The Replacement of the Composite Reflex Bow by Firearms in the Muscovite Cavalry (original) (raw)

Abstract

The Muscovite cavalry went over to carbines and pistols during the course of the 17th century, yet firearms were not better handheld weapons than the composite reflex bow that the cavalry had been using. The carbine was a light form of musket that could be used on horseback, 1 but it had a very short range. 2 To reload the carbine on a horse was tricky, and a cavalryman had to bring his horse to a more or less full stop or dismount. In the heat of battle, the carbine was just dropped in its sling so the cavalryman could use his sword. 3 Likewise, a cavalryman could get off only one shot with a pistol (two shots if he had two pistols) and was effective only at very close range. 4 In contrast, mounted archers could get off anywhere from 6 to 15 shots a minute, and their bows had an effective range of from 350 to well over 500 yards, depending on the quality of the bow, the arrows, and the skill of the bowman. In the hands of truly expert bowmen using flight arrows, distances My thanks to Brian Davies, Chester S. L. Dunning, Robert I. Frost, Russell E. Martin, and Kira Stevens for providing constructive criticism of drafts of this article and to Davies, Richard Hellie, and Stevens for answering my questions about particular military matters in Muscovy. 1 Terminological precision in distinguishing arquebuses (hackbutts) from muskets is impossible for this period. Initially "musket" was a larger form of arquebus that required a stand, but soon "musket" was used as a generic term for both.

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References (44)

  1. Ibid., 183.
  2. Guillaume Le Vasseur de Beauplan, Description de l'Ukranie: Depuis les confins de la Moscovie jusqu'aux limites de la Transylvanie (Paris: J. Techener, 1861), 99-100.
  3. On this debate, see Esper, "Replacement of the Longbow by Firearms," 382-93. Much of the following discussion about the English debate I derive from Esper's article. See also E. G. Heath, "Introduction," in Bow versus Gun [ed. Heath] (East Ardsley, Wakefield: EP Publishing, 1973), v-xv.
  4. See "Introduction," in Rude and Barbarous Kingdom, 253.
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  6. Roger Williams, A Briefe Discourse on Warre (London: Thomas Orwin, 1590), 41-42. 51 Ibid., 42.
  7. Ibid., 43.
  8. Humfrey Barwick, A Brief Discourse concerning the Force and Effect of All Manuall Weapons of Fire and the Disability of the Long Bowe or Archery in Respect of Others of Greater Force (London: Richard Olisse, 1594), 18v.
  9. Barwick, A Brief Discourse, 18v.
  10. Esper, "Replacement of the Longbow by Firearms," 387 n. 18. Cf. Daines Barrington, "Observations on the Practice of Archery in England," Archaeologia, 7 (1785): 46-68.
  11. Strickland and Hardy, The Great Warbow, 227.
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  14. Charles XII (1660-97) had ordered the cavalry to use swords rather than sabers for thrust- ing instead of slashing during a fast-moving charge (Alf Åberg, "The Swedish Army, from Lützen to Narva," in Sweden's Age of Greatness, 1632-1718, ed. Michael Roberts [New York: St. Martin's, 1973]; cf. Nosworthy, Anatomy of Victory, 133).
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  20. Online Etymology Dictionary, www.etymoline.com, s.v. pistol.
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  28. Davies, Warfare, 73.
  29. Ibid., 72; Stevens, Russia's Wars, 113.
  30. Davies, Warfare, 76; Stevens, Russia's Wars, 132.
  31. Hellie, Enserfment and Military Change in Muscovy, 269.
  32. A. V. Malov, Moskovskie vybornye polki soldatskogo stroia v nachal´nyi period svoei istorii 1656-1671 gg. (Moscow: Drevnekhranilishche, 2006), 556-77.
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  35. Howard Ricketts, Firearms (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1964);
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  37. Howard, War in European History, 59. The cavalry charge was conducted at a trot until Charles XII introduced the full gallop.
  38. Frost, The Northern Wars, 311.
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  41. 99 Golitsyn reported in his dispatch of 18 June that his army was 90 versts from Perekop. See N. G. Ustrialov, Istoriia tsarstvovaniia Petra Velikogo, 5 vols. (St. Petersburg: Tip. II-go otdele- niia Sobstvennogo E. I. V. kantseliarii, 1858-63), 1:199. But Gordon, who also was with the army, entered in his diary that they were 200 versts away. See Patrick Gordon, Tagebuch, 2, ed. M. C. Posselt (St. Petersburg: In Commission bei K. F. Köhler in Leipzig, 1851), 174-75.
  42. Davies, Warfare, 182.
  43. PSRL, 13:256-58. Cf. Vasilii Dmitrievich Smirnov, Krymskoe khanstvo pod verkhovenstvom Otomanskoi porty do nachala XVIII veka (St. Petersburg: V Universitetskoi tipografii v Kazani, 1887), 425-26. An imaginative description of the campaign appears in the History of Ivan IV. See J. L. I. Fennell, ed. and trans., Prince A. M. Kurbsky's History of Ivan IV (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1965), 95-101.
  44. Esper, "Replacement of the Longbow by Firearms," 384-85.