The Tale of the Double Crossbow

Posted by Rampant Coyote on November 18, 2010

In the 1985 movie Ladyhawke, Captain Navarre (played by Rutger Hauer) had a nifty little weapon that was effectively two crossbows connected together – a double crossbow. I don’t think any such thing ever existed, historically, and I doubted its effectiveness.  Now, I’ve fired a double-barreled rifle (with two triggers, even) – and even a double-barreled black-powder rifle – so the concept isn’t alien to me. But given the size and bulkiness of a crossbow, bolting two of them together to fire an extra shot like that  didn’t seem to make much sense to me.

It sounded like a stupid weapon. Cool, but stupid.

(I should note that this seems to be a fundamentally different design from the Triple Crossbow in Ultima VI and VII, which instead propelled three bolts simultaneously.)

Anyway, we had thin pickings in fantasy movies in 1985. So while Ladyhawke wasn’t all that great of a movie, it still caught on amongst of medievalist / fantasy geeks. Including those of us who spent our weekends doing the medievalist thing, running around in armor beating on each other with padded sticks shaped like weapons. Suddenly, crossbows were the goal. And double-crossbows were doubly cool.

The problem was that out group – Dagorhir – had rules restricting the pull strength of all bows to 35 pounds or less for safety reasons.  Our arrows had big foam-padded heads on them that weren’t the greatest in aerodynamic efficiency, and so were already reduced in range and effectiveness. The problem was that historically the smaller bow (or “prod”) size of the crossbow was compensated for by making it a much heavier pull. We didn’t have that option – bow or crossbow, we were limited to 35 pounds. So most Dagorhir crossbow experiments had an effective range of about fifteen feet.  And that was for the few successful designs.

Richard, a guy in my unit, had one of the successful designs. And during that post-Ladyhawke summer, he made a double crossbow. Somehow he managed to get it approved in weapons inspection for one battle, and so he went out on his grand experiment, armed with a big shield, a double crossbow, several bolts, and a dagger.

I was with him on one particular engagement early in the day. I was a newbie, and died early, but I got a chance to watch him in action. He found himself surrounded by three enemies. He kept the crossbow concealed behind his shield. His opponents circled him warily, aware that he had a crossbow, but not knowing its true nature.

In these fluid combat situations, you have to constantly keep an eye out for incoming reinforcements on either side. It’s quite common for fighters to be so focused on the opponent in front of them that they become easy prey for anyone else coming from the side or behind. I’d like to think that’s how I bought it this time (I mean, come on… there were three of them!), but I honestly don’t remember. It’s been a long time.

Anyway, these guys were standing a little bit outside of melee range. Because it looked and felt like a melee fight. Richard was standing there (I think in his persona as the monk John David Sinister), with a shield up, crouched in a melee stance. One of them looked away to check the battlefield for any inbound  enemies – normally a safe enough thing to do when standing ten feet away with two allies.  If your opponent was wielding a melee weapon. If it had been an archer standing with a bow trained on him, he probably wouldn’t have let his guard down.

Unfortunately for him, that was exactly the situation. Richard raised the crossbow up so the bolt was barely over the top of his shield, and fired, hitting the warrior square in the chest. It took the guy a few moments to realize he’d just been fatally hit, and drop to the ground.

One of the surviving opponents had been waiting for just this opening. You see, normally an archer is most vulnerable right after they’ve fired an arrow. If you are close enough to attack them before they can reload, they are in trouble. So the second guy rushed in to attack, but the big ol’ shield meant he couldn’t go straight in for a quick kill. Richard stepped back, raised the crossbow a little higher over the top of the shield, and shot the guy in the head.

(Head shots are illegal in Dagorhir rules EXCEPT for missile attacks – thrown weapons and arrows – so it was legit. And an instant-kill.)

So now he’d killed two of three opponents with his double crossbow, as it had basically thrown them off their game. His third enemy? He mysteriously realized that an ally somewhere else on the battlefield needed his help, and ran off.

Okay, so maybe the idea wasn’t quite so stupid after all.

Filed Under: Geek Life - Comments: 9 Comments to Read



top