Also unlike a gun wich leaves a bullet with a tale tale sign of which gun fired it a crossbow leaves no sign as far as i'm aware. And i have used a crossbow to go hunting with friends and is a much more effective weapon then a gun as it's silent meaning better rate of success, and the bolt can be removed, cleaned and reused which (as far as i know) a bullet can't.
If you had actually read this thread properly you might have noticed that they are being compared because in many games they are featured alongside guns and are usually much more powerful.
Some examples were also given to you: Half-life, Timesplitters, Bioshock, Condemned, Killzone.
You get the picture
To be fair though, it seems quite logical that getting an arrow/crossbow bolt through the chest is gonna fuck you up a hell of a lot more than a small bullet(of course depends on gun). So i'm not surprised that they're considered more powerful than most guns in these games. Also it's a little bit to do with the fact that they are really cool, and everyone knows it's completely and utterly lame when you find something that looks really cool in a game but it turns out that it's actually really shit. God knows Diablo taught me that much.
Ah the Crossbow.
Siege crossbows were more powerful than the English Warbow (or Welsh if you want to be a pedant). The pros that they conferred (ease of use, ease of manufacture etc) were, however, slightly annuled by the fact that they were too difficult to use when they reached their larger sizes (ratchetted crossbows took too long to reload and so the user needed a pavise to offer them cover)and their lack of power at small sizes.
It was throughly effective in its period and still deadly now.
Almost in all genre's of gaming and movies the crossbow is considered the most deadliest weapon in the mediums stock, It makes sense since a Crossbow is just really really cool but to think of it hard a crossbow shouldn't really be considered the best out of the given lot since as a weapon it's pretty damn useless if you don't know how to use it.
It has to be made out of the right material.
The arrow ammo is not the easiest to carry around nor the best to manufacture.
Many factors such as weather conditions can effect the efficany of the weapon.
It takes skill to use making it only useful for the person who has extreme training in it.
It has a higher chance of backfire then any other ranger weapon.
Some mediums made sense out of it such as Killzone 2 with rocket like power to blot hostiles into walls then blow them up, but overall if you compare the cross bow to the gun the gun is just better.
So why does the Crossbow still get alot of hype and love ?
Almost in all genre's of gaming and movies the crossbow is considered the most deadliest weapon in the mediums stock, It makes sense since a Crossbow is just really really cool but to think of it hard a crossbow shouldn't really be considered the best out of the given lot since as a weapon it's pretty damn useless if you don't know how to use it.
It has to be made out of the right material.
The arrow ammo is not the easiest to carry around nor the best to manufacture.
Many factors such as weather conditions can effect the efficany of the weapon.
It takes skill to use making it only useful for the person who has extreme training in it.
It has a higher chance of backfire then any other ranger weapon.
Some mediums made sense out of it such as Killzone 2 with rocket like power to blot hostiles into walls then blow them up, but overall if you compare the cross bow to the gun the gun is just better.
So why does the Crossbow still get alot of hype and love ?
It does NOT take any more skill to fire a cross bow and any longarm. The skill only plays in at long ranges, where you have to account for the dropping of the bolt. Archery requires a lot of skill and control, but not crossbowmanship.
And no, it doesn't have a high-chance of backfiring. What the hell peice of shit crossbows have you used? I have seen ONE cammed bow fail EVER, out of the YEARS I've done archery, and it wasn't the cams that failed. The limbs snapped on a compound bow. Crossbow's are even more reliable than revolvers, seriously.
And if you want a really scary one:
Now, as for whether it's an effective weapon? Honestly, I'd rather have a gun. Crossbows are slow to reload, give you one shot per chance, and while they'll most likely drop anyone with that one shot (If for nothing other than the psychological effects of being shot by such a 'barbaric' weapon in an age of guns and science, and there IS a psychological shock)(though a half-pound crossbow bolt with a hunting broad head would SERIOUSLY ruin your day), you've only got the one shot. Great for stealth as, let's face it: They're a hell of a lot quieter than even supressed handguns, but for straight combat?
I'll take just about any gun over a crossbow any day. I'll take a regular bow over a crossbow as well
How bout a pros and cons?
Bow
PRO: Faster than crossbow to reload
PRO: Quiet
PRO: Aluminum / Carbon fiber arrow shafts are cheap and plentiful at any out-door sporting store and reusable
PRO: Often unregulated, or much less regulated than firearms
CON: Requires lots of training
CON: Less Stopping power than crossbow/Rifle
CON: Replacing broken strings is a pain
CON: Bulky, not easy to travel with, even if they are light weight.
Crossbow
PRO: Powerful, good range
PRO: Easy to use as long as you're strong enough to reset it
PRO: Quiet
PRO: Ammunition is readily reusable (especially with modern materials)
CON: Requires a lot of strength to draw, even with stirrups/winch
CON: Slow to reload
CON: Often more akward to carry than bows or rifles
CON: Harder to find ammunition than bow or rifle
hunting rifle (Bolt action, to be fair)
PRO: Point and click (ease of use)
PRO: Excellent stopping power and range
PRO: Plentiful ammunition at any out-door supplier
PRO: Very easy and quick to cycle between shots
CON: LOUD
CON: Heavily regulated, harder to get/keep than above
CON: Ammunition is heavy, cannot be reused
CON: Reloading magazines is slow
4/4 for the three, I think it works.
Anyways, my thoughts.
EDIT: Oh yeah, bows and crossbows will both punch through kevlar like no body's business. It was designed to spread the impact of a bullet, but they don't do ANYTHING against blades, and that's exactly what broadhead's are.
I think it's mostly for their silence that they're used so much. It's a whisper-quiet long-range weapon. 'Twould be a shame not to include it in games.
I was especially baffled by the gas-fed crossbow in the Van Helsing film a couple of years ago..That weapon made very little sense.
I thought they were considered the sniper rifle because they fire where you point them and are pretty shitty in close range as there is no spread and you usually get 1 shot.
Timeslitters 2 has a crossbow in the weapons list and it's an awesome game. OT Crossbows were the shotgun of the medieval world, the only problem with them was the amount of time it took to reload.
I was putting their power into perspective. Compare the power of a handgun to a shotgun...thats the relative difference between a bow and crossbow, they used to use them to take down armoured troops because the bolts had that much power behind them. {I wasn't saying they fired like shells XD}
Well longbows actually had more than enough power in them to take out armoured troops and taking the ranger into account I still think they are more like a sniperfrom the range and power.
in a time where death in warfare was common with a large range of weapons being used that can make grusome wounds.... to be called unholy by the pope. is an impressive feat, it was 1 hit one kill against heavily armored knights.
You mean in real life? They're simple to use, but take an ungodly amount of time to load when compared to a bow. A good bow user can fire many more shots than a crossbow user in the same amount of time.
It does obscene damage to people, to such an extent that although it can't go through plate mail, it will kill the person inside due to the power of the shot.
OP: Yes but crossbows are damn powerful. In medieval times they were so deadly that a pope actually tried to get them removed from use, because people were dieing to fast.
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