concern for commanders on the field as opposed to a legislative choice made well ahead of time.
@@hippoblue6458 Yea I think this is part of it. The general assumption seems in the late 16th early 17th century seems to be that if you don't have enough guns and pikes, you can just get some randos with bows as your trash tier troops to bulk up numbers cause the assumption seems to be even bumpkins can loose an arrow to some vague effect. With the exception of Smythe pretty much no body in the 1590s-1630s is saying that they should use longbowmen instead of musketeers. Mostly they're saying things like "hey we could arm these unarmed pioneers with bows" and/or that bows aren't totally useless.
However, Napoleon brags to the other nations at how fast he can train troops, saying he can lose 20,000 men a month and not even notice. Contrast this to medieval writings talking about how it took at least 5 years to become a longbowmen, and the contrast is shocking. USMC trains it's riflemen to shoot at half a kilometre in three weeks. No way you can get good with a bow, let along get fit enough to pull a 120 pound bow in that time.
I think part of this was also the context that late-16th-century England already had a lot of people who were at least decently proficient with the bow. Practice had been required for a long, long time. One 17th-century Chinese manual does mention explicitly how hard archery is & how much easier crossbows are to shoot accurately. The flintlock helped make firearm training easier.
I also posted this on Brandon's video, I figured I'll repost it here as well. A forum that I frequent used to discuss this subject quite often, with the occasional proponent of the bow popping up. One poster -- a veteran of the Canadian Army and an amateur military historian -- discussed the subject of bows vs. early firearms in a fairly in-depth and intriguing manner. I'll post his words here for those who are interested: "In any event in the late 16th century all these points of this thread were specifically brought up in England during the firearms debate. In 1590 Sir John Smythe, a proponent of the bow, published a book arguing for archery, stating the bow had a rate of fire four times greater, was more reliable (matchlocks of the time were hideously finicky) and that that although the bow might be weaker, it was more effective at terrifying the enemy with flights of arrows and wounded soldiers. In 1594 Captain Humphrey Barwick responded, stating that rate of fire on the battlefield was not as important as Smythe thought. Against charging cavalry neither archers nor muskets would get many shots, and against infantry both would have multiple chances to fire. And then the far greater lethality of the musket would be telling - Barwick considered Smythe's argument about the "terror" of the bow nonsense. Barwick also pointed out that while the musket was less reliable, it demanded little of the firer. The bow however required the archer to be in top physical condition for best performance. Given the condition of soldiers on military campaigns in the 16th century, Barwick pointed out that it was better to rely on the weapon than on the health of the soldier. Barwick finished by pointing out that muskets were the way of the future with many opportunities for improving the weapon, training and tactics - bows had peaked, but muskets were only going to get better. Barwick and his fellows won the debate, and the English abandoned archery, with the musket and pike ruling the battlefields of the English Civil War half a century later. The argument for the Natives converting from bows to muskets comes to us from the Europeans rather than the Natives themselves. The Europeans (who acknowledged the limitations of their weapons and still held a sort of romantic fascination for the bow) wondered why the Natives were so quick to adopt muskets when they were skilled archers, and muskets were loud, noisy, slow firing, harder to acquire ammunition for, and somewhat incompatible with their traditional "skulking." They felt it largely came down to a matter of firepower. An arrow could be deflected by leaves, scrub and bush, and could even be dodged by an alert warrior. In the skirmish warfare of the North American bush, being able to fire repeatedly didn't mean a great deal if your opponent had already sought cover - you had your best chance to kill with the first shot. And a musket would go right through the foliage, and would ensure a nasty wound on impact. Although a bow could be fired faster, a good musket shot or salvo would deliver a much more devastating blow. For warriors skilled in bounding overwatch (which they called fighting "blackbird fashion") and fire and maneuver (Native tactics more closely resembled those of modern infantry than the Europeans, and calling them merely 'hit-and-run' is simplistic) that ability to make the attack count was crucial, and provided a key military advantage that all the benefits of the bow could not overcome. On brief reflection, I see some parallels with what we saw in Afghanistan from the Taliban. The RPG-7 is less accurate, harder to carry and conceal, with less ammo and a lower rate of fire than the AK-47, and with old PG-7 warheads it's not even all that effective against even our lightest armoured vehicles - but what it has is much higher lethality against infantry. The rate of fire of the AK-47 gives it a higher potential kill rate, but in practice (save in the hands of a handful of marksmen) all it did was make lots of noise: once a firefight began, everyone sought cover and all that rapid fire just kicked up dust. After the opening shots, almost no one ever died to direct fire. Casualties were almost always suffered in the opening salvos, and there the RPG had a massive advantage. So the Europeans and Natives fought very differently in their wars, but both found reasons to consider the musket (and we're talking the deeply flawed matchlocks here too) superior." ------------ Not directly related to the subject of flintlock vs. English longbow, but I figure it's still tangentially relevant. If the comparatively crude arquebus still managed to dethrone the bow at a time when the latter had tons of institutional & cultural inertia behind it in both England and North American indigenous tribes... that says a lot about the premise of "those guys were so silly, they should have raised a corps of longbowmen out of thin air for Wellington!" (even putting aside the fact that that supposed request is almost certainly apocryphal).
Whenever I see this argument, I remember some writings by a 16th century English soldier (who had experience fighting in Spain amongst other places) writing about Arquebuses. He mentions how much better they are than Longbows, but that a lot of the English nobility that he'd worked for had a bit of a romantic view of the Longbow, and overestimated their usefulness. He was a gunner though, so he may have had a bias about it.
@@zacharygustafson8714 I've tried to find it a couple of times. I didn't read the whole memoir itself, but it was an excerpt in a different book- I'll tell you what it is if I find it.
Historically speaking, there's a correct answer: yes, muskets are better for warfare. Nations could train musket users in a matter of weeks, whereas bow proficiency and the strength needed to use the bow would take years.
This is what I wanted to point out, too. Wars are far more than just killing a bunch of soldiers in a single battle. Logistics, supply lines and training new recruits need to be considered.
Yes, during the medieval period in England men were trained to use longbows their entire lives. Thats why they were so effective. In the age if muskets the population had grown significantly and armies needed to train ginormous numbers of men as quickly as possible to be effective in the field. Thats why the muskets replaced the bow. Basically.
Shad: "the one to two shots you can get in them off from a musket in one or two minutes..." Sir Henry Simmerson : What makes a good soldier, Sharpe? Richard Sharpe : The ability to fire three rounds a minute. In any weather, sir!
@@damianbryan7373 well, that was still the golden standard for militaries of the era, even if most troops were not able to actually meet that criteria, taking maybe 25 or so seconds to reload as opposed to the 20 required for the 3/ minute
Honestly, you can shoot arrows without the arrowhead. Lol just know it's not gonna pierce as well and may drift in the air more than normal. I've snapped tips off arrows I shot before and just took a knife and sharpened the end down to a point then kept using them. It doesn't work as well of course but can still be shot again.
@@silvonias3985 I still had to have stitches after being shot by a sharpened headless arrow from what was basically meant to be a toy bow. A guy at a larp I went to lost an eye to an arrow with loose padding on the end (
Interesting that the Total War games hit the nail on the head with their unit morale system. A unit in a prolonged melee will keep fighting as their numbers dwindle below 30%, but if the same unit is damaged to 50% health in a very short time period, they suffer a massive morale penalty and likely break. To an extent in other PVP games, burst damage is always preferable to sustained DPS because it allows less time for the opponent to react to what is happening to them.
That's...just incorrect. Armies rarely fought beyond losing 15% of their total strength. The idea that 'melee lines' fought to near extinction - as displayed in Total War games - is fantasy. Look at the battles of Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Majorian, Belisarius, and even Phyrrus. Notice the trend in relative casualty rates on 'both' sides. Most battles were decided with no more than 20% of the engaging army's total strength being depleted, usually closer to 10%. "Great Victories" or "Crushing Defeats" were often those where an army lost more than 20% of its total strength.
i can always say that burst dmg will be better than sustained dps in most situations since, burst dmg dealers are mobile and fast( not saying that some susdps don't but...) they can just engage and disengage. and whittle them down piece by piece or just attack first and hopefully kill them.
@@mikep8071 True. Most of the casualties were caused by routing and light cavalry massacring them. But here we are talking about Medieval armies. These were much more professional than the ancient ones.
@@kaustubhlunawat7827 I did include Napoleon in that list - he's not ancient. In regards to professionalism, I would contend that the opposite is true, provided we have the same definition of 'professionalism.' Let me explain. If 'professional' means 'career soldiers' given standardized training and state-issued weapons, then there were (arguably) no large-scale 'professional armies' in the Medieval period, since even the training of knights was 'not' standardized, nor was there 'any' standardization of weapons and armor across 'any' branch of 'any' medieval army. There wasn't even standardized pay, since many foot soldiers went 'without' pay aside from loot. Without standardized pay, Medieval foot soldiers can't be defined as careerists, and this is evidenced by the fact that once the war was over, these foot soldiers returned to toil on the fields of their lords. In addition, most received very little training, and almost no drilling (training and drilling being two different things). Consider also that even knights weren’t technically what we would today recognize as ‘career soldiers,' since while they were employed by the state, they supplied their own weapons and armor, procured their own training, and received no 'pay' for their services. A knight's wealth came from his land and title, etc.. Compare this to the standardized training of the Macedonians, where the basic infantryman - the phalangite - was rigorously trained and relentlessly drilled, and given a standardized wage, along with state-issued gear. These men were, by modern standards, trained career soldiers. Look also at the Romans, who after the Marian Reforms also had career soldiers, who were rigorously drilled and trained. These soldiers were given state-issued gear, citizenship, and a retirement pension. There is no analogue for this system of careerist soldiery in the medieval period.
@@kaustubhlunawat7827 "we are talking about medieval armies. These were much more professional than the ancient ones" Just that whole sentence you don't sound so smart at all. Ancient warfare when the military was professional... Roman era to the medieval period. Roman army weren't professional soldiers until the sack of Rome they finally reformed their army to proper soldiers. The same goes to the Greeks, Sparta an small city state. But also mostly involved with their military strength. Take a look at the Mongols for example. They were a nomadic faction turned professional under proper leadership of Genghis Khan.
Your point about the psychological impact of taking fire from a musket is I believe 100 percent on the nose. I think people vastly underestimate just how scary being shot at by that weapon is. (Which isn't very surprising when you think about it) that also makes it amazing that at one point standing your ground in the face of that was something people did in the 18th century, brave chaps. Edit: given the discussion in the replies I figure this video would be really helpful on explaining musket/napoleonic style warefare. th-cam.com/video/cl7ElFROgts/w-d-xo.html
I think also to continue your point, looking at the Caroleans under both Charles XI and Charles XII of Sweden with their whole tactic and sole belief in religion to continue walking towards the enemy until 'you saw the whites of their eyes'. They turn that entire psychological effect, of taking fire from musket lines, around towards the opponents and although very much the exception amongst armies of the period it is scary how brave and loyal (To both King and God) the Swedish troops were in the late 17th and early 18th Centuries. Being under fire is undoubtedly scary but to see the enemy just carry on walking towards you must have been a whole new level of scary.
That is the exact reason armies don't supress the weapons of their grunts even nowadays. You want the enemy to sit behind their rock mortified of even scanning the environment. If your guns weren't as loud they wouldn't be as scared.
as someone who does reenactment, and hell if you march against a line of musketeers and arcebusiers, in tight formation, even tho they are not louded with bullets and just poude,r it feels very uncanny, if you have to fill the sapce of the guy before you who dropped screaming to the ground, and marche on, close lines, and more and more of your comrades drop dead etc.
The way Shad does replies to other people's content is great because even if he completely 100% agrees or disagrees with what a person is saying, he'll take the time to explain a bit about the other person and what they do, and if he disagrees, he'll make it as clear as humanly possible that he doesn't hate the person for their opinion, and that he doesn't want any of his subscribers attacking the person. Kudos to you.
I like people with long brain. I have long amount of disl*kes btw. Why? Maybe people with short brain disl*ke because jealous of my long amount of subscr*bers. Please have long brain, dear qer
17:41 Yes Shad, it's called a volley when a unit of musketeers/riflemen all fire at once. The firing line is the name for the soldiers who line up and take aim to make the shot.
"I'm a medievalist so I like the bow more" But Shad, guns were a huge part of late medieval warfare as you yourself pointed out. Even at the battle of Agincourt and what the movie the King failed to show us King Henry had with him something like 7 cannons on campaign. So you can be a gun nut in the medieval age just fine. There's also the Hussite wars where guns started to take center stage as the the great equalizers they are.
@@ΝικοςΠαπασωτηρακοπουλος Trebuchets aren't so great at breaking walls. Unless it's something like warwolf, an ungodly massive trebuchet that crumbled castles like sand castles. I don't even think most trebuchets were intended to hit walls. Cannons though, pretty much killed the castle.
We need a collab between Brandon, Skallagrim, Metatron, Shad, and all reenactment channels, in all-out historical speedrun, similar to Operation Odysseus Like on the terms of Weaponry, Armour, Culture, Traditions, etc. would be pretty cool if they can pull it off!
Another point about ambushes: While you might hear the relative position of the musketeer once they've fired, the bowman's position is revealed, too, as there is an arrow pointing in their direction.
@@worshiperofthelegendarypig9429 Depending on the location, the report might echo around, making the source less clear-you'll know a musketeer is nearby, but you might not know the exact direction.
@@VideoMask93 fair, I hadn't realized that. However, while the musket is a much better weapon the bow is better for sneak attacks, you can focus one group with silent shots. As opposed to muskets which alert everyone nearby. If the enemies starts shouting that would cause confusion, which only works in your favor
@@worshiperofthelegendarypig9429 it seems kind of moot. As soon as one man takes an arrow, even if it takes time to figure out when the shooter is they will still be found and then dealt with. And the vast majority of the time it won't be stealth situations one is dealing with but rather battlefield or skirmishing conditions. The bow is better in these conditions, but you probably just won't get into that scenario as much as one the musket is better suited for
From my (admittedly layman's) understanding, muskets (and firearms in general) won out simply because they had more room to improve. Bows and archery has been around for thousands of years and by that point they'd pretty much been refined and improved as much as they could. There wasn't really much more that could be done with them. Firearms were a big new innovative technology though. Considering that even in their earliest stages they could hold their own alongside bows, as the technology improved they just kept pulling ahead even further up to today where they've evolved into the modern rifles used in the military. Bows just could keep up. Just compare modern military rifles against the most advanced bows used in sports and hunting with all the counter-weights and pulleys to improve accuracy and power. Bows are ultimately limited on the power they derive from their operator while the firearm only needs accuracy. (This is why I advocate in rpg's like D&D that bows should be strength-based weapons and crossbows/firearms should be dexterity-based)
I am so glad to see someone else that recognizes that bows being dexterity based is the goofiest thing. Bows are often given to agile, slim people in media (typically to women), but they are the weapons that take by far the most strength to use. Crossbows should be strength based as well as they were typically much harder to pull back than a bow and required the full use of your body and often a separate cocking device. Melee weapons are much more of a dexterity weapon than bows or crossbows.
@@habe1717 Crossbows had more ways to ready them for firing that were easier than what bows required. The heaviest crossbows, like the arbalest, had winches that would take longer to ready but stored up much more power. There's even a design that had a device like a stirrup on the front and the twine hooked into the belt, so you could crouch, hold it down with your foot, and by standing up you'd use your stronger leg muscles to 'cock' it. My point is; once readied crossbows, like firearms, contain all the energy to fire the ammunition and only need to be aimed. Bows, meanwhile, need to be both aimed and simultaneously drawn back to give them the energy to fire.
there were also tactical innovations that came about with the lethality of the gun. after pike-squares were phased out for bayonets soldiers could operate more independently, which is what Napoleon capitalized on. one could even argue this had an effect in society at large; a more stratified/regimented culture would struggle against one that gave their soldiers more freedom to act on their own initiative.
So Shad, on one of the points you made in the video: Are you saying that a long bow is a good type of bow... because it's essential just a curve STICK!!!!!
ALL WEAPONRY IS *STICK* I am become the Bringer of Stick - behold its girth, and despair! Fr, tho… a bow is a strung up, specialized stick that slings smaller, even more specialized sticks. 100% agreed
I'm actually one of Brandon's editors at made this particular video. When I finished it I said to myself "Now we wait for Shad to see it and reply" Didn't actually think it would happen though.
I think it’s fair to say that at the end of the day, weapons are force multipliers and gunpowder is great at multiplying force. Much greater than what is possible with just steel, wood or straight up bare handed. I love bows but muskets absolutely out perform in the aspects that really matter.
I always love how throughout the years even in shads more bolder days he’s always been respectful and courteous in his opinions and statements. Much love
Volley is simultaneous discharge of all guns. All three ranks in the firing line will shoot (first rank kneels, second rank crouches, third rank stands) Ripple is a sequential discharge of all guns. This stretches out the duration of the hailstorm of lead going downrange. A rolling fusillade is sort of a combination of both: First rank fires a volley, then withdraws through the line to reload. Second rank moves up to fire their volley, then withdraws in turn. Third rank moves up to fire a volley, withdraws, then the first rank (having reloaded) repeats the cycle.
The japanese civil war of mid 19th century illustrate it perfectly. You see people using old version of guns, bows, sword and armor vs modern armies. In close combat modern armies are struggling against "traditionnal" weapons but the fire power at range is so devastating everyone quickly adopted it.
The main advantage of Musket over bow is it took months of training to become accurate at range and years of training with medieval bows to condition yourself to be able to fire arrow after arrow without reaching exhaustion, meanwhile you can take some serf from a field, and give him an afternoon with a musket and her has a pretty good chance of laying low a knight in armor. It's a staggering force multiplier.
I love how polite Shad is to Brandon in this. Not that they were necessarily disagreeing, of course, but at every turn Shad is complimentary to Brandon and speaks highly of him and his knowledge set. Well done, Shad! Edit: Also, I use Hello Fresh, and I can say it is quite good. A bit pricey, and if you're not a very good cook (I'm certainly not), it can be a bit daunting at first, but 4-5 meals in I had a much better idea about what I'm doing, and the cards that have the instructions also have the ingredients and their proportions. So you can hang on to them, and buy the ingredients on your own if you wind up discontinuing the service. The only meal I've had so far that was "meh" was one that was essentially cheeseburgers, and anybody can pull those off.
My ex-SIL once tried to make French toast, and couldn't figure out why the skillet kept simply toasting the bread instead of making it "French". She didn't know you had to dip it in egg first. So I get that some people are REALLY bad at it. Just the same, the Hello Fresh instructions are pretty easy to handle.
Basic cooking is easy. You take what you want to eat, throw it on a hot pan or in boiling water, and then you wait until it gets the consistency you want. If you want to cook anything more complicated, just learn how to read, and go find a recipe.
@@johan.ohgren Sometimes I wonder how much of that is true ineptitude and how much of that is what I refer to as; 'weaponized incompetence' IE if I put on a show about how bad of a cook I am then I can make these other schmucks cook all my meals for me... People pull this same thing with cleaning too. I once was roommates with a guy who apparently didnt know how to do any chores not even use a vacuum? You push a button and roll it over what you want clean lol. So basically he knows how to use a vacuum he was just too lazy. This laziness seeped into his whole personality, and he got used to using others. People like this are insufferable to be around and I refuse to let that BS slide anymore. I know exactly what youre doing dude you arent coy or clever lol.
not to mention if your talking about a Minnie ball they weigh on the average 1oz imagine having an ounce of soft lead hit you there's a reason so many soldiers got arms and legs amputated in the American Civil War that hits a bone it don't break it shatters it.
Actually the muskets are VERY well balanced. Mostly because you have a literal tube of steel running the whole length of the musket. If you held a medieval spear with the butt end planted in your shoulder as you would a musket it would also feel rather awkward. One thing you miss comparing medieval spears and muskets is the fact that the muskets were often quite a bit heavier. There are formations of men that very much preferred to keep their bayonets off until close combat couldn't be avoided, light infantry troops that Brandon mentions for example. However, other line formations of infantry were specifically trained and intended to fight with their bayonets attached at all times. The biggest factor when comparing medieval troops to 18th and early 19th century infantry is the training. If you only have to spend 3-4 weeks on firing drills, you can train your troops to much higher degrees of discipline when it comes to holding and moving in various formations. This makes very high attrition formations such as the Swedish Caroleans suddenly extremely effective and viable compared to other forms of infantry (especially if you give them a couple shots of gin before a battle). Really though, the ability to churn out such massive formations of generalist infantry in rapid time is the real reason bows died out. A combined formation of pikemen, bowmen, and cavalry could be replaced by a force of uniform infantry and a cavalry formation and achieve results at any range in a battle while reducing the unit complexity drastically and simultaneously increasing the types of formation maneuvers you could perform reliably. Assuming of course you actually gave your infantry equivalent time training as you did your medieval infantry units, which is a problem that many units and armies throughout time have had. Oh, we're gonna ignore artillery for now though. The evolution of field artillery is kind of complicated and greatly effects the uses and deployments of infantry and cavalry throughout the 18th and early 19th century. On an interesting note, Tsarist Russia retained the idea of bayonets being fixed at all times all the way up through to the first world war, which is why most Mosin Nagant rifles are considered to be inaccurate; the sights were calibrated from the factory assuming the troops would be shooting with their bayonets fixed.
A huge point many people forget that you can train a professional archer in a couple of months, years to master it. You can train a musketeers in a couple of hours. So for every dozen archers you field the musket army is fielding hundreds
Main issue with someone you trained in hours was you simply didn't have the potential of it. What you needed was someone who wouldnt run and follow the procedure in the heat of battle without fumbling or panicking too much. It was much easier than training an archer of course, but emphasis on drill and battlefield discipline became very much more important (not that they werent already, but the need for them was greatly magnified in the sort of warfare musket-issued infantry would find themselves subject to), and these were much harder to train for than simply loading a weapon. Hence the old saw from the Sharpes books about 3 rounds a minute. Though, in practice, it got quite much more complicated than this, but "troops who would not break and run and continue to fight even under fire and more importantly, under heavy engagement or even a cavalry charge" was a major consideration.
@@DuraLexSedLex Yep, having a big army doesn't mean shit if they all rout the moment things start going badly. It's incredible people keep forgetting this valuable historical lesson.
@@IAmTheStig32 Naturally, the winner of a fight is the one who'd rather die than lose. History shows us this time and again. People don't fight to the death, because one side will always value the outcome more highly than the other.
@@dontmisunderstand6041 There are countless occasions where "the one who'd rather die than lose" just loses and dies. The Japanese throughout history for example embodied the "Death before dishonor" ideal. They still didn't win the Imjin war (Or world war 2 for that matter).
@@Meatshield108 And remind me how they lost world war 2? By choosing to lose rather than die, when directly presented with the option. That's not a counterpoint, it's direct support for the claim.
during the main time when bows vs muskets happened 2 significant things had yet to be invented. 1. rifling to spin the musketball for increased accuracy. without it hitting the broadside of a barn becomes hard. 2. smokeless gunpowder, meaning the battlefield is smoked out after the 1st volley pretty much forcing a charge. these 2 factor significantly impact the bows vs musket debate.
Wonderful content all around, as always. As a museum educator I've had some correspondence with Brandon in the past, and his knowledge is highly appreciable. I've of course been a fan of yours as well, Shad, for ages. Glad to see respectful discourse between these two creators! One thing that I thought I'd briefly touch upon if I may, Shad, was your statements around the 24 minute mark regarding battlefield fatigue. While I certainly concur that a trained archer would be acclimated to the physical demands of operating a war bow, I am not as convinced that if a significantly less encumbering - even if less effective - option was made available to them, that they would not be tempted by it. Looking to more documented eras of combat logistics has shown that soldiers on the ground often prioritize convenience of use over sheer combat effectiveness. The renowned Bren gun of the WWII Allied campaigns comes to mind as a great example. I'm sure someone with a fuller knowledge of World War firearms could elaborate further, but to my understanding the Bren gun was initially developed as a sort of intermediary between the small arms carried by a rifleman and the larger stationary machine guns (sometimes referred to as "heavy machine guns") used in the previous World War, not as a replacement for the heavy machine gun - conceptually the Bren would have allowed for the sustained automatic fire of a stationary machine gun on a more mobile, shoulder-mountable and lower caliber firearm. Though sources I've browsed seem to suggest this was rarely how the Bren was actually used. More often than not, it seems the Bren was used in a similar capacity to a stationary machine gun, i.e. fired from a prone position utilizing a bipod, and soon became a preferred sort of general purpose machine gun despite being less suited to that sort of usage because of its lighter caliber, limited magazine capacity, and lack of barrel cooling (which meant that it could only be fired in shorter bursts than say, a water-cooled .50cal gun). In the eyes of the soldiers, however, this didn't make the Bren worse than previous machine guns; rather, it seems it was quite beloved for its lighter weight and its use of the smaller .303cal round which was shared with their rifles (ammunition they were already carrying). So, although in terms of lethality the Bren is theoretically lesser than a larger gun, in practice its lower physical demands upon machine gunners made the Bren a preferable alternative to stationary guns. So to your point, I suspect that a similar phenomenon could occur in any period of warfare in which a standard weapon system, be it longbow, musket, or otherwise, was fielded alongside a less fatiguing alternative, because ultimately it seems the average soldier is rightly more interested in preserving their energy on campaign than they are in inflicting casualties - and officers are inclined to recognize this in order to keep their troops operating with greater morale and physical vigor.
The Bren gun was issued to every 10-man section of a rifle company and used for mobile infantry support,the design incorporated a quick change barrel system should overheating become a problem. Bipod could be folded and the gun placed on a sandbag,wall,window sill or rubble. British army heavy machine guns were water-cooled but in the same .303" calibre,not sure where the .50" water-cooled came from,Browning .50" are air-cooled and US Vickers/Maxim types are .30/06".
It had nothing to do with convenience, it was doctrinal. The primary role in which the Bren was issued was in the 10-man infantry section (where every man was required to learn the basics of operation + carry 2 mans, which were to be used before the assistant gunner's if possible) and with mechanized sections with universal carriers to act as organic fire support for infantry companies. These are roles for which lighter guns are suited. By WW2, Water-cooled guns were falling out of favour because of bulk and weight, which made them much less suitable for the sort of mobile warfare that the war mostly required. Static watercooled guns are better for when you don't have to move, but otherwise did not offer significant advantages, especially when incidents of endlessly firing machineguns into infantry hordes was simply not a factor and the ability to quickly swap barrels offered a better solution that didn't involve a heavy water jacket for forces that were expected to move. Part of what made the appearance of such weapons as the MG34 make such a dramatic impression on military planners was simply that it allowed a universal machine gun to bridge the gap between the lighter magazine fed weapons most militaries used (Bren, BAR, FM 24/29 etc.) and their larger, static cousins, simplifying logistics and providing heavier firepower at the squad/section level for fire and maneuver. The US use of the M1919 machine gun was similar, but it was bulkier, heavier, and was issued at company rather than platoon or squad level. Please do not mistake these for simple convenience. There is a very extensive body of work on the matter regarding employment of these weapons, and why they were trended towards.
@@christopherfranklin972 There was a Vickers .50 cal weapon used primarily by the RN as an Anti-Aircraft weapon, but was also used by the British Army in North Africa in limited numbers. It was quite heavy and bulky.
@@DuraLexSedLex Having posted I immediately remembered views of multiple mounted water-cooled .50" on primarily US Navy vessels for anti-aircraft defence but for the reasons which you stated they were never employed in the same capacity as the Bren gun.
Good points Shad, though a few corrections on why muskets (firearms in general) are more lethal than bows. Bullets don't need to be removed from wounds for the wound to heal up, even today they often leave the bullet in the wound as finding it can cause more damage then it prevents. Bullets curve through the body, often burying its self far from the main wound cavity where it acts as a plug where it is. The wound cavity left by the bullet is more dangerous than the remaining bullet. Bullets rip cavities into the body that resemble the shape of a gourd or squash, leaving a wound that will continue to bleed if only the opening is stitched up. The cavity left by the bullet needs to be closed and every damaged artery or organ pieced back together. In contrast arrows pierce a straight hole into the body, so when the arrow is removed, the wound can simply be cleaned and sutured. So because of the differences in wound type, arrows only damage what they pierce while bullets damage the areas around where they pierce. Also bullets often fragment themselves or shatter bones creating wounds branching off of the main cavity.
One advantage of muskets is that wounds were much harder to treat. Amputation was often all that could be done after a musket ball had pulverized the bone in an arm or leg. Arrow wounds were more treatable with the medicine at the time.
The earliest bayonets actually plugged the barrel, the bayonet we think of now though could affect the loading process more than sight or shooting which is why it would need to be affixed. It would become more regular, though not fully adopted, to keep the rifle bayonet affixed once muzzle loading was phased out.
@@pickle2636 depends on the sword. Long swords can cut threw the shaft of the spear. Even if it's a gun, shaped spear, a great sword can cut it, in half.
@@jameshamaker9321 then the guy with the greatsword gets stabbed with a spear by the next guy in the line, after focusing on cutting this one spear, especially hard to cut if its a gun with a metal barrel at its core
@@jameshamaker9321 an archer is definitely not using a greatsword, and even a greatsword isn't cutting through a steel barrel. Might damage the gun so it can't shoot, but definitely not cutting straight through it. An archer definitely stands a chance against a musket in melee combat, but not at ALL because of that lmao
Depending on the time period, you wouldn't even be able to fire your musket after fixing bayonets. Initially, bayonets were plug bayonets which were fixed to the musket by plugging the bayonet into the barrel of the gun making it impossible to fire (at least not without damaging the musket, bayonet, or both).
Technically speaking, I think that plug bayonets pre-date muskets. Plug bayonets were probably used with early wheel locks, but not flintlock muskets. But that's a technicality since both are a form of firearm.
@@Riceball01 Plug Bayonets start showing up in the 1600s, the Musket dates to the early 1500s. Where it was a weapon that was more powerful than the typical matchlock arquebuse, with the intent to have better penetration of armor. Furthermore Bayonets really got popular when the Socket ones where developed in the late 1600s which quickly allowed them to replace pikes and other such weapons. As such by around 1710 or so most European armies had dropped all other forms of close combat weapons in favor of having all troops with muskets, also by this point they started to rapidly switch to the Flintlock (which first show up in the mid 1500s but was slow to be adopted due to it's cost in comparison to the much simpler matchlock). The Term Musket by this point had become the general term for infantry fire arms (even though it's main reason for existing in the first place no longer existed in any appreciable amounts, that being armor).
"Bows are better than muskets because they are quieter." Actually, in the context of warfare in the late medieval/early modern era, the noise of the muskets is a plus on the battlefield, not a minus. The kind of warfare where a quiet weapon that doesn't reveal your position is important is in asymmetrical or skirmish warfare. In this period, that kind of warfare wasn't as impactful as it would become in the 20th and 21st centuries. Assuming quieter is better is ascribing the tenets of modern special-forces tactics to an era where that kind of warfare was actually very impractical. People seem to forget that guerilla warfare was extremely limited in its applications before the advent of mechanized warfare. Pre-industrial armies were less vulnerable to supply chain disruptions, so these kinds of tactics didn't have the huge upside that they do now. In industrial warfare, supply and communication disruption is so important that you can't afford to not try it - it's a "whoever does this better is almost guaranteed to win" thing; in pre-industrial warfare, it was more of a "sure, if you can pull it off" kind of thing. Add to that the fact that the high mobility required for effective guerilla tactics is largely enabled by the technology developed in industrial warfare, and "pre-industrial special forces" becomes more of a fantasy trope than a historical reality. There are some exceptions, and some rare groups that were superficially similar to special forces (the hashashin and ninja are popular examples), but the actual function of these exceptions is tailor made to a very different kind of warfare than modern armies engage in. However, psychological warfare on the battlefield is always a thing. Loud blasts of a musket line accompanied by the sound of artillery thumping away *will* take a greater toll on enemy morale than sitting under mass arrow fire, regardless of how lethal they are in comparison to each other. In terms of immediate battlefield impact, there isn't much difference between an enemy wounded, killed, fleeing, or paralyzed in fear. They're not fighting back, so they're not a factor in your enemy's favour.
You said a lot that was wrong. The primary issue is that the bow was misused. Frankly, so was the musket. The truth is military leaders of the time were ALL idiotic and insane.
This reminds me of how people like to throw around the idea that "warriors/men don't wear their hair long" despite this being patently false. The Vikings or just the military in Antiquity prove this "truism" wrong.
Just another thing is that arrows can more or less be blocked with shields. For instance, a Roman Testudo style of formation can drastically cut down the hit rate of arrows, but will do very little against firearms.
@@RoulicisThe Yah, Remember that Musket Balls aren’t just a arrow with no stick and feather, those suckers are flying out faster meaning at most, the shield will break up the metal before peppering you with fragments if it isn’t thick enough.
@@placeholderhere2864 Unfortunately, Tod's Workshop did make a video of shooting a shield (Made of wood) and most types of arrows he used went through. I do want to bring up something that may have not been explored yet, is what type of wood was mostly available for the average foot soldier. There are "Soft" woods and there are "Hard" woods around the world and im curious if test conclusions on both types of wood would made enough difference on the battlefield.
@@Predator20357 That's absolutely correct and why a musket bullet is so lethal. They expand on contact. They would shatter shields and armour. Let alone bones and organs.
@@paratrooper321fa yes and no, it can only take a few weeks to be a good shot and reload with a musket. how ever it will take a few months to learn proper discipline, formation marching all that sort of thing, musket warfare wasnt just about point gun at target, it was more about things like fire by rank or vollies
@@nitebones1 Historically 3weeks was the minimum for a trained musketeer . The drill aspect was factored in to this . Now this generally did not end training it continued past the initial training plus training continued while traveling especially in down time.
Months? In modern days, most armies give their soldiers not even a week total on the firing range. Yes, there is other stuff they learn in training, but arms training is often on the lower side.
The biggest thing that is missed in these conversations is the fact that smoothbore muskets were not as inaccurate as pop culture says they are. At reasonable range, a soldier armed with a musket could hit their enemy. Also, you cannot dodge a musket ball. You most certainly can dodge an arrow shot from anything but point blank range.
At 100 yds a smoothbore musket could put a hole through you if you wearing armour but, since the Alexander the Great days, with the right armour, an arrow could bounce off you! (Yes I know some arrows can pierce armour but there's a reason why guns are used today and not bow and arrows).
Well also the gun had alot more room for improvement than the bow. Sure we’ve made bows with mechanical assist that can deliver a heavier strike with requiring less strength from the user but guns have advanced in tremendous ways over the musket. Even the most skilled archers couldn’t match the range or accuracy of a sniper rifle. Even the highest pound bows can’t compare to someone using armor piercing rounds. Even the fastest archer can’t fire faster than a machine gun.
you can at extreme ranges, we have primary source materials from the French and Indian war where men recount seeing the musket balls flying through the air as they loss velocity, and being able to swerve. obviously rare and strange moments.
There’s also 2 additional factors. 1. Trajectory, bullets tend to be fired along flatter trajectories at competitively longer ranges, so more chances to hit someone in an enemy formation. 2. Cover, a pavise may protect against an arrow/bolt but nowhere near as much against a musket shot.
Brown Bess muskets had a muzzle velocity of at least 1,200 fps. Vs 200 fps for a powerful bow. And the technical term is "grazing fire" as opposed to the plunging fire of the bow at distance. One shot of a musket could take out at least two men in a formation, if they were not wearing armor.
and as someone commented above, this is why the first rows would take the full brunt of the first volley of lead, while arrows are more random and can hit deeper in the ranks but they would not just eradicate the first row the way a volley of bullets would do. Giving the moral advantage to the bullets as seeing a whole row of soldiers fall would certainly make the following rows think twice about advancing...
Hi Shad! Love your work. History teacher here. Whilst there is a lot of variance from weapon to weapon, a good heuristic is that musket balls from a smooth-bore musket in good condition will veer off about 4cm every 10m of distance, if the shooter is sandbag-vice perfect. Using this, you can reasonably estimate that a good shooter will hit a man-sized target at 50m almost every time, and will also have a reasonable chance at 100m. How does this compare with the longbow?
@@kakerake6018 I agree, although we have to remember early matchlocks, wheelocks, and flintlocks could still be stopped by some heavy armor of the age. They used to test breatplates against a musket ball. A dent was the proof a bullet wouldn't go through, which is where the term "bulletproof" originates. The real advantage of guns is that the training it takes to becomes proficient in their use is far less than with a bow or hand weapon. That and the psychological effect of the sound of gunfire and the smoke is terrifying to the enemy.
This was a pretty interesting video, thanks for putting it together. I never really thought about why muskets overtook bows as the main ranged weapon on European battlefields, I just took it for granted that they did. The open communication just added a lot of context to the transition.
And officers didn’t choose to use swords and single shot pistols, they often had two or even more single shot, or double barreled pistols and a sword. Those were an officers weapons. As their job is to command men and the local battlefield, coordinate with other officers to win a battle. Not fight, not offensively. Those weapons are defensive in nature, as they are side arms. That was the role of them, to let him protect himself in close combat as he controlled his unit. They are also a symbol of who’s in charge. Officers still had swords all the way up to WWI, that they used, along with pistols as their weapons, and about a year or so into the war, was the normal thing.
Even today, aside from pilots and armored vehicle commanders, the vast majority of officers don't even have more than a pistol in combat. If they're shooting at the enemy, they aren't actually using their *real* weapon: their troops.
Sword were also still effective self defense weapons in WW1. The infantry officers put away their swords not because they weren’t good weapons, but rather because they made it easier for snipers to pick out officers from enlisted. Cavalrymen kept their swords a fair bit longer since everyone had one, not just the officers.
Shad looks more like a king when he's next to his kids. Someone make this man a custom crown please. And above his throne is the channel logo, that could also work as an actual family crest with a real sword and shield.
this is why i love Shad and Brandon so much as a history nerd to get this high level of education i am so blessed love to you guys from a random S.Korean
Really loved the intro..... so cute and wholesome getting da fam in on things with the kids. Really is nice seeing a family man with their kids just having a fun time while also working. GGs
Also muskets did not just shoot then reload the tactic was to shoot kneel and reload then the next column would shoot kneel reload and so forth. So constant inaccurate barrage is still effective.
Also, before bayonets, musketeers would've been protected with pikemen. It was the bayonet that eventually made the pikeman of the 17th century obsolete.
@@basiliskwardroid Pikemen where there to defend the musketeers against cavalry charges. A Pikeman trying to get into melee against a musketeer is shot dead before he arrives.
@@basiliskwardroid The problem with mixed formations once the bayonet is invented is that having your pikemen in front means you have fewer people shooting, and having them in the back means you have to disrupt your formation to have the muskets retreat behind them. Once the bayonet gets invented most armies drop pikemen completely since the relatively minor advantage a pike has over a bayonet doesn't compensate for the fact that a pikeman can't really carry and use both a pike and a gun at the same time.
Awesome video! I need to watch more of your content but I almost got teary eyed during the ad. I remembered you talking about your kids with Carl and that convo really stuck with me. Keep up the great work my man!
Another factor I loved in Brandon's videos is he covered how accurate muskets can be, vs what is believed! Even if most shots miss, the ones that hit wither your enemy down! Say you start at 1,000, one volley you lost 50 or 100, next volley you lose slightly more! Closer you get the more casualties gained. Given the range of a bow, even at their best average, that musket can consistently shoot greater distance than a bow! Playing into that shock and awe effect mentioned if the two forces clashed, those bullets hit like hammers and hit fast! That and maybe already told you, most of the time armies went into battle bayonets already on! For a decent time in the American army, the bayonet was at one point, WELDED ON! That was changed sometime later. As for the wieldy quality of a musket with bayonet, they are actually VERY easy to use, more handy than you think, there is a great video I found covering later mid-1800s Canadian troops, armed with yes, breechloading single-shot rifles, the effectiveness of bayonets is sharply displayed! Video in question: th-cam.com/video/p9Gq8vUGIUI/w-d-xo.html
Something worth pointing out in favour of longbows over muskets while on campaign is that of *_safety during transport_* . Bows and arrows are generally quite safe to handle and transport; unless the person is being a complete idiot. In contrast, black powder is easily combustible; meaning they have to be handled and transported with care. Also, in terms of logistics, maintaining arrows is much easier to do whilst on the road; with accompanying fletchers likely able to mend damaged arrows in order to be usable again; especially if the arrowhead itself is not too damaged (and that assumes there aren't any blacksmiths on hand, which there would be). In contrast, once the supply of black powder is used up, it is not easily replenished.
Safety, plus isolation from water, is why powder was carried in sealed lead barrels. Bonus: empty barrels can be cast into more bullets. If there's enough fire to melt a barrel, all the powder is going to do is give a flare of flame in the existing conflagration. Unless you're setting a fire, of course.
@@thekaxmax I'm not sure where you heard that from. Googling "black powder" or "gunpowder" with "lead barrels" doesn't net me any results. Rather, everything I've seen indicated to me that black powder was often transported in wooden barrels fastened by rope (instead of iron hoops), at least in pre-modern times. Similarly, black powder is famous for rapidly combusting/exploding at even the slightest spark; hence why people were often wary of handling or moving it. History is full of instances where black powder stores accidentally exploded.
I think that people don't realize the amount of technology and skill when it comes to black powder weapons look at your average American civil war soldier probably close to the peak of BP tech you have a soldier carrying a rifled musket with bayonet a cartridge box with metal inserts designed that if a spark was to set the cartridges aflame would cause the explosion to go up and away from the body it holds 40 rounds of ammunition each cartridge made up of 2 or more specifically cut pieces of paper surrounding a 1oz lead Minnie ball and a blackpowder charge the cartridge usually partially covered in a tallow. to fire it a copper percussion cap filled with fulminating powder thats water proofed
On other hand you need a lot more materials and manpower to craft arrows compared to bullets. Musketman can craft his own ammo in the pinch Arrows use much more space to transport. They deteriorate with time and weather and if archer not careful can end up with missing fetching or warped arrows before the battle
Blackpowder is usually not transported as blackpowder in this age. You carry the charcoal, salpheter and the sulphur separately, and mix it as late as possible. If you dont, it will separate, and burn instead of explode.
It is process in progress. It isn't just "training" - it takes a culture to have a levy of longbowmen. So, once you give up longbows for muskets to overcome armor you CANNOT just return to them when, after a generation, the armor is set aside. If you DID manage to train up an entire generation into longbow, at incredible effort with dictates you could not possibly keep secret, what would it take for your opponents to pull out the old armor? A few weeks at most. Longbows were a question that had a known answer and the element of surprise was impossible due to the culture it takes to train them. Given the absence of armor, if you were going to put in bows, you wouldn't even need to bother with longbows. However, when you have musketeer armies they are essentially armies that are 100% archers. Things like the horse archer were NOT for countering archers. You wouldn't trade fire if you were a horse archer with ground archers - you went in with sword and spear against archers. The final issue is that as we move into muskets we are moving into industrial era warfare. The gear was mass produced and identical and the soldier was a barely trained kid. They were NOT warriors of a warrior class any more. Could such a warrior, with a bow, stride onto the musket battlefield and work to lethal effect? Absolutely. Such men, however, no longer existed - at least not within the military rank and file. They would be too rare, too unpredictable, and thus not terribly useful for levy style industrial issued armies. Armies that use numbers and issue don't have room for heroes any more. Of course, there were a few such fellows past the musket era - but no army has enough Mad Jack's to fill out even a single unit.
Could a warrior with bow stride onto musket battlefield and work to lethal effect? Well, some tried ( ex Egyptians against Napoleon, middle asia against Russian). Tried and died. Bow and musket are two different weapons - bow is harrasement tool with possibility to take you out of action if youre unlucky. Musket ball will hit you once...
@@samellowery No, at the Little Bighorn Custer's men had been issued with Springfield single shot breach loading rifles while the natives were also armed with rifles, but these were rifles they had taken in raids and bought in trade and included a large number of Henry and Spincer repeating rifles. So in effect the "primitive natives" had the technological advantage as well as the numerical advantage in that fight.
Reading the title without watching the video: Short answer: Yes. Long answer: Yes because almost everyone can achieve decent accuracy and handling in a short manner of time and on top of that even the earlier ball type ammunition renders armour instantly obsolete.
Musketry didn't render all armor immediately obsolete. The very term "Bullet proof" stems from a mark on the armor from being shot at to show that a bullet couldn't pierce right through it. The big difference though is the logistics where you can have a LOT of individuals armed with early firearm for every one heavily armored knight. We should still though remember that even by the time of Napoleon, bullet proof armor wearing Currasier existed as well as tons of examples of people wearing armor throughout the pike and shot period.
@@bewawolf19 Close range, High powder loads, inconsistent manufacture... Finding truly bulletproof armor at the time could be hit or miss And if you're struck multiple times Goodnight regardless
I believe that the musket being superior has more to do with training time then any other factor. You can train a man to march and reload a musket in a couple of weeks but it takes years to train a man to be able to use a heavy war bow and maintain the fitness required.
I don't know why but I always dread clicking on one of these videos, they're so good, so entertaining, and very informative. Makes me feel like a bad person. I love the content
The fatigue argument should just be rolled into the training argument. It takes a long time to train an Archer. Part of that is building the muscle and stamina, so.
I was waiting for the training argument in the Close Combat section. Since my guess would be, that the guys used to draw a 120-160lb on the regular would have a light advantage in upper body strength and even lacking a sword they would have a 6-7ft stick of very hard wood.
@@achimdemus-holzhaeuser1233 you wouldn’t hit people with your bow unless absolutely necessary. Also, the muscles involved for pulling a bow are not really going to help you in close combat.
35:30 Total war: Warhammer 2, Thing here... the dwarves are a very great example of this. Even their ranged units are often equipped unusually well for melee as well as already being great ranged units (Being one of the few I've played with that does this, I've only played a handful though). Unusually being equipped with a *shield* as well as their melee and ranged weapon. Though not as armored they still do have some, unlike the usual archers having little to no armor. As well as normal dwarven infantry being some seriously hard nuts to crack with some insane defense.
Apart from my monkey-penguin hybrid mascot, I have also been developing an entire universe and had set a huge foundation for world-building. There are three eras I came up with and with each era, 4 ages of technology: Primitive Era Tribal Age, also known as Stone, Tool, or Ancient Eras Sorcery Age, also known as Classical period Dark Age, also known as the Viking Age or Early Medieval Period Medieval Age, also known as the High Middle Ages Industrial Era Renaissance Age, also known as the Late Medieval Period Colonial Age, also known as the Age of Sail or Early Modern Period Frontier Age, or the Old West or Victorian Era, possibly the Industrial Revolution as well Steampunk Age, or the Industrial Age and early age of electricity and motorization, including both world wars Technological Era Space Age, also known as the modern and computer age or retro-futuristic age Cyberpunk Age, the first level of true futuristic (Example: Blade Runner) Intergalactic Age, the age of multi-world civilizations, or of science fiction. (Example: Star Trek) Cosmic Age, the age of space fantasy and untold possibilities. (Example: Star Wars) I developed pure good and evil races for each of the eras. Elves are typically magical and elegant with the Bow and Arrow so I decided to make them Primitive Era. They typically live in smaller clans that don't span the globes as other races do. Dwarves I categorized as Industrial Era alongside other short-height races such as Halflings and Gnomes. They span entire worlds, and I even recommended to the Dwarves state-of-the-art swordsmanship such as the Claymore. Men are non-magical and technologically advanced so they have spaceships and what not.
one thing that both you and Brandon missed is that the bow actually faced the musket in combat. During the napoleonic wars the french faced troops from all over Russia and some of them came from eastern Russia specifically Mongolia. At first the french laughed at them but soon they realized that the nomads with their compound bows could shoot faster, more accurately and compared to the french light cavalry pistols farther. And since the french did not wear armor (except heavy cavalry) penetration was mostly not a problem.
An arrow, unless it hits a vital organ, is not going to be immediately lethal or put a man out of action right away. Getting hit with a 70mm musket ball even on the limbs is more likely to put a man out of action. One musket ball is is more effective than several arrows, so the higher rate of fire is not as big an advantage as people make out.
@@glennbeard3462 No musket had a 70mm ball. Something like 18mm would be typical of a Brown Bess, arguably the most common musket in the Napoleonic wars (though not used by the French IIRC). 70mm is more like a small cannon ball. It's worth noting the .7 of an inch is about 18mm - 20mm which might be the source of the confusion.
@@TonkarzOfSolSystem The size didn't matter as much as the sheer velocity of a bullet. So fast and hard they can shatter bone and muscle with directly impacting it. Not to mention they much harder to remove than arrow and didn't hinder the bloodflow of the wound as much. Your not supposed to pull a knife or arrow out, until you have the means to deal with the bleeding. A trio of musketeers could probably defeat a single small canon crew, unless they were using some sort of grapeshot or fleche/ shrapnel.
@@glennbeard3462 well yeah, but then 70mm is a 3 inch cannonball, not a musket ball. Mongolians were historically horse archers, shooting from the back of a moving horse, and it's harder to hit a moving target! We're assuming shots from a clean gunbarrel, but when you get fouling, your accuracy drops off. And I understand the powder used by the French fouled more than that used by the British. And sometimes there was a slight delay in the shot going off with a flintlock, especially when it needed cleaning. Yes, when the bullet hits, it does more damage, but it HAS to hit first time, or you get turned into a porkupine.
"This truth remains accurate, consistent throughout." "War... war never changes...." Ok now that I got that out of the way, never forget that in a world of automatic weapons special forces are still using bows. Yes guns are vastly more effective, but bows still have their place.
Shad, I think the word you were looking for was "Salvo". One thing I would say in the war bow's favor, though I am not saying this changes the result, is that the upkeep for a war bow was significantly less than that of a musket. War bows can be used in almost any environment or weather, and shot as many times as you like, and all you really have to worry about is keeping the string waxed and making sure it is not frayed. The bow itself could last without very much care for a whole war, and if a bow cracked, warped, broke, or if the string snapped, it was fairly simple to get a new one. I believe many armies traveled with extra bows and strings in their supplies for this very purpose. The musket on the other hand, and in this case I am referring to the same kind Shad is, those used in the time of the Napoleonic wars, needed constant care. They needed to be cleaned out very often. Even firing a single shot meant that the user would have to clean it out to prevent jamming or rust. Black powder was not forgiving to the negligent soldier. They could also get clogged by mud, dirt, dust, and other waste collected on the march or in battle. If a musket misfired or blew up because the mechanism failed or something blocked the barrel, there was the distinct possibility that it would badly injure either the user or those around him, as well as destroying the gun. Replacing a musket was not so easy, though by Napoleon's time it wasn't the making of the musket itself that was the problem. By that time it was fairly quick, though still far more complicated than making a bow. It was more the cost of making one that made it inconvenient. Moving metal parts always cost a lot, and the more you have, the more it costs to make. While the musket is a very simple design compared to today's standards, it still cost a good bit of money to make the small parts that were its trigger mechanism. Thus, by comparison, I would argue that the war bow was far easier to keep in good condition or to replace than the musket. Again, this does not change the overall result. I just thought it was something worthy of note in this discussion. Now, I am no expert. What I have stated is merely my understanding of the use of war bows and muskets in warfare, as far as it goes. If I have stated something incorrect, or failed to include a vital fact, please tell me, so that I may learn more about this interesting part of history. Stay Awesome!
When shad says you can shoot the arrows shot at you he forgot to mention that ammo is still ammo just like you can’t shoot 7.62mm Soviet ammo in the 7.62mm m-14 , if your enemy is useing shorter bows with shorter arrows you can’t fire those arrows from your long bow , and in the reverse it would be a matter of last resort and crossbows ? Hahahahahahahahaha ! It won’t work and all of us all ready knew that!
With your point about musket catastrophic failures being dangerous for the user, a shattered arrow shaft when loosing can also maim the bowman. You can look up pictures of people it happened to, very gruesome. This problem compounds when reusing arrows, as some may have struck rocks or metal and left hairline fractures in the shaft.
both videos are excellent. Shade points out one interesting thing about supplying the bowmen on the front line, saying that they got a sheaf of arrows numbering about 20-40 arrows. That's the exact same number of rounds that could be carried in most common cartridge boxes/pouches in the 18th century by the fusilier.
It is similar to the quote "It is not an effective weapon." counter argument: Then why did they keep on using them? If there was no point in them, they would replace them.
I would add to Shad's comments regarding the importance of morale (see: "shock effect") by pointing to Brandon's video a few months ago on the effect of grapeshot against a formation. Musket volleys had a similar, if less pronounced, effect. If you could break the enemy's formation, you could chase them down and rout or slaughter them with far less danger to your own troops, and firing en masse was both an effective means of stabilizing your own unit's morale as well as impacting your opponents' morale. I would also like to recommend a book to both Shad and Brandon (and to everyone else, as well): "The Art of War in the Western World" by Archer Jones. It covers everything from the classical Greeks to the 1980s, and focuses not just on tactics, but heavily upon logistics, the operational arts, and even economics and culture as decisive factors in warfare throughout history. It also has some of the best depiction that I've seen of the rock-paper-scissors-like relationship between the different combat branches over the centuries and the nuances that are almost never covered in fiction or games.
Technically speaking, grapeshot would almost never be used in a land battle. I think you have got grape and canister confused. Grapeshot is up to a dozen small cannonballs inside of a bag or can, so a 12-pounder cannons’ grapeshot would have, say, 6 2-pound balls. This is a naval round, used to bring down masts and kill people behind wooden bulwarks. Canister, on the other hand, is a tin can filled with standard musket balls. That same 12-pounder would have a canister round with about 240 or so .62 caliber balls. That is the anti infantry shot, it sends out a cloud of death that wipes out entire groups of exposed troops.
Well, check out how lethal a musket is when its pouring down with rain. Btw., armour penetration was no subject around 1800 - most troops did not wear body armour then, only some special forces did. So bows would still have been a option in many cases. Another advantage of bows is, they are silent and dont make smoke when you shoot - a big advantage in certain situations. There is, however, the issue with practicing shooting a bow, thats a valid point. Since it wasn't even expected from a ordinary soldier in a firing line to really aim at something, the training basically consisted of how to load the gun quickly and then fire it within the firing line procedure. Shooting a bow effectively does need much much - and continous - training.
“A Longbow in the hands of a master archer is a great asset to his allies, and a Musket in the hands of a simpleton is a great asset to the foes of his regiment.” - My great Grandfather
Shad points out the biggest strength that nobody recognizes with a musket line over a group of archers.
When you see a line of muskets fire, what happens on the other side? You see that first, sometimes second, line of troops drop dead and wounded. Think about that from the perspective of the 3rd or 4th lines. You are going to die if they fire again if you don’t move. And the further back in the lines you get, the more of this effect happens.
Now, look at when a troop is getting shot with arrows. It’s still dangerous, don’t get me wrong, but it’s more random. Plenty of people still get hit, heck maybe even the same amount of people as the musket line in rare occasions, but it’s not the solid line of people directly in front of you getting hit and going down. That difference matters. It’s why, as guns became more and more advanced, the idea of troop deployment changed more and more into something unrecognizable to what it was before. Because people wanted less and less to be standing in the way of the shot.
Which, I think we can all agree, is a fair opinion to have.
It's one of the legendary feats of the Swedish Empire. Their line infantry was trained in shock resistance, so they just sang and marched on to the enemy while they died in the frontlines, then stopped and shot back (or charged).
The enemy ran away shortly after. Fighting someone without fear of death can be terrifying.
good point
The wounds caused by .75 caliber slugs are absolutely devastating compared to arrows as well. Seeing a man go down with an arrow in his face vs seeing his entire head come apart is vastly different in terms of psychological impact.
And on top of that : arrows can be easily stopped by shields, which most regular soldiers came with in battle. So a volley of arrows, coming from the front, wasn't even that dangerous (especially if you had decent armor)
Bullets pass through shields, so bringing them becomes completely useless, and only full-plate armor could stop a musket shot (had to be good quality though), so the chainmail+gambison combinaison that stop arrows effectively doesn't stop bullets either
I don't want to get shot. It's easier to dodge arrows than bullets.
Oh wow! This is incredibly surreal for me to see. Shad, you were one of my main inspirations to start TH-cam in the first place! This is kind of making my own online presence hit home for me in a way it has never before. And I must say, I'm relieved to hear that you don't utterly disagree and hate my guts in the first minute of the video, which was what I immediately became paranoid about when I saw that title! I don't often have time to watch 40 minute plus videos these days (kind of ironic given how longwinded I am) but I am definitely taking the time for this one! I just had to have my fangirl moment and to say 'thanks' before watching. Off I go!
Here’s to hoping you two do a video together
Welkom m8, this is how Shad is! Have fun like we have and learn all you can.
A quick note of reply- Yes! The term "Volley" is appropriate to the 18th Century, and was regularly used to describe...well, exactly what you'd think it does. The 1764 Manual Exercise, for example, provides instruction on how to conduct "A Charge and Volley by Battalion." It wasn't the only form of firing though, and you could also have the men doing things like "Firing by files," or "Street firing" alongside full company or battalion volleys.
soy face! jk
I'm really curious, do you play dnd? If so how do you feel about firearms in the game?
An argument I haven't seen yet is, that it's not only harder to train a proper bowman, but you also need to KEEP him trained. You can send a musketeer to a farm for harvesting season and he'd still shoot fairly accurate when he returns, but a bowman has to re-train his muscles for combat readiness. It's hard to believe, that he would put 2h of bow training in, after 8h of field work.
This is why it was made law during henry viiis reign that all men and boys must practice the bow after church. They also had a tax on goose feathers
@@ethanstaaf404 And then a sneaky boiii with a musket came around
@@OperationDarkside and the archer sent a swallowtail out his backside.
You are dead right. Its been a few years and a not insignificant injury since I last drew a bow. I'm dead confident with any firearm though, and its been a few years.
Naw man, shooting guns is absolutely a skill that can deteriorate over time if you don't use it, and keep up with it.
My favorite thing about this community is how polite y’all are to each other, it goes a long way to promoting professional and personable discourse.
cuz Money
The best thing we, the fans, can do is take this to heart and do what we can to emulate their good nature. Don't always see this happening, sadly, but that's no excuse. It looks bad on us, and on them.
"Why yes, I'd love it if it my fans were a hostile, defensive gaggle of belligerent trolls!" said no one who should have fans in the first place. I get it, people are passionate about these things, but no one has ever been convinced by having someone else vent their spleen all over them.
They’re Chads. The beauty community (not everyone, just that James guy and that Jeff dude) could learn something.
@@sechran Why would they fight over who does the best shitposts?
@@petermuller3995 1000iq post. You make more money with drama btw.
29:39 Fun fact: I'm actually "The guy" who was in the clip firing the bow and then shouldering it. I also edited the video. With the model of bow I had shouldering it is fairly easy so I guess I just got used to it and didn't really think if it was historical or not. One thing after another drove it from me mind as the saying goes.
Kinda funny to hear Shad talk about me in a video.
Perfectly understandable. I used to wear my first bows that way, thanks to robin hood movies, and never thought much of it either before trying it with a heavy warbow. Great job on the editing overall!
I think it's worth mentioning that you don't even need to discard the bow if the sword is one-handed. Just go sword in one hand, bow in the other.
@@sillygreatjaggi7946 ... one handed sword with an open hand is for posturing and grappling... what would you do with a bow staff in one hand? other than bind up your own sword, or maybe try to get slappy with the limbs? lol
@@dr.decker3623 parrying stick
What? Theres no video of you at all hes just talking about someone made up? Who are you?
The ability to re-shoot arrows that you have scavenged is less important than one of the most overlooked advantages muskets have: arrows are much heavier than powder and shot. A musketeer can carry four times as many shots as an archer for the same weight.
Could be, but even at Isandhlwana the British infantry had 40-60 cartridges on a person (not in train). I have also read somewhere (unfortunately unable to find it now) that 100 years before the number of cartridges was about 12 ("apostles") to 20.
Well consider this.....bigger and bulkier? yes....more time spent training? yes...more battles called due to rain? Not so much. Also consider in the time it takes 1 line to fire, load, fire, lood and fire again....one line of archers could have 12 flights of arrows in the air. This was compensated by having more lines of musketeers firing in sequence. But, that meant fielding more men. As the technology improved the advantage of muskets became apparent. But for a long time, bows would have been just as cost effective as muskets.
actually Shade himself said a sheaf of arrows was between 20 and 40 arrows. in the 18th century most musketmen carried a cartridge pouch that held about.... well, 20- 40 rounds. the 60 round cartridge pouch only comes about after the American War of Independence
@@malachiXX A lot of people don't realize this but rain is almost as bad for archers as it is for musketeers. Arrows were made with water-soluble glue and would start falling apart when they got wet. Furthermore, if bowstrings got wet they'd swell up and lose their elasticity.
There's considerable evidence for this. During the Battle of Crecy, one of the exceedingly rare examples of a major medieval battle fought shortly after rainy conditions (normally armies would wait out bad weather, fighting in bad weather was extremely uncommon before WW1) the Genoese crossbowmen are noted to have rendered useless in battle as a result. In contrast, the English longbowmen had done a better job of sheltering from the rain, which was a significant reason for the English victory. So, basically, the English archers had to take the same precautions against rain ruining their weapons as musketmen would've.
@@dark7element I didn't know that about the glue, so that's fair. I would say that it would be more detrimental to musketeers though. Wet powder won't fire at all. In fact, if a saboteur was able to ruin the supply of powder an army was fielding, it could end the battle before it ever started. That would have to be one of the items in the supply train that was guarded even more fiercely than the food.
"Can carry less arrows than the average musketeer"... thats debatable, but why is the musketeer carrying arrows to start?
Dunno, but I once saw Japanese matchlock ashigaru depiction with a quiver of spare ramrod lol.
As backup missile weapon in case damp weather? I remember heard crossbow were common with guns until better ammo technology catch up.
In all serious don't musket users have to carry a pouch of gunpowder and a ramming stick too? They don't have modern bullets that are packed in a casing with gunpower.
@@kodaxmax yes, shooting muskets or even modern black powder rifles requires you to have multiple items to reload the weapon.
.... To tease the bowmen, obviously. Kind of a well known "Nah, Nah!" moment.
The damage of a musketball is not only made by its large diameter ist is also done by its shape. An Arrowhead is rather sharp and edgy, so it will cut its way into the victims body while the musquet ball will simply smash it's way through the tissue and will do incredible damage while ripping it apart. It is like cutting someones heart out with a spoon.
The shape actually hurts the musket ball, it limits penetration.
@@charles2703 the musketball needs not to be pointy to penetrate, it is about speed. In some ways a bullet that is designed for penetration can be less deadly because if the bullet does not hit a vital organ that causes instant incapacitation, you are relying on the hydrostatic shock of the bullet to rip, tear and concuss tissues, organs and vessels to take out your enemy and the bullet that penetrates really well usually does so because it is meeting relatively little resistance and therefor not doing everything I mentioned above.
@@brainfat1 Which is true, but a big non aerodynamically shaped bullet on record kills less then a pointy one. One of the big technological advances the Union had over the Confederate army was they were able to adopt the Minie Ball almost as soon as it was available. A musket ball is stopped a lot easier by clothing or light cover then a minie ball because dumps all its energy on impact. That’s great if your hunting a T Rex but not so great if your target is behind earthworks. You never hear of someone killing a man with a musket by shooting through something.
@@charles2703 No, being aerodynamic is the _last_ thing you want for energy transfer in soft tissue. There's a reason that hollowpoints are so much more devastating than FMJs, and it's because they _don't_ penetrate as deeply. Specifically talking of the Minie ball, the lethality advantage they give is not in damage done per hit, but in more hits on target due to the greater accuracy that a rifled musket has over a smoothbore.
@@WJS774 “Muh two world wars” aside, study after study confirms that small, fast and pointy bullet kills more than big slow bullet.
As some mentions, it all comes down to training.
After the Battle of Patay, it took the English years to retrain a sizable longbow force. If it have been a musket force of the same size, it could have taken months only or even weeks though at cost of being undertrained.
They would have enough troops in Reserve already
@@vinz4066 still thoes troops retraining could be more quickly brought back into the war effort with quicker musket training
Even then, an untrained musketman is still MUCH more useful than an untrained longbowman, who might not even be capable of pulling the drawstring initially.
Me: *about to skip the advert section*
Shad: Let me advertise this by being a wholesome dad.
Me, gritting my teeth: ...hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm DAMN YOU SHAD! *watches it*
@@jeslyn7794 SHUT UP!!! I will not fall for that hotgirl nonsense bot.
@@Ravenfox297 Don't respond. Report.
Click on the three vertically aligned dots to the right of the offending comment, choose "report" and the appropriate category of complaint.
@@MonkeyJedi99 Man, there has been a massive influx in bots in the past several weeks.
What I like about these "reply" videos is that Shad clearly and openly admits where his area of expertise is AND acknowledges the reality of history. If firearms weren't better, armies wouldn't have used them. Yes the very early firearms weren't great but once you get to flintlock muskets/pistols (with bayonets) and later advances in rifling, trigger mechanisms, etc...Then it was a no brainer to have the majority of your troops armed with firearms (even some of your cavalry). It was relatively easy to train a soldier how to use them, the effect of morale was devastating and most importantly I think, they basically negated most armour. Armour by the late medieval period had got to a level where arrows and bolts were becoming far less effective at penetrating them, to the point where many soldiers stopped using shields because they knew their armour would be able to protect from 99% of any incoming ranged damage.
I think the armor was faced out due to expenses rather than penetration. There are examples of armor made to withstand firearms and some are even dented from said firearms, but I agree if bows are so good they wouldn’t have been razed out.
@@doopdoopdopdop7424 Some renaissance era breastplates could resist pistol fire, but by that point they are getting so heavy that instead of a suit of armour you are wearing _just_ the breastplate. And muskets are more powerful than pistols.
You are not answering the question which was about MUSKETS vs bows,not firearms generally which is altogether a different argument and as an individual weapon in a one-on-one scenario an early musket even a flintlock would not be superior to a bow.
The Fetterman massacre involved US troops armed with percussion muzzle-loading rifles and Breech loading carbines who were slaughtered by an Indian force armed with a few firearms but mostly traditional weapons like bows.
@@christopherfranklin972 'An Indian force armed with traditional weapons like bows _and outnumbering the US troops by ten to one',_ would be a more honest way to say that.
@@WJS774 The Indians knew that a muzzle loading rifle/musket could only be fired three to four times a minute under duress and that by well trained soldiers,despite the improvement in ignition with the percussion cap system the Springfield Civil War rifle-musket was slow to load,imagine trying to fit a cap with cold fingers when your life is under threat ...
The tribes used the tactic of drawing fire then rushing during the loading interval and of course they used strength of numbers to bring about victory,that's what every good commander does.
If firearms had been so superior then surely Fetterman would have won the day?
7:25 Ammunition price!
When you compare the amount of work the fletcher needs to produce a single arrow with the amount of work required for production of a lead ball and a bit of black powder, you can clearly see why the price of the ammunition was very different.
Speaking as an engineer, trying to cast a metal ball to a very specific diameter (to small or too large you get a misfire) to a specific metallurgical standard (otherwise it shatters) wouldn't be a terribly easy thing to do in a medieval society (not impossible, but not easy or cheap), nevermind the business of making gunpowder. While arrows would be fair easier to make. Of course fast forward a few centuries, by which time casting methods had improved, metal quality was superior, the resources to make gunpowder were more readily available (and it was now being produced on an industrial scale), then yes ammo costs would be a lot cheaper for guns than bows.
@@paddyjoe1884 a lot more people need to study the Indian Rebellion against the East India Trading Company. It puts a lot of this stupid debate into a interesting light and particularly can be used to help show the logic of why initially hand guns would have been relatively looked down on.
To achieve the speeds shown in the records Brandon and Shad are referencing, and to prevent natural soldier stupidity, special packages were made that held everything needed to load the gun, and had it all in order. The Indians rebelled because the EITC introduced a new more cost effective package that was made using Cow intestines, thus pissing off the hindi and Muslim communities in India.
Bows were a bit more idiot proof in that regard thatoncw you knew how to nook, aim, draw and release, it was then all about building strength and practice, no need for a cartridge to prevent accidentally loading the gun backwards in the heat of battle. But well i basically already cited the power of industrial development that made that particular issue obsolete...ish...by the time drunk colonists were disgracing good tea.
@@paddyjoe1884 What are you on about? Casting lead balls is incredibly easy.
@@habe1717 Today yes, try doing it in the middle ages. If you get the diameter wrong (and how do you propose to measure that? remember metals shrink as they cool), or its not suitably round enough will result in either A) not containing the gunpowder charge and produce an ineffective shot or B) jam in the barrel, likely leading to the gun backfiring. Also how do you ensure purity of the metal (if you don't the ball will likely shatter in the barrel).
Not saying they couldn't do it in the middle ages, but it would have required a lot more skill that, say, making an arrow head and hence higher costs. And that's before we even consider the issues in making up the gunpowder charge itself.
Its worth noting that a lot of progress in fields such as metallurgy, thermodynamics and mechanical design came about as a result of efforts to solve these issues.
@@paddyjoe1884 musket balls weren’t mass produced, molds were specific to batches of muskets or even individual muskets. Particularly early on. Also, they didn’t need precision, balls were undersized and wrapped in paper or cloth. Making a matching mold is way easier than making the musket itself.
Of all the things I've learned and admired about Shad I think the fact that he got his kids to eat veggies just might be the most impressive. Well done sir.
Use food colouring on them, make them interesting. This is a tested and proven effect.
Well he is Mormon, as an Australian... I imagine he's quite good at convincing his kids anything if he can convince them to worship an Early American Colonist
Its not hard to get kids to eat veggies, just feed them the ones they like
One thing I learned was to start early. The earlier you can get kids to eat veggies the better.
@Snore Cardgage You clearly don't know what members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints believe. If you have genuine questions, any member would gladly answer them. Please stop repeating hateful rhetoric you heard from other sources that are generally very wrong.
I think the argument about a single barrage of fire causing massive damage being superior to a more spread out constant rain of fire holds true in 20th century warfare too. It never really happened, but consider if in say the Korean war, instead of a constant artillery barrage on an enemy position, they used a single, small yield atomic bomb. If you're getting shelled, you think there's a chance they'll all miss you. If you see one of your positions disappear behind a 0.8kT mushroom cloud, you maybe think about going home now.
Obviously there's logistical reasons why you don't want to use atomic weapons in a land war, but my point remains.
Had to reread your comment, at first I thought you were saying that they DID use nukes in the Korean war lol
@@destinytroll1374 There were some generals at the time who were in favour of the idea, so it's not a ridiculous or unfounded idea. But yeah, didn't actually happen.
@@TheOtherGuys2 well Douglas MacArthur did tried to convince to use the bomb and Harry S. Truman wanted to use the bomb at first but it quickly became unpopular idea so Truman had to abandon the idea but MacArthur still insisted using a bomb so this became a problem between Truman and MacArthur
Theres also a part that shad didnt mention, which is if you deal massive damage in a short amount of time instead of the same damage spread out, in your first barrage you have killed a lot of people who otherwise might have got another volley of fire off if your damage was spread out,
if you had a 100 musketeers vs 100 archers and the musketeers 1st volley killed 40 people but the archers only killed 10, you now have 40 less archers shooting on the second volley so their extra rate of fire isnt giving them the full damage potential of your one volley since a lot of them died before shooting multiple times
Funnily enough, (or not) the army tested two versions a *NUCLEAR RECOILLESS RIFLE* (ye gawds) with a yield of "only" 20 tonnes of TNT. It was dubbed the XM388 "Davy Crockett" and was tested in Nevada during the test "Little Feller II." Fortunately, some bright bulb came to the conclusion that although they "could," "should" went right out the window into the midden.
An additional element to Shad's discussion of the psychological effect of musket volleys is the noise. A volley of bows is relatively silent compared to the sudden roar of a gun volley. When paired with the casualties Shad describes, this is a massive psychological blow. As David Grossman points out in On Combat, BANG beats Thwip any day of the week.
It's rare to see someone with the humility to defend an argument that acknowledges the fault in something they love. That's why we love you Shad!
The weirdest thing is that at the very moment that muskets replace longbows, the military writers of the 16th-early 17th century specifically don't mention at all is training being easier for musketeers. They do contrastingly mention repeatedly the vital importance of training for musketeers. Which makes a lot of sense when considering large groups of matchlock armed troops in close order.
I suspect this might be because you cannot really go to war and then decide to train longbowmen, you go to war with the longbowmen you already have. You can have laws to ensure you will have longbowmen when you go to war but once war is declared you are more or less stuck with what you have.
On the other hand it is definitely possible to train up some muskets to acceptable levels of quality during a war. So knowing about training becomes a larger concern for commanders on the field as opposed to a legislative choice made well ahead of time.
@@hippoblue6458 Yea I think this is part of it. The general assumption seems in the late 16th early 17th century seems to be that if you don't have enough guns and pikes, you can just get some randos with bows as your trash tier troops to bulk up numbers cause the assumption seems to be even bumpkins can loose an arrow to some vague effect. With the exception of Smythe pretty much no body in the 1590s-1630s is saying that they should use longbowmen instead of musketeers. Mostly they're saying things like "hey we could arm these unarmed pioneers with bows" and/or that bows aren't totally useless.
However, Napoleon brags to the other nations at how fast he can train troops, saying he can lose 20,000 men a month and not even notice.
Contrast this to medieval writings talking about how it took at least 5 years to become a longbowmen, and the contrast is shocking.
USMC trains it's riflemen to shoot at half a kilometre in three weeks. No way you can get good with a bow, let along get fit enough to pull a 120 pound bow in that time.
@@hippoblue6458 you train musketeers, but you raise archers.
I think part of this was also the context that late-16th-century England already had a lot of people who were at least decently proficient with the bow. Practice had been required for a long, long time. One 17th-century Chinese manual does mention explicitly how hard archery is & how much easier crossbows are to shoot accurately. The flintlock helped make firearm training easier.
I also posted this on Brandon's video, I figured I'll repost it here as well.
A forum that I frequent used to discuss this subject quite often, with the occasional proponent of the bow popping up. One poster -- a veteran of the Canadian Army and an amateur military historian -- discussed the subject of bows vs. early firearms in a fairly in-depth and intriguing manner. I'll post his words here for those who are interested:
"In any event in the late 16th century all these points of this thread were specifically brought up in England during the firearms debate. In 1590 Sir John Smythe, a proponent of the bow, published a book arguing for archery, stating the bow had a rate of fire four times greater, was more reliable (matchlocks of the time were hideously finicky) and that that although the bow might be weaker, it was more effective at terrifying the enemy with flights of arrows and wounded soldiers.
In 1594 Captain Humphrey Barwick responded, stating that rate of fire on the battlefield was not as important as Smythe thought. Against charging cavalry neither archers nor muskets would get many shots, and against infantry both would have multiple chances to fire. And then the far greater lethality of the musket would be telling - Barwick considered Smythe's argument about the "terror" of the bow nonsense. Barwick also pointed out that while the musket was less reliable, it demanded little of the firer. The bow however required the archer to be in top physical condition for best performance. Given the condition of soldiers on military campaigns in the 16th century, Barwick pointed out that it was better to rely on the weapon than on the health of the soldier. Barwick finished by pointing out that muskets were the way of the future with many opportunities for improving the weapon, training and tactics - bows had peaked, but muskets were only going to get better.
Barwick and his fellows won the debate, and the English abandoned archery, with the musket and pike ruling the battlefields of the English Civil War half a century later.
The argument for the Natives converting from bows to muskets comes to us from the Europeans rather than the Natives themselves. The Europeans (who acknowledged the limitations of their weapons and still held a sort of romantic fascination for the bow) wondered why the Natives were so quick to adopt muskets when they were skilled archers, and muskets were loud, noisy, slow firing, harder to acquire ammunition for, and somewhat incompatible with their traditional "skulking." They felt it largely came down to a matter of firepower. An arrow could be deflected by leaves, scrub and bush, and could even be dodged by an alert warrior. In the skirmish warfare of the North American bush, being able to fire repeatedly didn't mean a great deal if your opponent had already sought cover - you had your best chance to kill with the first shot. And a musket would go right through the foliage, and would ensure a nasty wound on impact. Although a bow could be fired faster, a good musket shot or salvo would deliver a much more devastating blow.
For warriors skilled in bounding overwatch (which they called fighting "blackbird fashion") and fire and maneuver (Native tactics more closely resembled those of modern infantry than the Europeans, and calling them merely 'hit-and-run' is simplistic) that ability to make the attack count was crucial, and provided a key military advantage that all the benefits of the bow could not overcome.
On brief reflection, I see some parallels with what we saw in Afghanistan from the Taliban. The RPG-7 is less accurate, harder to carry and conceal, with less ammo and a lower rate of fire than the AK-47, and with old PG-7 warheads it's not even all that effective against even our lightest armoured vehicles - but what it has is much higher lethality against infantry. The rate of fire of the AK-47 gives it a higher potential kill rate, but in practice (save in the hands of a handful of marksmen) all it did was make lots of noise: once a firefight began, everyone sought cover and all that rapid fire just kicked up dust. After the opening shots, almost no one ever died to direct fire. Casualties were almost always suffered in the opening salvos, and there the RPG had a massive advantage.
So the Europeans and Natives fought very differently in their wars, but both found reasons to consider the musket (and we're talking the deeply flawed matchlocks here too) superior."
------------
Not directly related to the subject of flintlock vs. English longbow, but I figure it's still tangentially relevant. If the comparatively crude arquebus still managed to dethrone the bow at a time when the latter had tons of institutional & cultural inertia behind it in both England and North American indigenous tribes... that says a lot about the premise of "those guys were so silly, they should have raised a corps of longbowmen out of thin air for Wellington!" (even putting aside the fact that that supposed request is almost certainly apocryphal).
Whenever I see this argument, I remember some writings by a 16th century English soldier (who had experience fighting in Spain amongst other places) writing about Arquebuses.
He mentions how much better they are than Longbows, but that a lot of the English nobility that he'd worked for had a bit of a romantic view of the Longbow, and overestimated their usefulness.
He was a gunner though, so he may have had a bias about it.
I mean one of those noblity got a dozen or so kills after the Germans overran the French border in WW2...
Do you remember what the name of the writing was? I'm interested.
@@zacharygustafson8714 I've tried to find it a couple of times. I didn't read the whole memoir itself, but it was an excerpt in a different book- I'll tell you what it is if I find it.
@@saltysaltmaker3848 Alright, thanks for that!
@@GreenBlueWalkthrough The Scottish madlad?
Historically speaking, there's a correct answer: yes, muskets are better for warfare. Nations could train musket users in a matter of weeks, whereas bow proficiency and the strength needed to use the bow would take years.
This is what I wanted to point out, too. Wars are far more than just killing a bunch of soldiers in a single battle. Logistics, supply lines and training new recruits need to be considered.
Had Rifled-muskets existed during the 11th century Bows and Knights are screwed
Yes, during the medieval period in England men were trained to use longbows their entire lives. Thats why they were so effective. In the age if muskets the population had grown significantly and armies needed to train ginormous numbers of men as quickly as possible to be effective in the field. Thats why the muskets replaced the bow. Basically.
@@l0rf Logistics is the king of the battlefield, ever and always.
Muskets are better on individual battles too. Master bowmen from many cultures ditched their bows in favor of muskets
Shad: "the one to two shots you can get in them off from a musket in one or two minutes..."
Sir Henry Simmerson : What makes a good soldier, Sharpe?
Richard Sharpe : The ability to fire three rounds a minute. In any weather, sir!
Sharpe says that because Simmerson's regiment is incapable of that. Also, that is fiction. Excellent and well-researched fiction, but still fiction.
@@damianbryan7373 well, that was still the golden standard for militaries of the era, even if most troops were not able to actually meet that criteria, taking
maybe 25 or so seconds to reload as opposed to the 20 required for the 3/ minute
@@josemalave1322 well trained troops, I'd say 3-4 shot per minute. as in: variable but if standing and firing you don't quite need 1/3 of a minute.
The Prussians got it to a reliable 4 shots a minute.
Kinda unrelated, but Shad's Hello Fresh ads never fails to put a smile on my face
And hunger in my tummy(
That's related af imo 😂🤣
"With arrows, you can re-shoot them" He says, displaying the one arrow that can't be re-shot.
Tbf, he launched that one straight into a tree
Honestly, you can shoot arrows without the arrowhead. Lol just know it's not gonna pierce as well and may drift in the air more than normal. I've snapped tips off arrows I shot before and just took a knife and sharpened the end down to a point then kept using them. It doesn't work as well of course but can still be shot again.
@@silvonias3985 I still had to have stitches after being shot by a sharpened headless arrow from what was basically meant to be a toy bow.
A guy at a larp I went to lost an eye to an arrow with loose padding on the end (
@@Coldyham So in other words, arrowhead or not, arrows are still dangerous.
Re-shooting cuts both ways. Your enemy can return fire the arrows you shoot at him. With musket balls, not so much.
Interesting that the Total War games hit the nail on the head with their unit morale system. A unit in a prolonged melee will keep fighting as their numbers dwindle below 30%, but if the same unit is damaged to 50% health in a very short time period, they suffer a massive morale penalty and likely break. To an extent in other PVP games, burst damage is always preferable to sustained DPS because it allows less time for the opponent to react to what is happening to them.
That's...just incorrect. Armies rarely fought beyond losing 15% of their total strength. The idea that 'melee lines' fought to near extinction - as displayed in Total War games - is fantasy. Look at the battles of Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Majorian, Belisarius, and even Phyrrus. Notice the trend in relative casualty rates on 'both' sides. Most battles were decided with no more than 20% of the engaging army's total strength being depleted, usually closer to 10%. "Great Victories" or "Crushing Defeats" were often those where an army lost more than 20% of its total strength.
i can always say that burst dmg will be better than sustained dps in most situations since, burst dmg dealers are mobile and fast( not saying that some susdps don't but...) they can just engage and disengage. and whittle them down piece by piece or just attack first and hopefully kill them.
@@mikep8071 True. Most of the casualties were caused by routing and light cavalry massacring them. But here we are talking about Medieval armies. These were much more professional than the ancient ones.
@@kaustubhlunawat7827 I did include Napoleon in that list - he's not ancient.
In regards to professionalism, I would contend that the opposite is true, provided we have the same definition of 'professionalism.'
Let me explain.
If 'professional' means 'career soldiers' given standardized training and state-issued weapons, then there were (arguably) no large-scale 'professional armies' in the Medieval period, since even the training of knights was 'not' standardized, nor was there 'any' standardization of weapons and armor across 'any' branch of 'any' medieval army. There wasn't even standardized pay, since many foot soldiers went 'without' pay aside from loot.
Without standardized pay, Medieval foot soldiers can't be defined as careerists, and this is evidenced by the fact that once the war was over, these foot soldiers returned to toil on the fields of their lords. In addition, most received very little training, and almost no drilling (training and drilling being two different things). Consider also that even knights weren’t technically what we would today recognize as ‘career soldiers,' since while they were employed by the state, they supplied their own weapons and armor, procured their own training, and received no 'pay' for their services. A knight's wealth came from his land and title, etc..
Compare this to the standardized training of the Macedonians, where the basic infantryman - the phalangite - was rigorously trained and relentlessly drilled, and given a standardized wage, along with state-issued gear. These men were, by modern standards, trained career soldiers.
Look also at the Romans, who after the Marian Reforms also had career soldiers, who were rigorously drilled and trained. These soldiers were given state-issued gear, citizenship, and a retirement pension. There is no analogue for this system of careerist soldiery in the medieval period.
@@kaustubhlunawat7827 "we are talking about medieval armies. These were much more professional than the ancient ones"
Just that whole sentence you don't sound so smart at all.
Ancient warfare when the military was professional...
Roman era to the medieval period.
Roman army weren't professional soldiers until the sack of Rome they finally reformed their army to proper soldiers.
The same goes to the Greeks,
Sparta an small city state. But also mostly involved with their military strength.
Take a look at the Mongols for example. They were a nomadic faction turned professional under proper leadership of Genghis Khan.
Your point about the psychological impact of taking fire from a musket is I believe 100 percent on the nose. I think people vastly underestimate just how scary being shot at by that weapon is. (Which isn't very surprising when you think about it) that also makes it amazing that at one point standing your ground in the face of that was something people did in the 18th century, brave chaps.
Edit: given the discussion in the replies I figure this video would be really helpful on explaining musket/napoleonic style warefare. th-cam.com/video/cl7ElFROgts/w-d-xo.html
I think also to continue your point, looking at the Caroleans under both Charles XI and Charles XII of Sweden with their whole tactic and sole belief in religion to continue walking towards the enemy until 'you saw the whites of their eyes'. They turn that entire psychological effect, of taking fire from musket lines, around towards the opponents and although very much the exception amongst armies of the period it is scary how brave and loyal (To both King and God) the Swedish troops were in the late 17th and early 18th Centuries.
Being under fire is undoubtedly scary but to see the enemy just carry on walking towards you must have been a whole new level of scary.
We actively cull brave men from our societies with wqr. It's pretty funny, would view meme again 10/10
That is the exact reason armies don't supress the weapons of their grunts even nowadays. You want the enemy to sit behind their rock mortified of even scanning the environment. If your guns weren't as loud they wouldn't be as scared.
as someone who does reenactment, and hell if you march against a line of musketeers and arcebusiers, in tight formation, even tho they are not louded with bullets and just poude,r it feels very uncanny, if you have to fill the sapce of the guy before you who dropped screaming to the ground, and marche on, close lines, and more and more of your comrades drop dead etc.
They are also incredibly terrifyingly loud
"Shadlings" sounds like an invading horde of goblin-like creatures ... oh, wait!
@@zhenweilai799 we dont need that immage m8
@@thnecromaniac Okay
Give a whole new perspective on his review of Goblin Slayer!
The way Shad does replies to other people's content is great because even if he completely 100% agrees or disagrees with what a person is saying, he'll take the time to explain a bit about the other person and what they do, and if he disagrees, he'll make it as clear as humanly possible that he doesn't hate the person for their opinion, and that he doesn't want any of his subscribers attacking the person. Kudos to you.
He is annoying and boring already, so I guess thats compensate his "goodness"
Nice timing. Just finished the hidden blade video
I like people with long brain. I have long amount of disl*kes btw. Why? Maybe people with short brain disl*ke because jealous of my long amount of subscr*bers. Please have long brain, dear qer
@@AxxLAfriku Im so confused by your comment
@@AxxLAfriku Go off searching attention anywhere else. We all here for cool medieval stuff not for your old fashioned farming technique.
lucky
WINTER YOU WATCH SHAD!?!?!?
17:41 Yes Shad, it's called a volley when a unit of musketeers/riflemen all fire at once. The firing line is the name for the soldiers who line up and take aim to make the shot.
I think the word he was looking for is fusillade.
@@spiffyracc That works too, but Shad was completely correct saying volley when it comes to muskets/early rifles, which was his question.
"I'm a medievalist so I like the bow more"
But Shad, guns were a huge part of late medieval warfare as you yourself pointed out. Even at the battle of Agincourt and what the movie the King failed to show us King Henry had with him something like 7 cannons on campaign. So you can be a gun nut in the medieval age just fine. There's also the Hussite wars where guns started to take center stage as the the great equalizers they are.
There's a difference between artillery and small arms.
@@موسى_7 cannons are really just balistats that can destroy walls about as well as trebuchets
@@ΝικοςΠαπασωτηρακοπουλος Trebuchets aren't so great at breaking walls. Unless it's something like warwolf, an ungodly massive trebuchet that crumbled castles like sand castles. I don't even think most trebuchets were intended to hit walls. Cannons though, pretty much killed the castle.
@@deathbyunicorn5213 Edward 'Longshanks' chuckles quietly...
I’m a medievalist so I like the musket more
(my favorite strategy was war wagons 💪)
We need a collab between Brandon, Skallagrim, Metatron, Shad, and all reenactment channels, in all-out historical speedrun, similar to Operation Odysseus
Like on the terms of Weaponry, Armour, Culture, Traditions, etc. would be pretty cool if they can pull it off!
Ooh! and Tod of Tod's Cutlery and Tod Cutler.
Yes!
Then have Ian McCollum show up with an FG42 and smoke everybody :-D
If they go into extensive detail to the peak of their knowledge for their respective fields just one part would be a school day.
That would be HEMA collab to the max!🤣👍
Another point about ambushes: While you might hear the relative position of the musketeer once they've fired, the bowman's position is revealed, too, as there is an arrow pointing in their direction.
Well, the smoke that appears when firing would probably give your position away.
Yeah, but you'd have to see the arrow. Do you'd have to be in the area of the shot. A musket would give it away no matter where you're looking from
@@worshiperofthelegendarypig9429 Depending on the location, the report might echo around, making the source less clear-you'll know a musketeer is nearby, but you might not know the exact direction.
@@VideoMask93 fair, I hadn't realized that. However, while the musket is a much better weapon the bow is better for sneak attacks, you can focus one group with silent shots. As opposed to muskets which alert everyone nearby. If the enemies starts shouting that would cause confusion, which only works in your favor
@@worshiperofthelegendarypig9429 it seems kind of moot. As soon as one man takes an arrow, even if it takes time to figure out when the shooter is they will still be found and then dealt with. And the vast majority of the time it won't be stealth situations one is dealing with but rather battlefield or skirmishing conditions. The bow is better in these conditions, but you probably just won't get into that scenario as much as one the musket is better suited for
From my (admittedly layman's) understanding, muskets (and firearms in general) won out simply because they had more room to improve. Bows and archery has been around for thousands of years and by that point they'd pretty much been refined and improved as much as they could. There wasn't really much more that could be done with them.
Firearms were a big new innovative technology though. Considering that even in their earliest stages they could hold their own alongside bows, as the technology improved they just kept pulling ahead even further up to today where they've evolved into the modern rifles used in the military. Bows just could keep up.
Just compare modern military rifles against the most advanced bows used in sports and hunting with all the counter-weights and pulleys to improve accuracy and power. Bows are ultimately limited on the power they derive from their operator while the firearm only needs accuracy.
(This is why I advocate in rpg's like D&D that bows should be strength-based weapons and crossbows/firearms should be dexterity-based)
From the innovation point of view you are right.
I am so glad to see someone else that recognizes that bows being dexterity based is the goofiest thing. Bows are often given to agile, slim people in media (typically to women), but they are the weapons that take by far the most strength to use. Crossbows should be strength based as well as they were typically much harder to pull back than a bow and required the full use of your body and often a separate cocking device. Melee weapons are much more of a dexterity weapon than bows or crossbows.
@@habe1717 Crossbows had more ways to ready them for firing that were easier than what bows required. The heaviest crossbows, like the arbalest, had winches that would take longer to ready but stored up much more power. There's even a design that had a device like a stirrup on the front and the twine hooked into the belt, so you could crouch, hold it down with your foot, and by standing up you'd use your stronger leg muscles to 'cock' it.
My point is; once readied crossbows, like firearms, contain all the energy to fire the ammunition and only need to be aimed. Bows, meanwhile, need to be both aimed and simultaneously drawn back to give them the energy to fire.
@@Trust751 plus a crossbow can be cocked by your strong man and fired by the marksman... cannot really do that with a bow...
there were also tactical innovations that came about with the lethality of the gun. after pike-squares were phased out for bayonets soldiers could operate more independently, which is what Napoleon capitalized on.
one could even argue this had an effect in society at large; a more stratified/regimented culture would struggle against one that gave their soldiers more freedom to act on their own initiative.
So Shad, on one of the points you made in the video: Are you saying that a long bow is a good type of bow... because it's essential just a curve STICK!!!!!
ALL WEAPONRY IS *STICK*
I am become the Bringer of Stick - behold its girth, and despair!
Fr, tho… a bow is a strung up, specialized stick that slings smaller, even more specialized sticks. 100% agreed
I'm actually one of Brandon's editors at made this particular video. When I finished it I said to myself "Now we wait for Shad to see it and reply" Didn't actually think it would happen though.
I think it’s fair to say that at the end of the day, weapons are force multipliers and gunpowder is great at multiplying force. Much greater than what is possible with just steel, wood or straight up bare handed. I love bows but muskets absolutely out perform in the aspects that really matter.
I always love how throughout the years even in shads more bolder days he’s always been respectful and courteous in his opinions and statements. Much love
A terminology note: a bunch of firearms firing simultaneously is a "fusillade".
Volley is simultaneous discharge of all guns. All three ranks in the firing line will shoot (first rank kneels, second rank crouches, third rank stands)
Ripple is a sequential discharge of all guns. This stretches out the duration of the hailstorm of lead going downrange.
A rolling fusillade is sort of a combination of both: First rank fires a volley, then withdraws through the line to reload. Second rank moves up to fire their volley, then withdraws in turn. Third rank moves up to fire a volley, withdraws, then the first rank (having reloaded) repeats the cycle.
I learned something today.
'barrage' is probably the word he was looking for.
Salvo?
@@uberneanderthal Barrage literally means barrier. It's the artillery version of suppressing fire.
The japanese civil war of mid 19th century illustrate it perfectly. You see people using old version of guns, bows, sword and armor vs modern armies. In close combat modern armies are struggling against "traditionnal" weapons but the fire power at range is so devastating everyone quickly adopted it.
And artillery was also a big reason to adopt western warfare. Big cannon go kaboom. What else can I say?
Now we need Lindybeige to respond to this video to talk about the superiority of slings.
The fact that his children are referred to as “Shadlings” is adorable
The main advantage of Musket over bow is it took months of training to become accurate at range and years of training with medieval bows to condition yourself to be able to fire arrow after arrow without reaching exhaustion, meanwhile you can take some serf from a field, and give him an afternoon with a musket and her has a pretty good chance of laying low a knight in armor. It's a staggering force multiplier.
I love how polite Shad is to Brandon in this. Not that they were necessarily disagreeing, of course, but at every turn Shad is complimentary to Brandon and speaks highly of him and his knowledge set. Well done, Shad!
Edit: Also, I use Hello Fresh, and I can say it is quite good. A bit pricey, and if you're not a very good cook (I'm certainly not), it can be a bit daunting at first, but 4-5 meals in I had a much better idea about what I'm doing, and the cards that have the instructions also have the ingredients and their proportions. So you can hang on to them, and buy the ingredients on your own if you wind up discontinuing the service. The only meal I've had so far that was "meh" was one that was essentially cheeseburgers, and anybody can pull those off.
Don't be so sure. I once met a guy who couldn't boil pasta. The rest of us had to cook for him.
My ex-SIL once tried to make French toast, and couldn't figure out why the skillet kept simply toasting the bread instead of making it "French". She didn't know you had to dip it in egg first.
So I get that some people are REALLY bad at it.
Just the same, the Hello Fresh instructions are pretty easy to handle.
That’s what I most like about Shad. Even if the target of his rebuttal is being a vile, condescending arse; Shad is still respectful and well spoken.
Basic cooking is easy. You take what you want to eat, throw it on a hot pan or in boiling water, and then you wait until it gets the consistency you want. If you want to cook anything more complicated, just learn how to read, and go find a recipe.
@@johan.ohgren Sometimes I wonder how much of that is true ineptitude and how much of that is what I refer to as; 'weaponized incompetence' IE if I put on a show about how bad of a cook I am then I can make these other schmucks cook all my meals for me... People pull this same thing with cleaning too. I once was roommates with a guy who apparently didnt know how to do any chores not even use a vacuum? You push a button and roll it over what you want clean lol. So basically he knows how to use a vacuum he was just too lazy. This laziness seeped into his whole personality, and he got used to using others. People like this are insufferable to be around and I refuse to let that BS slide anymore. I know exactly what youre doing dude you arent coy or clever lol.
Also a point for lethality for muskets is that the bullets will deform, tumble, and fragment inside the body. Leaving more complex and larger wounds.
not to mention if your talking about a Minnie ball they weigh on the average 1oz imagine having an ounce of soft lead hit you there's a reason so many soldiers got arms and legs amputated in the American Civil War that hits a bone it don't break it shatters it.
@@samellowery Minié balls are mid-19th century and fired from rilfed barrels, that's a severe improvement over a musket.
The sponsorship part is the most wholesome thing I have ever seen
Why i like this guy, he sees things in a rational way. Might like something but puts it in it's logical or reasonable places
"What makes a good soldier, Sharpe?” “The ability to fire three rounds a minute. In any weather sir.”
That's soldiering.
''Keeping his mouth shut when he's asked dumb fool questions by a superior officer, sir.''
Actually the muskets are VERY well balanced. Mostly because you have a literal tube of steel running the whole length of the musket. If you held a medieval spear with the butt end planted in your shoulder as you would a musket it would also feel rather awkward. One thing you miss comparing medieval spears and muskets is the fact that the muskets were often quite a bit heavier. There are formations of men that very much preferred to keep their bayonets off until close combat couldn't be avoided, light infantry troops that Brandon mentions for example. However, other line formations of infantry were specifically trained and intended to fight with their bayonets attached at all times. The biggest factor when comparing medieval troops to 18th and early 19th century infantry is the training. If you only have to spend 3-4 weeks on firing drills, you can train your troops to much higher degrees of discipline when it comes to holding and moving in various formations. This makes very high attrition formations such as the Swedish Caroleans suddenly extremely effective and viable compared to other forms of infantry (especially if you give them a couple shots of gin before a battle). Really though, the ability to churn out such massive formations of generalist infantry in rapid time is the real reason bows died out. A combined formation of pikemen, bowmen, and cavalry could be replaced by a force of uniform infantry and a cavalry formation and achieve results at any range in a battle while reducing the unit complexity drastically and simultaneously increasing the types of formation maneuvers you could perform reliably. Assuming of course you actually gave your infantry equivalent time training as you did your medieval infantry units, which is a problem that many units and armies throughout time have had. Oh, we're gonna ignore artillery for now though. The evolution of field artillery is kind of complicated and greatly effects the uses and deployments of infantry and cavalry throughout the 18th and early 19th century. On an interesting note, Tsarist Russia retained the idea of bayonets being fixed at all times all the way up through to the first world war, which is why most Mosin Nagant rifles are considered to be inaccurate; the sights were calibrated from the factory assuming the troops would be shooting with their bayonets fixed.
A huge point many people forget that you can train a professional archer in a couple of months, years to master it. You can train a musketeers in a couple of hours. So for every dozen archers you field the musket army is fielding hundreds
Main issue with someone you trained in hours was you simply didn't have the potential of it. What you needed was someone who wouldnt run and follow the procedure in the heat of battle without fumbling or panicking too much. It was much easier than training an archer of course, but emphasis on drill and battlefield discipline became very much more important (not that they werent already, but the need for them was greatly magnified in the sort of warfare musket-issued infantry would find themselves subject to), and these were much harder to train for than simply loading a weapon.
Hence the old saw from the Sharpes books about 3 rounds a minute. Though, in practice, it got quite much more complicated than this, but "troops who would not break and run and continue to fight even under fire and more importantly, under heavy engagement or even a cavalry charge" was a major consideration.
@@DuraLexSedLex Yep, having a big army doesn't mean shit if they all rout the moment things start going badly. It's incredible people keep forgetting this valuable historical lesson.
@@IAmTheStig32 Naturally, the winner of a fight is the one who'd rather die than lose. History shows us this time and again. People don't fight to the death, because one side will always value the outcome more highly than the other.
@@dontmisunderstand6041 There are countless occasions where "the one who'd rather die than lose" just loses and dies. The Japanese throughout history for example embodied the "Death before dishonor" ideal. They still didn't win the Imjin war (Or world war 2 for that matter).
@@Meatshield108 And remind me how they lost world war 2? By choosing to lose rather than die, when directly presented with the option. That's not a counterpoint, it's direct support for the claim.
during the main time when bows vs muskets happened 2 significant things had yet to be invented.
1. rifling to spin the musketball for increased accuracy. without it hitting the broadside of a barn becomes hard.
2. smokeless gunpowder, meaning the battlefield is smoked out after the 1st volley pretty much forcing a charge.
these 2 factor significantly impact the bows vs musket debate.
Wonderful content all around, as always. As a museum educator I've had some correspondence with Brandon in the past, and his knowledge is highly appreciable. I've of course been a fan of yours as well, Shad, for ages. Glad to see respectful discourse between these two creators! One thing that I thought I'd briefly touch upon if I may, Shad, was your statements around the 24 minute mark regarding battlefield fatigue. While I certainly concur that a trained archer would be acclimated to the physical demands of operating a war bow, I am not as convinced that if a significantly less encumbering - even if less effective - option was made available to them, that they would not be tempted by it.
Looking to more documented eras of combat logistics has shown that soldiers on the ground often prioritize convenience of use over sheer combat effectiveness. The renowned Bren gun of the WWII Allied campaigns comes to mind as a great example. I'm sure someone with a fuller knowledge of World War firearms could elaborate further, but to my understanding the Bren gun was initially developed as a sort of intermediary between the small arms carried by a rifleman and the larger stationary machine guns (sometimes referred to as "heavy machine guns") used in the previous World War, not as a replacement for the heavy machine gun - conceptually the Bren would have allowed for the sustained automatic fire of a stationary machine gun on a more mobile, shoulder-mountable and lower caliber firearm.
Though sources I've browsed seem to suggest this was rarely how the Bren was actually used. More often than not, it seems the Bren was used in a similar capacity to a stationary machine gun, i.e. fired from a prone position utilizing a bipod, and soon became a preferred sort of general purpose machine gun despite being less suited to that sort of usage because of its lighter caliber, limited magazine capacity, and lack of barrel cooling (which meant that it could only be fired in shorter bursts than say, a water-cooled .50cal gun). In the eyes of the soldiers, however, this didn't make the Bren worse than previous machine guns; rather, it seems it was quite beloved for its lighter weight and its use of the smaller .303cal round which was shared with their rifles (ammunition they were already carrying). So, although in terms of lethality the Bren is theoretically lesser than a larger gun, in practice its lower physical demands upon machine gunners made the Bren a preferable alternative to stationary guns.
So to your point, I suspect that a similar phenomenon could occur in any period of warfare in which a standard weapon system, be it longbow, musket, or otherwise, was fielded alongside a less fatiguing alternative, because ultimately it seems the average soldier is rightly more interested in preserving their energy on campaign than they are in inflicting casualties - and officers are inclined to recognize this in order to keep their troops operating with greater morale and physical vigor.
The Bren gun was issued to every 10-man section of a rifle company and used for mobile infantry support,the design incorporated a quick change barrel system should overheating become a problem.
Bipod could be folded and the gun placed on a sandbag,wall,window sill or rubble.
British army heavy machine guns were water-cooled but in the same .303" calibre,not sure where the .50" water-cooled came from,Browning .50" are air-cooled and US Vickers/Maxim types are .30/06".
It had nothing to do with convenience, it was doctrinal.
The primary role in which the Bren was issued was in the 10-man infantry section (where every man was required to learn the basics of operation + carry 2 mans, which were to be used before the assistant gunner's if possible) and with mechanized sections with universal carriers to act as organic fire support for infantry companies. These are roles for which lighter guns are suited.
By WW2, Water-cooled guns were falling out of favour because of bulk and weight, which made them much less suitable for the sort of mobile warfare that the war mostly required. Static watercooled guns are better for when you don't have to move, but otherwise did not offer significant advantages, especially when incidents of endlessly firing machineguns into infantry hordes was simply not a factor and the ability to quickly swap barrels offered a better solution that didn't involve a heavy water jacket for forces that were expected to move.
Part of what made the appearance of such weapons as the MG34 make such a dramatic impression on military planners was simply that it allowed a universal machine gun to bridge the gap between the lighter magazine fed weapons most militaries used (Bren, BAR, FM 24/29 etc.) and their larger, static cousins, simplifying logistics and providing heavier firepower at the squad/section level for fire and maneuver.
The US use of the M1919 machine gun was similar, but it was bulkier, heavier, and was issued at company rather than platoon or squad level.
Please do not mistake these for simple convenience. There is a very extensive body of work on the matter regarding employment of these weapons, and why they were trended towards.
@@christopherfranklin972 There was a Vickers .50 cal weapon used primarily by the RN as an Anti-Aircraft weapon, but was also used by the British Army in North Africa in limited numbers. It was quite heavy and bulky.
@@DuraLexSedLex Having posted I immediately remembered views of multiple mounted water-cooled .50" on primarily US Navy vessels for anti-aircraft defence but for the reasons which you stated they were never employed in the same capacity as the Bren gun.
Now, but a 3kg bow is much less fatiguing than an 11-6kg musket, isn't it?
Good points Shad, though a few corrections on why muskets (firearms in general) are more lethal than bows.
Bullets don't need to be removed from wounds for the wound to heal up, even today they often leave the bullet in the wound as finding it can cause more damage then it prevents. Bullets curve through the body, often burying its self far from the main wound cavity where it acts as a plug where it is. The wound cavity left by the bullet is more dangerous than the remaining bullet. Bullets rip cavities into the body that resemble the shape of a gourd or squash, leaving a wound that will continue to bleed if only the opening is stitched up. The cavity left by the bullet needs to be closed and every damaged artery or organ pieced back together. In contrast arrows pierce a straight hole into the body, so when the arrow is removed, the wound can simply be cleaned and sutured. So because of the differences in wound type, arrows only damage what they pierce while bullets damage the areas around where they pierce. Also bullets often fragment themselves or shatter bones creating wounds branching off of the main cavity.
One advantage of muskets is that wounds were much harder to treat. Amputation was often all that could be done after a musket ball had pulverized the bone in an arm or leg. Arrow wounds were more treatable with the medicine at the time.
The earliest bayonets actually plugged the barrel, the bayonet we think of now though could affect the loading process more than sight or shooting which is why it would need to be affixed. It would become more regular, though not fully adopted, to keep the rifle bayonet affixed once muzzle loading was phased out.
even still with a barrel plugged bayonet, it beats an archer switching to a sword, as spear beats sword in terms of armies
@@pickle2636 depends on the sword. Long swords can cut threw the shaft of the spear. Even if it's a gun, shaped spear, a great sword can cut it, in half.
@@jameshamaker9321 then the guy with the greatsword gets stabbed with a spear by the next guy in the line, after focusing on cutting this one spear, especially hard to cut if its a gun with a metal barrel at its core
@@jameshamaker9321 an archer is definitely not using a greatsword, and even a greatsword isn't cutting through a steel barrel. Might damage the gun so it can't shoot, but definitely not cutting straight through it. An archer definitely stands a chance against a musket in melee combat, but not at ALL because of that lmao
Depending on the time period, you wouldn't even be able to fire your musket after fixing bayonets. Initially, bayonets were plug bayonets which were fixed to the musket by plugging the bayonet into the barrel of the gun making it impossible to fire (at least not without damaging the musket, bayonet, or both).
Haha! Ring bayonet go stab stab!
😳 shoot the bayonet as a projectile
Technically speaking, I think that plug bayonets pre-date muskets. Plug bayonets were probably used with early wheel locks, but not flintlock muskets. But that's a technicality since both are a form of firearm.
An early musket is still hell of a handy club... There was quite a lot of proponents of "giving them the butt" before the ring bayonet came along.
@@Riceball01 Plug Bayonets start showing up in the 1600s, the Musket dates to the early 1500s. Where it was a weapon that was more powerful than the typical matchlock arquebuse, with the intent to have better penetration of armor. Furthermore Bayonets really got popular when the Socket ones where developed in the late 1600s which quickly allowed them to replace pikes and other such weapons. As such by around 1710 or so most European armies had dropped all other forms of close combat weapons in favor of having all troops with muskets, also by this point they started to rapidly switch to the Flintlock (which first show up in the mid 1500s but was slow to be adopted due to it's cost in comparison to the much simpler matchlock). The Term Musket by this point had become the general term for infantry fire arms (even though it's main reason for existing in the first place no longer existed in any appreciable amounts, that being armor).
Awe man it's nice seeing your growing army, you must be a hell of a happy dude.
"Bows are better than muskets because they are quieter." Actually, in the context of warfare in the late medieval/early modern era, the noise of the muskets is a plus on the battlefield, not a minus. The kind of warfare where a quiet weapon that doesn't reveal your position is important is in asymmetrical or skirmish warfare. In this period, that kind of warfare wasn't as impactful as it would become in the 20th and 21st centuries. Assuming quieter is better is ascribing the tenets of modern special-forces tactics to an era where that kind of warfare was actually very impractical. People seem to forget that guerilla warfare was extremely limited in its applications before the advent of mechanized warfare. Pre-industrial armies were less vulnerable to supply chain disruptions, so these kinds of tactics didn't have the huge upside that they do now. In industrial warfare, supply and communication disruption is so important that you can't afford to not try it - it's a "whoever does this better is almost guaranteed to win" thing; in pre-industrial warfare, it was more of a "sure, if you can pull it off" kind of thing. Add to that the fact that the high mobility required for effective guerilla tactics is largely enabled by the technology developed in industrial warfare, and "pre-industrial special forces" becomes more of a fantasy trope than a historical reality. There are some exceptions, and some rare groups that were superficially similar to special forces (the hashashin and ninja are popular examples), but the actual function of these exceptions is tailor made to a very different kind of warfare than modern armies engage in.
However, psychological warfare on the battlefield is always a thing. Loud blasts of a musket line accompanied by the sound of artillery thumping away *will* take a greater toll on enemy morale than sitting under mass arrow fire, regardless of how lethal they are in comparison to each other. In terms of immediate battlefield impact, there isn't much difference between an enemy wounded, killed, fleeing, or paralyzed in fear. They're not fighting back, so they're not a factor in your enemy's favour.
You said a lot that was wrong.
The primary issue is that the bow was misused.
Frankly, so was the musket.
The truth is military leaders of the time were ALL idiotic and insane.
You beat me to it, and said it better
This reminds me of how people like to throw around the idea that "warriors/men don't wear their hair long" despite this being patently false. The Vikings or just the military in Antiquity prove this "truism" wrong.
To prove your point even more. Ninjas were. In fact... their time special police force. Not warfare unit.
SAW goes brrrrrr
the sponsor part was super wholesome, not gonna lie.
he got me when he said "this is my medieval army..." hahahaah
@@gilgoofthegrove5072 When the kids are grown: "This is my modern army!"
And kids who are enthusiastic about vegetables!
Just another thing is that arrows can more or less be blocked with shields.
For instance, a Roman Testudo style of formation can drastically cut down the hit rate of arrows, but will do very little against firearms.
Shad, I'm surprised you didn't talk about how much the prominent use of SHIELDS on the battlefield impacted the matchup of warbows vs Muskets ^^
Wood is very effective, even against muskets
@@placeholderhere2864 Depends on the thickness of the wood, and wooden shield light enough to be wielded properly aren't thick enough
@@RoulicisThe Yah, Remember that Musket Balls aren’t just a arrow with no stick and feather, those suckers are flying out faster meaning at most, the shield will break up the metal before peppering you with fragments if it isn’t thick enough.
@@placeholderhere2864 Unfortunately, Tod's Workshop did make a video of shooting a shield (Made of wood) and most types of arrows he used went through. I do want to bring up something that may have not been explored yet, is what type of wood was mostly available for the average foot soldier. There are "Soft" woods and there are "Hard" woods around the world and im curious if test conclusions on both types of wood would made enough difference on the battlefield.
@@Predator20357 That's absolutely correct and why a musket bullet is so lethal. They expand on contact. They would shatter shields and armour. Let alone bones and organs.
It took years to train a longbowman it took a couple of months to train a musketeer
well according to shang chi it takes about 3 shots to train to master level, so who am I gonna believe here?
Try weeks not months to train a musketeer.
@@paratrooper321fa yes and no, it can only take a few weeks to be a good shot and reload with a musket. how ever it will take a few months to learn proper discipline, formation marching all that sort of thing, musket warfare wasnt just about point gun at target, it was more about things like fire by rank or vollies
@@nitebones1
Historically 3weeks was the minimum for a trained musketeer . The drill aspect was factored in to this . Now this generally did not end training it continued past the initial training plus training continued while traveling especially in down time.
Months? In modern days, most armies give their soldiers not even a week total on the firing range. Yes, there is other stuff they learn in training, but arms training is often on the lower side.
The biggest thing that is missed in these conversations is the fact that smoothbore muskets were not as inaccurate as pop culture says they are. At reasonable range, a soldier armed with a musket could hit their enemy. Also, you cannot dodge a musket ball. You most certainly can dodge an arrow shot from anything but point blank range.
At 100 yds a smoothbore musket could put a hole through you if you wearing armour but, since the Alexander the Great days, with the right armour, an arrow could bounce off you! (Yes I know some arrows can pierce armour but there's a reason why guns are used today and not bow and arrows).
Well also the gun had alot more room for improvement than the bow. Sure we’ve made bows with mechanical assist that can deliver a heavier strike with requiring less strength from the user but guns have advanced in tremendous ways over the musket. Even the most skilled archers couldn’t match the range or accuracy of a sniper rifle. Even the highest pound bows can’t compare to someone using armor piercing rounds. Even the fastest archer can’t fire faster than a machine gun.
you can at extreme ranges, we have primary source materials from the French and Indian war where men recount seeing the musket balls flying through the air as they loss velocity, and being able to swerve. obviously rare and strange moments.
Well, you would have to clearly see where the arrow is
@@alexmarissens4016 And that the guy with the musket was trained to aim better then to hit a block of poeple infront of you...
There’s also 2 additional factors.
1. Trajectory, bullets tend to be fired along flatter trajectories at competitively longer ranges, so more chances to hit someone in an enemy formation.
2. Cover, a pavise may protect against an arrow/bolt but nowhere near as much against a musket shot.
Brown Bess muskets had a muzzle velocity of at least 1,200 fps. Vs 200 fps for a powerful bow. And the technical term is "grazing fire" as opposed to the plunging fire of the bow at distance. One shot of a musket could take out at least two men in a formation, if they were not wearing armor.
and as someone commented above, this is why the first rows would take the full brunt of the first volley of lead, while arrows are more random and can hit deeper in the ranks but they would not just eradicate the first row the way a volley of bullets would do. Giving the moral advantage to the bullets as seeing a whole row of soldiers fall would certainly make the following rows think twice about advancing...
Hi Shad! Love your work. History teacher here. Whilst there is a lot of variance from weapon to weapon, a good heuristic is that musket balls from a smooth-bore musket in good condition will veer off about 4cm every 10m of distance, if the shooter is sandbag-vice perfect. Using this, you can reasonably estimate that a good shooter will hit a man-sized target at 50m almost every time, and will also have a reasonable chance at 100m.
How does this compare with the longbow?
That's roughly equivalent to what Shad said a well-trained archer could accomplish at 50m.
Also, in addition to the damage caused by a musket volley, the sound and smoke of a volley from massed muskets must have been absolutely terrifying...
Spoiler: Yes. Otherwise armies wouldn't have stopped using the bow.
Without watching the video: Bows are better than early muskets, but require more training and are more exhausting to use.
@@Galardomond So, Bows are stronger but muskets are better?
@@mathieuaurousseau100 bows are faster, muskets have more punch.
Armor melts in the face of musket fire
@@kakerake6018 I agree, although we have to remember early matchlocks, wheelocks, and flintlocks could still be stopped by some heavy armor of the age. They used to test breatplates against a musket ball. A dent was the proof a bullet wouldn't go through, which is where the term "bulletproof" originates.
The real advantage of guns is that the training it takes to becomes proficient in their use is far less than with a bow or hand weapon. That and the psychological effect of the sound of gunfire and the smoke is terrifying to the enemy.
@@ShuajoX and seeing your friend have his head exploded because of the shot
Mad Jack Churchill would disagree about the superiority of firearms to a longbow , but then again, he was mad
This was a pretty interesting video, thanks for putting it together. I never really thought about why muskets overtook bows as the main ranged weapon on European battlefields, I just took it for granted that they did. The open communication just added a lot of context to the transition.
And officers didn’t choose to use swords and single shot pistols, they often had two or even more single shot, or double barreled pistols and a sword. Those were an officers weapons. As their job is to command men and the local battlefield, coordinate with other officers to win a battle. Not fight, not offensively. Those weapons are defensive in nature, as they are side arms. That was the role of them, to let him protect himself in close combat as he controlled his unit. They are also a symbol of who’s in charge. Officers still had swords all the way up to WWI, that they used, along with pistols as their weapons, and about a year or so into the war, was the normal thing.
Even today, aside from pilots and armored vehicle commanders, the vast majority of officers don't even have more than a pistol in combat. If they're shooting at the enemy, they aren't actually using their *real* weapon: their troops.
@@randlebrowne2048 This 100% an officers rifle is for him to protect himself his job on the Battlefield is to direct his troops to get the job done.
Sword were also still effective self defense weapons in WW1. The infantry officers put away their swords not because they weren’t good weapons, but rather because they made it easier for snipers to pick out officers from enlisted. Cavalrymen kept their swords a fair bit longer since everyone had one, not just the officers.
@@Specter_1125 Swords were also used in WW2 by multiple different armies.
Shad looks more like a king when he's next to his kids. Someone make this man a custom crown please. And above his throne is the channel logo, that could also work as an actual family crest with a real sword and shield.
Dude his brother is draw with jazza, just get him to do it and it’ll be more content for both of them
Seeing shad being a dad just makes me so happy for some reason
this is why i love Shad and Brandon so much as a history nerd to get this high level of education i am so blessed
love to you guys from a random S.Korean
We love these types of Shadiversity Videos!! We actually use them in our homeschool curriculum
Vool
Really loved the intro..... so cute and wholesome getting da fam in on things with the kids.
Really is nice seeing a family man with their kids just having a fun time while also working. GGs
Accuracy maybe not..... but volume of fire and anti armor power yes.
Especially training difference was important
@UCZGinDFIzM5VKeKyeESW_2g Here's the question do you want 10000 men with muskets that are inaccurate and slow to reload or 100 men with bows.
@@dragonace119 more bodies is better
@@dragonace119 question is this an open field battle or a seige?
Also muskets did not just shoot then reload the tactic was to shoot kneel and reload then the next column would shoot kneel reload and so forth. So constant inaccurate barrage is still effective.
The earliest musket bayonets were plugged into the barrel and couldn't be used while shooting since they literally blocked the barrel.
Also, before bayonets, musketeers would've been protected with pikemen. It was the bayonet that eventually made the pikeman of the 17th century obsolete.
@@flamebird2218 I doubt a bayonet line would do very well again a line of pikemen
@@basiliskwardroid Pikemen where there to defend the musketeers against cavalry charges. A Pikeman trying to get into melee against a musketeer is shot dead before he arrives.
@@basiliskwardroid The problem with mixed formations once the bayonet is invented is that having your pikemen in front means you have fewer people shooting, and having them in the back means you have to disrupt your formation to have the muskets retreat behind them. Once the bayonet gets invented most armies drop pikemen completely since the relatively minor advantage a pike has over a bayonet doesn't compensate for the fact that a pikeman can't really carry and use both a pike and a gun at the same time.
Awesome video! I need to watch more of your content but I almost got teary eyed during the ad. I remembered you talking about your kids with Carl and that convo really stuck with me. Keep up the great work my man!
Everyone knows that it doesn't matter what weapons you have, as long as you stack enough discipline and morale modifiers!
Luigi Cadorna, is that you?
Eu4 reference lol
I'll put your pointed sticks against my muskets....
Didn't work for the Japanese in ww2
@@davidburroughs2244 Of course, in that game you need to stack soft attack and air superiority, CAS.
I think everyone is forgetting the true advantage of archery: Fire-arrows! (I’m kidding. I’m kidding! I watch Lindybeige too, you know.)
Was looking for this comment!
Another factor I loved in Brandon's videos is he covered how accurate muskets can be, vs what is believed! Even if most shots miss, the ones that hit wither your enemy down! Say you start at 1,000, one volley you lost 50 or 100, next volley you lose slightly more! Closer you get the more casualties gained.
Given the range of a bow, even at their best average, that musket can consistently shoot greater distance than a bow! Playing into that shock and awe effect mentioned if the two forces clashed, those bullets hit like hammers and hit fast!
That and maybe already told you, most of the time armies went into battle bayonets already on! For a decent time in the American army, the bayonet was at one point, WELDED ON! That was changed sometime later.
As for the wieldy quality of a musket with bayonet, they are actually VERY easy to use, more handy than you think, there is a great video I found covering later mid-1800s Canadian troops, armed with yes, breechloading single-shot rifles, the effectiveness of bayonets is sharply displayed!
Video in question: th-cam.com/video/p9Gq8vUGIUI/w-d-xo.html
Something worth pointing out in favour of longbows over muskets while on campaign is that of *_safety during transport_* . Bows and arrows are generally quite safe to handle and transport; unless the person is being a complete idiot. In contrast, black powder is easily combustible; meaning they have to be handled and transported with care.
Also, in terms of logistics, maintaining arrows is much easier to do whilst on the road; with accompanying fletchers likely able to mend damaged arrows in order to be usable again; especially if the arrowhead itself is not too damaged (and that assumes there aren't any blacksmiths on hand, which there would be). In contrast, once the supply of black powder is used up, it is not easily replenished.
Safety, plus isolation from water, is why powder was carried in sealed lead barrels. Bonus: empty barrels can be cast into more bullets.
If there's enough fire to melt a barrel, all the powder is going to do is give a flare of flame in the existing conflagration. Unless you're setting a fire, of course.
@@thekaxmax I'm not sure where you heard that from. Googling "black powder" or "gunpowder" with "lead barrels" doesn't net me any results. Rather, everything I've seen indicated to me that black powder was often transported in wooden barrels fastened by rope (instead of iron hoops), at least in pre-modern times. Similarly, black powder is famous for rapidly combusting/exploding at even the slightest spark; hence why people were often wary of handling or moving it. History is full of instances where black powder stores accidentally exploded.
I think that people don't realize the amount of technology and skill when it comes to black powder weapons look at your average American civil war soldier probably close to the peak of BP tech you have a soldier carrying a rifled musket with bayonet a cartridge box with metal inserts designed that if a spark was to set the cartridges aflame would cause the explosion to go up and away from the body it holds 40 rounds of ammunition each cartridge made up of 2 or more specifically cut pieces of paper surrounding a 1oz lead Minnie ball and a blackpowder charge the cartridge usually partially covered in a tallow. to fire it a copper percussion cap filled with fulminating powder thats water proofed
On other hand you need a lot more materials and manpower to craft arrows compared to bullets.
Musketman can craft his own ammo in the pinch
Arrows use much more space to transport.
They deteriorate with time and weather and if archer not careful can end up with missing fetching or warped arrows before the battle
Blackpowder is usually not transported as blackpowder in this age. You carry the charcoal, salpheter and the sulphur separately, and mix it as late as possible. If you dont, it will separate, and burn instead of explode.
It is process in progress.
It isn't just "training" - it takes a culture to have a levy of longbowmen.
So, once you give up longbows for muskets to overcome armor you CANNOT just return to them when, after a generation, the armor is set aside. If you DID manage to train up an entire generation into longbow, at incredible effort with dictates you could not possibly keep secret, what would it take for your opponents to pull out the old armor? A few weeks at most.
Longbows were a question that had a known answer and the element of surprise was impossible due to the culture it takes to train them.
Given the absence of armor, if you were going to put in bows, you wouldn't even need to bother with longbows. However, when you have musketeer armies they are essentially armies that are 100% archers. Things like the horse archer were NOT for countering archers. You wouldn't trade fire if you were a horse archer with ground archers - you went in with sword and spear against archers.
The final issue is that as we move into muskets we are moving into industrial era warfare. The gear was mass produced and identical and the soldier was a barely trained kid. They were NOT warriors of a warrior class any more.
Could such a warrior, with a bow, stride onto the musket battlefield and work to lethal effect? Absolutely. Such men, however, no longer existed - at least not within the military rank and file. They would be too rare, too unpredictable, and thus not terribly useful for levy style industrial issued armies. Armies that use numbers and issue don't have room for heroes any more.
Of course, there were a few such fellows past the musket era - but no army has enough Mad Jack's to fill out even a single unit.
levy could never be enough. Modern warfare was more scalable, so it didn't rely on some local and ultimately limited bowmen.
Funny, I was going to mention Mad Jack Churchill, but you beat me to it!
Could a warrior with bow stride onto musket battlefield and work to lethal effect? Well, some tried ( ex Egyptians against Napoleon, middle asia against Russian). Tried and died. Bow and musket are two different weapons - bow is harrasement tool with possibility to take you out of action if youre unlucky. Musket ball will hit you once...
it can work look at Custer at the little big horn but if Custer had brought his Gatlin guns with him the Indians would of been screwed.
@@samellowery No, at the Little Bighorn Custer's men had been issued with Springfield single shot breach loading rifles while the natives were also armed with rifles, but these were rifles they had taken in raids and bought in trade and included a large number of Henry and Spincer repeating rifles. So in effect the "primitive natives" had the technological advantage as well as the numerical advantage in that fight.
Quite literally the most genuine and wholesome ad that I have ever seen.
Reading the title without watching the video:
Short answer: Yes.
Long answer: Yes because almost everyone can achieve decent accuracy and handling in a short manner of time and on top of that even the earlier ball type ammunition renders armour instantly obsolete.
Come to think of it it's almost like stick vs Nunchucks... I say almost because thr bow is actually still a good weapon
Musketry didn't render all armor immediately obsolete. The very term "Bullet proof" stems from a mark on the armor from being shot at to show that a bullet couldn't pierce right through it. The big difference though is the logistics where you can have a LOT of individuals armed with early firearm for every one heavily armored knight. We should still though remember that even by the time of Napoleon, bullet proof armor wearing Currasier existed as well as tons of examples of people wearing armor throughout the pike and shot period.
@AileDiablo yes you can do that, but the arrow will lose power and become useless
@@bewawolf19 Close range, High powder loads, inconsistent manufacture...
Finding truly bulletproof armor at the time could be hit or miss
And if you're struck multiple times
Goodnight regardless
Armor resisted shots until guns improved.
liking the responding to more obscure historical things(tm) channels trend you have been doing lately
finding good youtubers this way
I believe that the musket being superior has more to do with training time then any other factor. You can train a man to march and reload a musket in a couple of weeks but it takes years to train a man to be able to use a heavy war bow and maintain the fitness required.
That also means you can pay the man less, bowmen were never cheap, but a musket man despite his fancy gun, was cheap to hire.
I don't know why but I always dread clicking on one of these videos, they're so good, so entertaining, and very informative. Makes me feel like a bad person. I love the content
The fatigue argument should just be rolled into the training argument. It takes a long time to train an Archer. Part of that is building the muscle and stamina, so.
I was waiting for the training argument in the Close Combat section. Since my guess would be, that the guys used to draw a 120-160lb on the regular would have a light advantage in upper body strength and even lacking a sword they would have a 6-7ft stick of very hard wood.
Even with proper conditioning, you’d only be able to loose so many arrows before tiring. A musketeers could go for as long as they have ammo.
@@achimdemus-holzhaeuser1233 you wouldn’t hit people with your bow unless absolutely necessary. Also, the muscles involved for pulling a bow are not really going to help you in close combat.
35:30
Total war: Warhammer 2, Thing here... the dwarves are a very great example of this. Even their ranged units are often equipped unusually well for melee as well as already being great ranged units (Being one of the few I've played with that does this, I've only played a handful though). Unusually being equipped with a *shield* as well as their melee and ranged weapon. Though not as armored they still do have some, unlike the usual archers having little to no armor. As well as normal dwarven infantry being some seriously hard nuts to crack with some insane defense.
Apart from my monkey-penguin hybrid mascot, I have also been developing an entire universe and had set a huge foundation for world-building. There are three eras I came up with and with each era, 4 ages of technology:
Primitive Era
Tribal Age, also known as Stone, Tool, or Ancient Eras
Sorcery Age, also known as Classical period
Dark Age, also known as the Viking Age or Early Medieval Period
Medieval Age, also known as the High Middle Ages
Industrial Era
Renaissance Age, also known as the Late Medieval Period
Colonial Age, also known as the Age of Sail or Early Modern Period
Frontier Age, or the Old West or Victorian Era, possibly the Industrial Revolution as well
Steampunk Age, or the Industrial Age and early age of electricity and motorization, including both world wars
Technological Era
Space Age, also known as the modern and computer age or retro-futuristic age
Cyberpunk Age, the first level of true futuristic (Example: Blade Runner)
Intergalactic Age, the age of multi-world civilizations, or of science fiction. (Example: Star Trek)
Cosmic Age, the age of space fantasy and untold possibilities. (Example: Star Wars)
I developed pure good and evil races for each of the eras. Elves are typically magical and elegant with the Bow and Arrow so I decided to make them Primitive Era. They typically live in smaller clans that don't span the globes as other races do. Dwarves I categorized as Industrial Era alongside other short-height races such as Halflings and Gnomes. They span entire worlds, and I even recommended to the Dwarves state-of-the-art swordsmanship such as the Claymore. Men are non-magical and technologically advanced so they have spaceships and what not.
@@MonguinAssassinI was about it ask what the humans are but I forgot that men is also a word for humanity.
one thing that both you and Brandon missed is that the bow actually faced the musket in combat. During the napoleonic wars the french faced troops from all over Russia and some of them came from eastern Russia specifically Mongolia. At first the french laughed at them but soon they realized that the nomads with their compound bows could shoot faster, more accurately and compared to the french light cavalry pistols farther. And since the french did not wear armor (except heavy cavalry) penetration was mostly not a problem.
An arrow, unless it hits a vital organ, is not going to be immediately lethal or put a man out of action right away. Getting hit with a 70mm musket ball even on the limbs is more likely to put a man out of action. One musket ball is is more effective than several arrows, so the higher rate of fire is not as big an advantage as people make out.
@@glennbeard3462 No musket had a 70mm ball. Something like 18mm would be typical of a Brown Bess, arguably the most common musket in the Napoleonic wars (though not used by the French IIRC). 70mm is more like a small cannon ball.
It's worth noting the .7 of an inch is about 18mm - 20mm which might be the source of the confusion.
@@TonkarzOfSolSystem The size didn't matter as much as the sheer velocity of a bullet. So fast and hard they can shatter bone and muscle with directly impacting it. Not to mention they much harder to remove than arrow and didn't hinder the bloodflow of the wound as much. Your not supposed to pull a knife or arrow out, until you have the means to deal with the bleeding.
A trio of musketeers could probably defeat a single small canon crew, unless they were using some sort of grapeshot or fleche/ shrapnel.
That's what you get for skimping on the armor, I guess
@@glennbeard3462 well yeah, but then 70mm is a 3 inch cannonball, not a musket ball. Mongolians were historically horse archers, shooting from the back of a moving horse, and it's harder to hit a moving target! We're assuming shots from a clean gunbarrel, but when you get fouling, your accuracy drops off. And I understand the powder used by the French fouled more than that used by the British. And sometimes there was a slight delay in the shot going off with a flintlock, especially when it needed cleaning. Yes, when the bullet hits, it does more damage, but it HAS to hit first time, or you get turned into a porkupine.
I love how Shad's sons have their own Gambesons. Following after Dad. Wholesome, cute and trad-pilled.
I guess you can say Shad has a few Gambe-sons hanging around the house =D. I’ll see myself out.
"This truth remains accurate, consistent throughout."
"War... war never changes...."
Ok now that I got that out of the way, never forget that in a world of automatic weapons special forces are still using bows. Yes guns are vastly more effective, but bows still have their place.
Shad always mentions his kids, But damn, His wife is a MVP having that many kids. Like damn, Thats alot
Makes me want to make a crude, but very nomenclature-heavy joke about her pelvic outlet. Today, I will take the high road.
@@ericv00 I wont take the high road.
Shad couldn't pull a minivan out of a driveway.
Shad, I think the word you were looking for was "Salvo".
One thing I would say in the war bow's favor, though I am not saying this changes the result, is that the upkeep for a war bow was significantly less than that of a musket. War bows can be used in almost any environment or weather, and shot as many times as you like, and all you really have to worry about is keeping the string waxed and making sure it is not frayed. The bow itself could last without very much care for a whole war, and if a bow cracked, warped, broke, or if the string snapped, it was fairly simple to get a new one. I believe many armies traveled with extra bows and strings in their supplies for this very purpose.
The musket on the other hand, and in this case I am referring to the same kind Shad is, those used in the time of the Napoleonic wars, needed constant care. They needed to be cleaned out very often. Even firing a single shot meant that the user would have to clean it out to prevent jamming or rust. Black powder was not forgiving to the negligent soldier. They could also get clogged by mud, dirt, dust, and other waste collected on the march or in battle. If a musket misfired or blew up because the mechanism failed or something blocked the barrel, there was the distinct possibility that it would badly injure either the user or those around him, as well as destroying the gun. Replacing a musket was not so easy, though by Napoleon's time it wasn't the making of the musket itself that was the problem. By that time it was fairly quick, though still far more complicated than making a bow. It was more the cost of making one that made it inconvenient. Moving metal parts always cost a lot, and the more you have, the more it costs to make. While the musket is a very simple design compared to today's standards, it still cost a good bit of money to make the small parts that were its trigger mechanism.
Thus, by comparison, I would argue that the war bow was far easier to keep in good condition or to replace than the musket. Again, this does not change the overall result. I just thought it was something worthy of note in this discussion.
Now, I am no expert. What I have stated is merely my understanding of the use of war bows and muskets in warfare, as far as it goes. If I have stated something incorrect, or failed to include a vital fact, please tell me, so that I may learn more about this interesting part of history. Stay Awesome!
It's still called a volley. Salvo works too, though.
I believe the term volley would be better salvo refers to a ships guns rather than musket fire
When shad says you can shoot the arrows shot at you he forgot to mention that ammo is still ammo just like you can’t shoot 7.62mm Soviet ammo in the 7.62mm m-14 , if your enemy is useing shorter bows with shorter arrows you can’t fire those arrows from your long bow , and in the reverse it would be a matter of last resort and crossbows ? Hahahahahahahahaha ! It won’t work and all of us all ready knew that!
@@noahfike2230 Both are used. Salvo is more generic, and may refer to any type of gun, be it artillery or rifle.
With your point about musket catastrophic failures being dangerous for the user, a shattered arrow shaft when loosing can also maim the bowman. You can look up pictures of people it happened to, very gruesome. This problem compounds when reusing arrows, as some may have struck rocks or metal and left hairline fractures in the shaft.
both videos are excellent. Shade points out one interesting thing about supplying the bowmen on the front line, saying that they got a sheaf of arrows numbering about 20-40 arrows. That's the exact same number of rounds that could be carried in most common cartridge boxes/pouches in the 18th century by the fusilier.
It is similar to the quote "It is not an effective weapon." counter argument: Then why did they keep on using them? If there was no point in them, they would replace them.
I would add to Shad's comments regarding the importance of morale (see: "shock effect") by pointing to Brandon's video a few months ago on the effect of grapeshot against a formation. Musket volleys had a similar, if less pronounced, effect. If you could break the enemy's formation, you could chase them down and rout or slaughter them with far less danger to your own troops, and firing en masse was both an effective means of stabilizing your own unit's morale as well as impacting your opponents' morale. I would also like to recommend a book to both Shad and Brandon (and to everyone else, as well): "The Art of War in the Western World" by Archer Jones. It covers everything from the classical Greeks to the 1980s, and focuses not just on tactics, but heavily upon logistics, the operational arts, and even economics and culture as decisive factors in warfare throughout history. It also has some of the best depiction that I've seen of the rock-paper-scissors-like relationship between the different combat branches over the centuries and the nuances that are almost never covered in fiction or games.
Technically speaking, grapeshot would almost never be used in a land battle. I think you have got grape and canister confused. Grapeshot is up to a dozen small cannonballs inside of a bag or can, so a 12-pounder cannons’ grapeshot would have, say, 6 2-pound balls. This is a naval round, used to bring down masts and kill people behind wooden bulwarks. Canister, on the other hand, is a tin can filled with standard musket balls. That same 12-pounder would have a canister round with about 240 or so .62 caliber balls. That is the anti infantry shot, it sends out a cloud of death that wipes out entire groups of exposed troops.
Well, check out how lethal a musket is when its pouring down with rain.
Btw., armour penetration was no subject around 1800 - most troops did not wear body armour then, only some special forces did. So bows would still have been a option in many cases. Another advantage of bows is, they are silent and dont make smoke when you shoot - a big advantage in certain situations.
There is, however, the issue with practicing shooting a bow, thats a valid point. Since it wasn't even expected from a ordinary soldier in a firing line to really aim at something, the training basically consisted of how to load the gun quickly and then fire it within the firing line procedure. Shooting a bow effectively does need much much - and continous - training.
Now we have a question for Metatron, did the Romans standardized their bows draw weight?
That's actually a very good question...
Probably not, but Manchu did
Didn't they mostly (at least in the early and mid empire) just use native auxiliaries for their archers and cavalry?
Romans used mostly short swords and shields. They had a javalin thing designed to stick into enemy shields then bend and inconvenience the enemy.
@@alwayscensored6871 The pilum.
“A Longbow in the hands of a master archer is a great asset to his allies, and a Musket in the hands of a simpleton is a great asset to the foes of his regiment.” - My great Grandfather
A wise one he is
-Jack Churchill, probably
Yeah but if you have a retarded archer and a great musketman than the roles are reversed.
Your great grandfather must be quite old if he remembers longbows being used in war lmao
@@seanbeadles7421 perhaps he is a Highlander?