2.2 to 3 reasoning for no psiloi rear support

Various points:

The balance of protection v. armor is being addressed by having more powerful bows getting a CF of +3 v. Foot. It reflects typical medieval targets generally protected by mail or gambesons with lesser men at arms (the majority) have "soft" plate of low steel content but late in period wealthier nobles having hardened armor with reasonable steel content. Arrow heads improved through out the period and due to small size benefited earlier from the hardened techniques (all English arrow were required to be hardened after 1406). Hardened steel plate appeared around 1400 and very slowly spread it was not in general use until 1420 and then only my specialized units. Similarly crossbows became ever more powerful with various spanning devices but ever slower rate of shooting.

The +3 also reflects increased armor of medieval bowmen including crossbowmen who also often benefited from large shields. The willingness of longbow to pitch into hand to hand fighting is well documented - they were in effect Aux with bows.

There is no evidence that crossbow shot in volleys and even if so only half would be shooting at a time. Longbowmen out shooting crossbows due to rate of shooting is well attested in the sources and confirmed by modern tests.

As to poundage esp re composite bows - its a slippery subject. Historian and bowman Mike Loades has studied Chinese records from the Manchu period to determine typical composite bow draw weights. From experience he points out that a heavy bow is much easier to draw on foot than when mounted so he was not surprised to find 60-80lbs the typical weight recommended for horse archers. Exceptions existed as in all cultures (one of the Mary Rose Longbows has a 200lb weight but most are a more reasonable 100-120 pounds). (As an example of relative efficiency using 180 pound longbow got ranges of 298 while the same poundage composite reached 320).

Bear in mind that in DBA Cav "shoot" foot at +3 and LH when backed by a second supporting LH to compensate for numbers also shoot foot at +3. Foot archers at +3 only equalizes the numbers. (Range is another question is simple assumed that horse archers close and use mobility to compensate for numbers and managing a moving horse while shooting in the DBX model).

I'm would certainly be interested in any information about Ps types having a significant effect v. mounted by shooting blindly over the heads of friendly troops in ancient accounts. A practice unknown in the medieval periods and its hard to understand while a few Ps would be far more effective than massed bow shooting using this tactic. Its seems far more likely that the Ps pulled back behind the battleline to avoid being run over by mounted and then lobbied missiles overhead having nothing else to do.

TomT

The problem there snowcat, is that regardless of the power and ROF of the Asiatic horsebow, horse archers don't have the formation density of foot bowmen.

Hence the lower CV.

Isn’t medieval bow being stronger than ancient now covered by the slight boost of Lb and Cb? I know that technically there were also regular bows in that period, but how do you “fix” medieval bow vs ancient bow?

Medievalthomas is making the case that medieval LB and CB get a +1 due to their increased power relative to armor and the increased protection and weaponry of the bowmen. He feels all other archers are fine as is.

Quite separate from the push by others for a +1 for all solid BW, LB, and CB against heavy foot based on more general historical assessments.

For example Roman auxiliary archers were armored, carried swords or hand axes, and had bucklers or shields. T'ang infantry were armed with crossbows and halberds. At least comparable to AX.

You had not previously noted that your comments were addressed to medievalthomas's posts, therefore my replies.

In numerous other armies archers also had some sort of protection and an adequate close combat weapon - as comparable to their historical opponents as that of the medieval archers and crossbow.

Sorry snowcat, that got lost in the course of the discussion.

Not on TMP anymore due to a complaint from a 'snowflake.'

Perhaps that discussion should have gone on over at TMP (presuming it didn't) rather than being raised here where the discussion has been about solid BW vs solid foot in all periods.

Again CV with composite bows of lighter weight are already at +3 (while Bow are +2) v. Foot even though even CAV represent fewer shooters than mass foot bow and ROF is reduced by needing to handle a horse and need to circle back to reload arrows. So massed horse archers (including double rank LH) outshoot far more numerous foot bows against other foot - this is not correct. (Even if we raise better quality archers to +3 it's still in the words of Jeff Goldblum "A tie!" compared to less numerous horse archers.)

Whether armored Roman archers should qualify as +3 foot archers is a matter for the scenario designer. I've already covered the technical superiority of composite and recurve bows (which made them much more expensive to produce more prone to weather issues but by the same turn more powerful and efficient so that they could be made smaller to use on horseback). Yew bows have a natural composite feature though not quite as much as purpose built composite bows. So the rule has nothing remotely to do with "Eurocentricity".

In any case it is not a proposal for DBA 3.0 but is the rule in D3H2 where you may choose +3/+4 Shooters or +2/+4 Bow to represent massed Foot archers. The +3/+4 Shooters represent the actual historical performance against actual historical opponents of English longbows, hence the use of D3H2 for historical battles. (It also partially solves the Pike issue by making them cheaper.) So the many complaints that you cannot reproduce the results of HYW battles using DBX mechanics are incorrect as D3H2 does this without even needing to change any rules. (It does not actually fix crossbows - for that you have to go onto A Game of Knights & Knaves which is very medieval specific.)


The concept is based on the results of numerous battles, contemporary accounts and modern tests. If that is unconvincing just use the +2/+4 version which is also an option in D3H2.

TomT

But snowcat, the problem is that troop type span books. So bw in medieval period is a bw in ancient times. But the effects and interactions might change. So my question is did Alexander’s companions do just as well against indian bow as medieval bow did against medieval knights? The bows got better but so did the armor...

But was there period where bows did better against knights because
The armor hadn’t caught up? Or what about when bowmen started carrying clubs and wearing armor? Doesn’t
That change the interaction with other troop types?