[dragontamer]

> 3. throwing an axe means you get one shot. Then you're weaponless.

Romans carried 2 Pilum, a shortsword, and a shield. You had two shots, after which you rushed in with your swords.

Yeah, Longbowmen are obviously superior. But if you have 10,000 Longbowmen with 60 arrows per man, you require a production-capacity of 60,000 arrows per battle. That's a lot of goose feathers, even if you're recycling a significant chunk of arrows.

Note that the modern arrow has fletching for accuracy. Ancient arrows didn't have fletching: no spin, no accuracy.

Before the middle ages, mass production of arrows in this capacity was basically impossible. The British innovation to war wasn't so much the Longbow (there were plenty of archers before the British...), it was the invention of commodity mass produced arrows... which supported the Longbowman as a major unit of warfare.

Even the Roman Legionaries used Pilum (aka: Javelins) as their ranged weapon of choice. Bows existed (see the Sagittarii), but were an auxiliary (and often non-Roman) force.

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Slingers (!!) were still used in Roman times. Now a Sling... THAT is an ideal ancient weapon. A trained slinger can kill a Lion or Bear, and you only had to find rocks to throw. Mass production of sling-bullets (really, just a shaped rock) is easy, even with an army marching to a distant location.

Slingers used rocks, clay, and even lead bullets throughout history. They were effectively the longbowmen before the British learned to mass produce arrows.

In fact, the ancient world believed that Slings had greater range and accuracy than bows. Since fletching won't be invented for another 1000+ years, ancient arrows had very limited range and accuracy.

[WalterBright]

> Ancient arrows didn't have fletching: no spin, no accuracy.

I couldn't find any mention of when spin was added. But I would think it pretty darned hard to align the feathers so precisely that it wouldn't spin anyway. Bird feathers aren't straight, either.

Arrows date back 64,000 years (wikipedia). A long time before the Romans.

Equipping 10,000 soldiers with any sort of kit will be a major undertaking.

Most any bird feathers can be used for arrows. Not just goose.

[dragontamer]

> Equipping 10,000 soldiers with any sort of kit will be a major undertaking.

Difficulty of that kit is the real question.

Slingers would need 20 lead bullets, one of the lowest melting point substances in the world. If lead were unavailable, slingers would make due with stone, or even clay bullets.

In contrast, equipping 20 arrows to 10,000 archers would be an incredibly more complicated undertaking. You need arrowheads, those arrowheads need to fit shafts. Even without fletching, building an arrowhead design that fits different width sticks of wood is an incredibly complicated undertaking. Especially if you only have access to tools from ancient-times.

To accurately launch the arrow, you must consistently make the same arrow (or extremely similar arrows). That's just how it works. Its far easier to make 20x lead bullets (or 20x clay bullets, or 20x stone bullets) that are all consistent... than it is to make 20x arrows that are all consistent.

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It was a real innovation to standardize stick sizes, standardize goose feathers, and standardize arrowheads to equip the British Longbowman. There's a reason why that strategy only really took place in the Medieval period, the ancient world didn't have the tools or inventions needed to support mass-archer strategies.

[WalterBright]

> incredibly more complicated

Sorry, not agreeing. Arrows had been regularly made for tens of thousands of years.