WI European powers in the age of Napoleon kept archers in an axillary usage?

[historyfool]

A well trained musketman shot 3 rounds a minute, not 5.

Smoothbore muskets only hit their targets 50% of the time at 100 yards. Rifled muskets were rare in Europe.

Longbows had an effective range of 300 yards and a rate of fire of 10-15 shots a minute.

You are wrong about effectiveness.

Guns beat out bows because they were simply cheaper and cannons made better artillery.

There is drill field performance and combat performance. The Prussian army under Frederick the Great trained to six rounds per minute in peace time because that translated to the desired 3 rounds under combat conditions. From what I can find the ratio was similiar for archers: a training standard of 12 arrows per minute translated into a sustained rate of fire of 6 on a battlefield (although Baranbe Rich, author and professional soldier in the 16th century gave more an RoF ratio of 5 to 8, but with higher accuracy to the musket). Equally with range for archers: yes there are reports of effective fire over 300 yards, but there are also writings that warn not to expect more than 10% of mustered men to exceed 200 paces (170 yards). For muskets the range does not change with the quality of men: everyone can shoot 300 paces and everyone has an even chance to hit something at a 100 paces.

Then there is the frontage. A Prussian 7yw batallion had a frontage of 75cm per musketeer so a full batallion with some 540 musketeers took a width of about 130 meters on the battlefield and including the NCOs, officers etc. behind the three lines is a bit over 6m deep. You maybe can put 60% as a many archers into the same space.

Both archers and musketeers tended to carry about 60 rounds, that is at the assumed RoFs 10 minutes for an archer and 20 for a musketeer.

Now how does that look on a battlefield? Let´s assume two average units facing each other on said 130m front. Individual archers start to fire at 300m, scoring a few hits in the next 80 seconds at a normal advance speed. The Prussian batallion opens fire by Peleton at about 200m while advancing, even if for the next five minutes (advance by peloton is 10-12m per minute) until they reach a hundred meters, chances to hit something are minimal (a test done in Prussia in 1755 had 13% hits on a 6,60x2,60 target at 200m). At about 150m the archers can finally fire back as a full unit. Until that point the musketeers have fired in excess 4000 rounds, the 30 long ranged archers about 650 rounds. Over the next 2,5 minutes until the muskets reach 100m, truly effective range, the muskets could in theory fire another 4000 something rounds, the archers could fire back about 4500 rounds. So in the case that all these shots go wild and cause no losses, in the first 6 minutes of combat the archers pour out 5150 rounds, the musketeers 8000 rounds. At that point, assuming that both sides had an equal percentage of losses so far (which is a stretch), the archers will start to move ahead, but thank to the greater numbers per frontage the musketeers will still put about 90% the rounds of the archers downrange. And even at the slow pace of a peleton advance the musketeers are only 5 minutes from bayonet range, shorter if they call the charge at some point. Now I assume elite units of archers can beat the average of 6rounds at least in bursts (just like some musket units occasionally exceeded the 3 rpm in combat) and have a higher percentage of archers that can actually use the full range of long bows, but in any army most units will be average.

 

[Mitchell Hundred]

There is drill field performance and combat performance. The Prussian army under Frederick the Great trained to six rounds per minute in peace time because that translated to the desired 3 rounds under combat conditions. From what I can find the ratio was similiar for archers: a training standard of 12 arrows per minute translated into a sustained rate of fire of 6 on a battlefield (although Baranbe Rich, author and professional soldier in the 16th century gave more an RoF ratio of 5 to 8, but with higher accuracy to the musket). Equally with range for archers: yes there are reports of effective fire over 300 yards, but there are also writings that warn not to expect more than 10% of mustered men to exceed 200 paces (170 yards). For muskets the range does not change with the quality of men: everyone can shoot 300 paces and everyone has an even chance to hit something at a 100 paces.

Then there is the frontage. A Prussian 7yw batallion had a frontage of 75cm per musketeer so a full batallion with some 540 musketeers took a width of about 130 meters on the battlefield and including the NCOs, officers etc. behind the three lines is a bit over 6m deep. You maybe can put 60% as a many archers into the same space.

Both archers and musketeers tended to carry about 60 rounds, that is at the assumed RoFs 10 minutes for an archer and 20 for a musketeer.

Now how does that look on a battlefield? Let´s assume two average units facing each other on said 130m front. Individual archers start to fire at 300m, scoring a few hits in the next 80 seconds at a normal advance speed. The Prussian batallion opens fire by Peleton at about 200m while advancing, even if for the next five minutes (advance by peloton is 10-12m per minute) until they reach a hundred meters, chances to hit something are minimal (a test done in Prussia in 1755 had 13% hits on a 6,60x2,60 target at 200m). At about 150m the archers can finally fire back as a full unit. Until that point the musketeers have fired in excess 4000 rounds, the 30 long ranged archers about 650 rounds. Over the next 2,5 minutes until the muskets reach 100m, truly effective range, the muskets could in theory fire another 4000 something rounds, the archers could fire back about 4500 rounds. So in the case that all these shots go wild and cause no losses, in the first 6 minutes of combat the archers pour out 5150 rounds, the musketeers 8000 rounds. At that point, assuming that both sides had an equal percentage of losses so far (which is a stretch), the archers will start to move ahead, but thank to the greater numbers per frontage the musketeers will still put about 90% the rounds of the archers downrange. And even at the slow pace of a peleton advance the musketeers are only 5 minutes from bayonet range, shorter if they call the charge at some point. Now I assume elite units of archers can beat the average of 6rounds at least in bursts (just like some musket units occasionally exceeded the 3 rpm in combat) and have a higher percentage of archers that can actually use the full range of long bows, but in any army most units will be average.

What if it wasn't one side full of archers vs one side of pure musket men but one side employing a mixed usage. Not sure it'd be the exact same employing archers, but the Russians in a late 19th century battle deployed Winchester repeater armed units who were then backed up by the longer range more powerful but slower shooting single shot breech loaders.

 

[LibPrime]

The Chinese had bowmen auxiliaries through the end of the 19th century; the government only abolished archery from the military exam syllabus in 1901. In Europe, archers seemed to vanish surprisingly quickly following the adoption of gunpowder arms, as opposed to being used in conjunction. What if archers were kept trained and ready in smaller units through the Napoleonic Wars?

Maybe if Europe's nobility was stronger and romanticized the crossbow in a similar way as to how the Janissaries romanticized the sword could we see archers remain a component of the army.

 

[BlackDragon98]

Maybe if Europe's nobility was stronger and romanticized the crossbow in a similar way as to how the Janissaries romanticized the sword could we see archers remain a component of the army.

Until reality forces them to abandon the bow.
Soldiers change their gear real quick when it starts getting them killed.

You cannot compare Europe to China as China had become stagnant, corrupt, and inward looking by the mid to late Qing Dynasty.
No progress and no real peer enemy until they got roundly beaten in the Opium Wars.

 

[LibPrime]

Until reality forces them to abandon the bow.
Soldiers change their gear real quick when it starts getting them killed.

Fair enough
Maybe if some superstate exists in Europe (eg a centralized HRE being the undisputed hegemon of Europe) could warfare and thus technological innovation be less common, which'd open the door to archers being a piece in the army. I'm sure that over the centuries the archers would be erased from the army though

 

[Hydra1234]

Yeah, like most others have said, the bow is horribly outdated. I could see an archer honor guard forming as some sort of curiosity (I think that's actually one of the reasons why the Bashkirs kept their bows), but not as an actual unit that could play a part in a battle.

Now for the longbow's paper stats of 12 shots a minute and a 300 meter effective range?

First, the 12 shots a minute myth originates from Richard Oswald Mason's "Pro Aris Et Focis," a tract published in 1798, which in turn was cited and popularized by Napoleon III of all people in 1832. Now, Mason doesn't cite anything, for his source, and he's working over 350 years after the Hundred Years War. He also gets a number of other facts wrong, such as insisting that James III was the Scottish leader at Bannockburn, Sir William Wood was contemporary to Henry VIII, and that the Welsh could shoot an arrow through a 4-inch thick door. As such, the 12-shots-a-minute is likely Mason making things up, most likely by projecting contemporary archery firing rates (with 60-lb draw weights or less) onto the medieval longbow rates.

Source:

https://www.reddit.com/r/badhistory/comments/xoglgk

Similarly, the 300 meter (or 200-400 meter) effective range is simply the range the arrow flies if an archer fires at a 45-degree angle. If muskets used the same criteria, they would have a range somewhere around 600 meters. There are even some people who argue that longbowmen never arced their shots (like Mike Loades) resulting in their effective range being about 100 meters, although I'm skeptical of that claim.

 

[Fabius Maximus]

Similarly, the 300 meter (or 200-400 meter) effective range is simply the range the arrow flies if an archer fires at a 45-degree angle. If muskets used the same criteria, they would have a range somewhere around 600 meters. There are even some people who argue that longbowmen never arced their shots (like Mike Loades) resulting in their effective range being about 100 meters, although I'm skeptical of that claim.

*Never* arced their shots might be a bit of an exaggeration, although I shouldn't think that they did so too often. The problem with arcing your shot is that the arrow uses all its initial impetus on the upward trajectory, leaving just the (very small) weight of the arrow itself to lend it force on the downwards. Hence an arcing shot wouldn't cause much damage even to lightly-armoured opponents.

 

[alexmilman]

*Never* arced their shots might be a bit of an exaggeration, although I shouldn't think that they did so too often. The problem with arcing your shot is that the arrow uses all its initial impetus on the upward trajectory, leaving just the (very small) weight of the arrow itself to lend it force on the downwards. Hence an arcing shot wouldn't cause much damage even to lightly-armoured opponents.

But it was scaring the horses and that argument had been brought up in a contemporary discussion mentioned by Delbruck. Quite agree regarding the killing power. At Cressy the archers had been shooting at a point blank range and pretty much the same was the case on the first stage of Poitiers when the mounted French detachment bumped into the archers’ position (the battle was won by a counterattack of the English cavalry on the dismounted French knights. At Agincourt the dismounted knights had been slowly moving across a dirt field being the perfect targets and, yet, it took the hand to hand combat to defeat them.
The Mongolian shooting also was not necessarily too deadly because, when in formation they had been firing at a high angle and an aimed shooting was limited to a special maneuver, “chisel” when the archers were riding in a single line. Genghis described it as a very effective but it obviously could not be used by the big formations and probably (my guess) was limited to the known marksmen, “mergen” (IIRC).

All this, as I keep repeating, has little to do with a proposed dilemma because at the times when the archers were present in big numbers on the European battlefields (the Huns, Magyars, Ottoman archers), there were no firearms and when the firearms appeared in the big numbers, the archers as a military factor had been long gone (Janissaries made a switch quite early) outside Eastern Europe. Bringing longbow into a picture is even less relevant: it was never a common weapon outside England and the archers always were just a part of a total force.

 

[oberdada]

You'd need to go centuries back and establish a plantation system to grow the wood needed to produce enough bows, mostly really slow growing tree types.
There might be various reasons for the transformation from bows to guns, but I think the most important is, that (Western) European countries simply ran out of proper wood.

 

[Fabius Maximus]

You'd need to go centuries back and establish a plantation system to grow the wood needed to produce enough bows, mostly really slow growing tree types.
There might be various reasons for the transformation from bows to guns, but I think the most important is, that (Western) European countries simply ran out of proper wood.

The switch from bows to guns happened virtually everywhere (the only partial exception being China, as far as I'm aware), not just in Europe, so a shortage of wood in Europe can't be the main reason.

 

[Intosh]

I think that would be an analogy to European higher ranks still carrying swords and getting trained in swordfighting. No practical reason except that by tradition it is the mark of a good noble soldiers (and those that aspire to be regarded as equal to nobility)

Which brings me to a different scenario:

After a different 100 years war, a different 80-years war or as late as a different Crimea campaign, archery is seen as a mark of a good yeoman soldier or any commander of non-noble birth to shine next to his sword-carrying noble colleagues. As a result, a cavalry bow becomes an established part of a commander's gala uniform. Especially in those countries where nobles have way less influence than Imperial France. After the French revolution and the Napoleonic wars, the 'privileged' ceremonial sword gets phased out more and more in favor of the 'unitarian' bow and eventually noblemen as well will train archery as a part of their curriculum in order to not get upstarted by their commoner colleagues in the military. Up to WWI, (and in the US probably up to WWII) it becomes the mark of a good commander to still be able to shoot a target with a hunting bow from horseback while leading his troops I to charge.

The problem is that in Europe, the sword was never the arm of the priviledge class and in fact bows were not the peasant weapon, because peasants were armed with easy to use and easy to produce weapons, such as axes, reinforced sticks, and lances.

Peasant were not usaually using bows because hunting was restricted to the aristocracy.

The problem is that carrying a sword was never the mark of nobility in Europe and carrying / owning one was never restricted as it was in China (only for soldiers) or in Japan (only for the samouraï).

Not only the aristocrats were trained in Fencing, but it was a skill that most middle class townfolk were teach and in Paris in the XVII and XVIII centuries, you have more Fencing Masters than Latin teachers. And all soldiers were teached Fencing until the massive armies of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars when the massive conscription don't give enough time for Fencing skills being developped among all soldiers. Napoleon for exemple restricted the use of the "Sabre Briquet", (short infantry sabre) to only NCO, elite troops and services who weren't equiped with enough firearms (artillery crew for exemple).

And if you don't own a sword, you can even rent one for an evening in Paris or to visit the gardens of the Palais of Versailles open even if you were a commoner.

Bows were not used for one simple thing once firearms can be used by almost everybody. Using a firearms is easy even for a 14 years petite girl, and my mother was trained and was rather good at shooting at this age, with a SKS.

SKS - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

It is 4 kg fully loaded.

A Brown Bess is 4.8 kg, but the carabine version is probably lighter.