"How do you beat the longbow?" Topic

I'm a very occasional medieval gamer. Having just read an account of Crecy it made me realise why? The Henry V "Cry Havoc" side of things certainly stirs my blood - but how on earth is anyone expected to beat a long bow equipped army?

The account of Crecy was an account of a massacre - mostly at long range. It had the air of colonial machine guns against flesh.

So - medieval gamers - how do you make it playable for the poor sob facing massed long bows?

Refought Crecy years ago using Lamming rules. Used screen of Crossbowmen, with light infantry, heavy infantry and mounted knights in blocks behind.

Crossbow oved forward, soaked up missile fire untoil light infantry close enough to charge longbow. Tied up longbow in combat (Units could not fight and fire) until heavy infantry got there. Used Cavalry to hit English knights.

French victory.

The longbow is largely overrated in many systems, IMHO.

To close this off before the membership system shuts down:

Dismount you knights. Without the exposed horseflesh you are much much less vulnerable.

run fast!!!

Duck

Crecy was decided by factors other than the longbow. It just happens that the other factors all made the longbow more effective.

The English position was at the top of a hill with protected flanks. The weather and visibility were also in the English favour - sun behind the english, light showers to muddy the gound but not enough to spoil archery, no mist so they could see where to shoot.

The French chain of command was screwed up - the various parts of the French army made no attempt to co-ordinate their attack.

The crossbowmen were sent forward without their pavises. So they were sitting ducks when they had to reload.

A cavalry charge uphill against a prepared position is never a good idea. ;-)

If the French had advanced with pavise protected crossbows and infantry with a small mounted reserve to exploit holes in the English line then they would have stood a much better chance.

Don't fight Crecy. Don't fight Agincourt. The French ad the English on the run strategically, and had no need to fight the battles. If you advance over open muddy fields against ANY missile army, Crecy and Agincourt happen. Surround and starve out the chevauchee'ing army.
Cut them off from supplies. Not glorious, not do-able on the gaming table, but the smart thing to do.

If the French had acted intelligently, Crecy and Agincourt would be mere villages in a medieval Atlas, and no one would ever have heard of them, outside of the mayor, of course.

Oh. One more thing. Do not confuse a wargame's
"simulation" with reality, even though some rules try to make that claim. They are blowing smoke, IMNSHO.

Don't attack them frontally. Work around flanks, and make the longbowmen move. They are much less effective. Don't let the English player choose horrible ground for the French to attack across--or a battlefield so constricted the French can's use their numerical superiority. Finally, no living human being can play a hand as poorly as the French did at Crecy and Agincourt.

K.

Fight only when it is pouring down rain?

Consider, the French fought in a "chivalric" manner upto and beyond Agincourt. They gave the enemy ample time deploy in their lines. There was no ambush or treachery.

For instance, at Agincourt, the English longbowmen, advanced to extreme range, planted stakes and then started the fight. This enrged the French nobility who in turn charged straight ahead.

An example where the English were not ready:

At Patay The English were still setting up their firing line (stakes and all). The French vangard heard the English over a ridge and charged full tilt. The stunned and unready English longbowmen were cut to peices. Casualties were something like 2000 English dead and 2 or 3 French.

Rouveray (Herrings) should have been a French victory as they had a lot of artillery and were using these guns to good effect. The Scotts, however, wanted to mix it up with the the English and advanced too early, keeping the French artillery from firing. The battle fell appart for the French very quickly after that.

Used properly, the English longbow was quite formidable. Used poorly, it was not so great. Toward the end of the war, the longbow lost dominance to longer ranged weapons (artillery). Finally, it is interesting to note that the English prevailed in the field but were much less successful in siege warfare.

Cheers!

John

The later 100 Year's war battles, tho much smaller, form a good example of how to handle an English army on the wargaming table: you start with the English "caught" in a tactical position not of their own choosing: then they form up the best they can, and the French attack intelligently. At Formigny, for example, they used cannon: the longbowmen issued from behind their stakes to attempt a capture of the cannon, then the French got to melee the longbowmen on superior terms (better armor, numbers, you know). It helped the French, too, that more men-at-arms came on the field later and made an overwhelming attack upon the English position possible from more directions than just frontally.

The idea that the longbow is "over-rated" is only true if the rules in question do not follow the RL physics. Rocky Russo designed our missile tables around the realities of missile weight, armor piercing versus broadhead points, angle of impact and distance, combined with armor classes (i.e. unarmored, shielded, mailed or steel plate as the surfaces the missiles are impacting against). Take into account the fact that 1,000 longbowmen shooting en masse are going to get off 6,000 rounds every minute and the "machingun" like effect is not inaccurate.

MtM www.1066.us

Removing the odd finger might help...

JDE

Hire Flemish Mercenaries and keep the French Knights at home (LOL)

Alternately, all Henry REALLY had to do was to bring out a gaggle of French Mistresses to Distract the French and have the Peasants kill 'em all with Misericords...LOL

Several good replies here, mostly "Don't attack longbows frontally when they're prepared".

This, in truth, is why I've lost my interest in HYW gaming, as beautiful as some of the coats of arms are.

"Q: Are English archers well set up and supported with secure flanks?

If yes, English victory.
If no, French victory."

Now, there were PLENTY of sieges and small skirmishes during the period that DIDN'T pivot around the longbow. Try some of them.

Gronan

One of the things I loved about the 1420-1700 Rules by George Gush (The God Father of Renaissance wargaming) was the fact that after three rounds of fire the bow-armed troops took a negative to show fatigue, et al.

Ricardus35 gave the best tactical advice. Screen, advance, murder. Do not worry about your inability to fire if you move your crossbows (assuming they are the light or open order screening troops we are using), they are a screen and expendable (i.e. they are there to die so your knights don’t have to). Once in range, charge through with your knights or Pavisiers (the guys en masse with spears or glaives).

You could also use this same screening tactic to deny him the full use and fields of fire with his LB then focus your attack on a portion of the field. 1000 LB are no good to him if only 100 or less) get to shoot at the primary threat.

Several folks above have made the very accurate reasons for why the longbow was so effective and later why it was not. To restate when the English got to chose the ground upon which they would fight and had time to prepare it was a bad day for the French. Later in the HYW the French began to have better leadership and did not let the English have time to set up their line of stakes. Basically if you are going to run Crecy or Agincourt in a wargame then it will be much like fighting Pickets Charge at Gettysburg. The rebs (or in the case of Crecy/Angicourt) the French are going to lose most of the time. So unless you just want to replay the afore mentioned battles it is more fun to do more of a HYW set piece that might allow for the English to get prepared but also allow the French the opportunity to hit the English before their longbowmwn are in place.

I vote rain, also. Dark might help to :P

Napalm.

Funny that had the English armies of Agincourt and Crecy been at Waterloo,the resulting long range rapid fire arrow salvo would have been more effective than the musketry.Ah for a Tardis....

Extend your front and advance. English may be able to hit
part of your line but not all of it unless they weaken
the center to extend to match your frontage.The moment\they extend your breakthrough should be assured.

If not,use Napalm as K McChutney states.

The HYW English are a shooty army. Not much beats a shooty army better than a move army. Get your cavalry, light or what have you, on the flanks or rear. Use terrain to the fullest. Shooty armies are often defensive as much as they are offensive in formulation and attacking a well-set shooty army is bad bad bad unless you have cheap crossbowmen (like those Italian mercs heh heh heh) to soak up the longbows. So, to counter the "well-set" shooty, get moving. Move around. Do not concentrate until the moment is ripe for attack and do everything possible to "pull" him out of his defensive position by letting that heavy cavalry skirt close enough and present their flank. Few players are patient enough to resist and may charge (foolishly) a quicker target (if presented). Once his line starts such a move, you have him because a shooty armie that attempts to become maneuverable is bad bad bad. Sort of gives you a new respect for those light horse archers.

Alternately, use your own counterfire against him. Load up on the regular bows, crossbows, etc. if available. Then creep (again, by using terrain) up to him and fire away.

Nuke 'em from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.

LOL!

Game over, man!

Simple

1.dont enter their "killing zone" ie a flank or rear attack

2.remain in the "killing zone" for only a short period ie fast moving mounted troops

3.dont enter the "killing zone" at all and try to counter them with other missile weapons (Castillon?)such as artillery - not to cause casualties to to break up the formations.

4. dont enter the killing zone except with very heaviliy armoured troops to reduce casualties.

5. Have a rule which limits the arrow supply? sneaky so they can be tempted to use up the arrows then you can remove their two "domestic fingers"

Mind you I've always been creamed by massed longbow no matter what I do...........

So the upshot is - only fight against massed longbows if you can neutralise, well - the massed longbows. I think local raiding party games might be the way to go.

Thank you - great advice, all of it fascinating. Thank you all.

Hi

Well, as a long time bowshooter...I find "3 volleys and then fatigue" silly.

As for longbow at waterloo...no one would have NOTICED..well the effect. Remember that the King had the choice of the BEST and only fielded 5k out of perhaps 50k. The lesster bow not hired were NOT the guys at agincourt. All Longbowmen are not created equal. So, the killer long range 70# drawweight guys would only be 5 k with a "tardis", not a big factor on a battlefield. Deployed in 8 to 16 ranks deep, they would really suffer from the #6 cannister shooting out of range, even musket would look good lobbed into that mass.

Rocky

Right, Rocky.

In brief - "Don't charge into a massed prepared longbow formation."

Here's an idea - let's come up with some neat HYW scenarios, historical or semihistorical, that are OTHER than
"Chargez les longbows, Mes Enfants!"
*TWANG!*
"Guck! or, perhaps, Guckez!"

This is the medieval section of "The Miniatures Page" - if we can't do it, who can?

Gronan

"What's a French knight say when you hit him in the stomach?"
"Egg!"

Get some Flemish peasants running towards them and just wait till the English run out of arrows, then send in your horsies.

Boduognat, king of Nervii

"Arrows are expensive. Send in the Phlegms."

Hi

One of the interesting features of Agincourt is that they DID run out of arrows....sort of. When the troops deployed that morn, they only had 2 sheeves of 24 total arrows at hand. While an archer can loose an arrow every 5 seconds in the general direction of the enemy, thus 12 rounds a minute, the problem is that most of the archers cannot see the enemy. Presumably there is someone calling the shot for all. I did some tests on this 25 some years ago and concuded that given this, the rof falls to 6 shots a minute. Long story.
Anyway, if you are familiar with the battle, the French STOOD out of range. And Stood And stood. Until the archers advanced beyond the stakes and started firing...then retreated back when the french moved.
But the army was travelling with wagons full of sheeved arrows, several hundred thousand. And they shuttled them forward for the archers.

The best way for the French to win is to emulate the dispised Italian Militia City State troops of the period, say the Milanese! Train your own bow and crossbow(the french did not because they disliked the idea of armed and trained peasants!), and have them screened by militia heavy infantry shield bearers. Also impossible as it would have ment arming the lowly.

Rocky...grinning

Gunpowder!

In facing shooty armies with longbows (whether they be Elves or English), I put the peasants out in front and let them soak up casualties until the knights get in charge range. If you are lucky, the peasants will route just about the same time that the knights are ready to charge. And if you lose a few peasants, who cares, the peasants will just make more...

Unhistorical? Yes.

Unchivalrous? Yes.

The type of tactics used only by slimey Mongol dogs? Yes.

Effective? Yes.

Zarquon,

You are a genius when it comes to peasants.
They're like Doritos, they'll make more.

As to Longbows, most rules do not give Longbow troops a realistic point value or cost. Sure the longbow is a good fairly inexpensively manufactured weapon, but it required quality training. Quality is a fairly recent concept. So the troops should cost more. How many hapless Russkies and Yanks did the well trained Nazis slaughter in battle? What was that tank ratio?

Besides, if you can't at least come close to a tie with a extremely outnumbered opponent, you must be a French general.

And stop playing the French, really.

Of course, the problem with using peasants is what happens after the battle. Who going to work the land and be taxed. Not mention that the French were somewhat dubious about the peasantry getting any military experience. The English remarked about how bad the French peasants condition was compare to their homeland.

Was the longbow really that effective in real life? I know it is a fearsome weapon but there are some accounts of Agincourt (I believe) that state that the English centre (the men at arms) were actually hard pressed in hand to hand until the archers laid down their bows and got stuck in knives, hammers etc. I realise this evidence is pretty thin but this would suggest to me that the bowman obviously caused casualties and enough disruption to the French attack that the impact on the (much much smaller) English centre was blunted and therefore just manageable and then the French were finished off with the bowman coming in from the flanks. I suspect that in mud, chaos etc the lightly protected archers could stay on their feet more easily and slip a dagger in between the chinks in the armour of the French knights. As the bodies piled up, the mud got churned etc it all just got worse and worse for the French.

Thoughts??

By the mid 15th century the longbow was resting on reputation and combatants perceptions of it, more then it’s reality. But moral/fear is more important then its abilities to wound.

The two styles of armour that appear during the same period were both design to deal with more powerful crossbow bolts. Certainly not complete proof even against primitive handguns but pretty effect anyway. This was particularly true for shots out side of short range.

Ah! But the genius of my strategy is that there are no peasants at the end of the battle. So none of them get any military experience and there is no threat of an uprising! As far as tending the fields, well a few more peasants may starve to death. So what?!

Hi

And how high is UP?

Yes, the 5000 archers at agincourt WERE that good. The 50,000 archers in the War of the Roses were Not.
The reputation of the longbow WERE based on the exploits of the elite archers in the Kings army. But they did not show that fearsome ability in the Roses. Simply, the expertise necessary was high.
Guns required nearly none.

Rocky

But Zarquon you will not have any to starve, as you got them killed all ready. But I guess you can buy your food maybe from Genoa, oops maybe thats a bad idea.

Dapeters:

Look at it like this, at the end of the battle there are not as many peasants to feed...