&gt; finally, crossbows really are the better weapon - once you start factory-making them, your army can be raised and trained faster<p>But the army you raise is less effective; quantity vs quality.<p>A country which did not want or could not afford to train longbow men may have had a deeper flaw: its model. Perhaps the real reason England could beat France had been a long time in the making: a strong economy, and politically society that afforded it a more equipped better trained army.<p>I wonder if the advantages of a democracy - political stability and a (usually) advanced economy - also translate into the modern battlefield.