SinoDefence Forum

zraver

Actually, modern mongol archers use Chinese bows.

Mongol bow - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

All I was trying to do was show, that an archer could draw a 160lb draw using a 3 finger draw. Between the longbows recovered from the Queen Mary and the Youtube vids I think that question is answered.

crobato

Did I ever say that you couldn't pull 160lb draw on a 3 finger draw? I hope I didn't make that impression, that wasn't my intention. It's mentioned in the links I posted.

The advantage of the Mongol draw is that you are pressing against the string on a single point, not three. One is less drag than on the string, since only one contact point, instead of three. You also reduce the pinch against the string, a particular advantage if the string is short. The second is that if you got the 3 finger draw, you better be damn sure you can release all three fingers simultaneously or it will cause you to foul the draw. In other words, the Mongol draw reduces possible failure points of the draw to only one.

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zraver

Inframan made the claim, sorry.

vesicles

That is IF there is no alternative (which was the case in ancient Europe) and the only weapon of choice for that small nation is one that can only be mastered by extensive training, like a bow. they got no choice but to continue training to be good at it. If given a choice, I would believe any nation would choose a weapon that can be mastered easily so that the pease time can be spent doing something more useful, like farming which would keep those highly skilled fighters alive. Also, maybe for a small nation, the best they can do is to train highly skilled soldiers, but this does not give them any advantage on the battlefield since the rules of wars do not change with the size of the nation.

Still, ease of use is a trade mark for a well-developed weapon, no matter what the population of a nation is. As a matter of fact, even for a small nation, having a weapon that can be used by less trained personnel is still better than one that can only be mastered via decades of training. A good case, again: AK-47 (most of the nations using AK-47 are small and poor nations. And this weapon has enabled the users to fight effectively). A good example of ease of use for the crossbow is that it can be welded by a peasant to kill a highly skilled knight. A good indication of a well developed weapon: a simple crossbow cancels decades of training and expensive and fancy gear. The same cannot be said of a bow.

As I mentioned in my post above, the time frame for a shooter/loader combo is teens of seconds since this combination was intended for fast firing. This should be far less than the hours needed to damage the weapon, Also, wear and tear is expected of any weapon. Since ancient China has industrialized crossbow-making, it should be easy to supply new weapons between battles.

Hmmm, 1979. It's a little old. I don't about the field of History. In biomedical sciences, anything before 1990 is considered too old. In fact, when we publish papers, we mainly cite works done within the last 5-6 years. As our understanding of things evolves, data and views published too long ago are usually considered inadequate to represent the most mature understanding of things.

zraver

From the end of the Medieval warm period and the collapse of European Agriculture along with the arrival of the black death the entire population collapsed. Crossbow never went out of use, but became the weapon of mercs. When 99% of your population has to farm and still leaves little surplus then armies are going to be small and knights, mercs and a few highly trained specialist types like archers are the best best. If you strip the fields to create a bigger army- you don't plant and you don't harvest.

Not too effectively when fighting western nations. A better example would be thousands of T-55, T-62 and T-72 tanks vs a perhaps a thousand combined M1A1/Challenger 1 tanks. The larger amount of inferior weapons with a mix of conscript and professional troops did little to even slow down the Coalition advance in 91.

Its not the same in history if the book relies on a good collection of primary source documents. Where newer is better is when there is a lack of primary source documents. Three good examples are ancient civilizations where history must combine archeology, oral tradition and documents from neighbors to try and paint a picture of the past. As new stuff is unearthed the picture gets fleshed out and misconceptions changed. Another example is events in the recent past say the Cold War where a lot of the primary source documents and witnesses are still under government lock and key and so pictures remain incomplete. The final example is situation where ones sides history is actively suppressed to make way for a larger over culture like native Americans, non-Han minorities, or the Scottish.

When dealing with the Mongols however we have an abundance of primary source documents from all sides of the story. This means the picture is fairly complete. Thus while we may argue about draw weights, prevalence of chainmail, types of arrow heads etc, numbers on either side of a battle are less a point of contention. If the Mongols says they invaded Outer Nowhervia with 3 Tumen then we can accept an upper limit of 30,000 minus battle losses and other attrition. If contemporary Chronicler says Outer Nowhervia and its allies sallied forth with X. The process of determining the number of troops fielded is a matter of counting the nobles applying averages to the menies (fighting tails) and best guesses base don other reports for near useless anyway peasant levies. For example, if other reports from multiple sources around the same time say an average Baron usually went to war with 2 pages, 1 squire, 3 mounted men at arms and 4 crossbowmen and the army had 50 barons in it they we know that there are 200-250 heavy cav (depending on how advanced the squires are) and 200 crossbow +/- just a few percentage points via what the barons brought to war.

The Mongols thanks to China were much better record keepers than the Europeans. As the baron example points out, they also had much more unified command and control in the early years. During some battles vs the Mongols in Russia and Poland you would have several sovereigns on the field. Talk about a nightmare way to try and fight a war. each rulers forces would only answer to them, and then often only commanders would be loyal while that sub commanders troops would not be liegeholden to the ruler, but to the vassal if the vassal was tenant in chief. Thus while a baron might be called upon to furnish X in a time of war for his ruler, those troops might actually be more loyal to the Baron than the ruler.

vesicles

You seems to equate ease of use with inferiority. Please do not do that. It should be the opposite.

Part of developing an advanced weapon is to make the weapon easier to use. In fact, if you look at all the advanced weapons nowadays, you will notice that almost all the "advanced" features are designed to alleviate operators from actually operating the machine so that they can focous on fighting. As an advanced weapon, many key features on M1A1 was designed for ease of use: better fire control = easier aiming; better loading mechanism = easier shell-loading, etc. The same can be said of all advanced weapons. F-22, as an advanced fighter, is loaded with features that make operation easy. That's why you have computers in everything now: to make it easy to use. Many inferior weapons are inferior partly because they lack these ease--of-use features and are NOT easy to use, operation is too comlicated and they become too tedious to operate and maintain. SO T-55, T-62 and T-72 tanks lost in part because they are not easy to use.

zraver

I was a tanker.

The T-55 and T-62 might be easier to load than the M1A1 because of shell weight. The actual mechanics of manually loading a breech don't change much. I used the older T series tanks vs Western MBT for a specific reason. If the tanks in this case of the bow types in questions. Then the Western MBT is the horsebow/longbow and the crew are the archers. They are more expensive to create and care for and took years of practice to master. The T series are famed most for their ease of use and reliability by even poorly trained conscripts. ease of use and ruggedness was designed into Soviet tanks starting with the T-34. They and their clients and customers didn't have the luxury of small highly professional military forces to use in war.

Further the T series v MBT allows the comparison of volume of fire effects. A few MBTs (archers/horse archers) vs a horde of crossbowmen. However, even if you equalize the equipment and its typical non industrial state conscripts vs professional warriors the result would have been the same. Generally speaking throughout history the smaller professional force has done better than a larger conscript force. Rome, Mongols, British Empire, Manchus etc. It is only fairly recently that large non-professional armies rose to dominance and even then the results were mixed. Yes the Soviet Union beat down the Nazis (win for size) but look at Korea. In 1950 the PVA was more professional than the US forces, and fought its way into South Korea. However as the US troops gained combat experience and the PVA was whittled away and replaced with conscripts not veterans South Korea was liberated and the war ended as a stalemate.

crobato

No more tank discussion (OT posts allowed only twice). Stick to antiquity discussion only.

__________________
"Lets do a thermal sweep."

Infra_Man99

I never made that claim. Zraver continues to be illiterate and suffer from a host of other mental limitations (I'm being very kind here).

I am still waiting for zraver to debate with weightlifting competitors on Youtube about his ridiculous claim, amongst many other doubtful claims, that the human index finger is able to hold as much weight as the whole hand. LOL!

zraver

correct,

"I think there was show on History channel talking about ancient weapons. On the show, an ancient weapons expert went to Mongolia and tried to pull a bow owned by a Mongolian guy who's about 60-70 years old and could not do it. The Mongolian guy, however, easily pulled the bow completely open. And later, the weapons expert was shocked to find out that the trick was to use the thumb, not the index finger, to pull." by vesicles.

When you can make an accurate historical post that does not contain a logical fallacy you might have a right to talk about mental limitations.

do a pull up using only your index fingers. Its pretty simple and self evident. The index finger can bear as much weight as the rest of the hand. its not even a topic of discussion, anyone can test it.

vesicles

Hmmm... Why was I quoted here? I was simply describing a TV show demonstrating the advantages of the Mongolian bow-pulling techniques. All the show and my post are saying is that Mongolian pull was more powerful. That does not mean that the 3-finger pull cannot open a 160-Ib bow. For all that matters, it's possible that the 3-finger-pull opens 200-Ib bow, while the Mongolian-pull can possibly open a 250-Ib bow (hypothetically). Again, I don't think I ever made a claim that the 3-finger-pull cannot open a 160-Ib bow.

I'll try to find a clip of the show.

linxj1987

Qin used bronze weapons. But I rememberd that smithing skills is so excellent that long sword could be produced and could keep enough hardness in Qin.
There is a story that, an killer called Jing Ke wanted to kill the emperor of Qin. He showed the map to the emperor and finally a dagger appeared. Killer chased the emperor around column and the emperor cannot beat back because of his sword is too long to drew. And the ministers cant help the emperor because they cant take weapons when they go into the palace...

Raptoreyes

Proto Hun tribes? This may have happened before such tribes equipped their horse raiders with stirrups. Still the "proto huns" would probably regard Alexandrian formations as a fun thing to try to "violently disrupt". (when your eking out a living herding animals, on terrain almost any other "horse culture" would deem "hopelessly cold and barren", any sort of fight large or small would be deemed "entertainment sent from a friendly deity").

Before Attila and the first Khan, central Asian horse tribes were the motorcycle gangs of the pre-industrial times. One hell of a headache to any group of professional solders past or present. Pardon me if "proto hun tribes" vs Alexanders army reminds me of the FBI vs The Hells Angles. Worth a laugh for the price of imagining the parallels. The tools and clothing changes but daredevil brigands with loot lust and nothing to loose, -- hectoring annoyed professionals, longing to go home to enjoy wife and pension, is a situation repeated so often, its nearly a feature of human male DNA.

FriedRiceNSpice

For some reason I just can't picture the Hell's Angels annihilating a USMC Expeditionary Force or a PLA Rapid Reaction Brigade. Or even a battalion of troops belonging to a Somalian warlord for that matter.

vesicles

Yes, I agree. Huns and Mongolians were highly trained and highly organized and utilized the most advanced weapons of the day and advanced battle tactics. Also, they did not simply roam aimlessly around. Their leaders had superb strategic vision, which allowed them to conquer most of the known world (in the case of the Mongolians)?

To say that Huns or Mongolians are nothing but a bunch of disorganized petty criminals is a huge understatement and perhaps even a insult to the political and military skills of these ancient people.