The Ghost of Christmas Future

[Lord_of_War]

and no lol. just suggesting you get off your ass once in a while.

[Tonkyhonk]

I checked my extensive log files and it seems yew was only added because Jorb had made the art a long time ago, the original plan was to only allow bows to be made out of yew, but that was forgotten somewhere along the way.

13:38 < loftar> Well, we mainly just wanted to add them because Jorb had drawn them long ago anyway.
[...]
13:39 < loftar> But yes, we werep planning to make bows craftable inly from Yew boughs, but it seems we forgot that along the way.

mmmm i must have been dreaming that i thought he said crossbows sorry about that.

[Lord_of_War]

I dont see it tonky

[Nummy]

crossbows bolts are very sharp they will go right thruw your body instant death
they are used for along time i have seen vids of animals getting shot with crossbow and they got instantly kill
and boars are very tuff

Its the force not the sharpness. and longbow > crossbow, unless its a ballista. Google Agincourt.

A battle where crossbows got their strings soaked by the rain isn't exactly a fair example. And claiming that crossbows had weaker shot is just ridiculous, they had draw weights in hundreds of pounds, you try drawing that with a bow. Their disadvantage against bows was inferior rate of fire.

And range. Crossbow was only accurate at shorter ranges and penetrate power quickly diminished after certain range, while longbow kept their penetrate power up to maximum range. Crossbows were most useful at sieges (defending and attacking) and hunting and nowhere else. On open field battle longbows would always beat crossbows.

[Nummy]

Longbows got through chain pretty good, plate not so much. And crossbows gained wide popularity around 12th-13th century, though the invention itself took place way before that (Ancient Greece). They just didn't really catch on until they were really needed to get through armour, due to slow rate of fire.

Crossbows weren't in use because the lack of good materials. For good crossbow you needed good steel and that wasn't available until mid 12th, early 13th century. Also for accurate crossbow you need good manufacturer details to make accurate parts which wasn't so easy with only hammer and anvil. Around that era that crossbows emerged blacksmiths started to use molds.

[Lord_of_War]

Longbows got through chain pretty good, plate not so much. And crossbows gained wide popularity around 12th-13th century, though the invention itself took place way before that (Ancient Greece). They just didn't really catch on until they were really needed to get through armour, due to slow rate of fire.

Crossbows weren't in use because the lack of good materials. For good crossbow you needed good steel and that wasn't available until mid 12th, early 13th century. Also for accurate crossbow you need good manufacturer details to make accurate parts which wasn't so easy with only hammer and anvil. Around that era that crossbows emerged blacksmiths started to use molds.

Nice research. Sources please.

[Sarge]

and no lol. just suggesting you get off your ass once in a while.

Yeah Coles, you encouraged him to get his post count up and now that he's hit "fuck you 'cause I said so" status, see what happens.

[MagicManICT]

There is/was a pretty good video in one of the big archery threads here on the penetration effectiveness of arrows from anything vs a heavily armored target. Result: they don't. Even if the arrow penetrated the hard armor, they didn't penetrate the gambeson. Now, they did damage the armor layers and made it harder to fight (due to deformed armor restricting movement) if not break bones from the strike.

[wonder-ass]

Found 2 nice videos
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ftCvNyOPcp ... tCvNyOPcpY

Long bow vs crossbow
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-G86vNxuIB0

[Nummy]

Longbows got through chain pretty good, plate not so much. And crossbows gained wide popularity around 12th-13th century, though the invention itself took place way before that (Ancient Greece). They just didn't really catch on until they were really needed to get through armour, due to slow rate of fire.

Crossbows weren't in use because the lack of good materials. For good crossbow you needed good steel and that wasn't available until mid 12th, early 13th century. Also for accurate crossbow you need good manufacturer details to make accurate parts which wasn't so easy with only hammer and anvil. Around that era that crossbows emerged blacksmiths started to use molds.

Nice research. Sources please.

The bow (called the "prod" or "lath" on a crossbow) of early crossbows was made of a single piece of wood, usually ash or yew. Composite bows are made from layers of different material—often wood, horn and sinew—glued together and bound with animal tendon. These composite bows, made of several layers, are much stronger and more efficient in releasing energy than simple wooden bows. As steel became more widely available in Europe around the 14th century, steel prods came into use.

source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossbow
Here it says a little later, but I read somewhere in book when I was still in school that people started to experiment with iron and steel before but around 13th century they had good enough tools and knowledge about steel to make good parts for it. Iron sounds good, but after few shots material usually gave in and broke as iron is too soft and get rust pretty soon. But steel is much more stronger and doesn't rust so fast as iron.
To wound up steel crossbow people needed cranequins as it was too hard to pull string back by hand. Wooden crossbow was able to penetrate thin armor and do little damage under, but steel crossbow could penetrate thick armor as well. Also main problem with crossbow was accuracy and very quick falloff of power over range. As you can see in video, longbow has 300 yards range while crossbow only 60, maybe some 80 or 100 max.