I (and I think many others) have heard a good number of claims about how fantastic English longbows were, and how they were superior to firearms. Why then did people adopt firearms? Some of the claims on the rate of fire and range of longbows (10 arrows per minute, 248 m) have them outmatching firearms that were in military service in 1895 (Like the Berdan Rifle). It seems to me to be absurd to think a Russian soldier in 1895 would be better off with a longbow than a rifle, or that everyone for ~450 years were all too stupid to use bows, so what is it that I'm missing?
I can't speak to the accuracy of the range and rate of fire you suggest but one important reason the bow fell out of favor is training. English longbowmen had to practice for essentially their entire lives to develop the skills and musculature necessary to fire the bows effectively. The same is not true for someone using even a crude firearm. So even if firearms at a particular point in history were not tactically superior (which I'm a little skeptical about) they were probably logistically and thus strategically superior.
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