Emerging smokepowder weapons in my fantasy

[Kraydak]

Originally Posted by jason taylor

The main advantage of muskets is that they require little training and allow you to mass-produce soldiers. After Lepanto the Janisaries simply were out of action, because though they knew the techniques of loading a musket they hadn't caught on to that particular point and just used them as a back up to composite bows. Used in that sense, they become just another addendum to the warrior caste and weren't very useful in that regard. By contrast, Europeans had discovered what the real advantage of muskets were and started to be able to field effective soldiers year after year.

People say that muskets are much, much easier to use than bows. I find this extremely hard to believe. Can anyone help me?

(1) Muskets are much more complex to use.
(2) Beyond a few 10s of yards, arrow flight times become long enough that accuracy is nigh irrelevant against moving targets (working from sub 100 yd/sec speeds). At longer distances, bows move into plunging fire (forget about accuracy/skill) where muskets would still have nearly flat trajectories.

The only way I can make sense of "bows are harder" is the sheer muscle strength/conditioning needed for sustained 100+lb bow use. One the other hand, that shouldn't take too long to gain and would be easy to lose through a bout of disuse or poor food supply.