[Vigilanteman]

Correct plus people forget what a powerful weapon that the longbow was at the time. Your longbowman not only had to have incredible arm strength but extra arm length.

The only weapon that was even close to effective was the crossbow, which suffered both from much longer reload time and shorter range.

It was a similar situation to the Kentucky long rifles at the battle of New Orleans where the Brits had an extraordinarily long kill zone to march across before they could even get within range.

[SunkenCiv]

I think there was a test similar to this on Time Team, but anyway, this isn’t the one I remember:

The Longbow Vs The Crossbow Speed Test - Video 17
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HagCuGXJgUs