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
Weapon (novel) Weapon (novel) Weapon is a 1989 science fiction novel by Robert Mason. The book was Mason's first novel; he had previously written a memoir about his experiences in Vietnam titled "Chickenhawk". The book is about an android, designed to kill, which experiences a crisis of conscience and runs away from its government masters to live in a Nicaraguan village. The novel describes a new weapon system being developed for the US military, named Solo. A robot, Solo is designed to replace human soldiers in battle. It is humanoid in shape, in order to allow it to use all the military