English longbow or yumi?

[Curios]

From those two bows I choose Ak-47

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[r3vange]

Actually, full plate was pretty effective protection against the arrows, whatever point was attached. This was because the arrow shafts had to be made of the right materials to stop them from shattering on impact. On the whole, due to the huge numbers of arrows the English archers got through, the shafts were never of high enough quality to actually allow a bodkin to properly penetrate plate. The main problem for any mounted knight was his horse. Bring the horse down on an armoured knight and he ended fairly squashed and broken from the 1.5 ton beast that fell onto him in its death throws, or it trapped him completely making him an easy target for a knife to the eye. The Scots got the idea that the way to counter the threat of the longbow was to go on foot in full plate. That effectively negated the archer as a real threat (apart from extremely lucky shots). Of course, you'd still need to be a better army than the one you were facing which is where the Scots tended to fail against the English. Not that they didn't have their victories, but in the end the odds were just too steep to overcome.

I concur, and I have historic evidence to prove it. During the battle of Adrianople 1205 The Latin Empire with its heavily armed French knights were absolutely destroyed. A decoy attack and retreat made the Latin army chase down light Cuman cavalry into a heavily muddy area near the Taza river. Once into the muddy trap the ambush was sprung and the order given to the archers* was to aim not at the knights themselves but at their horses. Once their horses laid dead the knights were dead in the water, surrounded and decimated. There are reports that knights drowned in the sticky mud unable to get up with their gear weighing them down.

*Now mind you, the archers were not pure archers in the commonly accented meaning of the word, they were medium and heavy infantry trained in both melee and projectile weapons and used relatively small bows which had no chance against plate but were quick to shoot and even quicker to swap for a sword or a mace.

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[Govedo13]

The Mongol reflex bow then Turkey-Ottoman improved bow were the best. Turkey-Ottoman one is proved to be the most powerful bow ever made by man. The reflex bows are a way superior then longbow or yumi because they were smaller, easier to use and packed even more punch.They have also double range compared to Longbow or yumi. All kind of iranic/turk horse archers used small fast horses and reflex bows hence they were a way superior then the heavy armoured knights or infantry especially if they used parthian shot tactic. This tactic worked for more then 1500 years. First known defeated with it were the romans.

The truth is that the winners write the history books, western mediaeval military power is highly exaggerated in all kind of media just because financially western countries are able to produce more content like movies books etc.They also have a lot bigger research budgets.
The truth is that western feudal armies were really small in numbers and lacked diversity and tactics compared with the eastern/Asia feudal armies.
Here some examples:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Hastings
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Acheloos
Note the numbers- unknown to the world Bulgarian-Byzantine Battle with 120 000 participants compared with well known Hastings with 20-30 000 participants.

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Official faction players that are often accused of elitism, never deploy them and have those weird, immersion killing "fair fight/dueling" suicidal hobbies. (yes, i've seen enough of those lolduels, where house military with overwhelming force on the field willingly loses a pilot in a duel. ffs.)

[Benjamin]

so if winners write the history books and eastern armies were better, how come westerners wrote the history books

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[Rodent]

so if winners write the history books and eastern armies were better, how come westerners wrote the history books

The mongols didn't exactly bother with writing. Except in mountains of enemy skulls.

[Highland Laddie]

The truth is that western feudal armies were really small in numbers and lacked diversity and tactics compared with the eastern/Asia feudal armies.

I'm glad you specified "feudal armies," because I could just as easily point to the Plains of Marathon as an example of a defeated Eastern army lacking in both diversity and tactics. Or at least, certainly lacking in armor.

[Reid]

so if winners write the history books and eastern armies were better, how come westerners wrote the history books

Katanas can't protect very well against guns

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[MartoGuy]

so if winners write the history books and eastern armies were better, how come westerners wrote the history books

Most Asian countries fell into a isolationist cultures during the Middle Ages, and as far as I remember there were a lot of infighting in those countries. Every civilized country wrote a lot, western society just made better PR trough the years, with a high amount of propaganda, which started with the coming of the nationalist idea. That is why it is better to research history on your own from multiple sources.
Also crossbow is much better than bow. It might not have a very high refire rate, but it could penetrate heavy armor, it was easy to use and easy to learn and it offered higher accuracy with less time to learn. The argument that bows had a better refire rate is redundant. They also had better refire rate than rifles, we aren't using bows anymore.

[Benjamin]

should clarify that was a rhetorical question.

and safe haven, the japanese were actually pretty enthusiastic and innovative gun users back in the day

guess europe really missed a trick not having the diversity and tactics of using the same gimmick for 1500 years

and cultural dominance/significance =/= winners writing history. qf all this katana worshipping nonsense.

and yeah, the most powerful bow ever made by man was not made like 400 years ago, sorry.

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