Customer Reviews

The Book of the Crossbow: With an Additional Section on Catapults and Other Siege Engines (Dover Military History, Weapons, Armor)

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This book is an interesting look at crossbows and siege engines, with lots of useful info for the DIY armourer. It's weakness is that it's written at the beginning of the century, and a little dated, both in writing style and content. I.e. modern materials are quite naturally not covered. It's strong points are the excellent drawings and illustrations. Highly recomennded overall.

The all-time bestseller with a first edition as far back as 1903, later to appear with the 1907 appendix, was written by an amateur (in the true sense of the word) of archery who apparently had an unlimited source of money and time, but only modest background in physics. Along with the history of the crossbow, detailed accounts of the construction and maintenance of various crossbows designed for bolts and bullets are given. Related and/or relevant medieval weapon, like longbow, ballista and arquebus, are also treated in some detail, and the 1907 appendix on turkish bows serves to give a most interesting contrast to european archery of the epoch. When it comes to performance and comparison of the variety of weapon described, maximum range and -sometimes- draw force is the only information given, whereas obvious ballistic terms like exit velocity, time-of-flight and air resistance are conspicuously absent. Some self-evident details of construction or handling, clearly vi! sualized by the illustrations, are too often spelled out in full, while more obscure mechanisms of elaborate trigger systems, which would benefit from a whole lot more detailed explanation, are treated casually. This said, it must be stressed that on the whole it IS a very fine piece of work, made by a historian rather than an engineer, a book without a match for almost a century, and certainly well worth recommending.

This book is, quite frankly, the one-stop place to look for information not only about all aspects of crossbows, but related subjects such as the Chinese chu-ko-nu, or "repeater crossbow," seige engines, and other related topics. The author apparently had enough money and spare time to actually experiment, and living in pre-World-War-I Britain, had access to actual original examples of a lot of the weapons he wished to study. Building copies to test them, he came up with definite figures on how they worked and how well they worked, or didn't.

This book was hugely helpful for me. The crossbow are explained in a clear, concise way, and the siege engine plans are easy to understand and work with. Thanks to the diagrams in this book, I am now in possesion of a medium military crossbow (with a draw weight of somewhere around 100 pounds,) a chu-ku-nu, or Chinese repeating crossbow, and a "Spring engine," as detailed by the author (all of them where comletely homemade). I'd recommend this book for anyone interested in crossbows or siege machinery, as well as anyone with an interest in weaponry.

Any work on crossbows, or any work on the history of arms that includes crossbows will have this book in the bibliography. So if you're studying crossbows, the impact of crossbows on history and society, seige weapons, the evolution of projectile weapons, or any related topic, start here.

Section I, history; Arguably the weakest section of the book, as new manuscripts have turned up and reconstructive work has been done. Still, it is a solid foundation to the military and civil (and uncivil in the case of poaching) history of crossbows. There is also a discussion of the first firearms. Note also that most modern reconstructions cite original crossbows in museums and private collections, and this book.

Section II, construction and management of crossbows through the sixteenth century; wherein several crossbows from the eleventh century through the sixteenth century. Payne-Gallway meticulously details construction of the stock, lockwork, prod, string, and accessories. And he then gets into how to use the crossbows. This is an exhaustive discussion of all aspects of making and using the discussed crossbows, and provides more than enough detail to do this at home (although it lacks the caveats about "Don't do this at home, you'll put an eye out"). No kidding. Follow Payne-Gallway's directions, and you will have a serious crossbow, that could put a quarrel through an engine block.

Section III, construction and management of crossbows nineteenth and early twentieth century (and some odds and ends); This section gets into sporting crossbows as made and used prior to the development of fiberglass and composites. The odds and ends are the best part. A Chinese repeating crossbow, bullet shooting crossbows, and arrow throwing are some of the best parts of the book.

Section IV, seige engines; Heavy ordnance! Trebuchets, and catapults, and ballistas, oh my! These would make excellent directions for a model builder or someone with a grander vision.

In the addenda, there are more seige engines and a discussion of Turkish bows.

This is an inspirational book. Payne-Gallway details all manner of awesome toys for responsible adults, and provides a robust foundation for reseach into a wide range of topics.

This book is, however, not for people who are inclined to say "Watch this!", or can't be trusted to handle lethal impliments. Do not launch automobiles from a trebuchet without a safe impact area and emptying the gas tank. Crossbows were tools of war, and can kill. Kids; don't do this at home.

I loved this book. I've used it extensively in historical research and projects, and personally find it very engaging.

E.M. Van Court

This is one of the better crossbow books I've found. If you enjoyed this, you'll definitely want to pick up the 2007 version of The Crossbow by Ralph Payne Gallwey.

A great book on Medieval crossbows I learned a lot from this book, great drawings throughout the book.A must read for all crossbow enthusiast.
You have all the info in this book to recreate the bows in the book.
The section on siege engines is also very interesting and informative.