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Transition from swords to guns

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During the American Civil War [so 1861-1865], while "shoots" were indeed more bloody than baionettes, you used charges and hand-to-hand to break enemy formation and take its position. Shoots were for causing casualties, charge was to take a position from which you could shoot more enemies [or get shot less]

Obviously, charges had a high-rate of failure.

In the better equiped and better trained Europe, Crimea was to my knowledge the last war where head-on charge could so something significant for the course of a battle. In neither the Austro-Prussian war nor the French-Prussian war [not sure for the Danish one] did any infantry or cavalry charge have any success. There was this famous event during the French-Prussian war were the Kaiser watched hopeless charge from the French cavalry [actually trying to gain time, though], cavalry which was anniliated. The Kaiser commented "Ah, les braves gens" [Ah, the brave fellows !].

While WWI cavalry indeed had end to end weapons, like lances, the purpose was not head-on charge but for skirmish when meeting. enemy in reconnoissance. In serious combat they would dismount.
 
krieger11b said:
This is the main reason. It was simply cheaper and faster to train people on muskets in rectangle formations and fire at point blank range than to train someone for a decade or more to become a truely effective archer. Also an armored knight does take a bit less time, is very expensive and slow, easy pickings for a musketeer.
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There is a bit of a tendency to overstate the power of bows, however. While a bow could pierce armor, a bullet was all but guaranteed to do so if hit within a decent range: That made a significant difference. (in Europe, but less so in the Americas, probably why bows remained effective for longer there)
 
Narwhal said:
During the American Civil War [so 1861-1865], while "shoots" were indeed more bloody than baionettes, you used charges and hand-to-hand to break enemy formation and take its position. Shoots were for causing casualties, charge was to take a position from which you could shoot more enemies [or get shot less]

Obviously, charges had a high-rate of failure.

In the better equiped and better trained Europe, Crimea was to my knowledge the last war where head-on charge could so something significant for the course of a battle. In neither the Austro-Prussian war nor the French-Prussian war [not sure for the Danish one] did any infantry or cavalry charge have any success. There was this famous event during the French-Prussian war were the Kaiser watched hopeless charge from the French cavalry [actually trying to gain time, though], cavalry which was anniliated. The Kaiser commented "Ah, les braves gens" [Ah, the brave fellows !].

While WWI cavalry indeed had end to end weapons, like lances, the purpose was not head-on charge but for skirmish when meeting. enemy in reconnoissance. In serious combat they would dismount.
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More or less the case but it's important to remember that while bayonets were used in the ACW it was very rare. IIRSc something under 1% of wounds and casualties were caused by bayonets. I will try and find some links. Rifles by that time had reached such a high level of efficiencies that a charge had one of two outcomes:

The enemy morale was broken and they ran before you got there
The enemy moral was not broken and everyone who had charged was shot before they got to the lines.

Only under unusual conditions (heavy rain making rapid reloading difficult, restricted visibility, and tremch storming mostly) did anyone get close enough to use bayonets or swords.


Here is the 1% citation.
http://clevelandcivilwarroundtable.com/articles/means/cold_steele.htm

An opposing view suggesting that bayonets were so lethal from blood loss that that many died of the wound before they could make it to the rear area hospitals. Even if they were really really lethal and twice as many deaths occurred as wounds that is still only a tiny fraction of deaths.

http://www.civilwarnews.com/watchdog/wd_091001.html
 
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krieger11b said:
This is the main reason. It was simply cheaper and faster to train people on muskets in rectangle formations and fire at point blank range than to train someone for a decade or more to become a truely effective archer. Also an armored knight does take a bit less time, is very expensive and slow, easy pickings for a musketeer.
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The bow got replaced by the crossbow for these reasons. Also high medieval bows had serious trouble to penetrate armor xept for the longbow (that one wasnt the superweapon some people think too) Bows are howerer awesome against unarmored or lightly armored foes. That said good arrows are harder to make then people think.
Also what CruedDwarf said.
 
Graf Zeppelin said:
The bow got replaced by the crossbow for these reasons. Also high medieval bows had serious trouble to penetrate armor xept for the longbow (that one wasnt the superweapon some people think too) Bows are howerer awesome against unarmored or lightly armored foes. That said good arrows are harder to make then people think.
Also what CruedDwarf said.
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Definately about the arrows. Even today good quality broadhead hunting arrows run like $5 to $10 each. When you shoot them you really want to get them back. Now imagine 1,000 archers shooting off a volley of arrows every 10 or 15 seconds. It adds up fast, and in a battlefield situation many of those arrows will get broken, lost or land in areas that the enemy winds up in control of long enough to pick them up instead.
 
Surely this should be titled 'transition from spears and bows to guns', because swords remain in use in modern times. Mostly ceremonially, but they're still working weapons, and some units like the Gurkhas use theirs quite ferociously.

And then there are the modern crossbows used by a few elite units as a stealthier alternative to firearms.
 
Fishman786 said:
Surely this should be titled 'transition from spears and bows to guns', because swords remain in use in modern times. Mostly ceremonially, but they're still working weapons, and some units like the Gurkhas use theirs quite ferociously.
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You can say of course that the Japanese used some Katanas in ww2, hell I am sure someone used a spear also. It dosnt change the fact however that ww2 armies used rifles and not swords as their armament. Also the Kurkri is mainly designed for choping.(hahaha, choping like choping heads :D)
 
Graf Zeppelin said:
You can say of course that the Japanese used some Katanas in ww2, hell I am sure someone used a spear also. It dosnt change the fact however that ww2 armies used rifles and not swords as their armament.
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Swords had been a secondary armament in most armies for centuries, gradually becoming a ceremonial item worn by officers and disappearing from the battlefield mostly. I don't think there's really a transition as such, it was the main fighting weapons, the polearm and the bow, that the gun replaced.


EDIT: of course, swords remained the primary armament of the cavalry (alongside the lance at times), but as another poster said, cavalrymen kept using swords up until they disappeared all together.

Also, another good point that's already been raised is that it could be considered that the sword was replaced by the pistol as a secondary weapon and status symbol.
 
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Fishman786 said:
Swords had been a secondary armament in most armies for centuries, gradually becoming a ceremonial item worn by officers and disappearing from the battlefield mostly. I don't think there's really a transition as such, it was the main fighting weapons, the polearm and the bow, that the gun replaced.
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Uh you should read the whole thread. I stated that already. Well the crossbow replaced the bow of course. But the op is talking about main armament, sure several kinds of swords got used for a long time for cavalary or as a sidearm. Its still called age of rifles for a reason and not age of sword sidearms :D
 
Graf Zeppelin said:
Uh you should read the whole thread. I stated that already. Well the crossbow replaced the bow of course.
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Oh, okay. Well, at least you have backup now, I suppose?

Although I don't necessarily agree that the sword was replaced by the pike. It continued in use simultaneously, but was relegated to the position of a side-arm. Especially outside the west, many armies fought with the spear, the axe, the musket and the sword all at once. Even in the British Indian army, many units preferred the sword to the bayonet.
 
Fishman786 said:
Oh, okay. Well, at least you have backup now, I suppose?
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About crossbows replacing bows ? Well they did for many reasons including shorter training ,a crossbow is also cheaper to make then a good bow, can be fired prone and last but not least awesome penetration. I am talking about Europe here. In Japan for example the crossbow got replaced by the bow again.
 
Graf Zeppelin said:
About crossbows replacing bows ?
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No, no, about the lances thing.

Well they did for many reasons including shorter training ,a crossbow is also cheaper to make then a good bow, can be fired prone and last but not least awesome penetration.
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Interestingly crossbows seem to be an almost entirely western phenomenon. There are some examples from China, but Middle Eastern and Indian societies seem to have moved straight from the bow to the musket. I've never seen or heard any mention of the crossbow from any Indian martial arts expert I've met.
 
Fishman786 said:
Interestingly crossbows seem to be an almost entirely western phenomenon. There are some examples from China, but Middle Eastern and Indian societies seem to have moved straight from the bow to the musket. I've never seen or heard any mention of the crossbow from any Indian martial arts expert I've met.
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Hmm I know for sure the Chinese,Japanese and some others in south east asia knew and used them. They werent that awesome there tho. For this weapon to shine you need something like knights or heavy armored infantry.
I dont know about India tho. I sadly know squat about India. For that reson I appreciate your insights into that region btw :)
:edit:


Hey wait, didnt the Chinese even used some kind of repeating crossbow ? O.O
 
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Another question on the matter then...

What replaced what in tactical terms?
 
Graf Zeppelin said:
The bow got replaced by the crossbow for these reasons. Also high medieval bows had serious trouble to penetrate armor xept for the longbow (that one wasnt the superweapon some people think too) Bows are howerer awesome against unarmored or lightly armored foes. That said good arrows are harder to make then people think.
Also what CruedDwarf said.
Click to expand...

The main problem with arrows is relatively weak stopping power. Even with longbow you need hit something vital to kill a man on the spot. And even most basic armor will reduce fatalities from arrowfire to very small level. So bowmen were useful only as skirmish troops/in sieges or in really massive numbers like english did in Hunderd Years war. Lack of stopping power is somewhat lesser concern when a guy get hit several times in very short period.

Decisive advantage of gun wasn't penetration or even cheapness (gunpowder was never cheap in the late Middle Ages and Rennaisance time), it is stopping power. If the enemy got a hit even from primitive handgonne he is either dead or disabled outright. While guy who was hit by an arrow had a good chance to run last few dozen feets and cut the archer to pieces. And it is small consolation for the archer that wounded guy will die few days later from blood poisoning or some other shit.

krieger11b said:
Your right, I forgot to specify dismounted knights, which was not uncommon. Plus I should have just mentioned non mounted melee soldiers. However a mounted knight in armor is a terribly expensive thing that can be brought down at far lower cost musketmen.
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Knight on foot is no less mobile that other foot soldiers. And the knights were usually better fed and in good physical form, so their advantage in speed and strength over ordinary foot soldiers was rather impressive. So they weren't slow or lumbering, they were fast and their main problem in comparsion with more lightly armored troops was "less combat endurance" so to speak.
 
Graf Zeppelin said:
Hmm I know for sure the Chinese,Japanese and some others in south east asia knew and used them. They werent that awesome there tho. For this weapon to shine you need something like knights or heavy armored infantry.
I dont know about India tho. I sadly know squat about India. For that reson I appreciate your insights into that region btw :)
:edit:


Hey wait, didnt the Chinese even used some kind of repeating crossbow ? O.O
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Yeah, east Asian societies did use them, but they don't seem to have had the massive tactical importance that they had in Europe. According to Wiki so did Africans. And they were introduced from Europe to Moorish Spain. So perhaps they weren't as exclusively western as I thought.


As for Indian martial arts, there are a small number of Nihang fellows around the Gurdwaras in Notts. So I always quiz them about their weapons whenever I get the opportunity. They often have some quite rare types of items, such as serrated wrist-blades, or a type of straight-edged sword that looks a little like a medieval arming sword. One of them was carrying a WWI bayonet!
 
CruelDwarf said:
The main problem with arrows is relatively weak stopping power. Even with longbow you need hit something vital to kill a man on the spot. And even most basic armor will reduce fatalities from arrowfire to very small level. So bowmen were useful only as skirmish troops/in sieges or in really massive numbers like english did in Hunderd Years war. Lack of stopping power is somewhat lesser concern when a guy get hit several times in very short period.

Decisive advantage of gun wasn't penetration or even cheapness (gunpowder was never cheap in the late Middle Ages and Rennaisance time), it is stopping power. If the enemy got a hit even from primitive handgonne he is either dead or disabled outright. While guy who was hit by an arrow had a good chance to run last few dozen feets and cut the archer to pieces. And it is small consolation for the archer that wounded guy will die few days later from blood poisoning or some other shit.
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Also musket bullets was not only cheap and easy to make but they had the very nasty tendency to break on impact.
This meant that a hit by a single bullet would have a great chance to take the soldier out permanently, a hit in the arm or a leg could often mean that amputation was needed and in other places which they could not cut away could be infected killing the soldier.
Arrows and bolts had a much better chance to stay intact and could rather safely be removed allowing the soldier to fight another day.

Musket are rather heavy, even without bayonets they can still be used as a club and a club is an very dangerous weapon even against armored enemies.
Its harder to use a bow as a melee weapon, crossbow maybe another advantage musket would have over the bow.
 
Graf Zeppelin said:
You can say of course that the Japanese used some Katanas in ww2, hell I am sure someone used a spear also. It dosnt change the fact however that ww2 armies used rifles and not swords as their armament. Also the Kurkri is mainly designed for choping.(hahaha, choping like choping heads :D)
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Also, already in late 16th century when Japanese invaded Korea the commanders writing back home would always request guns and gunners as reinforcements as opposed to spearmen or men armed with bows. Guns became the most important armament in Japanese armies relatively fast after they were first introduced.
 
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