![]() In that first case, you have the "latch", a latchet crossbow, which was popular in 1500s and early 1600s Britain whenever you needed something that could be reloaded faster than a pistol or petronel or carbine, and could be used similarly to these guns on horseback, even shot with one hand. I think an even better design for an integrated spanning lever occured with some other, smaller 16th century crossbow examples, and you later see it crop up a fair bit among small recreational and hunting crossbows in the 17th to 19th century. The fact that these never became a common design seems to be largely down to the obvious extra construction expenses and the extra complexity. These crossbows aren't vastly different from other 15th and 16th century crossbows with the traditional nut mechanism and a steel lath, but they are mechanically more complex, because of the integrated spanning lever and the sliding rail parts and steel pivots it necessitates. His Italian example was referred to as a balestra veloce, "fast crossbow", and the Germans apparently knew about these ideas too, since a near-identical design appeared in the early 16th century Codex Löffelholz. They seemed to have been invented at the very tail end of the Middle Ages, even Leonardo da Vinci apparently designed one such specimen. One development related to spanning the bowstring, potentially speeding up things by not necessitating separate spanning tools, would be integrated spanning levers. Flip-up metal sights, bolt-clips (bolt-holders), late examples had made the trigger mechanism even more complex, going beyond even the rolling nut and lever system improvements that were last done in the Renaissance, the last time crossbows still saw wider military use. Some even had the earliest variations on what we'd call "tacticool" accessories. People were still coming up with new ideas for hunting crossbows, recreational crossbows, etc., etc. Even the high-quality crossbows of the time were incapable of piercing it, though they could dent it or knock you off your feet on impact.) I don't think you can vastly improve crossbow laths all that much, even with 18th and 19th century technological improvementsīear in mind, the crossbow was still under further enthusiastic development even long past its military prime. Some of the high-poundage laths used already in the 15th and 16th century were powerful enough to shoot a bolt through someone, or pierce through most lighter types of armour, with the major exception of plate armour. Even without any further mechanical tinkering. With improvements to steel manufacturing in the industrial era, providing improved steel quality, you could raise the potential performance of a steel crossbow lath a bit more. ![]() Like a good barrel is integral to a gun, so too is a good lath integral to later types of European crossbows. You can get good spring steel crossbow laths (bows), but even those from the OTL early modern era were already reaching the upper limits of their effectiveness as an integral part of military shooting weapons. This is also why revolvers were invented in the 16th century, but only became viable for mass production some three centuries later. The tech, materials and necessary economics just weren't there yet. You might as well ask why 15th century people didn't figure out Henry rifles. Compound bows being invented in OTL was a bit of a fluke, and fully relied on materials science advances and industrial manufacturing advances made in the 150-200 years prior, during the various stages of the industrial revolution. You could theoretically invent them in the 19th century, but they'd be more cumbersome and have potential issues with the cables acting as bowstrings. It's a good discussion, though one where there is a lot of ground to cover, and from multiple possible angles.Ĭompound bows designed and manufactured prior to the 20th century are a pipe dream. Am sorry I didn't react to this discussion earlier, though I was meaning to.
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