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Today is the anniversary of the Battle of Crécy. It represented, perhaps, the first occurrence of someone realizing just how dumb it is to bring knives to a gunfight (or lances to an archery fight), and pretty much changed the nature of warfare from an up-close&personal event to one where you could kill your enemies safely from quite a long way away, a fact lost on the makers of wargames who still seem to prefer that their armoured knights battle each other in melee combats rather than shooting each other with their high tech guns...

Anyway...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Crécy

Sometimes I wish that guns had never been invented and wars were still fought with medival weapons. That would be awesome. Apart from getting drenched in blood and stuff all the time, of course.

Remarkable weapon the Welsh longbow...

If guns hadn't been invented knights would have still gone the way of the dodo.

Comanche raider with shortbow pwons knight.

Texas ranger pwons Comanche raider.

moral of the story? European knights bow down before the might of Texas rednecks.

Odd, the article doesn't mention the biggest French 'Faux Pas' of that battle, namely insisting the Genoese Crossbows left their Pavises (large shields) behind. The Pavises were pretty much proof against Longbows, and allowed the Crossbowman to reload relatively unmolested.

The Genoese pulled back from the field having taken ridiculous casualties, and were promptly run down by the French Knights.

MeanGreenStompa wrote:Remarkable weapon the Welsh longbow...

I do believe good sir it was the English Longbow that was used albeit by the Welshies

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:Odd, the article doesn't mention the biggest French 'Faux Pas' of that battle, namely insisting the Genoese Crossbows left their Pavises (large shields) behind.

I think it mentioned that, actually.

Gwar! wrote:

MeanGreenStompa wrote:Remarkable weapon the Welsh longbow...

I do believe good sir it was the English Longbow that was used albeit by the Welshies

I recall the American Longbow being superior to both.

Orkeosaurus wrote:

Gwar! wrote:

MeanGreenStompa wrote:Remarkable weapon the Welsh longbow...

I do believe good sir it was the English Longbow that was used albeit by the Welshies

I recall the American Longbow being superior to both.

Your post didn't come through. Luckily i have an image f the American Long bow as well. Allow me to insert

Frazzled wrote:

Orkeosaurus wrote:

Gwar! wrote:

MeanGreenStompa wrote:Remarkable weapon the Welsh longbow...

I do believe good sir it was the English Longbow that was used albeit by the Welshies

I recall the American Longbow being superior to both.

Your post didn't come through. Luckily i have an image f the American Long bow as well. Allow me to insert

Just as well you didn't post up Heston wielding a Breach Loader. Then it'd be a Scottish Longbow. Seeing as a Scot invented the breach loading rifle.

Irrelevant. We'd still call it American. In fact we'd call it A-mur-ican, and say it whiule eating our A-mur-ican Frankfurters and Hamburgers. Your pontsy bows stands no chance...HAGGIS EATER!

After all, the Kentucky rifle is taken from a German design.

Sounds like the history of my Orks. No matter who I fight against, no matter what their army is made up of, when they hear they're going up against Orks they sudeenly get one thought in their little rat brains. GUNLINE!!! fething boring.

Frazzled wrote:Irrelevant. We'd still call it American. In fact we'd call it A-mur-ican, and say it whiule eating our A-mur-ican Frankfurters and Hamburgers. Your pontsy bows stands no chance...HAGGIS EATER!

After all, the Kentucky rifle is taken from a German design.

You forgot your French Fries, fatty!

THEY'RE CALLED FREEDOM FRIES NOW, DAMMIT!

Why's everyone gotta be wit da terrists?

Orkeosaurus wrote:THEY'RE CALLED FREEDOM FRIES NOW, DAMMIT!

Why's everyone gotta be wit da terrists?

Can I have some Freedom Liqueur with my Freedom Sheep-Entrails-Boiled-In-Its-Stomach?

The Inquisition has found you out and declared you UNCLEAN for attempting to smuggle unholy haggis into our fine nation. You are sentenced to mod three disputes between HBMC and JohnnyH...

OUCH. I'd take death and banning over that.

Don't forget that the Black Prince was an expert tactician and a brilliant strategist.

Frazzled wrote:The Inquisition has found you out and declared you UNCLEAN for attempting to smuggle unholy haggis into our fine nation. You are sentenced to mod three disputes between HBMC and JohnnyH...

PAH! I laugh at your puny 'justice'

YOU MAY TAKE MY SANITY, BUT YOU WILL NEVER TAKE, MY OPINIONNNNNNNNNNNNN!

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

Frazzled wrote:The Inquisition has found you out and declared you UNCLEAN for attempting to smuggle unholy haggis into our fine nation. You are sentenced to mod three disputes between HBMC and JohnnyH...

PAH! I laugh at your puny 'justice'

YOU MAY TAKE MY SANITY, BUT YOU WILL NEVER TAKE, MY OPINIONNNNNNNNNNNNN!

You I like-one free box of toys for you's.

So...many...weapons.....


I'M IN HEAVEN! Only Frazz's here too.

Interestly Wellington wished he had access to a longbow regiment at Waterloo as they had a high rate of fire, better range and were more accurate than the muskets he had.

Frazzled wrote:

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

Frazzled wrote:The Inquisition has found you out and declared you UNCLEAN for attempting to smuggle unholy haggis into our fine nation. You are sentenced to mod three disputes between HBMC and JohnnyH...

PAH! I laugh at your puny 'justice'

YOU MAY TAKE MY SANITY, BUT YOU WILL NEVER TAKE, MY OPINIONNNNNNNNNNNNN!

You I like-one free box of toys for you's.

HOORAH!

The Empire is armed again! When will you Yanks learn?

Wolfstan wrote:Interestly Wellington wished he had access to a longbow regiment at Waterloo as they had a high rate of fire, better range and were more accurate than the muskets he had.

Nah, it was a senior officer, not Wellington himself. And this was probably due to the fact that even then there was a lot of romance about the longbow. It was a great weapon in the right circumstances, when a disorganised enemy meanders uphill towards you, but it also has to be remembered that musket armed troops pulled double duty, as a ranged threat and then as a block of infantry. Archers were purely a ranged threat, so perhaps the better question is whether you want some archers or more cannon.

TO be fair Sebster, if the Archer had been there, and deploed ala Empire Huntsmen (ranging foward in a skirmish formation) they'd have been of great use for shots of advantage then fading. One could almost (but not really I guess) approximate such a unit to modern day Commando units...

Long bow doesn't make alot of noise... Except when firing one triggers a Bryan Adams song...

Also, should they be able to get close enough, a few flaming arrows into the Frenchies Gunpowder storage would have brought the battle to a pretty early close I'd imagine.

Mind you, it's getting in range that'd be the bugger there.

I thought a couple of rows or archers behind the muskets would of been impressive. A rain of arrows coming down, with the muskets-bayonets to protect them

Nah, you'd need a hill.one knows Archers and other ranged weapons need LoS, which is blocked by models in fron....

Oh. Real life? Damn straight that would have looked wicked!

Archers killed loads of downed French knights during Agincourt with their wee little daggers.