If there's one thing I really hate, it's people who think the longbow was a wonder weapon because the English won the battles of Crecy, Poitiers and Agincourt.
I'm not in this discussion to win and I'm willing to concede longbows might have advantages, but that requires a battle mentioned where the longbow significantly contributed to the English victory, without the nglish having the frankly ludicrous terrain advantage they had in all three aforementioned battles.
Despite the battles of Crecy, Poitiers and Agincourt. The English Longbow is not a wonder weapon beating crossbows at everything other than training time and piercing plate armour from 100 yards away, for the same reason you can't say English schools students are much smarter than French ones because they both had the same test and the English performed better, only with the English allowed to use books and internet during the test while the French weren't allowed to use either.
Mention a battle where the English longbow won over the crossbow in a ranged fight, but with the following restrictions (in order to say it was actually the bow and not the terrain that won the battle):
1) The English did not have height advantage by standing on top of a hill and firing down on the French army.
2) The terrain did not limit the deployment of the French army by having a bank with a narrow gap the entire army has to funnel through.
3) There was no trouble with logistics meaning the French crossbowmen were underequipped while the English longbowmen were not.
4) The English did not have enough time on the battlefield, before battle, to erect field fortifications.
Mention a battle that actually proves longbow superiority by having the longbowmen defeat the crossbowmen (not merely the English defeat the French) without the terrain advantage they had at the three famous battles.
Note: I still don't get where the idea that crossbows had to have three handlers comes from, or the idea that crossbows were limited to France. Post-Crusades (and the massive increase in crossbow power composite technology brought) and pre-mid-14th century most of mainland Europe had their trained and drilled town militias use crossbows, as well as the experienced and veteran mercenaries. Bows were used by hunters and rural people who lived too far from the city centers to afford crossbows.
After the mid 14th century crossbows became more common even amongst the more rural people, and by the 15th century there were two types of ranged troops in Europe, Crossbowsmen and Handgunners, with the exceptions being the borders such as the British Isles, the Slavic Eastern Europe and the Venetians.
