Crossbows Verses The Long Bow

It was in the medieval period that the English long bow would come up in battle against the crossbows. An archer trained with the long bow would fire 10-12 twelve arrows in sixty seconds. Contrast this to the slower to load and fire crossbow. The crossbow however did not need the same amount of physical strength to prepare and fire.

Two modern archers test to see who can fire arrows faster. One can use the English long bow, the other can fire a crossbow. In the middle ages there were several methods employed to load or span a crossbow. With the hand span, the archer set the front end of the bow on the ground. He then stepped onto the bow itself and bent over to pull the bow string up and then lock it in a position ready to fire.

One model was the Belvins hook. This was a crossbow with a stirrup on the end. The archer stepped into the stirrup for leverage and drew back the string to load his bow.

The crane whist which was a two handed crank that allowed the archer to turn and pull back the bow into a firing position. And the goats foot which was a lever that pulled back the bow into a firing position. Then the arrow was placed in the firing position.

For this contest between our modern day archers one will use a crossbow and one will use an English long bow. This crossbow was designed for fast loading and shooting. The men begin firing. The archer with his long bow loads and fires his first arrow and reaches for his next one placed in the ground to his side. The crossbow user places his bow on the ground and places his foot into the stirrup. He pulls back the bow string and locks his bow. He loads an arrow.

He then aims and pulls the trigger to fire the arrow. The long bow archer has already fired three arrows. In the time it takes the archer using a crossbow to fire six arrows the archer firing a longbow has fired ten arrows in fifty one seconds. That was really very quick for the crossbow archer.

The long bow won but it also shows that the crossbow was still relatively fast to load and fire. But you have to remember this crossbow was one of the fastest to use of its time. And it had a light pressure pull weight which was 130 pounds. The long bow had a draw weight of 110 pounds.

The crossbow used in this contest was not as efficient as the long bow. For it to have the same power as the long bow used it would have to have three times the draw weight. That would mean a draw weight of over 300 pounds and you could not do that with a hand span you would have to have a crank style crossbow and that would be a lot slower to load.

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