Weapons Question: Crossbows vs. Early Firearms

[Admiral Yi]

Wasn't there a time when Spanish infantry was primarily sword-armed?

All I've got to base this on is one SPI game (Medieval Battles Quadrigame or somesuch) about some totally obscure Spanish civil war in which the English participated plus one scenario from SPI's Ancient Battles (title??) which took place in Italy in the 16th century--Spanish swordsmen against Swiss pikemen and French handgunners.

[Iormlund]

The last civil war was Castille's Succession War between Alfonso V and Isabel after the latter married Fernando of Aragón. France and Portugal were directly involved and England made a brief show of force to get ahold of some French ducats. It's likely the composition of the armies then was less sophisticated (militias and knights).

My guess is army reforms that lead to the Tercios started a couple decades later, mostly under El Gran Capitán during his italian campaigns. But in any case there was a sword and buckler component in the army from the very beginning and pretty much every soldier had a sword as sidearm.

[Agelastus]

I dunno, Samurai armour is pretty heavy duty.

It needed to be, certainly by the time of the Sengoku Jidai.

The Japanese were avid adopters of western firearms technology (at least prior to the Tokugawa Shogunate's decision that now that they were in charge, Japan no longer needed them) and in fact may even have been the first adopters of a "cartridge" system for use with muskets (see Oda at Nagashino.)

I seem to recall late Roman Equites using dedicated, ornate armor for mock battles. Can't place where I read about it though.

Peter Connelly's book, "Greece and Rome at War", has a particularly good painting of Roman Equites exercising in their parade/competition armour; that may be where you read about it.

One thing that really sealed to dominance of the musket was the invention of the simple socket-bayonet. That turned the musketman into the modern infantryman, and saw the end of "specialized" infantry troops as the bulk of formations - now everyone was an infantryman, and could fight at range with mass volley and close and fight shock as well.

The socket bayonet wasn't invented until the 1690s; I don't think the earlier plug bayonet was invented until the 1600s when the arquebus had developed into the heavier musket either (although I will admit I haven't checked on this.) Crossbows had almost entirely dropped out of European warfare by the 1530s, the performance of the Spanish Arquebusiers at Pavia in 1525 probably being the crossbow's death knell. Although the writing had been on the wall for the crossbow for some years - Bicocca in 1522 had been a notable victory for firearms over the previously invincible Swiss Pike formations.

But I rather doubt you can mass produce crossbows and quarrels in that manner anyway. Poweder might be problematic for a lot of reasons, but it seems much more conducive to mass manufacture than quarrels.

I'm sure you're right here; moreover, powder has a further advantage over mass producing quarrels as it is also needed for the cannon that had completely superceded the older forms of siege artillery such as the trebuchet. Since arquebusiers/musketeers were expected to cast their own bullets on campaign firearms were logistically simpler to maintain than crossbows.

In fact, it's interesting that it appears that by the time of the 30 Years War the most expensive and difficult to procure component for armies of the period was not the powder or the shot for firearms but the match that the matchlock muskets of the time required in great quantities.

To the best of my knowledge tercios didn't use crossbows. I don't really know much about the proto-tercio evolving deep within the reconquista of andalucia so I'm not going to suggest I do. However, the tercio as experienced by non-spanish europeans the hard way started out as a formation of unarmored pike supported by arquebusiers to a formation of arquebusiers with mixed armored and unarmored pikemen in support over about 100 years after Charles V inheritance.

The earliest tercios were equipped with crossbowmen and sword-and-buckler-men as well as pikemen; it was the Italian Wars of the early sixteenth century that saw the sword and buckler men disappear and the arquebus replace the crossbow. In the latter case the reasons were, I believe -

(1) Ease of training, as the Spanish commanders were forced to recruit local troops.

and

(2) Penetration, as French and, in particular, Italian armour was heavier and thus a lot more resistant to crossbow bolts than Spanish and Moorish types

.
..
...
....
.....

Ah, this does bring back memories of my misspent youth studying history at King's College London. 

[Razgovory]

I have a question.  Were crossbows used for indirect fire?  I know bows were which is why the guy who had them were called archers.  They fired in an arc.  Firing in an arc would give them better range, but probably reduce accuracy and penetration.  I get the feeling that penetration was a problem with crossbows through out the middle ages.  I mean they kept improving the draw power on crossbows  with gadgets like stirrups, levers, and winches.  I vaguely remember that the design for a crossbow was not optimal, and had less kinetic force the a bow of the same size, but I don't remember where I read that or if that's true.

[DGuller]

If Medieval Total War 2 game is accurate, crossbows were indeed fired indirectly, especially from the castle walls with perfectly good loopholes.

[Razgovory]

Yeah, and Mayans had whole units devoted to throwing bees at people.

[Viking]

If Medieval Total War 2 game is accurate, crossbows were indeed fired indirectly, especially from the castle walls with perfectly good loopholes.

A quick google found this

http://dir.groups.yahoo.com/group/AncientTactics/message/3854

Hi

Actually, Peter, I would offer, "more accurate".

Some decades ago, I was lecturing on this, long story, doesn't matter....

Anyway, I found I can teach ANYONE to shoot well with crossbow, say kill
at 75-100 yards in about half an hour, and do indirect fire at 150yds if
the target is a "company" rather than an individual. Where an archer
takes YEARS.

Easier than shooting a gun.

Dunno who Rocky Russo is, but if he is right then indirect fire is possible. A plunging bolt at 45 degrees kills.

[The Minsky Moment]

Adoption of the firearm as a means of centralizing violence by early modern states.  Very interesting.  Read that somewhere, Minsky? It's novel enough that a book could probably be written on it.

IIRC Charles Tilly's theory was that the cost of gunpowder was one of the factors that raised the cost of warfare and that the resulting competition between polities to finance more expensive military apparatuses gave rise to the early modern state.   What I was suggesting was more the reverse - that proto-modern states were attracted to firearms because they had relative comparative advantages in developing, training, equip and controlling musket-based troops and so that is what they pushed.

[Josquius]

I thought the commonly held idea was the ability of cannon to knock down castles quickly and easily that did it?

[The Brain]

It's The Sun wot did it.