Why Did the English Use Longbows Rather Than Recurves? (ancient, Romans, European)

[Exitus Acta Probat]

The recurve bow design predates Rome, so why did the English use longbows more than a millennium after the recurve had been invented?

[Leovigildo]

Exitus

They were more powerful.
Long bows are the most potent bows there are, far more potent than any modern bow, two times more potent than crossbows.
Other bows and crossbows are easier to handle, crossbows were very precesise and easy to handle, but not powerful.
So Long Bows were just modern artillery at Agincourt.
English archers could shoot continously.
The problem with longbows was that you needed years of training, but those archers were professionals.

[Irishtom29]

Compared to a composite recurve bow the longbow is much easier and cheaper to make. As the longbow was intended for infantry it's length didn't matter (composite recurve bows being well suited to cavalry who need a powerful bow that's short). The longbow was cheap and serviceable, like an AK-47.

[Exitus Acta Probat]

Indeed, further research indicates the ease at which they're made was a large factor. A good bowyer can apparently make a long bow in a matter of hours.

Leovigildo, are you saying long bows are more powerful than even compound bows?

[BlackShoe]

The famed English longbow developed from earlier Viking,Welsh,and Norman,who were Viking descendents,weapons.The longbow did not reach full developement until around the mid 13th century.The bows used at Hastings in 1066 by the Normans were shortbows,not the poweful weapon that would start to dominate European warfare two centurys later.English archers were chosen for their size and strength as well as skill.Europeans faced the composite bow during the Crusades,but never much adoped it.As well as being more costly and time consuming to make,the composite bow was not quite as accurate as the less sensitive longbow.The recurve or composite bow will magnify any shooting errors.The composite bow was most effective as a cavalry weapon,as the deadly horse archers of the Huns,Magyars,Mongols and Turks have shown.Being an infantry weapon used by big,strong highly skilled archers,the longbow usually had a very high draw weight,and its arrows could pierce all but the very finest plate armor at close range,ordinary chain mail at medium ranges,and kill an an unarmored man at long distances.

[Irishtom29]

According to my book "Longbow" by Robert Hardy some longbows had a draw weight as high as 150 pounds and remains of medieval English archers show skeletal deformations indicitive of VERY heavy upper body musculature.

Which means they were pretty damned dangerous when they laid their bow down and started laying into people with their maul.

[Exitus Acta Probat]

Originally Posted by BlackShoe

Europeans faced the composite bow during the Crusades,but never much adoped it.

Sure they did. The Greeks, Romans, and other Indo-Europeans around the Mediterranean used them.

http://www.cavazzi.com/roman-empire/.../archer-01.jpg

[Irishtom29]

Originally Posted by Exitus Acta Probat

Sure they did. The Greeks, Romans, and other Indo-Europeans around the Mediterranean used them.

http://www.cavazzi.com/roman-empire/.../archer-01.jpg

I think he means the Crusaders and western Europeans of the time didn't adopt it. Seems for them it was pretty much simple bows and crossbows and then pretty soon the gun.

[BlackShoe]

Originally Posted by Exitus Acta Probat

Sure they did. The Greeks, Romans, and other Indo-Europeans around the Mediterranean used them.

http://www.cavazzi.com/roman-empire/.../archer-01.jpg

In the armies of ancient Greece,Macedonia,and Rome the bow was not an important weapon.It was used by skirmishers and auxiliaries,but the main army depended on armored heavy infantry.In the Middle Ages,the period under discussion,the primary missile weapon on the Continent was the crossbow,later to become the arbalast;more powerful than the English longbow as far as penetrating armor went,easier to train a man to use,but more expensive to make,shorter range,and much slower rate of fire.The composite recurved bow was never in widespread use anywhere in Europe,either in ancient or medieval times.

[Exitus Acta Probat]

Originally Posted by BlackShoe

In the armies of ancient Greece,Macedonia,and Rome the bow was not an important weapon.It was used by skirmishers and auxiliaries,but the main army depended on armored heavy infantry.In the Middle Ages,the period under discussion,the primary missile weapon on the Continent was the crossbow,later to become the arbalast;more powerful than the English longbow as far as penetrating armor went,easier to train a man to use,but more expensive to make,shorter range,and much slower rate of fire.The composite recurved bow was never in widespread use anywhere in Europe,either in ancient or medieval times.

The Parthians and Persians, although not in Europe as we currently define it, were Indo-European and made a lot of use of their archers if I'm not mistaken.