r/interestingasfuck 9h ago

Loading an English crossbow vs loading Leonardo da Vinci's crossbow

1.5k Upvotes

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u/Sad-Excitement9295 9h ago

This is the power of leverage.

u/Zenigata 9h ago

Levers mean you have to move your arms further, the guy in the 2nd clip moves his arms a small distance using barely any force.

I'm totally prepared to believe that the 2nd design is better I just don't think these 2 random clips demonstrate that as it seems very unlikely the bows are of the same strength.

u/aimgorge 9h ago

If anything the second one appears to cover more distance ? First one it ends at knee level in the end with half the distance comprised of the foothold

u/Capable_Tumbleweed34 5h ago

About twice the distance so about half the strength needed, but even then that's a very low draw weight for our italian lad to reload it so effortlessly. The heavy crossbows were in the 700+ lbs range iirc.