History PlayingWith / AutomaticCrossbows

** While it’s great for pinning the enemy and massacring unarmoured peasants and horses, the automatic crossbow has awful armour penetration, consumes huge amounts of ammo, and lacks the range of it’s longbow cousin. While it replaces regular crossbows and ballistae, the rapid-fire crossbow ultimately supports, rather than supplants, the normal course of medieval warfare.

* '''Inverted''': A gun is modified to shoot crossbow bolts.

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** The rapid-fire crossbow single-handedly ends the age of knights and castles: and even the age of longbowmen, as the weapons are both much more effective and much easier to learn to use than the longbow, allowing automatic crossbowmen to supplant all other military roles. [[UsefulNotes/WorldWarI Much like in the Stomme,]] the application of Napoleonic and medieval tactics to automatic weapons results in many massacres, and [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone the inventor of the weapon]] [[GoneHorriblyRight is horrified by it’s success.]]

** A magical version is instead invented, and it not subject to the limits of the purely mechanical version. It eventual becomes a legendary weapon in it’s own right, the equal or even superior of the [[MacGuffin 7 swords of secrets.]]

** While it’s great for pinning the enemy and massacring unarmoured peasants and horses, the automatic crossbow has awful armour penetration, consumes huge amounts of ammo, and lacks the range of it’s longbow cousin. While it replaces regular crossbows and ballistae, the rapid-fire crossbow ultimate supports, rather than supplants, the normal course of medieval warfare.

* '''Straight''': The Order of Overwhelming firepower uses a specially-modified crossbow, capable of firing a round a second on full auto.

* '''Enforced''': [[RecycledINSPACE The writer is adapting a war story that prominently features machine guns into a fantasy setting, and needed an apt replacement.]]

* '''Justified''': The crossbow is explicitly magical; and is closer to a wand shaped like a crossbow than an actual weapon.

** The rapid-fire crossbow single-handedly ends the age of knights and castles: and even the age of longbowmen, as the weapons are both much more effective and much easier to learn to use than the longbow, allowing automatic crossbowmen to supplant all other military roles. [[WorldWarOne Much like in the Stomme,]] the application of Napoleonic and medieval tactics to automatic weapons results in many massacres, and [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone the inventor of the weapon]] [[GoneHorriblyRight is horrified by it’s success.]]

* '''Exploited''': A time-travelling hero secretly switches out one of the bolts, so that when one of these weapons is fired it instead sprays splinters in it’s owner’s face..

* '''Exploited''': A time-travelling here secretly switches out one of the bolts, so that when one of these weapons is fired it instead sprays splinters in it’s owner’s face..

* '''Discussed''': “I do believe this simple bow of mine with change the face of war forever…”

** The rapid-fire crossbow single-handedly ends the age of kings and castles: and even the age of longbowmen, as the weapons are both much more effective and much easier to learn to use than the longbow, allowing automatic crossbowmen to supplant all other military roles. [[WorldWarOne Much like in the Stomme,]] the application of Napoleonic and medieval tactics to automatic weapons results in many massacres, and [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone the inventor of the weapon]] [[GoneHorriblyRight is horrified by it’s success.]]

'''AutomaticCrossbows’’’: A crossbow capable of fully automatic fire.

* '''Exaggerated''': Members of the order are capable of firing full-auto with ordinary, unmodified crossbows.

* '''Downplayed''': It’s not so much an automatic crossbow as a semi-automatic one: the attached clip greatly reduces reloading time but is still needs to be cocked each shot.

* '''Justified''': the crossbow is explicitly magical; and is closer to a wand shaped like a crossbow than an actual weapon.

* '''Subverted''': A member of the order pulls out a modified crossbow, complete with ammo belt… and then only fires one shot, before lengthily reloading for the next one.

* '''Parodied''': [[ShoutingShooter A knight fires his automatic crossbow wildly while screaming his lungs out.]]

* '''Invoked''': A time-travelling villain designs an automatic crossbow, [[GivingRadioToTheRomans in order to better apply modem tactics to ancient times.]]

* '''Defied''': “There is no way that damnfool bow will work! [[FridgeLogic How the hell is the spring supposed to re-cock itself?!]]”

* '''Deconstructed''': The rapid-fire crossbow single-handedly ends the age of kings and castles: and even the age of longbowmen, as the weapons are both much more effective and much easier to learn to use than the longbow, allowing automatic crossbowmen to supplant all other military roles. [[WorldWarOne Much like in the Stomme,]] the application of Napoleonic and medieval tactics to automatic weapons results in many massacres, and [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone the inventor of the weapon]] [[GoneHorriblyRight is horrified by it’s success.]]

* '''Reconstructed''': While it’s great for pinning the enemy and massacring unarmoured peasants and horses, the automatic crossbow has awful armour penetration, consumes huge amounts of ammo, and lacks the range of it’s longbow cousin. While it replaces regular crossbows and ballistae, the rapid-fire crossbow ultimate supports, rather than supplants, the normal course of medieval warfare.

* '''Reconstructed''': while it’s great for pinning the enemy and massacring unarmoured peasants and horses, the automatic crossbow has awful armour penetration, consumes huge amounts of ammo, and lacks the range of it’s longbow cousin. While it supplants regular crossbows and ballistae, the rapid-fire crossbow ultimate supports, rather than supplants, the normal course of medieval warfare.

* '''Exaggerated''':
* Members of the order are capable of firing full-auto with ordinary, unmodified crossbows.