crossbows

THE CROSSBOW:
The need was the one who created this weapon is that the war required a more powerful bow, able to pierce the metal getting better protection of the knights. The solutions passing through the compound bow or longbow but technical difficulties and construction of the first ten or fifteen years required to train a competent goalkeeper for the second, favored finding an alternative. Thus, the solution was the crossbow.

Appears at about the tenth century, in the siege warfare in northern France and quickly spread to Europe. Perhaps the Normans and used it in 1066, wowing the Byzantines in 1096 that he knows nothing about this weapon.

Early medieval crossbows were very primitive artifacts. Arch support is strained, simple type, on the floor and holding it with his feet, while with both hands pulled the rope to hold it in the notch of a primitive form of trigger lever pushing the rope, freeing. In the second half of the twelfth century, crossbows were powerful enough so that they could tighten by hand, which had to be introduced the stirrup, one piece attached to the carriage in which was inserted to hold the foot the arc. Then came mechanical systems to tighten the string based on the principle of the lathe.

Moreover, the crossbow was considered an artifact for sissies.The aristocratic contempt for the gun powered remote reaches of the Renaissance and the Empire while the Church tried to ban its use, its power and ease of use made it from spreading throughout Europe in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.

Thus, it is noted that the crossbow was normally used by mercenaries, often from Italy, where he came from the yew was considered the most appropriate for the construction of the arches, but identifies five types of wood for its completion.

Another advantage of the crossbow is found in their shells, used as darts (bolts, crew) shorter, solid pyramid head that were cheaper and perforating. The metal yard dart could penetrate armor inaccessible for an archer.

However, its disadvantage lay in the long time required to load, which was often needed the assistance of a squire carrying a light shield to protect the archer as he laboriously reloaded his gun at a rate of about two to four shots per minute, compared to ten or fifteen of an expert archer. And despite popular belief, the scope of a crossbow was not superior to that of a longbow or compound bow good but as we say, with more drilling capacity.Crossbows would be since the thirteenth century common elements not only in sieges, but in land or naval battles.

Returning to the above, to the Christian Nobility and the Church of Rome, the crossbow was a weapon damn scorned when not in vain one of his earliest representations in iconography was in the hands of a demon. Indeed, for a noble trained from childhood in the art of war, protected by a costly defensive armament was intolerable chance of getting beaten or killed for no one but a commoner like poorly trained, cowardly, by definition, and from adistance that was impossible a mere defense.

In fact, while a gentleman was usually captured respected by his peers, by class solidarity and for ransom, the archers and crossbowmen were massacred as a matter of routine and even noble an army could crush with his horse their own crossbow if in his way.

Hence the Second Lateran Council banned the use of deadly skill of archers and crossbowmen, but yes, only against other Christians. Obviously, these prohibitions would be ignored from the outset without any effect.

Of course, any of us now occur to us that the inventors or the crossbow turned to some kind of mechanism that would allow them to use the weapon more powerful at that time (the arc) to launch their projectiles (arrows) the known distance or even higher but with less effort. If you think about it what was intended would be to keep the arch in its tensioned position for as long as possible (even in minutes) to point and this does not lead to painful results in the arms of whoever was driving.

As you can imagine, after some (probably many) attempts was reached to place a horizontal arc on the tree, where to fix it, and then find a way to keep tension coupled with some sort of latch.Which are placed horizontally is explained, if we put the crossbow with the bow vertical (and without the restraints that have today) the arrow will fall to the ground and we do not do much good to the invention, also in this position have a clear view of the object pointed to, and although originally a system of references that serve as a view with which to aim.

When this system is perfected, over several centuries, were other advantages, including that users of this weapon does not need training so long as the archers to get to the target (it came to pass laws forcing archery practice every male of military utility given state at the time of the recruiting or cams) this difference in time to achieve acceptable results in the aim to become his original sin when talking about the nobility of this weapon or use in sports in front of goal. With the crossbow were achieved good reach (150 meters effective, but without precision) and the diversity of missiles that could be used was rather large (short, medium, long, metal, wood, sharpened wood, metal, feathers, no pens, ball-shaped, containing gunpowder grenades, stones ,...)

It was clearly not the perfect weapon, and had some drawbacks as any weapon that was used making it clear what would be the best conditions for its use. For example, the slack was so hard it was to be complemented with a system of springs mounted as the "bracket" the "kickstand", the "cranequín or squeak," the "mittens", etc.

Coupled with the attempt to achieve better performance with the crossbow tried giving it more power to this blade arc built of different materials: wood first, then several layers of different woods (compounds), iron, and finally steel or artificial fibers, synthetic compounds today.

Also have followed parallel paths with the bow and the bow simple switched to recurve and long after (now) to the pulley, well all these elements have been applied to the crossbow but taking advantage of some of them, for example, blades are usually shorter than the arcs (otherwise it would be manageable) versus a 60-inch bow we can find a crossbow just 28, with a crossbow recurve recurved than 48 to be 22 and facing a pulleys 38 or 40 a crossbow 25 (all approximate measurements, we all know there are brands, models and materials that give very different performance measures like), but always with one common factor, the crossbow will provide on average twice the power the arc though as can be seen in the technical side, the end result will be similar in speed and scope of the arrows (bolts, darts, bolts, arrows).

A LITTLE HISTORY:
The written and physical evidence suggest that the crossbow was discovered in China during the fourth century BC, while a type of crossbow called gastrafetes independently invented in Greece about the same period. It was not until the tenth or eleventh century AD that the crossbow became a significant military weapon in Europe. It was withdrawn from service in armies around the sixteenth century, but their use for hunting and target shooting has continued until today.

Most of this chronology is taken from GUIDE OF THE CROSSBOW by Paterson:

341 BC First records reliable crossbows were used in the Battle of Ma-Ling in China.

First AC 228 remains of crossbows, a latching mechanism in bronze found in the tomb of Yu Wang

DC 0-100 Hero of Alexandria describes Gastrafetes.

300-700 AD Roman statuette of crossbows.

385 Vegetius mentions crossbows in the work De Re Militari.

1066 Crossbows are introduced into England by the Normans.

1096 Anna Comnena describes Norman crossbows.

1100-1200 crossbows blades appear composed.

1139 the second Lateran Council injunction prohibits the use of crossbows against other Christians.

1192 The victory of the Crusaders in Jaffa achieved with the help of springs.

1314 First remains reliable steel blades.

Ballesteros defeated Genoa 1346 in Crecy by English longbow archers (Longbowmen).

First illustrations of cranequín 1373.

1503 First of many English laws restricting possession and use of crossbows.

1150-1600 Firearms replace crossbows in most Western armies.

Photographic evidence showed in 1860 China repeater crossbows still used as weapons of war.

1939-45 "Arrowspeed" is the crossbow used by Australian commandos in the Pacific theater.

1945-75 leaf springs are used by mountaineers and the special forces of the United States during the Vietnam conflict.

1960 -? Crossbows are used to trigger anesthetic darts in the capture and treatment of wildlife, are also used to obtain tissue samples in marine animals and obtain genetic information.

How do I mount the crossbow?
Aid to mount the crossbow (mount = take the rope from the rest position to the clamping where it remains bound by a restraint).

When the crossbow appeared at the beginning, the arches did not differ greatly from those used usually classical arch, so they could tighten without need for hand pulling and holding the bow of the crossbow with feet subject.

As the improved performance of the arcs of the bow (new materials, several layers of wood, iron, steel, ...) are able to increase the power of the arc and thus also increased the effort required to move that rope, which was needed any help for it.

The first was the stirrup, like the one used for riding, but applied to the front end of the body of the crossbow, were the most common string and then iron.

When he could not still with the rope other systems were developed such as:

The CRANEQUIN, a mechanical device by turning a crank to tighten the rope to move the gear by the guide also notched.

Turning (windlass) placed in the back of the bow, a rope coiled on a shaft and through the hooks that held the rope tightened the rope until the firing position.

The Kickstand (goat foot) lever through which the rope is forced to go back.

Essentially these machines exist today in most modern versions and some electrically operated for people who want to use physical lessened the crossbow for hunting or sporting activities.

These elements are what made to load the crossbow was so slow compared to the arc and therefore the use of protective shields and other elements, but not lose sight of that without such aid, bend a bow of crossbow with 400lb or more isIMPOSSIBLE TO DO IT BY HAND.

crossbows - crossbows

Featured pictures

Family & friends

Favorite sites

Guestbook

Related Pages