[OT] Crossbows

OK, at the risk of boring to death anybody who is only interested in 
the future and not in ancient history...

There were various posts on crossbows, knights and China.

The origins of the crossbow are lost in the depths of time. China is a 
good candidate for its invention, some time in the early 1st/late 2nd 
millenium BC.

The first recorded large-scale use of crossbows in battle was at 
Ma-ling in 341 BC. 

The massed use of crossbows was one of the factors leading to the 
decline of the use of chariots in China. The other components was
increased 
use of cavalry and the rise of large, reasonably disciplined armies of 
infantry (armed with, bow, crossbow, spear or halberd). BTW, crossbows 
were also used sometimes from chariots.

The Chinese developed a large range of crossbow types, heavy 
armour-piercing ones, weaker ones for quick fire, cart-mounted
catapults, some 
which could shoot several bolts with one shot, sniper's weapons with 
precision sights...

The multi-shot light crossbow mentioned was invented in the Warring 
states period. One has been found in grave dating to ca. 250 BC. The 
Chinese themselves had forgotten its origin and credited general Zhuge
Liang 
(181-234AD) with inventing it. Its first recorded military use was 
sometime around 1000 AD and never played that important a role. It was
still 
occasionally used in the 19th century - the ethnology museum in Hamburg 
has one on exhibit.

On Chinese archery, crossbows etc. see:
http://www.atarn.org
especially on the repating crossbow:
http://www.atarn.org/chinese/chin_arc.htm#zhuge

Two recommended books on our subjects:
Joseph Needham 'Science and civilisation in China', the volumes on 
missile weapons and gunpowder
Stephen Selby 'Chinese Archery'

The first crossbows in the West were used in the 4th century BC and 
were fairly heavy items mainly used in sieges. They were occasionally
used 
throughout Roman times. 

The quick-firing crank-operated catapult was a Roman invention, though 
it was not used much in the field. Too complicated ?

It's in the Middle Ages that their use spread again in Europe. Like in 
China, a wide range of types was developed.

A crossbow does not have to be expensive. The most primitive types are 
little more than a bow and a stick. They are/were used by various 
hunter-gatherer tribes, especially in South-East Asia, but also , for
example, 
by the Picts of Scotland. These are fairly weak, however. Powerful 
crossbows need good bows and elaborate mechanisms and these are, indeed,

expensive.

As to knights, we must define that word properly. We tend to think in 
terms of medieval Europe here. A knight is a nobleman who fights mounted

in heavy armour and lives in a castle. But Nobleman/armoured 
rider/castle are not necessarily linked. 

 Nobles existed in many times and places, often as military elite. But 
they may have had neither horses (e.g.the Aztec 'Jaguar Knights') nor 
castles (ditto), or both, but entirely different fighting styles (e.g. 
Japanese Samurai).

Very heavily armoured cavalry may well have been of non-noble status. 
'Knights' in this sense appeared around the 5th century BC, probably in 
Middle East, or perhaps on the Steppes of Central Asia. These 
'Cataphracts' originally fought at a fairly slow deliberate pace with
lance or 
sword. The tactic spread over much of Eurasia, including China and Korea

(around the first centuries AD) and lasted for several centuries. It ws 
replaced armnoud in the 3rd-6th first centuries AD by slightly lighter
but 
more flexible cavalry equipped with both lance and bow. The crossbow 
seems to have had a minimum influence on these developments.

Since the 6th or 7th century BC, the Chinese had to deal with nomad 
horsemen from the steppe, whether Huns, Turcs or Mongols and knew how to

deal with them. The crossbow was a mayor advantage for the Chinese, as
the 
nomads could not produce the elaborate trigger mechanisms. Still, only 
very well-trained bodies of crossbowmen were expected to be able to stop

a cavalry charge. Normally, they used obstacles or a row of spearmen in 
the first line.
The reasons for the Mongol conquest of China are complex, they include 
the mobility of the mounted archery tactics, but a lot of political and 
strategic factors were involved.

Gunpowder was invented in China in the 9th or 10th century AD and soon 
used militarily in incendiaries, then in rockets, explosives, and 
flamethrowers, and finally in guns. As there were no 'Knights' in China
in 
that era, it didn't play a role in their demise. 

Greetings