If Napolean had horse archers would he win all of Europe?

Basically. What I have seen during about the gun powder age is that muskets takes too long to reload. Even when the Chinese knew this bow beats muskets in closer range. The beginning of the French kingdom was happening during the Mongol Invasion. None of the European can compete against Horse archery tactic. The French had an alliance with the mongols before.

en.wikipedia.org...
en.wikipedia.org...

When Napoleon was at his might. There was Calvary to counter infantry and anti-calvary. But, what if Napoleon replaced his Calvary with Horse Archers instead?

en.wikipedia.org...

Instead of 14k sword Calvary, image horse archer Calvary. Would he decisively win the battle instantly and counter Prussian Calvary charge?
Or simply this battle might not have existed and Napoleon was able to to prevent majority of the retreating enemies.

a reply to: makemap
It sounds like a good idea, but how can the horses hold the bow without fingers?

No, imported Indian War Elehants would squish them.

a reply to: Arnie123

Yep, until the Vimanas arrived. Then all hell would break loose

Napoleon relied on his canons, he was a trained artillery man. The reason he lost at Waterloo was because it rained and his canon balls sunk in the mud instead of repeatedly bouncing into the ranks of British squares like his tactics were designed to do. If it were dry he would have obliterated the British then had time to turn on the Russians. He even delayed the battle which was planned for early morning hoping the ground would dry.

No is the answer.

The warfare and tactics that developed in Napoleonic times was a few steps beyond bows and arrows.

Napoleon was not without fault. In his early days he out-thought the opposition, but he was outplayed in the Peninsular War and other places until his eventual defeat at Waterloo. Having bow-armed archers would not have helped one jot.

Considering how the bow was largely obsolete by this time, nope.

a reply to: makemap
No, because his archers would have been blown apart by the artillery of the time, which had developed a longer range.
If you look at the history of warfare, you will find that the supremacy of any particular weapon or tactical system is never permanent.
The Macedonian phalanx formation was all-conquering, until the Roman legion came along.
The knights in armour ruled mediaeval Europe until the English and the Flemish showed what could be done with archers on foot.
In 1870 (railways) and 1940 (tanks), the Germans benefited from the supremacy of mobile attack against static defence.
In 1915-17 (machine guns), the Germans benefited from the supremacy of static defence over attack.

originally posted by: paraphi
No is the answer.

The warfare and tactics that developed in Napoleonic times was a few steps beyond bows and arrows.

Napoleon was not without fault. In his early days he out-thought the opposition, but he was outplayed in the Peninsular War and other places until his eventual defeat at Waterloo. Having bow-armed archers would not have helped one jot.

Yes, the power of the conscripted soldier. Grab kids, give them a musket and some drill lessons to fill the ranks. Napoleon raised and moved armies faster than anyone before him. He escaped from exile and raised an army from nothing to retake France, it was unheard of so the allies never planned for it to happen.

Those mongols had to train their entire lives as a way of life in order to ride and shoot.

Mogols and Cossacks born on horseback.

Napoleon is credited with declaring, "Cossacks are the best light troops among all that exist. If I had them in my army, I would go through all the world with them."

The above was already using guns so may take that into context as being more useful than with just bows.
Source

The Comanches are said to have been magnificent horsemen who could loose arrows in rapid succession such that the next arrow was incoming before the first struck home. It has been written that were it not for this tribe, we in the states would now be speaking Spanish, so prolific were their raids into Mexico between 1820 and 1870. The Comanche moon is when they would raid, as far as Jalisco, and they reclaimed a large part of Texas from Spaniards.

They took everything, raided horses, and killed any surplus
livestock they couldn't herd back to their large tribal swath of nomadic grounds, even expending lives to gather up thier warriors fallen in battle.

The party abated when they fell to cholera and draught in 1849, which had them eating their horses, and by 1870 their raids were stanched by a more organized and powerful western United States presence.

But yeah, the Comanche slaughtered the Spaniards.
Because horses, skill, and bow and arrow.
Being nomadic meant they were hard to retaliate against.

# 791

At least offered money to develope some gadgets, like tin cans(german version, where the complete history is described, that part about Bonaparte and the 12000 goldfranc he offered for inventing tin cans is completely missing in the english version, somehow...) and margarine...

originally posted by: makemap
Basically. What I have seen during about the gun powder age is that muskets takes too long to reload. Even when the Chinese knew this bow beats muskets in closer range. The beginning of the French kingdom was happening during the Mongol Invasion. None of the European can compete against Horse archery tactic. The French had an alliance with the mongols before.

en.wikipedia.org...
en.wikipedia.org...

When Napoleon was at his might. There was Calvary to counter infantry and anti-calvary. But, what if Napoleon replaced his Calvary with Horse Archers instead?

en.wikipedia.org...

Instead of 14k sword Calvary, image horse archer Calvary. Would he decisively win the battle instantly and counter Prussian Calvary charge?
Or simply this battle might not have existed and Napoleon was able to to prevent majority of the retreating enemies.

Horses are a much bigger target and a volley or even well hidden rifle unit would crush them. Not to mention it takes a lifetime to learn how to shoot a bow properly, especially off a horse.

Also, they used dragoon units which shot rifles and could cav charge.

originally posted by: DerBeobachter
At least offered money to develope some gadgets, like tin cans(german version, where the complete history is described, that part about Bonaparte and the 12000 goldfranc he offered for inventing tin cans is completely missing in the english version, somehow...) and margarine...

I believe it was glass jars that came to Napoleon's rescue.

Interesting fact. In Napoleonic times the ratio of infantry to horse (cavalry) in army groups was typically three, four, or five to one. For example, at Waterloo Napoleon's army had a ratio of horse to infantry/auxiliary of just over three to one.

Plus, cavalry were of different types - heavy cavalry for shock and lighter types for mobility and disruption. No bows in use, but lances, carbines and swords.

Poor horses

It's amazing the Indians could do what they did ... remember to shoot that fast the arrows are held in the same hand drawing and fireing now do that with a 70 lb bow .. make that a short bow ... makes things harder ... now do that off horse back acurataly ... as ur being shot at

I couldn't do that standing still on the ground shooting at paper

But I present u kryptonight of any horse army
www.wildflower.org...

The horse crippler brutal effective cheap ...plant around and ur fear of horse night raiding will melt away u don't even have to water them ... it's recommended u don't

a reply to: markovian
The Parthians' party trick was to ride away from their enemies and fire arrows over their horses' tails while they were in full flight.
Hence the expression "Parthian shot", describing someone who gets in the last word in the argument or a final insult just before he leaves.
This is supposed to be the origin of the Revelation image, of horses with serpent-headed tails (Revelation ch9 v19).

a reply to: makemap

The difference is that high value Archers are hard to train and can take a lifetime of training which is why the English used to have it as a law that all men practice archery (Which is actually what the village green was for) so that every Englishman of fighting age could fire a bow with accuracy and with power but even then the elite archers were trained from childhood, the French used to cut the two string fingers of English men which is one possible origin of the two finger gesture and it's possible meaning of "I still have my fingers and can still fire a bow".

A musket take's longer to load yes but are just as lethal, in fact it can be more lethal especially against armor and even a bodkin can not match a musket ball for brute force armor penetration, also of course anyone can fire a musket with a minimum of training.

Still in history there were some pretty lethal archers and they could fire a lot of arrow in the air at the same time using many lost techniques.

The grandson of Genghis Khan is supposed to have hit a target at about a mile away from moving horseback so range as well.

Best bow's of the past, the Mongol Recurve made of composite hide, bone and glue and the English Long Bow made of Yew and Ash but far less ergonomic than the smaller and relatively more powerful Mongol bow.

But the past was not always so primitive.

Now Napoleon against Chin using equal period weapon's and army size in a head to head, now that would be interesting but somehow I think Chin would have trounced napoleon on that one.

a reply to: LABTECH767

Ya, but could you imagine Napoleon using Horse archers to counter Calvary? Shoot twice or three times as fast before they are able to charge in allowing his foot soldiers to stay in line. During that Era no one was using armor anymore. Plus the musket men will have so much trouble reloading and running away from the horse archers after first shot and attempting to retreat.

If you saw the last samurai battle. That reload speed.
Who said Napoleon will only use Horse Archery, use a combination with he musket men.

a reply to: makemap


At close range with no body armor the Archer would have been faster and just as lethal as any gun wielder before the advent of automatic and semi automatic weapon's so it would have beaten the musket in that scenario.

I always liked deadliest warrior, here is Comanche versus Mongol as best they could re-enact an imaginary engagement between the two in a what if scenario (I actually don't agree with the outcome of this video though as the Mongol was a hit and run warrior only moving after his enemy in force and also like the Comanche an ambush warrior but with far more refined tactic's, in fact I believe the Mongols would have easily beaten the Comanche.


But remember the impact of the early musket carried by the Conquistador's against the Aztec and the Inca both of whom had archer's, how good were there archer's, how good was the Spanish armor to defeat there arrow's and spear's and how good were the Spanish musketeers, a few hundred Spanish defeated an empire of million's.