A friend heard or read somewhere that Russian Irregulars commonly used bows during this time period.  Does anyone know anything about this?

That was in the early 19th century I believe when the Naponleonic Wars began. I believe at that time bows and arrows were obsolete. Bow and Arrows I believed stopped being used somewhere in the 17th century unless it was for hunting.

Yeah, even the Russians had more than enough muskets to go around. I'm not putting much faith in your friend's account.

It's not really his account.  He is too young.

this is all I have been able to find

During the Napoleonic Wars Russia could call upon large numbers of light irregular cavalry, the Cossacks. These troops were descendants of outlaws who had settled in southern Russia and were tribal, being commanded by their tribal chiefs or atamans. They had little effect on organised disciplined troops but they were highly valued as scouts, raiders and skirmishers and harried the French Grande Armee mercilessly in 1812. They were organised by area into sotnias or squadrons and rode hardy steppe ponies. Each man had a spare pony, much like the Mongols before them. They loved weapons and normally carried various including firearms and lances as well as a knout or whip with an iron weighted end. Although some Cossack regiments had uniforms, most Cossacks outfitted themselves in their own somewhat tribal manner. In battle as already mentioned their performance against steady troops was less than impressive but they were skilled scouts and their large numbers (77,000 were listed in the Russian Army in 1795) and barbarous war crys often struck fear into their enemies. They were robbers and looters and were often seen as filthy drunks and some of the Asiatic tribes were very primitive by the time of Napoleonic wars, with the Bashkirs and Kalmucks being little more than medieval cavalry carrying only bows and arrows and gaining the nickname 'cupids' from the French.

I have found accounts of bows used during WWII by partians

I'm remembering something about an arrow stuck in helicopter in Vietnam.

It's possible... The Napoleonic Wars ran from 1799-1815. During that time, the bow was still more accurate with a greater rate of fire than the majority of weapons issued to armies of the world. That being said, the bow really wouldn't fit in well with the way wars were fought at the time.

That sounds familiar to me as well... I'm thinking maybe it was an SF unit up in the central highlands, training Montagnards? I also remember reading the book Recondo, where the guy mentions medevacing a Vietnamese tribal chief's son who had been injured, and the chief jumped on the bird w/ his son, crossbow in hand.

I know that an English commander asked about longbowmen, but were told that that skill was no longer around...
A Medieval English Longbow had an effective range of 200 yards and a ROF of 10 arrows a minute.   By range, I mean it retained enough energy to punch through a knights armor...
compare that with a musket, which had an effective range of 130 yards, wildly in accurate, and only had a ROF of 4 rounds per minute.

Early firearms were shit compared to the bows at the time. the reason they went with firearms was because Archery at that level took years to train for, while you could train a musket men in a much shorter period of time. That and the fact that the preferred wood for a longbow, Yew, almost went extinct in Europe for a while...

thanks for the insight

This.  I think Benjamin Franklin IRRC actually entertained the idea, saying something like a company of medieval archers could have their way with any army.  

If you think about it, it makes perfect tactical sense at the time.  The old formations had soldiers tightly packed into rectangles or boxes in neat lines, with no armor or shields, and as I read it, the range of the musket at the time was maybe 50yrds, not 130.  One or two volleys could break the line they were targeting.

The only problem was that it took around 7yrs to train an archer to perform at that level, and no army after the 15-16th century could justify that amount of time and money.  I always thought it would be a pretty cool scenario to play out.

This whole idea of 'bow and arrow faster/more accurate/superior' to early firearms is just bunk.

One of the battles cited when describing how great the bow was is the English vs French at Agincourt.  However, if looked at in more detail you will find
#1 French forces were bogged down in the mud, ANY ranged weapons, be it bow, primitive firearm, crossbow, or even slings would have had a hay-day with them.
#2 The French forces were out in the open, the English ranged and melee units were in very thick woods, with defensive preparations.  Again any ranged weapons would have been equally effective at ruining the French fighting forces
#3 The French were positioned in a spot where they had absolutely no chance of flanking the two groups of English, the French were in 3 groups stacked up behind each-other, making them ideal dense targets for ranged attacks doing a ton of damage.
#4 The above meant that when the French and English did finally engage in melee combat, the French could not use their numbers effectively because of their small front.  They were packed so tight they couldn't even use their weapons effectively.
#5 The English Longbowmen actually defeated the French force IN MELEE not by shooting them to death.  The lighter archers didn't sink in the mud nearly as badly and were able to get up if they fell down (Many French men-at-arms who fell in the mud either from combat, exhaustion, or just slipping drowned in their helmets) and the archers had light stabbing weapons that worked much better in the thick fighting.

The French forces were defeated by the BATTLEFIELD at Angicourt, NOT by the Longbow.

50 years later in 1453 at the battle of Castillon primitve firearms massacred the English Lowbowen, English foot troops, and English Cavalry.

Regarding the 'tight' formations of revolutionary war armies being 'great for archery', that's wrong.  Ranged weapons, be they longbow, crossbow, or primitive firearms made all but the thickest armor obsolete.   Heavy Cavalry gave up most of their covering except for in most cases a thick metal helmet and thick metal chestpeice (which was later swapped out for lighter leather)  but still heavy cavalry coming at a charge would plow through ranged units.  To counter this a formation was developed called the Pike Square which had crossbowmen and archers in the middle surrounded by pikemen.  The pikes kept the cavalry from charging in, and the unit marched toward the enemy infantry while weakening them with ranged and then engaged in a pike fight.  If bows were so terrible to massed troops then this formation would have failed.  The truth is that cavalry was a much bigger threat than ranged attacks.  The Pike Square was switched to the Pike and Shot when primitive firearms advanced, the archers and crossbowmen were swapped out for arquebusteers and musketeers.  (The Spanish Tercio formation was an improved Pike and Shot formation developed afterward) Later when firearms advanced further, their rate of fire was sufficient to ward off cavalry, provided they stayed in tight groups, and they had bayonets as back-up turning the long barreled firearms into quasi-pikes.  If the bow was so awesome at laying waste to groups of tightly packed infantry these formations would never have developed and survived, let alone thrived.  And they sure wouldn't have dropped the bow in favor of firearms as the ranged portion of these formations.

Also, regarding the longbow.  The range is often misunderstood.  A longbow would fire a heavy arrow at 200-250 fps.  Even removing air resistance, the range such a slow projectile can go is very limited by gravity.  Remember that a projectile is pulled down 16 feet in one second.  What this means is that if you fire up at a long arching angle you get your 150-200 yard range, but it takes a ton of experience to know what angle to shoot up at to hit a mass of troops 100 yards way, vs 150 vs 200.  Plus long range arrow fire can easily be countered by troops holding up light wooden bucklers as the 'waves' of arrows fall.  But for the most part marching bodies of infantry figured out that as long as they didn't get bogged down, the amount of casualties they'd take advancing on archers wasn't enough to worry about.  (You'd need a second element, like a group of infantry ready to flank the first, or cavalry harassing them, to pin the infantry in place allowing for the archers to do their work...or walls.  Walls were great too)  Pike squares only had an issue with archers when something made them stay in a defensive formation to be whittled away at by arrows.  If bows were so much superior to even the most primitive firearms, then Pike and Shot formations would not have replaced Pike Squares

While a bow of the day would be much more capable of hitting an apple off of a post at 20 paces, you didn't have any individual accuracy at 100 paces, here it was just hoping all the archers knew what angle to hold their bows and fire.  Crossbows and early firearms fired projectiles fast enough so at 100 paces all you had to do was aim pretty much straight at the enemy and fire.

While Yew was the preferred bow making wood, there were plenty of other options.  Also, technology travels.  Both crossbows and gunpowder were developed in the orient and the knowledge was 'imported'.  If bows were so superior, but the lack of yew was really a limiting factor, then the technology of the middle east and far east regarding composite bow making would have been imported either in addition or instead of crossbow and gunpowder.




I doubt if Ben Franklin ever made any sort of argument about longbows vs muskets, but if he did, I am sure it was more of a case of him not having access to good historical accounts of what actually happened at multiple battles, rather than hearing 'myths' like the longbow was what won Angicourt.


The ONE area where the bow continued to survive after 1500 was on horseback.  While there were some troops that used crossbows when mounted, and eventually some cavalry went to carrying a short carbine and/or a pair of single-shot pistols,  the extra difficulty of reloading on horseback as well as firing on horseback just was too much of a hindrance, leveling the playing field and allowing the bow to continue on for a while longer in that very small roll.

Akodo, that was a fascinating read. Thanks!

The simple fact that the early firearms supplanted bows should be evidence enough that bows were not greatly superior.

Interesting concept.

I don't know about the Russians, but I would imagine that arrows may have been used by the Spanish guerrillas in fighting Napoleon's troops during the Peninsular War.

Had a classmate who was in 'Nam. He was on a track when three arrows sailed through the air and hit the side of the track. Their response.  They rolled on their backs laughing.  It was ludicrous to him and his buddies.

“How do you beat an enemy who is willing to fight helicopters with bows and arrows?”

quote from movie Gardens of Stone