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19 minutes ago, DDE said:

in a cavalry fight involving Kuman mercs

Likely; Mercs tend to pick up good gear, and then use it.

Might be awkward as FrenchTuTus to ride a horse at speed with a crossbow bouncing around, but if it was a prestige piece or just looked cool to the guy - you can be dadgummed sure he'd want a kill with it.

From what I have seen, there was a lot more trade back and forth between Europe and Asia than most people credit; the likely routes all go where the Kuman's could have picked one up or bought it off someone or traded for it.  So it could have been either Asian or European - but not something the Kuman manufactured themselves.

Edited by JoeSchmuckatelli
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7 hours ago, DDE said:

have almost zero use for crossbows

I think there may be several reasons for this: firstly, there is still quite a difference between the difficulty of drawing a high poundage bow on a running horseback and reloading a crossbow. Secondly, nomads lacked metal: there are a number of ancient Chinese texts which record that "the wretched Mongols plundered everywhere, even the iron pots of innocent people's homes!" Because the core component of a crossbow - the trigger - is something had to be made of metal. A large proportion of the metal had to be imported by the Mongol nomads from the Middle Kingdom, and once the Middle Kingdom was strong enough to control the export of metal to them, it could largely restrict their military development. Finally, and perhaps a bit of a personal stereotype of mine, the production of crossbows required the most basic industrialisation - it's at least a standardised product, especially the trigger. China has had a system of "engraving the name of the artisan on the product" since the Qin dynasty (the time of the terracotta warriors), which allowed the quality of all products to be traced back to their source. The nomads, on the other hand, lived in a different place one season than the next, and it was often difficult to do such things.

And fun fact, because the system of "engraving the artisan's name on the product", there's lot of workers name on the bricks of the city walls. There's even a "city wall museum" at Nanjing. Chinese people can see their ancestors using the same surname as themselves. If it's coincidental enough, some guys found that the ancestor with the same name as them!

Edited by steve9728
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15 minutes ago, steve9728 said:

I think there may be several reasons for this: firstly, there is still quite a difference between the difficulty of drawing a high poundage bow on a running horseback and reloading a crossbow. Secondly, nomads lacked metal: there are a number of ancient Chinese texts which record that "the wretched Mongols plundered everywhere, even the iron pots of innocent people's homes!" Because the core component of a crossbow - the trigger - is something had to be made of metal. A large proportion of the metal had to be imported by the Mongol nomads from the Middle Kingdom, and once the Middle Kingdom was strong enough to control the export of metal to them, it could largely restrict their military development. Finally, and perhaps a bit of a personal stereotype of mine, the production of crossbows required the most basic industrialisation - it's at least a standardised product, especially the trigger. China has had a system of "engraving the name of the artisan on the product" since the Qin dynasty (the time of the terracotta warriors), which allowed the quality of all products to be traced back to their source. The nomads, on the other hand, lived in a different place one season than the next, and it was often difficult to do such things.

And fun fact, because the system of "engraving the artisan's name on the product", there's lot of workers name on the bricks of the city walls. There's even a "city wall museum" at Nanjing. Chinese people can see their ancestors using the same surname as themselves. If it's coincidental enough, some guys found that the ancestor with the same name as them!

Most at least European crossbows had an metal bow, you also want some mechanism to draw the heavy bow, this is more metal if done well. 
Also crossbows was most useful in sieges,  they are easy to use and you can keep ready to fire at targets of opportunity.
Firing from an running horse is hard, if you learn that you probably also train to use an bow. Also it was pretty common with mounted infantry. They was not cavalry but infantry with horses for increased mobility, they don't fought on horseback but dismounted to fire. It also let you use standard riding horses not the  expensive cavalry horses. 
Last for hunting you don't need an heavy draw weight bow, the +150 kg draw weight bows was anti armor weapons. 

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I would imagine a significant factor was that crossbows were likely seen as too complex for the heat of battle with associated maintenance demands and ran somewhat contrary to the warrior code in many cultures which emphasized skill over what may have been perceived as mere gadgetry.  

Similar currents run today with front line fighters rejecting what the whiz kids behind the lines are certain are wonderful ideas

Strangely, many warfighters find waiting for their smart rifle to reboot in the middle of a firefight a deal killer

 

 

Edited by darthgently
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43 minutes ago, magnemoe said:

Most at least European crossbows had an metal bow, you also want some mechanism to draw the heavy bow, this is more metal if done well. 
Also crossbows was most useful in sieges,  they are easy to use and you can keep ready to fire at targets of opportunity.
Firing from an running horse is hard, if you learn that you probably also train to use an bow. Also it was pretty common with mounted infantry. They was not cavalry but infantry with horses for increased mobility, they don't fought on horseback but dismounted to fire. It also let you use standard riding horses not the  expensive cavalry horses. 
Last for hunting you don't need an heavy draw weight bow, the +150 kg draw weight bows was anti armor weapons. 

The nomads, on the other hand, used compound bows made of animal horns, bone and sinews because of the lack of metal. China's last feudal dynasty - the Qing - was founded by the nomads of the north. The poundage of their compound bows ranged from 70 to 100 pounds. Which's around 30~45kg.

Edited by steve9728
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24 minutes ago, KSK said:

Bit of a change of subject but I figured some folks around here might find this interesting.

We finally have proof of active volcanoes on Venus | Ars Technica

I would have bet $1M that this was so without this proof.  And I don't mean that lightly as I would have had to borrow a lot of money to cover that bet.  Next up: proof that Mercury is hot.

Article is good read, thanks for posting

 

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On 4/20/2022 at 10:43 PM, steve9728 said:

We got the preliminary report! But I can't find the English translate yet. Maybe few more hours we can got the English translate version.

Here is the Chinese report: http://www.caac.gov.cn/XXGK/XXGK/TZTG/202204/t20220420_212895.html. Let Chrome help you

Another link but same content in Chinese by Xinhua net: http://www.news.cn/politics/2022-04/20/c_1128578339.htm

Thinking this isn't relevant to CNSA and this is some sort of scientific investigative, so I just post this here.

Almost A year after the accident, the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) has released a progress report on the investigation into the MU5735 crash in accordance with the relevant regulations: it is still under investigation and inconclusive.

(Original one in Chinese from CAAC: Circular on the Progress of the Investigation of the MU5735 Aircraft Accident on 21 March

"So far, the technical investigation team has carried out a lot of work such as site investigation, data inspection, personnel interviews, and experimental analysis, but because this accident is extraordinarily complex and extremely rare, the investigation is continuing in depth. The technical investigation team will continue to carry out cause analysis and experimental verification on the basis of the previous work and will release relevant information in a timely manner according to the progress of the investigation."

Edited by steve9728
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Botanists from the CAS have discovered angiosperm fossils from the Middle Jurassic in the Qinghai, Gansu and Ningxia in north-western China

The original paper: https://www.mdpi.com/2075-1729/13/3/819

"All these studies and ours converge to a consensus that angiosperms did exist in the Jurassic, far earlier than widely accepted. Such an outcome of debate is rather expected, since “No angiosperms until the Cretaceous” is a conclusion hard to defend but very easy to falsify."

Edited by steve9728
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1 hour ago, steve9728 said:

Botanists from the CAS have discovered angiosperm fossils from the Middle Jurassic in the Qinghai, Gansu and Ningxia in north-western China

The original paper: https://www.mdpi.com/2075-1729/13/3/819

"All these studies and ours converge to a consensus that angiosperms did exist in the Jurassic, far earlier than widely accepted. Such an outcome of debate is rather expected, since “No angiosperms until the Cretaceous” is a conclusion hard to defend but very easy to falsify."

Once more, information I paid for in undergrad years has proven incorrect.  And once again it is clear that Science, by definition, requires questioning.  If it can't be questioned, it isn't science

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36 minutes ago, darthgently said:

Once more, information I paid for in undergrad years has proven incorrect.  And once again it is clear that Science, by definition, requires questioning.  If it can't be questioned, it isn't science

Agreed, very often the truth comes out in debate.

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22 minutes ago, DDE said:

Why do the bulkhead doors on Battlestar Galactica are the same shape as the entrance opening on this WWII Norwegian bomb shelter?

Because it's built according to the drawings by Thor Heyerdahl, which were drawn to check the theory that vikings could into space.

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7 hours ago, DDE said:

Why do the bulkhead doors on Battlestar Galactica are the same shape as the entrance opening on this WWII Norwegian bomb shelter? Not even joking here.

https://t.me/v_bunkere_ne_strashno/1423

I see an construction site, no doors, nut the upside down of \__/ makes sense of structural reasons as its kind of an arc but simpler to build in concrete than an true arc. 
Guess the doors would be square however. And an door like that has no benefits I can think of and it has to be an sliding door. 
Rounded doors makes sense if you has to handle pressure.
images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQySNhfBhZXj5yYEPyrUQv
Subs might have doors with half circle top an bottom while ships tend to have rounded edges. 

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