Um ok notice, we have been working on developing GUNS for hundreds of years, not crossbows, I'm sure if the same effort had gone into researching crossbows, it would have been much more advanced than crossbows are today.

Thats not what i mean. Of course that long the crossbows would be more advanced, but are you sure they'd be able to compare favorably against guns if they both had the same amount of time of improvement as guns of today have had? Could they possibly rival the gun without changing the design to where it is no longer a crossbow? Repeating crossbows couldnt get 30 rounds in a relatively small clip and fire so fast, so accurately, so long ranged could they? They surely couldnt fit that many bolts per. Or could they do the job of a machine gun. D-day, omaha, a crossbow then wouldnt really have made d-day such a dangerous undertaking nor suicidal mission, could it?

Ah, ok I got yah now. I just think that saying "surely they couldn't have advanced that far" is kinda unprovable, as this disregards how vastly improved a gun of today is from a gun of the 1500's. I don't think it's fair to make the potential argument as you don't know what would have happened.

And guns go "BANG!". Surely, that is more terrifying to the barbarian hordes, than a crossbow going "twang".

There is no doubt that guns were scarier, in fact the primary function of very early guns in europe was to scare horses (they couldn't do much else)

actually, you have to admit and give them credit because the average amount of men in a group of musketmen firing en masse on a volley would be terrifying to pikemen, horsemen, swordsmen and so on charging. and i see where ur going, that they couldnt possibly have imagined that guns could have gotten as advanced as they are nowadays. but i have to say, CROSSBOWS ARE A BITCH TO RELOAD! THINK OF IT!

er... i know matchlocks were a pain too but not nearly the amount of physical exertion as crossbows

Right...
Didn't realise my little attempt at a joke would liven up the discussion like this...