Shad points out the biggest strength that nobody recognizes with a musket line over a group of archers. When you see a line of muskets fire, what happens on the other side? You see that first, sometimes second, line of troops drop dead and wounded. Think about that from the perspective of the 3rd or 4th lines. You are going to die if they fire again if you don’t move. And the further back in the lines you get, the more of this effect happens. Now, look at when a troop is getting shot with arrows. It’s still dangerous, don’t get me wrong, but it’s more random. Plenty of people still get hit, heck maybe even the same amount of people as the musket line in rare occasions, but it’s not the solid line of people directly in front of you getting hit and going down. That difference matters. It’s why, as guns became more and more advanced, the idea of troop deployment changed more and more into something unrecognizable to what it was before. Because people wanted less and less to be standing in the way of the shot. Which, I think we can all agree, is a fair opinion to have.

Oh wow! This is incredibly surreal for me to see. Shad, you were one of my main inspirations to start KZfaq in the first place! This is kind of making my own online presence hit home for me in a way it has never before. And I must say, I'm relieved to hear that you don't utterly disagree and hate my guts in the first minute of the video, which was what I immediately became paranoid about when I saw that title! I don't often have time to watch 40 minute plus videos these days (kind of ironic given how longwinded I am) but I am definitely taking the time for this one! I just had to have my fangirl moment and to say 'thanks' before watching. Off I go!

An argument I haven't seen yet is, that it's not only harder to train a proper bowman, but you also need to KEEP him trained. You can send a musketeer to a farm for harvesting season and he'd still shoot fairly accurate when he returns, but a bowman has to re-train his muscles for combat readiness. It's hard to believe, that he would put 2h of bow training in, after 8h of field work.

One point which I think is one of the most important is the invention of the bayonet. A bayonet is not as good a melee weapon as a sword or sabre and indeed officers did carry sabres, however the bayonet's ability to do the job of a pike and defend from cavalry is extremely advantageous. The invention of the bayonet made defending against cavalry easier as extra support troops such as pikemen were no longer needed and could be trained with a musket instead to increase firing capacity. This increased versatility made charging any disciplined Napoleonic infantry regiment a suicide mission, as seen in the battle of Waterloo where the French cavalry suffered heavy casualties from attempting to break the British square formations. The bayonet allowed any regiment to possess the ability to stop cavalry in its tracks while also being able to unleash hails of musketballs upon enemy infantrymen, something a group of archers couldn't manage without support troops. The fact that the bayonet allowed versatility and standardisation for a Napoleonic army is the main reason for the musket being superior to the bow. Looking at the bigger picture, generals no longer had to worry about which units needed support troops or worry about more pikemen and less archers hindering the capacity of their volleys. Every musketeer was an archer, infantryman and pikeman all in one, allowing generals to use any regiment on the battlefield for any task, no matter what the situation . (Also yes, a grouped firing of muskets is also called a volley. 🙂)

"Can carry less arrows than the average musketeer"... thats debatable, but why is the musketeer carrying arrows to start?

Me: *about to skip the advert section* Shad: Let me advertise this by being a wholesome dad. Me, gritting my teeth: ...hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm DAMN YOU SHAD! *watches it*

7:25 Ammunition price! When you compare the amount of work the fletcher needs to produce a single arrow with the amount of work required for production of a lead ball and a bit of black powder, you can clearly see why the price of the ammunition was very different.

The ability to re-shoot arrows that you have scavenged is less important than one of the most overlooked advantages muskets have: arrows are much heavier than powder and shot. A musketeer can carry four times as many shots as an archer for the same weight.

My favorite thing about this community is how polite y’all are to each other, it goes a long way to promoting professional and personable discourse.

The damage of a musketball is not only made by its large diameter ist is also done by its shape. An Arrowhead is rather sharp and edgy, so it will cut its way into the victims body while the musquet ball will simply smash it's way through the tissue and will do incredible damage while ripping it apart. It is like cutting someones heart out with a spoon.

Shad: "the one to two shots you can get in them off from a musket in one or two minutes..." Sir Henry Simmerson : What makes a good soldier, Sharpe? Richard Sharpe : The ability to fire three rounds a minute. In any weather, sir!

An additional element to Shad's discussion of the psychological effect of musket volleys is the noise. A volley of bows is relatively silent compared to the sudden roar of a gun volley. When paired with the casualties Shad describes, this is a massive psychological blow. As David Grossman points out in On Combat, BANG beats Thwip any day of the week.

29:39 Fun fact: I'm actually "The guy" who was in the clip firing the bow and then shouldering it. I also edited the video. With the model of bow I had shouldering it is fairly easy so I guess I just got used to it and didn't really think if it was historical or not. One thing after another drove it from me mind as the saying goes. Kinda funny to hear Shad talk about me in a video.

"Shadlings" sounds like an invading horde of goblin-like creatures ... oh, wait!

As some mentions, it all comes down to training. After the Battle of Patay, it took the English years to retrain a sizable longbow force. If it have been a musket force of the same size, it could have taken months only or even weeks though at cost of being undertrained.

Interesting that the Total War games hit the nail on the head with their unit morale system. A unit in a prolonged melee will keep fighting as their numbers dwindle below 30%, but if the same unit is damaged to 50% health in a very short time period, they suffer a massive morale penalty and likely break. To an extent in other PVP games, burst damage is always preferable to sustained DPS because it allows less time for the opponent to react to what is happening to them.

What I like about these "reply" videos is that Shad clearly and openly admits where his area of expertise is AND acknowledges the reality of history. If firearms weren't better, armies wouldn't have used them. Yes the very early firearms weren't great but once you get to flintlock muskets/pistols (with bayonets) and later advances in rifling, trigger mechanisms, etc...Then it was a no brainer to have the majority of your troops armed with firearms (even some of your cavalry). It was relatively easy to train a soldier how to use them, the effect of morale was devastating and most importantly I think, they basically negated most armour. Armour by the late medieval period had got to a level where arrows and bolts were becoming far less effective at penetrating them, to the point where many soldiers stopped using shields because they knew their armour would be able to protect from 99% of any incoming ranged damage.

"With arrows, you can re-shoot them" He says, displaying the one arrow that can't be re-shot.

"I'm a medievalist so I like the bow more" But Shad, guns were a huge part of late medieval warfare as you yourself pointed out. Even at the battle of Agincourt and what the movie the King failed to show us King Henry had with him something like 7 cannons on campaign. So you can be a gun nut in the medieval age just fine. There's also the Hussite wars where guns started to take center stage as the the great equalizers they are.

I also posted this on Brandon's video, I figured I'll repost it here as well. A forum that I frequent used to discuss this subject quite often, with the occasional proponent of the bow popping up. One poster -- a veteran of the Canadian Army and an amateur military historian -- discussed the subject of bows vs. early firearms in a fairly in-depth and intriguing manner. I'll post his words here for those who are interested: "In any event in the late 16th century all these points of this thread were specifically brought up in England during the firearms debate. In 1590 Sir John Smythe, a proponent of the bow, published a book arguing for archery, stating the bow had a rate of fire four times greater, was more reliable (matchlocks of the time were hideously finicky) and that that although the bow might be weaker, it was more effective at terrifying the enemy with flights of arrows and wounded soldiers. In 1594 Captain Humphrey Barwick responded, stating that rate of fire on the battlefield was not as important as Smythe thought. Against charging cavalry neither archers nor muskets would get many shots, and against infantry both would have multiple chances to fire. And then the far greater lethality of the musket would be telling - Barwick considered Smythe's argument about the "terror" of the bow nonsense. Barwick also pointed out that while the musket was less reliable, it demanded little of the firer. The bow however required the archer to be in top physical condition for best performance. Given the condition of soldiers on military campaigns in the 16th century, Barwick pointed out that it was better to rely on the weapon than on the health of the soldier. Barwick finished by pointing out that muskets were the way of the future with many opportunities for improving the weapon, training and tactics - bows had peaked, but muskets were only going to get better. Barwick and his fellows won the debate, and the English abandoned archery, with the musket and pike ruling the battlefields of the English Civil War half a century later. The argument for the Natives converting from bows to muskets comes to us from the Europeans rather than the Natives themselves. The Europeans (who acknowledged the limitations of their weapons and still held a sort of romantic fascination for the bow) wondered why the Natives were so quick to adopt muskets when they were skilled archers, and muskets were loud, noisy, slow firing, harder to acquire ammunition for, and somewhat incompatible with their traditional "skulking." They felt it largely came down to a matter of firepower. An arrow could be deflected by leaves, scrub and bush, and could even be dodged by an alert warrior. In the skirmish warfare of the North American bush, being able to fire repeatedly didn't mean a great deal if your opponent had already sought cover - you had your best chance to kill with the first shot. And a musket would go right through the foliage, and would ensure a nasty wound on impact. Although a bow could be fired faster, a good musket shot or salvo would deliver a much more devastating blow. For warriors skilled in bounding overwatch (which they called fighting "blackbird fashion") and fire and maneuver (Native tactics more closely resembled those of modern infantry than the Europeans, and calling them merely 'hit-and-run' is simplistic) that ability to make the attack count was crucial, and provided a key military advantage that all the benefits of the bow could not overcome. On brief reflection, I see some parallels with what we saw in Afghanistan from the Taliban. The RPG-7 is less accurate, harder to carry and conceal, with less ammo and a lower rate of fire than the AK-47, and with old PG-7 warheads it's not even all that effective against even our lightest armoured vehicles - but what it has is much higher lethality against infantry. The rate of fire of the AK-47 gives it a higher potential kill rate, but in practice (save in the hands of a handful of marksmen) all it did was make lots of noise: once a firefight began, everyone sought cover and all that rapid fire just kicked up dust. After the opening shots, almost no one ever died to direct fire. Casualties were almost always suffered in the opening salvos, and there the RPG had a massive advantage. So the Europeans and Natives fought very differently in their wars, but both found reasons to consider the musket (and we're talking the deeply flawed matchlocks here too) superior." ------------ Not directly related to the subject of flintlock vs. English longbow, but I figure it's still tangentially relevant. If the comparatively crude arquebus still managed to dethrone the bow at a time when the latter had tons of institutional & cultural inertia behind it in both England and North American indigenous tribes... that says a lot about the premise of "those guys were so silly, they should have raised a corps of longbowmen out of thin air for Wellington!" (even putting aside the fact that that supposed request is almost certainly apocryphal).

I think the argument about a single barrage of fire causing massive damage being superior to a more spread out constant rain of fire holds true in 20th century warfare too. It never really happened, but consider if in say the Korean war, instead of a constant artillery barrage on an enemy position, they used a single, small yield atomic bomb. If you're getting shelled, you think there's a chance they'll all miss you. If you see one of your positions disappear behind a 0.8kT mushroom cloud, you maybe think about going home now. Obviously there's logistical reasons why you don't want to use atomic weapons in a land war, but my point remains.

Historically speaking, there's a correct answer: yes, muskets are better for warfare. Nations could train musket users in a matter of weeks, whereas bow proficiency and the strength needed to use the bow would take years.

From my (admittedly layman's) understanding, muskets (and firearms in general) won out simply because they had more room to improve. Bows and archery has been around for thousands of years and by that point they'd pretty much been refined and improved as much as they could. There wasn't really much more that could be done with them. Firearms were a big new innovative technology though. Considering that even in their earliest stages they could hold their own alongside bows, as the technology improved they just kept pulling ahead even further up to today where they've evolved into the modern rifles used in the military. Bows just could keep up. Just compare modern military rifles against the most advanced bows used in sports and hunting with all the counter-weights and pulleys to improve accuracy and power. Bows are ultimately limited on the power they derive from their operator while the firearm only needs accuracy. (This is why I advocate in rpg's like D&D that bows should be strength-based weapons and crossbows/firearms should be dexterity-based)

I think it’s fair to say that at the end of the day, weapons are force multipliers and gunpowder is great at multiplying force. Much greater than what is possible with just steel, wood or straight up bare handed. I love bows but muskets absolutely out perform in the aspects that really matter.

Whenever I see this argument, I remember some writings by a 16th century English soldier (who had experience fighting in Spain amongst other places) writing about Arquebuses. He mentions how much better they are than Longbows, but that a lot of the English nobility that he'd worked for had a bit of a romantic view of the Longbow, and overestimated their usefulness. He was a gunner though, so he may have had a bias about it.

Your point about the psychological impact of taking fire from a musket is I believe 100 percent on the nose. I think people vastly underestimate just how scary being shot at by that weapon is. (Which isn't very surprising when you think about it) that also makes it amazing that at one point standing your ground in the face of that was something people did in the 18th century, brave chaps. Edit: given the discussion in the replies I figure this video would be really helpful on explaining musket/napoleonic style warefare. kzfaq.info/get/bejne/mdJneM93t7XLpKc.html

The way Shad does replies to other people's content is great because even if he completely 100% agrees or disagrees with what a person is saying, he'll take the time to explain a bit about the other person and what they do, and if he disagrees, he'll make it as clear as humanly possible that he doesn't hate the person for their opinion, and that he doesn't want any of his subscribers attacking the person. Kudos to you.

Awesome video! I need to watch more of your content but I almost got teary eyed during the ad. I remembered you talking about your kids with Carl and that convo really stuck with me. Keep up the great work my man!

Of all the things I've learned and admired about Shad I think the fact that he got his kids to eat veggies just might be the most impressive. Well done sir.

The weirdest thing is that at the very moment that muskets replace longbows, the military writers of the 16th-early 17th century specifically don't mention at all is training being easier for musketeers. They do contrastingly mention repeatedly the vital importance of training for musketeers. Which makes a lot of sense when considering large groups of matchlock armed troops in close order.

The main advantage of Musket over bow is it took months of training to become accurate at range and years of training with medieval bows to condition yourself to be able to fire arrow after arrow without reaching exhaustion, meanwhile you can take some serf from a field, and give him an afternoon with a musket and her has a pretty good chance of laying low a knight in armor. It's a staggering force multiplier.

The japanese civil war of mid 19th century illustrate it perfectly. You see people using old version of guns, bows, sword and armor vs modern armies. In close combat modern armies are struggling against "traditionnal" weapons but the fire power at range is so devastating everyone quickly adopted it.

17:41 Yes Shad, it's called a volley when a unit of musketeers/riflemen all fire at once. The firing line is the name for the soldiers who line up and take aim to make the shot.

Now we need Lindybeige to respond to this video to talk about the superiority of slings.

Really loved the intro..... so cute and wholesome getting da fam in on things with the kids. Really is nice seeing a family man with their kids just having a fun time while also working. GGs

The biggest thing that is missed in these conversations is the fact that smoothbore muskets were not as inaccurate as pop culture says they are. At reasonable range, a soldier armed with a musket could hit their enemy. Also, you cannot dodge a musket ball. You most certainly can dodge an arrow shot from anything but point blank range.

So Shad, on one of the points you made in the video: Are you saying that a long bow is a good type of bow... because it's essential just a curve STICK!!!!!

It's rare to see someone with the humility to defend an argument that acknowledges the fault in something they love. That's why we love you Shad!

Actually the muskets are VERY well balanced. Mostly because you have a literal tube of steel running the whole length of the musket. If you held a medieval spear with the butt end planted in your shoulder as you would a musket it would also feel rather awkward. One thing you miss comparing medieval spears and muskets is the fact that the muskets were often quite a bit heavier. There are formations of men that very much preferred to keep their bayonets off until close combat couldn't be avoided, light infantry troops that Brandon mentions for example. However, other line formations of infantry were specifically trained and intended to fight with their bayonets attached at all times. The biggest factor when comparing medieval troops to 18th and early 19th century infantry is the training. If you only have to spend 3-4 weeks on firing drills, you can train your troops to much higher degrees of discipline when it comes to holding and moving in various formations. This makes very high attrition formations such as the Swedish Caroleans suddenly extremely effective and viable compared to other forms of infantry (especially if you give them a couple shots of gin before a battle). Really though, the ability to churn out such massive formations of generalist infantry in rapid time is the real reason bows died out. A combined formation of pikemen, bowmen, and cavalry could be replaced by a force of uniform infantry and a cavalry formation and achieve results at any range in a battle while reducing the unit complexity drastically and simultaneously increasing the types of formation maneuvers you could perform reliably. Assuming of course you actually gave your infantry equivalent time training as you did your medieval infantry units, which is a problem that many units and armies throughout time have had. Oh, we're gonna ignore artillery for now though. The evolution of field artillery is kind of complicated and greatly effects the uses and deployments of infantry and cavalry throughout the 18th and early 19th century. On an interesting note, Tsarist Russia retained the idea of bayonets being fixed at all times all the way up through to the first world war, which is why most Mosin Nagant rifles are considered to be inaccurate; the sights were calibrated from the factory assuming the troops would be shooting with their bayonets fixed.

both videos are excellent. Shade points out one interesting thing about supplying the bowmen on the front line, saying that they got a sheaf of arrows numbering about 20-40 arrows. That's the exact same number of rounds that could be carried in most common cartridge boxes/pouches in the 18th century by the fusilier.

Kinda unrelated, but Shad's Hello Fresh ads never fails to put a smile on my face

I'm actually one of Brandon's editors at made this particular video. When I finished it I said to myself "Now we wait for Shad to see it and reply" Didn't actually think it would happen though.

This was a pretty interesting video, thanks for putting it together. I never really thought about why muskets overtook bows as the main ranged weapon on European battlefields, I just took it for granted that they did. The open communication just added a lot of context to the transition.

I believe that the musket being superior has more to do with training time then any other factor. You can train a man to march and reload a musket in a couple of weeks but it takes years to train a man to be able to use a heavy war bow and maintain the fitness required.

A terminology note: a bunch of firearms firing simultaneously is a "fusillade".

Another point about ambushes: While you might hear the relative position of the musketeer once they've fired, the bowman's position is revealed, too, as there is an arrow pointing in their direction.

35:30 Total war: Warhammer 2, Thing here... the dwarves are a very great example of this. Even their ranged units are often equipped unusually well for melee as well as already being great ranged units (Being one of the few I've played with that does this, I've only played a handful though). Unusually being equipped with a *shield* as well as their melee and ranged weapon. Though not as armored they still do have some, unlike the usual archers having little to no armor. As well as normal dwarven infantry being some seriously hard nuts to crack with some insane defense.

The large rectangular cooking surface was really interesting to me during your Hello Fresh portion of your video. This topic is very interesting to me and it makes me wonder how battles would have played out in more modern times if the bow was still the dominant choice. Imagine the Napoleon conflict, or the American Revolution using archery as the main weapon? Also, I think about the conflicts in the USA vs the Native Americans, and the Russians vs the Mongols, and wonder how the lower poundages of those types of bows worked in favor of the bowmen vs the armies using firearms in certain conflicts.

We need a collab between Brandon, Skallagrim, Metatron, Shad, and all reenactment channels, in all-out historical speedrun, similar to Operation Odysseus Like on the terms of Weaponry, Armour, Culture, Traditions, etc. would be pretty cool if they can pull it off!

"What makes a good soldier, Sharpe?” “The ability to fire three rounds a minute. In any weather sir.”

first time ive been recomended an old video in a while. . . lets hope this continues ;)

Quite literally the most genuine and wholesome ad that I have ever seen.

The fact that his children are referred to as “Shadlings” is adorable

Also a point for lethality for muskets is that the bullets will deform, tumble, and fragment inside the body. Leaving more complex and larger wounds.

"This truth remains accurate, consistent throughout." "War... war never changes...." Ok now that I got that out of the way, never forget that in a world of automatic weapons special forces are still using bows. Yes guns are vastly more effective, but bows still have their place.

One advantage of muskets is that wounds were much harder to treat. Amputation was often all that could be done after a musket ball had pulverized the bone in an arm or leg. Arrow wounds were more treatable with the medicine at the time.

Nice timing. Just finished the hidden blade video

A general loses all his longbow troops "oh no". A general loses all his musket soldiers "oh well".

Also, in addition to the damage caused by a musket volley, the sound and smoke of a volley from massed muskets must have been absolutely terrifying...

I have shot both longbows and muskets and (generally depending on the shooter's ability and their training) bows shoot faster, are more accurately than muskets, and can shoot better in damp weather. But... muskets pierce armor better than arrows (leading to a revolution in warfare in the 17th century) and it only took a month to train a musketeer where it took years to train a longbowman (and he had to be strong enough to pull back those heavy bows). I like shooting ca.1590 matchlock arquebusses and horse pistols, but they (along with smoothbore flintlock muskets and pistols) are terribly inaccurate beyond 40 yards. But .75 or .69 round lead balls will demolish the target if they hit. Watch videos on folks hunting with Brown Bess muskets to get an idea on their lethality.

There’s also 2 additional factors. 1. Trajectory, bullets tend to be fired along flatter trajectories at competitively longer ranges, so more chances to hit someone in an enemy formation. 2. Cover, a pavise may protect against an arrow/bolt but nowhere near as much against a musket shot.

An elven arcane archer with a good magic bow can easily outdamage a musket by several d6! I smugly rest my face.

during the main time when bows vs muskets happened 2 significant things had yet to be invented. 1. rifling to spin the musketball for increased accuracy. without it hitting the broadside of a barn becomes hard. 2. smokeless gunpowder, meaning the battlefield is smoked out after the 1st volley pretty much forcing a charge. these 2 factor significantly impact the bows vs musket debate.

Great video and I would like to also mention with a long bow you can shoot over targets such as castle walls trees or a barricade along with adding a flaming arrow able to set ablaze any wooden structures and the long bow is quieter at a distance you can get several shots off without someone knowing your there or knowing where the shots are coming from witch is a few benefits with the long bow that we’re not mentioned that the musket does not have the options of. the draw back with the long bow is training time it’s takes years to get proficient with a long bow where as it takes a lot less time with a musket just as in the similar case with cross bows and long bows but you can hand anyone a musket or cross bow show them how to use it and your ready to go where it takes a lot of time to get the muscle training for the long bow. Also a musket will eventually be fouled up with excessive shots over time where that won’t happen with a longbow or cross bow. Also sabers were cared mainly by officers as a status but were used in battle and were not issued to every common musketeer solider. But yes still the musket is still a far superior weapon on the battle field. Now 1v1 idk🤔?

"Bows are better than muskets because they are quieter." Actually, in the context of warfare in the late medieval/early modern era, the noise of the muskets is a plus on the battlefield, not a minus. The kind of warfare where a quiet weapon that doesn't reveal your position is important is in asymmetrical or skirmish warfare. In this period, that kind of warfare wasn't as impactful as it would become in the 20th and 21st centuries. Assuming quieter is better is ascribing the tenets of modern special-forces tactics to an era where that kind of warfare was actually very impractical. People seem to forget that guerilla warfare was extremely limited in its applications before the advent of mechanized warfare. Pre-industrial armies were less vulnerable to supply chain disruptions, so these kinds of tactics didn't have the huge upside that they do now. In industrial warfare, supply and communication disruption is so important that you can't afford to not try it - it's a "whoever does this better is almost guaranteed to win" thing; in pre-industrial warfare, it was more of a "sure, if you can pull it off" kind of thing. Add to that the fact that the high mobility required for effective guerilla tactics is largely enabled by the technology developed in industrial warfare, and "pre-industrial special forces" becomes more of a fantasy trope than a historical reality. There are some exceptions, and some rare groups that were superficially similar to special forces (the hashashin and ninja are popular examples), but the actual function of these exceptions is tailor made to a very different kind of warfare than modern armies engage in. However, psychological warfare on the battlefield is always a thing. Loud blasts of a musket line accompanied by the sound of artillery thumping away *will* take a greater toll on enemy morale than sitting under mass arrow fire, regardless of how lethal they are in comparison to each other. In terms of immediate battlefield impact, there isn't much difference between an enemy wounded, killed, fleeing, or paralyzed in fear. They're not fighting back, so they're not a factor in your enemy's favour.

I love how polite Shad is to Brandon in this. Not that they were necessarily disagreeing, of course, but at every turn Shad is complimentary to Brandon and speaks highly of him and his knowledge set. Well done, Shad! Edit: Also, I use Hello Fresh, and I can say it is quite good. A bit pricey, and if you're not a very good cook (I'm certainly not), it can be a bit daunting at first, but 4-5 meals in I had a much better idea about what I'm doing, and the cards that have the instructions also have the ingredients and their proportions. So you can hang on to them, and buy the ingredients on your own if you wind up discontinuing the service. The only meal I've had so far that was "meh" was one that was essentially cheeseburgers, and anybody can pull those off.

Awe man it's nice seeing your growing army, you must be a hell of a happy dude.

Shad I quite enjoyed your musket vs war longbow. I am a lifetime archer. I have shot in competition for many years. I agree I think that many archers think about the accuracy of a competition compound bow when they are comparing musket and bow.

It took years to train a longbowman it took a couple of months to train a musketeer

Good points Shad, though a few corrections on why muskets (firearms in general) are more lethal than bows. Bullets don't need to be removed from wounds for the wound to heal up, even today they often leave the bullet in the wound as finding it can cause more damage then it prevents. Bullets curve through the body, often burying its self far from the main wound cavity where it acts as a plug where it is. The wound cavity left by the bullet is more dangerous than the remaining bullet. Bullets rip cavities into the body that resemble the shape of a gourd or squash, leaving a wound that will continue to bleed if only the opening is stitched up. The cavity left by the bullet needs to be closed and every damaged artery or organ pieced back together. In contrast arrows pierce a straight hole into the body, so when the arrow is removed, the wound can simply be cleaned and sutured. So because of the differences in wound type, arrows only damage what they pierce while bullets damage the areas around where they pierce. Also bullets often fragment themselves or shatter bones creating wounds branching off of the main cavity.

The sponsorship part is the most wholesome thing I have ever seen

Seeing shad being a dad just makes me so happy for some reason

Spoiler: Yes. Otherwise armies wouldn't have stopped using the bow.

the sponsor part was super wholesome, not gonna lie.

Another factor I loved in Brandon's videos is he covered how accurate muskets can be, vs what is believed! Even if most shots miss, the ones that hit wither your enemy down! Say you start at 1,000, one volley you lost 50 or 100, next volley you lose slightly more! Closer you get the more casualties gained. Given the range of a bow, even at their best average, that musket can consistently shoot greater distance than a bow! Playing into that shock and awe effect mentioned if the two forces clashed, those bullets hit like hammers and hit fast! That and maybe already told you, most of the time armies went into battle bayonets already on! For a decent time in the American army, the bayonet was at one point, WELDED ON! That was changed sometime later. As for the wieldy quality of a musket with bayonet, they are actually VERY easy to use, more handy than you think, there is a great video I found covering later mid-1800s Canadian troops, armed with yes, breechloading single-shot rifles, the effectiveness of bayonets is sharply displayed! Video in question: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/pp93pJunuq2thX0.html

I watch a documentary I think last year on Japan and it’s unification. One of the things I found the most interesting is Nobunaga used both bows and muskets. I can’t remember exactly what his tactics were with using both but it was very smart and effective

Shad looks more like a king when he's next to his kids. Someone make this man a custom crown please. And above his throne is the channel logo, that could also work as an actual family crest with a real sword and shield.

A huge point many people forget that you can train a professional archer in a couple of months, years to master it. You can train a musketeers in a couple of hours. So for every dozen archers you field the musket army is fielding hundreds

Love this reply, would love it more if more creators did collaborations rather than replies as it gets hard to contrast and compare two videos and often good details are explored when two view points and knowledge bases are contrasted in the moment and come out with clear answers. The one thing with regards to training is that directly because musketeers could be given simple instructions and little training, this would mean that all training would be basic and quick, most people forget that as a standing component of any army, Medieval Archers did the same basic training with swords as the general infantry militia would get, so forget comparing the sword to bonnet, the archer was trained in combat including how to parry a spear / bayonet, where as the musketeer was likely literally only trained in how to use it as a spear and possible as a very short quarter staff, the metal barrel would have been better than a wood shaft, but the sword still has a full length blade, and Shad has many videos about why Swords beat things because of the full length blade over things that do not.

16:00 I noticed the first firearm design called the musket in the Renaissance was designed specifically to penetrate armor, as a heavier equivalent to the arquebus.

I always love how throughout the years even in shads more bolder days he’s always been respectful and courteous in his opinions and statements. Much love

The earliest bayonets actually plugged the barrel, the bayonet we think of now though could affect the loading process more than sight or shooting which is why it would need to be affixed. It would become more regular, though not fully adopted, to keep the rifle bayonet affixed once muzzle loading was phased out.

22:00 that's also why tactics advanced with muskets...one line fires a volley, steps back to reload while the next line fires...rinse and repeat

Still watching through, loving it so far. Just want to mention axe style bayonets were a thing. Granted, not as common as the standard, but still a thing and better than standard bayonet

Why i like this guy, he sees things in a rational way. Might like something but puts it in it's logical or reasonable places

The longbow being superior to 'late 19th century musketry' really makes me giggle. I know it was a mis-speaking and you meant late 18th century, but the idea of someone seriously arguing that a longbow is better than a smokeless powder bolt-action rifle is just too funny! 🤣 🤣 🤣

Shad and his kids eating out in the wild is such wholesome way to do a sponsorship, now I wanna get hello fresh

Hey Shad you didn’t cover the noise aspect of a musket volley. This combined with smoke and the projectile being invisible would I suspect further weight the morale impact further in favour of musketry, even against veteran troops from either era. Loved the video and points - glad you are greatly contributing to the ‘keeping it real’ evaluation of warfare and equipment. Cheers

And officers didn’t choose to use swords and single shot pistols, they often had two or even more single shot, or double barreled pistols and a sword. Those were an officers weapons. As their job is to command men and the local battlefield, coordinate with other officers to win a battle. Not fight, not offensively. Those weapons are defensive in nature, as they are side arms. That was the role of them, to let him protect himself in close combat as he controlled his unit. They are also a symbol of who’s in charge. Officers still had swords all the way up to WWI, that they used, along with pistols as their weapons, and about a year or so into the war, was the normal thing.

Depending on the time period, you wouldn't even be able to fire your musket after fixing bayonets. Initially, bayonets were plug bayonets which were fixed to the musket by plugging the bayonet into the barrel of the gun making it impossible to fire (at least not without damaging the musket, bayonet, or both).

@shadiversity hey shad, just to add points for consideration. I bet the speed (if any possible difference) for each type of formation could move into firing position was taken into consideration. Plus, I bet there was tactical consideration for the arrows arc. Meaning bowman could fire in tandem behind the musketmen. This increasing damage in a given time while also keeping your bowman behind cover of fellow soldiers.

Volley works as a series of rifle shots, and so does fusillade. On another question, the closeness of the grouping would depend a lot on the quality of the firearm itself, and a rifled versus a smoothbore barrel improves accuracy greatly, which is why it was adopted.

Accuracy maybe not..... but volume of fire and anti armor power yes.

Mad Jack Churchill would disagree about the superiority of firearms to a longbow , but then again, he was mad

I think it needs to be said that arming swords( and later sabers ) were still in use up until the 1850's so if you didn't have a bayonet, you could drop the musket and draw your sword just as quickly.

Interesting discussion at the end regarding the accuracy of the longbow vs the flintlock musket. I never really considered the comparison before, so this video got me thinking. In terms of accuracy, both weapons have a built in advantage and a built in disadvantage. The advantage of the arrows is in the fletching, which help stabilize the projectile. Muskets balls are not similarly stable when fired, and are deliberately undersized to make them easy to load (typically a .75 caliber Brown Bess musket would fire, I think, a .71 caliber ball). So in terms of drift stability, a bow and arrow might have an advantage, though probably not a huge one since, as Shad pointed out (and I didn't know this was a thing) arrows flex and tend to hit the shaft of the bow unless they're specifically matched to the pull weight of the bow, which would not be possible for mass produced arrows where the maker doesn't know what bow they'll be fired from (also Shad sharing knowledge, I never knew that) . On the other hand, if an arrow (assuming the fletching that isn't too badly damaged) probably has some advantage in terms of lateral drift, the musket is probably superior in terms of vertical drop. A great deal of the criticism muskets get from modern shooters is not so much regarding the lateral instability as the vertical drop. While there's no guarantee that the loose-fitting musket ball will exhibit its instability laterally instead of vertically, even a perfectly stable ball will still have a terrible trajectory compared to a modern rifle because the projectile just isn't moving very fast. That said, it IS moving very fast compared to an arrow. Estimates of the velocity of musket balls can vary considerably but even using a very conservative number (600fps), the it's approximately 3 times the velocity of an arrow from a longbow, and maybe as much as 5 times. This means the advantage a musket has vs a longbow in terms of "point blank" range IE the shooter is close enough to the target that they don't even have allow for projectile drop, is probably similar to the advantage a modern M4 rifle would have over that black powder musket, even allowing for the possibility that the inherent instability of an undersized projectile that isn't spinning may manifest itself in drop rather than drift. In addition to this factor, it's also probably a lot easier, even for a mass produced musket, to have a vaguely decent trigger pull than for a person firing a longbow under stress to reproduce a really crisp release over and over again. In terms of the weapon, while both have advantages and disadvantages accuracy-wise, it seems to me that the musket would actually come out ahead, and our modern perception of them as inaccurate weapons is compared to other firearms, not bows. All THAT said, the average archer may still have been as accurate as, (or even more accurate than) the average musketeer, since they were obviously more highly trained overall, and the nature of a lot of their training seems to have been individual or in small groups. While a musketeer (as opposed to a light infantryman more likely to be armed with a rifle anyway) would be more likely to be drilled in formation.

The earliest musket bayonets were plugged into the barrel and couldn't be used while shooting since they literally blocked the barrel.

I think everyone is forgetting the true advantage of archery: Fire-arrows! (I’m kidding. I’m kidding! I watch Lindybeige too, you know.)

Just another thing is that arrows can more or less be blocked with shields. For instance, a Roman Testudo style of formation can drastically cut down the hit rate of arrows, but will do very little against firearms.

Re: accuracy I don't know how much this applied to bowmen, but for musketry, one of the early Kings in Prussia experimented with volleyed musket fire vs company-sized cloth sheets. He found that musket fire was accurate enough it should be inflicting as much as 20 times the casualties actually found in battle. The discrepancy is that actual musketmen would often deliberately (if perhaps subconsciously) fire high rather than shoot to kill. The idea runs something like "As long as I'm loading and firing in time with my buddies, no-one knows that I'm not killing. If I participate in making enough scary noise and smoke, maybe the bad men will just go away." Artillery winds up being an outsized killer because of the enhanced range. It may not be mechanically accurate at long range, but if the target is just "dots on the horizon" that's easier to actually aim at mentally than humans. If you are using mortars or howitzers with explosive shells and indirect fire, this effect grows even more pronounced. "I'm not killing anyone. I can't even see the enemy. My job is just to cut the fuses to the lengths called out by the spotter / My job is just to swab the bore between shots / my job is just to set the angle as ordered my job is just to..." Trying to land hits in difficult circumstances will land more hits than trying _not_ to land hits in easy circumstances. And the King in Prussia found that that is exactly what the majority of musketmen were doing in battle.