Does the Gust of wind spell affect ranged weapons?

Question

Gust of wind Says:

A line of strong wind 60 feet long and 10 feet wide blasts from you in a direction you choose for the spell's duration. Each creature that starts its turn in the line must succeed on a Strength saving throw or be pushed 15 feet away from you in a direction following the line.

I am wondering if this would either negate ranged attacks on the casting wizard, or at the very least pose disadvantage on the attacker?

The closest thing I could find to an answer was in the (DMG p110) under Strong Wind

A strong wind imposes disadvantage on ranged weapon attack rolls.

My personal experience in archery, is that there is basically no point in even trying to hit a target with anything above a mild wind. As it is very, very difficult at any distance.

Answer 1

It does not prevent ranged attacks

The conceptually similar spell windwall prevents arrow shooting and clearly says so. If gust of wind did the same it would say so.

You have found suitable rules

The spell description says that strong wind is created and the DMG rules explain what strong wind does.

While the rules you cite are under wilderness features the spell clearly replicates the feature of strong wind.

The rules do not simulate real archery

If you want to simulate the intricacies you can do that by disallowing targeted shots all together or similar. However, your finding that real archery is not very accurately replicated is not surprising; 5e rules are more based on simplicity than simulation.