Why did crossbows never replace bows on ancient battlefields?

The crossbow is the predecessor of the bow and arrow. It has the following differences. Bows and arrows are divided into soft bows and hard bows. The soft bow has a high rate of fire, but is less powerful and has a shorter range. It is usually used by cavalry. The hard bow has a low rate of fire, but is powerful and has a long range, and is usually used by infantry. The compound bow was used in ancient China, especially during the Yuan Dynasty. This type of bow combines the advantages of both soft and hard bows, with a high rate of fire, high power and long range.

It left a terrible memory for the Western heavy cavalry. The crossbow is a variant of the bow and arrow, characterized by short range, low rate of fire, and high power. The normal rate of fire (the number of arrows fired per unit of time) was three to four times that of a crossbow. Considering how a crossbow works when loaded, four times is safe, but three times is a bit optimistic. This means that in about 12 to 15 seconds, an average archer can fire four arrows, while a crossbowman can fire only one.

Crossbows were banned in ancient times. Since crossbows were very simple to operate and required no shooting skills, civilians could easily master their use. To load a high-powered crossbow, the archer must step on one end of the crossbow with his foot, pull the string to the launcher position with both hands, and then release the crossbow, take aim and fire. The crossbow was a powerful weapon. Later came the catapult, which was used in sieges and defenses, as well as in ancient naval battles. Crossbows require more parts and are more precisely constructed than bows. Of course, a good bow, such as the traditional Chinese compound bow, costs more to produce and has a higher cycle time than a crossbow, but if you don't pay attention to precision and only focus on projectile density, a bow is still cheaper. The bow would be much more important than the crossbow. The main reason crossbows were used on ancient battlefields was that they had greater range than bows, in other words, greater penetration, not the least amount of accuracy.

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