There are so many interesting points and thoughts coming up here - thank you. Firstly I would have to highlight a couple of my oversights. We know that crossbow men (but not always men) did employ spanners, so people behind the scenes spanning and handing already drawn bows to them and this increases the potential rate of shooting of crossbows and allowed it to be done in better cover than given by being on the 'front line'. I also did not mention that of course crossbows can be spanned and held ready for a shot which is a massive advantage over a longbow which cannot. However also note that a steel limbed crossbow can be held all day, a composite cannot, so cannot sit there ready and waiting all day. I don't know how long you can safely leave a fully spanned composite, but I suspect they would want to get the shot off pretty fast, but still has a waiting/target selection advantage over longbows. Weight of bows is very interesting. Let's not pretend we actually know how heavy a war bow of the period was. Quite simply we don't and it could be that the bow Joe is shooting would be exceptionally heavy for the time. However unless he dropped weight really significantly he would still face the same problems, just to a lesser extent. We must also acknowledge that the bows that came up from the Mary Rose (100 years later) were coming in at an average weight of about the same as Joes and I doubt period ships were that easy to shoot from either. These bows were found in a naval context and were already falling out of use as a military weapon so we can draw inferences but not facts from these. My personal opinion is that we're likely pretty similar to the bows of 100 years before; but again that is my opinion, not a fact. Looking at the 'peek and shoot' difference between longbows and crossbows, of course every extra millisecond you are exposed disadvantages you over a quicker method, but I felt that there was not a massive difference between the two weapons. As regards the ease with which a person can be trained to shoot a crossbow. It is undeniable that you could span and shoot my windlass as I have seen my 10 year old daughter span it, that cannot be said for Joes bow. With a little training you could shoot proficiently and threateningly enough that at 50m the target person would dearly like to be somewhere else. After a couple of hours most people would be striking the target pretty often at this range. However crossbow archers were well paid, usually better than longbow archers and I am sure there are many reasons for this, but still there must have been very high levels of proficiency required for this better pay. But what we also know is during sieges it could be all hands to deck so to speak and walls would be manned by soldiers etc, but also by anyone who could be useful and that included women and children as well as men. Some of these roles would be hurling rocks etc down, spanning bows, fetching etc but also I am almost certain I have either read or seen on manuscripts women shooting crossbows. Of course Richard 1 was also famously shot by a (male) cook using a crossbow. So it is absolutely fair to say that the use of a crossbow was easier for the untrained and possible for those with lesser physical strength. That all said, I was very surprised about the lack of advantage of shooting down offered by the crossbow. As a final note, shooting down is not at all a problem in terms of the bolt falling off, you simply need to put your thumb on the back of the bolt and hold it in place - the nut and string will do you no harm. The spring clip to hold bolts was only invented around 1500, so prior to this your thumb was the answer. As a last point, if anyone is reading this who has a castle, I would love to arrange some filming looking at arrow slits and proper crenellations.

One advantage you may have overlooked a benefit with the crossbow is if you have someone that is trained while on the crossbow meaning they can hit the target they're aiming at. You could have several people feeding him loaded crossbows and the same guy shooting, with a longbow no matter how great you are you're going to have to stop and take a break it would be very hard to constant shooting for hours on end with a crossbow if you're just the guy shooting it that wouldn't be that big of a deal. And it would be much easier to train for military purposes if you had one person that did all the shooting and had other ones do the loading and hand them the weapon. At least that works well for defensive situations.

The big advantage of the crossbow is that you can hold your weapon at full draw in readiness without effort. You can wait, and ss soon as the archer appears and prepares to shoot, you can react to him faster.

Thanks a lot. My castle is currently besieged and this video has greatly helped

It is pretty clear to me that the fraction of a second saved by popping up with a crossbow, and not having to pull on a bow at an awkward angle would be all the advantage you could ask for. Especially since you can give a crossbow to someone with very little experience and they will have some chance of being effective,

One thing that sticks out in the video, is just the mechanical advantage; Joe is tensing up and doing hard work, everytime he wants to give a shot. Tod is methodically reloading with the windlass; but in a siege that might actually be a meaningful difference. Suppose you had to man that piece of wall for hours, while an enemy attempted to storm it -- exhaustion would be an extremely real problem.

Would you say the crossbow has an advantage for the attacker on the ground? A bow, you cant draw it, and wait for the archer up above to pop their head out to shoot... a crossbow you can load it, point it at the opening and ... wait. You can react to the archer up there poking his body out to shoot.

Think that last shot perfectly illustrates "why they were so good" - even if just once in a specific scenario a guy who makes things for a living and shoots crossbows every so often managed to outshoot a bow guy who's been doing it for most of his life. And you both only took a few shots and were being friendly and safe about it. I wonder what the results could be if Todd had been regularly shootin' his contraption for a decade straight.

That POV from the attackers view is amazing, really helps to imagine how it would feel besieging a fortification.

This is really interesting to see, the crossbow removes all the biomechanical problems of the bow you will encounter in an non-ideal position

After watching this I see why actual castles have areas to shoot across the approaches. by pushing out the towers. Another brilliant video Tod! Thanks

This is actually one of the coolest videos I've seen in my entire life. Having a tower to work off of for light theory crafting and testing like this is so cool. Experimental archaeology in fine form!

Now have Tod run up the stairs so we can get authentic time for the archers response time to the enemy. :3

This is where the arrowslit is a game changer. A crossbowman stand ready and pick their shots, aiming for gaps in armour. Get them a stool and they can be ready to shoot all day without tiring.

Being unable to reach the closer targets is the reason behind machicolations in structures actually designed primarily for defence. Ideally you'd also have overlapping cones of fire, so that while you might be unable to fire at someone at the base of your tower/wall, your mate in the next tower could, a factor that continued into the gunpower age, hence the design of Star Forts. (Edited to remove point mentioned in pinned comment)

I keep thinking back to the fact it took years to train up enough on a war bow to be useful in the combat space, but training on a crossbow to competency was much shorter.

I think you're under estimating that advantage provided by the crossbow to be able to crouch and pop up to take shots. Any advantage you can get in a life and death situation you're gonna take it.

This is why hoardings were so important: they let you lean out and shoot down at those ranges you otherwise couldn't.

wow, I never spotted (or rather, heard) it in the normal series with Joe Gibbs, but the sounds of EFFORT as he draws back that bow! it's like someone's slowly letting air out of a balloon, and really goes to show just how HARD pulling that thing back really is! I have to agree fully that the biggest advantages of Crossbowmen on crenelations has to be that they can do it for longer, and can hold shots longer. I really did NOT notice those effort sounds during the normal testing

I so appreciate the perspective Joe gives here. I have experience shooting heavy bows, but seeing these cross shaped arrow slits in castles never made me think of the issues it would give me shooting out of it! Having Joe explain the issues that come with it makes me go "oh yeah, how did I not see that, it's obviously not ideal, nor easy to train" I think you are doing great work here

No matter how good I was at shooting arrows with a longbow at the start of the siege, by week 6 of rationing I'd be glad to be using the less energy consuming crossbow.

The crossbow's advantage really must've been the ability to have it ready to fire whenever, to have it ready to make that perfect shot instead of needing to expose yourself too long to fire.

That shot at 0:48 where the archer draws the bow and points it straight at the cameraman. Legitimately frightening. I could see the intimidation factor for someone attacking a castle. Also, balls of steel on that cameraman. I’d have been sweating at that.

Alternative video title: “A guy who dislikes crossbows and a guy who can shoot a longbow talk about how good or bad the longbow is in a siege”

If you watch the Chalus Castle siege scene in the 2010 Robin Hood movie with Russell Crowe, you can see how even the actors playing the part of the defending Garrison also struggled with how to effectively return fire from the battlements much in the same way you did. There are multiple instances where you see the defenders hang out at awkward angles to get low angle shots with their crossbows.

Great video. This is probably why they had both archers and crossbowmen garrisoning fortifications so they can balance out each other's flaws...and this combination was commonly (or at least not uncommonly) used across both western and eastern Eurasia.

The ability for a crossbow to do snapshots, shots of opportunity might be more advantageous from the ground actually. 🤔 if you have a loaded crossbow down there you can aim up at the battlements for long periods of time and when Joe stepps out to draw and aim his bow you can shoot him through the face in an instant.

Absolutely fascinating as ever thanks Tod. So many interesting aspects in just 12 minutes! The insights from having a real archer (Joe) is just invaluable. Within a few minutes i learnt it was actually physically difficult for him to shoot down that steeply. Something i had never read or considered before. Thanks again and Merry Christmas to you both!

I think the most important advantage the crossbow has is that it can be aimed continuously and effortlessly. If you know someone is behind cover, you can aim at said piece of cover and wait until there is an opportunity to shoot your opponent. This is just not possible with a powerful bow. The need to draw the bow first and then lose the arrow immediately means there is always a delay between a target presenting itself and you being able to shoot it. So practical accuracy in a siege ( or skirmishes in forests for that matter ) should be much higher for the crossbow.

An important thing to bear in mind which was only touched on at the end is endurance. A longbow can shoot much faster, but it's exhausting. It's arrows are also bigger, more expensive, and less storable than crossbow bolts. The ability of a crossbowman to put a steady stream of projectiles in the enemies face over hours and days will be much greater than a longbowman's, even with the longbow having a much faster peak shooting rate (because that peak rate can't be kept up for any length of time). What matters in a siege, after all, is the weakest defence you can put up continuously; not the strongest barrage you can muster for a few minutes.

This is actually ace man I so happy there are people making these sore of videos. Really brings history to life keep up the good stuff lads

A crossbow, you can shoot it even if you are a kid or a woman. You can have a kid or woman reloading them while you shoot. Etc.

You are discovering many things those of us who archery hunt from tree stands have had to adjust for - there is a disadvantage when the target gets too close and in addition it requires a lot of training to be good shooting from height down vs. shooting on level ground ( aim point changes and your draw length to anchor point also changes). Oh, and longbows - yeah, lower limb hitting is a common issue.

In larger castles, multiple overlapping fields of fire meant that other defensive areas could target attackers closer and visa versa

Very interesting seeing the practicality of theory and novel writing (e.g. Bernard Cornwalls Grail series). Amazing effort Tod and Joe to create that realism element that adds another dimension to historical siege actions. Someone give these men a castle to play with.

Those extra split seconds you get while shooting a crossbow could mean life or death when you're been shot at. Plus its less strenuous than a longbow if you wanna be shooting for a long time. Thank you for the video, its really great as always!

For the guys closer to the wall you could just toss out plumbata by the bucket

Maybe this is why most castles had enfilading fire positions?

I think a major thing is, this structure is missing arrow slits and machicolations. The argument between Longbow and crossbow, in my opinion boils down into training and ease of use. It taking a fair amount of practice and strength building to be able to pull a war bow and hit the target. Then the eventual transition from crossbow to blackpowder. The execution of loading aiming and firing being quite similar between the two. What might be an interesting experiment is get some Lads together who have never done any form of archery and see how much time training it would take to get them to a war bow level. Compared to using a crossbow.

i have 2 bows and 2 crossbows, no where near as strong as the ones you're firing, my big crossbow is 175lbs and my strongest bow is 55lbs but this was super interesting, keep up the great work my dude

I think the pop-up-and-down advantage of the crossbow is more significant than you mentioned. Todd and Joe appear at 9:26.5 (ish). Todd disappears at 9:28 (ish) and Joe at 9:29 (ish). So, this is roughly 1.5 vs 2.5 seconds of exposure. For a single shot, this is not that much practical difference as the probability of getting shot in that time frame is rather low. However, if over a few hours each person has 50 shots, this means the crossbowman would have been exposed for 1 min 15 seconds and the longbowman for 2 min 5 seconds, with the difference in time growing with the number of shots. I can see this having a significant impact on survival rates for long sieges.

Honestly, this really does make me wonder about actual historical draw weights of bows. We only are working from one specific historical example for weights (Mary Rose) and that was a very specific environment. I know as a very amateur hobbyist with a little leaning I can shoot down and over a wall pretty comfortably with a 70-80 lbs bow (albiet a short Turkish style with a thumb draw, haven't tried a longbow yet) at a pretty steep angle. If the arrows aren't punching through plate at 140lbs anyway, and you're still hunting for gaps in the armor, would a 70lbs bow also serve that role equally well? I can't remember if you tested maille with a 70lbs bow, but it would do an absolute horror show on cloth and flesh as bow hunting has long established.

So happy you guys explored this. I have been pondering what bow to invest in after I had crenelations installed for home defense.

Makes you think about "Arrow slits" in castle walls, may not be as easy as I have allways assumed it would be. Great film as allways Tod & Joe, experimental history at it's best, challenging assumptions 👍.

The reverse scenario would be really interesting. How long can you poke your target out till Joe Gibbs hit it from below?

Thank you so much for doing what you do! please don't stop

Excellent video! The incident in 1450 was more of a raid due to vendetta than a siege. It lasted only six hours with Stafford's raiders departing specifically because they were unprepared to conduct a siege. Likewise, Harcourt's withdrawal to the church, upon warning of Stafford's approach, was hasty and improvised. While the church crenellation may have been decorative, it was far superior to Harcourt's unfortified manor house which Stafford burned to the ground. In this sense, the video recreates what the likely conditions were during the raid where only one of Harcourt's men was killed. The narrow tower windows would engage closer targets. However, by the time of this incident, proper fortifications with crenellated stone towers and walls employed pivoted mantlets over the crens where the mantlet pivots mounted on the adjacent merlons. In some cases, the mantlets had arrow loops such that mantlet could remain closed while a defender shot through. If not, then the mantlet could be propped open partially, affording a slit over the cren. In either case, a crossbowman would be able to rest the crossbow for better stability and then pick and choose targets for precise shots. If one observes Italian crossbow re enactment and competitions commemorating victorious defensive events, the crossbow shooters employ rests. Eventually, hoardings replaced the crenellation mantlets while besiegers adopted wheeled mantlets and mantlet walls themselves. In Stafford's 1450 surprise raid, while some defenders may had time to grab arms and armor and make for the tower, it is quite likely that Harcourt had far fewer men, the majority of them unarmored, and armed mostly with swords, daggers, with bows and crossbows primarily intended for hunting ...

A good justification for building hoardings before an expected siege. Gives your defenders more angles and options for attacking the enemy without exposing themselves to angles that would be as susceptible to missiles. Edit: There are a few archery techniques out of Eastern archery(Turkish/Turkic) that are for shooting downward where you draw the bow from behind your your head to be able to get an angle to shoot downwards that could be used both at short range on horseback and when shooting from the top of a wall or fortification, but those bows being much shorter are probably much more conducive to awkward positions on ramparts than a longbow.

Would be interesting to see what difference a lighter bow would make and would they use different arrows at a shorter distance, especially firing downward?

Awesome stuff as always. Another little perk of the crossbow is your marksman doesn't have to be in peak physical condition to use it. If you're tired, injured, sick, malnourished from being under siege, you can still shoot.

It might not seem like much, but a split second less being out of cover for the crossbow might make all the difference in the world. Remember there are guys on the other end, and if they can loose their shot faster than you, they're taking shots at you. If you can get a shot off faster than that, you're not taking shots - at least not intentional ones.

It would be great if you would test out the fletched javelins from these towers, as in medieval art they were often seen in siege situations or thrown from ships

I'm a bit of a longbow fanboy but I think the crossbow might have come into its own with untrained people who could be quickly taught how to load it for a shooter. Something like a goats foot lever

The amount of information and respectful debate in these comments astounds me. Great reads! Loved the video. Can't wait to see what you've got in the pipeline next. Many thanks!

When I was a 10 year old Dungeon Master, I would have benefited from this video. Not only were my players firing almost straight down at the base of the wall. They were using Longbows. Looks very like a difficult and very exposed position. Crossbows are still my pick. You can be ready to fire when an opportunity presents itself.

The archer is exposed to counter-shooting while he draws. Re close range targets, flanking shots from other positions would probably be used, rather than from straight in front. The advantage the crossbowman has as a besieger, is that he can have an opening covered and shoot as soon as a target appears.

First, fortifications were rarely just bare stone - there would have been wooden barricades and fences giving further protection to the defenders, possibly allowing bowmen to hang out from the stonework. Secondly, you do not need to shoot from the middle of the open space; you could be partially covered by the stone as you shoot through the smallest degree of space between the stones. Lastly, reduce weight of bow or span but use heavier projectiles thus using height to provide the extra velocity (also meaning spent projectiles are less effective to the beseigers).

Couple coffee shop engineering thoughts: I think lighter bows are key here. And at about the 8 min mark, Joe refers to stepping out of cover, draw, aim, shoot. I'd guess, with a lighter bow, you could drawn and hold longer. This would allow the archer to draw whist behind cover, then step out, aim and fire. Cutting the exposure time down significantly. Add that to faster rate of fire and, if the bow is smaller, more angle options to shoot. As to Tod's mention of not hanging out over the wall b/c of exposure; Again, smaller crossbow may make this quicker. But also, risk vs reward. If you don't nail the guys close to the wall, you're giving the chance to them of getting in for the win and killing you anyway. Additionally, you've got a sense of duty to the Lord and your fellow men to do all you can. As well as the added pressure, possibly, of your commanding officer being behind you and he's not going to accept any mincing about. You might be more in fear of him than the enemy shooting you. So I think hanging right out and shooting straight down, if necessary, is certainly on the table. Love to see a part two with you guys bringing an assortment of sizes of bows and crossbows up there for a re-do to see what the differences are. Thanks Tod!

Cool video. Joe pointed out one thing. That you want to keep torso straight when shooting. What if instead bending in the waist like he did, he would have move his hips back like you do with RDL in the gym. Like that you can keep torso nice and straight and lean down significantly without compromising strength of you draw (potentially, have no experience in archery whatsoever)

On the subject of shooting at someone close to the walls: Standing on something to get higher up would change the angle a bit to make a shot more manageable. On the subject of being an exposed target in between the crenulations. It depends a lot on the background. If you siluett against a clear sky you'll make an easier target then if you have a dark background for instance if the tower had a wooden superstructure like many castles had. If you are lurking in the shadows you might have time to take a well aimed shot.

I'm not going to repeat what others have said here regards the endurance of a crossbow versus an archer. Just want to say Seasons Greetings and a Happy New Year to you all :)

i am really surprised, much like Tod i'd have thought with a crossbow you'd be able to just go full sniper elite and own just about everything and everyone from up there, but i guess that's why it's always better to actually try these things out than to just guess how they might go. great video! :)

I don't often open youtube anymore, but nothing makes me smile as bright as seeing a Tod flick in my subscriber feed

So ideally, you'd want a range of bows, to suit the range. The closer range, lighter bows are usually shorter, so you should be able to achieve a more comfortable posture and manoeuvrable stance. Great video!

The other advantage the Crossbow has that didn't get mentioned besides the awkward angles is that anyone can use the Crossbow. Unlike Joe's long bow where you need specific training just to draw it and even more training to become proficient at it, the Crossbows biggest advantage is that anyone can pick it up and shoot it effectively with little to no training. Great video as always Tod so thank you to you and Joe both and Merry Christmas to you both! 👍👍

Crossbow, they can actually pierce armor

As arrows verses armour has shown, some form of steel covering can reduce the chance of a wounding hit by a huge amount, so a simple helm & chest plate could suffice to allow a cross-bow to be shot at very short range. Edit: If there are archers firing at a particular area, very few people would be brave/stupid enough to come near, so simply firing near soldiers is enough to keep them away.

I imagine the crossbow's rate of fire could be improved by having one or two "loaders" per shooters... Also the thought of tripping in one of those stairways is not a good one ;-)

I think, in more of a siege than a storming, the crossbows real advantage is that you can walk around with it loaded, spot someone and take a shot. You don't have to knock and draw an arrow. Also anyone can shoot a crossbow, even a maid or a cook could in theory.

Just 2 guys shooting the shit, both in a figurative way and pretty much in the literal way as well, good fun in both regards!

I think one of the biggest signs of the advantage is that Tod can even compete at all with Joe.

Damn, that looks as though Joe would eventually do himself a mischief. The archers of the time will have known their limitations and surely wouldn't have risked injury trying to target the nearest attackers. I'll wager they were quite disciplined in 'managing' their sweet spot.

The biomechanical issue of the longbow vs crossbow in this setting is huge and understated. Tod for some reason literally says the main reason crossbows are soo good in a defending siege to himself! and just ignores it. You can leave the area of harm, to arm your weapon and then return to perform a quick snipe (meaning your much much safer compared to the longbow). This is much much safer then clearly what the longbow had to do, exposing himself for a long time and having to load in view as well. And all this is ignoring the tiring effects of utilizing the long bow (likely leading to bad behaviors and exposing your self more and taking risker decisions). Its clear shooting in these awkward positions is extremely tiring for such a heavy long bow, if you had to perform 100 shots, his ability is going to drop off a cliff, while the cross-bow will not. Lastly shooting a longbow requires training, and arguably a hastily defended castle, is going to be manned with all sorts of people mostly from people whom never shot longbows, and this clearly is an opening for crossbows where anyone can pick it up and shoot it. This demonstration at least proved why cross-bows are used in defense, I think Tod needs to flush his mind and watch this again with a clarity.

so pro's crossbow: anyone can wield it. no matter the strenght. it does shoot instant when ready. no tiring of the wielder during an arrow hold. you can have multiple crossbows ready so you can fire a few shots in a row. short exposure during a shot. Crossbow cons: reloading takes way to long. if you miss a shot you need to reload or grab the next loaded crossbow pro's bow: shoot fast and multiple times rapidly in a row. you only need 1 bow and some arrows. they're carryable by 1 person and they're easy on the stairs, light weight. Cons for the bow have shitty angles with the crenelations. you need to show yourself longer than a crossbow when shooting due to a draw and release just takes a second longer than the crossbow. I think I still prefere the crossbow. although I would like something that kept the arrow in place besides your thumb! Sweet video lads! really epic that you guys could use the tower!!!

Crossbow advantedges: - Far easier to train - Untrained personal can assist in reloading so a single shooting position can possibly generate higher rate of fire - Far less tiring - Exposed about half as long per shot - The ability to aim and only shoot if a target presents itself Id say the last two points are what makes the crossbow much better in a formal siege. The attacker will bring forward barricades and use archers or crossbowmen to supress the wall before attacking it. In such a scenario those advantedges allow far easier supression of the oposition. I think testing this could be quite interesting. Just get some mock barricades, and then have one with the crosssbow and one with the longbow try to line up against the other obviously without arrows/bolts. If you can get some lasertag guns you could each take an assistant with the gun that shoots on your command when the shot is lined up and wear the reciever yourself. Id predict the crossbow to outdo the longbow in such a scenario quite a bit.

I think the limbs of the longbow being visible over the walls long before the shot, would be a potentially deadly give away, for anyone trying to kill archers on the walls. I also wonder how hard or easy it is to shoot through arrow slits or murder holes

5:20 that's what you got heavy rocks for.

Loved the video man very interesting i give the edge to crossbow because it also takes less training

Theres another thing to consider here. The availability of archers. Skilled longbowmen were not something you would have lying around at a castle. Longbowmen typically were trained by the yeoman system, where a man would be given land to farm and in return would train lifelong on the bow, so the knight who owned the land can call them up if he himself was summoned to war by the king. Hence the vast majority of longbowmen were only seen in campaign armies, not sat on retainer behind fortifications. It is said by some that at the battle of Agincourt, 'every trained longbowman from both England and France' took part in the battle, there were so few in total. If you wanted bowmen on the ramparts, you would not have 'skilled archers' - you would have peasant levies, far less competent than proper yeoman archers, far less competent than Joe Gibbs. For these fighters, a crossbow is MUCH simpler to learn, and far more deadly than the 20lb max bows the peasant levies could draw (compare that 20lbs to the 140lb bow Gibbs is drawing here).

I love that Tod is so dedicated he manages to put these weapons in as much context as possible. Well the crossbow can reload in the cover of the merlon. Or someone behind the merlon can be reloading crossbows and giving them to you if you're doing sniping fire(obviously in an assault you would want volume of fire so they would be shooting their own crossbows).

You have said it before, the advantage of the crossbow is the learning curve, or lack of, if you have 10 trained archers and 30 peasants you have 40 xbowers .. but you still only have 10 archers. The xbow gave untrained users the ability to have a reasonable chance fairly quickly of actualy hitting something with minimal training, it also to me, seems like an easy way to increase volume of fire, and if nothening else it could help to give cover to your trained archers.

Great video, thank you! I'm with you Tod, I think crossbows are very cool, but always still wondering how they get so much credit over a bow (because they're great! thanks Joe by the way, your longbow skills are AWESOME!). There's always more to learn and I appreciate you showing us what you've learned and for keeping an open and honestly inquisitive mind as you try things and discover

The defenders probably used lower windows too, for better view and angles. And probably too because not all of them would find a place on the towers roof. And really superior it would have been, if they had positions that are able to shot the enemies flank while advancing. Another Idea would be, that they used a wooden step or a chair to get a better angle from the roof. Love your stuff Tod & Joe

That is why modern forts (in the age of canons and muskets) were constructed in such way, with bastions to provide clear lines of fire along each wall. That is why castles began to have towers in corners, slightly pushed out, so you can shoot from one tower along the wall, and protect other tower (which then evolved into roundel, then into bastion / bulwark). I wonder if proper machicolations or hoardings would help in shooting at enemies at close range?

Well, aiming down was always a problem for me too, shooting wooden toy crossbows back in the day. Bows, not so much, but they were fairly lightweight. Besides you two using proper weapons, I would personally be too much afraid of hitting the wall with both the bow and crossbow limbs, so there might be a bit of that going on with you as well, where its hindering you more than it realistically would. Youre just hesitant to put your fairly expensive pieces of kit in harms way. Be that as it may, there is a limit as to how far down can one reliably hit targets. In a real castle, that problem is solved with not aiming that close at all though, as there is always someone in the other tower or wall part to do that for you, as you will do for them, hopefully :D And I guess, if things really get that bad, there are always rocks to throw over the top?

As always, your videos do not miss in providing entertainment and that ever wonderous look into experimental history. *KNOWING* that a thing was done, because historical documents exist to tell us gives us a dim insight. *SEEING* how a thing would have likely have been done... it provides an entirely different level of appreciation in what it must have been like hundreds of years ago to stand on that tower, and have to shoot at people trying to do the same to you.

Kaffee, Waffeln und Lindt Nuxor. Dazu eine Folge Tod's Workshop. Gibt nichts schöneres an einem Sonntag :) Frohe Ostern euch allen! Schöne Grüße aus dem wundervollen Sachsen

I could be completely wrong, but I think that defenders on top of a tower like this one wouldn’t really take the time to take aim at individual enemies. Rather than just peak, fire and take cover as quickly as possible.

As someone who hasn't trained daily with a longbow, i feel I would do better with the crossbow, and my belief is that really is the simple difference, Joe will always out shoot the common untrained man with a bow, BUT the crossbow is somewhat of an equalizer, reducing the skill level required of your cannon (arrow) fodder. As a commander i'd use Joe where he was most use and least vulnerable, due to his added value to me.

Love the medieval Figure 11 - "Charging man-at-arms" 👍

Tod, What you could have done with your crossbow would be to hold it up at a high angle and blindly shoot much closer to the wall than someone could with a longbow. In battles, people shoot blindly rather often. It would be very likely that people were doing it back in the 1400s as well.

What about the advantage of the crossbow to remain loaded and ready to fire as soon as your enemy pops out from behind cover?

I think the biggest advantage to a crossbow in defense of a castle isn't really anything to do with how you use it but who is using it. You can just wack a pile of crossbows in storage and basically anyone who happens to be in the castle can get results from using it. Generally speaking you're not leaving all your well trained archers to hold the fort unless you already know someones coming.

I read in some castle sieges, children (and adults) were hired and trained to reload a crossbow. They wind it up and let the operator take out the latch from The crossbow as they didn't want the assistant to take it out as mistakes would occur. 10 crossbow men would have 5-7 assistants - it was efficient.

Fun fact: Castle staircases were spiraled because your sword was in your right hand, making it difficult for attackers to attack in the staircase and making it easy for defenders to attack.

In a real castle, you would have had machicolations, which would have made the close shots much easier for the crossbow.

At 12 yards or less a rock better than a bow.

Thanks for another fantastic video. I guess that one advantage Tod has with his crossbow is that his weapon doesn't require the level of practice and fitness that the bow requires. Now we just need to get someone with a handgonne to join in this series. 👍

Best medieval channel ever. You are great guys.

I would pick the M2 Browning to defend my tower. Very effective.