Alexander VS Qin dynasty

Secondly it was not until a steel bow was used in Europe with 1000lb draw strengths that the crossbow came under fire as an immoral weapon because it allowed a peasant to shoot down a knight.

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Bad scholarship on your part again. 1000lbs require a huge crossbow that has to be cranked. Not something your average peasant could use. If the Pope banned crossbows that peasants could use, you're talking of something smaller, cheaper and much easier to handle. Something like this.



100 kg draw strength on the recreation.

Average Chinese infantry crossbow is 6 Dan. 10 Dan crossbrows are 268kg in strength.



'Records mentioning 8 dan crossbows were also discovered in the Han tomb at Juyan. In addition, it is recorded in Han bamboo that there were crossbows of 8 different tensile strengths, namely of 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 10 dan. The most widely used is a crossbow of 6 dan which has a shooting range of about 260m, about a quarter of a kilometre.''


He also has a reference to records found on Han era slips at Pochenji recording repairs to weapons at a watch/beacon station. They include a crossbow of 5-pical (250kg) and 6-pical (300kg). Both of these in excess of infantry crossbows listed so without any other explanation I can only assume these are static crossbows at the watchtowers and perhaps one reference to the elusive Han-era arcuballistas.
Yang Hong in referring to the Wei & Jin and a specific mechanism says 'They are similar to those of the Han dynasty in both form and in structure. The strength of the crossbow is given as 10 dan...(268.3 kilos).
The figures seem to become a bit wild beyond here with reference to General Ma Ling recruiting new soldiers and only admitting those that 'could bend a crossbow of 36-jun with his waist...One jun is 15 kilograms and the figure above leads to the conclusion that the crossbow was bent using both arms and the waist, having a strength of 500kgs''. (?!)
He mentions winch loaded crossbows specifically such as Shen Nu/magic crossbow and it is said to be 10,000 jun. He acknowledges this must be an exaggeration....or else perhaps something is wrong with both these accounts. Precisely how a crossbow is 'waist bent' (with a belt hook?) and how many people are humanly capable to work with such weights (500kg) leads me to conclude that despite the reasonable figures up until this point, and the clear referencing of all of his sources, that both figures can be discounted in this case. This is the only part of Yang Hongs book which didn't sit right with me, and the rest of it is quite excellent.
He does however have information on very large crossbow mechanisms which are certainly proof of very heavy ballista-like devices at this time (between Han & Tang). Again the Han must have been capable of producing such devices....
{edit; if the soldiers could lift wieghts like Olympic athletes such 500kg figures might just be in the realm of international lifters...the heavier devices are certainly winch loaded when getting into fantastic realms. Song era crossbows for siege were true war machine crewed by a team of operators for example.}

greco roman warfare call for single set piece tactical face to face eyeball to eyeball .winner take all battle .this kind of tactic was criticized by Sun Tsu,author of art of war, head on battle with simple resulted a very large casualties,it could demorilized the troops.
example,was the persian decision to confront the macedonian,darius committed blunder by playing into macedonian superiority,hlaf trained lighte infantries throw themself against highly discipline professional army formation, and lost,by the time of roman persian war, the parthian later sasanid choose to exploit the roman biggest vulnability,lack of heavy cavalry.7 time the roman legions invade the persian emopire ,7 times it was defeated or force to abandon.
if you been reading romance of three kingdom,all the warlord trying to avoid this kind tactic,all the great battle were decided by deception and tactical surprise . the only area I admire greco roman military was there organization. quality over quantity,in fact most modern military org. and inst. are influence by the roman army.

crobato said:

Bad scholarship on your part again. 1000lbs require a huge crossbow that has to be cranked. Not something your average peasant could use. If the Pope banned crossbows that peasants could use, you're talking of something smaller, cheaper and much easier to handle. Something like this.

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No I am talking a steel bowed crossbow often called an arbalast a corruption or arcuballista the Roman term for crossbow. The biggest of them would exceed 5,000lbs according to wiki.

edit; if the soldiers could lift wieghts like Olympic athletes such 500kg figures might just be in the realm of international lifters...the heavier devices are certainly winch loaded when getting into fantastic realms. Song era crossbows for siege were true war machine crewed by a team of operators for example.}

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I'm guessing you forgot that Europeans made use of mechanical advantage?



page 123 for an illustration.

Put the bow on ground, foot through stirrup, attach hooks and wind away.

zraver said:

No I am talking a steel bowed crossbow often called an arbalast a corruption or arcuballista the Roman term for crossbow. The biggest of them would exceed 5,000lbs according to wiki.

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That's not what the Papal banning of the crossbow is all about.

I'm guessing you forgot that Europeans made use of mechanical advantage?

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page 123 for an illustration.

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Hardly a hand held weapon.

Thank you for bringing an unrelated subject to the discussion to cloud the issue.

English warbow 90-100lbs close range bodkin point



bodkins vs plate armor



Bodkin point vs plate with aketone/gambeson padded coat



modern recurve- 300pfs (claimed for 160lb draws) 3 finger pull)



120lb draw Mongol bow 3 finger draw



132lb draw longbow



120lb Hungarian/maygar bow 3 finger draw

crobato said:

Hardly a hand held weapon.

Thank you for bringing an unrelated subject to the discussion to cloud the issue.

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That is a hand held weapon!

you can see it on his belt and see how it improved crossbow firing rate. Seems mechanical advantage didn't just increase draw weight, but rate of fire which I didn't know until I saw it.

That's a Hungarian bow, which modern recurve bows are. Mongolian bows are only made in Mongolia and is a time intensive process, as it takes quite a bit of time to cure the glues.

It takes a lifetime to train a Mongolian or English bowman, because strength in archery requires growing certain upper chest muscles. That's why the 60 year old Mongolian person could pull the bow while the modern dude couldn't.

zraver said:

That is a hand held weapon!

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you can see it on his belt and see how it improved crossbow firing rate. Seems mechanical advantage didn't just increase draw weight, but rate of fire which I didn't know until I saw it.

Click to expand...

That's good.

Now here is how a crossbow gets a good rate of fire.

Information about the Mongolian draw, which is common with Asian cultures.



By Chris le Roux

The most difficult single action in archery is undoubtedly the act of drawing and releasing the string. The purpose of this action is to ensure consistency, accur*acy and to inject the most energy into the arrow. Many techniques have been devised for this. The “pinch the arrow” method, used by the San of southern Africa, the use of a shooting block and the modern release mechanisms used to shoot compound bows serve as initial examples.

Countries such as South Africa, which have been influenced by European and British archery techniques, use the Mediterranean release technique. The (mostly traditional) archer uses three fingers to draw the bowstring. A leather glove is worn to protect the three fingers. The Mongolian release technique is another option and can be added to the techniques referred to so far.

My aim is to briefly explain the history of the Mongolian release technique and give reasons for using this method. The main focus of this article will be on the use of a thumb ring, which forms the focal point of the Mongolian draw technique.

Using one’s thumb to draw the string of a bow is common in Asian cultures such as India, Korea, Japan, Turkey and China. This technique is centuries old, with thumb rings found in Chinese graves dating back to the Zhou Dynasty (1100 to 221BC). There is evidence that some African tribes also used this technique. The thumb draw technique has become so closely associated with Mongol archery that it is commonly referred to as the “Mongol release”.

The Mongol bow is a composite bow made of wood, sinew and horn, held together by glue made from fish bladders. Since this is a short bow, the string (when drawn) forms a sharp angle. Drawing with one finger and not three makes a natural choice to accommodate the sharp angle of the drawn string. A thumb ring is used to protect the thumb from injury.

A thumb ring is a cylindrical or lipped ring (see Figure 1) that fits snugly around the lower part of the thumb of the draw hand. If it fits too loosely it will slide around and even off the finger, causing arrows to fumble. If it fits too tightly it will cause blisters and bruising of the thumb and even blockage of blood circulation. To accommodate a slight movement of the thumb within the ring, it is advised that the hole be oval-shaped. Thumb rings have traditionally been made of a variety of material, such as wood, bone, horn, ceramics, stone, precious stones and even glass.

The “workings” of the thumb ring are quite simple. The string of the bow is hooked behind the ring in the softer inner part of the lower thumb – the ring fits below the nocked arrow. The index finger is then used to “hook” the thumb tip to keep it from straightening under the pressure of the drawn string. The other three fingers of the draw hand are curled into the palm in sync with the index finger (see Figure 2). To release, one opens the thumb and index finger, allowing the string to slip over the smooth surface of the thumb ring. The draw hand is then pulled backwards away from the bow, ending in a straight draw arm that extends to the archer’s back.

In my experience, there are advantages and disadvantages in shooting with a thumb ring. On the positive side, it causes less drag on the string than the three-finger Mediterranean technique, owing to the fact that there is a single point of contact with the string (the thumb ring only).

The down side of this technique is that one needs to have a composite Mongolian bow to really enjoy the effect of this type of release. Archers using the thumb ring as release mechanism generally shoot off the right side of the bow, while my recurve bow shoots off the left side. I have also found that when shooting with any one of my thumb rings (wood, bone, stone or horn), the string makes a lot of noise when released – perhaps this is owing to the left-side bow I use. Lastly, the Mongolian release style places much strain on the thumb. After about 20 shots, blood starts showing under the skin on the tip of one’s thumb. After a day or two it turns black and remains like that for a number of days! Nevertheless, I have found the research and the experience to be very stimulating.

Sources were collected from Google: “thumb ring”, “archery” and “Mongolian archery”.

The making of traditional Chinese bow.



The making of a Mongolian bow.



The making of a Korean horned bow