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Myth vs. Reality: Archery and Musketry
13 years ago
Let's face it. We've been misled.
This isn't to say we've been lied to, per se. It's just that most English speaking people who have examined or been shown military history have been shown a very specific perspective-- namely, that of curly haired geeks from Sandhurst.
There is an idea that seems to have set in, a perception that has been almost universally accepted as fact, and a key consideration in the strange, arcane transition of militaries from Archery to Musketry. Anyone examining the late renaissance to the early modern period has to factor in the transformation from medieval military structures and technologies to what we usually envision when thinking of the early modern-- muskets, bayonets, and uniforms instead of armor. Explaining this transition is tricky, but because audiences are 'stupid', we're spoon-fed really ridiculous reasons that this change took place. I'm going to try and take these apart right now, to challenge this popular/conventional 'wisdom'. I may not be precisely correct, but by God this idiotic death spiral of ignorance must be contested.
Myth #1: Archery fell by the wayside because it took 10 years to train an archer.
Wrong. Where does it say in any actual military documentation that even a professional archer requires 10 years of experience to make a decent showing in combat? The fact of the matter is, the longbow is a weapon with two operational requirements: Strength and Endurance. Precision and speed are completely secondary considerations, especially when you remember that formations of archers would fire volleys to saturate an area with fire, something not requiring years of practice. To be an archer on a battlefield, the key qualities of a soldier were the upper body strength to draw the bow as well as the endurance to possibly draw and hold for a minute or minutes at a time. Developing these qualities does require some conditioning, but many men of the medieval and renaissance eras were already conditioned by the hardship of their lives.
Additionally, this idea that it takes 10 years to develop precision and speed in archery seems completely bogus. An effective trainer and a trainee working with a man-sized target can develop the precision to hit that target at 100 yards with regularity after a week. One week. Combining this skill with rapid and effective reloading takes longer, but if precision is an issue, one week of training is sufficient. Not 10 years. When you consider this, the only real disadvantage of archery over musketry and crossbows is that it takes two weeks to a month to train a group of archers to a degree of competency whereas it might only take 1-2 weeks to train soldiers to become competent crossbowmen or musketeers. This disparity of 1-2 weeks can add up, but it alone doesn't explain the transition from archery to musketry.
Myth #2: Bows are better than muskets because they reload more rapidly.
It is absolutely true that bows are faster and easier to reload than muskets, but to suggest that raw rate of fire translates directly to combat effectiveness is quite iffy. History shows that changes in weapon technology occur for highly practical and common-sense reasons. That being the case, there must be a reason that armies began deploying crossbows and muskets in lieu of bows. While part of the embrace of musketry in Europe is attributed to advertising and 'keeping up with the Joneses', at its heart the transformation has practical roots.
A skilled individual archer can fire more rapidly and accurately than a skilled musketeer. However, individual talent tends to be eclipsed by formations in large battles, during which archers and musketeers alike focus on volley fire-- flinging the highest density of fire toward the enemy as possible with limited regard for accuracy. Supposing that a competent formation of archers can loose 17-20 arrows a minute and a competent formation of musketeers can fire 3 shots a minute, the advantage seems to go with the archers.
Then you run into a serious problem: Lethality. These men are here to kill each other, not just to hit each other. A single strike with an arrow through the arm or even the torso can be very painful, but seldom lethal. A strike to the arm or torso by a musket ball, however, is generally fatal. These were big bullets, considerably bigger than those we use today, and they shattered bones and tore apart flesh on impact. Thus, you start to see that the musketeers are not at such a disadvantage after all- they may only be able to fire 3 times a minute and their range may be comparatively short, but they only have to hit their target once to kill them. By contrast, an archer would have to be very lucky or skilled in order to kill their target in one hit. A musketeer wearing armor on his center of mass and head had an even greater chance of closing with a group of archers, and many musketeers of the late renaissance were equipped with armor for this very reason.
Myth 3: Guns Killed Chivalry
There's a prevailing myth, particularly among fantasy aficionados, that guns are ugly things that destroyed the age of knights and chivalry in a puff of black powder. To say that muskets did not play a role in the demise of the feudal aristocracy is incorrect, but to exclusively blame the gun misses the point.
So if guns didn't kill chivalry, what did? The answer, and this sounds crazy at first, is the printing press.
Prior to the printing press, everyone in Europe lived and died within 50 miles of where they were born. They thought of themselves as part of a village and they thought of their feudal lords as the source of all worldly power and they thought of the Church as the source of all spiritual power. The transmission of information through literature was closely guarded because books were so precious and expensive. As a result, people were completely oblivious to the concept of a greater world or a nation-state. Their world was a very small place.
The printing press changed that fundamentally. It was first used to disseminate the word of God, but the technology soon found its way into a new role: Defining social groups. Suddenly, everyone was part of this new idea: We're not citizens of the town of Fluffenburg, we are Germans-- part of a vast community that didn't previously exist. By making individuals feel like part of a grand cultural community, you see the rise of a new government concept: the Nation State.
Every indication is that the Nation State is what killed chivalry. People could imagine themselves as part of a massive community, a nation, and they could also imagine this community led by a single powerful monarchy much more potent than their local lords. This simple concept transformed Europe, and eventually led to the demise of the old aristocracy. Muskets could kill armored knights, it's true, but what really killed them was a fall from power brought about by words on paper, and this story echoes everywhere that an information revolution occurred, not just lands with muskets.
Myth #4: Longbows trump Crossbows
Much of our contemporary understanding of the longbow's abilities come from two chosen glories: The battles of Crecy and Agincourt, during which English and Welsh longbowmen distinguished themselves against larger numbers of professional French and allied troops. One of those battles, Crecy, involved a duel between Genoese mercenary crossbowmen and the famed longbowmen. The longbowmen won.
These two battles are widely known and contribute towards the 'legend' of the longbow-- namely, the supposed supernatural qualities of the weapon. However, there is no actual evidence to be gained from either battle that the crossbows employed by the French and Genoese were actually inferior to the longbows used by the English. The idea that longbows deliver better range than crossbows is largely myth brought about by the longbow 'legend'. In reality, the draw weight and ballistic performance of Genoese crossbows and English/Welsh longbows was quite close. The Genoese crossbowmen also had a clever defense against enemy archers- a thick wooden shield worn on the back called a Pavise. This protected them as they reloaded and offered cover against the superior rate of fire of the longbow.
The details of these two battles are widely discussed, but it's what happens after these battles that is generally missed. The English lost the 100 years war because the French figured out the weaknesses of the longbow while the Genoese crossbowmen that met with such terrible disaster at Crecy would continue to fight with distinction and skill up until the 1500s, well after black powder weapons became in vogue. This longer view of history indicates that the crossbow, not the longbow played a greater part in military supremacy in continental Europe, but we seldom hear about it because of the British telling of events.
Myth #5: (I'm throwing this in for kicks to see how many people make it this far) Guns do not belong in a fantasy universe because of the presence of Magic.
The chief argument is that the power of magic sabotages technological progress. In theory, magic provides a readily available and direct source of power, reducing or eliminating the limitations that force people to innovate and create new technology.
Yet even within this argument there is a ridiculous lapse of logic. If magic exists, why should swords and armor exist? Those are technologies too, right? If magic exists, why are there castles? Shouldn't magic be able to blast castles into molten blobs? Castles are technology too.
Beyond military considerations, what about governments and social structures? What about agriculture? What about commerce? All of those things are technologies. If magic exists as a direct source of power, would it destroy those technologies too?
Every well-regarded fantasy universe makes the limitations of magic clear from the onset for the simple reason that it forces characters and cultures to innovate. This fits neatly into basic concepts of good storytelling: that obstacles will exist or arise that must be overcome with effort. Because magic precludes exertion, it must be limited.
It boggles my mind that many people believe that people continue to use the excuse that the existence of magic denies the existence of technology. It is almost universally used not as a scholarly argument, but as a justification for a personal prejudice against a specific technology. Long story short, if you don't want pocket watches or airships or crossbows or plate armor or guns or any kind of technology, for God's sake stop using this ridiculous excuse to justify your sentiment. Come up with a real, original explanation why these technologies do not exist and at least make an effort to not look like a prejudicial idiot.
This isn't to say we've been lied to, per se. It's just that most English speaking people who have examined or been shown military history have been shown a very specific perspective-- namely, that of curly haired geeks from Sandhurst.
There is an idea that seems to have set in, a perception that has been almost universally accepted as fact, and a key consideration in the strange, arcane transition of militaries from Archery to Musketry. Anyone examining the late renaissance to the early modern period has to factor in the transformation from medieval military structures and technologies to what we usually envision when thinking of the early modern-- muskets, bayonets, and uniforms instead of armor. Explaining this transition is tricky, but because audiences are 'stupid', we're spoon-fed really ridiculous reasons that this change took place. I'm going to try and take these apart right now, to challenge this popular/conventional 'wisdom'. I may not be precisely correct, but by God this idiotic death spiral of ignorance must be contested.
Myth #1: Archery fell by the wayside because it took 10 years to train an archer.
Wrong. Where does it say in any actual military documentation that even a professional archer requires 10 years of experience to make a decent showing in combat? The fact of the matter is, the longbow is a weapon with two operational requirements: Strength and Endurance. Precision and speed are completely secondary considerations, especially when you remember that formations of archers would fire volleys to saturate an area with fire, something not requiring years of practice. To be an archer on a battlefield, the key qualities of a soldier were the upper body strength to draw the bow as well as the endurance to possibly draw and hold for a minute or minutes at a time. Developing these qualities does require some conditioning, but many men of the medieval and renaissance eras were already conditioned by the hardship of their lives.
Additionally, this idea that it takes 10 years to develop precision and speed in archery seems completely bogus. An effective trainer and a trainee working with a man-sized target can develop the precision to hit that target at 100 yards with regularity after a week. One week. Combining this skill with rapid and effective reloading takes longer, but if precision is an issue, one week of training is sufficient. Not 10 years. When you consider this, the only real disadvantage of archery over musketry and crossbows is that it takes two weeks to a month to train a group of archers to a degree of competency whereas it might only take 1-2 weeks to train soldiers to become competent crossbowmen or musketeers. This disparity of 1-2 weeks can add up, but it alone doesn't explain the transition from archery to musketry.
Myth #2: Bows are better than muskets because they reload more rapidly.
It is absolutely true that bows are faster and easier to reload than muskets, but to suggest that raw rate of fire translates directly to combat effectiveness is quite iffy. History shows that changes in weapon technology occur for highly practical and common-sense reasons. That being the case, there must be a reason that armies began deploying crossbows and muskets in lieu of bows. While part of the embrace of musketry in Europe is attributed to advertising and 'keeping up with the Joneses', at its heart the transformation has practical roots.
A skilled individual archer can fire more rapidly and accurately than a skilled musketeer. However, individual talent tends to be eclipsed by formations in large battles, during which archers and musketeers alike focus on volley fire-- flinging the highest density of fire toward the enemy as possible with limited regard for accuracy. Supposing that a competent formation of archers can loose 17-20 arrows a minute and a competent formation of musketeers can fire 3 shots a minute, the advantage seems to go with the archers.
Then you run into a serious problem: Lethality. These men are here to kill each other, not just to hit each other. A single strike with an arrow through the arm or even the torso can be very painful, but seldom lethal. A strike to the arm or torso by a musket ball, however, is generally fatal. These were big bullets, considerably bigger than those we use today, and they shattered bones and tore apart flesh on impact. Thus, you start to see that the musketeers are not at such a disadvantage after all- they may only be able to fire 3 times a minute and their range may be comparatively short, but they only have to hit their target once to kill them. By contrast, an archer would have to be very lucky or skilled in order to kill their target in one hit. A musketeer wearing armor on his center of mass and head had an even greater chance of closing with a group of archers, and many musketeers of the late renaissance were equipped with armor for this very reason.
Myth 3: Guns Killed Chivalry
There's a prevailing myth, particularly among fantasy aficionados, that guns are ugly things that destroyed the age of knights and chivalry in a puff of black powder. To say that muskets did not play a role in the demise of the feudal aristocracy is incorrect, but to exclusively blame the gun misses the point.
So if guns didn't kill chivalry, what did? The answer, and this sounds crazy at first, is the printing press.
Prior to the printing press, everyone in Europe lived and died within 50 miles of where they were born. They thought of themselves as part of a village and they thought of their feudal lords as the source of all worldly power and they thought of the Church as the source of all spiritual power. The transmission of information through literature was closely guarded because books were so precious and expensive. As a result, people were completely oblivious to the concept of a greater world or a nation-state. Their world was a very small place.
The printing press changed that fundamentally. It was first used to disseminate the word of God, but the technology soon found its way into a new role: Defining social groups. Suddenly, everyone was part of this new idea: We're not citizens of the town of Fluffenburg, we are Germans-- part of a vast community that didn't previously exist. By making individuals feel like part of a grand cultural community, you see the rise of a new government concept: the Nation State.
Every indication is that the Nation State is what killed chivalry. People could imagine themselves as part of a massive community, a nation, and they could also imagine this community led by a single powerful monarchy much more potent than their local lords. This simple concept transformed Europe, and eventually led to the demise of the old aristocracy. Muskets could kill armored knights, it's true, but what really killed them was a fall from power brought about by words on paper, and this story echoes everywhere that an information revolution occurred, not just lands with muskets.
Myth #4: Longbows trump Crossbows
Much of our contemporary understanding of the longbow's abilities come from two chosen glories: The battles of Crecy and Agincourt, during which English and Welsh longbowmen distinguished themselves against larger numbers of professional French and allied troops. One of those battles, Crecy, involved a duel between Genoese mercenary crossbowmen and the famed longbowmen. The longbowmen won.
These two battles are widely known and contribute towards the 'legend' of the longbow-- namely, the supposed supernatural qualities of the weapon. However, there is no actual evidence to be gained from either battle that the crossbows employed by the French and Genoese were actually inferior to the longbows used by the English. The idea that longbows deliver better range than crossbows is largely myth brought about by the longbow 'legend'. In reality, the draw weight and ballistic performance of Genoese crossbows and English/Welsh longbows was quite close. The Genoese crossbowmen also had a clever defense against enemy archers- a thick wooden shield worn on the back called a Pavise. This protected them as they reloaded and offered cover against the superior rate of fire of the longbow.
The details of these two battles are widely discussed, but it's what happens after these battles that is generally missed. The English lost the 100 years war because the French figured out the weaknesses of the longbow while the Genoese crossbowmen that met with such terrible disaster at Crecy would continue to fight with distinction and skill up until the 1500s, well after black powder weapons became in vogue. This longer view of history indicates that the crossbow, not the longbow played a greater part in military supremacy in continental Europe, but we seldom hear about it because of the British telling of events.
Myth #5: (I'm throwing this in for kicks to see how many people make it this far) Guns do not belong in a fantasy universe because of the presence of Magic.
The chief argument is that the power of magic sabotages technological progress. In theory, magic provides a readily available and direct source of power, reducing or eliminating the limitations that force people to innovate and create new technology.
Yet even within this argument there is a ridiculous lapse of logic. If magic exists, why should swords and armor exist? Those are technologies too, right? If magic exists, why are there castles? Shouldn't magic be able to blast castles into molten blobs? Castles are technology too.
Beyond military considerations, what about governments and social structures? What about agriculture? What about commerce? All of those things are technologies. If magic exists as a direct source of power, would it destroy those technologies too?
Every well-regarded fantasy universe makes the limitations of magic clear from the onset for the simple reason that it forces characters and cultures to innovate. This fits neatly into basic concepts of good storytelling: that obstacles will exist or arise that must be overcome with effort. Because magic precludes exertion, it must be limited.
It boggles my mind that many people believe that people continue to use the excuse that the existence of magic denies the existence of technology. It is almost universally used not as a scholarly argument, but as a justification for a personal prejudice against a specific technology. Long story short, if you don't want pocket watches or airships or crossbows or plate armor or guns or any kind of technology, for God's sake stop using this ridiculous excuse to justify your sentiment. Come up with a real, original explanation why these technologies do not exist and at least make an effort to not look like a prejudicial idiot.
But, yes on the last point. I always get irked when people claim a lack of technology, yet you see people clearly using forging techniques, stonemasonry, tools, pulleys, inclined planes, and Genetic Engineering. That's all technology, folks! I think the cartoon "The Slayers" had the best answer to the thing, that while there was gunpowder guns and bombs, it typically was easier for the main sorcerers to summon a fireball for generally the same effect.
Oh stop. I'm half kidding. XD
Threefore, dragoens extinck.
Thr end!
When it comes to the guns versus sorcery argument, what's wrong with a combination of the two? Throwing a fireball (as depicted in a number of fantasy series) at an enemy that is within the effective range of a pistol runs the risk of burning the caster. Guns would also be useful to provide covering fire to the sorcerer/ess who's big bad spell has a long cast time.
My contention is with the people that have a distaste for guns, but are incapable of giving their prejudice an actual voice, instead hiding behind faulty logic and groupthink.
Makes sense.
You say that the objective of people using bows/muskets/crossbows is to actually kill the opposing side. Myself, I believe that that isn't necessary at all; you don't need to kill the men on the other army, you just need to put them out of action. While this can be done by killing them, this can be just as easily done by sticking an arrow into their arms, legs or guts. Think about it: if you have an arrow sticking out of your thigh, possibly reaching the bone, are you really going to want to spend the rest of the battle firing potshots at the opposing army anymore? Of course not, you're going to be on the ground screaming that there's an arrow in your thigh. Therefore, the comparison of kills between the longbow and the musket is, in my opinion at least, largely moot.
Another way to put soldiers out of action was to get them to break and run. This was one of the reasons why the cavalry charge was so effective; havig several hundred pounds of steel and horse bearing down on you was not fun in the slightest. Once the enemy had started to rout, the cavalry could proceed to hunt them down at their leisure and make sure they kept running. This was often the point where an army started to suffer the most casualties. In this, I think the bow and the musket both have their strengths. The bow because a group of them can put down a continuous and withering volley of arrows, the musket for the sheer level of brutality that it could inflict, as well as the noise and the smoke, which would make the receiving side very disorientated and confused.
However I agree, the musket ball compared to an arrow was far more lethal. It did not help that they were often made of lead, which would often poison the poor sod unfortunate enough to have one shot into him, and that medicine at the time made removing said musket ball far more fatal than actually getting shot.
Another reason the bow went out of use was that the amount of suitable wood needed to keep mass producing longbows was quickly becoming exhausted in the British Isles. It was getting to the point that England actually requested that each foreign merchant ship provide a number of yew-wood staves for every shipment they brought into the kingdom. As a result, the musket would have been seen as a far cheaper and more readily available alternative; you don't need a special sort of wood to make the stock of a musket.
That said I could see where that concept would theoretically work with muskets, although the relatively short range of those weapons(compared to modern firearms) would mean the unit would have to be placed fairly close to the enemy unit in question. Smoothbore muskets are quite inaccurate over more than pretty short distances, which was the reason why military tactics at the time composed of lining up a bunch of men within fifty yards of each other to exchange fire.
To put this in perspective of Jodimest's gaming system, as I said before it definitely is feasible that someone would come up with a volley system for muskets. However, the range would be short and muskets are still quite inaccurate. The Enfield rifles the British used were some of the most accurate military rifles of the period and stand up quite well today, and it was possible for a trained marksman to hit a man at 600 yards or more. Volley fire at 1500-2500 yards, however, wasn't notably effective. The rounds would reach out that far but you're looking at only a few casualties in a tightly massed group of enemy soldiers. If they were spread out they may have been lucky to hit one or two, and that's not counting the very good possibility the estimated range was way off in the first place. Compare that to muskets which have an effective sighted range of 50-75 yards and the problem is definitely multiplied. In those cases it may be better to use artillery than volley fire, or have a couple of groups of designated sharpshooters with actual rifled muskets to thin out the ranks and provide an avantage for a rank of file. Obviously I'm definitely not a military historian but this is pretty fun to think about.
But you're right about the effects of arrows. Non-lethal shots can be equally effective at taking someone out of the battle or eliminating their combat effectiveness as lethal shots, and it can be hard to hold a musket if you've got an arrow through each shoulder!
My personal theory is that traditional archery was upheld and applauded in Britain for a long time because that nation didn't face the constant threat of invasion-- provided the navy did its job. Nations like Spain, France, Italy, and the various patchwork of German states couldn't afford elitism in their choice of weapons. They needed any and all options, and they needed practical solutions. This meant that they were willing to try anything!
I believe another reason for the rise of the archer in English military history was because, unlike France and the Hispanic kingdoms, England didn't really have as much of a powerful landed aristocracy dominating the warrior class. Whereas France depended heavily on its knights to win battles, England after the Norman period more often depended on its peasant infantry, with their knights adopting more of a supportive role. Likewise the landscape of medieval Britain was quite hilly and wooded with few truly flat empty plains, which made the dominance of a mounted military harder to cultivate.
Just a theory, but as far as I know the part of the 'wounded soldier takes up more resources is rather new. In earlier times treatment of the wounded was bad if done at all. That's the reson so many armies lost many, in some cases more soldiers after the battle.
*shrugs* We always have to cound in the medival thinking.
About England and the wood, well, maybe the Navy might have also something to do with the shortage of wood.
Just my thoughts.
Harry Potter? Magic requires an inborn affinity for it and extensive training. D&D? Either an inborn talent, a pact with a higher power (and never a one-way bargain), or extensive study, to say nothing of the costs of reagents and the like. Then there's repercussions of actually using magic - you might mess up and summon up something from the Dungeon Dimensions when all you wanted was for your cabbages to mature faster. It might waste your body or mind way, or make you an outcast by virtue of simply being able to do tricks beyond the ability of the common folk. And with magic tending to be not too widespread, an army of a few thousand men would likely only have a couple of magic users on hand. And if a stone from a catapult happens to land on one of them, well...
Sometimes, a big freaking cannon is just a cheaper and less troublesome way of getting through a castle gate than a wizard. Easier to replace, too.
What I blame are the people who, having grown comfortable with a certain perspective on fantasy and history, regard it as a sort of dogma, incapable of adaptations or change. I feel that this dogma has caused a great deal of stagnation in fantasy storytelling, traditions for the sake of tradition, satisfaction of the narrow target audience being more important than innovation.
About Myth #5.
If you think about it, magic should actually increase technolohgical developments. Why? Simple.
Ruler: That Wizard/Dragon can destroy a village in 5 minutes. I want to be able to do this as well.
There are no hard and fast rules in fantasy writing, except perhaps that the writing should be coherent and tell a story. It irks me to see people take this very simple and broad concept and build a prison around it based solely on what they have read.
Magic is a great way to spice up any realm, technology, or idea. It allows room for the fantastic while still making it seem somewhat "realistic." Not in that it's realistic in relation to our actual world of physics and math, but that it has a basis it can be grounded around and keep a vested level of normality in the project, story, series, etc...
1) Warforged, done with clockwork and crude hydraulics (though powered by elemental magic)
1) Archer ranger, roleplaying his crossbow as a musket, and his Eagle-Eye Goggles as technical in nature
2) Separate instances where blasting powder of either alchemical or just plain chemical nature were used to sabotage large areas.
Why can't guns be part of fantasy? BECAUSE THEY HAVE NO IMAGINATION!!! Seriously, I always thought that magic would *enhance* the technological progression of a world, not only from magicians being able to make great things that would enhance the process, but also because NON-magic-users would be trying to emulate/one-up their abilities, whether on the battlefield or in a factory or just at home or whatever.
Then the Legend of Korra came out and I pointed at the screen and said "STOP STEALING MY IDEALS!"
Okay, fair enough, I can see very powerful magic auras tampering with extremely delicate machinery, but what really made me upset with this world is the in-world "examples" they give in the beginning of the instruction manual. One of them involves a generic magical artifact interfering with the regular motion of a pendulum and the basic principle of the inclined plane. The inclined plane, the simplest of all machines. At this point, you are not working with magic, you are dealing with raw chaos that toys with fundamental physics uncontrollably. If anything, I'd smack the mage that made that artifact because it's sloppy as hell.
Another comment on myth #5, where you said that magic precludes exertion, while I agree with your statement that too much magic results in overpowered characters and thus is bad storytelling, there's another reason for limiting magic: any sufficiently examined magic becomes indistinguishable from science, and thus, technology. Too much magic makes the story no longer a sword and sorcery fantasy tale, it becomes a slightly different flavor of science-fiction. Part of the essence of fantasy is the idea of beings being able to wield immense power with little to no explanation, whereas science-fiction is about possessing or seeking a thorough explanation in some manner or other. Going the magic=technology route involves a tremendous amount of worldbuilding from the author, and this can quickly overwhelm an attempt to write a story about knights, peasants, and wizards. Too much magic, and you'll have to start asking yourself why anyone would wield swords and bows when they could probably get a magic wand that anyone could use instead.
If we continue down this rabbit-hole, this brings up a sixth myth: One advantage of technology is that anyone can use it, whereas magic is only available to highly-trained spellcasters.
Not necessarily. Sure, my laptop is a lot more versatile than a crystal ball, and anyone can learn to drive a car, but does everyone understand the principles enough to build their own computer or car from scratch? No, of course not. You need to be an educated engineer or an experienced machinist from a young age in order to do that. Engineers and scientists are the wizards and sorcerers of the real world. They take the principles of the world and build items that harness them in a manner than anyone with very little training can use. Same thing happens in fantasy worlds, as wizards enchant weapons, armor, and other items that a nonspellcaster can utilize with hardly any magical know-how. A rogue that uses the Use Magic Item skill is that guy down the street who taught himself how to set up a wireless network in his house or repair a car engine. Granted, in most fantasy worlds the difference between magic and technology is that technology operates by the existing laws of physics, whereas magic is often best described as telling the laws of physics to sit down, shut up, and pull a rabbit out of its rear, so there is some reason for this myth existing, but it's important for readers and authors to realize that line can be rather thin.
I like all of your other points, too, they give me a lot of food for thought as a writer and amateur historian. The point about longbowmen not needing to be extremely highly trained because the main military use of ranged weapons up to the 20th century has been saturating a target area with projectiles. That myth probably holds true when it comes to small unit tactics such as skirmishers and small patrols (i.e., "parties"), which is probably why it's still lodged in our collective consciousness.
On your #6 myth, I believe the best incarnation of 'all-inclusive' magic is the Elder Scrolls universe. Supposedly anyone can potentially tap into latent magic with a bit of discipline and concentration to at least cast basic spells. Interestingly enough, some of the most violent anti-gun, anti-technology voices come from long-time fans of The Elder Scrolls.
For my setting, I took a fairly simple approach to magic largely because I initially preferred to make it a secondary factor and not a key skill. Essentially, magic can be thought of as a finite natural resource extracted from 'wells' where it naturally occurs. To make it usable, it then has to be purified-- unless you're an elf, in which case you have some limited ability to channel raw mana directly. Either way, using raw mana is either very toxic or kinda toxic. This means that whoever has the wells and the means to refine it has power. The Maenid Elves built an empire and a fortune off of a monopoly on mana.
Even then, however, magic itself is pretty poorly understood. It's a source of enormous energy potential, more than any other substance by a large factor, yet no one really knows where it comes from or how it transforms from one form to another. Dwarven scholars have considered renaming it 'Stem Energy'. This energy can be manipulated through sheer impulse of will to transmit energy in a desired form, be it a moment of levitation or a blast of fire or a cleave into the earth.
Two wizards who know each other from Wizard's school stay in contact. One moves to anothe rcontinent. They use crystal balls to stay in touch. One craftsman in a village were one of them lives has an idea. He asks te wizard if he knows where he can get the materials. the Wizard asks his friend and it turns out the Village were the other Wizard lives has the materials. Now either the Wizard could bring some of the materials with him when he visits his friend again, or they could tell the idea to the local crafter were the materials are.
Add more Wizards and builders with ideas...
By the way, to head off the question why a Wizard would do that. Simple. While mostly apart, they are still part of the community. Besides, they could loan their crystal balls for a fee per call. There could be more possibilities, but those were the ones that cam to mind.
As for 'Magic == no guns'... Can you magic up the most fractionally small spark wherever you want? If so, wizard beats gun. Or more accurately, wizard sets off gunpowder wherever it may be. And that doesn't require a wizard capable of, you know, bending time and space. Just making an arbitrary spark. (Of course, this is reliant on your specific magic system.) But basically if there is a siege, and cannon, and wizards, the cannon are a liability. A huge liability. Especially when being loaded.
Though if I remember right, English and Welsh children were trained from a young age to pick up and hold stones away from their body as long as possible to condition not just their muscles, but as you mentioned their skeletons for the rigors of using longbows. To ensure that they had a pool of ready archers in times of war, I believe that laws were passed forbidding the playing of any sport other than archery too.
As for magic vs. cannons, a spark in the gunpowder would be a disaster, but who's to say that artillerists themselves wouldn't integrate magic into their art to make cannons more lethal and effective? The presence of magic might also alter the way in which powder is stored-- perhaps another mage could 'spark-proof' powder magazines or perhaps each charge would be stored in a protected partition so that one spark would only set off one charge instead of the entire magazine. A little inventiveness on the part of artillery crews would be necessary, but it's plausible in a situation where magic exists.
It's all circles within circles, really. :P
If you control the powder production, you control who can use the weapon.
How to make bows and arrows is something everyone can learn. Maybe not good ones, but at least useable ones. Even with the crossbow, bolts can be made rather easyly.
An illegal powder production will have regular explosions (even legal ones had them from time to time).
So, rebellious commoners could always arm themselves with distance weapons. But if the skill to make them is less and less common, only the regular soldiers would have large-scale access to them. Remembers, Nobles have kept back the knowledge about crossbows for centuries.
Just a theory. Not proofable, as few Nobles then have written their motives down.
By the way, a while ago researchers put a english chest armor under an X-Ray and found plates between the outer metal. Rebuilding and testing showed, that these armors were bulletproof to the muskets at the time. They dented the armor in question, but did not get through. Sams technique used by the modern tanks.