h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

The steel-bowed arbalest has been found to be capable of throwing a full-sized quarrel at least 500 yds - so it was not "shorter ranged" than the bow, but it was much slower firing, and required much less skill. There used to be a range of crossbows (and stonebows) in Birmingham Science museum. Oddly enough, though, the musket (still more the arquebus) which replaced the bow was less accurate and slower firing.

The crossbow bit in the above is inaccurate.
The cross bow is *more* accurate than the bow. It is more powerful and has a much longer range. The 440yd shot was acheived on a downhill range, if it is the one I am thinking of. The 660yd was acheived with a recurve bow using, as mentioned, special flight arrows, and greater has been acheived. A longbow is more likely to be out of breath by 300 to 350 yds on a good day. A crossbow can manage much further, and has been shot across the menai straits in the UK.
I think I need to get my crossbow entry up and running soon
Also it was not the next step up but a coexistant technology. The two, crossbow and bow, are different weapons for different situations, they are not comparable. Bows were never meant to be overly accurate, their strenth lies on speed and number of archers.
Rate of fire, english longbow should be at least 12 per minute, with decent archers capable of 17 or so and very good archers getting up to 24 per minute.
A crossbow, depending on draw method, could be as slow as 1 per minute for a windlass bow, 2ish for a cranequin, 3 ish for goats foot lever, similar for belt hook and up to 7 for hand spanned (leastways, thats my best )
*off to write entry!*

and I should of said 'rate of shooting' since firing did not mean shooting until after the gun was invented / became popular.