When people stopped wearing armour because firearms became popular, did others metagame it by using bows/crossbows? It seems to me they would be more effective, cause it doesn't take as long to reload as early firearms.
Requires more training to use a bow, I'm sure crossbows were used for a while but I don't know.
>>1217575
Reloading matters much less than training. Because firearms were much easier to handle, it meant countries could field more men armed with firearms than with bows and crossbows
>>1217597
This, and they are a lot bulkier same with the munition.
>>1217575
>When people stopped wearing armour because firearms became popular, did others metagame it by using bows/crossbows?
No. Firearms were still more effective weapons even when armor isn't part of the equation. Firearms inflicted *far* more lethal wounds, had a longer effective range, could be used from behind cover or in a trench.
Rate of shot is not as much of an advantage as you might think, since only very rarely are soldiers so thick in combat that they need to shoot as fast as they can. In reality most battles were far longer and more drawn out than they were in video games and movies.
>>1217597
>>1217614
>Requires more training to use a bow
No. It's the opposite. 16th century harquebusiers received much more training than the average bowman did. Our entire modern system of military training was invented for the purpose of teaching harquebusiers to be skillful and celeritous with their weapons.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but harquebuisers weren't really the mainstay were they? I was thinking later on firearms were radically simplified to the point of being the easiest to use by far.
>>1217575
The heaviest armors co-existed with early firearms. That armor was not useful against firearms is a meme. You have to go deep into modernity for that to be true.
>>1217651
>Correct me if I'm wrong, but harquebuisers weren't really the mainstay were they?
... what?
>>1217575
People wore metal plate pieces, if they could afford them, particularly head, chest, along the period of early firearms. The projectile wasn't especially accurate, and without rifling it was a crazy spinning ball going any random direction after the first 5 meters. The projectile, as you can imagine, was prone to glance and deflect very easily off a metal angled surface.
The advent of rifled weapons, I think, could be argued the death knell of metal armor. It was always an expensive thing to have and maintain, and not "everyone" had it, and with accuracy of the projectiles increasing significantly, there just wasn't as much point.
>>1217716
>The advent of rifled weapons, I think, could be argued the death knell of metal armor.
You do realise that muskets were the main weapons used in the Napoleonic wars? and that muskets aren't as inaccurate as you suggest.
>>1217659
I assume I'm wrong then, I don't know why but I got the idea into my head that a harquebus was expensive and not the most common weapon.
>>1217727
Napoleonic wars had specialists with rifled weapons and they most certainly were inaccurate, with chaotic physics.
>>1217735
That sentence implied the rifled weapons had projectiles with chaotic physics and that's not what I meant. Projectiles from non-rifled weapons had chaotic physics.
>>1217735
>Napoleonic wars had specialists with rifled weapons
Yes, but the vast majority used muskets.
It's perfectly possible to hit a 30cm diameter target at 30-50m more often than you miss.
>>1217716
>>1217735
I'm a terrible shot, and yet I can get palm-sized groups with my musket at 25 yards and hit a 2 foot wide target every single time at 50-75 yards. With more practice I could easily do better.
>The advent of rifled weapons, I think, could be argued the death knell of metal armor.
You think wrong.
>>1217745
Is it a rifled musket? Can you tell the difference?
>>1217758
just look down the barrel lol
>>1217745
25 meters isn't anything. Rifling increased effective range of firearms to 100+ meters, and was invented in the early, practiced in the mid 16th century, and although entire armies weren't equipped with the technology until the 19th century, it was more prevalent than you might imagine, just expensive.
>>1217758
It's a smoothbore. I also have a pair of black powder rifles. I can actually shoot better groups with the musket than the rifles. To be fair though, I don't load the rifles the way they're "supposed" to be loaded, with a patch, because the fit of the ball is so tight you need a mallet to hammer it down.
>>1217776
>I own a .50 cal hawken rifle, and I've been around plenty of people shooting actual muskets, you don't know what you're talking about.
kek sure buddy
plate armor was usually proof against the firearms of the time.
It wasn't until the 18th century that plate was completely abandoned. Even then it hung around as dress uniform.
>>1217789
>kek sure buddy
I worded that badly, I'm the one agreeing with you that muskets aren't as useless as he's suggesting.
>>1217789
Fire them downrange toward a convex .5cm metal plate sometime.
I'm reading that 17th century armorsmiths would intentionally fire an arquebus or pistol at a new breastplate proof test it. Maybe you should re-write history of armor smithing?
>>1217858
That's part of the reason why people started using muskets (10-12ga) instead of harquebuses (20-24ga). Muskets were so powerful that armor thick enough to stop it was impractical.
There's some firearms vs armor tests on youtube. The guy doesn't say how thick it is but the musket penetrated both sides while the pistol only left a dent.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=isIgZ-D9oAI
>>1217875
American civil war muskets were rifled muskets. Gooby prs.
>>1217884
Even if you couldn't tell from the narrator's accent that he's talking about the English civil war, the shape of the stock should tell you that it's from the early 1600's.
Actually meant to post this video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQfcRLT18IY
>>1217893
Stationary target at under 30 meters in 1650, that made perfect sense.
