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This article is about the weapon. For alternate uses, see Crossbow (disambiguation)

A crossbow is a weapon that fires projectiles called crossbow bolts or quarrels. Invented in China (Zhao Ye, 200 BCE ; Needham, 2004), the crossbow played a significant role in European medieval warfare and is still used today. Romans in the Hellenistic era used something similar to the crossbow known as a ballista.

A crossbow consists of a prod (similar in appearance to a bow) mounted on a stock similar to a rifle stock, which has a mechanism to wind and shoot its bolts. These bolts are typically called quarrels, and do not depend upon lift as arrows do. The stock and trigger of hand-held firearms may have been copied from crossbows.

Crossbow bolts must be made to have consistent weights as the mechanical process of engaging a bolt forces a more uniform process than that of using a bow and arrow. This consistent performance was part of what made the crossbow historically a significant force in warfare.

A crossbow contains a string which is held in place by a nut when the bolt is loaded and the cross bow is engaged (referred to as at full draw). Typically, the nut is at the end of the shelf (also called the bolt rest).

The prod ("bow") and stock of a crossbow were made of good hardwood, such as oak or hard maple. The central European bows were rather exotic as they were constructed of inlays as well as specialized woods. The prod (also called lath in England) is attached to the stock with hemp rope, linen, whipcord, or other strong cording. This cording is called the bridle of the crossbow. Much as a horse's bridle, it tends to loosen over time, and must be carefully respliced when appropriate. The prod is very short compared to bows, thus resulting in a short draw length. This makes crossbows inefficient at storing energy, which is why they must have very heavy draw weights. The draw weight of a modern crossbow can be up to 300lbf.

The crossbow shelf is a flat section above the stock with a straight groove for the bolt to rest upon and travel along as it is shot.

The strings for a crossbow are typically made of strong fibers that would not tend to fray. According to W. F. Patternson, whipcord was very common; however linen, hemp, and sinew were used as well. Even cotton was tried with some success. In wet, twisted mulberry root was occasionally used.

The crossbow also includes a trigger, which was later incorporated into rifles, muskets and other firearms. Triggers are known to have been used on crossbows from the early 1400s. Leonardo da Vinci designed many complicated triggers for crossbows, ultimately producing a "hair trigger" that could be shot with very little finger strength.

Crossbow bolts are lighter than arrows, but must be sealed with a poof to ensure their consistent weight. They also typically only have two fletches per bolt instead of three commonly seen on arrows. This prevents them from snagging on the crossbow nut as they are shot.

History

The crossbow was invented in China and was from there introduced to Europe via the Middle East. Knowledge of crossbows was learned from the Chinese by the Arabs who in turn passed the knowledge to the Europeans during the Crusades.

Literary records (Zhao Ye: The Romance of Wu and Yue) place the invention of the crossbow in China during the Warring States period in the kingdom of Chu about 500 BCE. Many contemporary writers, for example Yang Hong and Zhu Feng Han contend that the often cited inventor, Ch'in, improved upon a trigger mechanism, and that the crossbow may have existed from the seventh century BCE or even much earlier. Archeological evidence supports the time of development of the crossbow in China at the eneolithic/chalcolithic period around 2000 BCE (about 4000 years ago to this day).

According to Guinness World Records(2004), the earliest reliable record of croessbow usage is in the Battle of Ma-Ling, Lingyi, China at 341 BC. By the 200s BC, the crossbow (nǔ, 弩) was well developed and quite widely used in China^[1]. Crossbows have been found among the soldiers of the Terracotta Army in the tomb of emperor Qin Shi Huang (260-210 BCE) ^[2]. The first western reference to the crossbow is to the gastraphetes ("belly-bow") of early Hellenistic period (ca. 400 BC). The Romans called the crossbow an arcuballista (hence name "arbalest"). They did not employ it as a massed weapon, but used it as a scout weapon and for hunting. According to book Arma Fennica, the crossbow was used by the Inuits of Greenland, and in West Equatorial Africa.

The crossbow became a common weapon of war in Europe in the 9th century, and almost completely superceded the hand bows in the 12th century. The Saracens called the crossbow as qaws Ferengi, "Frankish bow", as the Crusaders used the crossbow against the Arab and Turkoman horsemen with remarkable success; the foot crossbowmen could outshoot the mounted archers. The Byzantines called the weapon as tzaggra. The Finnish national epic, Kalevala, depicts Joukahainen ambushing the hero Väinämöinen with a crossbow. The crossbow was also often used on horseback, especially in Scandinavia.

The repeating crossbow (Chu-ko-nu) is one of the greatest Chinese innovations on the crossbow. Invented in 2nd Century AD, it was used as late as China-Japan war of 1894-1895 by Manchurian troops.

The prod of a crossbow was made of wood or composite materials until the early 15th century when steel began to replace other materials. The advantage of a simple wooden prod is that the bow as a whole was lighter in weight, easier to span (even by hand), and quicker to discharge. Composite construction, on the other hand, could be made stronger and give the arrow (quarrel) more kinetic energy. Composite prods were made of horn, sinew and wood, and produced much larger draw forces. The Europeans favoured single wood longbows for hand bows, but instead the composite construction was favoured on crossbow prods. The draw force is the tension that the string is under when the bow is engaged. Since the draw force can be much more than a soldier might be able to pull, these crossbows generally include a winch device to cock them. It is the high launch force of a crossbow that made it a formidable weapon in warfare. Since composite prods involved gluing material together which would have to withstand a great deal of stress, a slow drying time was essential. The strongest glues naturally took longer to dry. It was not uncommon for six months up to a year to be spent in ensuring a bow was dried properly.

In the later 1400s, steel manufacturing advanced significantly, and was more commonly used in spring production. A crossbow prod was made out of spring steel, steel prods being very common by the early 1500s as their performance was more uniform, except in very cold weather. About 1400 the use of the crossbow changed, with the butt end of the stock being placed on the shoulder for accuracy. By 1650, the cross bow looked like it had a rifle stock, and was used in a similar way (what you see on a rifle has probably already been done on a crossbow). Makers of crossbows (arbalistmeisters) were making quite beautiful crossbow stocks by 1600. Some Belgian designs were as polished as those of modern Olympic rifles.

Use

Crossbows were actively being used in European warfare from 800 to 1500 A.D. They supplanted bows in many European armies for a number of reasons. Even an expertly handled longbow rarely had greater range, better accuracy (the "arbalest" or siege crossbow being the exception here), or faster rate of fire than an average crossbow, and the value of the crossbow came in its simplicity: it could be used effectively after a week of training, while a comparable single-shot skill with a longbow could take years. The use of winches allowed soldiers to use and fire weapons with a draw force far in excess of what they could have handled with a bow. In the later years of the crossbow it had enough kinetic energy to penetrate the armor of a knight with ease when hit squarely: some reached a draw force of nearly 350 lbf (1600 N), compared to the 60-180lbf (300-900 N) draw force for a longbow. Moreover, crossbows could be kept cocked and ready to shoot for some time with little effort, allowing crossbowmen to aim better and to "cover" a target area, while archers could not keep their powerful bows pulled for long periods of time.

Due to the long time required to reload a crossbow, users would sometimes make use of a pavise. Siege arbalests could be even stronger than field arbalests, with up to 1000 lb (4400 N) and be accurate to distance up to 500 m.

Pope Urban II banned the use of crossbow against Christians in 1097, and the Second Lateran Council did the same for arbalests in 1139. The crossbow was seen as unchivalrous and as a threat to social order, since a peasant could kill a noble anonymously; crossbow mercenaries were usually killed immediately on capture, unlike others who might have been ransomed or set free. However, their effectiveness made them an "evil" no one could afford to be without, often in the form of hired foreign mercenaries. Given the great accuracy of the crossbow, it filled many duties that sniper rifles have today.

Crossbows were eventually replaced in warfare by gunpowder weapons. Early guns had slower rates of fire and much worse accuracy than contemporary crossbows.

Modern crossbows are still used for target shooting and in some places for hunting, although for the latter a person generally has to have a disability or special license to use one. They are made of the same composite materials as modern bows.

One of the newest developments in crossbow technology is the use of the shoulder-cock. The shoulder-cock is extremely easy to use and has a fast loading time. Using a shoulder-cock, a good crossbowman could reload in under 7 seconds. The average draw force for the shoulder-cock crossbow is 100 lbf (400 N), which is low compared to other crossbows. A good example of a shoulder-cock crossbow is the FX-II crossbow.

See also

• arbalest
• repeating crossbow

References

• Needham, Joseph (2004). Science and Civilisation in China, Vol 5 Part 6, Cambridge University Press. 0521087325.

External sources

1. ^  Invention of the Chinese crossbow
2. ^  Weapons of the terracotta army
3. ^  Paper with a brief portion discussing the origin of the Asian crossbow

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