| In fact armour was still being used in the first world war (well the beginning of it) the french cavalry wore big shiney easy to see brass breastplates (and bright red trousers so you really can't miss them). Odly this pleased the german armies who were amassed on the border with rifles.
And yes, the musket wasn't as effective as people would like to think because A it took longer to fire than a bow (right up till bolt action rifles which didn't really see action till the mid 18th century) and B until rifling was introduced as well as more tightly packed gunpowder in pre made rounds guns were inaccurate and often the powder charge was improperly mixed and so the range and power were greatly reduced... the main reason for muskets killing so many people as they did in wars was the lovely habbit armies had of lining up oposite each other... the second reason was the idea of using the three ranks of a standard infantry column to alternate between firing and loading to creat effectively a constant rate of fire.
Crossbows though are a bone of contention as far as I can tell - seems some think they were highly accurate and long range, others say the were incredibly powerful (the big heavy crossbows) but wildly innacurate so only effective at short range... |