The Byzantine psilos, the English yeoman, and the Frankish arbalester…

[Maklodes]

Here's what's bugging me:

• I can think of no reason that Byzantine foot archers would not be almost equal to or even superior to English longbowmen.

The Byzantine and English archers never faced each other in battle, but some Byzantine areas like Crete and the area around Trebizond had very strong archery traditions. The Byzantine army had a fairly professional archery corps. The Byzantine infantry bow was a sophisticated composite bow which should have shot better, for a given draw weight and draw length, than the English longbow -- and as far as I know, their draw weights were not vastly different. In addition, as far as I know, the Byzantine foot archery corps was not wiped out at Manzikert like their cavalry corps (in fact, I’ve read claim that the fact that Romanos Diogenes wanted a mobile all-cavalry army and didn’t bring along foot archers was why Manzikert was such a disaster). Why wouldn't Byzantine foot archers be comparable to English?

• The Byzantines found Frankish crossbows quite impressive and scary

​
Anna Komnene's account of the crossbow in the Alexiad and Nicholas Mesarites account of an encounter with crossbow-wielding pirates portrays the invention as deadly, bordering on diabolical. Neither of these weapons would have been very advanced crossbows -- Anna Komnene's account takes place as the first crusade arrives in Byzantine lands in 1096, and Mesarites' account explicitly describes the weapon as having an all-wood prod without bone or sinew -- although perhaps it was a crossbow explicitly designed for maritime use, and a laminated prod was avoided to enhance resistance to the elements?

• English longbowmen did not find crossbows very scary

I mean, no doubt some of them died agonizing deaths with crossbow quarrels in their lungs, but overall, English archers were generally regarded as outmatching even the finest Genoese crossbow-wielders. There may have been times when the crossbows did well, and some times when they did poorly but it was attributable to circumstantial factors (all of the factors at Crecy like elevation, rain, sun, shields left in baggage trains, etc), but on the whole, I think that the English regarded archery was one of their big advantages. The cases of English longbows matched against Genoese crossbows take place in the crossbow’s heyday, in the hands of its most accomplished wielders, with (presumably) more advanced crossbows than those encountered by Nicholas Mesarites or Anna Komnene’s friend Marianus.

So I’m wondering how this would work. Were English archers simply better than their Byzantine counterparts? If so, why? Were the Byzantine chroniclers psychologically shocked by the power of an individual crossbow’s shot, but not taking into account how its slow rate of shot would give it disadvantages in the heat of battle compared to regular archers?

One of the more out-there hypotheses I’ve seen is early medieval crossbows were actually more effective than later ones. The idea is that primitive crossbows had long, longbow-like prods, with a long powerstroke like the crossbows of the Han dynasty. Later crossbows had stronger, smaller prods with a shorter powerstroke. Earlier crossbows would have required a lot of space to each user’s side, making them impractical for massed use, but generally gave more energy per draw weight. However, I think this is a fairly loopy hypothesis without any evidence that I'm aware of.

Another possibility is that the Byzantine archers were specialized to defeat Magyar or Turkish-type horse archers -- enemies with little armor or horse barding. Range and volume of ammunition was a priority over penetrating power, so light arrows were preferred. Thus the penetrating power of the crossbow came as a shock compared to the light arrow-using archers. The English archers used heavier, more penetrating arrows, which didn’t go as far and couldn't be carried in as large numbers, but could pierce most armor.

[Sar1n]

Well, I can speculate. Byzantines were facing other archery nations, so their archers weren't so special in the area. On the other hand, English fought enemies that were using crossbows and generally not considering ranged weapons as decisive in battle, so they were both unique in this aspect and used to crossbows and their weaknesses. Byzantines, on the other hand, weren't used to facing crossbows, so they might have been intimidated at first.

Also, keep in mind that English were often using bodkin arrows, that had superior performance against armor compared to Byzantines (who didn't need it that much because their enemies didn't use that much armor as was common in western Europe). Although it's often overrated...bodkin arrow could penetrate full plate only on close range, but it was still an improvement.

[Tureuki]

No arrow can pierce heavy armor(actually heavy) enough to give a deadly blow.

Also eastern archers used all kind of arrows including heavy ones designated for penetrating, just as repeated they didn't needed them as much as those longbowmen.

[Sar1n]

Doesn't have to be deadly blow to take the soldier out of battle. Bodkin arrow, for example, was originally designed as hunting arrow to cripple the prey with pain and blood loss without causing excessive damage to tissue. And do you really think there weren't heavy bodkin arrows in use by English?

[Markas]

Tactics, not technology. Byzantine tactics were heavily based on cavalry, not archers. Archers were instrumental in English tactics, starting most notably around the time of Boroughbridge in 1322 that were later developed in the 100 years war.

[Tureuki]

OP was saying English were using heavy arrows while Byzantines light, I just stated all kind of arrows were avaiable in east, just depends on situation.

Doesn't matter what kind of arrow you use, you cannot simply penetrate heavy armor and kill the man, what you can do to a heavy armoured man is, shoot the horse, aim for less protected parts, get into close range , aim for crucial points , send concentrated shots and hope it would pierce armour enough to give the man at least a bleed that would at least slow him down or less likely kill.

[VINC.XXIII]

Tactics, not technology. Byzantine tactics were heavily based on cavalry, not archers. Archers were instrumental in English tactics, starting most notably around the time of Boroughbridge in 1322 that were later developed in the 100 years war.

I believe tactic is superior to any other aspect. And judging the efficience of genoese crossbows from HYW is very unfair since the french commanders who lost were really stupid ass and killed their own mercenaries(genoeses and navareses) when those refused to fight because of "shield story"...

free book from David Nicholle, "Failure of an elite, the genoese at Crécy"
http://www.ospreypublishing.com/arti...oese_at_crecy/

[neoptolemos]

A good read here
http://www.levantia.com.au/military/archery.html

In addition to full sized arrows, Roman archers would also fire small arrows or darts down a channel called a σωληνάριον / sôlênarion.⁴ Such darts have about double the range of a full sized arrow and are harder to see. They were used as harassing fire against approaching formations. While a dart would rarely cause fatal injury, striking a man or horse in the face or eye would be a serious discouragement and help to break up a formation.

[Ciciro]

... walk into a bar.

[VINC.XXIII]

Its exist too in korean archery, and I remember a dude of Osprey designed a seljuk archer with this tool.
It can pierce an actual car. Awesome. Korean call it pyeon-Jeon
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZaD_cdHm1zo

[HuangCaesar]

"Scary" is a poor way to judge.
1st of all. The Byzantines never encountered the Crossbow in mass before. in 1000s AD. Of course their should be some shock.
2nd. the English battles took place in 1300s and 1400s AD. It was quite familiar with crossbows since Knights often had a mounted crossbow bodyguard.

The Byzantine princess is not a battle tactican....
Remember when crossbows were first introduced everyone was afraid of them. Remember Pope Innocent?

No, the early crossbow is not as effective as Late crossbow as the Late crossbow could go through armour clean.

Were English archers would be effective than Byzantine ones? The Byzantines/Romans did not regard the bow as well cavalry on infantry.
Belesarius used a couple hundred Hunnic horse archers to drive off many Gothic horsemen. The Romans probally learned from experience from the Huns. The Kommenian bow was mainly Turkism I believe.

It all depends, the Byzantine system was a declining army, while English archers were a growing trend.

[Tureuki]

VINC, yes it existed in middle east, as well as at further eastern asia.

It didn't become mainstream probably because it was less practical(especially on horse) , kinda dangerous for user and was lowering the fire ratio.

[Hazzard]

One thing though, wouldn't archers be toxitae (Not sure on spelling here), not Psiloi? Psiloi would have been the poorest people in society and referred to people who fought unarmoured using what ever they had, mostly slings. That would have been Ancient Greece though, but I doubt they would use Psiloi to refer to a specifically archer unit.
I think that Byzantine archers would have been better purely due to better training, the Byzantine archers were professional, full-time soldiers. A fair difference compared to English Longbowmen who trained once a week on Sundays.
As for what someone said before about armour-piercing arrows: Just because they existed doesn't mean they were used. Archers wouldn't spend time making arrows if they weren't expecting to be shooting armoured targets. Crossbows also had something that bows didn't, a massive wooden thing they couldn't shoot back. The archers wouldn't be able to use the bolts against the crossbowmen, an advantage that the pirates likely had since they would probably have mixed archers and crossbowmen.

[O'Hea]

We're basically comparing Byzantines on their first encounter with the crossbow to English several centuries after theirs, so I'd mostly put it up to that.

[HeroSK]

No arrow can pierce heavy armor(actually heavy) enough to give a deadly blow.

Also eastern archers used all kind of arrows including heavy ones designated for penetrating, just as repeated they didn't needed them as much as those longbowmen.

In Arab Archery, An Arabic Manuscript Of About A.D. 1500 mentions about some type of arrow tips that are designed to pierce shields and make them unusable thus it is highly possible to penetrate armor too.

Also, Anna Comnena's description is highly debatable since Eastern Romans were using crossbows before first crusades. It is called cheriotoxoballista, hand bow ballista at the weapon lists for Crete campaign in 949. Some scholars argued that in her famous description, the "barbarians" means eastern barbarians rather than western crusaders. The another word for crossbow is tzarch, for some scholars comes from the Persian word for crossbows, charckh.

In my opinion, Eastern Roman archers were exceedingly more trained and more versatile then English ones. Military manuals, mentions diverse training of archers, how to shoot fast, how to shoot powerful shots for penetrating and so on while English were relaying on mass weight of arrow storm.

Lastly, I do not think it is good idea to compare Eastern Roman archers with English counterparts solely on performance against crossbowmen. There are large selection of variables to decide which one is better.

[Tureuki]

It cannot simply pierce and pass to other side of the shields(pierce rate is depends on shield though), what it can do on a proper shields is making small holes at most. Btw if that manual is written in 1500s, shields were mostly leather or metallic by that time, its probably talking about piercing leather ones, arrow cannot damage metallic shield enough to make it unusable.

[neoptolemos]

In Arab Archery, An Arabic Manuscript Of About A.D. 1500 mentions about some type of arrow tips that are designed to pierce shields and make them unusable thus it is highly possible to penetrate armor too.

Also, Anna Comnena's description is highly debatable since Eastern Romans were using crossbows before first crusades. It is called cheriotoxoballista, hand bow ballista at the weapon lists for Crete campaign in 949. Some scholars argued that in her famous description, the "barbarians" means eastern barbarians rather than western crusaders. The another word for crossbow is tzarch, for some scholars comes from the Persian word for crossbows, charckh.

In my opinion, Eastern Roman archers were exceedingly more trained and more versatile then English ones. Military manuals, mentions diverse training of archers, how to shoot fast, how to shoot powerful shots for penetrating and so on while English were relaying on mass weight of arrow storm.

Lastly, I do not think it is good idea to compare Eastern Roman archers with English counterparts solely on performance against crossbowmen. There are large selection of variables to decide which one is better.

Quite informative since the Eastern Roman themselves were calling their own crossbowmen Tzangratores and Tzangra (Changra) the crossbow.

Have a look on this
http://books.google.gr/books?id=rUs-...ossbow&f=false

The twelfth book of the military manual, Strategikon, attributed to Emperor Maurice, written about A.D. 600, contains a mini-treatise on the infantry. Although added to the work later, it seems to reflect earlier practices and equipment, some from the time of Justinian. Among the weapons to be carried by the light armed infantry it lists: ‘hollowed out wooden stocks with short arrows in small quivers, which can be fired a great distance with the bows and seriously injure the enemy’. What are these hollowed out pieces of wood, J. F. Haldon hesitantly, but correctly, identified them as crossbows. They were light enough to be carried by individual soldiers, and were clearly different from the revolving ballistae mounted on wagons spoken of in the next chapter (6) of this little treatise.

http://www.ingentaconnect.com/conten...00001/art00001

Basically they argue that there is a possibility that the crossbow itself originates from the Eastern Romans.

[Sar1n]

Basically they argue that there is a possibility that the crossbow itself originates from the Eastern Romans.

Isn't crossbow even earlier invention? There was Gastraphetes, kind of proto-crossbow, and I've read that in early Empire, Romans used crossbows for hunting.

[Condottiere 40K]

The English were quite familiar with crossbows, and then established a militia system with mandatory long bow training for yeomen. You could say that the English had an inordinate amount of luck when they beat the French, but it's probably more a matter of training, discipline, leadership and an understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of the long bow. While yeomen are militia, they were well-paid militia, trained from adolescence, cohesive and apparently had a high morale.

The question would be why the English supplanted the crossbow with the long bow, since it's simpler to establish and train crossbowmen.

[Markas]

The question would be why the English supplanted the crossbow with the long bow, since it's simpler to establish and train crossbowmen.

My guess would be the Longbow simply supplanted the long-time affinity for previous bow types. English yeomanry were used to the bow and simply decided to keep it (perhaps it had connotations of class status it's hard to say). The standard bow proved just as deadly at The battle of Northallerton so there were no military reason not to.

I recall some argument from awhile back saying the crossbow may have had a connotation with foreigners like the landed Normans but that seems a bit unconvincing.