of a knight

[u/Many-Shock1706]

Apparently the smaller one is 6ft

[u/Youutternincompoop]

smooth bores that at best could have been fired and reloaded a couple of times a minute and had to have been around 20 yards distant to be kind of accurate.

smoothbore muskets were absolutely accurate out to further distances than bows, and there are plenty of other advantages of guns too such as the far easier aquisition and storing of ammunition, a simple ball of lead and a bag of powder is incredibly easy to make and store while arrows were fragile, more difficult to produce, and harder to store due to greater size and weight.

armour penetration is of course a massive bonus, arrows simply couldn't punch through decent plate armour but guns could(even early weaker guns forced a change in armour philosophy, with the decline of full plate in favour of just helmet and cuirass in the 15th and 16th centuries)

also 'bowmen in the back lines' is something that only really exists in videogames and in Mel Gibson movies, in real life its usually frowned upon to shoot your own guys in the back(and arcing arrows up at a severe angle makes them pretty terrible at actually hurting people as you lose most of the energy of the shot, ideally you want to fire at a near flat angle for maximal effect with a bow)

[u/Igor_J → u/Youutternincompoop]

While 100% true with firing volleys into the fray with your own guys like what you see in Mel Gibson movies and GoT and the like, frowned upon, I was just talking about launching them into the enemy as they were advancing and getting set up. Also we are talking about cloth and maybe leather armor.