Infantry in the Middle Ages heavy toll on the English invaders of their lands. Adapted by the English, the longbow was nevertheless a difficult weapon to master, requiring long years of use and practice. Even bow construction was extended, sometimes taking as much as four years for seasoned staves to be prepared and shaped for final deployment. A skilled longbowman could shoot 12 arrows a minute, a rate of fire superior to competing weapons like the crossbow or early gunpowder weapons. The nearest competitor to the longbow was the much more expensive crossbow or Arbalest, used often by urban militias and mercenary forces. It required
M2010 Enhanced Sniper Rifle Sniper Weapon System in that it fires .300 Winchester Magnum (7.62×67mm) ammunition to provide approximately 50 percent additional effective range relative to the M24's 7.62×51mm NATO. This chambering to dimensionally larger cartridges is possible because the M24 Sniper Weapon System was designed to use the "long action" bolt version of the Remington 700 receiver for cartridges up to in overall length. The U.S. Army developed the system so that the additional effective range would help snipers in engagements in mountainous and desert terrain in which the War in Afghanistan was being fought. The general penalties for using bigger, more powerful