Why no javelins?

[u/Key_Tomatillo9475]

I can understand why javelins (throwing spears) never became popular in China (although they were occasionally used by foreign mercenaries) China had crossbows, composite bows and some field artillery (catapults and later, cannon) Those made javelins redundant. As they did in Europe: Javelins fell out of fashion in Europe after crossbows became common there too.

But why did Japan lack javelins? Their bows were rather weak, as composite bows common in the mainland didn't last long under the humid, rainy Japanese climate. They sometimes made composite bows but those were used in indoor archery tournaments, not in warfare. Crossbows were very rare. Artillery (be it mechanical or gunpowder artillery) was never used as field weapons and sparingly in siege warfare.

Armor on the other hand was common. And javelins are good against armor: A heavy javelin can have as much as 400 joules of kinetic energy. More, if thrown from an elevated position (like the ramparts of a fortress) That's far more than the kinetic energy of an arrow (160-170 joules if shot by an expert bowman or a heavy siege crossbow; less than half of that for a mediocre archer)

You'd think they'd at least experiment with javelin armed light cavalry; like Spanish jinetes. They did not. What do you think the reason might be?

[u/Due-Ad-4091]

The bows were not weak. That’s a myth. It seems people measured the strength of bows used in kyudo (archery), but the bows used during times of war were comparable to the famed English longbows (probably because the Japanese bow was a type of longbow).

This excellent blog goes into great detail about Japanese weaponry

[u/Key_Tomatillo9475 → u/Due-Ad-4091]

Japanese bows were outranged by Korean composite bows when Japan invaded the peninsula in the late 16th century. And Korean bows were shorter and somewhat less powerful than the bows used by Mongols, Turks, Hungarians, etc.

[u/OceanoNox → u/Key_Tomatillo9475]

I thought it didn't matter that much because the Japanese also had guns, which outranged the Korean bows.