Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name
Speaker 2: is Robert.
Speaker 3: Lamb and I am Joe McCormick. And on today's episode
Speaker 3: of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, we're going to be
Speaker 3: doing one of our invention episodes where we look at
Speaker 3: an invention from history, look at what came before, what
Speaker 3: this invention changed, how it works, and Rob the subject
Speaker 3: you have picked for today's series is the crossbow. Now
Speaker 3: I have to ask, is there a Dungeons and Dragons
Speaker 3: related origin story to you wanting to cover this?
Speaker 2: I mean pretty much, Yeah.
Speaker 3: I think there often is. With you, I feel like
Speaker 3: I can I can tell when it's coming.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because the crossbow, of course, is all over Dungeons
Speaker 2: and Dragons. I've definitely role played characters that had crossbows.
Speaker 2: But the thing that's always fascinated me about crossbows and
Speaker 2: role playing games is that is how that is the
Speaker 2: way they're depict it, because a lot of times they
Speaker 2: do end up just becoming guns. You know, they're like blasters,
Speaker 2: they'd shoot crossbow polts, and in a lot of games,
Speaker 2: you don't put a lot of emphasis on the device
Speaker 2: itself and how it's working, and any kind of like
Speaker 2: realistic idea about how it's loaded and reloaded. In Dungeons
Speaker 2: and Dragons, that's the way it tends to go, Like
Speaker 2: you can just fire your crossbow every turn, it's no
Speaker 2: big deal. But years back, my gaming group did another
Speaker 2: role playing game, and this one was one that was
Speaker 2: tied in with Dragon Age. I believe, and I may
Speaker 2: have my memory may be crossed on some of these
Speaker 2: things here and there, because it was like a good
Speaker 2: ten years ago at this point. But if memory serves,
Speaker 2: the crossbow mechanics in that game were perhaps a little
Speaker 2: more accurate to a lot of crossbow technology and some
Speaker 2: of the examples we'll discuss here. But it was also
Speaker 2: decidedly un fine because there's one of these situations where
Speaker 2: I often go into gaming, role playing gaming sort of
Speaker 2: like imagination first, rules second, like I'll make choices that
Speaker 2: may come back to bite me in the butt because
Speaker 2: I didn't think about how the rules would impact my choices.
Speaker 2: And this was definitely a case like that. Because I
Speaker 2: had decided I was going to be a dwarf. I
Speaker 2: was gonna have this cool crossbow, but said crossbow, as
Speaker 2: it turns out, had to be reloaded for an entire
Speaker 2: turn after use. So we get into a battle and
Speaker 2: my dwarf would fire this crossbow, you know, probably miss,
Speaker 2: and then the next turn he's just cranking this sucker
Speaker 2: or you know, he has it on the ground like
Speaker 2: redrawing the bow of the crossbow and then gets to
Speaker 2: fire and miss on the following turn.
Speaker 3: Now, that might not be more fun, but that is
Speaker 3: more accurate because one of the big changes you see
Speaker 3: across the history of crossbows is not so much changes
Speaker 3: to the basic design of the crossbow itself, but spanning mechanisms,
Speaker 3: mechanism for how you load and draw the string and
Speaker 3: lock it into place. So, yeah, I can imagine D
Speaker 3: and D would be a lot more cumbersome if you
Speaker 3: know your rogue had to get out a cranic quin
Speaker 3: every single time to crank the crossbow back and sitting
Speaker 3: there like trying to wind it up.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it could get It can get tedious, which is
Speaker 2: I think is why in Dumers and Dragons you tend
Speaker 2: to find the crossbow just fires each turn and you
Speaker 2: just just assumed that you are you have enough skill
Speaker 2: to make it happen. I don't know, there's probably some
Speaker 2: sort of way you could make make the mechanics of
Speaker 2: it more engaging, but I think probably just firing at
Speaker 2: each turn is the best way to go well.
Speaker 3: And some of the loading or spanning mechanisms do appear
Speaker 3: to have been faster than others in history, so not
Speaker 3: all of them had like a like a windlass or
Speaker 3: a cranic when one of these big cranking mechanisms. There
Speaker 3: were also mechanisms where you just have like a stirrup
Speaker 3: that you put your foot in, then you pull it
Speaker 3: back and that works pretty quick.
Speaker 2: Yeah, assuming you have firm ground underfoot. I ran across
Speaker 2: mention of an ancient Chinese text that was warning against
Speaker 2: using crossbows if you were on like damp ground, and
Speaker 2: which makes sense, like suddenly you have your crossbowman out there.
Speaker 2: They need the fire, they need a reload, but uh oh,
Speaker 2: you have trouble either getting your foot down into it.
Speaker 2: Or it may be a situation where you need to
Speaker 2: lie on your back and then stretch it against your feet,
Speaker 2: and that could also might or might not work, depending
Speaker 2: on how muddy the terrain is.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you could imagine that, and I guess you would
Speaker 3: probably need stable footing even though like so the stirrup
Speaker 3: method you're pulling against yourself. You might have like a
Speaker 3: hook on your belt or something to pull the mechanism
Speaker 3: back while you push in the stirrup with your foot,
Speaker 3: but then you'd probably need to have the other foot
Speaker 3: on stable ground.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but you know, I think all this is kind
Speaker 2: of the appeal of the crossbow is as like an
Speaker 2: idea we were talking before we came in to record here.
Speaker 2: How like for my own part, growing up in Tennessee,
Speaker 2: being in boy scouts, you had the opportunity to fire
Speaker 2: rifles on shooting ranges, You got the opportunity to fire
Speaker 2: to use bow and arrow on archery ranges. But I
Speaker 2: never had the chance to try out a crossbow, And
Speaker 2: so the crossbow was always this kind of like mysterious
Speaker 2: thing in between. And yet unlike a gun, you could
Speaker 2: still look at it and even as a kid, you know,
Speaker 2: understand like the basic principles of how it worked. Well.
Speaker 3: Yeah, because with a crossbow, I mean, just like with
Speaker 3: a bow, there can be a lot of different design
Speaker 3: elements that could improve features of how it works, improve usability,
Speaker 3: improve the energy delivered or the draw length or whatever
Speaker 3: the speed of the projectile. But still at core. A
Speaker 3: crossbow operates on the same principle as a bow.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and of course, yeah, to discuss the crossbow, we're
Speaker 2: going to have to talk a little bit about the
Speaker 2: bow at least. And there it's not just a situation
Speaker 2: where well, we had the bow and then we created
Speaker 2: the crossbow. Who just threw out those bows away? It's
Speaker 2: not nearly as simple as that. And we'll discuss some
Speaker 2: of the famous examples of crossbows going up against bows
Speaker 2: and how that played out. But the oldest evidence for
Speaker 2: the bow and arrow, as cited by Brian Imfigan and
Speaker 2: Peter Rowley Conley in the seventy Great Inventions of the
Speaker 2: Ancient World, goes back ten thousand years to the early
Speaker 2: Mesolithic period in Denmark. This is a thousand years later
Speaker 2: than the earliest evidence of arrows twelve thousand years ago
Speaker 2: in what is now Germany. In stone erawhead date back
Speaker 2: eighteen tho to twenty thousand years ago in Spain, and
Speaker 2: possibly have arrow points from sixty to seventy thousand years
Speaker 2: ago in South Africa. The problem with ancient bows, of course,
Speaker 2: is that they were almost always made of organic materials
Speaker 2: that just do not survive the test of time, with
Speaker 2: the actual arrowheads being the most long lasting part of
Speaker 2: the combined weapon technology.
Speaker 3: Right, So you'll find evidence of arrowhead heads going back
Speaker 3: longer than clear evidence of the bows themselves. And yeah,
Speaker 3: I think that example you mentioned from South Africa, like
Speaker 3: the Sibudu Cave, is one of the earliest I've read about.
Speaker 3: But that's arrowhead evidence, right right.
Speaker 2: So no, absolutely, nobody that I've come across is making
Speaker 2: any argument that the crossbows go back nearly that far.
Speaker 2: I think it's it's clear, there's clear indication that the
Speaker 2: bow came first, of course, but it is also you know,
Speaker 2: worth noting that even with things like the crossbow, the
Speaker 2: crossbow is still made out of mostly organic materials, with
Speaker 2: the main differences being Okay, you have, of course the
Speaker 2: head of the bolt, which may be made out of
Speaker 2: a metal of some sort, and then, as we'll discuss
Speaker 2: later on, you also have the lock of a crossbow.
Speaker 2: This is the implement that holds back the drawn string.
Speaker 2: And so when this is made out of metal, we
Speaker 2: may find evidence of it, such as bronze crossbow from China.
Speaker 2: Now on the show before we've talked a bit about
Speaker 2: the history of projectile weapons, particularly, I think most recently,
Speaker 2: we did a series of episodes on animals throwing things,
Speaker 2: and then we did one on humans throwing things, and
Speaker 2: that was really interesting because you got into a lot
Speaker 2: of situations where you're not just throwing any rock, you're
Speaker 2: throwing specially prepared rocks, or you're throwing things like hunting
Speaker 2: sticks at animals that sort of thing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you can have modifications of the projectiles themselves, but
Speaker 3: in terms of launching technology, we actually did a whole
Speaker 3: other invention episode back when we had a separate invention
Speaker 3: podcast on the odd loadel, which was a piece of
Speaker 3: launching technology that was essentially a lever arm to get
Speaker 3: increased leverage on a spear.
Speaker 2: So these various non bow and pre bow missile weapon technologies,
Speaker 2: these had a huge impact on the world of hunter gatherers.
Speaker 2: You know, extended the range of human violence beyond physical
Speaker 2: human reas each and by the time the bow comes
Speaker 2: along and starts spreading, this just extends the range even farther.
Speaker 2: And of course it all served to extend human dominance
Speaker 2: over animals and other hominids as well as transforming conflict
Speaker 2: between humans. Now, one of the basics about the bow,
Speaker 2: the bow and arrow. And this is something that is
Speaker 2: obvious I think by watching it in action, is that,
Speaker 2: as a Fagan and Raleigh Conley point out, the bow
Speaker 2: is essentially a spring that stores energy when the bow
Speaker 2: string is drawn. Then when the string is released, that
Speaker 2: energy is transferred into the propulsion of the arrow. Different
Speaker 2: types of wood provided different advantages, and eventually compound bows
Speaker 2: made use of multiple parts to provide maximized performance.
Speaker 3: Yes, it is worth noting that despite the different form
Speaker 3: and the different way you hold these weapons, a bow
Speaker 3: and a crossbow both typically work on the same mechanical principle,
Speaker 3: which is the principle of the spring, by storing energy
Speaker 3: in the form of elastic potential and then releasing that
Speaker 3: potential suddenly to propel an arrow in the case of
Speaker 3: a bow, or a bolt in the case of a
Speaker 3: crossbow at high speed. Now, when you shoot a bow,
Speaker 3: there's actually a common misconception that the energy comes from
Speaker 3: stretching the bow's string. Even though I know better, I
Speaker 3: think sometimes my brain still wants to think this way.
Speaker 3: But the string of a bow really doesn't stretch you
Speaker 3: very much at all, So that's not where the energy
Speaker 3: has come from. Coming from the energy comes from bending
Speaker 3: the bow itself, bending the limbs of the bow, and
Speaker 3: when you pull the string, it bends the bow. When
Speaker 3: you release the string, the bow returns to its original shape,
Speaker 3: and it propels the arrow as it does so because
Speaker 3: it is pulling the string taut, so the string is
Speaker 3: sort of a medium. It's how you pull the bow
Speaker 3: back and how the snapping back energy of the bow
Speaker 3: is delivered to the arrow.
Speaker 2: This is why Leglas says, and my bow and my strength.
Speaker 3: That's right now. If you've never actually shot a bow
Speaker 3: at a target, you might be shocked how much strength
Speaker 3: it takes to draw back a bow. You know, I've
Speaker 3: done this at various points in my life. Most recently
Speaker 3: several years back, I did a goofy little archery range
Speaker 3: at a Renaissance festival, and even in that setting, I
Speaker 3: remember being shocked at how difficult it was to pull
Speaker 3: back the bow, and surprised at how aiming the bow
Speaker 3: was made so much more difficult than it looks because
Speaker 3: of the tension when you're holding a drawn bow, so
Speaker 3: you're flexing, you know, maybe as hard as you can
Speaker 3: when you pull a bow string back, and that intense
Speaker 3: exertion makes it harder to aim your shot. Your arm
Speaker 3: might want to tremble your straining with your whole body,
Speaker 3: You're also putting a lot of strain on your hand
Speaker 3: and your fingers that are holding the bow string back.
Speaker 3: So imagine trying to aim something precisely while you're in
Speaker 3: the middle of a bench press or some other weight lift.
Speaker 3: And so it's easy to see how a crossbow really
Speaker 3: changes the game. There. A crossbow allows the tension of
Speaker 3: the bow to be locked in place and then released
Speaker 3: by an external mechanism instead of being drawn, held and
Speaker 3: released purely by the strength of your muscles and bones.
Speaker 2: That's right, and this is where the genius of the
Speaker 2: crossbow comes in because the crossbow, I mean you can
Speaker 2: almost think of the crossbow as like a robotic or
Speaker 2: technological replacement for the arm or the arms in this scenario,
Speaker 2: because once the bow is drawn back, this trigger or
Speaker 2: lock holds everything in place, holds all of that potential
Speaker 2: power in place, and then it can be released by
Speaker 2: pulling a trigger.
Speaker 3: And this is a point I actually saw emphasized by
Speaker 3: the author of a book I'm gonna mention at some
Speaker 3: point in the series that a big difference between say
Speaker 3: somebody who was a skilled archer with a long bow
Speaker 3: versus somebody who was a skilled crossbow operator. In the
Speaker 3: medieval period, say, a big difference would be the level
Speaker 3: of fitness required in order to be a long bow operator.
Speaker 3: There is just like way more requirement of real upper
Speaker 3: body strength and training, of physical training, not just skill training.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a lot of skill involved for the use
Speaker 2: of a bow, and I should highlight they are going
Speaker 2: to be differences depending on where and how a bow
Speaker 2: is utilized for what specific hunting or military uses and
Speaker 2: so forth. I mean, for example, there's a difference between
Speaker 2: the skill of of of a bowman on foot and
Speaker 2: a mounted archer out there in a battle scenario. But
Speaker 2: one of the primary examples of archery expertise that I'm
Speaker 2: gonna mentioned here and also pops up in a lot
Speaker 2: of the literature is, of course the archers who used
Speaker 2: the English long bow. This was a powerful bow that
Speaker 2: required a considerable amount of upper body strength, and you
Speaker 2: had to work for years to build up the strength
Speaker 2: to use these weapons, and generally had to start at
Speaker 2: a very early age. More on the English long bow
Speaker 2: in a minute here, but one of the key factors
Speaker 2: to consider in all this is drawweight. None of this
Speaker 2: will come as a shock to any bow hunters out
Speaker 2: there for sure, And maybe you can write in and
Speaker 2: tell us a few things about all of this. But
Speaker 2: the idea is that pulling back on I say, sixty
Speaker 2: pound drawweight bow would be like lifting a sixty pound
Speaker 2: weight off the ground. But then, of course, as we've
Speaker 2: been discussing, it's not just lifting that sixty pound weight,
Speaker 2: it's holding it, aiming it, perhaps with your life on
Speaker 2: the line in a military scenario, and then releasing it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, trying to finally control both aim and timing while
Speaker 3: you are holding back this extremely heavy weight. Now, regarding
Speaker 3: the basic physics of a bow draw, I was looking
Speaker 3: around on this and one great source I came across
Speaker 3: was actually an old school house stuff works article takes
Speaker 3: me back.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, who wrote this one?
Speaker 3: One buyer, Our friend Tracy Wilson, now host of stuff
Speaker 3: you missed in history class.
Speaker 2: Oh nice.
Speaker 3: But Tracy's article on how the crossbow works goes into
Speaker 3: several of the main variables that determine the energy of
Speaker 3: a bow shot. So, as you were just saying that,
Speaker 3: there is what's called a bow's draw weight, and this
Speaker 3: is the force it takes to draw the bow, and
Speaker 3: this depends on multiple things like the material properties of
Speaker 3: the bow, material on the size of the bow, its
Speaker 3: shape and design, and so forth. There is also the
Speaker 3: draw length, which is the distance between the bow strings
Speaker 3: resting position and the point that you draw it back to.
Speaker 3: And of course draw length is not an intrinsic property
Speaker 3: of the bow, but changes with each draw, like you
Speaker 3: could draw it back to different lengths, and so it
Speaker 3: would be a characteristic of a bow shot. Also, generally
Speaker 3: the draw weight increases along with the draw length, so
Speaker 3: the farther you pull the bow string back, the more
Speaker 3: force it takes. So you might say that there a
Speaker 3: bow has a certain draw weight at a certain draw length.
Speaker 2: Because even with say an English long bow, a child
Speaker 2: would be able to pick it up and pull pull
Speaker 2: the bow back a little bit, but not enough to
Speaker 2: actually get to the full the full draw and the
Speaker 2: full potential of the boat.
Speaker 3: Yes, and this actually comes back to questions Medieval history
Speaker 3: nerds like to ask, like, you know, how exactly how
Speaker 3: much strength does it take to shoot an English long
Speaker 3: bow of the thirteenth century or something, And you could say, well,
Speaker 3: you know, if the bow is made like this, it
Speaker 3: would take this much strength to shoot it at its
Speaker 3: full potential, you know, with this amount of draw length.
Speaker 3: But probably anybody could underdraw the bow. So it's just
Speaker 3: a question of like how effective you are at using it.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: But regarding these these variables draw weight and draw length,
Speaker 3: they can affect the shot in various ways. For example,
Speaker 3: the longer the draw length in terms of distance, the
Speaker 3: longer in terms of time the string will be pushing
Speaker 3: the arrow before it is released. Does that make sense,
Speaker 3: so that imparts more energy if you pull it actually
Speaker 3: farther back, the string is pushing the arrow and giving
Speaker 3: it force longer, and so the energy stored for a
Speaker 3: bow shot can be calculated as roughly draw weight times
Speaker 3: draw length divided by two, and then the energy of
Speaker 3: the shot would be measured in units like foot pounds,
Speaker 3: you know, the energy required to lift one pound by
Speaker 3: one foot, or jewels. So the design of a bow
Speaker 3: can make a big difference in the energy it can deliver.
Speaker 3: A long bow with a longer draw length and a
Speaker 3: heavier draw weight tends to impart more energy to the
Speaker 3: arrow and thus increase its range, and a long bow
Speaker 3: can shoot over longer distances and tend to shoot heavier arrows.
Speaker 3: But materials matter. Traditionally, bows were made out of strong
Speaker 3: and elastic woods, you know, in the case of the
Speaker 3: English long bow, the wood of the yew tree is
Speaker 3: often mentioned. But modern bows are often made of different
Speaker 3: materials and parts designed to flex and store energy in
Speaker 3: different ways. Not just one piece of wood anymore, but
Speaker 3: different kinds of materials. And there is also a difference
Speaker 3: that's important to remember between compound bows and composite bows.
Speaker 3: You can mix them up because they both start with
Speaker 3: com but composite bows are regular bows made out of
Speaker 3: a combination of different materials, often laminated together so traditionally
Speaker 3: by combining wood with different types of animal parts like
Speaker 3: horn and sinew, Whereas compound bows are bows that use
Speaker 3: different parts such as pulleys or other levering machines to
Speaker 3: give the archer mechanical advantage in drawing back, to allow
Speaker 3: maybe for more rigid bow material to be used.
Speaker 2: So it's composite materials and then compounded force.
Speaker 3: Right, Compound bows have machines in them, like pulleys or levers.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, And I think I think everyone's probably seen,
Speaker 2: especially like it's kind of like an almost iconic of
Speaker 2: modern say bow hunters, you'll see those various pulleys on
Speaker 2: the bow.
Speaker 3: And so all of these mechanical principles basically apply to
Speaker 3: crossbows as well. Though there are some common design differences
Speaker 3: that you would observe with crossbows, even though they're not
Speaker 3: necessarily they're not necessary to the principle of crossbow. For example,
Speaker 3: crossbows typically have shorter limbs than long bows h and
Speaker 3: also shorter bolts, so a shorter draw length. Though that
Speaker 3: that's not fundamental to what a crossbow is. It just
Speaker 3: happens to be that crossbows are usually like that now.
Speaker 2: One source I was looking at for different stats on
Speaker 2: draw strength was a website called bowhunting dot com, which
Speaker 2: points out that modern compound bows are pretty excellent. They
Speaker 2: say you can comfortably hunt with a forty pound draw bow,
Speaker 2: and that's perfectly reasonable for most hunting scenarios with big
Speaker 2: game I'm assuming they're mostly talking about something like a
Speaker 2: deer in this case. They specify sixty to sixty five
Speaker 2: for something like a moose or an elk, and they
Speaker 2: point out that some shooters today can handle seventy eighty
Speaker 2: or ninety pound bows. So this brings us to the question,
Speaker 2: all right, well we're talking about the English long bow
Speaker 2: is sort of the bow part excellence. Well what kind
Speaker 2: of draw are we talking about on those Well, it
Speaker 2: turns out it's a matter of some debate, but the
Speaker 2: best you English longbows may have required and a mistress
Speaker 2: may it depends on whose crunching the figures here, but
Speaker 2: it may have required between one hundred and fifty and
Speaker 2: one hundred and eighty pound draws. That's eighty one point
Speaker 2: six kilograms on the upper end.
Speaker 3: And even if it's not that high, I mean a
Speaker 3: over one hundred pound draw, which I think is widely
Speaker 3: agreed upon, is that's still incredibly h That is, it's
Speaker 3: hard to imagine.
Speaker 2: And like I've been saying, it would not only be
Speaker 2: a test of strength to draw that bow to aim
Speaker 2: and then release it just a single time. You have
Speaker 2: to remember that, especially in a warfare situation, the archer
Speaker 2: would be firing over and over again. Repetition is key,
Speaker 2: even in a hunting scenario. According to bowhunting dot Com,
Speaker 2: the rule of thumb is that whatever weight you're using
Speaker 2: on your bow, you need to be able to do
Speaker 2: it thirty times in a row without feeling fatigued.
Speaker 3: That's a lot of reps.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I don't think that means that you're necessarily firing
Speaker 2: thirty arrows at a single deer, but I think that's
Speaker 2: the general idea is if you can't do that, then
Speaker 2: you need to cut back on your draw strength.
Speaker 3: I hesitate to speculate because I know nothing about bow hunting,
Speaker 3: but I imagine that would be about trying to aim
Speaker 3: and time the correct shots. So you might be drawing
Speaker 3: in cases where you wouldn't actually be releasing the arrow.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a good point. Yeah, not every time you
Speaker 2: drawback are you're actually going to fire that in that arrow?
Speaker 2: So the English longbow was the ultimate missile weapon during
Speaker 2: the one hundred Years of War and saw use into
Speaker 2: the sixteenth century. I played an important role in multiple battles.
Speaker 2: We'll get to one in a minute, but another one
Speaker 2: is the Battle at agin Court from fourteen fifteen, in
Speaker 2: which the English force is famously focused I think eighty
Speaker 2: percent of their battle force on arranged weapons to secure victory.
Speaker 2: In this and other examples, we should point out like
Speaker 2: it's not as important as the weaponry choice is. It's
Speaker 2: not the only factor. Of course, there are other factors
Speaker 2: involved in any given warfare scenario, the bows may not
Speaker 2: survive all that well, as we've discussed, but and stew
Speaker 2: And while this is apparently also not a one hundred
Speaker 2: percent agreed upon issue, you do have this situation where
Speaker 2: in nineteen eighty two the wreck of the Mary Rose
Speaker 2: was raised. This is a ship that sank English ship
Speaker 2: that's thank in fifteen fifty four, and the skeletons on
Speaker 2: board displayed a disproportionate amount of a shoulder ossification condition
Speaker 2: known as os acromali. This is actually associated with elite archery,
Speaker 2: so you know, repeatedly drawing back on some sort of
Speaker 2: a powerful bow, for example, and there were long bows
Speaker 2: on board. It's not one hundred percent again, but it's
Speaker 2: an often cited correlation when it comes to just like
Speaker 2: talking about like what sort of physical prowess would be
Speaker 2: required to use these bows efficiently in a warfare scenario.
Speaker 3: So the point being that both the longbow and the
Speaker 3: crossbow could be highly effective in various scenarios for hunting
Speaker 3: or for warfare or whatever. But the long bow required
Speaker 3: incredible physical strength and intense physical training, whereas the crossbow
Speaker 3: did require some skill training. You had to know how
Speaker 3: to use it, but did not place the same kind
Speaker 3: of demands on the human body.
Speaker 2: Right, And even in cases where you didn't have any
Speaker 2: kind of a pulley system, etc. To aid you in
Speaker 2: drawing the crossbow, you at least did not have to
Speaker 2: do any kind of precision aiming while doing it. All
Speaker 2: you had to worry about was getting it drawn back
Speaker 2: all the way and then the lock would come into place,
Speaker 2: and then you can aim without having to endure that
Speaker 2: physical strain. So yeah, as Fagan and rally Conway point out, Yeah,
Speaker 2: the crossbow can be kept drawn for much longer than
Speaker 2: an archer can possibly hold a drawn bow, and the
Speaker 2: crossbow can be made even more powerful than the strongest bow.
Speaker 2: But I have to stress on this as we'll discuss.
Speaker 2: I mean, this all comes down to scale, right, I mean,
Speaker 2: and range. There are number of factors involved there, because
Speaker 2: any given crossbow is not necessarily more powerful than a bow,
Speaker 2: as we'll discuss. But yeah, one of the key advantages
Speaker 2: here is that it kind of democratizes the use of
Speaker 2: a bow weapon. While a bow's power is limited by
Speaker 2: the strength of the archer, a crossbow can again be
Speaker 2: drawn via mechanical devices so you can end up with
Speaker 2: a weapon that ensures greater accuracy, at least at short
Speaker 2: to medium ranges, with less specialized training required. The downside,
Speaker 2: of course, as we already alluded to, is that actually
Speaker 2: drawing the crossbow tends to take more time than drawing
Speaker 2: a bow. Again, if on one side you have somebody
Speaker 2: who can effectively draw the long bow that they're using,
Speaker 2: and on the other side you have someone who has
Speaker 2: a nice crossbow. And this is especially true if you're
Speaker 2: having to employ some sort of mechanical apparatus to draw
Speaker 2: the crossbow, but it also seems true if you're having
Speaker 2: to do something like, you know, stick it in the
Speaker 2: ground and then draw back using your arms and your legs.
Speaker 3: One other difference in the calculation I have come across
Speaker 3: is the idea that the crossbow equipment would generally be
Speaker 3: more expensive than longbow equipment.
Speaker 2: That's a good point too, so either more gears and
Speaker 2: so forth that are involved, it may make it easier
Speaker 2: for everyone to use it, but it becomes a more
Speaker 2: specialized technology as well. Now, another important battle to touch
Speaker 2: on is another scenario involving the English longbow, and that's
Speaker 2: the Battle of Creasy from thirteen forty six, in which
Speaker 2: the technology of the English longbow ensured victory over French crossbowmen.
Speaker 2: And I was reading about this in the book Connections
Speaker 2: by James Burke, who we've brought him up on the
Speaker 2: show before, and I think fairly recently somebody wrote in
Speaker 2: about James Burke's work on our listener mail episodes. But
Speaker 2: Burke points out that the English longbow had exceptional range.
Speaker 2: He cites four hundred yards and special steel arrowheads that
Speaker 2: were designed to punch through armor at close range, and
Speaker 2: he points out that experienced archer could loose nine arrows
Speaker 2: in a minute, while the French crossbowmen required lengthier reload time.
Speaker 2: So the idea is like, the archers have fired, the
Speaker 2: crossbowmen fire, and then before the crossbowmen can reload their weapons,
Speaker 2: the archers have fired again. However, the experienced archer part
Speaker 2: of the scenario is key. Once More, Burke writes that
Speaker 2: within decades of this pivotal battle that saw the championing
Speaker 2: of the English longbow over crossbows and traditional armored knights,
Speaker 2: it was after this ten years later, increasingly impossible to
Speaker 2: find enough skilled archers to power the long bow and
Speaker 2: provide the sort of overwhelming fire power that ruled the
Speaker 2: day at Creasy. Burke discusses the possible reasons for this
Speaker 2: at length in the book, and I believe in them
Speaker 2: of course the documentary TV series as well, and he
Speaker 2: cites a number of different, different different reasons than tailing
Speaker 2: the continued recovery from the plague, improvements in plowing technology,
Speaker 2: various other inventions and innovations, improved diets, and also a
Speaker 2: general improvement in the quality of life for the average human.
Speaker 2: Burke writes, quote, it took years for a man to
Speaker 2: be trained to use the six foot u bo, and
Speaker 2: here was the adult male population frittering away valuable training
Speaker 2: hours enjoying itself. The reason, therefore, that the long bow
Speaker 2: enjoyed such a brief spell of success lay in the
Speaker 2: rising standard of living which the agricultural revolution had brought about.
Speaker 3: Although interestingly, I was reading historical fact about how the
Speaker 3: introduction of widespread crossbow use did not eliminate this tension
Speaker 3: between between sort of like free time and enjoyment and
Speaker 3: the military leaders emphasis that everybody really should be training.
Speaker 3: So there's a book I've been looking at called The
Speaker 3: Medieval Crossbow by Stuart Ellis Gorman published in the year
Speaker 3: twenty twenty two and Sword Military Press, and this is
Speaker 3: a book length investigation of the crossbow. And I was
Speaker 3: reading a reddit ama with this this author who points
Speaker 3: out that you have multiple ordinances from the government in
Speaker 3: various places throughout medieval Europe, in England but also in
Speaker 3: late medieval France and at some point in Genoa that
Speaker 3: were like banning leisure activities and telling people to be
Speaker 3: doing archery or crossbow practice instead. So like Genoa at
Speaker 3: some point banned tournaments and banned gambling and said you
Speaker 3: should be practicing your crossbow instead of doing these things.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like the Conan the Barbarian principle. You know,
Speaker 2: you watch Conan the Barbarian, It's like, yeah, he's a
Speaker 2: great warrior, but man, he seems miserable. He's not he's
Speaker 2: not really making any time or is given any time
Speaker 2: to do anything else. So you know, of course he's
Speaker 2: this mighty warrior, but is it becomes less as people
Speaker 2: begin to have other choices in their life. They're not
Speaker 2: there just constantly, constantly practicing those archery skills. And therefore
Speaker 2: you can see the shift perhaps being made to something
Speaker 2: like the crossbow that is usable by the average person,
Speaker 2: but without all of this extensive training.
Speaker 3: Though as the shows, it wouldn't require the same level
Speaker 3: of physical training, but you would still have to practice.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, you couldn't. You couldn't just hand them out
Speaker 2: and expect everyone to just automatically hit everything you're aiming at.
Speaker 2: Though I guess there's room in that statement for various
Speaker 2: arguments about what sort of scale are you handing them
Speaker 2: out at? And certainly, as we may discuss in this
Speaker 2: episode in the next, I mean, there are examples where
Speaker 2: a lot of crossbows are deployed in given battles in
Speaker 2: different scenarios. Now, this leads us to the question, of course,
Speaker 2: when do we see the earliest crossbows. And of course,
Speaker 2: one of the issues again and in dating earliest crossbows,
Speaker 2: of course, or the organic materials that aren't going to
Speaker 2: survive the test of time and you're having to rely
Speaker 2: on things like crossbow bolt heads and also the locks.
Speaker 2: But another interesting point that's brought up by Fagan and
Speaker 2: Riley Conway is that sometimes it's difficult to say what's
Speaker 2: a crossbow and what's a catapult. They point out that
Speaker 2: the earliest crossbows in some regions anyway kind of resembled
Speaker 2: small catapults, and there was likely they think some sort
Speaker 2: of transformative step from stationary to mobile weaponry here, And
Speaker 2: I can kind of imagine this is kind of like
Speaker 2: you can imagine people thinking, what if we made a
Speaker 2: bigger bow, Well, we wouldn't be able to pull that back.
Speaker 2: We'd have to do something else. And then they're like, Okay,
Speaker 2: I've created it, and what have you created. It's kind
Speaker 2: of like a cross It's kind of like a big crossbow.
Speaker 2: It's kind of also like a catapult. And then you
Speaker 2: might think this is interesting, what have we scaled this
Speaker 2: back down? And then you could hold it?
Speaker 3: Yes, though I do think scale does tend to place
Speaker 3: different requires on like what kinds of mechanisms you can use.
Speaker 3: For example, you can look at the ballista, which is
Speaker 3: like a siege weapon which has existed since ancient times,
Speaker 3: and say, well, that looks a lot like a crossbow,
Speaker 3: but it does have a different mechanism for storing energy
Speaker 3: than the crossbow does. The crossbow stores it in the
Speaker 3: tension of the bow of the limbs, whereas I can't
Speaker 3: remember exactly what the mechanism is for the ballista, but
Speaker 3: it's different. I think it has to do with like
Speaker 3: winding ropes or something.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so catapults, we might have to come back to
Speaker 2: another siege equipment, because there's a lot of interesting innovation
Speaker 2: that goes on there. Apparently, Biblical accounts point back to
Speaker 2: the reign of Uzaiah around eight hundred BCE as a
Speaker 2: possible time during which people were using catapults, and then
Speaker 2: there's a definite mention of them in Sicily around four
Speaker 2: hundred BCE. But of course all this stems from ancient
Speaker 2: world scenarios which you had walled city states encountering siege situations,
Speaker 2: and of course the besiegers would have to devise various
Speaker 2: ways to have to contend with this, and of course
Speaker 2: the besieged on their end would come up with various
Speaker 2: means of defending themselves. So Fagan and Rowley Conway point
Speaker 2: to two key dates for earliest crossbow emergence, one in
Speaker 2: second century BCE Rome, which will come back to in
Speaker 2: a bit, and the other in fifth century BCE China.
Speaker 2: Now you can well ask for these independent advances. Perhaps
Speaker 2: it's also been theorized by many that the Chinese invention
Speaker 2: simply spread to the West, perhaps more than once. And
Speaker 2: we can't necessarily connect all the dots here, but you
Speaker 2: can point out the key dots and some of the
Speaker 2: time periods that are associated with them.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so you don't know exactly how it traveled, though
Speaker 3: it does seem to me uncontroversially agreed upon that the
Speaker 3: earliest crossbow usage was in ancient China.
Speaker 2: Yes, century BC dating believe concerns bronze crossbow components, bronze
Speaker 2: bold heads, bronze crossbow locks, and these have been dated
Speaker 2: to the mid seventh century BCE. Bolts have also turned
Speaker 2: up in Chinese tombs from this time period. John Key,
Speaker 2: in his book on Chinese history, rights that the crossbows
Speaker 2: long quote the weapon of first choice in the Chinese military,
Speaker 2: but advancements in equestrian power did end up limiting its
Speaker 2: effectiveness somewhat. So these would not so much be the
Speaker 2: fact that people were riding the horses, but people were
Speaker 2: armored on the horse. The horse and the strength of
Speaker 2: the horse and the speed of the horse were able
Speaker 2: to convey an armored individual around more easily. But of
Speaker 2: course this comes a good bit later.
Speaker 3: But it's not just artifacts, right, because I think ancient
Speaker 3: Chinese texts do make explicit mention of the crossbow.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Sun Zoo in the Art of War from the
Speaker 2: fifth century BCE definitely mentions them. It brings up like,
Speaker 2: sort of philosophically right that he says, quote in energy
Speaker 2: may be likened to the bending of a crossbow, decision
Speaker 2: to the releasing of a trigger.
Speaker 3: Ah, So the physical device there being so familiar by
Speaker 3: the point of Sunsu's writing that it's a proper source
Speaker 3: of metaphor.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, it's kind of like, this is not what
Speaker 2: he's talking about, but it's kind of like you can
Speaker 2: imagine someone saying, hey, when it comes to slinging insults,
Speaker 2: do you want to be an archer or a crossbow wielder?
Speaker 2: You know, be a crossbow wielder, Think up that insult
Speaker 2: in advance, store it away, store its potential away, and
Speaker 2: then when the time comes, you pull the trigger. Now.
Speaker 2: One source that we often come back to when we
Speaker 2: discuss technology and innovation and invention in ancient China is
Speaker 2: of course the work of Joseph Needham's, particularly his Science
Speaker 2: and Civilization in China series, which Gosh, off the top
Speaker 2: of my head, I can't remember how many volumes are
Speaker 2: in this series. Anytime I read it, I'm always I
Speaker 2: always get excited about it, and I'll take a moment
Speaker 2: to see if i can just buy them all, and
Speaker 2: then I quickly realized that I cannot do that. They're
Speaker 2: they're not necessarily in print, and there are a bunch
Speaker 2: of them.
Speaker 3: If I'm not mistaken. Though Joseph Needham was the original author,
Speaker 3: the Science and Civilization in China series has sort of
Speaker 3: continued after his death, right.
Speaker 2: That's right. And then also some volumes have been somewhat
Speaker 2: abbreviated because they are there by other authors. They're they're
Speaker 2: pretty extensive, but I've always found them to be very
Speaker 2: readable and enjoyable. And his mastery and the mastery of
Speaker 2: those he was working with, not only historically but linguistically,
Speaker 2: it's just awe inspiring. But one thing that he points out,
Speaker 2: I'm going to mention a few things that he mentioned
Speaker 2: about the crossbow in these books. He writes, quote, it
Speaker 2: has been demonstrated that in ancient times in China, the
Speaker 2: progress of invention in offensive weapons, especially the efficient crossbow,
Speaker 2: far outstripped progress indefensive armor. This, he points out, is
Speaker 2: reflected in various accounts of feudal lords in ancient China
Speaker 2: being overtaken by peasants armed with crossbows. So this is
Speaker 2: just like another case of like a very very broad
Speaker 2: generality you can make about the crossbow in that it
Speaker 2: democratizes the use of the bow weapon. You don't have
Speaker 2: to be an expert archer to wield it. And especially
Speaker 2: if like Needham was riding here, if you have defensive
Speaker 2: innovation is lagging behind offensive innovation, you may have the
Speaker 2: upper hand. Now, there wasn't just one Chinese crossbow, and
Speaker 2: I think in the next episode I'll talk about a
Speaker 2: specific innovation, but there were multiple innovations of the crossbow,
Speaker 2: and and Needham discusses that one of the standard Chinese
Speaker 2: crossbows would be loaded by either lying on your back
Speaker 2: or standing on the bow using leg thrusts and arms
Speaker 2: to cock the bow. Now, another thing he points out
Speaker 2: concerns gunpowder. We did an episode or episodes about the
Speaker 2: invention of gunpowder, and we talked a bit in that
Speaker 2: about es innovations concerning gunpowder, even an offensive capacity. And
Speaker 2: he points out that, yeah, crossbows were also used with
Speaker 2: various incendiary implements of flammable or explosive crossbow bolts, et cetera.
Speaker 2: On the other hand, sometimes crossbow was used in the
Speaker 2: naming of a pyrotechnic ranged weapon, even if it was
Speaker 2: not actually a crossbow. He brings up the example of
Speaker 2: the fire crossbow meteoric arrow shooter. That's like the literal
Speaker 2: translation of the Chinese here, But he points out it's
Speaker 2: not as the name implies a crossbow. It's also not
Speaker 2: as the name implies a rocket. He describes it as
Speaker 2: a quote proto gun firing ten poisoned arrows at a time,
Speaker 2: which came out quote like a flock of locusts. So
Speaker 2: still kind of hard to imagine what that is, but
Speaker 2: apparently not an actual crossbow. But it's like, again, the
Speaker 2: technology is along so so long it becomes a metaphor.
Speaker 2: It also becomes a way of thinking about subsequent innovation
Speaker 2: and discoveries. But on the crossbow itself, he writes that
Speaker 2: quote China of the Warring States period fifth century PCE
Speaker 2: was almost certainly the home of the crossbow, and by
Speaker 2: the time that this became the standard weapon of the
Speaker 2: Han armies, it had acquired a bronze trigger mechanism of
Speaker 2: beautiful and intricate construction. The crossbow was introduced to the
Speaker 2: Western world probably twice before the fifth century and again
Speaker 2: during the tenth century. He also contends that in this
Speaker 2: the trigger as we know it extends from Chinese technological origins,
Speaker 2: so the trigger as something that would be used to
Speaker 2: fire guns. But then also we can take that even
Speaker 2: further and just think about like the use of a
Speaker 2: trigger again as a technological metaphor.
Speaker 3: Right, well, I mean there are tons of inventions that
Speaker 3: are that are not weapons, that have like elastic potential
Speaker 3: stored in some way and there's a trigger lock holding
Speaker 3: it in place that can be released.
Speaker 2: All right, where we're going to go ahead and close
Speaker 2: out this episode, but we will be back with more
Speaker 2: discussions of the crossbow, the invention of the crossbow. We
Speaker 2: want to get more into early examples of the crossbows
Speaker 2: in Western traditions and Mediterranean traditions specifically. Also, there are
Speaker 2: a couple of key innovations I want to touch on
Speaker 2: from either the Middle East or again Chinese crossbow innovation
Speaker 2: of later years. And in the meantime, Yes, if you
Speaker 2: have any personal experience of crossbows you'd like to chime
Speaker 2: in about or with the bow. We did a good
Speaker 2: bit of discussion there about the bow or if you
Speaker 2: just have experience in the imagined worlds of Dungeons and
Speaker 2: Dragons and other games. Concerning the use of a crossbow,
Speaker 2: well that's fair game as well. Just a reminder. The
Speaker 2: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is primarily a science podcast,
Speaker 2: with core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays. On Mondays we
Speaker 2: do listener mail. On Wednesdays we usually have an artifact
Speaker 2: or monster fact episode, and then on Fridays we set
Speaker 2: aside most serious concerns to just talk about a weird
Speaker 2: movie on Weird House.
Speaker 3: So huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer
Speaker 3: JJ Posway. If you would like to get in touch
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