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
Tectonic weapon Tectonic weapon A tectonic weapon is a hypothetical device or system which could create earthquakes, volcanoes, or other seismic events in specified locations by interfering with the Earth's natural geological processes. It was defined in 1992 by Aleksey Vsevolovidich Nikolayev, corresponding member Russian Academy of Sciences: "A tectonic or seismic weapon would be the use of the accumulated tectonic energy of the Earth's deeper layers to induce a destructive earthquake". He added "to set oneself the objective of inducing an earthquake is extremely doubtful". Theoretically, the tectonic weapon functions by creating a powerful charge of elastic energy in the form