By Brian Glyn Williams - The Jamestown Foundation

The Tatars' ferocity in battle was legendary and it was rare that a Tatar gave himself up in battle. Russia's
armies were reluctant to confront these warriors on the field even as late as 1591. Massa's description of a
Tatar attack on Moscow in that year is a vivid testimony to the Khan's ability to launch a frontal assault
against even the most protected of sites.
The two great armies came face to face. On the first day they did not move. On the
second day, two Tatar horsemen advanced to the foot of the Muscovite entrenchment. The
Muscovites began firing their heavy artillery on them, though to no good purpose. Then
hundreds followed by thousands of Tatars moved up, falling like hail upon the
entrenchment and firing arrows in such numbers that the sky was dark with them. 172
Contemporaries were frequently impressed by the Tatars' archery and, in many respects the Tatars' reflex
compound bow (known in the West as a Turkish bow), was superior in battle to the firearms of their
opponents. The bow was powerful enough to shoot an arrow several hundred yards and could even
pierce armor. 173 A Turkish ambassador to London is reported to have fired an arrow 482 yards with such a
bow and then complained that the bow was weak. 174
During the Long War, the Habsburg General Giorgio Basta found the Tatars' bow to be especially
destructive and was eventually forced to arm his troops with extra long arquebuses to overcome his
opponent's superiority. Kortepeter remarks that the "The Tatar bow, in other words, still had a longer
range than the ordinary arquebus." 175
The Tatar bow also had the advantage of being more accurate than the firearms of the time. One
observer noted that "Tatar chieftains shoot so well that birds are afraid to fly." 176 The bow had the added
benefit of being lighter and much easier to reload than an arquebus or musket. Brodie claims that "In
1600 it still took ten to fifteen minutes to load and fire an arquebus," while a Tatar could notch an arrow in
a matter of seconds. 177
Even the advent of the musket, which had a longer range than the arquebus, gave the Tatars' sedentary
opponents few advantages for it was heavier and clumsier than the arquebus. It can be seen that Barker's
comment on the inferiority of the lightly equipped Tatar raiders ’ lack of firearms is not necessarily a
disparaging summary of the Tatars' firepower. The bow does not seem so archaic when one recalls that even
the English used the long bow in their armies up until 1595. 178
On all of the fronts analyzed, there have been examples of the Tatars using their combat skills to turn the tide of
battle in the Ottomans' favor. A summary of some of these victories will show that the Crimean Tatars did
have the potential to stand and fight with great effect if they so desired.
On the Persian front, the Tatar cavalry frequently proved to be superior to that of their opponents. In the
previously described battle of Aksu a Tatar force was able to outfight a larger enemy force without Ottoman
assistance for three days before a rainstorm forced them to withdraw.
On the Russian front, the Khan's forces were able to crush the Tsar's forces in head-on combat up until the
end of the seventeenth century, despite Moscow's use of artillery and tabors.
In Poland, the Tatars were able to break Polish assaults as late as 1673 when a Tatar army routed a Polish
force attempting to reconquer Chotin. 179 On the Austrian front one has but to recall the battle of Petronell in
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