经济与社会科学2016peterleeson.com
为什么法国没有像英格兰那样采用长弓？
Why didn't France adopt the longbow like England did?
入门 · 约 30 分钟读完前置知识：中世纪欧洲史基础、长弓与弩的基本了解
导读
这篇论文探讨为什么英格兰大规模采用长弓而法国没有。核心解释是：长弓便宜且技术上优越，但需要长期训练，英格兰统治者较少担心民众武装带来的叛乱风险，愿意投资于全民训练；而法国（及苏格兰）统治者害怕给民众推翻政权的能力，因此选择了更昂贵但训练成本低的弩。
HN 关注点：论文用经济学/制度激励视角解释一个有趣的历史军事问题，HN 读者喜欢这种'制度激励决定技术采纳'的分析框架。
HN 评论精选
这几条评论里：支持 1 补充 3
支持概括论文核心论点：统治者对叛乱的恐惧决定了长弓的采纳与否
摘要写得很棒，值得一读。长弓便宜且技术上更优，但需要训练；弩更贵但训练成本低。英格兰统治者不太担心叛乱，愿意投资训练；法国和苏格兰的统治者则因害怕给民众推翻政权的能力而不愿如此。或许可以用今天的公司来类比：有的公司不断流失人才，有的则培养技能。
zhte415查看英文原文
tl;dr: The abstract does a wonderful job. It is will worth reading. Longbow was cheap and technically superior, but required training. Crossbow more expensive, required less training. Rulers of England less worried about rebellion, OK to invest in training. Rulers of France/Scotland not so happy because of fear to give potential of overthrow to the people (Scotland not in title, but in article along with France). Perhaps an analogy could be painted with companies today. Those that churn, and those that nurture skills.
补充用蒙古复合弓作类比：武器效能依赖整个社会的技能结构
有趣，虽然这个观点可能有点简化，但还有另一个武器的例子：制造相对便宜，但除非整个社会围绕所需技能构建，否则很难使用——蒙古人！使用复合弓的轻骑兵极其有效，但除草原游牧民族外很难复制。所有蒙古人都是猎人，几乎弓不离马，全民皆可作战。而当时欧洲战争围绕重骑兵展开，骑士数量有限。即使有人凑出与蒙古大军相当的军队，重骑兵也只会成为绕圈射击的轻骑兵的活靶子。此外封建领地从未足够中央集权以对抗蒙古人——在罗斯，集权的需要促成了莫斯科的崛起，但也花了很长时间。
vkazanov查看英文原文
Interesting. Although this point of view might be a bit simplified, there's another example of a weapon, which was both relatively cheap to make - and really hard to use unless the whole society was built around the skills required to use it. Mongols! Light cavalry using composite bows was both unbelievably effective and hard to copy for everybody but steppe nomads. All Mongols were hunters, they practically lived with their bows on their horses. So the whole population could do warfare. While back in the days, in both Eastern and Western Europe, contemporary warfare was rotating around heavy cavalry, and one can't have too many knights. Even if somebody managed to gather an army more or less comparable to Mongol hordes - heavier cavalry would just be meat for lighter riders making circles around them. Besides, feudal lands never managed to be centralized enough to counter mongols. In medieval Rus' the need to centralize led to the rise of Moscow - and it took quite a while anyway.
补充补充长弓相关的视频和文字资料，以及各工种的术语
Kevin Hicks 是关于长弓的绝佳资源（YouTube 链接），他对这一历史时期的所有事物都非常了解。这里还有关于'英格兰'军队弓箭手构成的更多细节。附注：Bowyer 制弓，Fletcher 制箭，Stringfellow 制弦，Arrowsmith 制箭头。
junto查看英文原文
Kevin Hicks is a great resource on the longbow: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EvKJcxa8x_g He is also very knowledgeable about all things from this period of history: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUYd6pNy6QU There is also some more detail regarding the make up of the "English" army bowmen here: http://www.bowyers.com/bowyery_longbowOrigins.php Sidenote: - Bowyer: Makes the bow - Fletcher: Makes the arrow - Stringfellow: Makes the string - Arrowsmith: Makes the arrowhead
补充趣闻补充：二战中仍有人用长弓作战
这似乎是提一下'疯狂杰克'丘吉尔的好地方——他 1940 年带着长弓来到法国，并用它射杀了一名德国人。
wtbob查看英文原文
This seems a good place to post about Mad Jack Churchill, who brought his longbow to France in 1940 and shot a German with it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Churchill
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从这篇论文所有 HN 讨论帖的全部评论里整理出来的链接。
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- 2016Hacker News 讨论帖269 分 · 174 评
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