Great post. I will note however that the use of the Crossbow in Europe and China both followed revolutions in agriculture and population explosions.
Alexander VS Qin dynasty
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Great post. I will note however that the use of the Crossbow in Europe and China both followed revolutions in agriculture and population explosions.
Note that you might not be aware of- bronze is tougher than iron or low quality steel. Its drawback is scarcity and weight not strength.
During Europe's medieval period, the British longbow was able to effectively slow down or kill heavily armored French Knights, even the mounted ones. The British longbow had a draw weight of at least 90 lb.
Wrong- weight has a huge factor in how far a projectile will fly. A solid bronze bolt won't make it 100 yards. Crossbow bolts were metal tipped thick wooden dowels with stiffer fletching. They packed a hell of a wallop at close range but suffered at longer ranges.
Then there is strategy and tactics. The Qin dynasty already mastered hit-and-run tactics. The Qin dynasty was able to field lots of soldiers armed with bows and crossbows. They would retreat and fire their bows and crossbows.
The knights of Europe had inferior protection than the Mongols. European knight at the time tended to wear single layer iron chain mail. The Mongols had access to the double weave Persian variety. The idea that the Mongols were a bunch of light cavalry is a mistake in many peoples mind. They used light cav to be sure, but they also fielded large numbers of heavily armored lancers.
Nor did the mongols succeed only when they hit and ran. They use superior command and control and maneuver via huge remudas of remounts to out move and out fight everyone from China to Poland.
The major problem is your history is wrong. European knight of the 11-13th century wore chain not plate. Plate armor does not arrive in force until a couple hundred years after the Mongols had passed their apex.
Its not thicker, just shorter, and while it does limit flight characteristics, a shorter bolt also goes through clothing faster than a longer shaft which is more likely to get caught by the fibers.
I checked out various sources, and academia themselves don't exactly know what is the true composition of linothorax due to the fact there is no surviving examples. So much of it is speculation.
How much is that different in principal and technology compared to this?
"Zhou chariots were protected by leather, and sometimes came with a canopy to protect the crew from the weather, but this was probably removed before going into battle. Chariot horses were protected by a blanket made of animal skins, with tiger skin being most popular, though sometimes horses wore lamellar peytral made of leather, which protected the horses' chests and necks. Chariot use declined during the Warring States Period (战国时期), probably because of the introduction of the crossbow and cavalry.
Soldier statues of the Terracotta Army, Qin Dynasty, 210 BC
Most of the kingdoms of the Warring States maintained large armies, numbering anywhere from 30,000 to 100,000. With the technology and resources of the time, it was not possible to provide all soldiers with armor. Armour was most common for elite soldiers. During the Warring States era, most armour was made of leather or bronze, or a combination of both. The metal that was used most for military purposes was bronze. Wrought iron (pure iron) began to appear in the 5th century BC, but did not begin to replace bronze until the 2nd century BC.
A diagram of the Chinese mountain-scale armor type.
Most infantrymen wore lamellar or coat of plates cuirasses. The lamellar cuirass worn by these men was made of hundreds of small overlapping metal and/or leather plates laced together to make a flexible and light coat of armor. Coat of plates consisted of hundreds of small non-overlapping metal or leather plates stitched or riveted together. Shoulder guards and helmets were often used, but leather caps seem to have been more common for ground infantry."
Bamboo is probably the best material for its constant tension, draw and flexibility.
Still not the same as handheld weapon. Not relevant.
Maybe you didn't realize that Qin and Han crossbows are shoulder.
Just for illustration.
More illustration. Its practically a gun.
Bull. The Chinese don't use plate armor.
Please read up what the Chinese use as an armor.
Linothorax isn't plate armor as well.
Yet Chinese and Korean military annals document their use.
Jeez, what about all the crossbow mechanisms they found in the Terra Cotta army site?
Excuse me, but bowmen are trained from children to adulthood. You can't train bowmen like that. The Greeks often use Scythians as archers, just as the Hans use Huns, because these people are archers from their youth. Archery is a lifelong skill. Crossbows are not. Not only you can turn any farm boy into a crossbow user, regular troops as well, allowing them to "multirole" in the battlefield. Heck even the sick, old and wounded can still fire a cocked crossbow.
The fact remains a crossbow can be pre-cocked or loaded like a gun. Bows cannot.
Again, you simply deny the textbook that the actual kills done by the longbow is in question. Maybe the horses are the ones taken down by the crossbows. And the battle is lost as much to French arrogance and stupidity.
Historians are unanimous that the crossbow, as it evolved and became prolific, spelled the end of the mounted knight.
Source. I don't find this following the Swords International forums.
Source please.
There is no surviving Linothorax because its is made of fabric, which decays in time. Even the archeologisits, historians, & universities are only speculating what its truly made, and you know about this already?
Do you know what the name Linothorax stands for? Lino = Linen, Thorax = Chest. It literally means Linen in the chest.
LostWraith
New Member
Thanks
Well the early middle ages in Europe wasn't exactly an agricultural boom, neither was the end of the Roman empire. The wide spread usage of xbow was mostly likely due to a combination of factors.
1) Without Rome, local kings and warlords simply didn't have the political or organizational power to train corps of archers.
2) The superior xbow technology from China was being more widely disseminated throughout mainland Europe. Lords who could get their hands on those weapons found it to be a cheap alternative than hiring merc archers.
3)The disorganized peasantry was all too unenthusiastic about going to war when their lords called upon them. Having them pull a trigger is less dmging to their nonexistent morale than having them pull on a 90-120lb object all day long.
Additional note, longbows of the high medieval era reached draw weights of as high as 200lb according to some sources. Whether or not this was possible to be pulled is up to debate but many British historians claim that it was possible. 160lb bows have been confirmed and recovered though. Yet, this is slightly a moot point as in the medieval arms race arblests far surpassed the bow in terms of power and is only drawable with mechanical innovations.
Actually most arbalests in the late middle ages fired metal bolts. Some arbalests had weights of more than a thousand lbs and they had no problem delivering smaller metal projectiles over a reasonable distance. It was little different than a big bullet. Metal bolts weren't recorded in China afaik, but the Song dynasty had their own xbows, which I'll talk about below.
Well European armor was certainly more effective against melee weapons, while Mongolian armor was designed to ward off projectiles. Chain mail is near impervious to slashing weapons but offered little to no protection against a thin arrow. Mongolian armor (lamellar+padded leathers+silk shirt) for their heavy cavs were mostly to soften the damage of an arrow. It couldn't withstand a sharp cut from a sabre, unlike chainmail.
Super heavy armor like those worn by hoplites or knights was never feasible in China. The heavily maneuver based warfare in China could not afford to arm an entire army with heavy armor. Not only is the direct cost too high, think about how many horses or mules you'll need to carry the armor around when your army is on the march. The Greeks fought local defensive wars with hundreds or at most thousands of men over a tiny country. You can't haul carts of bronze plates around for too long. It's just not possible without modern logistics. Knights had squires to take care of their armor when they are not wearing it, and there were never too many plate equipped knights anywhere in Europe anyway.
My point is it's not that the Chinese didn't have the capabilities of making plate armor, but their doctrine of war forbade it. When Alexander the Great went on the march, only the first 2 or 3 lines of his phalanx were armored at all. Heavy armor for an army is not only a cost problem but also a severe logistic one.
Also, zraver is right about the Mongols in that the reason they won is not because of their weapons or horses or even individual skill. Mongols had the most sophisticated command, communication, and control system in the world until the 20th century. Hit and run is only a small fraction of the tricks up their sleeve. It takes more than good bows or horses or hit and run to dismantled the greatest empire in the world at that time. (Song dynasty) You could even say that only rampant corruption and inefficiencies within the Song itself allowed the Mongols to stand a chance at all.
Okay, about the Song dynasty military. It was the last Han Chinese dynasty to use crossbows on a massive scale. Ming had access to advanced firearms that somewhat waned the role of the xbow, and the Yuan (Mongol rule) was much more Mongol in flavor. The Song dynasty had the most centralized army in Chinese history, and at the core of the Song imperial guard was the crossbow corps. It was very small (by Chinese standards) and only had about 5-7 thousand soldiers in it, but they were the most professional troops in all of China and possibly the world. Their training manuals and drills were preserved to present day and it included tactics that were not dissimilar to the musket tactics in 18th century Europe, including infantry squares, platoon fires, counter fire steps, shot rotations, etc etc. It is of no doubt that these xbowmen were no worse than any archers at any point in history.
Infra_Man99
Banned Idiot
zraver said:
Your argument is too provincial. For ancient Europeans, yes, but not for their Chinese contemporaries. The Qin and Han supposedly had superior bronze technology than their European contemporaries. The Qin bronze was possibly of the highest quality during its time, yet, some of its enemies had superior iron, but the Qin had their advantages, too. This allowed the Qin to ultimately become the first hegemon of China. Once the Han developed good iron and steel, they had an agricultural boom, because Han iron and steel was superior to their bronze. However, some historians say most Han still used bronze for agriculture, and the agricultural boom was mostly due to other things. Don't know, but this is getting off topic. Anyhow, the Qin and Han Chinese metal technology for its military and agriculture was superior to their European counterparts.
Once again, you're being provincial. You have to consider the propellant, the straightness barrel or the projectile's travel through the bow and crossbow, the steadiness of the whole bow or crossbow, the release for the bows and crossbows, the shape of the projectile, the stiffness of the projectile, the mass of the projectile, the balance of the projectile, the shape of the projectile, the dimensions for the projectile, sights for the gun/bow/cross, the user, situational application, loading technique, and intended target.
Your history is incorrect, unless you are speaking on an absolute level. Relatively, the Mongols did not field "large numbers of heavily armored lancers." At least many current European historians estimated the Mongol soldiers were outnumbered by European soldiers by at least 1 to 2. Two-thirds or more of Mongol units were at least lightly armored (cloth armor, possibly some leather and composite armor). Only 1/3rd or less had medium to heavy armor. Either way, the Mongols avoided first using melee combat against the Europeans. They slaughtered most from a range, then went in for the victory. Once again, this was a side point of mine to explain how Qin and Han bows and crossbows could defeat and outperform armor and likewise weapons from their European contemporaries.
I think your first statement repeats me, but if you made a quotation error or are repeating me, then OK. Contrary to "Dark" Ages implications, the knights of Europe did not have inferior protection than the ancient Greeks and Romans. Knights had superior coverage, superior iron and steel, and superior design. Yet, the knights got shot up by Mongol mobile bows and some crossbows, which were similar in power to Chinese mobile bows, but Chinese still had better heavy bows and crossbows. If the Mongol could effectively penetrate knights, then Qin and Han bows and crossbows should be able to effectively penetrate ancient Greek and Roman armor, and outperform their European counterparts, too. (Am I repeating myself? Yes, I am.)
I am fully aware of this, but you completely missed my point. My point was Qin and Han bows and crossbows could effectively defeat armor from their European counterparts and outperform bows and crossbows from their European counterparts. (Whew, this is getting tedious. I hope you finally get my point.)
Please no straw-man arguments. I never made a contrary point. Anyhow, during the starting period of the Great Khan Mongols in Europe, a few European knights and soldiers did use small or a few plate armor, and their head protection was a lot more thorough than ancient Europeans. Anyhow, this is getting offtrack.
You completely missed my point. Here I'll simplify.
Mongol bow = (approximately) Qin dynasty and Han dynasty bow
Mongol crossbow < Qin dynasty and Han dynasty crossbow (Unless you consider when the Mongols stole technology from and conquered northern China)
Mongol bow > Medieval knights' armor
Medieval knights' armor > ancient European armor
ancient European bows and crossbows <= the finest ancient European armor
Thus,
Qin and Han dynasty mobile projectile weapons could defeat and outperform, respectively, the armor and mobile projectile weapons of their European counterparts.
It is generally thicker, at leas tin European models.
Very true, but reports about it as well as images clearly state and show a laminated cloth/fiber based armor stiff enough to do duty in the spear pushing contests of the Greeks. We know for example that Alexander wore it at least part of the time and that it saved his life from both spear and arrow.
The bows are not pure bamboo, its the combination of the materials and the skill of the bowyer. Turkish bows made from roughly the same materials the Greeks and Romand had a thousand years earlier than the Turkish ones from the 1400's could exceed 400 yards.
The earliest Chinese corssbow type weapons started as artillery as well.
I was well aware- just stating the concept was reach at two different ends of the earth at roughly the same time.
Then how would the Sinofans know if it could pierce the heavy bell corselet?
It might as well be
Lots of things are documented by lots of ancient peoples- lets stick with whats known via evidence. What they are describing and what your reading might have two totally different meanings given the gulf of 2000+ years. Do any period images exist like for example images of the Linothorax?
Terra Cotta Army 210 B.C + 2009 years A.D = 2219 years not 4000.
That point has never been in question.
precock it and you ruin the weapon. You can't keep constant drawn tension on a bow.
Amt, Emilie, Ed., Medieval England 1000–1500 p. 330.
By the time this contretemps ended, several volleys of longbow arrows had already fallen among the French. At this the French knights decided it was time to charge, and they ran right over the retreating Genoese in an unorganized way. The Welsh longbowmen continued shooting as the infantry advanced, and many French knights fell along the way.
A couple of points-
Most knights in the 1340's were primarily protected by mail and thus vulnerable to the bodkin point. The plate over their chest might kepe them alive, but drop some shafts through thier legs and arms and they were hours de combat.
If an archer kills a destrier and that destrier fals and kills/cripples the knight who was riding it- the archer gets a kill for all intents and purposes.
If the archery breaks up the charge and denies it the ability to deliver its mass by killing the horses and breaking the formations so that the knights fall in foot combat- the archery wins.
They are not unanimous by any means. Plate Armor evolved to deal with all infantry carried projectiles including early fire arms. The death of the mounted knight was a combination of the pike/crossbow/ fire arms teams (swiss) and larger more effective non-nobly born armies a process started by the English vs the French.
Take your pick, the best evidence is the shield. From the time of Rome until the early crusades the most common sheild was a large and tall device. These kite shields descended from the scutum would cover a man from nose to knee. However as the mounted knight gained prominance in the European Armies the shield began a steady shrinking in size to the small much more compact heater type.
1- I know what it means and its not linen in the chest in linen chest lino-thorax ie a breastplate of linen.
There are a number of efforts on going to recreate it from ancient listings from amateur to academic and the ancient references have given them enough to work with that serviceable linothorax armor has been created.
The early middle ages as opposed to the dark ages was in fact an era of massive population explosion. A new plough design, strip farming, a 3 feild system, the end of barbarian raids and the medieval warm period with its increased growing seasons all combined to create a population boom. The population in Europe by 1300 would not be seen again until the 19th century.
Rome had crossbows called arcuballista, crossbows were in use at the Battle of Hastings etc- the European crossbow did not depend on China.
Additional note, longbows of the high medieval era reached draw weights of as high as 200lb according to some sources. Whether or not this was possible to be pulled is up to debate but many British historians claim that it was possible. 160lb bows have been confirmed and recovered though. Yet, this is slightly a moot point as in the medieval arms race arblests far surpassed the bow in terms of power and is only drawable with mechanical innovations.
An arbalest uses a steel not horn/wood bow and is not even in the same realm as the type of crossbows we are discussing. It might as well be a gun with a draw weight up to 5000lbs loaded with mechanical advantage.
This image of a Mongol heavy cavalryman compares quite favorably with an Eastern European Knight when it comes to melee protection. You'll note that the 3 melee weapons shown the saber, the mace and the axe are all designed to deliver a chop or blunt force blow not a slash. A good broad sword sword edge has more in common with an axe's hone than a knifes. It is designed to focus energy not slice.
Might have a small reason to do with why the Mongols managed to win.
The Macedonians and Romans solved that problem- all armor all the time. Likewise Xenophon and other Greek mercs marched where they needed to go often in full dress, but generally I agree with you full kit full time requires a very professional force.
Source
Iron is not superior to bronze in most regards. It is more brittle and not nearly as robust. Iron ore however is very common, its ;lighter weigh allowed longer swords and its much more easily manipulated from ore to finished product. Even today the often the strongest bolts where strength matters most are bronze.
since when did bows use propellant? Nor does the steadiness affect the draw weight. The three factors in play are weight and velocity for the amlount of kinetic energy and the ability of that energy to be transferred upon impact. I think we can safely assume that no military able to dominate its rivals in the ancient world used flimsy shafts. Crossbow bolts are limited just like other bow weapons by the depth of the draw. The longer the crossbow the more you can draw it back and the longer the bolt. But this increases the weight the crossbowman must hold upright- almost all of it at the end of the weapon.
really? who? At the battle of Legnica the Europeans might and I stress might have numbered around 25,000 but were probably less than 10,000 while Mongol records say they sent 2 Tumens into Poland (20,000). At the battle of Mohi in Hungary it was pretty much even numbers and the Mongols did use heavy cav. In fact a large number of Batu's heavy cav personal body guard died trying to seize the bridge.
And the majority of the European army was not mounted at all but foot levy and crossbow/archers
Logical fallacy because one does not follow from the other.
Iron is not superior protection to bronze it is lighter and less dense. Nor did the Chinese have superior bows and crossbows as compared to the Mongols and Europeans. Ancient materials dictate strength and any improvements would have been minor if at all.
They could not out perform European technology and would have no more and no less effective than contemporary European examples except for the impact of the bolt/arrow head design. Europeans developed armor piercing arrows out of necessity. A necessity the Chinese did not face.
its not a straw man, your implying the Europeans had superior armor- they didn't, at least not in wide usage.
Fallacy-
When the knights charged the Mongols, if the Mongol bows and crossbows were so effective would simply have been shot down- they were not. The Mongols had to get the formations spread out and mounted on exhausted horses so they could be picked off piece meal. The obvious conclusion is that armor as poor as it was compared to later examples was still very effective vs missile fire at all but the closest ranges.
No that is categorically not true. There is no historical antecedent to the Chinese crossbow (ca. 6th century BC), especially not an artillery version. Needham's SCC Volume V:6 pp. 135-146 contains an interesting discussion on this very topic. Chinese artillery-sized arcuballistae came much later, during the Han dynasty, along with multi-shot ballistae and other variants.
LostWraith
New Member
Very interesting. I always thought there was a lag in farming technology after Rome fell but clearly it's not the case. Thanks for the info.
Roman and Greek ballista/catapult are weapons using torsion power to shoot stones and bolts, and operate on completely different mechanical principles than a tension crossbow in Asia. The Greeks did have a small tension crossbow that was never widely used. It wasn't later till the middle ages did the misnomers of the new ballista and catapult come where the ballista is a giant crossbow that is unrelated to the Greco Roman ballista and the catapult is the Greco Roman onager. These names got mixed up and most of our concept of what these weapons are originate from middle age European words and not Greco Roman ones. There is no solid evidence that the tension crossbow (or the trebuchet for that matter) passed from China to Europe, but there is some shaky evidence. The two worlds were in contact through land trade, and it is a little strange when the West used torsion powered ballista for hundreds of years and then somewhere in the early middle ages tension powered crossbows (and trebuchets) of very similar designs to the Chinese weapons suddenly emerged on a large scale.
No argument with that, I was just listing an example in history where crossbows caught up and surpassed the bow in power and was certainly capable of firing metal bolts. There is no evidence of any metal bolts from the Qin dynasty, which was more than 1000 years before the arbalest was invented anyway.
That is not an accurate depiction of a Mongolian saber. Mongolian sabers are much more curved than that, few swords surpass it in curvature in the world. It was designed to slash and cut, not to bludgeon. In the lightly armored armies of the East, it was sufficient to cut through most defenses designed to ward off arrows. The Osprey book series is infamous for inaccurate information. You should take it with a grain of salt.
These are what Mongolian swords actually look like. Their design remained with the Turks for a long time so Turkish swords through the centuries reflected the original Mongolian design.
I highly doubt that differences armor was the principle determinant in Mongolian victories. After all it took as long for the Mongols to take down the Song dynasty at its worst corrupted state as it took them to reach Eastern Europe.
Well the Macedonians weren't very heavily armored. Only the front two ranks wore metal armor of any sort, and the rest wore linen and leather, which are light and affordable. The Romans also had relatively light armor. A chain shirt and some leather padding equipped most roman soldiers until the Augustan legions that saw the wide spread usage of lorica segmenta, which is itself thin overlapping iron bands with a shoulder guard. Even then, only the legionaires wore these, and most auxilia retained the chain shirt, if even that. Soon after Rome passed its height of power, chain became common place again until late medieval Europe. I don't mean to neglect the helmet, but all of these groups had helmets so it's not really a useful "difference" to point out.
Neither groups wore as much as the Greeks, who had a thick bronze/iron cuirass, lower limb guards, all made of bronze or iron. It's understandable considering that Greeks fought locally and defensively, while placing heavy emphasis on individual athleticism that no other culture had.