I’m a longbow person because I value quantity over quality.
Crossbow, I support levelling of the playing field between a normal person and a rich sicko who has been able to spend their entire life training and can afford armor through their exploitation of the peasants. Also, I do not respect Pope Innocent II and his banning of crossbows was a skill issue.
Crossbows can shoot through riot shields, helmets and soft body armour. Though, so can compound bows.
Edit: BIG crossbows can shoot through walls.
The crossbow is the obvious choice.
It can be built small enough for a novelty assassins toy (pistol crossbow) or large enough to be used as a siege weapon (ballista) or anything in between.
Recent advancements have provided us with magazine fed crossbows with lever cocking mechanisms enabling rapid follow up shots with minimal reload time and the ability to keep the weapon approximately on-target while cycling the weapon.
The longbow requires strength and training to use properly, more so than the intuitive and superior crossbow.
Prolonged longbow use deforms the skeleton of the user.
Longbow wrist slap owies.
A ballista on the back of a technical provides a mobile crewed weapons platform that can be operated with a skeleton crew to devastating effect.
Crossbows are heavily restricted in my part of the world, demonstrating the understandable fear they strike in the heart of the hegemonic power structure.
Crossbows are still kept in modern military arsenals for a reason. (I don’t know what that reason is but you don’t want to be out-bow’d do you?)
Longbows are weapons of the perfidious Albionoids while crossbows are the weapons of the peasantry
> carrying around my crossbow. Has a rapid reload rate of 1 bolt per 10 minutes
> in a field made up of ~90% cow shit
> shoot my shot at the english sporting peasant during this season’s duke’s entertainment battle
> miss.jpg
> that’s okay, let me get out my crank dohickey for 60 revolutions to reload
> english sporting peasant has long bow
> he just notches an arrow and pulls back
> I receive an arrow to the breathing humor
> mfw my tactical crossbow was insufficient
The longbow, while progressive for it’s time in its suppression of the dying heavy cavalry feudal order, was supplanted in turn by the nascent proletarian crossbow and it’s ability to collectivise the means of destruction.
