10,000 Soldiers with pistols vs 10,000 Archers

• Each Soldier has a 9mm Beretta with 3 magazines (each magazine clip holds 10 rounds of ammo)
• Each Archer has 20 arrows in their sack
• The two armies are 2 miles apart moving inward towards eachother.
• Dr. Doom is watching from the distance (at least one comic character present rule)

 
  

 
 
 
 
 
 

Here's some feats of the archers since not a lot of people are familiar with the archer. 
 
 
 

guns

guns

For some reason I remember the movie Hero looking much better than it did in the embedded youtube clip. Maybe it just didn't age so well. I'll go with Pistols.

I think it's self-evident that the men with guns win if both groups are equally skilled with their respective weapons.

The Semi-Auto Hangun is just a more effective weapon. It may not have the range of the arrows, but it has a much higher rate of fire, it's more compact and portable, it's easier to use and requires less stamina and strength, and it's much less unwieldy. Once they get in close the handguns will simply overwhelm the archers with their rate of fire.

guns are the reason armies no longer use arrows 
 
this topic is kind f Fail if you ask me

I'm not a fan of people bashing threads, but this is full of fail... no offence.

I mean the argument can be made Archers have the greater range, but it's not like you see in robin hood, an arrow shot from ages away is wildy inaccurate...

Lol guns

@jaywray said:

I'm not a fan of people bashing threads, but this is full of fail... no offence.

I mean the argument can be made Archers have the greater range, but it's not like you see in robin hood, an arrow shot from ages away is wildy inaccurate...

First let me say I agree completely.

Just wanted to mention that that is the reason that archers fire in volleys. The arrows are highly inaccurate at that range, but a massive cloud of 10,000 will cover some area and do some damage.

Sadly they are still massacred at the hands of the gun wielding soldiers.

@Lunacyde said:

First let me say I agree completely.

Just wanted to mention that that is the reason that archers fire in volleys. The arrows are highly inaccurate at that range, but a massive cloud of 10,000 will cover some area and do some damage.

Sadly they are still massacred at the hands of the gun wielding soldiers.

I would imagine when they were fired in volleys it'd be 300 people or so doing it, then they'd switch, even lets say just 1000 arrows in the air at the same time... the SLIGHTEST gust of wind is going to throw them into each other and fall with enough force to probably give a nasty bruise, but not many would be dead from it.

So I agree as well, maybe 3000 of the gunners are going to die, and another 1000 are injured, but 6000 are still going to be having a laugh when they're within firing distance.

@jaywray: Lets just say if I was picking a side to fight on I'd line up for a Sig Sauer P226, not a bow and arrows.

@Lunacyde said:

@jaywray: Lets just say if I was picking a side to fight on I'd line up for a Sig Sauer P226, not a bow and arrows.

Personally I'm going to be picking up whatever dress that woman has in the video and scare the 10,000 archers.

A man in a ladies dress, dancing away the arrows aside like they're nothing? Pfft they'll be runnin for the hills.

Keep in mind people

9mm pistols have a rang of 152 feet 

arrows have a range 1,400 feet

@MagneticShockwave: You do realize you gave everyone w/ a GUN more ammunition than the people with a BOW right ... everyone w/ bow gets 20 arrows yet bullets get 30 bullets ... this is unfair on a large scale.

I'll say archers. Bows grant greater range than a normal pistol (I am assuming they're long bows, since you didn't say). Also, I'd argue that old-world archers are better trained than some modern soldiers.

If your talking pre-WWI war style warfare where both armies stand in a line and shoot at each other until they all die then maybe Archers, MAYBE. but using modern guerilla tactics or trenches or anything other than that Pistols easily. there's a reason nobody uses bows anymore, if the Crossbow and then the musket could all but eliminate the use of archery then come on.

@LaserLambert said:

If your talking pre-WWI war style warfare where both armies stand in a line and shoot at each other until they all die then maybe Archers, MAYBE. but using modern guerilla tactics or trenches or anything other than that Pistols easily. there's a reason nobody uses bows anymore, if the Crossbow and then the musket could all but eliminate the use of archery then come on.

This has more to do with damage than range, however. Muskets and crossbows were more effective at piercing body armor and doing greater damage to mounts and defenses than an archer's bow. But the bow has greater range and accuracy, as well as being faster to reload than muskets and crossbows.

Archers will only have the edge so long as they keep the pistoleers at a distance, so I will give this to the pistoleros. In all fairness people, please don't totally bash this thread...Benjamin Franklin once suggested that colonials bring back the bow and arrow to fight the British in the American Revolution.

@JediXMan: yeah yeah and factor in it is impossible to pick up and use a bow without a big crash course on how to use it, but hand a gun to someone and they can kill a man in minutes,

anyway if this thread is meant to be a range battle it could do with some specification on the battleground are (there trees? is it a plain?) maybe even as far as wind conditions and the expertise of the wielders of the weapons, 10,000 hawkeyes would no doubt win, but if these are just militia or villagers drafted to fight they won't stand a chance.

@JediXMan: yeah yeah and factor in it is impossible to pick up and use a bow without a big crash course on how to use it, but hand a gun to someone and they can kill a man in minutes,

anyway if this thread is meant to be a range battle it could do with some specification on the battleground are (there trees? is it a plain?) maybe even as far as wind conditions and the expertise of the wielders of the weapons, 10,000 hawkeyes would no doubt win, but if these are just militia or villagers drafted to fight they won't stand a chance.

People have to keep in mind too that 
 
 
9mm bullets have a piercing range, so anything beyond 170 feet will feel more like pellet  gun smacking across your skin. 
Arrows are always sharp, so even when they slow down, it will still pierce through the flesh

@RedheadedAtrocitus said:

Archers will only have the edge so long as they keep the pistoleers at a distance, so I will give this to the pistoleros. In all fairness people, please don't totally bash this thread...Benjamin Franklin once suggested that colonials bring back the bow and arrow to fight the British in the American Revolution.

Guns during the revolution wouldn't have been as dependable as a bow honestly. Smoothbore muskets are wildly inaccurate, they have much less range than today's firearms and they take much more time to reload than a bow would as well as using external black powder sources that can be exposed to the elements. So while I understand your argument you have to understand Franklin's perspective as well; his firearms aren't ours.

@Soulstealer said:

@RedheadedAtrocitus said:

Archers will only have the edge so long as they keep the pistoleers at a distance, so I will give this to the pistoleros. In all fairness people, please don't totally bash this thread...Benjamin Franklin once suggested that colonials bring back the bow and arrow to fight the British in the American Revolution.

Guns during the revolution wouldn't have been as dependable as a bow honestly. Smoothbore muskets are wildly inaccurate, they have much less range than today's firearms and they take much more time to reload than a bow would as well as using external black powder sources that can be exposed to the elements. So while I understand your argument you have to understand Franklin's perspective as well; his firearms aren't ours.

Oh for sure! Smoothbore muskets are laughably inaccurate by our standards. The only exception would be possibly the prairie long rifle, but then again that firearm was hardly in wide circulation to be used as a regulation military weapon except by frontier riflemen, rangers and guerrillas. But yes, its just like you said, guns of then aren't guns of now. Nowadays its no contest really.

@Soulstealer: Again the people who fought in the Revolutionary war were not trained soldiers, they were men when worked on farms and never picked up a weapon before, a bow would be even less accurate because they've never used them, a musket can be picked up and pointed and create death, even if it isn't accurate. also musket balls were again more devastating, and more damage to the body.

Comicvine is a strange place to get into a historical armaments debate...

@MagneticShockwave: Would have been a lot more fair if the archers started on a high hill.

The soldiers would get fatigued from running up the hell and the archers would have a aiming advantage while the soldier have the lethal and speed advantage. Also double the arrows.

@LaserLambert said:

@Soulstealer: Again the people who fought in the Revolutionary war were not trained soldiers, they were men when worked on farms and never picked up a weapon before, a bow would be even less accurate because they've never used them, a musket can be picked up and pointed and create death, even if it isn't accurate.

It doesn't matter what they were trained in, their firearms were trash by today's standards and I'm assuming that since Ben Fanklin was thinking of bows instead he'd have a plan to teach people how to use them. That sort of goes without saying. Also I'm gonna tell you that you couldn't be more wrong about said farmers. If you own a farm you have crops, maybe cattle, you'd be a gunman by default because a.) You need to eat. Yes you farm, but likewise those crops aren't always going to sustain your family unless you get really lucky year after year. Hunting, fishing, it's going to happen. b.) If you have livestock of any kind you're going to want to protect them from natural predators, thieves, oh and you might want to be able to defend yourself against the local Indian tribes that might take exception to your encroachment on territory they don't believe you own.

A trained soldier is a trained soldier, but all civilians are not created equal when it comes to experience and many of those same people had been fighting for and utilizing a great many means for their continued survival.

@MagneticShockwave: Would have been a lot more fair if the archers started on a high hill.

The soldiers would get fatigued from running up the hell and the archers would have a aiming advantage while the soldier have the lethal and speed advantage. Also double the arrows.

And then 10,000 arrows in the sky times 20 = 200,000 falling arrows vs 10,000 gun men running as close enough if they can to deliver effective damage. 

I love how it's just kinda assumed that (even good archers) are just going to fire their arrows in the air and they'll land exactly where they want it to.

If every gun man is in a group squashed together, then yeah they're gona be effective, but anyone with a tiny bit of common sense isn't going to stay in one place and not be spread out while all the archers get the feel of the distance.

Knowing the environment would also help, if it's a large open field where they're just standing 2 miles apart, the archers aren't going to have a chance of gauging the distance between the two without a height advantage, thus would just be firing randomly wasting arrows in the hope of hitting something,

@MagneticShockwave said:

Keep in mind people


9mm pistols have a rang of 152 feet
arrows have a range 1,400 feet

You must be giving them some good bows from today's era

The farthest I've been able to find on the net that isn't modern is 1,200 feet (Professional archers of Edward III)

Also as I said, if they could even achieve that, it'd be pure guess work and hope.

@Soulstealer: My point was that they wouldn't be trained with bows, and that a gun required minimal training, never picked up a weapon was just a hyperbole... or a hypobole, or whatever i wasn't being frank whatever, either way it wasn't part of my point.

@MagneticShockwave said:

Keep in mind people


9mm pistols have a rang of 152 feet
arrows have a range 1,400 feet

You must be giving them some good bows from today's era

The farthest I've been able to find on the net that isn't modern is 1,200 feet (Professional archers of Edward III)

Also as I said, if they could even achieve that, it'd be pure guess work and hope.

@MagneticShockwave said:

Look at the distance between the Spartans and the Parsians firing the arrows... Arrows can be used as snipping weapons while the 9mm pistol has a more limited range.

........ You're using 300 as the basis for your facts.....

@LaserLambert said:

@Soulstealer: My point was that they wouldn't be trained with bows, and that a gun required minimal training, never picked up a weapon was just a hyperbole... or a hypobole, or whatever i wasn't being frank whatever, either way it wasn't part of my point.

And that has nothing to do with RedheadedAtrocitus and I where discussing. He spoke about Franklin's idea of bows and I spoke as to why that idea was valid for the time and armaments he was dealing with.

@jaywray said:

I love how it's just kinda assumed that (even good archers) are just going to fire their arrows in the air and they'll land exactly where they want it to.

If every gun man is in a group squashed together, then yeah they're gona be effective, but anyone with a tiny bit of common sense isn't going to stay in one place and not be spread out while all the archers get the feel of the distance.

Knowing the environment would also help, if it's a large open field where they're just standing 2 miles apart, the archers aren't going to have a chance of gauging the distance between the two without a height advantage, thus would just be firing randomly wasting arrows in the hope of hitting something,

@MagneticShockwave said:

Keep in mind people


9mm pistols have a rang of 152 feet
arrows have a range 1,400 feet

You must be giving them some good bows from today's era

The farthest I've been able to find on the net that isn't modern is 1,200 feet (Professional archers of Edward III)

Also as I said, if they could even achieve that, it'd be pure guess work and hope.

Actually I don't think people think that at all. If anything people are thinking that archers wouldn't pick out individual targets but instead would use volleys to attack from greater distance. Of course the gunmen could break up and that makes volleying less effective, but even if they separate then they have to close the distance unless of course the archers are compelled to move forward via OP.

To me, digging in is actually the archers best chance. If the gunmen get within range, their fire speed advantage is gonna slaughter the archers. But if the archers can put them down before they get within the handguns' killzone they'd win. Basically it's rate of fire and accuracy vs.range.

@Soulstealer: well first off yeah it did, i was saying they weren't as useful as muskets and blah blah blah that's what all my posts were about.

second your original post made no sense, he didn't bring up Ben Franklin's point about bows to belittle it, he just brought it up as an example why this topic about bows vs pistols wasn't a complete waste of time.

The 10'000 pistolers wouldnt charge the archers head on, they'd surround the archers in a circle and then charge so they cant be mass arrowed.

@Soulstealer said:

Actually I don't think people think that at all. If anything people are thinking that archers wouldn't pick out individual targets but instead would use volleys to attack from greater distance. Of course the gunmen could break up and that makes volleying less effective, but even if they separate then they have to close the distance unless of course the archers are compelled to move forward via OP.

To me, digging in is actually the archers best chance. If the gunmen get within range, their fire speed advantage is gonna slaughter the archers. But if the archers can put them down before they get within the handguns' killzone they'd win. Basically it's rate of fire and accuracy vs.range.

That's not what I mean, I mean gauging the distance between them, even for a great archer with experience at a distance of 2 miles is gona be virtually impossible if it's on a level playing field.

they'll be shooting from the very start, do you think you could tell the difference even between an army at 1 mile and 2? I couldn't, I know I couldn't.

So they're going to be wasting ammo right from the very start since their arrows cant even reach that far and even if they wait until they're within a 1 mile distance where it looks really considerable that they might reach? they still cant., hell even if every single one of the archers is mega strong, and have the very best bows and arrows conceivable during that era, they cant even reach half a miles distance with their arrows.

And hey, I don't think they're going to be in tip top shape when they do get into that 1/4 mile (where they can actually hit someone) range after they've already been firing for half a mile, while the gun men... well hey... their guns weigh... what... 2kg? Don't think their gona be 1/40 as tired. Even if they've wasted a ton of bullets of their own... even if half of them have used 15 of their 30. they still have 15 left, and after walking the 3/4 miles they'll still have energy to run, you can cover 1000 feet in like, what, 2 mins without even really... being fit.

I didn't even know they had to move towards each other, didn't notice it in the OP myself, but that just puts it even more in favour of the gunmen.

I'm just blabbing on now, it's been fun, but in my opinion 3000 gun men will die, 1000 will get injured, and the rest will be like "and not a single F^£% was given that day"

@LaserLambert said:

@Soulstealer: well first off yeah it did, i was saying they weren't as useful as muskets and blah blah blah that's what all my posts were about.

second your original post made no sense, he didn't bring up Ben Franklin's point about bows to belittle it, he just brought it up as an example why this topic about bows vs pistols wasn't a complete waste of time.

I didn't say anything about belittling anything. I said that I understood his point and that it's not valid here because Franklin was up against much inferior firearms. First off.

Secondly saying they aren't as useful as muskets isn't true, it just isn't. Revolutionary muskets just don't have enough going for them. Inaccurate is inaccurate, doesn't matter the reason. If you're inexperienced with a bow, you're not much better off with a gun that takes forever to reload that is also inaccurate. Smoothbore Muskets = Inaccurate. You can reload a bow much faster than you can the typical musket of that age.

Also, bows v muskets... not important here at all. Modern handguns are the weapon here and they don't have the range of the bow but they most assuredly have reload speed and accuracy.

Edit:

@jaywray: You have a good point, but then again I'm not a trained archer. To be honest if I was an archer though, it seems foolish to start shooting right off the bat, because an experienced archer probably should be able to gauge the killzone. Just like experienced gunmen and soldiers are pretty good about gauging the killzones. I'm not saying it's easy, especially by eye, but if you've been doing it all your life then it's different than an amateur giving it a go. Likewise even if they do fire one volley, they'll be able to use it's landing zone to gauge distance by and I don't see them firing again. You said it yourself, they have precious little ammo I think they're aware of it in a way that the gunmen aren't. And empty quiver is more conspicuous than an empty magazine.

In your scenario the archers would lose no doubt about it. But the thing is, the archers considering they're experienced should know better than to make any of those mistakes. Heck considering the gunmen are also experienced they'd know better too. Neither of them want to waste ammo, but the thing is personally I'd give it to the gunmen because if the archers are forced to advance on them, the gunmen get that much closer to being able to put bullets in them. If the archers could hang back and use range to their advantage they'd have a much better chance, but if they can't, well the gun men are going to break thought their volleys eventually and despite how many they've lost once in handgun range, things get ugly for the archers and really fast.

I like archers better.

They are more accurate.

I'll say archers. Bows grant greater range than a normal pistol (I am assuming they're long bows, since you didn't say). Also, I'd argue that old-world archers are better trained than some modern soldiers.

I'll say archers. Bows grant greater range than a normal pistol (I am assuming they're long bows, since you didn't say). Also, I'd argue that old-world archers are better trained than some modern soldiers.

Trained archers with longbows can take advantage of the greater range to kill off many soldiers. 20 arrows per archer gives them enough ammunition to make a cloud of death that the gunmen aren't equipped to avoid.