Emerging smokepowder weapons in my fantasy

[Joseph Paul]

Originally Posted by Kraydak

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.

I will help.

Muskets have a short range due to accuracy problems. There are a number of factors that greatly influence where a ball is going to go. However up to that point the skill is point and shoot. Learning to reload and march is tougher.

As for bows you have underestimated their effectiveness.

Bows have been used against moving targets or from moving mounts or both for a very long time. They can be effective to their maximum range against moving targets. Not much in a medieval world goes faster than 50 m/s. What the archer does is practice leading the target. They practiced against 'stalking horses' - wheeled targets that were pulled across the range. Flying birds and deer on the run have been taken this way.

At long distances that plunging fire is no bar to accuracy. We have records of medieval targets being set up at 240 yards distance. The archers would need to arc their fire to hit it. They practiced at being able to do so and knew what they had to do to fire to any particular range.

Yes there are ST requirements for heavy bows but the biggest drain was the constant (at least weekly) practice that trained a bowman. The musketeer could learn to fire his weapon to the limit of it's accuracy in a day.

Remember that as weapons of war neither of these are used as a sniper would. They are massed to provide destructive power against appropriate targets and to deny territory by controlling it with their fire.