<P> Early firearms were inferior in rate of fire (a Tudor English author expects eight shots from the English longbow in the time needed for a "ready shooter" to give five from the musket), and François Bernier reports that well - trained mounted archers at the Battle of Samugarh in 1658 were "shooting six times before a musketeer can fire twice". Firearms were also very susceptible to wet weather . However, they had a longer effective range (up to 200 yards for the longbow, up to 600 yards for the musket), greater penetration, and were tactically superior in the common situation of soldiers shooting at each other from behind obstructions . They also penetrated steel armour without any need to develop special musculature . Armies equipped with guns could thus provide superior firepower, and highly trained archers became obsolete on the battlefield . The Battle of Cerignola in 1503 was won by Spain mainly by the use of matchlock firearms, marking the first time a major battle was won through the use of firearms . </P> <P> The last regular unit armed with bows was the Archers' Company of the Honourable Artillery Company, ironically a part of the oldest regular unit in England to be armed with gunpowder weapons . The last recorded use of bows in battle in Britain seems to have been a skirmish at Bridgnorth; in October 1642, during the English Civil War, an impromptu militia, armed with bows, was effective against un-armoured musketmen . (A more recent use of archery in war was in 1940, on the retreat to Dunkirk, when Jack Churchill, who had brought his bows on active service, "was delighted to see his arrow strike the centre German in the left of the chest and penetrate his body"). </P> <P> Archery continued in some areas that were subject to limitations on the ownership of arms, such as the Scottish Highlands during the repression that followed the decline of the Jacobite cause, and the Cherokees after the Trail of Tears . The Tokugawa shogunate severely limited the import and manufacture of guns, and encouraged traditional martial skills among the samurai; towards the end of the Satsuma Rebellion in 1877, some rebels fell back on the use of bows and arrows . Archery remained an important part of the military examinations until 1894 in Korea and 1904 in China . </P> <P> Within the steppe of Eurasia, archery continued to play an important part in warfare, although now restricted to mounted archery . The Ottoman Empire still fielded auxiliary cavalry which was noted for its use of bows from horseback . This practice was continued by the Ottoman subject nations, despite the Empire itself being a proponent of early firearms . The practice declined after the Crimean Khanate was absorbed by Russia; however mounted archers remained in the Ottoman order of battle until the post 1826 reforms to the Ottoman Army . The art of traditional archery remained in minority use for sport and for hunting in Turkey up until the 1820s, but the knowledge of constructing composite bows, fell out of use with the death of the last bowyer in the 1930s . The rest of the Middle East also lost the continuity of its archery tradition at this time . </P>

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