It seems so to me, having to manually pull back the string. Anyone have pictures of crossbows throughout the ages?

Well, I know there are crossbows that require the whole feet. You gotta lie on your back and use your 2 feet to pull up the string.

Sephodwyrm, I seen thoughs bows in the Movie "Hero". Is it true that, that form of bow launches 5 arrows at once?

The smaller hand-held crossbows were hand cocked. The larger ones were cocked by standing with both feet on the bow limbs and pulling upwards on the string, that was until they learnt to add the stirrup to the bow riser and which only needed using one foot in the stirrup to hold the bow down while pulling upwards.

The crossbows that fire multiple arrows are siege crossbows. They fire arrows of different lengths, ie. the longest at the centre and short arrows to the sides. These crossbows were too large and powerful to be hand cocked. They used winches to draw the string though the trigger mechanism was pretty much the same, just bigger. I have pictures but you'll have to wait for me to scan them in first. :-)

Jieming

So chinese crossbows never used any sort of mechanical device to draw back the string? I mean the ones that are expected to be used by one infantry man, not siege ballistas or fortress mounts.

Not sure about never, but most crossbows for the army were mass produced things and I wouldn't be surprised if they just made everyone train very hard to c**k the d**** things by hand.

Ok, I'll go through my books and see if I can find references of mechanical devices to draw the string.

Jieming

This idea came in my head while reading about the European's who had winches, levers, and other means of using mechanical force to draw back increasingly powerful crossbows

The balistas had some kind of mechanical devices. From my knowledge, I don't think any Chinese hand use crossbows had any mechanical devices.

Balista of Song dynasty, we can clearly see the mechanical devices:
here

A hand crossbow been loaded, Song dynasty:


This is the one:

The handheld multi-bolt crossbows all show some mechanical lever that is pulled backward to c**k the bow. I've always wondered how they work. Maybe some of the singleshot crossbows also used this mechanical lever.

thirdgumi, great pictures!

Jieming

Zhuge Liang invented the Chu-ko-nu. I heard it shoots multiple arrows at once but is a pain to re-load is this true?

It's easy to reload, you dump some bolts into the cartridge.

Some varieties shot two or more arrows at once.

Some huge fortification repeaters shot multiple arrows. Wow.

hmmm, since armor never got as thick as it was in Europe, they didn't really 'need' longer-to-draw-but-heavier crossbows, I guess.

on the automatic xbows, loading...
they can jam though, but I think it has more to do with how fast you fire it than loading them. Oh yeah, some are fletched with very short rising feathers in a spiral shape, so they may get tangled in the cartridge.

Thanks.


Pardon me, but I don't agree.

According to Needham's encyclopedia on Missile technology in China, there was a type of mechanical crancked hand held crossbows, but it was never very popular due to its slowness and clumsyness.

I guess a stronger bow is a stronger bow, no matter what. It just seems odd though, everything just stagnated...

It's those neo-confucians!

Three ways of corking a crossbow

Hip, stirrup and 2 legs.

Stringing a crossbow

I think it said in Needham's section on missile weapons (vol 5 part 6 section 30)
that Zhuge liang was not the inventer of the Chu ko nu because he is much older then the first evidence of it in the Sung I think. I think somewhere it has been written that China had the repeater crossbow since han or earlier but on p. 163 he gives a figure of around +1600 for the Chu ko nu. I think maybe poeple get it mixed up with the much earlier multiple bolt crossbows described on pp. 188-189 which are not repeaters just shooters of multiple bolts at once. I think the first instance of the repeater crossbow is in greece or Rome -2 century which Needham also describes called the polybolon p. 172.

No, sites of the earliest ChoKoNu had already been found by the Warring States erra.

Yeah, ZhugeNus (Chukonus) have been excavated from Warring States era tombs.

Can we have some sources please, I take the time to reference my information so would you guys be kind enough to do the same. If you cant remember where you learnt it perhaps you could try explaining where I might be able to locate it.

1. Wikipedia gives references
2. Stephen Selby's book on asian archery
3. Needham's book doesn't conclude definitively that they were warring states era inventions but hints at it

I am surprised at this early date, but will take Selbys comments at face value, if a repeating crossbow design was found in a Chu tomb then its pretty conclusive.


http://www.atarn.org/chinese/yn_xbow/zhugehtm.htm

There is some good stuff in there, inc. that it lacked power so was poisoned...and another reconstructors observations about rate of fire and such.
I hope Liang Jieming has had a look at this link!

I would like to know what was found in the tomb, but it is unlikely to be an excavated crossbow itself. Perhaps it was shown in tomb art as a recognisable device. It isnt impossible for a crossbow to survive (ie wood) but it tends to be very rare. The same website shows part of a standard crossbow wooden stock that survived, and somewhere I have seen a warped but intact warring states laquered crossbow stock...but it tends to be mechanisms from which reconstructions are made, or outlines in the soil.
I wouldnt bother him with questions again to soon! (I dont know how happy he is really), but we can take for granted some sort of device (although not nessecarily ressembling the later examples) should have existed since Stephen seems pretty conservative with statements of dates and evidence with regards to other devices.......ie he doesnt assume crossbows existed before Zhou etc.
I would say he would have good cause to say the above based on the contents of that tomb. Whatever it was exactly somebody may find out later.

Ah, yes Kenneth. I drew a lot of help from that website. The basic outline of dimensions and what performance I should expect from my own ZhugeNu is based on the article and diagrams from the site... though extrapolated downwards a little for a 1:2 scale model.

When I was halfway through building the model, I also had lots of help from my examination (as much as I could examine from outside the glass case) of a real 19th century ZhugeNu from Selby's exhibition on Asian Archery Traditions at the HK Museum of Coastal Defense which has been running since 2003. That's also where I bought his book on Asian Archery which gives nice pictures of the workings of and history on the ZhugeNu.

I can get a decent 7 bolts/15 second fire rate from my ZhugeNu, but it's obvious that the power of the bow is fairly limited from the poor draw. it's limited by the length of the slot as well as the trigger friction. The stronger the draw, the more the friction on the trigger and hence it gets harder to make the darn thing pop up and fire the bolt! You need to actually play with one to find this out. When I first built it, I went with as much power as I could build into the design, then realised I practically had to slam the magazine down to engage the trigger. Subsequent tweaking resulted in a less impressive bow power but greater ease for the trigger to be pushed back up by the stock.

The other limiting factor on the draw strength is the radial arc of the arming lever itself. In order to draw the string back from the forward position after dropping the bowstring into the trigger slot, the lever moves the magazine and therefore the bowstring in an arcing circle before coming back down onto the bow stock. The problem is obvious. When you have a high draw strength bow, it's very difficult to make this arc. All this is done while the bowstring is pulling down and forward on your magazine.

All this rocking to and fro also doesn't make for good accuracy which is why this weapon is only effective for short ranges. You also can't aim it by sighting down the stock since you cannot engage the arming lever from above your head! The way it is fired is by bracing the stock against your midriff and firing from the hip the way the WW2 british sten semi-automatic guns were fired, and with much the same idea to get a whole mass of projectiles into the air quickly.

Still... very impressive for ca. 300 B.C.

thanks guys.

A more interesting question is did they ever use the belt and hook with the stirrup arbalest.

The windlass arbalest in europe shot a metalic bolt not an arrowlike quarrel and had a steel "bow".Even without thicker armor it would have been superior shot per shot,as it's projectile was smaller and harder to dodge.

How did Hans describe "pulling the trigger".The trigger on the tradional medieval "crossbow" was called a 'hook' and one did not "pull it";but "hauled to the hook".

The belt device was used since perhaps the end of western Han, but went out of use during the Age of fragmentation, and reintroduced at the end of Tang. The crossbow stirup is probably an invention of the Tang.

SInce I was puzzled about the Zhou era reference it is worth adding this becuase Yun found the source of the early reference and posted it on CHF.

Do you mean with belt hook device such a draw method?

What is the evidence concerning its introduction and use during Han?

Left guy

That picture shown has a crossbow's stirrup, but the existence of a belt device would mean that the crossbow shouldn't have the stirrup, since it would not be used.

The ShiJi(Chapter 9) says the "soldiers of the Han(not the Han dynasty, but Han guo of the Warring states) use the feet to pull the bow to shoot, several hundred arrows firing at once, those who are far away are shot at the breast, and those who are close are shot though the heart". Just my rough translation.

Grrr. I have a couple of illustrations on different crossbow mechanism, but I do not know how to post them on the board. Each of them have less than 1,5 MB, but I do not know how to limit the required size. What do I have to do? Any help?

go to www.flickr.com and register (no fees) and upload it there

Hmm, thanks but I want to post them on the board also as small thumbnails. Easier to get a general idea with several pics. Also, I think there is a deadline on these external picture upload sites, at least from looking at your own sig! I find it better when forumers can still see the pics in a year or two. Any help?

Look guys, one after another, my email account is just spilling over from hints and tips of yours, another wave and your PMs will beat penis extension spam easy to second place.

Alright, I am posting two things: (1) Descriptions and (2) illustrations of different crossbow mechanisms and you caption the pics with the shown cocking method respectively contribute a description of the posted mechanism.

All this should help us to get an overview of the technology and establish a common terminology and the pics are pretty colourful, too.

(1) Quote from a small paper on the longbow and crossbow: "There were eight progressive cocking methods developed over time: the chord and pulley, belt and claw, screw and handle, goatshead and lever, windlass and ropes, crane, lever fixed on a block, light wooden lever."

(2) Illustrations of various crossbow mechanisms with their main characteristics:


Han crossbowman. Composite bow. Bronze trigger mechanism.

Han crossbowman. Composite bow. Bronze trigger mechanism.

Nut lock.

Sicilian crossbowman. Belt-hook device

Metal foot stirrup. Nut lock

Metal (?) foot stirrup. Nut lock

Steel crossbow with windlass

Nice view on the European trigger mechanism

?

Mounted crossbow archer with foot stirrup

You can see nicely the slow evolution of the crossbow from a prod with a basic nutlock mechanism to complex hand artillery.

Roman crossbows

So far the evidence for Roman hand-held tension crossbows is mainly literary. There are altogether only two depictions, both of which depict the Roman crossbow as a hunting weapon. In late Roman times however, literary references to the crossbow become ever more frequent, but the changing terminology still confuses scholars.


Late Roman tension crossbow


Late Roman tension crossbow. Composite bow. Trigger mechanism which looks vaguely like a forerunner of the nutlock mechanism

There is also another kind of Roman crossbow, which is torsion-powered. Pics of original fragments and high quality replicas can be found here: click

nice pictures!

NB. The 'mounted' crossbow (from the Mamluk Osprey I think) is a misinterpretation of the relevant evidence.

Never mind what I said in this quote of mine, I take it back. I just found out that European crossbow belt devices do come hand in hand with the stirrup(while in China it's either the stirrup or the belt, never both). This means European crossbowmen using crossbows with the belt device draws the crossbow standing up, while in China they draw it lying down face-up.

And how did then mounted crossbowmen made use of the belt hook device? By extensive use of gymnastics or what?

Btw Just read in Ospreys that the belt hook device was introduced around 170 BC in Han armies, but I have also read somewhere else that such an early dating of the use is speculative and dependent on interpreting (and dating) literary evidence. What to think of it?

Early European mounted crossbow were elite troops who normaly dismounted to shoot. However we do have records of such troops in 11th and 12th C English armies also having helm, shield and lance (on top of the normal chain, sword, crossbow, horse) and charging along with the miletes.

The later massed use of mounted crossbowmen involved troops equipped with mechanical loading devices (initially 'goats-foot lever', later cranequin) and steel prod weapons.

Most Han cavalry never used the belt hook device on a horse, which explains why crossbows on cavalry would be weaker than crossbows on foot. Although at times they would have foot soldiers at the back load the crossbows and the cavalry, when their shots were fired, would run back to these soldiers for loaded crossbows.



If the belt hook device weren't used, there would be no way that crossbows can be up to 6 tan, or even 4 tan in strength. Both Needleham and YangHong said that a six tan crossbow were 360 pounds(Needleham gave 354 pounds). However, I have to say that when describing the tan Needleham probably made a typo and said one Han tan equal 120 pounds(WAY too much). However, later he equated a Han weight of 10 tan as around 265 kilo(If I remember right). The ShiJi when talking of the state of the Han during the Warring States also describes soldiers pulling the crossbow "with their feet", and thus achieved 600 paces, although personally I think this could be several soldiers pulling an arcuballista instead.

I figure it would be better to bump this up instead of starting a whole new thread and get the same info, but it seems that Europe developed the crossbow further than China, with many devices to give it mechanical advantage. Or at least, it's just better documented

I've heard warhead mention before (in the longbow vs crossbow thread) how the Chinese crossbow used more sophisticated mechanisms for greater range over what would've been in Europe, are there any illustrations of these?

Possibly the crossbow was used like the early pistols. Load, mount horse, charge, fire, drop crossbow, draw sabre, charge ... or something like that. More to shock and break enemy formations/lines for the sabre/dao charge perhaps? At the least it might have been used like this as one of the functions.... but yeah I think mounted crossbow troops fired from the ground more often than not.

There are several accounts from the 16thC onwards in Europe (mostly in Italy) of 'lightly armoured' (by this stage - brigantine or mail, plate back and breast plus helmet, lower leg armour abandoned in favor of high boots) mounted crossbowmen remaining mounted and fighting in a manner very similar to horse archers. Thy were mostly using mechanical crenequin crossbows which are relativly easy to reload mounted. These troops were later replaced by mounted arquebuss troops, the guns then rapidly evolved into carbines (shorter barrel, specificaly designed to be loaded on horseback). Then the carricole was developed and mounted firearm troops became, for a short time, the top of the military 'food chain' in Europe. They were expected to be able to reload pistols and carbine (each man had 2-4 pistols plus a carbine) several times before they needed cleaned out (much harder to do on horseback), each man capleable of over ten volleys before having to stop and clean weapons. These troops, no longer required to move fast, re adopted very heavy 'curassier' armour (shot proof '3/4' plate, and big boots). The charge at the galop - fire - swap pistol for sword - fire second pistol at contact tactics were much later; they allowed 17thC 'light' cavalry to replace these troops,