> And unlike muskets, bows and crossbows never were a primary weapon.
What about the English longbow? Or Mongolian horse bows?
What about the English longbow? Or Mongolian horse bows?
Mongolian complex bows though are an exception, all horse nomads were expected to wield them out of hunting and warring needs.
If all of your main force is expected to wield it, it becomes a primary weapon.
There was a period of time when all Englishmen were required to train with a longbow.
I guess also it depends on what you mean by "primary" if it means the primary weapon of an individual soldier, it's obviously false, because archers primarily used their bows, in many armies. But if it means the main weapon used by the builk of the soldiers, then in most cases it probably wasn't a bow. But that isn't because of the ineffectiveness of the weapon. It's really just part of the "egalitarian" point. Shooting a bow effectively requires considerably more skill than say using spear, or even hacking with a sword.
I was under the impression that English Archery was a very specialized discipline, given its very skill intensive. The English did use the Longbowmen, but as a specialized unit in specialized situations.