Arrows penetrate kevlar armor.
Rifle rounds go through soft body armour, too.
This calls for an experiment.
We will meet at a soon to be disclosed "battle ground" where I will find a Jewish archer and you with your rifle will battle to find out which is better.
I have to say I like my odds.
I think the fact that the world's military forces abandoned the use of all forms of bows a few hundred years ago. They determined that massed musket volleys were far more effective than massed arrow volleys, and you can use the musket as a spear (the most commonly used weapon in history, probably the weapon that has killed the most men in battle throughout history) by fixing bayonets.
Archer formations were very vulnerable to cavalry charges, so they needed to be protected by units of spearmen or pikemen. The musket plus bayonet removes this vulnerability, and makes cavalry charges exceptionally dangerous.
Of course, all that being said- bows are practically silent. Biggest issue with using something like a bow in today's context- let's say you manage to put an arrow into an officer's neck from your concealed position. Anyone who was looking in your general direction or at your target will see where the arrow came from, and thus the silence doesn't help very much.
Never thought I'd be discussing something like this, hahaha.
Ok musket vs samurai, 1vs1.
Okay, how far apart are the musketeer and samurai, and does the musket have a bayonet?
But not ceramic plates.
Depends on the plate and the round. And how many shots are placed.
When I'm clumsy, Ceramic plates break on my kitchen floor.
boom kitchen floor tipped arrows!
Arrows will also go completely through sand bags whereas bullets will not.
Are you sure about that? I'd be interested in seeing how bullet vs arrow penetration compares at various ranges with sandbags.
Saw a demonstration years ago. Sandbag stopped a pistol round from about 15 feet and an arrow, shot from the same distance, went completely through the sandbag.
Range, penitration and ease of use are why guns prevail. If arrows where better than bullets, then we wouldn't have seen guns prevail over arrows. Yes, you can reuse an arrow, but a small air rifle can take down small game far easier than an arrow. And as the caliber, and firepower of powder goes up, so does the efficiency.
This is like asking why we don't talk about horses over motor vehicles. Sure, a horse can live off easily renewable resource, but a car can do tons of things that a horse can't.
I would like to have a dirt bike over a horse any day.
My horse and bow vs your machine gun on a dirt bike
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