"Reloading Crossbowmen" Topic

In a typical crossbowmen unit, what percentage of figures should be in a reloading pose?

Any %. The concept of volley fire is later, perhaps 16th century notion.

100% would seem rather boring…

Volley fire is cool. Have done it reenacting with a Krag carbine. Then some Spaniard shot me.
I would say maybe a 1/3 should be reloading.

Crosbowmen reloading..

Whatever looks best to you! – if you want a historically accurate sustained shooting unit, about 90% loading in various poses would probobly be right, but dull!

For modelling purposes, I would suggest modelling most of the first rank as firing, and the second rank(s) mainly as reloading.

Agreed, volley shooting was done by any professional crossbow during the middle ages. The opening of Crecy makes that detail quite clear. But also agreed, a whole unit in a reloading pose would look boring. Mix 'em up, says I….

"Agreed, volley shooting was done by any professional crossbow during the middle ages"

Did they volley fire by rank, by platoon or by whole unit? What's the evidence?

What Griefbringer says for me

I suppose it would be a bit like firing by introduction

I'd say about half in some form of reloading position. A variety of poses always makes for a nice looking unit in that period.

Did they volley fire by rank, by platoon or by whole unit? What's the evidence?

Those are the devilish details we cannot know, especially across the board. "Volley" can be in any depth. For the English at Agincourt it was clearly well over eight ranks deep. For Richard I's crossbowmen at Jaffa, it was specifically stated as two ranks deep, with the second rank doing the reloading and passing crossbows to the front rank, i.e. only one rank firing. And even here, it does not assert "volley" shooting, that is, all at once on command; it could have simply been "shoot at will". But crossbows did and do not have a trajectory problem with shooting in depth, any more than bows did or do. Beyond point blank range, ALL the rear ranks can shoot, because they elevate over the heads of the men in front. All that is required is a "caller" who can see the target, raise to the correct trajectory and angle; and the rest of the company will "loose" on command, mimicking the visible angle and trajectory of the "caller". That scenario, btw, is a hypothesis, not based on any original source description. It would work. But did any/all bow units do it that way?

The kicker detail is when the number of missle troops and the frontage available demands that volley shooting be utilized, or else the back ranks who could not see would be standing about useless. Would they do that? I do not believe so. Another phenomenon demanding volley shooting is "screened fire" (apologies for use of the anachronistic term): a line of spear/pike in front of archers/crossbows demands some kind of called command; the shooters cannot see the target at all.

In my opinion, volley shooting was done by company level; I cannot see an entire batallion/unit many yards wide following the visual and audible command of a single "caller". So even at Agincourt, archers shot vollies by "century", or c. 100 man companies. The English line would have appeared to be ejecting dense clots of arrows a hundred at a time all up and down the entire front….

In my opinion, volley shooting was done by company level; I cannot see an entire batallion/unit many yards wide following the visual and audible command of a single "caller".

Commands could be issued with horns (or other instruments) well beyond the audible range of a single human voice.

As for the term company, in the medieval times that term could be used for units of widely varying sizes, many of whom were administrative rather than tactical units. The modern concept of a company tends to be more of 16th century origins.

1/3 to 1/2 would suit me but then I am a skirmisher so we are only looking at one or two at most.

Stirrups were common sense also, yet, thousand years passed before someone thought of it…

Commands could be issued with horns (or other instruments) well beyond the audible range of a single human voice.

But a horn or other instrument does not establish the angle and trajectory for those back ranks who cannot see the target. Perhaps if the horn or other instrument call out the three stages of shooting – load, draw, loose – and the front ranks provide the visual angle and trajectory for the "blind" rear ranks, that would work.

But on the subject of volley shooting: would the release of c. 5000 arrows at the same time be more devastating on morale and cohesion than scattered vollies of say 100 missiles impacting here and there at random intervals? I am envisioning the target in dreadful anticipation, head down, shield up: when is the next impact of the missiles deluge going to be received? If the whole army shoots on command, would this not establish a rhythm that the target could anticipate? Whereas, if volley shooting was performed at a "company" level, the target would not be able to sense when the next volley might be coming; which uncertainty would create a higher level of dreadful anticipation; which would affect morale, while unit cohesion would suffer because of the necessity of keeping head down and shield up continuously. Just some thoughts I had this morning on a tenderly emotional subject, dear to my (blessed, little, pea-pickin') heart….

I've always been a bit suspicious of film representations of bowmen shooting by volley; surely, holding a longbow at full draw while waiting for Larry Olivier etc to give the signal is going to cause unnecessary strain and fatigue at the beginning of an action of unknown duration…
Doesn't apply to crossbows of course…

you do not allow your archer to hod, you command ready arrow, draw (they take there amining cue from the senor archer in front) take a beat to allow everyone to exhale and center and command fire.

I have commanded 80 archers at a renactment 4 ranks 20 wide where we were seiging a castle gate (wich I made with towers, swinging gate and wall).

what was intresting the defenders could see the archers loose thier arrow and take cover so volley fire after 4 volleys was not effective (the unaware where dead) so I gave the order to break and had the archer go to general support of the assult.

Lord Ghee

I am definitely in the camp that individual archers, crossbowmen and early gunners had chosen their targets and fired at individually. I suspect that even English longbow men when given the command to fire (what ever that was) let loose and then kept shooting until they were out of arrows, rapidly but at their own pace. In the books that I've read the authors tend to use the term sharp shooter for the translation from the original source material.

I don't use crossbowmen. Just kidding.

For me it's 0% reloading. I want my crossbowmen in the pose doing what they were hired to do and that's firing!

@dapeters: your scenario has thousands of archers at Agincourt standing around in the rear doing nothing, because they can't SEE. The "shoot at will" method would apply for the front ranks as the enemy closed within pointblank range; assume, then, that the ranks further back would be lobbing arrows very high so as to come down vertically on the heads and shoulders of the target, as it gets perforated with direct shots from the front….

Merlin, No not at all I suspect that the Longbowmen where told what to shoot at and presumptively what the range was otherwise how would the rear ranks know where to shot because as you said "they can't SEE." I believe they were then given the command to fire just once and each just kept
shooting until they ran out of arrows, hence the rain effect.

"The "shoot at will" method would apply for the front ranks as the enemy closed within pointblank range; assume, then, that the ranks further back would be lobbing arrows very high so as to come down vertically on the heads and shoulders of the target, as it gets perforated with direct shots from the front…."

Not just point blank these are supposedly powerfully bows able to shoot further on a flat or pretty close to flat trajectory, which means what for the back ranks? And then begs the question at what range was the best result for the a unit? Also at point blank (say less then the depth of ranks) the back ranks are pretty useless really. Shooting straight up (well very close to it) with such bows would be iffy and potentially disastrous. Of course being on the side of a hill as they did on occasion certainly allows
back ranks to see their target.

The range changes. The typical scenario is that one army stands on the defensive, the other assaults. Cavalry close quickly, infantry not so much: the visual indicators would be the front ranks who can see. The rear ranks could not use any other indicator on the spot.

The interesting thing about shooting at will versus commanded volley shooting, is that it is at least twice as fast; resulting in the same volume of missiles delivered. And that is not counting any high trajectory shooting from the rear ranks.

Pointblank range is not questionable; we can know this with complete accuracy. For all bows it goes away between 50 and 100 yards. The more powerful the bow, of course, the longer the pointblank range. It has been many years since I had the numbers in my head: but iirc, the standard longbow of c. 70# draw had a pointblank range of c. 70 yards; the heavier 100# draw had a pointblank range closer to 100 yards. My c. 55# glass and wood recurve has a pointblank range just over 50 yards; my 80# aluminum (Whammo!) crossbow pointblank range was over 60 yards; and my 150# glass crossbow has a pointblank range of c. 75 yards….

I think your confusing point blank with simply shooting on a flat trajectory. I've always understood the term to mean, right(immedately) in front of you or so close can not miss.

Not mideval, but early battles in fudal japan often began with bow duels, and most shots were fired on a flat trajectory. This was in the thirtenth century perhaps.

As armies became larger, volly fire was used and while the bow and skill with it remained an important skill for a samuri to maintain, it was not a skill commonly used in battle by the 16th century.

I dont know how that corrosponds to Europe, but I would imagine that in the dark ages smaller warbands allowed archers to fire at targets of their choice, and likely at fairly close range.

@dapeters: I believe that the term point blank range is medieval in origin and refers to the point of the arrow covering the target: every shot inside of that point is where the marksman can see the target because his eyes are above the weapon. Medieval crossbowmen held their weapons under their arms and kept their heads well above the stock, thus increasing the point blank range through parallax: if the crossbow were held directly under the eye like a long gun then raising the weapon to achieve a trajectory to reach the target would block the shooter's view of the target with the stock of the weapon. By keeping the head well above the stock, the weapon can be raised to reach a target further away without blocking the view of the target. Similarly, archers unavoidably have parallax and therefore have a considerable range to the target before the point, at the end of the fist, and the bow arm get in the way of viewing the target: at the point where the point of the arrow covers the target, the maximum limit of point blank range has been reached. All targets beyond the point where they can be seen directly are outside of or beyond point blank range….

29%. Anything else looks silly.

Thanks Doug, I had no idea, however I think for our purpose it better to use modern meanings of the words and avoid possible confusion.

If you are reloading crossbowmen, what are you firing them from?