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Chinese crossbow (Read 10123 times)

Hellfire

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Re: Chinese crossbow
Reply #15 - Oct 12^th, 2005 at 9:46pm

Dang. There is nothing legally comparable to a good LARP game. Only thing is, I don't have any "weak' bows and the only player I have is my brother. Still we have alot of fun sniping at eachother with padded arrows. I use the weakest bows Ive got- a 35pounder and a 40pouder. Probably not safe, but very fun. Also I wear a bit of leather armor- just enough to keep it from really hurting. Might help if I wore a helmet too, but life aint perfect.

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Demagogs

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Re: Chinese crossbow
Reply #16 - Oct 12^th, 2005 at 10:21pm

Oh, the thing is 100% ash in the picture. Both the tiller(stock) and the prod. Now i've got a bamboo 50lbs prod installed though.
And yeah, nothing beats a good dynamic larp battle- skirmishing the battle line, taking potshots at those knights-en-shinin'-armur (aka "tin cans"). If you've got a shield wall to hide behind, that is.

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beaverbutt8 Ex Member	Re: Chinese crossbow Reply #17 - Oct 12^th, 2005 at 10:41pm Sounds like a hell of alot of fun First thing after school tomorrow, i'm gonna start building me one of those cho-ku-nu's !
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beaverbutt8 Ex Member	Re: Chinese crossbow Reply #18 - Oct 12^th, 2005 at 11:05pm Quote: i think english was talking about this a while back. Haha i wonder where he got himself off to? i am happy there is not more tech english brawls going on, but i miss all the cool things he made. Yup. English really knows his stuff
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ninja-slinger Descens Offline Slinging Rocks! Posts: 113	Re: Chinese crossbow Reply #19 - Aug 9^th, 2014 at 10:48am I think if you used bolts that were thicker at the back than at the front, you could maybe improve the accuracy of the unfletched bolts needed for a repeating crossbow.
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squirrelslinger Interfector Viris Spurii Offline peace through superior firepower Posts: 2870 Ky, USA Gender:	Re: Chinese crossbow Reply #20 - Aug 9^th, 2014 at 12:11pm yea, that would probably work. But that guy has been gone for years, and the last post in this thread was in 2005.
Back to top	“Insanity is doing the same thing, over and over again, but expecting different results.” "You don't think the electricity is off. You check it 3 times to make SURE its off" "Remember, this is not a scalpel. It is a steel wedge that you will be slamming into knotty wood. Hone accordingly." IP Logged

Bikewer

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Re: Chinese crossbow
Reply #21 - Aug 9^th, 2014 at 3:28pm

The old Military Channel show, "Weapon Masters" did a segment on this weapon:
http://www.bing.com/videos/watch/video/chinese-repeating-crossbow/p75zhvn

The historian, Mike Loades, pointed out that this was a weak, inaccurate weapon that was intended to be used for things like castle defense... Put a few hundred in the hands of defenders and you could have a virtual rain of bolts... Possibly poisoned.

There have been more modern attempts; I seem to recall that Crossman or one of those firms came out with a repeating model years ago.
In reality, any crossbow you can draw by hand isn't going to be very effective.

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jlasud

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Re: Chinese crossbow
Reply #22 - Aug 13^th, 2014 at 6:02pm

Bikewer wrote on Aug 9^th, 2014 at 3:28pm:

In reality, any crossbow you can draw by hand isn't going to be very effective.

I'm not a big or strong guy,but can pull a 170lb xbow by hand without aid, in successive fire, no problem.
Within 50m bolts would nail unarmored or lightly armored body parts. Considering how about a 1foot diameter circle is easily hit by a somewhat trained crossbowman at that range.

Respect existance or expect resistance!

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Bikewer

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Re: Chinese crossbow
Reply #23 - Aug 14^th, 2014 at 7:06am

In Gallway's big history of the crossbow, he points out that the earliest battlefield weapons were perhaps in that range; 150-200 pounds, the prods being wood backed with sinew.

These were rapidly replaced with increasingly-powerful weapons that required mechanical aid; belt hooks and foot stirrups, "goats-foot" levers and the like.
Later-period weapons required small windlass arrangements or mechanical "cranquins"... Draw weights had gone up to around 1000 pounds.

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Bill Skinner

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Re: Chinese crossbow
Reply #24 - Aug 14^th, 2014 at 8:54am

The problem with crossbows is the short power stroke. The longer the bolt or arrow is on the string, the more effective it is. It takes something like a 300 pound (225kg) to equal the distance of an archer shooting a 75 (32kg) pound bow. And the rate of fire is about 1/2 an archer.

English archers with 100+ pound (45kg+) outranged and outshot Ventian crossbow men several times. The second time, the crossbow men were shooting crossbows that out ranged the long bow with the steel prods, however the leaders' tactics sucked and they lost again.

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Morphy Slinging.org Moderator Offline Checkmate Posts: 8110	Re: Chinese crossbow Reply #25 - Aug 14^th, 2014 at 4:18pm I want the repeating crossbow to be cool, but it just doesn't make sense to me on paper or in use. Unless the darts are poisoned with something quite potent and you are shooting at a bunch of shirtless farmers, I just don't understand it's real world application.
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