Got a Real-World Weapon or Armor Question? Mk. VIII

[Storm Bringer]

the "lying down" thing was one of the reasons napoleonic infantry feared lancers so much, i heard, those long lances could reach down and stab someone on the floor or under a cannon (which was a common place for arty gunners to try and hide form passing cavalry).

[Thiel]

Because of their sharp, fletching, and weight distribution the same is not true for arrows--an arrow fired straight up will not tumble on the way down (and I'd think would still be quite dangerous.)

That's pretty self-evident. Even if it's not going all that fast, it's still got a sharp and/or pointy bit of metal on one end.

[Yora]

It probably wouldn't break through the bone of the skull, but when it hits a soft spot at the neck or shoulders, I'd guess it probably can pierce an artery that kills you very fast.

[Traab]

It probably wouldn't break through the bone of the skull, but when it hits a soft spot at the neck or shoulders, I'd guess it probably can pierce an artery that kills you very fast.

Depends on the weight of the arrow I think. Virtually any arrow could say, pierce your neck deep enough to sever an artery or vein, but I think that some of the bigger and heavier arrows could have enough mass to hit you for skull piercing force at terminal velocity.

[Spiryt]

As far as "breaking a well formed infantry" goes....

It, as with everything else in the world, depends on who's breaking, and who's being broken, morale, terrain, and so on.

Polish hussars had broken Moscow pikimen at few occasions, but that had generally never had happened against Swedem infantry - those could be destroyed by maneuver etc. obviously, but not in frontal charge.

[fusilier]

What we are really debating isn't whether or not cavalry can break an infantry formation, but *how* they break the formation. I do not believe that cavalry would simply ride "through" dense formations of infantry. Even physically contacting a dense formation of infantry by charging directly into them seems unlikely to me. Everything I've heard about horses in warfare has stated that they won't throw themselves on the weapons of the enemy. However, a cavalry charge can disrupt an infantry formation *prior* to contact, basically through some form of intimidation. Once the formation is broken, gaps will allow the mounted horsemen to enter the formation and start mixing it up in hand-to-hand.

[Yora]

You people here might now, though it's more military culture than technology.

Where is the idea from, that warriors always call each other brothers? Is that from a specific culture or a modern invention that is tagged on any barbarian culture.

[Traab]

From Shakespeare's Henry V, 1598:

KING HENRY V:
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remember'd;
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition:
And gentlemen in England now a-bed
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.

So apparently, the brother thing has existed for quite some time. And its probably the whole band of brothers thing for exactly the reason listed in the speech.

[Yora]

Now that I think of it, the idea of brothers and sisters goes back at least to early christians and has at least in some parts of Europe persisted among congregations until very recently (it's now rather old-fashioned around here).
That would be one possible way how the concept of calling members of your group your siblings came to europe.
But the romans and eqyptians also had a habit to declare their pupils as their (adopted) sons much earlier, so it's not a completely unique idea. But that doesn't explain how it became associated with military culture.

[Traab]

Its a term used to identify the bond felt between warriors, those who fought side by side, who bled, killed, and died together. Brother is the most apt term since its supposed to be a bond of equals, one where you are as close as family. I have no idea of how old the term is, but I wouldnt be surprised if its as old as war itself.

[Galloglaich]

You people here might now, though it's more military culture than technology.

Where is the idea from, that warriors always call each other brothers? Is that from a specific culture or a modern invention that is tagged on any barbarian culture.

In the case of the Germanic tribes and Vikings "brother" was meant literally. Groups of warriors or men going out on a trading mission or even a long seal hunting or fishing trip would swear oaths of kinship as if they were literally in the same family. Viking groups which did this were called "VikingLaeg" which translates roughly to "raiding law". The most famous example of this was probably the semi-legendary Jomsvikings (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jomsvikings) but there were many others. A kinship oath basically made men responsible to each other under tribal codes of honor, making them obligated to avenge wrongs done for example. The "law" of the Viking groups often had to do with sharing loot.

Similarly, tribal groups like the Franks (which meant "Free Men") Allemani ("All Men") the Cimbri and Teutons, Ostrogoths and Visigoths etc., were actually mergers or coalitions of multiple tribes, including in most cases some non-European tribes such as from Iran. They would swear oaths of kinship to forge the bond to weld the group together into a sort of 'super tribe'.

You also saw this among the Fianna (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fianna) of Ireland.

Much later during the Medieval period one similar oaths were being sworn by new members of mercenary Companies, including the Lansknechts and the Swiss reislauffer companies. Citizens of Medieval towns had to swear oaths of loyalty to each other as well, which also made them members of the town militia. So did members of Guilds. The swearing-in ceremonies were known as "Conjurations". The persistence of this practice alarmed the authorities and the practice was banned by at last two Imperial Golden Bulls (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Bull_of_1356#Procedures) that I'm aware of but that obviously had no effect.


Essentially I think it was a means to take existing cultural rules of taking the cultural bonds of family or kinship groups, Clans, which were very strong in pre-Christian times and persisted well into the industrial era in many regions; and transfering them to people from other families or kinship groups. The purpose was to help achieve the unity and cohesion necessary for battle (or for other types of dangerous activities such as long trading missions... the Hanse trading caravans which were the precurors to the Hanseatic League also had similar oaths).

G.

[Thiel]

While digging around on the Milhist.dk site, I came across an article about something called a Rifle Fire Rocket.
http://www.milhist.dk/vaaben/lands/rifle_rockets/rifle_rocket_uk.htm
I'm interested in learning more about this weapon, but a quick check on the net and a couple of postings on other sites hasn't revealed anything.

[Galloglaich]

Never heard of it before and that is a really interesting article, thanks for posting it.

G

[AMX]

While digging around on the Milhist.dk site, I came across an article about something called a Rifle Fire Rocket.
http://www.milhist.dk/vaaben/lands/rifle_rockets/rifle_rocket_uk.htm
I'm interested in learning more about this weapon, but a quick check on the net and a couple of postings on other sites hasn't revealed anything.

I found a bit of info on them:
Developed in 1830 by Danish Kriegskommissär von Foss.
Tested, and subsequently introduced, in Prussia in 1834 and in Württemberg in 1844.
Also used by Denmark and Baden.

Described as 1.5 inch long, 0.64 inch diameter; the forward end had a hole of .4" diameter exposing the lead core, the rear end a hole .2" in diameter exposing the incendiary mixture.

Foss claimed an effective range of 1000 Ellen from long arms, and 500 from pistols, but there's no reference whose Ellen these are.
Prussian tests showed good results at range of 300 Schritt.

Used "to good effect" by the Prussians against the Danes, by the Danes in Schleswig, and by Badian insurgents at Niederbühl.

There is some confusion about their use with rifles - some sources claim the Prussians used them exclusively from smoothbores, others say they introduced the m/39 rifle specifically for the rockets.

They fell out of use due to the introduction of rifles with smaller calibre - reducing the calibre of the rockets made their performance unacceptable.

[Thiel]

Exceedingly clever stuff

Thanks for that. Were did you find it?
Anyway, the ellen is probably the Danish unit Alen which isn't, despite what wikipedia tells us, the equivalent of an Ell. It is in fact a cubit.
Anyway, a Danish Alen is, after 1835, is the equivalent of 62,77cm so that works out to 627,7m which seems to be a long way considering the weaponry of the day. He might instead be referring to a "natural" alen in which case it works out to 470m which sounds more correct, but the "natural alen is a very odd unit and I don't think I've seen it used anywhere.

A German Schritt is the same as 0,71-0,75 and works out to 225m.
If they used the related unit Doppelschritt, which is the same as 1,5m, it would work out to 450m which would seem to match the Danish numbers.

This is of course pure speculation and it does require the use of some rather odd units, even for the time.

[AMX]

Hans-Dierk Fricke: Geschichte der Kriegsraketen und der Raketenartillerie im 19. Jahrhundert
Wehrtechnik und wissenschaftliche Waffenkunde Band 13
Bernhard & Graefe Verlag, Bonn 2001
ISBN 3-7637-6208-6

Pages 267 and 288

[Zen]

Why does S&W 500 have such a strong recoil?

[Thiel]

Why does S&W 500 have such a strong recoil?

Because it fires a ridiculously large slug

[Joran]

Why does S&W 500 have such a strong recoil?

Has someone been watching Top Shot? ;)

Yeah, basically because it's the most powerful handgun cartridge in the world on a revolver. Semi-autos tend to have less recoil because the mechanism absorbs some of the energy to cycle the gun.

The cartridge is ridiculously large, full of gunpowder, and throws out a huge slug. Physics dictates that there be a recoil and that it be massive.

For an idea of how large the cartridge is...


Here's a picture of handgun cartridges...

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/82/CartridgeComparison.jpg

and here's the S&W .500 right next to a .44 Magnum...

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b9/44-500comp.jpg

[Spiryt]

Revolver itself is pretty massive too, though.

I guess not enough still.

[Hawkfrost000]

Why does S&W 500 have such a strong recoil?

Because every action has an equal and opposite reaction.



what are they teaching you in school these days?



DM

[Galloglaich]

Finally got around to reading Balbi on the siege of Malta, still got about 30 pages to go, it's a great read. I already found some interesting stuff vis a vis muskets vs. armor, some here aint gonna like it :P.

G

[fusilier]

Finally got around to reading Balbi on the siege of Malta, still got about 30 pages to go, it's a great read. I already found some interesting stuff vis a vis muskets vs. armor, some here aint gonna like it :P.

G

Looking forward to seeing what you have to say, but I've already read it, so some *other* people may not like what it has to say about firearms vs. armor.

;-)

[Galloglaich]

You and I will probably read some of the same things and come to opposite conclusions on this but now I'm more convinced than ever that I was right all along: armor does work quite well against the best firearms available right up to the late 16th Century. And I have a lot more data to back up my opinion on this than I did before.

G.

[Hazzardevil]

When did Guns replace swords for noblemen when settling disputes?

[Spiryt]

When did Guns replace swords for noblemen when settling disputes?

Never, generally.

There were still saber duels/quarrels in 20th century AFAIR, in Austrian Army for example, and later generally dueling went out law and society mechanisms...

In actual "gentleman" disputes, from 17th to 19th centuries, smallswords, sabres and similar stuff that can, all in all, be called 'swords' were used alongside the guns.

[leakingpen]

honestly, when the dueling pistol became in fashion, they were horribly innacurate, so even if both parties aimed at each other, the chance of a hit was small. And most duelists just fired to the side or in the air. The point was to show you could stand up face to face with your opponent, and everyone felt better in the end. It was a serious wussification of the duel.

[fusilier]

The choice of weapons in a formal duel has always been one of the issues to be agreed upon by the parties involved. So in theory, once pistols existed they could be chosen as the weapon for a duel. This doesn't mean that other weapons weren't chosen once pistols were available. Abraham Lincoln, having been challenged to a duel, chose broadswords, not because he had any experience swinging a broadsword, but because he had longer arms than his opponent. The challenger (eventually) backed down.

Duelling pistols (matched sets, specifically for duelling*), seem to appear at least by the end of the 18th century. They were typically very finely made, accurate, and designed to be as fast firing as possible, often with hair triggers and the like. In England, at least, these duelling pistols were usually smoothbore, as rifling was seen as unsporting. But with the ranges the duels typically took place, how well made the guns were made, and how carefully they were loaded, rifling would have been unnecessary. Most people took duelling very seriously. I think it was a German style where two matched pistols were primed, but only one was loaded. The two combatants stood holding opposite corners of a handkerchief, and on a signal fired at each other. It was basically a predecessor to russian roulette.

*A brace of pistols was very common in the era of single-shot pistols, so a matched set of pistols, not necessarily duelling pistols, would not be hard to come by whenever pistols were available.

[Conners]

I've been wondering about the prevalence of guns and cannons prior to the musket error.

Notably, there seem to be plenty of cannons and the like around before England battled Napoleon and so forth (the war of the roses, for instance). I think I saw something about the first man-carried gun being a "hand-cannon", a small literal cannon which you carry around by hand (I think it needed to people to use and shift).
However, this doesn't tell me how far back the first cannons in Europe were, or how common they were.

Basically, I'm wondering when cannons first came around (particularly in Europe), how common they were, and why it is that hand-carried guns didn't become standard-issue sooner.

[Thiel]

I've been wondering about the prevalence of guns and cannons prior to the musket error.

Notably, there seem to be plenty of cannons and the like around before England battled Napoleon and so forth (the war of the roses, for instance). I think I saw something about the first man-carried gun being a "hand-cannon", a small literal cannon which you carry around by hand (I think it needed to people to use and shift).
However, this doesn't tell me how far back the first cannons in Europe were, or how common they were.

Basically, I'm wondering when cannons first came around (particularly in Europe), how common they were, and why it is that hand-carried guns didn't become standard-issue sooner.
This is pure speculation, but it could be due to the cost and availability of steel. A gun barrel requires significantly more steel than a bow and the arrows it shoots.
Additionally, early gunpowder wasn't exactly a stable concotion and it really didn't like moisture.

[Spiryt]

I've been wondering about the prevalence of guns and cannons prior to the musket error.

Notably, there seem to be plenty of cannons and the like around before England battled Napoleon and so forth (the war of the roses, for instance). I think I saw something about the first man-carried gun being a "hand-cannon", a small literal cannon which you carry around by hand (I think it needed to people to use and shift).
However, this doesn't tell me how far back the first cannons in Europe were, or how common they were.

Basically, I'm wondering when cannons first came around (particularly in Europe), how common they were, and why it is that hand-carried guns didn't become standard-issue sooner.

Cannons were already used widely at the very beginning of 15th century, Hussites for a bit later example were known for efficient use of both very large cannons and personal guns.


As far as standard issue goes.... Well that's pretty unclear question - all depends on what you mean by "standard issue" and "earlier".

But up to the ~ half of 16th century they weren't all that dominating range weapon simply because crossbows and bows still could offer their own uses easily compared to muskets and arqebuses.

Bows in particular were still in occasional use far after that, mostly in particular places, obviously.

[Storm Bringer]

I've been wondering about the prevalence of guns and cannons prior to the musket error.

Notably, there seem to be plenty of cannons and the like around before England battled Napoleon and so forth (the war of the roses, for instance). I think I saw something about the first man-carried gun being a "hand-cannon", a small literal cannon which you carry around by hand (I think it needed to people to use and shift).
However, this doesn't tell me how far back the first cannons in Europe were, or how common they were.

Basically, I'm wondering when cannons first came around (particularly in Europe), how common they were, and why it is that hand-carried guns didn't become standard-issue sooner.

Gunpowder was known in europe in the time of Roger Bacon, who wrote about it in 1216, but only as a explosive. cannons and such came a bit late.


Thier were cannons kicking about in the Hundred Years War, with about half a dozen present with the English at Crecy, in 1346, for example. These were not very mobile, accurate, or useful in field enguagements. and were ment mainly for seige warfare. they were very slow firing, with several shots a day being the norm. they had the advantage of being more powerful than trebuchets, but were much, much harder to use, supply and train. they required specialist gunners, and the powder making of the time was rather hit and miss, so it was difficult to get consistanty in aim as every round left the barrel at a different speed. however, even at this stage, thier were experiments with things like Breech loading systems, though the one i read about relied on wet clay that then dried to act as a sealant on the breech (it was things like this that brought the rate of fire down)

by 1453, and the seige of Constantinople, the Ottomans were using hungarian designed Bombards to blast holes in the city walls, which of crouse completly changed the face of defensive warfare, leading to the Star Fort design.

I'd talk about portable, one person "hand Gonnes", but I must go, so heres a wiki article on the subject (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hand_cannon).

I'll come back and do a more though post later on.

edit: as i understand it the main issue with early handguns were:

A) slow reload speed. even slow crossbows were faster than early handguns. for as long as smoothbore, muzzle loading muskets were in use, they were slower than bowman and crossbowmen. in the 1700s 3 rounds a minute was considered a acceptable speed of fire for properly trained musketmen, and well drilled troops might manage 4. Bow armed troops could keep up a rate of 10-12 rounds a minute, assuming their ammo held out.

B) Unreliable. as i siad, early gunpowder was very variable in its power and misfires were very common, as was barrels being burst by being overcharged.

C) Inaccurate. not only were they hard to aim, they had this nasty tendency to blow up in your face, leading to a distinct unwillingness to put the things next to your head to aim them.

D) user needed protection by melee troops agianst melee troops. No unit in the pre-modern era could stop a enemy that was determined to close form reaching melee range. thus, anybody armed with missle weapons needed protection by trained melee soldiers to fight off any attackers.

[fusilier]

To add to what others have said already:

Cannons were first used sometime in the early 1300s. They were useful for the besiegers, but often they were more useful in the defense of besieged town.

Gunpowder was very expensive, until the early 1400s when prices began to decline. Supply was another issue, as the cannons could use prodigious amounts of gunpowder. As a result of these factors (and the general lack of mobility of early cannon), the cannon actually tended to favor the defense of towns.

Handgonnes appear around the end of the 1300s. They were typically used only in the defense of towns. However, over the course of the 15th century, their use grows, and formations of hand-gunners start taking to the field. I believe that the development of matchcord is one of the factors that allowed hand-gunners to take to the field. The Hussites are a famous example, and the condottiere in Italy were not far behind. Also, both in Bohemia and Italy, light field cannons were playing an increasing role during the same time period. The French, however, were to make a better field cannon carriage, and basically revolutionize artillery in the late 15th century. Finally, the early "Arquebuses" (in this case, I mean a gun with a shoulder stock) start showing up sometime during the late 1400s.

As for cost, most sources claim that a hand-gonne was cheaper to manufacture than a crossbow. It's basically a metal tube on a stick, although sometimes it's a chambered one. Iron would probably suffice (Iron was used for cannons too). On the other hand, supplying an army of handgunners with match, powder and shot on campaign may have been difficult, at least initially. The Hussites used war wagons, and in Italy there was an increasing use of field fortifications during the 15th century. Those factors may have had an influence on the use of hand-gonnes in the field. The hand-gonne seems to have been employed in a rather static role, i.e. they were still being used from defensive works.

Finally, while cannons were around, there weren't that many of them. Certainly, when compared to the Napoleonic Wars. Cannons were expensive to make, especially when bronze became the preferred material, gunpowder was also expensive, and in the case of England, there was a chronic shortage of it. Most English gunpowder was imported, and it wasn't until fairly late that gunpowder was made in sufficient quantities in England (not exactly sure when, I know gunpowder supply was difficult during the English Civil War). On the other hand, cannons don't require a lot of maintenance, so they could sit around for many decades in arsenals, and still be useful.

[Avilan the Grey]

That reminds me.

Who/what were the hakkapeliitta, what did they do, and did they even matter?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hakkapeliitta

The thing that differed, if any, was the same as for the (now Swedish) Cavalry (at the time Finland was a natural part of Sweden): They were conscripts and volunteers; the Hakkapeliitta were farmer boys riding the very horses they used to plow their fields with. The Swedish army in the 30 year war was the first big conscription army in Europe; against it was noblemen and a wast majority of professional mercenary soldiers.

[Fortinbras]

Does anyone know if there is any truth to the whole uppercut-to-the-nose-can-kill-by-driving-bone-splinters-into-brain thing?

[Spiryt]

Does anyone know if there is any truth to the whole uppercut-to-the-nose-can-kill-by-driving-bone-splinters-into-brain thing?

Judging by how many uppercuts smashed the noses horribly in boxing, kickboxing, MMA or whatever competition, without any dying - not much.

Given the fact that brain is obviously quite solidly divided from the rest of the systems in the head, that wouldn't really work...

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b0/Dr_Bock_plate02.jpg

[Conners]

On that note, you can kill dogs by hitting them in the nose.


Also, thanks very much for all the details on cannon, guys :smallsmile:!

[Aux-Ash]

Does anyone know if there is any truth to the whole uppercut-to-the-nose-can-kill-by-driving-bone-splinters-into-brain thing?

Yes and no.

On the technical side of things the nose consists of cartilage and not bone, so there's no bone splinter to drive up into the brain to begin with.

Secondly, like Spirit says, between the Cranium, the dura mater, the arachnoidea, the pia mater (the three meninges) and the cerebrospinal fluid the brain is actually rather well protected. While not impervious to shock, you'd pretty much have to break your own hand to manage to punch anything through that defense.

On the other hand, the cranium is the thinnest behind the nose. This to allow the neural cells that form our sense of smell direct access to the brain. So the region is also extra sensitive due to being less defended. It is most certainly possible to drive something through the skull there, even cartilage, but it's not likely. An uppercut would also direct the force in roughly the correct direction.
What is far more likely however is that the force will be transfered and cause a rupturing of veins in the head. Something that's always a risk when it comes to violence towards the head. Which again need not be fatal, but it is most certainly not riskfree.

So while unlikely, uppercuts towards the nose follows the same rule of thumb as all violence to the head does: Don't.

[Traab]

Any movie ive ever seen that does the fatal nose strike tends to be driving the heel of your hand into the guys nose, not an uppercut, just thought id mention that part.

[Deadmeat.GW]

From what I understood speaking to a martial artist who did have a lot of palmstrikes in his repertoire the killing effect is more a forceible ko through a massive concussion because the impact with a cupped palm forces all the air to impact inside the nose against that weak point too.

Think about, earclaps do not really cause massive damage but the effect of a cupped earclap on both ears at once can be devastating.

It is not the bone or cartilige that is causing the damage, it is air and fluids that cannot move anywhere else that cause the damage.
Path of least resistance...

[Spiryt]

Well, the more important question will be if there is any killing effect in the first place.

I guess in some perfect conditions something like that can occur, weird pressure and circulation effects inside of the nose are nothing pleasant, but can't see it as really deadly - who knows though.

Anyway, back in the early days of modern MMA, Pancrase organization was disallowing closed fist strikes to the head.

I don't recall if it was because of their supposed dangerousness, or they simply didn't want fights stopped because of broken hands.

But the result was quite a lot of heel of hand strikes to the head. So if anyone has a collection, they can search for some brutal KO's by strike to the nose. :smallwink:

http://www.threadbombing.com/data/media/2/frankpancrasevictorypr2.gif

[Mike_G]

Having held skulls in Medic school, I don't see how you could drive bone chips into the brain with a nose strike,, unless you hit so hard the force would kill him anyway. There's a whole big bunch of bony stuff between the nose and the brain.

People hit the steering wheel much harder than anyone could punch, and while people do get concussions and intercranial bleeding and lots of bad injuries, I've never seen anyone dead of bone shards in the brain.

People who do die of the brain injuries I've seen generally decompensate and get bad over (admittedly a fairly short) time as bleeding accumulates in the skull and squeezes the brain, but aren't already dead with the wide eyed, bloody nose look you see in movies.

I think the palm heel strike of death is an invention of action movies.

[vcvcvc12]

Could someone tell me what kinds of light armor would be most effective? This hypothetical armor would have to guard decently against slashing weapons, thrusting weapons, bludgeoning weapons and arrows. Heat resistance would be nice. I don't really care about cost, availability of materials or when the technology for the armor was invented, but keep in mind that I want LIGHT armor (leather, chain mail, bulletproof vests, etc.). Thank you in advance!:smallsmile:

[Yora]

How light is light? Effective against what? And how effective is effective? Of what time period and region are we talking?

Depending on these factors, answers might be ver different.

However generally speaking, I would say that a light chain shirt (covering the chest and shoulders, while leaving arms and legs free) is incredibly good. It had been used over a 1000 years all over the world, and the protection against most weapons is really good. Also, it barely restricts movement and isn't feeling heavy if worn right.
Against slashing weapons, the protected areas would be pretty much immune. You'd get some bruises from being hit with a steel bar, but there would be no cutting at all. Against blunt trauma chain does almost nothing, but that's what a thick layer of padding is worn for under it. Protection against arrows is really good. Under the worst possible circumstances, an arrow can shot through chain, but in most cases the chain and the padding would slow an arrow so much down, that it won't penetrate deeply. When you're lucky, at the right angle an arrow would just glance off to the side. The weak point would be thrusting weapons, but almost any kind of armor has the most problems with such attacks. But a spear thrust that would easily impale you unarmored could still be blocked completely by chainmail leaving you only with a bruise. But against cavalry charing with a lance, you still probably be dead if hit in the chest or stomach.
The only downside is, that it's really really expensive, so not everyone would have access to it. But I dare to say that almost everyone would have wanted it (unless they want the full protection of heavy armor).

[vcvcvc12]

Any time period, and light would be something that a reasonably fit person could move around freely in.

[Yora]

This is freely moving around in heavy armor (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xm11yAXeegg).

I think if money is not an issue, it really comes down a great deal to personal preference. How much mobility you think you really need and how much weight you think is worth carrying around.



Once again, it's time for "What kind of gun is that?" (http://www.spiegel.de/images/image-253014-galleryV9-ayls.jpg)
Kind of looks as it it was unscrewed from a fixed mount or something like that.

[Maclav]

Could someone tell me what kinds of light armor would be most effective? This hypothetical armor would have to guard decently against slashing weapons, thrusting weapons, bludgeoning weapons and arrows. Heat resistance would be nice. I don't really care about cost, availability of materials or when the technology for the armor was invented, but keep in mind that I want LIGHT armor (leather, chain mail, bulletproof vests, etc.). Thank you in advance!:smallsmile:

Thermalset layered polymer nanocomposite plates backed with modern breathable padding materials. For design ideas look at both modern sport armour, combat armour and historical ideas. It should be easy enough with the proper engineering team to select the proper composite materials and thickness to far exceed anything you could do with steel at a fraction of the weight.

[Deadmeat.GW]

Th
Once again, it's time for "What kind of gun is that?" (http://www.spiegel.de/images/image-253014-galleryV9-ayls.jpg)
Kind of looks as it it was unscrewed from a fixed mount or something like that.

I think that looks a bit like the Hotchkis machine guns.

Hum, actually, I think it might be that or a Bren machinegun.

In anyway it is a WW2 design.

Edit:

I checked and it is not a Hotchkiss machinegun nor a Bren, the muzzle is like a Bren and the heft and looks are similar to the Hotchkiss but I am not sure what type of machinegun it is.

Going to dig through my gunclub mags for something similar.

[Yora]

Probably taken from a libyan tank, if that serves as a clue.

[FlyingScanian]

Probably taken from a libyan tank, if that serves as a clue.

Am I the only one who then thinks "Russian"?

From what I can find right now (which is wikipedia), and based on the secondary armament of old soviet tanks, it looks kinda like a NSV machine gun, but at the same time not... perhaps someone more knowledgeable (or with more and better sources) can dig up something better...

[Storm Bringer]

for reference, this is a photo of a NSV HMG (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Machine_gun_NSV.jpg).

now, it is clearly too big and long to be one of them. however, a quick look on wiki turns up the SG-43, and this picture (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:SG_DF-ST-86-08093.jpg), which looks about right for the gun in the picture.

I aggree the man in your photo is clearly carrying a dismounted vehicle weapon, but the fact he's added a forward carry handle suggets to me he expects to be able to hip fire that thing, so it;s not going to be too powerful.

[Galloglaich]

Couple of comments on early firearms and cannon


Firearms - effectiveness and use
In terms of what they were like... the ineffecttiveness of these weapons tends to be exxagerated. The correct analogy I think is to think of them as something like single barrel (or sometimes double-barrel or triple barrel) shotguns. Mostly shooting slugs.

In terms of power and bore, the typical early firearm was close to a 16 to 20 guage shotgun, larger "hook guns" were equivalent to a 10 to 12 guage shotgun, the 'trestle' guns used by a crew of two were 8 to 10 guage, and the early wheeled houfnice, predecessor to the howitzer and all field artillery, was a 6 guage shotgun on a small carriage.

Though simple, these weapons were no joke. Here you see a series of mid 15th century era firearms, early arquebus / hackenbusche, ranging from 20 gauge type to about 12 gauge.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAZqhCgDRlA

Here is another video where you can also see a couple of trestle guns and houfnice firing

http://www.youtube.com/user/GoranGoranovic666

From the sound alone you can get an idea of the power of these weapons. You can visualize what a shotgun shooting slugs is like, it has it's limitations compared to bows and crossbows, but it can be and is an effective weapon. One thousand guys armed with sawed off shotguns firing slugs is a pretty dangerous force.

(hand held) Firearms were already a very important offensive battlefield weapon, used with war-wagons, by the 1420s. By the 1450s they were a critical component of the largest army in Europe, the Hungarian Black Army of Matthias Corvinus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Army_of_Hungary) a large professional army made up of mercenaries from Bohemia, Germany, Austria, Hungary, Italy, Scotland and Poland, among other places, and financed by The Republic of Venice, the Pope, and the Holy Roman Emperor. Something like a third of this army were armed with firearms. It was due largely to this army that the Turks did not take over Europe in the 15th Century.

The actual problem with early firearms is that they required a substantial level of 'gunpowder culture' to use safely. It's not that complicated to use them mind you, but if you make a single serious mistake with your gun (double charge it for example), you can blow yourself up. If you make a single serious mistake with a powder magazine (drop a fuse on it), you can blow up your whole unit. So during the early days of firearms only certain troops could really use it. Experts.

Just as Longbowmen came from England and certain parts of Burgundy where the culture of shooting these formidable bows was long established, and horse-archers came from the Central Asian Steppes and from certain European Countries where they had cultivated the art (Russia, Poland, Hungary), and crossbowmen were hired from certain towns where they did a lot of training with these weapons (i.e. Genoa, Berne), gunners came from certain places, namely Bohemia where their use became widespread during the Hussite Crusade, and from a few towns which had spent time and money training their militias to deal with gunpowder.

What changed later with the more sophisticated firearms of the 16th Century, was they were sufficiently easy to use that with a predictable amount of drill, ordinary men could be fairly quickly trained (though not that quickly in the early days, this too is exxagerated) to use them. This allowed much larger armies obviously, because there were only so many experts to go around in the earlier times (15th C).

On the arquebus
The early forms of the arquebus were in wide use by 1440 AD in Central and Northern Europe, and in Italy. These were somewhat crude looking by todays standards (you can see them in the first video I posted), as they evolved from hook guns, early firearms with a hook for stabilizing the weapon over the edge of a wagon, the crook of a tree, a fence, a window sill, a castle wall and so on. The word arquebus comes from the earlier terms like "hackenbusche" which literaly means hook gun. At first they had short tillers like a crossbow, gradually they acquired a proper stock. Other improvements were made starting as far back as the 1430's: touch holes instead of having to fire the weapon from down the barrel; built-in priming pans making it easier to measure the primer; a serpentine or early match-lock so the gun could be held in firing position with both hands; spring-loaded match-locks for greater precision; automatic opening and closing priming pans which made it less likely for the primer to fall out; longer barrels for greater range, and so on. Gunners were using pre-measured 'cartridges' (little bags) of corned powder which can be seen in art as early as 1470. Each of these innovations improved the reliability and ease of use of the gunpowder weapons, most had been implemented by the 1460's or 1470s in at least some areas of Europe, though in the West they lagged behind.

On Gunpowder
Early Medieval Gunpowder, such as was available in the 1250's 1350's, was relatively unstable, not consistently effective, (various different formulas were used) though the formula was more standardized after the publication of De Mirabilibus Mundi by Albertus Magnus around 1280. More importantly, early forms of gunpowder such as serpentine powder (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serpentine_powder) did not remain mixed for long times, but sepearated out. So they had to be mixed in the field shortly before their use. This vastly increased the chances of making a mistake, requiring a great deal of expertise by small units in the field, and made gunpowder weapons harder to use in bad weather, and so on. By about 1450 Corned Powder was being made which remained in gunpowder form of a consistant grain indefinitely, thus making it much more reliable. No more mixing with mortar and pestle in the field. This also increased the use of the new weapon.

On Cannons and Metalurgy
Steel was not often used for early cannon for a variety of reasons. Cast iron and bronze, particularly the latter, were more popular. Bronze was much less likely to shatter, and held up better in adverse weather conditions.

On the effectiveness of early French Cannon
This tends to be exaggerated as well. French and Burgundian Monarchs or Princes had great success with cannon, particularly serpentines and bombards, in the latter half of the 100 Years War (this is how they evicted the English) and in the early part of the Burgundian wars, and in the French invasion of Italy. But these successes were against out-dated fortifications with thin walls and poor natural defenses, there was a long gap between the advent of these new powerful guns (shooting lead shot, which was the major improvement, earlier weapons used stone shot which did not knock down walls as well) and the much later innovation of the star fort or 'trace italliene' design. The wise military leaders tended to bypass the stronger fortifications and concentrate on towns and castles whose walls dated back to the 13th Century, or forts which lacked their own cannon, and very famously crushed them in a matter of days instead of the traditional several weeks or months. But when they made the mistake to attack strong fortifications with cannons of their own, they failed. Notable examples include the famous year long Siege of Nuess (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Neuss) in which Charles the Bold had the best cannons and mercenaries money could buy but was foiled by strong defense of the city and the financial support of nearby cities such as Cologne.

G

[Galloglaich]

On medieval flame weapons:

http://www.medievalists.net/2011/08/25/a-multidisciplinary-investigation-of-medieval-flamethrowers-a-case-study/

[wayfare]

Wise Weapon Folks:

I am writing a fantasy story involving a european style paladin character (knightly virtue and whatnot) who uses a sabre in combat. However, it has come to my atention that a sabre might not be the best weapon to use against armored opponents, particularly those using heavy/plate or chain armor.

The character is suppised to be a very experienced fighter, almost a duelist, but with decades of combat experience on the field and in duels. He carries many weapons that he brings out as the situation requies, but the Sabre was supposed to be his main weapon.

So, would the sabre be an effective weapon for this kind of knight, considering he fights armored opponents?

Also, here is is general weapons layout -- critiques are welcome:

1 Sabre
2 Hatchets for throwing/close combat
1 dagger and 1 stiletto

[Karoht]

Also, here is is general weapons layout --
1 Sabre
2 Hatchets for throwing/close combat
1 dagger and 1 stiletto

Give him a Spear + Shield for really rough stuff, or when he's on horseback.
You can change the hatchets up for hammers or smaller bearded axes. If he wants range the spear can be thrown, the hammers and axes can still be thrown but not recommended. Hammers are more thematic for Paladins (mythos only, not historical of course). Hammer + Sabre would be a really mean combo. And a bit more stylish than little hatchets.

No arguements on dagger and stiletto.
Just my two cents.

[Maclav]

1 Sabre
2 Hatchets for throwing/close combat
1 dagger and 1 stiletto

From a historical perspective, I would guess you're thinking white plate area stuff. So, the knightly weapons of:

1) Spear on horse
2) Poleaxe/hammer on foot
3) Spear on foot
4) Longsword (two handed sword) on foot and horse
5) Roundel Dagger on foot and horse

Note the absence of shield. You really want two hands to deal with people in plate armours.

And if he was a real bad ass would probably have guns - smooth hand culverns possibly matchlocks...

[Spiryt]

Gunners were using pre-measured 'cartridges' (little bags) of corned powder which can be seen in art as early as 1470.


This page - 8 one - has a bit about it. (http://www.freha.pl/index.php?showtopic=4847&st=140&start=140)

Some art, and some nice attempts at reconstruction.

This:

http://www.freha.pl/index.php?act=attach&type=post&id=23014

Suggests that at least in case of cannons and other stationary firearms such stuff was being tried out as early as 1405. Hard to tell how practical and popular it had proven to be.


Anyway, the most important thing about early bombards and similar cannons, that has been omitted AFAICS (sorry if I missed something) - is heat.

Hussite wars sources tell quite a lot bombards that were shooting like ~ 2 times every 24 hours, because they had to cool down before next shot was save.

I may find some sources about it later, not the best access right now.


Wise Weapon Folks:

Also, here is is general weapons layout -- critiques are welcome:

1 Sabre
2 Hatchets for throwing/close combat
1 dagger and 1 stiletto

Honestly, it all depends on "armor" in question.

But generally, out of this stuff daggers may be often the most reliable stuff against armor - provided that one can outgrapple opponent and stick those blades into some joint.

http://i53.tinypic.com/1042h37.jpg


1) Spear on horse
2) Poleaxe/hammer on foot
3) Spear on foot

My small addition would be that it was actually lance on the horse.
And quite a lot of polearms on the foot - usually similar to the lesser infantry ones - only more sophisticated/better quality.

[Yanagi]

Anyone familiar enough with a bullet crossbow to venture how it would stat out in 3.5e D&D/PF?

[Galloglaich]

They were mostly used for hunting small game. There are quite a few antiques remaining, if you look on a google image search you'll see many.

Probably 1-4 damage or maybe 1-6 for a more powerful one.

G.

[fusilier]

So, would the sabre be an effective weapon for this kind of knight, considering he fights armored opponents?

Also, here is is general weapons layout -- critiques are welcome:

1 Sabre
2 Hatchets for throwing/close combat
1 dagger and 1 stiletto

What about a backsword of some sort? Kind of a predecessor to the sabre.

Or a Falchion/Messer. I think there exists a rather ornate Medici falchion from the early 16th century. It's at least an indication that Falchions weren't necessarily considered to be "lowly".

[fusilier]

Couple of comments on early firearms and cannon


Firearms - effectiveness and use

. . .

G

Another excellent, well written post by Galloglaich. I would just like to add a little bit more.

(Also, those are great videos -- I've received my replica 1580s Arquebus, but I'm still tracking down match cord and priming powder -- so I haven't had a chance to fire it yet)

The benefit of a priming pan is mainly that it prevents the priming powder from being upset. Cannons were primed simply by piling up powder around the touch hole -- you do not want to fill the touchhole with powder. For a cannon, this is typically fine as it's not being jostled, but on something like a hand cannon, you can see how the powder might easily be thrown off the weapon. The pan cover developed later (not exactly sure when, but I would guess around the mid to late 1400s), which was manually opened, just before firing the piece.

I've heard that several reenactors have had their priming flasks blow-up on them when handling a matchlock weapon. It's not dropping the slow match into the priming flask, it's hot ash falling from the burning match. The circa 1600 drill book (De Gheyn's Manual of Arms), shows that there was much attention to preventing ash from falling on the pan.

The French artillery success in the late 15th century had a lot to do with their carriage designs, which allowed guns to be emplaced very quickly before walls. As Galloglaich said, their effectiveness is often exaggerated, but it was still a serious development in artillery.

Also, while the trace italliene wouldn't arrive until about 1530, there were intermediate measures that started to applied during the late 1400s. Towers were being cut shorter, and filled with earth to make good artillery platforms. Walls could also be modified too, or new made walls that were shorter and thicker (still not quite in the Trace Italliene fashion though). Likewise existing walls could be reinforced by backing them up with earth, or adding earthworks outside. These temporary measures allowed rather old city walls and castles to survive.

[Mathis]

Hello all, a quick question here.

Would anyone know how widespread the use of and making of lamellar armour was in Scandinavia from the 800s through to the 1100s? My very short list of good reliable sources on this subject only gave me a confirmed piece from the late 1300s from the Battle of Wisby.

Was there a time during this period in Scandinavia when craftsmen possessed the skill to make these in quantity, or would these pieces of armour have to be obtained from eastern countries?

In advance, thank you.

[Matthew]

There is virtually no evidence for it. Mostly it comes from Scandinavians abroad, such as in Russia or Byzantium.

[Hazzardevil]

I have a simple question about steel shields.

Did anyone ever actually try to use one? I know that your shoulder could be dislocated if someone hit one too hard.

[Knaight]

I have a simple question about steel shields.

Did anyone ever actually try to use one? I know that your shoulder could be dislocated if someone hit one too hard.

Do you mean shields with a steel plate in front of them, or shields made entirely out of steel. Moreover, how much are you willing to include as a shield - for instance, do late civilian bucklers count?

[Hazzardevil]

Do you mean shields with a steel plate in front of them, or shields made entirely out of steel. Moreover, how much are you willing to include as a shield - for instance, do late civilian bucklers count?

I meant shields made completely out of steel, which I know wouldn't work.

[Knaight]

I meant shields made completely out of steel, which I know wouldn't work.
There were shields that were essentially made out of steel entirely. All of these were small, relatively lightweight bucklers or targets. Obviously, something like the hoplon made entirely out of steel would be completely absurd.

[Spiryt]

Steel shields larger than buckler are in no way absurd, and were widely used in 16th century, especially by the Spanish man at arms, but I'm sure that not only.

Whole steel construction of sensible thickness at that size was probably kind of bend-prone at impacts, but nevertheless they obviously were considered worthwhile.

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2242/1959254785_4250ef07d9_z.jpg?zz=1

[Yora]

However, that shield is considerably smaller than wooden shields I have seen and most probably intended to be used with a full suit of plate armor.
I don't think it would be really worth it if you fight almost or completely unarmored. You can't protect your legs with that.

[Matthew]

That is about as big as they get, I think usually leather backed.

[Mike_G]

However, that shield is considerably smaller than wooden shields I have seen and most probably intended to be used with a full suit of plate armor.
I don't think it would be really worth it if you fight almost or completely unarmored. You can't protect your legs with that.


You can absolutely prtotect your legs with a shield that size.

Assuming it's a center grip, if you use it with your left hand extended a bit in front of you, the angle alone will let you intercept most attacks to the legs. And if you are fighting sword and shield with your knees bent as God intended, rather than in full combat saunter like the SCA, a strong forward parry will protect you pretty well.

Just try to stand in a decent fighting stance, left foot forward. You can pretty easily extend your left hand out in front of your knee, which is plenty of protection for that leg, and a quick enough move to raise the shield with a slight movement of the arm.

If the shield is strapped to your forearm, you can't do this as well, but I think most round shields like this were probably center grip.

[Galloglaich]

Agree with the others: steel shields of decent size, usually called rotella or sometimes targets, were used starting in the late 15th Century, I think the reason you didn't see them before was due more to the changes in metalurgy. Also the necessity, I think the Ottomans (Janissaries) were the first to use them, as bullet proof shields, then they spread into Italy and Spain and then throughout Europe.

Re: Viking lamellar. Have to be careful with that one, it's one of those third rails. They did find some lames in Birka and a couple of other places in Scandinavia in a Viking context, but people still argue if they were Viking graves or maybe visiting Central Asians. They were found in these little merchant villages or large trading posts, whichever way you want to think of it, which had a lot of international traffic... along with other curiousitiies like a couple of budha statues, women buried with weapons and merchants scales, and so on.

Did anyone notice that Medieval fire-weapon article I linked upthread? It's amazing.

G.

[Knaight]

Steel shields larger than buckler are in no way absurd, and were widely used in 16th century, especially by the Spanish man at arms, but I'm sure that not only.

Whole steel construction of sensible thickness at that size was probably kind of bend-prone at impacts, but nevertheless they obviously were considered worthwhile.

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2242/1959254785_4250ef07d9_z.jpg?zz=1

There's a reason I used the hoplon as an example of a shield too big for steel to be practical. That thing is nowhere near hoplon size.

[fusilier]

Did anyone notice that Medieval fire-weapon article I linked upthread? It's amazing.

G.

I noticed it, but didn't have time to actually read it. Skimmed through it though, and noticed they had diagrams of various weapons, and pictures of reconstructions -- looks really cool.

[fusilier]

Once again, it's time for "What kind of gun is that?" (http://www.spiegel.de/images/image-253014-galleryV9-ayls.jpg)
Kind of looks as it it was unscrewed from a fixed mount or something like that.


Somehow I missed this post before (and then somehow I spotted it about half-an-hour ago).

I'm pretty sure it's a Soviet SGMT -- a modernized, tank version of the SG-43. I haven't found a good picture of one yet, but a google search shows a carrying handle either on top, or on bottom (which would seem awkward). Clearly this gun has had some modifications made to it.

[Conners]

Here's a question: Before cannons could be used on ships, what did naval combat look like?

As in, what kind of tactics did they use, what sort of damage could they pull off on the other ships?

I'm wondering about this for two single ships fighting (pirates raiding a merchant ship that is willing to fight, for example), as well as for larger sea battles (two fleets meet, and fight).

[Matthew]

Ramming, boarding, archers, flame throwers, I think catapults and ballistae were used to a limited extent. Apparently some Viking naval battles were basically a case of drawing ships up against one another and then fighting much the way they did on land.

[Knaight]

It depends on the era. Earlier there were several other tactics that appeared frequently, such as slingers, as well as more regional weapons. For instance, the Romans had what was basically a gigantic spike on the end of a plank that they would bring down onto an enemy ship, then board from. It worked extremely well, once. There were also pre-cannon gunpowder weapons in use in some locations, such as China.

[Galloglaich]

Yeah per what he said, mechanical 'artillery' and then guns have been part of naval warfare going way back, cannons on ships as early as the 13th Century. Before that fire weapons were a big deal... the Byzantines used those flame throwers back to the 7th Century. The arabs used a lot of fire weapons, fire pots thrown by catapults, or staff-slings, fire-grenades of various types. Yes and they also used ballistae and catapults extensively.

By the 14th Century crossbows, crude firearms, and bows were very important. The Ottomans made excellent use of archers well into the firearms era, up to the battle of Lepanto. In fact it was the loss of so many of their archers in that epic contest which many historians believe broke their sea power.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4f/Olympias.1.JPG/220px-Olympias.1.JPG

In the Mediterranean where almost all naval combat was done by rowed galleys, and they all had rams. So unless one side had the flame thrower type weapon, many if not most fights were decided by ramming with heavy bronze rams (http://luna.cas.usf.edu/~murray/actian-ram/athlit-ram-01a.jpg). The ideal maneuver was called the Diekplous, where one ship would ram the oars of the other ship, leaving it dead in the water.

Nearly everyone used slaves for their galleys, the two (interesting) exceptions being two of the greatest naval powers of the Classical and Renaissance periods respectively, Athens and Venice, both of whom used paid rowers instead of slaves. This meant when two ships were locked together in combat with grapnels and so on, as frequently happened, on the Venetian or Athenian boat the rowers could fight. On all other boats they were chained to their benches. Which is really horrific if you think about it. For the better part of two thousand years the principle mode of travel around the "Civilized" nations of the Mediterranean was via boats rowed by men chained to benches, sitting in their own filth.

The romans invented that boarding ramp Knaight mentioned, during the Punic Wars against Carthage. The main Roman advantage in warfare was their heavy infantry, and Carthage had a better navy, so they made this thing (http://www.rmc.edu/academics/classics/cleoclass/images/corvus.jpg) up to even the odds. Which it did.

Up in northern Europe they also used mostly rowed boats for warfare, and sailboats (Knarr) for cargo. The former did have rams but were not nearly as big as Mediterranean galleys, and their crews were free men, warriors. Most of the fight was done with bows and javelins at first, then hand to hand fighting with the boats lashed together. Vikings had good shock infantry.

When the medieval Cogg showed up, it proved superior to the Viking style longships in battle simple because the freeboard was so high, the guys on the longship couldn't board it, and got showered with arrows and javelins and rocks. By around 1100 AD the Medieval sailing cargo vessel had come to dominate naval warfare in the north, which was good for commerce.

G.

[Knaight]

The romans invented that boarding ramp Knaight mentioned, during the Punic Wars against Carthage. The main Roman advantage in warfare was their heavy infantry, and Carthage had a better navy, so they made this thing (http://www.rmc.edu/academics/classics/cleoclass/images/corvus.jpg) up to even the odds. Which it did.

It really didn't work that well once it was known. Carthage had a much better navy, and that thing isn't exactly difficult to avoid - however the first time the Roman's brought it into the Punic Wars (I want to say the first Punic War, but I don't remember exactly) Carthage had no idea it was coming, and Rome took about fifty ships from surprise. Given that Carthage was no match for Rome on land without their cavalry and/or elephants - and that even with this it took a hired Greek general and later Hannibal to do much against them - and the lack of cavalry forces on their boats, they got slaughtered once the boarding ramp (the name translates roughly to Crow's Beak, which seems to be used for everything) was down. 50 ships represented a significant portion of the Carthaginian navy, and by the next Punic war they had lost naval dominance.

[Matthew]

(I want to say the first Punic War, but I don't remember exactly)

Yes, you remember correctly; it was the first Punic War.

[a_humble_lich]

If I remember correctly, a similar tactic was commonly used in Greece and Persia before Athenian naval dominance. The Athenians discovered that ships that weren't weighed down with marines would be faster and more able to use their rams. It seems the goal in naval combat during the Peloponnesian War was to make you ships as light and fast as possible. For example, they would drag the ships on land when camping at night so that the would would not become waterlogged.

[Hazzardevil]

Alright, new question to vex you, as well as a reply to answers to my question.

Old question:
But a shield made completely of shield, if hit as hard as someone would trying to cut your head off or something, that would dislocate your shoulder wouldn't it?

New question:
How much heavier would bronze armour be compared to steel armour?

[Madeiner]

I don't really think this question qualifies for this thread as it's mostly a physics question, but i'll try anyway.

Suppose you are on top of a moving train going "pretty fast".
On the left side, about 50 meters from the train and perpendicular to it, is a wall with a painted target.

You have to hit it with an arrow. Or a bullet. You are a perfect marksman that is not affected by the train shaking.

You have to fire when you are mostly perpendicular to the target.

Where do you aim you weapon? At the center, a bit to the right, or to the left?

Same question, but the target is on top of a moving train running parallel to your train, about 50 meters to the left. The two trains have the same speed, so the target never moves relative to you. Again you have to hit when you are approximately perpendicular (imagine your train moves into the correct position and waits for your shot)

Might not be a question for this topic, i don't know. Still this question has be buggering my for months... don't know why.

[fusilier]

Ships:

Slaves:
Galleys were never rowed by slaves until the 16th century! Typically, if slaves had to be used, they were granted their freedom as a result (I think Rome did this once or twice in emergencies). Well trained, paid, professional freemen were simply better oarsmen and were more efficient. However, there was a "wage spiral" during the 16th century which made the cost of hiring professional oarsmen too prohibitive for most nations, and "galley slaves" became more common.

In Spanish service the transition was completed some time during the 1550s. The Venetians, only experimented with slave rowed ships, I think they had half-a-dozen at Lepanto -- most of their ships were still rowed by expensive professionals. The Ottomans, used a mixed system of galley slaves, professional oarsmen, and conscripts. The North Africans primarily used slaves, and engaged in a lot of slave raids.

The change from freemen to slaves necessitated a change in the rowing system. In 1500 just about all galleys were rowed in the alla sensile method, where each oarsmen pulled on one oar (although there were still three oarsmen, and three oars, to a bench). This required more skill and experience than you could typically get with slaves, so there was a switch to the alla scallacio method: three or more men pulling on the same oar. In this system, only the inboard man had to be skilled enough to keep the timing, and feather the oar. More men could be added to the oar to increase power, but there were certain limitations. Also there were typically more men in the rowing crew than absolutely necessary -- it allowed fresh men to be rotated into the crew.

Also the term slave is something of a misnomer. Among North African and Ottoman navies they may indeed be actual slaves. However, most "galley slaves" of European navies were actually criminals serving time (and usually not a life sentence). Sometimes they were debtors that elected to serve a few years on galleys.

Loss of Naval Troops:
During the 16th century at least, the loss of experienced naval troops could be difficult, if not impossible to recover from. The reason for this is that they learned their trade in an apprenticeship style, and not in training camps. So the loss of naval gunners, archers, arquebusiers, trained oarsmen, etc., could be very difficult to replace. The ships were usually easier to replace than the crews. The Spanish embarked land troops after the disaster of Djerba, reluctantly, and only out of necessity -- they understood that this was not an ideal situation.

Galley design and ramming:
Ancient galleys were designed with underwater rams to sink enemy ships, but sometime during the middle ages (I still haven't figured out when, probably before or around AD 1000), the underwater ram disappeared. First it required quite a bit of training to pull off the common ramming tactic of the time -- many ancient nations which lacked such training, attempted boarding actions. Romans and the early Athenian navy (battle of Salamis) used boarding tactics. There is also speculation, that a change in ship construction, made ships more resistant to being rammed. Finally, if your purpose is raiding and capturing enemy ships (i.e. pirates) then an underwater ram is counter productive.

Medieval galleys, therefore, had a "spur" or beak, at the front, above the water line, that served as boarding plank. So they would "ram" the enemy ship (typically they attempted to hit the side of the ship), and the spur would pin the two ships together.

Response to the Original Post:
Most medieval style naval combat involved boarding actions. The Galley was the warship of the period (a viking longship is different from a galley, but has many similarities). There were, however, larger merchant galleys, which might be able to outrun a raider if conditions were favorable. Cogs and Hulks, attempted to defend themselves from galleys through height: high sides, and "castles" at the "fore" and "aft" provided fighting platforms to repel boarders. Such ships were too difficult to control to attempt to board other ships (usually), so they were typically just defensive in nature.

A galley, or viking longship, would be a good pirate vessel. If the oarsmen are freemen, they can join in the boarding fight, which can add to the strength of vessel. Galleys were used all over Europe through the 16th century -- but not to the extent that they were used in the Mediterranean. Another benefit of an oared vessel, is it's maneuverability. Galleys can run close to the shore, can move backward, etc. A common defensive galley tactic was to back the ship against a friendly beach. This kept the cannons pointing out to sea (don't know if this tactic was used prior to the introduction of cannons), allowed the rowing crew to be unloaded to protect them, and landside friendly troops can be embarked during a boarding fight, allowing fresh troops to be rotated in.

On the other hand, cogs and hulks, don't handle well enough to be run close to the shores. If you go to a slightly later period, then carracks and caravels would be available. A carrack is a development of the cog, a big unwieldy vessel, relying on height -- easier to handle than a cog, but still not nearly enough to compete with a galley. A caravel, however, is fast and maneuverable, still not on par with galley, but just good enough to be used to attack other ships.

[Storm Bringer]

I don't really think this question qualifies for this thread as it's mostly a physics question, but i'll try anyway.

Suppose you are on top of a moving train going "pretty fast".
On the left side, about 50 meters from the train and perpendicular to it, is a wall with a painted target.

You have to hit it with an arrow. Or a bullet. You are a perfect marksman that is not affected by the train shaking.

You have to fire when you are mostly perpendicular to the target.

Where do you aim you weapon? At the center, a bit to the right, or to the left?

Same question, but the target is on top of a moving train running parallel to your train, about 50 meters to the left. The two trains have the same speed, so the target never moves relative to you. Again you have to hit when you are approximately perpendicular (imagine your train moves into the correct position and waits for your shot)

Might not be a question for this topic, i don't know. Still this question has be buggering my for months... don't know why.


to aim at the first, stationatry target, you would have to aim "behind" or to the left of the target, as your looking at it, if your release point is level with the target. your bullet/arrow is travelling sideways at XMPH, so you need to aim it so that when it's travelled 50m forewards, it's sideways velocity has brought it on target. how much you aim off it a question of how fast your train is moving, and projectile speed. for a target at 50M , you can effectivly ignore your movment with modern guns, as the travel time it too small to have much effect. Arrows you'd need to aim off, though.

For the second target on a train that is moving the same speed, you don't have to adjust aim, as, like you said, the target is not moving relitive to you. your bullet has your sideways velocity, so it moves sideways along with the target.

now, this question is not quite as pointless as it seems, as people have been in a position where they were shooting sideways to thier direction of travel, with enought velocity to matter, and at a target far enough away to need to compensate: namely, Waist Gunners on ww2 bombers, who would be shooting at incoming fighters as they speed along at 300-400MPH. they were often required to shoot "behind" the target in order to compensate for foreward movement.

[Spiryt]

Old question:
But a shield made completely of shield, if hit as hard as someone would trying to cut your head off or something, that would dislocate your shoulder wouldn't it?


Well, not really, why?

If anything, elbow or wrist would be dislocated, and more likely the wrist of the one who performs the strike - that's actually not unlikely, striking non -giving target at bad angle etc. can ruin your wrist pretty 'nicely'.
New question:



How much heavier would bronze armour be compared to steel armour?

Not really possible to answer, one would need to compare actual bronze armors made in some place and time to the steel ones... And that's not easy to do, obviously.

Generally, steels used for armors would have density ~ 7.5 - 7.8 g/m3 while most bronzes would have it at at least ~ 8.3

So it's slightly denser.

[Karoht]

Alright, new question to vex you, as well as a reply to answers to my question.

Old question:
But a shield made completely of shield??? I assume you mean steel or wood.



...if hit as hard as someone would trying to cut your head off or something, that would dislocate your shoulder wouldn't it?I've been fighting with Swords, Axes, Spears, unrealistically heavy hammers, you name it, I've probably been hit with it.
Even when I was up against a fellow who was 7'2" and weighed over 300 lbs, who swung an axe with a haft that might as well have been a tree trunk, my arms were both in perfect working order after my shield absorbed the impact. The only time this wasn't the case was when the corner of my shield managed to hit my collarbone because I was dumb and held the shield too close to my body, and let my arm go loose like a limp noodle.

And before you say "oh Karoht, you're just a reinactor, you guys don't hit full force" let me point out how wrong that is.
Against something like a shield, if the opponent can get the shield in the way in time, you can swing full force against the shield for dramatic effect and impact volumn. We encourage it quite often. Then there are the people who don't fight safely to begin with, and always swing hard regardless of target, thinking that they can pull the blow when they very much can not, or if they hit someone blame the victim for not blocking.

So yes, a shield can mitigate quite a bit of punishment. Lets just say it this way. If a wooden shield can take a wooden lance from a person on horseback at full speed (I've personally witnessed this, blunted lances though), odds are it can take far more force than a person on foot is capable of dishing out.

[Galloglaich]

Ships:

Slaves:
Galleys were never rowed by slaves until the 16th century!

Totally disagree!

Slaves were by far the most common galley rowers from the earliest days of galleys until the very end in the 17th Century. All of the Greek states other than Athens used slave rowers. The Persians used slave rowers. the Romans used slave rowers. The Arabs used slave rowers. The Byzantines used slave rowers. The French used slave rowers. The Normans used slave rowers. The Italians (other than Venice) used slave rowers. The Spanish used slave rowers.



The Ottomans, used a mixed system of galley slaves, professional oarsmen, and conscripts. The North Africans primarily used slaves, and engaged in a lot of slave raids.

What the difference it between a conscript and a slave in this context is beyond me.


Also the term slave is something of a misnomer. Among North African and Ottoman navies they may indeed be actual slaves. However, most "galley slaves" of European navies were actually criminals serving time (and usually not a life sentence). Sometimes they were debtors that elected to serve a few years on galleys.

The Christians used as many Arab slaves as the Arabs used Christians. They may get bought out of their service in prisoner exchanges, if they lived through the experience (which most did not) but they were slaves. Convicts were also slaves, though in some cases you could get out of your conscription after a certain number of years, precious few survived that ordeal. Only high value prisoners usually got ransomed or traded in exchanges anyway, most worked until they died. During the siege of Malta, both the Spanish and Turkish Commanders (la Valette and Dragut) had served as galley slaves and survived it, but they were the exception rather than the rule.

Just to put it in perspective, both Venice and Genoa were major slave traders going back to the 1st Crusade, Genoa controlled the largest slave markets in the Medieval world in Caffa since 1255 until their Crimean towns were taken from them by the Ottomans in 1475. Venice had a huge slave trade made up primarily of slavs from Dalmatia. Spain and Portugal were both major slave traders, in fact the development of the Carrack and opening of the Atlantic came about as a result of Portuguese maritime technology developed to further the slave and gold trade down the African coast.

Of course all the Muslim powers of the Mediterranean: the Crimean and Golden Horde Tartars, the Ottomans, Mameluke Egypt, Algiers, were all also very heavily into the slave trade, in fact you could argue that it was their most important industry.

G

[Galloglaich]

The thing about steel as opposed to earlier metals available for shields such as iron or bronze, is that steel can be made much thinner. We have some steel rotella for our fencing club, about 34" diameter, they really aren't that heavy.

But the technology to make a steel shield of that size really didn't exist until the 1450's at the earliest. You had to have a big bloomery forge to start with. Earlier than that most all-metal shields in Europe were iron bucklers which tended to be quite small. To protect you from high energy missiles like an arquebus an iron or bronze shield would have to be 5-6mm thick, I'm not that good at math but somebody can do the calculations on a 34" shield, I think that would be about 30 or 40 pounds at least. Way to heavy to carry around. A tempered steel shield can get away with maybe 2mm thickness, which would be 1/3 the weight. So the size can go up substantially. Still not to the point of earlier large wooden shields like a Viking roundshield or a hoplon or a Norman kyte shield, but decent sized.

G.

[fusilier]

Totally disagree!

Slaves were by far the most common galley rowers from the earliest days of galleys until the very end in the . . .


G

Perhaps, in merchant galleys, although I've read nothing of the sort. Guilmartin's Gunpowder and Galleys, cleary states that a transition to galley slaves took place during 16th century. Venice bucked the trend longer than most, and the Ottomans used a hybrid system. This would correspond with what my ancient studies professor said, which was basically the idea of galley slaves is the result of late renaissance events. Galleys were used until replaced by steamships. Even some Scandinavian countries had galley fleets during the Napoleonic period. Historians, and certainly Hollywood, simply projected the practices of the late period galleys backward to the ancients. Just as many historians claimed for a long time that the pyramids were built by slaves.

If you have sources to the contrary, I would love to see them. I'm trying to expand my knowledge of medieval galley warfare.

Conscripts are temporarily employed (typically only for large expeditions), they may very well have been paid, and I'm pretty sure that they weren't chained and could fight.

[Matthew]

I have also heard this line of argument before, though I am unfamiliar with the sources. There is a good paper by Norman Housley that detailed the payment for a crusader fleet in the fourteenth century where slaves definitely did not feature (to the best of my recollection), but I forget now where it came from (might have been Venetian). It was published in volume two of The Experience of Crusading (http://books.google.com/books?id=pW8IBBvUxIwC&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q&f=false).

[fusilier]

Actually a quick glance of the wikipedia article on the subject of galley slaves would confirm what I said. Basically they were used only under stress and were often freed. --EDIT-- Until the 16th century.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galley_slave

[Autolykos]

To protect you from high energy missiles like an arquebus an iron or bronze shield would have to be 5-6mm thick, I'm not that good at math but somebody can do the calculations on a 34" shield, I think that would be about 30 or 40 pounds at least.Your guess is pretty good, albeit a little low:
(34"*2.54cm/"/2)²*Pi*0.5cm*7.92g/cm³=23196g=~23kg, or between 40 and 50 pounds.

EDIT: On that train thing: Storm Bringer is right, as long as you ignore air resistance. In the first case you still need to aim behind your target, just not as far (the air resistance will never make your missile go backwards). In the second case you'd have to aim slightly in front of your target. That is assuming the wind speed is slow compared to your train.

[Thiel]

A bit of topic here, but you guys seems to be the ones most likely to give a useful answer.
Anyway, a poster on another forum is looking for a book about life in Italy during the city state period. Specifically:

I've been thinking about asking for a book recommendation for a while and I figured I might as well put this out on the table, so to speak, even if I won't be able to get the books anytime soon.

Ever since playing Assassin's Creed 2 I became interested in the setting. I figured the game couldn't get everything right but because I didn't know any better I was able to be fully immersed. Still, I couldn't help but wonder - did the guards/soldiers really dress that way during that era? Did heralds really cry out in the streets as depicted in the game? I don't think my college library even had a book on life in general in Italy at that time, just books on their art and one or two on their navy.

So what I'm looking for 1) a book that describes life during the Italian city states 1400-15xx and/or 2) a book that describes the army composition, equipment, etc. during that same period.

[Conners]

Here's an odd question (thanks for answering the ship stuff so well), for fun:

Looking through history, from ancient days to today--which (in your opinion) is the ultimate example of great warriors? Spartans would be the popular guess.

Note that this isn't considering equipment. It's fairly obvious that modern equipment has the advantage.

[Galloglaich]

I have also heard this line of argument before, though I am unfamiliar with the sources. There is a good paper by Norman Housley that detailed the payment for a crusader fleet in the fourteenth century where slaves definitely did not feature (to the best of my recollection), but I forget now where it came from (might have been Venetian). It was published in volume two of The Experience of Crusading (http://books.google.com/books?id=pW8IBBvUxIwC&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q&f=false).

Most of the Crusader fleets throughout the Medieval period were manned by the Genoese, Normans or Venetians. The Venetians did not use slaves, the Genoese most certainly did as did the Normans.

I read the wiki and it definitely does support Fusiliers position for the most part, (though prevaricating over the obvious evidence to the contrary during Roman times...) but the wiki is wrong in my opinion. I guess you can spin the same data a couple of ways. I guess is one of those issues you run into in history sometimes which tie into modern politics in some way, and when that is the case the wikipedia pages are snake pits of competing agenda driven arguments, I know from experience to avoid them.

All I can say is that from my rather extensive study of this, all the States I mentioned upthread used galley slaves extensively, it was the use of free rowers which was the exception rather than the rule. I've yet to see any evidence to the contrary. Free rowers did confer considerable miliitary advantages (they rowed faster for one thing, plus they could fight) but few regional Powers were willing to incur the considerable expense for their use, except in rare occasions. Convicts, POW's, and "Conscripts" were all effectively slaves, all were shackled to the bench, and due to the high death rate for galley slaves, their fate was ultimately the same. And all the powers of the Meditteranian were extensive slave powers with well established slave markets from as far back as the Bronze Age until the late "Early Modern" era.

But I don't really care about the matter enough to go find a bunch of research on it to post here. Folks reading the thread can make up their own minds and do their own research, my position is clear enough. I'm just glad I never had to row a galley myself... :smallbiggrin:

G.

[fusilier]

The primary work on the subject is an article called Galley Slaves, by Lionel Casson, from 1966. He points out that there is no solid evidence of slaves being used onboard galleys until the 16th century (as oarsmen that is). There are examples of slaves being granted freedom to row, and Ptolemaic Egypt may have used criminals. There is a lot of evidence of professional oarsmen being hired, and often foreigners. The work is somewhat short and primarily focused on the ancient period, but he does cover the Byzantines and Arabs, and there the situation is the same.

A response to his article called Roman Galley Slaves in the Second Punic War (I think), claims that Roman use of slaves in the Second Punic War was more widespread, even in non-emergencies. The argument is a bit weak, and based primarily off the lack of "surprise" in the written record at slaves being used in galleys. Nevertheless, in every single instance slaves were either freed beforehand or promised their freedom if they behaved well, and the author does not believe chains were used.

Finally, there's the fact that a transition to galley slaves occurred during the 16th century. If the Genoese had been using galley slaves, they would have had to abandon their use at some point (in the 1400s), only to reinstate them during the mid 1500s -- which seems to be a non-sequitur.

--EDIT-- I've already explained how Conscripts were considerably different from POWs or criminals -- for one they were paid! The description of galley slaves seems to come directly from the 16th century and what followed. Such descriptions don't exist prior to that period, but there are records of hiring professionals.

[fusilier]

Most of the Crusader fleets throughout the Medieval period were manned by the Genoese, Normans or Venetians. The Venetians did not use slaves, the Genoese most certainly did as did the Normans.

In Venice, a maritime republic By Frederic Chapin Lane


The galley fleets of the medieval republics of Venice, Genoa, and Pisa were not rowed by slaves. Rowing and fighting were combined assignments of citizens obligated to military service because of their citizenship or of men freely hired for wages. Medieval pirates used captives as galley slaves, on occasion, to be sure, but the harrowing accounts of oarsmen chained and flogged come mainly from the seventeenth century.

However, I'm not finding his sources for this comment. Another thing, even though these states may have been involved in the slave trade, there's little evidence of chattel slaves being used in them during the medieval period. Nothing like the large scale slavery that ancient Rome had, or the antebellum American south.

[Yora]

What was the point of sticking two single-engine fighter aircraft together to make twin fuselage planes in late world war 2? You had double the engine power and fuel, but also almost double the weight and less than double the wing area.
How were they a benefit compared to just building two fighters?

[Storm Bringer]

What was the point of sticking two single-engine fighter aircraft together to make twin fuselage planes in late world war 2? You had double the engine power and fuel, but also almost double the weight and less than double the wing area.
How were they a benefit compared to just building two fighters?

pilot endurance.

esstianlly, a twin plane config allowed one pilot to rest while the other flew. this was needed on the very long range, long duration bombing sorties (bomber crews already had two pilots, so they could afford to let one rest).

part of the problem was that WW2 fighters required constant attention to fly, unlike later craft, and needed a modicum of physical strenght to pilot, to pull the manually powered control surfaces (the joystick was attacked to the flags and such via cables, so manuvers at high speed were hard on the body, as you need to put great deal of strenght into the joystick to make the craft do what you wanted). thus, the need for two pilots, as they would get mentally and physically tired faster than a veitnam jet pilot or a modern fighter jockey (espcailly with modern auto-pilots).

[fusilier]

What was the point of sticking two single-engine fighter aircraft together to make twin fuselage planes in late world war 2? You had double the engine power and fuel, but also almost double the weight and less than double the wing area.
How were they a benefit compared to just building two fighters?

Well, the stats for the F-82 twin mustang shows a significantly greater range, and faster top speed than a P-51. Likewise the Messerschmitt 109Z (two 109F's), was projected for use as a heavy fighter, or bomber. Some weight is saved in the design, and the lifting capacity is increased (even if the weight of the plane was double, it should also have at least double the lifting capacity).

The F-82 weighed less than twice as much as a P-51, but had twice the max-take off weight.

I think Storm Bringer has a good point, although some autopilots were in place on fighters during the period. The Messerschmitt 109 Z only had one pilot (the other cockpit being removed), although it never flew.

One of the other benefits is that it's an easy way to make a larger plane, from existing pieces and parts -- meaning less retooling. Although it probably produced something not as good a newly designed larger aircraft.

[Galloglaich]

even though these states may have been involved in the slave trade, there's little evidence of chattel slaves being used in them during the medieval period. Nothing like the large scale slavery that ancient Rome had, or the antebellum American south.

That just blows my mind that you said that. Are you serious? What do you think a Latifundia is? Genoa wasn't "involved in the slave trade", they ran the biggest slave market in the history of the world... (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feodosiya#Caffa) until the Portuguese got the African Slave trade going. Venice alternated control of the Crimean slave market with Genoa, in addition to their massive slave trade in the Balkans. Almost all their operations in Dalmatia were run on slave labor and slave concubines were common property throughout Italy and were openly traded in markets in Venice and Genoa among other cities. Spain and Portugal made vast numbers of muslim captives and (nominal) converts in Southern Iberian peninsula into slaves (both galley slaves and serfs i.e. regular farmer slaves like in the antebellum South). This was the basis of all the large estates in southern Spain.

Slavery was widespread throughout Europe in the Middle Ages (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_medieval_Europe), in fact the places which banned slavery, such as Bologna in the 13th Century with the passage of the famous Legge Del Paradisio (http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=it&u=http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liber_Paradisus&ei=CWVcTrOlI-OgsQKcyMku&sa=X&oi=translate&ct=result&resnum=1&sqi=2&ved=0CCIQ7gEwAA&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dlegge%2Bdel%2Bparadiso%26hl%3Den%26sa fe%3Doff%26biw%3D1280%26bih%3D915%26prmd%3Divns) were by far the exception rather than the rule. There were huge slave markets in the Crusader kingdoms, notably at Acre.

Both Muslim and Russian Orthodox or Pagan Eastern European slaves were used as slaves in Italy on a massive scale and all throughout the Mediterranean, just to cite one quote from the wiki: "Between 1414 and 1423, at least 10,000 eastern European slaves were sold in Venice" alone. They were put to work in lead, gold and salt mines, in quarries, on massive farms called Latifundia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latifundium#Europe) which in some places (Sicily for example) remained in use until the 20th Century, and on other industrial operations such as the massive shipyards of the Venetian Arsenal. In theory (Catholic) Christians could not be used as slaves but they got around this by converting an endless stream of free commoners into Convicts. By the mid 15th Century of course they began to get into the African slave trade.

In almost all of the large scale industrial uses slaves were put to such as mines, quarries, and Latifundia (such as the early sugar plantations in Cyprus and later in Maderia), the mortality rate was extremely high, and the labor back breaking. From the wiki on the history of sugar (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_sugar#Cane_sugar_in_the_Muslim_World_an d_Europe):

The crucial problem with sugar production was that it was highly labour-intensive in both growing and processing. Because of the huge weight and bulk of the raw cane it was very costly to transport, especially by land, and therefore each estate had to have its own factory. There the cane had to be crushed to extract the juices, which were boiled to concentrate them, in a series of backbreaking and intensive operations lasting many hours. However, once it had been processed and concentrated, the sugar had a very high value for its bulk and could be traded over long distances by ship at a considerable profit. The [European sugar] industry only began on a major scale after the loss of the Levant to a resurgent Islam and the shift of production to Cyprus under a mixture of Crusader aristocrats and Venetian merchants. The local population on Cyprus spent most of their time growing their own food and few would work on the sugar estates. The owners therefore brought in slaves from the Black Sea area (and a few from Africa) to do most of the work.

Nor was this restricted to the Christian side by any means. The industrial (and sexual) use of slaves in the Muslim world was on a much larger scale than in Europe. The North African Barbary Pirates used massive numbers of European slaves well into the 19th Century including to row all their galleys. The Ottomans and Egyptians almost as long and also made extensive use of galley slaves obviously.

The Byzantines of course were if anything more voracious in their appetite for slaves than the Muslims were. They had the biggest demand and paid the highest prices until being eclipsed by the Ottomans.

Like I said, I guess it's important for some people to think of the past differently, but this is the harsh reality.


G.

[fusilier]

Slavery from Roman times to the early transatlantic trade
By William D. Phillips

http://books.google.com/books?id=0B8NAQAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

This book may be illuminating in the debate, the full version is not available on google books, but I can check out a copy at my (former) university's library, when I get the chance.

I'm just going to quote a few things, that I've caught skimming the book:

It looks like the Byzantines basically continued the old Roman forms of slavery, however:

Byzantine slavery did decline over the course of the Middle Ages, and the conditions that slaves lived under gradually improved.

An overview of slavery after the fall of Rome.

In the seven hundred years between the fifth century and the twelfth, the history of slavery in western Europe shows a continuing transformation of rural slavery and the replacement of rural slaves by a dependent peasantry. In short, it is the story of how serfdom gradually supplanted slavery. The transformation was never total, and we will see that Europeans held slaves long after 1100, but the vast majority of slaves who remained were not agricultural workers. Rather, they were domestics or artisans or the assistants of artisans. Consequently, the medieval West was not a slave society.

As sugar was mentioned here are a couple of quotes concerning sugar production in the mediterranean(pg.95):

Although some slaves were used in the Cypriot sugar production, especially on the royal estates, the bulk of the labor was nonslave and included Greek and Syrian immigrants . . .
(pg. 97)

Most labor for the Mediterranean sugar industry -- on both the Christian and Muslim sides of the sea -- was free. Although here and there some slaves may have been used, they were unusual. The close identification of sugar cane and slave labor came later, in the lands of the Atlantic.

Concerning Italy from 11th to 15th century (pg. 97):

In the late eleventh century, when the Normans conquered southern Italy, they often enslaved members of the defeated population, but this was an atypical situation. Wars in the Italian peninsula only rarely ended with enslavement of the defeated.

(pg. 106)

The existence of slavery in Renaissance Italy was pervasive . . . Yet as dramatic and well documented as their presence was, it was not important in a statistical sense.

Summary (emphasis added) (pg. 106)

Within Europe in the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance, slavery was never crucial for social or economic development, and it was not practiced on any great scale in Europe proper. Rather it was Europe's colonial areas -- first the Atlantic islands and then the Americas -- that would witness the rise of slavery to heights it had not reached since the end of the Roman empire.

This book actually looks quite interesting. I've often wondered how the transition from the Roman Empire slavery to serfdom took place, and it looks like this book will explain that.

Anyway -- I know that slavery existed during the Middle Ages, and did not mean to imply otherwise. It was the level and scale of slavery that differed so much from the Roman Empire.

[Autolykos]

What was the point of sticking two single-engine fighter aircraft together to make twin fuselage planes in late world war 2? You had double the engine power and fuel, but also almost double the weight and less than double the wing area.
How were they a benefit compared to just building two fighters?In addition to what was said above, taping two aircrafts together does not double their drag (which is what limits their top speed and uses most of the fuel) - depending on the construction, the drag might only be slightly larger than for a single plane (that is basically the reason why drafting works - the two cars now share their drag). Of course, it doesn't work quite as well for two planes beside each other, but a lot of drag is generated by turbulence on the edges (and a lot of effort is still invested to reduce this; it's the main reason to add winglets to modern airplanes) - and you now have two edges less.

[Karoht]

@Slavery
Wow, I didn't know that about Genoa. And I'm going to read the history of sugar right now.

@Planes
Fun fact. The big bombers had a v28 engine driving each propeller. They literally pushed the upper limits of what a propeller driven craft could do, until the invention of jet engine aircraft.

[Yora]

Didn't aircraft use radial engines?

[fusilier]

Didn't aircraft use radial engines?

Most of the bombers did, although German and British bombers often had inline engines. I believe the 28 cylinder engine, like those used on the B-36 where radial.

[Avilan the Grey]

Didn't aircraft use radial engines?

Not really; they were far more common before WWI, and were replaced by rotary engines during WWI. After WWI that too, was obsolete.

In WWII, everyone used straight or V engines.

[fusilier]

Not really; they were far more common before WWI, and were replaced by rotary engines during WWI. After WWI that too, was obsolete.

In WWII, everyone used straight or V engines.

That's not true:

US:
P-47
F4F Wildcat
F6F Hellcat
F4U Corsair
Dauntless SBD
Grumman TBF Avenger
B-17
B-24
B-25
B-26
(every American Bomber of WW2).

The Germans and British used them rarely, but they weren't unheard of. The Focke-Wulf FW-190 (prior to the D model). The Wellington and Halifax bombers in Britain. All Italian aircraft used radial engines at the beginning of the war, and their bombers used them throughout (most famous being the SM.79, but also the Piaggio P.108). The Russian La-5 and La-7 fighters used radial engines. Finally, Japan almost never used inline engines in their aircraft (they did use them on the Ki-61 fighter, that being the only example I can think of off the top of my head).

[Karoht]

For reference my source on that was the discovery channel show "Weaponology" and the episode about bombers. They showed the guy standing next to one of these behemoths, he was about 5'9" and the engine was 1.5x-2x his height. And easily that big wide, and 2x-4x as long. I could see bearings in it the size of baseballs. The engine was HUGE. It really put the scale of the rest of the plane into clearer perspective.

Maybe it was a radial engine, I just remember hearing V28 at some point.

I might be mis-remembering the dimentions, but it was definately in refernce to a WW2 plane. Namely a massive bomber. That much I recall for sure.

[Daosus]

Saying stuff like "everyone did this" is dangerous.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_P-47_Thunderbolt

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitsubishi_A6M_Zero

Basically, any aircraft where you can see that rounded, bulky engine cowling likely had a radial engine. The high-altitude fighters like the P-51, the Spitfire, and the ME109 had liquid cooled inline engines.

[Avilan the Grey]

Saying stuff like "everyone did this" is dangerous.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_P-47_Thunderbolt

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitsubishi_A6M_Zero

Basically, any aircraft where you can see that rounded, bulky engine cowling likely had a radial engine. The high-altitude fighters like the P-51, the Spitfire, and the ME109 had liquid cooled inline engines.

True. they were cheaper and reliable. Not bad, unless you needed the high performance.

[fusilier]

True. they were cheaper and reliable. Not bad, unless you needed the high performance.

The P-47 had an intercooled turbo-charger, and I've never heard anything about it being "low performance" or "low altitude" aircraft. The F4U Corsair had the same engine, but with a supercharger.

I don't understand what you are saying? Germany and Britain generally avoided the use of radial engines. Among other nations there were plenty of high-performance late-war aircraft that used radial engines. F4U had a considerable postwar career being used through the Korean War. According to the wikipedia article, the P-47: "was very effective in high-altitude air-to-air combat." American "high-altitude" bombers all used radial engines, even in the mammoth postwar B-36.

[Yora]

Question: What is the proper strategic use of fortresses and keeps? Let's say in medieval environments (with siege weapons, but no guns).

Fotifying cities or building fortresses to house the population of the nearby villages seems straightforward enough. You close the doors and hope your enemies return home before your food runs out.
But I think for example in southern germany, kings build large numbers of fortresses along the border to secure control over their land or annexed areas.
How does that work? If you hole up inside, the enemy soldiers can just walk around and be on their way, but if you just want guardposts, why bother with building keeps?

[Spiryt]

You can see a lot of area from towers, you can store men, horses, arms, food in large quantities inside.

You can return with captives and held them in the tower/dungeon, and go back for more, you can coordinate your scouts/ raiding groups....

Basically, even relatively small keep is great bas for military operations.

And obviously you have quite dramatic advantage against anyone who would choose to fight you if you're inside.

[Yora]

And how do you efficiently pick the locations for such keeps? You can't cover the whole border.

[Spiryt]

And how do you efficiently pick the locations for such keeps? You can't cover the whole border.

I've seen quite a few castles, and largest possible hills in area are generally good choice.

In Czech/Slovakia there's ton of castles that were peeking on trade roads from close hills and mountains - great way to control the trade route for more or... less lawful actions.

Of course, branches, isles and similar stuff next to large rivers are also good choice, especially in more flat lands.

Monumental fortress in Malbork is build next to the Nogat river.

http://www.atlas.pl/images/malbork-zamek-rzeka-nogat.jpg

Here one can control movement on the river, and of course it also provides huge troubles for potential attackers.

[Karoht]

Question: What is the proper strategic use of fortresses and keeps? Let's say in medieval environments (with siege weapons, but no guns).

Fotifying cities or building fortresses to house the population of the nearby villages seems straightforward enough. You close the doors and hope your enemies return home before your food runs out.
But I think for example in southern germany, kings build large numbers of fortresses along the border to secure control over their land or annexed areas.
How does that work? If you hole up inside, the enemy soldiers can just walk around and be on their way, but if you just want guardposts, why bother with building keeps?Why build police stations if you can just have all the cops on bikes and squad cars? It's very similar logic. Centralization of power = iconography, presence, and deterrance.

Remember also that many keeps housed a chapel, which locals would also use from time to time, if there was not an established church.

Think of a keep less like a fortification and more like a town hall, and it begins to make much more sense.

Not a singular explanation, but definately a contributing factor.

Bear in mind also that simply bipassing such fortifications means that you now leave enemy forces at your back. You are now that much more vulnerable to sneak attack, ambush, flanking, having supply lines and communication cut off, etc.

[Matthew]

One significant use of fortresses is that you can keep securely there the sinews of war (and family members, of course, amongst other things) with a relatively small garrison.

[Daosus]

A keep is a location that is easy to defend. The garrison is difficult to contain (it's easy to sally out). This combination means that if you leave a keep behind you on your march, the defenders can destroy your supply line. Keeps often also housed depots, which meant that your own army could use them to supply on the way to the enemy. This basically means the invading army can't ignore the keep. It can either besiege it, slowing its momentum, giving warning to the defender and exposing itself to counterattack, or it can invest it and move on, which will cost manpower. Most armies can only invest one keep, so it's often not even an option. The last option is to attack it, but that's likely to destroy your army on the borders.

The way you decide the best location is: find places you want to protect, and place a keep next to them. Find likely routes of invasion, and place a keep next to them.

[Traab]

Castles and keeps were more than just a place to run and hide in and hope the attackers got bored and left, they were a potent offensive weapon as well. Say France invades England. The bordering lands have the english forces retreat behind their walls. "So what?" you might be thinking, so this. Now the french HAVE to either take the castles, or leave enough troops there to keep them from breaking out. If they dont, then they will be hamstrung by the english troops that are now behind their lines.

If the french just go right past them and keep on marching to the capitol, the english troops will stage attacks and ambushes on the french supply lines and reinforcements while the bulk of the french army is off trying to find an english army to attack. Its suicide. And if they DO leave troops behind to keep the english penned in, it has to be a substantial amount, which means their main force was just greatly weakened. And if they try to take the castles? That give the english king time to prepare and form up his big army and smash into the french troops.

[fusilier]

One significant use of fortresses is that you can keep securely there the sinews of war (and family members, of course, amongst other things) with a relatively small garrison.

Yeah, a secure "base of operations" I think is the intention of a border castle. Troops can be sent out of the castle to gather taxes, patrol the land, repel invaders. If the enemy decides to attack in force, then the castle must be invested. And a surprisingly small force can hold off a much larger army. If it's along a supply route, and the enemy attempts to ignore it, forces can sally out of the castle, attacking supply trains, or attacking small bands of the enemy (if they are living off the land, they will have to break up into smaller groups).

I think that's the logic behind a border fortress.

[Xefas]

I caught part of either the second or third Pirates of the Caribbean movie recently, one scene of which had the Flying Dutchman firing guns mounted on the front of the ship. It seemed odd to me, as I can't seem to recall ever seeing a depiction of a ship firing its cannons not from the side.

Is there a particular structural or tactical reason guns weren't mounted on the front or rear of a ship? Or were they, and I'm just terribly uneducated about naval vessels?

[Hawkfrost000]

I caught part of either the second or third Pirates of the Caribbean movie recently, one scene of which had the Flying Dutchman firing guns mounted on the front of the ship. It seemed odd to me, as I can't seem to recall ever seeing a depiction of a ship firing its cannons not from the side.

Is there a particular structural or tactical reason guns weren't mounted on the front or rear of a ship? Or were they, and I'm just terribly uneducated about naval vessels?

I'm no expert but IIRC then cannons were not mounted on the front (at least) because there was a bunch of stuff, namely several jib sails, taking up space at front. I have been on a sailing ship before, there was a lot of stuff at the front, ropes, sails etc. Not to mention that the sails can billow out and obscure one of the cannons.

Not sure about the back though. Probably because there was usually a sail there that moved back and forth, interfering with (and possibly hitting) gunning crews.

DM

[Hades]

What you are looking for are chase guns (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chase_gun) (not the best wiki article ever, but it gives a general overview) - I believe the relative lack of such guns has to do with space, as Darius Macab suggests, but someone else may have more information or a better link.

[Eldan]

This was very informally told to me over lunch break by a friend who studies history, but:

Guns on the front where also rarely used because the openings for guns (sorry, I really, really don't know English naval terminology) were potential points where water could leak in. The bow of the ship would, in rough weather, be almost submerged by waves, and any hole there would be pretty much a leak.

(I'm not even sure if that guy knows what he's talking about, really).

[Yora]

I don't think making almost watertight latches would have been much of a problem, and you'd only need two or so of them.
There would be some leaking, but in a storm, water on the deck would be a much more serious problem.

[Storm Bringer]

I caught part of either the second or third Pirates of the Caribbean movie recently, one scene of which had the Flying Dutchman firing guns mounted on the front of the ship. It seemed odd to me, as I can't seem to recall ever seeing a depiction of a ship firing its cannons not from the side.

Is there a particular structural or tactical reason guns weren't mounted on the front or rear of a ship? Or were they, and I'm just terribly uneducated about naval vessels?

more the latter than the former.

as said, the major reasons for not mounting guns on the bow was a lack of space due to cluttered arcs and limited real estate, and worries about sructural weaknesses caused by gun ports.

another reason is that ships of the time were built with their major structural beams running, like a ribcage, left to right across the ship. this meant that a cannon fireing out the broadsides could be secured onto the ships main structural beams, and these could absorb the recoil. however, a cannon fireing foreward couldn't be secured to the ribs, meaning they had to be lighter than the main guns, or else they'd rip their lashing clean off the hull and cause havoc (theris a reason we say a person is a "loose cannon")

[Eldan]

Hmm. I think I've seen depictions of cannons on deck. What where they fastened to? The railings certainly don't look that sturdy.

[Yora]

Now that sounds like a really sensible reason to me.

Just take a look at this picture:
http://www.naval-technology.com/projects/landsort/images/landsort5.jpg

The beams at the tip are really close together and you wouldn't want to cut any holes in tem. Cramming a gun in there would be quite difficult, and opperating one even more so.
I suppose one could put two guns above the deck, but with the bow constantly moving up and down, the precision of 17th century canons, and the other ship showing a very small silhouette, I guess it would be hard to do any real damage.

[Deadmeat.GW]

They were very often very light guns, anytime they were heavy guns they also had a lot more rooping to keep them in place causing even more of a space issue on the bow of the ship.

[Raum]

Is there a particular structural or tactical reason guns weren't mounted on the front or rear of a ship? Or were they, and I'm just terribly uneducated about naval vessels?Warships typically had a few bow and stern guns - sometimes a single heavy cannon and other times a small number of lighter cannon. As others have mentioned, the primary functional reason for this is space. There wasn't a structural issue on purpose built warships - converted merchantmen are another issue.

Tactically, you never wanted to point your bow at an enemy's broadside. Doing so would allow his broadside to rake the entire length of your ship. Mistakes (or engineered situations*) like this cost battles. This means the guns are typically only used in a chase - hence the term "chase guns".

*See Nelson's tactics at Trafalgar. The French and Spanish inexperience allowed Nelson to "cross the T" of large portions of their fleet.

Interesting bit of trivia - this is completely opposite of the tactics during the heydays of Mediterranean galleys. Galleys were unable to put cannon on the sides due to the need for rowers and were limited to bow and stern guns.

For more information on the early US Navy during the days of sail and cannon, I highly recommend Six Frigates (http://www.amazon.com/Six-Frigates-Epic-History-Founding/dp/039333032X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1314968439&sr=1-1) by Ian W. Toll.

[Traab]

But that doesnt seem to make sense. If im pointed straight at your broadside, yes, you have all those cannons that can fire at me, but im also providing a MUCH narrower target. Id have to say the biggest danger to me is losing my sails, the actual body of my ship would be far less likely to be hit. Of course the downside to that is I only have a couple of cannons I can use while you are firing 20 at me. :p

[DrewID]

But that doesnt seem to make sense. If im pointed straight at your broadside, yes, you have all those cannons that can fire at me, but im also providing a MUCH narrower target. Id have to say the biggest danger to me is losing my sails, the actual body of my ship would be far less likely to be hit. Of course the downside to that is I only have a couple of cannons I can use while you are firing 20 at me. :p

But you are also a comparatively stationary target (from the gun's point of view), which probably compensates for the smaller target presented.

DrewID

[Thiel]

Hmm. I think I've seen depictions of cannons on deck. What where they fastened to? The railings certainly don't look that sturdy.

They're secured to the rail brace/bulwark stanchion.* These are, contrary to popular belief, not part of the frames,** but pieces of wood of the same dimensions that was attached to the upper end of the frames. This made them somewhat weaker, but a whole lot easier to repair/replace.

*Two words for the same thing
**The correct name for the ships ribs.

[Raum]

But that doesnt seem to make sense. If im pointed straight at your broadside, yes, you have all those cannons that can fire at me, but im also providing a MUCH narrower target. Id have to say the biggest danger to me is losing my sails, the actual body of my ship would be far less likely to be hit. Of course the downside to that is I only have a couple of cannons I can use while you are firing 20 at me. :p
Remember the weapons of the time - typically solid shot though chain, bar, and canister were used depending on situation and target. At close range, solid shot often goes entirely through both sides of a ship. Chain, bar, and canister are likely to go the length of a deck. Either way, they'll go through more people (canister), sails (chain & bar), or ship structure (solid shot) when fired the length of a ship than they will when fired across it.

Add the sheer number of cannon in a broadside (about 15 to 20 for a frigate) against a much more limited bow or stern armament and you have a recipe for disaster. Or for an easy win...depending on which side you're on.

Targeting wasn't much of a problem for a professional navy. What really made a difference was rate of fire. That's something the British navy prided themselves on...and practiced. A good gun crew was essential.

[Xefas]

Well, thank you all for satisfying my curiosity. :smallsmile:

[fusilier]

I know that when heavy cannons were first fitted to carracks they were typically placed at the stern, as "sternchasers" -- this was for purposes of stability, and also probably indicated their defensive role (warding off a pursuing galley). I think that once guns started to be used all over the ship that the sternchasers were typically still big cannons (the heaviest that the ship carried). But I'm not sure about the bowchasers. For some reason I think they tended to be lighter. Does anyone know?

[Yora]

I would say again, that at the stern, you have a lot of room, while the bow is very tight and cluttered.

[Karoht]

On that same note, you see in Pirates, a small cannon (or large gun?) on a pintle mount of some sort. Admittedly, it's in one scene in the first film when the black pearl boards the interceptor. It's on screen for maybe 1/4 to 1/2 a second.
Now, it's Hollywood, and I always saw that and thought, 'that has to have WAY too much recoil to be factual' but at the same time I also recall seeing a few drawings with something of that sort somewhere.

So, plausible? factual? BS?

[Yora]

Given that pirates would sometimes have to chase another ship for hours or even days to get close enough to board, putting even just a couple of small holes in the fleeing ships sails would be quite an advantage. Each hole reduces speed a bit, and you can't fix it while fleeing at full speed.
You wouldn't need the big guns to do that.

[a_humble_lich]

On that same note, you see in Pirates, a small cannon (or large gun?) on a pintle mount of some sort. Admittedly, it's in one scene in the first film when the black pearl boards the interceptor. It's on screen for maybe 1/4 to 1/2 a second.
Now, it's Hollywood, and I always saw that and thought, 'that has to have WAY too much recoil to be factual' but at the same time I also recall seeing a few drawings with something of that sort somewhere.

So, plausible? factual? BS?

From what I've seen, "swivel guns" would be commonly used, at least durring the American Revolution. These would be small cannons of about 1.5 inch to 1.75 inch bore that would be mounted on an oar-like support directly on the deck rails. My book says they would even be placed on the crows nest.

[Eldan]

I'm reasonably sure I've heard of swivel guns in the 17th century too, so they were around back then already.

[fusilier]

I'm reasonably sure I've heard of swivel guns in the 17th century too, so they were around back then already.

Swivel guns are pretty old, and could be the majority of cannons that an early cannon armed ship would have. The were useful in a boarding fight. In the sixteenth century they were more often breechloading.

4th picture down on this webpage:
http://www.angelfire.com/ga4/guilmartin.com/Weapons.html


As far as recoil is concerned, obviously a stout timber was sufficient. Some of the earliest bombards, which could be quite large, when used on galleys appear to be just attached directly to the deck, with no allowance for recoil whatsoever. Securely attaching it to a solid part of the frame, seemed to be sufficient, but may have been abusive to the hull. Later on the heavier guns, at least, had a sliding box carriage.

http://www.angelfire.com/ga4/guilmartin.com/Appendix6.html

[Storm Bringer]

But that doesnt seem to make sense. If im pointed straight at your broadside, yes, you have all those cannons that can fire at me, but im also providing a MUCH narrower target. Id have to say the biggest danger to me is losing my sails, the actual body of my ship would be far less likely to be hit. Of course the downside to that is I only have a couple of cannons I can use while you are firing 20 at me. :p

Another thing, not mentioned yet, was that since warships hulls were were built to enguage a enemy to their boardside, this ment that they were armoured * to take hits to the boardside. thus, thier bows and sterns were much weaker, relative to the thicker planks on the boardside. a shot that might not pierce the broadside might well go the whole length of the ship, breaking though both bow and stern, while causing untold damage along the way the rows of gunners and cannon on the boardsides.


* "armoured" is a relative term here. in practice, I mean that several layers of stout oak was used, rather than iorn armour, which didn't appear on a warship until HMS warrior in the mid 19th century.



On that same note, you see in Pirates, a small cannon (or large gun?) on a pintle mount of some sort. Admittedly, it's in one scene in the first film when the black pearl boards the interceptor. It's on screen for maybe 1/4 to 1/2 a second.
Now, it's Hollywood, and I always saw that and thought, 'that has to have WAY too much recoil to be factual' but at the same time I also recall seeing a few drawings with something of that sort somewhere.

So, plausible? factual? BS?

as said, a swivel gun (as it is called) was quite real, and used to fire canister rounds into the decks of a boarding ship (canister= shotgun round with musket ball sized balls. "grapeshot" was a larger type only really used by naval cannon, with much bigger balls to punch though hulls and wound/kill gunners).

your right the recoil would be too much to fire form the shoulder (hence the use of swivel mounts, and the name swivel guns)

another factor to consider, and one that is not often mentioned, is that larger warships had considerably more firepower, mesured in terms of weight of shot, than simply counting the guns would suggest. larger Ships of the Line not only mounted more guns than a smaller ship, but heavier guns as well. A light frigate might mount, say, 24 6-pounder cannon, while a heavy frigate*, might mount 34 cannon, but be armed with 12-pounders, or, later on, 18 or even 24-pounder cannon, so it might easily have 4 or 5 times the boardside weight of a lighter ship. Ships of the Line often mounted 32 pndr cannon, so the disparity was even higher. In this age of "polite" warfare, their was an unspoken convention that a Ship of the Line would not fire upon a lighter enemy ship unless fired upon first, which generally resulted in the lighter ship reduced to a hulk in short order (small ships tended to stay clear of a Line of Battle anyway, acting as signal relays for the commanding admiral.


*""Frigate" covered ships that would now be called "Cruisers", in terms of size and role (long range, independant action, medium size ships.). "Destroyer" was a 19th century term, shortened form "Torpedo Boat Destoryer"

[Yora]

From what I've read about praising the accomplisment of crossing the T, targeting a ship from the bow or stern doesn't seem like something that difficult.
Think of it: When the gunner is looking along the barel of his canon, firing it the moment it is lined up with the other ship is not that dificult. Firing too early or too late would not be that much of a problem.
But aiming too high or too low would probably be a much easier mistake to make. How do you judge how high you have to raise the muzzle? In such a situation, just aim a bit higher to be safe and a shot that would have gone just over the deck at a broadside might still impact on the far end of the target. Also, being able to fire a broadside also means exposing yourself to an enemy broadside as well. Having a clear shot while your enemy is unable to fire almost any of the guns is really nice.

[Mike_G]

But aiming too high or too low would probably be a much easier mistake to make. How do you judge how high you have to raise the muzzle? In such a situation, just aim a bit higher to be safe and a shot that would have gone just over the deck at a broadside might still impact on the far end of the target. Also, being able to fire a broadside also means exposing yourself to an enemy broadside as well. Having a clear shot while your enemy is unable to fire almost any of the guns is really nice.

Training.

Also, broadside were generally delivered at fairly close range, so elevation is less of an issue. There are accounts of ships getting tangled in one another's rigging during an exchange of broadsides.

Elevation matters a lot at long range, but close up, just point and shoot.

[fusilier]

* "armoured" is a relative term here. in practice, I mean that several layers of stout oak was used, rather than iorn armour, which didn't appear on a warship until HMS warrior in the mid 19th century.

Only an Englishman would say this -- everybody else knows that the first ironclad warship was the French Gloire of 1859. ;-) The French had also made and used several Ironclad "floating batteries" during the Crimean War to attack Russian fortresses.

Concerning crossing the T:

When something similar happens on land it is called "enfilade" fire. You would think that a line of infantry two or three men deep would be very difficult target for a cannon to hit if firing on its flank. However, the key point, if there's a battery of cannon, one enfilading shot hitting the target will be so much more devastating than one hitting perpendicular to the line. Even if the shot isn't perfectly on the flank, and crosses the line at an angle, it will do so much more damage, it will more than make up for any number of misses. I imagine something similar would happen at sea.

Also, crossing the T, is a very safe maneuver, only the lead enemy ship can fire back, using only its bowchasers. Again, even if you don't hit the enemy with as many shots as you would like, your fleet is virtually risk free if the maneuver is successful.

[fusilier]

Training.

Also, broadside were generally delivered at fairly close range, so elevation is less of an issue. There are accounts of ships getting tangled in one another's rigging during an exchange of broadsides.

Elevation matters a lot at long range, but close up, just point and shoot.

Remember at this time, elevation can be tricky to pull off correctly, as the ship will be rolling from side to side with the waves. The ignition system on many of these cannons could be slow and inconsistent further complicating the problem. Another reason close range would be preferred.

[Thiel]

Wooden ships and chase armament
The chase guns were restricted in size and number for a couple of reasons

Space. The Fo'c'sle was (And is) a very crowded place. Depending on the era you've got crane beams and other assorted equipment for the anchor, halyards and downhauls for as many as seven different sails, swivel guns, broadside guns and angry marines. Space was somewhat less restricted on the quarterdeck/sterncastle.
Buoyancy. The bow of a sailingship is a lot finer than the rather more full hull found amidships. That means there's less buoyancy to go around. Combine this with the all the necessary gear that's hanging of the bow (Bowsprit, jibbooms, sails, anchors etc.) and you end up with precious little reserve buoyancy of which little can be spared for guns. At the time all major warships had flat sterns, resulting in a much fuller hull which in turn would allow more and/or heavier guns to be carried.
Structural strength. Unlike broadside guns, chase guns fire perpendicular to the frames. In order to withstand the recoil the they have to be reinforced, which means that weight goes up and buoyancy goes down.
Structural strength is also the reason why chase guns are restricted to the top of the fo'c'sle. The forces involved are simply too great to go cutting holes in the bow. This isn't the case in the stern and though it doesn't seem to have been often, stern-chasers were sometimes carried on two decks.


Raking fire
First I'd like to point out that armouring at the time were a result of the increasing need for structural strength, rather than an attempt at bulletproofing. Due to the stresses involved the bows weren't build any lighter than the rest of the ship. The stern, however, was and this is why getting stern raked was worse than getting raked from to bow. The combination of heavy timber and the oblique angle the shot would hit them at meant that the battery deck was fairly well protected from a bow raking, however the weather deck and rigging was just as exposed as ever meaning that it was still a very bad thing.
The ships stern on the other hand was lighter build than the ships sides, largely unsupported across the ships beam and completely flat. Since ships at the time didn't have any transverse bulkheads, only light screens, there was nothing to stop a ball once it had penetrated the stern.

[Matthew]

Interesting new series on Channel Four: Back From the Dead (http://www.channel4.com/programmes/back-from-the-dead/). Will it be good or bad? Guess we will have to wait and see! :smallbiggrin:

[Yora]

Now this is a highly fascinating subject. But TV shows like exiting stories, not lab reports.
Could be really cool, or as awful as Deadliest Warrior.

[Avilan the Grey]

Question: What is the proper strategic use of fortresses and keeps? Let's say in medieval environments (with siege weapons, but no guns).

Fotifying cities or building fortresses to house the population of the nearby villages seems straightforward enough. You close the doors and hope your enemies return home before your food runs out.
But I think for example in southern germany, kings build large numbers of fortresses along the border to secure control over their land or annexed areas.
How does that work? If you hole up inside, the enemy soldiers can just walk around and be on their way, but if you just want guardposts, why bother with building keeps?

Keeps work as key points.

You HAVE to take them, because if you bypass them into the land, the holder of the keeps can hit you in the back, or even maybe send punishing expeditions into your territory. Each fortification controls a large area of land around it because of this reason; if you don't take it out, you will never be able to hold your conquest.

You have to remember that the wast majority of battles fought back then were not the glorious ones. They were either sieges, skirmishes or plundering raids against civilians on enemy territory (or your own, if you got desperate). Meeting head on on the battle field was every sensible general's last resort.

Edit: About guns on ships...

Big warships had, as pointed out, guns in front and in the back. The biggest Swedish ones had two in front and 4-6 guns in the back. Note than on a ship like that the back, unlike the front, has a lot of space to place guns, and behind straight planks, too. Your are really only limited by the width of the ship and the number of decks (and maybe the captain don't want gunpowder ventilation holes in the floor of his cabin, of course).

Now the idea of "presenting a smaller target" really is a good one. It doesn't work on big ships though, you will get your rig torn to pieces and the hull is too tall as it is. Smaller boats... Ericson (of Monitor Fame) really only expanded on an old idea in Sweden when he designed his ship. The Swedish coastal fleet during the 18th and 19th century (and probably before that) was not a fleet of big war ships but of longboats, with about 10 rodders and a single gun in the front, and one in the back. These were laying very low in the water (compared to ships) and at least once they beat the Russian Baltic Fleet simply by being so low, that the big warships simply couldn't lower their gun enough to hit them (plus the weather was rough, which was harder on the bigger ships since they rocked side-to-side more heavily than the smaller boats, disturbing their broadside aim).

[Eorran]

Two questions:
First, I understand in some historical conflicts, a nation would keep its navy in port for protection if they were facing a more powerful navy (the "fleet in being" strategy, thanks Wikipedia). Does this still make sense in a modern context? Is a fleet safer now at sea where it can maneuver, than in a port?

Second, I remember reading a fantasy novel (not noted for historical accuracy) where one side needs to send a force of knights by ship. They round up all the vessels they can find, and decide to take the knights but leave the horses, with the intent of training horses when they arrive. This allows them to take an additional 3500 men.
Overlooking the lack of support staff, and the silliness of an entire force of nothing but heavy cavalry, would a heavy cavalryman be able to train a new warhorse? I was under the impression that warhorses were extremely expensive and very selectively bred.
Thanks.

[Spiryt]

Two questions:
Second, I remember reading a fantasy novel (not noted for historical accuracy) where one side needs to send a force of knights by ship. They round up all the vessels they can find, and decide to take the knights but leave the horses, with the intent of training horses when they arrive. This allows them to take an additional 3500 men.
Overlooking the lack of support staff, and the silliness of an entire force of nothing but heavy cavalry, would a heavy cavalryman be able to train a new warhorse? I was under the impression that warhorses were extremely expensive and very selectively bred.
Thanks.

There's is nothing particularly silly about force of nothing but heavy cavalry, at least depending on what you mean by "heavy cavalry".

As far as training horses go, it all depends on what they're exactly planning to do and how much time they have....

We're talking about literally thousands of horses, and some of them would indeed have to be of rather strict characteristics, so it would need at least few months of draining invaded land from horses - assuming they're even obtainable.

[HenryHankovitch]

Two questions:
First, I understand in some historical conflicts, a nation would keep its navy in port for protection if they were facing a more powerful navy (the "fleet in being" strategy, thanks Wikipedia). Does this still make sense in a modern context? Is a fleet safer now at sea where it can maneuver, than in a port?
I'm pretty sure the answer is somewhere between "it depends," and "we don't know yet."

Frankly, between long-range antiship missiles, ICBMs, nuclear submarines, satellite surveillance and so forth, nobody has really put a modern navy to the test in a shooting war. There's simply too much unproven technology and doctrine to say anything with certainty. We're like militaries in the 1930s--we have all these new technologies, and a bunch of different theories as to how they ought to work, and ought to be fielded. But until we actually start shooting at each other, we can't be sure who has the best idea in practice.

Historically, the advantage of ships in port is that land-based batteries can be much heavier and much better protected than those on a ship. So ships in port are protected by guns that can out-range and out-damage any attacking ships. There's probably heavy variables in terms of weather and coastline topography and the like; no doubt historical exceptions exist.

You could draw a modern parallel in terms of land-based radar, anti-submarine aircraft, and other such facilities. But in the Cold War, I believe the theory was the opposite--that a single ICBM or torpedo could lob a nuke right into the middle of any harbor and effectively annihilate everything, making a mobile fleet at sea "safer" against such attacks.

[Fhaolan]

Second, I remember reading a fantasy novel (not noted for historical accuracy) where one side needs to send a force of knights by ship. They round up all the vessels they can find, and decide to take the knights but leave the horses, with the intent of training horses when they arrive. This allows them to take an additional 3500 men.
Overlooking the lack of support staff, and the silliness of an entire force of nothing but heavy cavalry, would a heavy cavalryman be able to train a new warhorse? I was under the impression that warhorses were extremely expensive and very selectively bred.
Thanks.

I have vague memories of an RL invasion force who brought their cavalry riders with the intent of getting horses locally. The idea being that there were sympathizers who would provide horses there or that it would be easier to steal horses from the locals than transport their own.

But for the life of me, I can't place when or where, if it succeeded, or if it was just a 'plan' that was not followed through on. Sorry.

[Galloglaich]

These technologies do go back quite a way.

For context

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/94/Peter_von_Danzig_1462.PNG/300px-Peter_von_Danzig_1462.PNG

This ship, the Peter Von Danzig (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_von_Danzig_(ship)), was a pirate (privateer) warship engaged in combat in the 15th in warfare between the city of Danzig and the Kingdom of England. It was armed with small and large cannon, and also had firing positions for up to 300 arquebusiers and crossbowmen.

This vessel, like many of the era, also had smaller pintle mounted, breach loading 'swivel guns'. Like this one (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Perier_a_boite_en_fer_forge_Western_Europe_14 10.jpg) from 1410 AD

It may also be of some interest to note that there were pirates very active in the North Sea and the Baltic into the early Medieval period, using cannons on their ships as early as the 14th Century. Some notable 14th Century examples:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victual_Brothers
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St%C3%B6rtebeker
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeanne_de_Clisson

G.

[Traab]

There's is nothing particularly silly about force of nothing but heavy cavalry, at least depending on what you mean by "heavy cavalry".

As far as training horses go, it all depends on what they're exactly planning to do and how much time they have....

We're talking about literally thousands of horses, and some of them would indeed have to be of rather strict characteristics, so it would need at least few months of draining invaded land from horses - assuming they're even obtainable.

The heavy cavalry in question was a collection of heavily armed and armored "Church Knights" Full plate wearing knights with lances to start, then swords, axes, maces, and other such weapons up close, as well as assorted magical abilities, (though those tended to not play a huge role in combat) As for what they are planning to do, they were basically planning to train up a bunch of horses capable of carrying men in full plate and being able to charge an enemy line, (I think it was trolls in this case) without balking.

The setup of their army was, the knights were going to join up with a group of light cavalry skirmishers. Javelin tossing, scimitar wielding, hit and run specialists. Finally, you have the heavy infantry populated entirely by people between 6 and a half and 7 and a half feet in height, and with military training that would make the spartans blanch. Though they dont tend to fight in ordered ranks and formations, they know how.

[Spiryt]

Ah, Eddings.

A lot of stuff doesn't make much sense in his books, I would have to reread it....

But AFAIR they were trying to reach some northern frozen stuff, where Trollz lived, so indeed just finding that much of suitable horses is rather ridiculous idea.

[Traab]

Ah, Eddings.

A lot of stuff doesn't make much sense in his books, I would have to reread it....

But AFAIR they were trying to reach some northern frozen stuff, where Trollz lived, so indeed just finding that much of suitable horses is rather ridiculous idea.

Actually, they were making landfall at the capitol city of an empire and then heading north from there when they were ready. It isnt like they were going to Antarctica and expecting to resupply on horses while there. They were going to resupply BEFORE marching to Antarctica! lol Its been a bit since I read it, but I think it actually worked out fairly well for them. Sure the horses were not as good as their own, but they did the job. Also, when you consider that there was a half a million church knights marching overland to meet them, it was more of a stop gap measure to train temp horses. They just needed a lot of trained warriors to get there fast.

[Mike_G]

Warhorses for heavy cavalry need a lot of training, and you need to start with a big, strong horse, so I don't know that this would be a good idea.

Now, if they were landing in a friendly country, where they could expect a decent supply of strong, trained horses, and expected some time to get the horses and men co-ordinated, then maybe it makes sense to send no mounts and more riders.

I think any plan to land a bunch of heavy cavalrymen on foot and steal horses from the invaded nation would be a very bad plan indeed.

[Karoht]

It certainly could be an interesting military logistical cooperative.
I'll pay to send the troops to defend your stuff.
You pay to supply them horses.

I wonder if this ever happened, now that I think of it. I can't see why not really.

[Traab]

Warhorses for heavy cavalry need a lot of training, and you need to start with a big, strong horse, so I don't know that this would be a good idea.

Now, if they were landing in a friendly country, where they could expect a decent supply of strong, trained horses, and expected some time to get the horses and men co-ordinated, then maybe it makes sense to send no mounts and more riders.

I think any plan to land a bunch of heavy cavalrymen on foot and steal horses from the invaded nation would be a very bad plan indeed.

It was a friendly nation they were landing in. The main downside was that aside from light cavalry horses, the empire had no warhorses to use, so they basically had to start from scratch. Grab the biggest horses they could find, and teach them the basics of combat skills. The horses didnt need to do much beyond carry a lot of weight, and charge when they were told to. Its not like they were going the elven knight route where the horses can do insane combat maneuvers and act almost like they are mind linked with their riders. just "dont collapse under the weight of me and my weapons" and "Run that way fast enough to provide some nice impact with my lance"

They did have time to work with the horses, its not like they said, "Land ho! Now, lets start marching for the big battle!" I think they had a month or two before they had to leave. There was a big timing issue going on and they wanted to hit the bad guy in as many different ways as possible at the same time.

[Spiryt]

The whole issue is that you can train horse from the foal, and in the first place they should be genetically 'appropriate'.

Two months is really not the kind of time to train horse.

As with any combat skills, it's not about "insane elven", it's about simple and effective stuff done faster, stronger, easier.

So after two months they wouldn't really have very fancy horses - just passable ones for replacement.

[endoperez]

Its not like they were going the elven knight route where the horses can do insane combat maneuvers and act almost like they are mind linked with their riders.

That reminds me - how much truth is there in the claims that the Spanish Riding School (in Vienna, Austria... ) is based on military tradition, and were that kind of fancy riding maneuvers 1) really used, 2) used with a relatively heavily-armored rider?

The wikipedia article claims it has antecedents in the "military horsemanship of the post-medieval ages when knights attempted to retain their battlefield preeminence by shedding heavy armor and learning to manoeuver quickly and with great complexity on a firearms-dominated battlefield."

[Spiryt]

I'm not sure what it refers to, to be honest.

The thing is that post medieval armors were actually probably one of the heaviest, if not heaviest personal armors even used.

105 pounds, folks (http://www.muzeumwp.pl/emwpaedia/zbroja-krzysztofa-pioruna-radziwilla.php)

Krzysztof I was apparently huge man, but still, that's one solid armor.

[Mike_G]

It was a friendly nation they were landing in. The main downside was that aside from light cavalry horses, the empire had no warhorses to use, so they basically had to start from scratch. Grab the biggest horses they could find, and teach them the basics of combat skills. The horses didnt need to do much beyond carry a lot of weight, and charge when they were told to. .


Ok, see, horses don't normally want to charge at big guys in heavy armor with pointy objects. It's not really an evolutionarily selected survival trait. Most horses will just shy away from the scary infantry formation. You can't just put a knight on a plow horse, apply spurs and yell "Giddyup!" and hope for success.

It takes a lot of work to make a horse act like you want in combat. Like not run away from it. If you've ever worked with horses, you know they are stubborn, dumb, easily spooked, contrary, fragile beasts, who try to break a leg out of spite. They're like a 1200 pound cocker spaniel.

Training them to jump fences and dance on their hind legs isn't the issue. Training them not to throw their rider and head for the hills at the first bloodcurdling scream of a gutted horse, or the first prick of an arrow or even the blast of a horn is.

I doubt like hell two months would cut it.

Training a horse to use for reconnaissance, or to carry your mounted infantry to the battle field, sure. Training a horse to charge a pike square...

I'll put my money on the grunts. They usually win anyway if the have time to form up even against trained horses.

[Raum]

First, I understand in some historical conflicts, a nation would keep its navy in port for protection if they were facing a more powerful navy (the "fleet in being" strategy, thanks Wikipedia). Does this still make sense in a modern context? Is a fleet safer now at sea where it can maneuver, than in a port?Most recently, this occurred in WWII with the Germans keeping ships in port. Frankly, I'm not sure it made sense then even though they were able to preserve a large portion of the fleet. Problem is, preserving the ships didn't accomplish anything except preservation.

At best I suspect it's a useful temporary strategy. However, today you'd have to protect ships from cruise missiles, drones, and precision guided air to ground weapons. Unless you control the air above your ports it's going to be nearly impossible to protect the ships. Even then, drone and cruise missile attacks will be a constant danger. Probably as much a danger as risking the ships at sea...but with no upside.

Looking at history, the strategy has been used by the French and Spanish during the Napoleonic Wars (pre Trafalgar, and they may have been better off staying in port), to some degree by the US in the War of 1812 (though the US ships ran the blockades to operate against merchants in the Caribbean when they could), and by the Germans again in WWI. None of them were all that effective - the War of 1812 was probably most effective of the three because it was a temporary strategy, they ran the blockades when they could.

It may have been a more effective strategy if you go back to the days when a Navy was primarily for troop transport. Have to ask someone who knows those eras better than I. :)

[Knaight]

Ok, see, horses don't normally want to charge at big guys in heavy armor with pointy objects. It's not really an evolutionarily selected survival trait. Most horses will just shy away from the scary infantry formation. You can't just put a knight on a plow horse, apply spurs and yell "Giddyup!" and hope for success.

Its the sharp objects bit more than anything else. It doesn't matter what the wall of spears is attached to, its a wall of spears - they could be pointing up out of the ground and waving around slightly, and the horse still wouldn't want to charge towards them. Horses run quickly, and they naturally avoid obstacles, and given that pointy things are particularly dangerous as obstacles go its no miracle they stay away from them when possible.

[Mike_G]

Horses will try to avoid any obstacle. A line of infantry waving feather dusters and yelling will make the average cart horse turn tail.

Horses react to danger by running away. It's what they are good at. They may kick at the danger as they run away, but they run AWAY. They are fast. They don't have horns or tusks or scales or sharp fangs or claws or anything that would make running TOWARD danger a good idea. Green stuff that stands still is their natural prey. Anything loud and moving is a danger.

Go to a farm and run screaming at a horse. It will seek the horizon, whether you have a spear or a bunch of bananas.

Now, yes, horses can be trained to ignore instinct and run toward the enemy, but that's a lot of work to overcome every instinct that biology and evolution has drummed into their tiny brains.

I don't think you can get the average horse used for anything but combat to do that in a few months.

[Knaight]

Horses will try to avoid any obstacle. A line of infantry waving feather dusters and yelling will make the average cart horse turn tail.

Horses react to danger by running away. It's what they are good at. They may kick at the danger as they run away, but they run AWAY. They are fast. They don't have horns or tusks or scales or sharp fangs or claws or anything that would make running TOWARD danger a good idea. Green stuff that stands still is their natural prey. Anything loud and moving is a danger.

Go to a farm and run screaming at a horse. It will seek the horizon, whether you have a spear or a bunch of bananas.

They will, but this can be trained away easier than the pointy thing in particular. Tilt a pointy fence towards a horse, and let the wind blow it around. Then go ahead and try and lead the horse towards it, and watch it decide on every other direction.

Really, we are in agreement. Horses have terrible instincts when it comes to fighting*, and a few months isn't enough time to get around that.

*Or really great ones. Run away seems like a pretty sensible solution most of the time.

[Traab]

Ok, see, horses don't normally want to charge at big guys in heavy armor with pointy objects. It's not really an evolutionarily selected survival trait. Most horses will just shy away from the scary infantry formation. You can't just put a knight on a plow horse, apply spurs and yell "Giddyup!" and hope for success.

It takes a lot of work to make a horse act like you want in combat. Like not run away from it. If you've ever worked with horses, you know they are stubborn, dumb, easily spooked, contrary, fragile beasts, who try to break a leg out of spite. They're like a 1200 pound cocker spaniel.

Training them to jump fences and dance on their hind legs isn't the issue. Training them not to throw their rider and head for the hills at the first bloodcurdling scream of a gutted horse, or the first prick of an arrow or even the blast of a horn is.

I doubt like hell two months would cut it.

Training a horse to use for reconnaissance, or to carry your mounted infantry to the battle field, sure. Training a horse to charge a pike square...

I'll put my money on the grunts. They usually win anyway if the have time to form up even against trained horses.

Yeah, thank god its a fantasy novel and reality doesnt play a part. :p Oh, and they were charging an army of trolls. Pretty sure thats worse, as they are 9 foot tall, 1 ton furry monstrosities, that eat apex predators for light snacks. They are immortal, stupid, always hungry, dont understand war, and are really easy to enrage. Oh, and because they are immortal and stupid they dont understand things like, morale, or unit losses. If there are 100 of them attacking you, and you kill 99, that last one is still going to be charging you in order to kill and eat you. So dont count on them falling back, or retreating.

[Mike_G]

They will, but this can be trained away easier than the pointy thing in particular. Tilt a pointy fence towards a horse, and let the wind blow it around. Then go ahead and try and lead the horse towards it, and watch it decide on every other direction.

Really, we are in agreement. Horses have terrible instincts when it comes to fighting*, and a few months isn't enough time to get around that.

*Or really great ones. Run away seems like a pretty sensible solution most of the time.

Sorry if I came across as argumentative. I was more or less just agreeing emphatically.

That's the kind of thing in a lot of fantasy books that annoys me, where the author just doesn't grasp the enormity of some military detail, like warhorses are really special, really expensive, highly trained horses.

You can put a machinegun on a Toyota pickup and cruise around Somalia and use it like a Humvee, but horses don't work that way.

I almost expect to read the characters parking the horses and taking the keys, the way plenty of authors write them.

[Knaight]

That's the kind of thing in a lot of fantasy books that annoys me, where the author just doesn't grasp the enormity of some military detail, like warhorses are really special, really expensive, highly trained horses.
Yeah, missing gigantic implications of details tends to get old. Though I tend to find armor worse than horses in that regard, as the whole "it works" bit has yet to sink in for many.

Then there are slings. Granted, I'm a slinger, and probably pick up on much more than most, but the sheer amount of wrong written about slings is staggering. That they are tiny and can be stuffed in a pocket? That matters. That you let go of one end when slinging? Also relevant in many cases. That a sling is not, in fact, a sling shot? Its called basic research.

[Autolykos]

@Horses:
The only force I can think of off the top of my head, that would just take the horses they found in place are the Vikings. And they only used them to ride to the next village and fought dismounted (plus, they weren't expecting any kind of organized resistance anyway).
Usually, if it looks like a good idea at first glance, but still hasn't been done before, it's not.

@Ships in Port:
I don't think it matters much today. Like someone I can't remember said: "There are two kinds of ships - submarines and targets."
There are lots of (relatively) cheap ways to sink surface ships without giving them a chance at defending, and they are pretty much impossible to hide. Surface ships (mostly carriers, even the Navy realized that battleships are basically scrap metal) are only used for force projection against enemies that can't even dream of striking back (because they are either armed with Kalashnikovs and Zodiacs or landlocked and without any air force worth mentioning).
Having the ships in port might still make them safer because your enemy is less likely to waste resources on what isn't actually threatening him. But they might be hit as targets of opportunity in an air raid instead.

[Traab]

Yeah, missing gigantic implications of details tends to get old. Though I tend to find armor worse than horses in that regard, as the whole "it works" bit has yet to sink in for many.

Then there are slings. Granted, I'm a slinger, and probably pick up on much more than most, but the sheer amount of wrong written about slings is staggering. That they are tiny and can be stuffed in a pocket? That matters. That you let go of one end when slinging? Also relevant in many cases. That a sling is not, in fact, a sling shot? Its called basic research.

The only time I ever see slings get mentioned in fantasy novels are when they are the types like the gladiator used in deadliest warrior. A bit of rope with a pouch on it that you swing around and toss at a target. So there is no reason to claim that you CANT put it in your pocket. Its a bit of rope! A slingshot is different. The only way you can put that in your pocket is dennis the menace style, the hand hold goes in the pocket, the rest is clearly visible.

[Thiel]

@Ships in Port:
I don't think it matters much today. Like someone I can't remember said: "There are two kinds of ships - submarines and targets."
Actually, there's quite a few things that suggest that isn't quite the case.
Let's take a look at who the US was preparing to fight when they started to build super carriers. None other than the Soviet Union, the most prolific builder of submarines in the world, nuclear or conventional. Despite this they continued to build carriers, and not only that, they went on to build the largest warships in history by a wide margin, so they must obviously have had great faith in their ability to counter submarines.

If we look at the Soviet Fleet we get several hints that suggests that they didn't believe in it either. The first one can be found amongst the submarines themselves, more specifically the SSGNs. The Soviets developed and buildt several classes of SSGNs specifically because they wouldn't be able to penetrate the USN battle group's defences undetected. The undetected part is important because in a world with active sonar and nuclear depth-charges a detected submarine is a dead submarine. So instead they decided to go for barrages of supersized anti-ship missiles.
Their surface navy also reflects this. In order to defend their submarines they decided to build, amongst other vessels, the Moskva class helicopter carriers. During the cold-war they deployed more and more air-capable assets until in 1988 when they laid down their first true aircraft carrier the Ulyanovsk. The end of the cold war killed it, but it's clear what they wanted.

But let's not restrict ourselves to the super-powers. Once it became clear that the soviet force of missile spitting cruisers of doom(C) weren't going to materialize, the Royal Navy's primary mission became to plug the GIUK Gap. In order to close it they ended up building aircraft carriers. True, they were rather stunted and limited to jump-jets and helicopters but they were carriers nonetheless.
So in conclusion, the "truth" that there's only submarines and targets seems to be a lot less true than it's made out to be. But then again, that's hardly surprising since it's the submariner community who came up with it and the only people who truly believes it (and will repeat it ad nauseum) are arm-chair generals.
I'm not saying that submarines are worthless or anything, in fact I think quite the opposite, however, they have to be seen as a part in the greater puzzle and not the end all be all of naval warfare.




There are lots of (relatively) cheap ways to sink surface ships without giving them a chance at defending
Not really. The Iranian boghammers demonstrated very well that speed-boat swarms of doom doesn't work against a prepared ship and certainly not against a ship that's under way. Hint: They don't call it the boghammer shoot for nothing.
Missile spamming requires several expensive missiles and more importantly, accurate knowledge of where the target is.
Submarines are many things, but cheap is not one of them.
Mines do pose a serious problem, but they can be countered effectively, either with minesweepers or by not going where they are, which is what the USN likes to do.


and they are pretty much impossible to hide.
Not really the case. Once you're out of radar range, surface ships becomes eminently hard to find. They are doing some interesting things with Over the Horizon Radar, but so far no-one has deployed an operational set. And let's not forget that detection range is shorter than ECM range.
Satellites are likely to be the first casualties in an all-out war. Anything short of that and the defending side is unlikely to have any.


Surface ships (mostly carriers, even the Navy realized that battleships are basically scrap metal) are only used for force projection against enemies that can't even dream of striking back (because they are either armed with Kalashnikovs and Zodiacs or landlocked and without any air force worth mentioning).
Just because they've been used for that doesn't mean that they are incapable of going up against anything else. WWII proved that rather excessively and the Cold War proved that the various navies still believe in it.


Having the ships in port might still make them safer because your enemy is less likely to waste resources on what isn't actually threatening him. But they might be hit as targets of opportunity in an air raid instead.
I doubt it. By leaving your navy in port you remove it's greatest defensive asset, its mobility. This is the case no matter how big the conflict. Al-Qaeda wouldn't have been able to attack the USS Cole if she had been mobile and the new Anti-ship ballistic missile the Chinese unveiled last year won't be able to strike a US carrier because it can move several miles in the time between launch and impact. Without terminal guidance that's simply too large an area to affect effectively without nukes, and the effect is questionable even with nukes.

[SoC175]

And yet the protection of carriers has been penetrated by submarines during military exercise despite the carrier group knowing that they were in an exercise and should expect such visit.


Not really the case. Once you're out of radar range, surface ships becomes eminently hard to find. They are doing some interesting things with Over the Horizon Radar, but so far no-one has deployed an operational set. And let's not forget that detection range is shorter than ECM range.
Satellites are likely to be the first casualties in an all-out war. Anything short of that and the defending side is unlikely to have any.While the USA and China are "testing the waters" it's yet far from easy to shot down satellites.

[Thiel]

And yet the protection of carriers has been penetrated by submarines during military exercise despite the carrier group knowing that they were in an exercise and should expect such visit.
Indeed they have, however those exercises have to be taken in context. In this case the submarine had the advantage of knowing exactly were the CBG were going to be which allowed it to preposition itself. In the exercises were it weren't it often failed to make contact with the CBG at all because it wasn't capable of catching up with them due to its limited speed. (~5kts on AIP)
In other cases it was "destroyed" because it's periscope or snorkel was spotted by aerial radars.
I'm not saying submarines doesn't pose a threat to surface ships, because clearly they do, but the threat is manageable.


While the USA and China are "testing the waters" it's yet far from easy to shot down satellites.
If by testing the waters you mean been doing it for decades then you're right.
(First successful mock intercept in late 1959)

[Knaight]

The only time I ever see slings get mentioned in fantasy novels are when they are the types like the gladiator used in deadliest warrior. A bit of rope with a pouch on it that you swing around and toss at a target. So there is no reason to claim that you CANT put it in your pocket. Its a bit of rope! A slingshot is different. The only way you can put that in your pocket is dennis the menace style, the hand hold goes in the pocket, the rest is clearly visible.

So you've been lucky enough for the "slings" to actually be slings. Take a look at the Pendragon series at some point (it isn't connected to Arthurian Myth at any point), at one point there is a description of a "sling". Said description is basically a sling shot with no elastic part, which you fire by flicking your wrist forward. :smallsigh:

Note that this isn't even the worst of what I've seen. And as for fitting it in a pocket, its not even a matter of rope on a pouch in many cases, there are some very thin release cords and woven split pouches. You can fit three or four of these in tight fitting women's jean pockets, and yet occasionally you get B.S. in fantasy. "Oh, take my crossbow up the cliff, its shorter than the sling and will get in the way less when climbing." No. That isn't how it works.

[SoC175]

Indeed they have, however those exercises have to be taken in context. In this case the submarine had the advantage of knowing exactly were the CBG were going to be which allowed it to preposition itself. Actually no. Submarine have successfully sneaked in from the outside into firing distances, not just sat there and waited until the group passed them. Also modern subs can made ~20 kts on AIP.

If by testing the waters you mean been doing it for decades then you're right.
(First successful mock intercept in late 1959) Successful as far as "missing close enough that it would have worked with a nuclear warhead". Ok, such a brute-force method would work, but that would spell complete escalation



PS: While it's an entirely different kind of carrier, the British were saved from losing the Invincible by an Argentinian crew failing to properly arm their torpedoes. They got in range, the fired, the even hit but the torpedoes just passed underneath the target without exploding because they were wrongly wired.

[Traab]

So you've been lucky enough for the "slings" to actually be slings. Take a look at the Pendragon series at some point (it isn't connected to Arthurian Myth at any point), at one point there is a description of a "sling". Said description is basically a sling shot with no elastic part, which you fire by flicking your wrist forward. :smallsigh:

Note that this isn't even the worst of what I've seen. And as for fitting it in a pocket, its not even a matter of rope on a pouch in many cases, there are some very thin release cords and woven split pouches. You can fit three or four of these in tight fitting women's jean pockets, and yet occasionally you get B.S. in fantasy. "Oh, take my crossbow up the cliff, its shorter than the sling and will get in the way less when climbing." No. That isn't how it works.
Perhaps it works like a smaller atlatal? Or a hand powered mini catapult? :p

[Knaight]

Perhaps it works like a smaller atlatal? Or a hand powered mini catapult? :p

There are staff slings, which are very real. However a staff sling with a 10 cm staff and 20 cm sling is a piece of junk. Particularly when the sling bit isn't even an actual sling.

[Autolykos]

Sorry for the fisking, but that seems to be the best way to tackle this wall of text...

Let's take a look at who the US was preparing to fight when they started to build super carriers. None other than the Soviet Union, the most prolific builder of submarines in the world, nuclear or conventional. Despite this they continued to build carriers, and not only that, they went on to build the largest warships in history by a wide margin, so they must obviously have had great faith in their ability to counter submarines.Not necessarily. The lesson from WW II was that carriers reign supreme, so they built lots of them. However, the offensive capabilities of submarines and anti-ship missiles have come a long way since then, while the defensive capabilities of carriers haven't improved very much at all (they developed some nifty toys, but even the Navy doubts they work as well as claimed - and they don't claim that much in the first place). Plus, Navy Brass generally are the most conservative guys one can imagine, and they won't change doctrine unless proven wrong again and again (and large ships are expensive, so you won't scrap them just because logic says they are useless). Also, nothing says they built carriers for an all-out war with the Soviet Union - their main use were proxy wars like Korea and Vietnam (where they did their job just fine).

If we look at the Soviet Fleet we get several hints that suggests that they didn't believe in it either. The first one can be found amongst the submarines themselves, more specifically the SSGNs. The Soviets developed and buildt several classes of SSGNs specifically because they wouldn't be able to penetrate the USN battle group's defences undetected. The undetected part is important because in a world with active sonar and nuclear depth-charges a detected submarine is a dead submarine. So instead they decided to go for barrages of supersized anti-ship missiles.
Their surface navy also reflects this. In order to defend their submarines they decided to build, amongst other vessels, the Moskva class helicopter carriers. During the cold-war they deployed more and more air-capable assets until in 1988 when they laid down their first true aircraft carrier the Ulyanovsk. The end of the cold war killed it, but it's clear what they wanted.If you don't know about the technological capabilities of your enemy, hedging your bets is the smart thing to do. Just because you think your subs are undetectable now doesn't mean they'll never invent something that can find them (or a specific type of them because of some design flaw). Also, there are many ways to sink surface fleets, and missile cruisers (or even smaller ships, as long as they are still seaworthy) are another effective way to do it.
IMHO it's just the opposite - the whole Soviet naval doctrine shows that they thought large surface fleets to be useless. The carrier might well have been for power projection purposes - or for prestige, like the French one.
If they actually believed fleet carriers would be useful, they'd have mass-built them from the get-go.
Also, modern *conventional* submarines can actually be nigh impossible to detect (especially if they are not moving). Nuclear subs are different because you can't just switch off the cooling pumps for the reactor (and those are the only ones that met the requirements of Cold War nuclear doctrine in terms of range and operation time - but were never intended for use against ships).

Missile spamming requires several expensive missiles and more importantly, accurate knowledge of where the target is.
Submarines are many things, but cheap is not one of them.
Mines do pose a serious problem, but they can be countered effectively, either with minesweepers or by not going where they are, which is what the USN likes to do.The price tag on submarines and anti-ship missiles may look large, but they are still cheap compared to the carrier group they can sink. Plus, you don't need to spam only the expensive missiles. Using 10% state-of-the art stuff, mixed with obsolete missiles and dummies works just as well.

Not really the case. Once you're out of radar range, surface ships becomes eminently hard to find. They are doing some interesting things with Over the Horizon Radar, but so far no-one has deployed an operational set. And let's not forget that detection range is shorter than ECM range.
Satellites are likely to be the first casualties in an all-out war. Anything short of that and the defending side is unlikely to have any.Losing satellites also means losing most of your communications. And while a submarine can operate mostly independently, a carrier task force might have serious problems with this. And once they use radio (or even ECM, for that matter), they become very visible, even at over-the-horizon ranges.

I doubt it. By leaving your navy in port you remove it's greatest defensive asset, its mobility. This is the case no matter how big the conflict. Al-Qaeda wouldn't have been able to attack the USS Cole if she had been mobile and the new Anti-ship ballistic missile the Chinese unveiled last year won't be able to strike a US carrier because it can move several miles in the time between launch and impact. Without terminal guidance that's simply too large an area to affect effectively without nukes, and the effect is questionable even with nukes.Depends on your enemy and his plans. I don't think that a fleet in port is actually safer from a tactical standpoint - it is just less likely to be a priority target.

[Ashtagon]

Leather.

Anyone know the early history of leather? Specifically, when/where first invented, and when/where the leather boiling/hardening/armour-making process was invented.

All I can find is that the oldest leather sling dates back to 1300 BC.

[Conners]

Not meaning to distract away from Ashtagon's question, but I was curious about something.

Guns and Armour penetration.

With some of the best rifles which could be used in battle, how effective were they against the best armour?

Were old pistols effective against armour?

How well do later guns - such as from the Cowboy eras - do against the best medieval plate armours?

[Spiryt]

Leather can be as ancient as any clothing for what we know, but obviously not much of it prevailed - but AFAIR leather shoes remains from as long ago as 3000 B.C. had been found.

Military usage of it for reinforcing, waterproofing and similar stuff probably was quite prevalent too.

Leather shield had been found in Clobrin, for example.

Here is reconstruction (http://www.bronze-age-swords.com/Clonbrin_shield.htm) - dunno if original pictures are easily available in the Net.


With some of the best rifles which could be used in battle, how effective were they against the best armour?

Were old pistols effective against armour?

How well do later guns - such as from the Cowboy eras - do against the best medieval plate armours?

This is quite broad.

In short, era and 'quality' doesn't have that much to do with it - no matter what period etc. gun always basically fires bunch of lead/other metal at some velocity.

Depending on mass, velocity, material, shape, spin of the bullet, different stuff will happen when it hits some steel plate - penetration, denting, breakage, ricochet, and many others.

Generally, against pistols of all kinds, from early cavalry weapons, to typical modern personal Low E weapons, good plate armor would be at least very useful.

Against stuff of higher energy, it generally starts to be violently reshaped rather easily.

Here you have nice analysis (http://www.docstoc.com/docs/71415062/pdf-poster---Bullet-dents-and-“proof-marks”-in-armour) of actually bullet struck pieces of armor.

I had nice discussion with one guy with material science degree - he said that lack of any info about projectiles that had done it (their velocity, exact caliber, angle etc.) is a bit of problem, as in some cases energy of impacting bullet could be in fact as much as 2x times greater than those listed, just wasted on ricochet/whatever.

Still, very interesting.

[hamishspence]

This sort of straddles the line between real-world weapons and sci-fi weapons.

And the question is- how much energy, from a laser beam, would air absorb?

If I were to fire a 1 megawatt laser, for 1 second, at a target 400 m away, how much of the lasers 1 million joules would actually reach the target?

How about a laser fired from orbit, through several hundred km of air, at the ground?

[Diamondeye]

Not necessarily. The lesson from WW II was that carriers reign supreme, so they built lots of them. However, the offensive capabilities of submarines and anti-ship missiles have come a long way since then, while the defensive capabilities of carriers haven't improved very much at all (they developed some nifty toys, but even the Navy doubts they work as well as claimed - and they don't claim that much in the first place). Plus, Navy Brass generally are the most conservative guys one can imagine, and they won't change doctrine unless proven wrong again and again (and large ships are expensive, so you won't scrap them just because logic says they are useless). Also, nothing says they built carriers for an all-out war with the Soviet Union - their main use were proxy wars like Korea and Vietnam (where they did their job just fine).

This is really not terribly accurate. First, the main reason war never materialized with the Soviet Union is that neither side wanted to take the risk of it escalating to a nuclear confrontation. The advent of the ballistic missile submarine resulted in carriers being removed from the SIOP, but that freed them up to concentrate more on their tactical roles.

Second, defenses against submarines have certainly kept apace of the improvements of submarines themselves. Sonar has improved enormously, and of course vastly more powerful processing and analysis computers and software are available. Practical ASW helicopters have been made, along with sonobouys and other detection means for them. Aircraft such as the P-3 and S-3 no longer need to rely on catching submarines on the surface, which subs almost never are anymore anyhow. Most importantly, the acoustic homing torpedo has appeared, and been improved incredibly since it first did so. Destroyers no longer need rely on running right over the top of a sub and depth-charging it. Standoff torpedo delivery such as ASROC and the aforementioned helicopters and aircraft make it possible to attack submarines at considerable distance.


If you don't know about the technological capabilities of your enemy, hedging your bets is the smart thing to do. Just because you think your subs are undetectable now doesn't mean they'll never invent something that can find them (or a specific type of them because of some design flaw). Also, there are many ways to sink surface fleets, and missile cruisers (or even smaller ships, as long as they are still seaworthy) are another effective way to do it.

Missile cruisers were probably an effective way to do so back in the 1960s, 1970s, and early 1980s, especially in the opening hours of a conflict where you might "just happen" to have such a cruiser or destroyer near an enemy force. However, only a total incompetent (as in, an entire crew of them) would not even know there was a ship nearby, so if you're talking about a quick attack by a single destroyer like the Sovremenyy class was designed for, you're likely to at the very least lose the ship in the process and against even 70s defenses you might be hard-pressed to score a hit on the carrier itself. You're only firing 8 missiles. Heck, even a Kirov only had 20 missiles in its antisurface battery, and you have to confront the defense of the carrier and all its escorts.


IMHO it's just the opposite - the whole Soviet naval doctrine shows that they thought large surface fleets to be useless. The carrier might well have been for power projection purposes - or for prestige, like the French one. If they actually believed fleet carriers would be useful, they'd have mass-built them from the get-go.

It shows no such thing. What it shows is that carriers are a lot less useful for the Soviet Union, but hardly useless. If they considered them useless they would not have built the Moskva or Kiev classes, or Admiral Kuznetzov, nor started Varyag before collapsing. The Soviets had different naval needs than NATO. They are much more connected to likely combat areas by land and did not need to send large convoys across the Atlantic to Europe as we did, nor protect island posessions and allies in the Pacific. They concentrated on submarines because what they needed to do in the Atlantic was simply sink ships. They built a lot of submarines because that was their approach to being technologically behind NATO - quantity.


Also, modern *conventional* submarines can actually be nigh impossible to detect (especially if they are not moving). Nuclear subs are different because you can't just switch off the cooling pumps for the reactor (and those are the only ones that met the requirements of Cold War nuclear doctrine in terms of range and operation time - but were never intended for use against ships).

They can be when they are moving very slowly or not at all, but then they most likely will never get to a target simply because they are not in the right place and may never find a target. If they run at high speed, they may still be quiet, but they burn battery power much much faster.


The price tag on submarines and anti-ship missiles may look large, but they are still cheap compared to the carrier group they can sink. Plus, you don't need to spam only the expensive missiles. Using 10% state-of-the art stuff, mixed with obsolete missiles and dummies works just as well.

They are, but chances are good it's going to take quite a few submarines to sink a carrier group, and you're going to lose a number in the process. No one ever figures "oh, one sub per carrier group, no problem!" I've seen estimates as high as 14 SSGNs (assuming 80's technology) to defeat a carrier battlegroup

As for "spamming" missiles, you can only fit so many missiles aboard a submarine and even if you save money with obsolete missiles, it will be trivially easy for any sort of missile defense system to prioritize targets based on their different flight profiles. If you want to eliminate that risk, your throwaway missiles have to be just as big and fast as your attack missiles, which, by the way need to be either big and fast enough (soviet-style) or big, but slow and skim the sea and still have decent range (tomahawk) so that your sub doesn't have to get in close to fire them, not to mention being large enough to carry a useful warhead, and there went most of your cost savings. Oh sure, a nuke can get around that last problem, but then they ALL have to be nukes, and there go the rest of your cost savings, not to mention that "if one flies they all fly" and the question of that carrier and that submarines success or failure is likely to be very trivial when places like Shanghai, Stalingrad, London, Paris, and Philadelphia are taking high-kiloton and megaton-range hits on their oil refineries, power plants, airports, and rail yards.


Losing satellites also means losing most of your communications. And while a submarine can operate mostly independently, a carrier task force might have serious problems with this. And once they use radio (or even ECM, for that matter), they become very visible, even at over-the-horizon ranges.
Depends on your enemy and his plans. I don't think that a fleet in port is actually safer from a tactical standpoint - it is just less likely to be a priority target.

The carrier group will stll be able to communicate internally, and external communication will just be harder, not impossible. Losing satellites will be
a problem, but its a problem for the sub side too - it helps the sub to have some intel on where to go rather than having to search for the carrier itself.

As for a fleet being safer in a harbor, probably not in modern times, although it's always nice to be close enough to land for land-based air cover. Back in WWII, however, harbors were quite safe because they were surrounded with mines, coastal guns, and AA guns and airfields of your own.

A single big ship like Tirpitz could therefore act as a fleet-in-being, tying up enemy heavy ships that could be profitably used elsewhere. It didn't need to fight them, or even want to; they simply needed to be nearby in case it sortied when they weren't and got within reach some vulnerable target.

Soviet surface vessels in many ways did the same things. They were smaller and cheaper and far less capable than US and most other NATO ships, but they had to be addressed. Fortunately, we were on the winning side of the economic equation.

[Autolykos]

I can mostly agree with your post, but there are some points I'd like to make:

Missile cruisers were probably an effective way to do so back in the 1960s, 1970s, and early 1980s, especially in the opening hours of a conflict where you might "just happen" to have such a cruiser or destroyer near an enemy force.Talking about Soviet naval doctrine after the early 80s is kinda moot anyway, since the days of the SU were numbered anyway and everyone knew it.

The Soviets had different naval needs than NATO. They are much more connected to likely combat areas by land and did not need to send large convoys across the Atlantic to Europe as we did, nor protect island posessions and allies in the Pacific. They concentrated on submarines because what they needed to do in the Atlantic was simply sink ships. They built a lot of submarines because that was their approach to being technologically behind NATO - quantity.Thats exactly the point I'm trying to make. Surface fleets are a suboptimal choice for naval combat, they are only needed for support and escort roles. If you want to fight other ships, subs give you the most "bang for your buck".

They are, but chances are good it's going to take quite a few submarines to sink a carrier group, and you're going to lose a number in the process. No one ever figures "oh, one sub per carrier group, no problem!" I've seen estimates as high as 14 SSGNs (assuming 80's technology) to defeat a carrier battlegroupI never claimed anything as ludicrous as one sub being able to sink a whole carrier group - and even the 14 subs will come in much cheaper.

As for "spamming" missiles, you can only fit so many missiles aboard a submarine and even if you save money with obsolete missiles, it will be trivially easy for any sort of missile defense system to prioritize targets based on their different flight profiles.You may be able to tell them apart, but the old anti-ship missile will render your ship inoperable just as well as the new one (probably won't sink you, but that's not needed anyway).

The carrier group will stll be able to communicate internally, and external communication will just be harder, not impossible. Losing satellites will be a problem, but its a problem for the sub side too - it helps the sub to have some intel on where to go rather than having to search for the carrier itself.It will probably harm the surface fleet more because their role is different. You can usually take good guesses on where the surface fleet is going to appear based on their missions (or just block the routes to any place where a carrier group would hurt you and where the enemy has to move supplies through). Much harder to guess where the subs will be attacking your fleet.

[Aux-Ash]

This sort of straddles the line between real-world weapons and sci-fi weapons.

And the question is- how much energy, from a laser beam, would air absorb?

If I were to fire a 1 megawatt laser, for 1 second, at a target 400 m away, how much of the lasers 1 million joules would actually reach the target?

How about a laser fired from orbit, through several hundred km of air, at the ground?

Euh... difficult to answer.

Basically... my short and simple answer would be: Not very much.

But it really depends. Is the effect the weapon's destructive yield or a measure of the heat it produces on it's platform as a side effect? What wavelength is the laser (though I would assume in the infrared range)? How "wide" is the beam (which is to say: what is the mass of air it passes through?)

But just to put things in scale... to heat a single kilogram of air 1 Kelvin (or 1 degree Celsius, the unit is comparable) you need about 1,4 kJ (and over 4 KJ for water). And there's potentionally a lot of mass one can cram in in 400 m (or several kilometers of varying air density).
While a MJ is considerably more... it's still not that much on a big scale... you use more just to move your body about in a day.
And on an orbital cannon? What are you intending to do? Make your garden pool lukewarm? :smallwink:

Not to mention that energy transfer is not instantaneously, which means you're going to make a lot of air very close to the cannon very very hot but the air closest to your target is going to be much less heated (let alone the target). It's also not perfect, so you'll be losing plenty of energy hitting matter you don't particularly want superheated.

Now, if we're talking residual heat in the weapon's platform. That'd be an entirely different matter. Impossible to tell without more information really.

I'd say for the typical science fiction short-burst-laser... Joule/Watt is the wrong unit entirely. Instead measuring the destructive power in "tons of TNT" like nuclear weapons would be far more accurate. And probably what you're actually interested in as well.
Now... if you keep said laser ongoing for long "bursts" (or transmissions, which might be the more accurate term) then Watt becomes an interesting terms. 1 MJ is not a lot. But 1 MWm (Mega-Watt minute) is. And 1 MWh is mindboggingly powerful.

That said, even in a prolonged laser-burst. It's really not an ideal weapon inside an atmosphere. You'll be losing lots of energy just heating matter you don't particularly care about.

[fusilier]

Not meaning to distract away from Ashtagon's question, but I was curious about something.

Guns and Armour penetration.

With some of the best rifles which could be used in battle, how effective were they against the best armour?

Were old pistols effective against armour?

How well do later guns - such as from the Cowboy eras - do against the best medieval plate armours?

There's been a debate, on and off, on this board about how effective certain weapons were in penetrating certain armor.

It's a bit difficult to piece together, so I'll just present the evidence and give my opinion.

First of all, the best "medieval" armor would probably be renaissance armor.

The first gunpowder weapons do seem to have been relatively effective at piercing armor, this resulted in better quality armor, which then resulted in bigger, more powerful hand-held firearms. The size and power of these firearms seem to have crested around the mid to late 16th century (with muskets of calibers of .80 to .92). After this time, muskets became lighter, shorter, and smaller caliber. Also the use of armor gradually diminished.

First of all, it's important to note that there are different grades of armor, and different classifications of hand-held firearms. So while you may have one set of armor that couldn't resist a pistol shot at 60 yards, you may have another that could resist an arquebus shot at 40 yards (or something like that). To further complicate matters, an arquebus from 1520, could be significantly different from an arquebus of 1580. So even if the terms are fairly consistent (and their not really until later in the 16th century), the weapons still evolved over time.

I will divide them into three categories for the sake of convenience, but keep in mind there can be variation within these categories, or weapons that fall between them:

1. Pistols,
2. Arquebuses (or Calivers)
3. Muskets

We have the reports of some of the experts of the time. All that I have read state that a musket could take out the best armored men at well over 100 yards (in fact 200 yards). (see: http://www.alderneywreck.com/index.php/artefacts/firearms/terminology-and-ballistic-capability) Then there is some debate about at what range an arquebus or caliver is effective, some say very close, others say fairly far.

Pistols of the period could be quite large, but were designed to be fired at very close ranges, or basically in a hand-to-hand melee (for that matter, many revolvers were designed that way too).

On the other hand, there seems to be some anecdotal evidence to support that soldiers in the best armor, could resist shot from the heaviest musket at ranges as close as 50 yards. Some have concluded therefore, that the best armor was capable of stopping the most effective firearms at this range. But that's not the opinion I have. Instead I would state that the best armor could not *reliably* stop a musket shot at ranges up to 150 or 200 yards. However, stating the corollary is better: "A musket could not reliably puncture armor at ranges past 50 yards".

First, we have the English experts writing at the time when the musket appears to be the most powerful -- they are in agreement, that nobody, regardless of how well armored they are, is safe from musket at less than 200 yards. However, I will admit, that most of them had an agenda, they were trying to convince the English of the superiority of the musket.

Second, is the capricious nature of these early firearms. Gunpowder not only could vary considerably in quality, but the amount used was basically up to the operator, and they sometimes seem to have charged them as much as they could. The bullets used could be of various sizes, and a tight fitting bullet will be both more accurate, and be driven with significantly more force than a loose ball. There's evidence that they sometimes used a very tight ball, and other times used a very loose one, when they wanted to load and fire as quickly as possible. Potentially poor tolerances in bullet molds, the ability to vary the powder charge (intentionally or not) from shot to shot, and variable quality of the powder in general, all factors combined together, and I bet you could get very different results from the same weapon. Indeed, Fourquevaux, writing closer to the middle of the 16th century, was of the opinion that failure to puncture armor was the result of mishandling the weapon, and not superior armor.

Anyway, guns of the old west, would mostly be "worse" at puncturing armor than guns from circa 1600. Why? Because armor was so rarely encountered armor penetration wasn't necessary. An old horse pistol would be better than a revolver. A large caliber musket from the 1580s (properly charged) would probably be better than a hunting rifle or military rifle of the period (or even a military musket from the first half of the 19th century). However, something like a buffalo gun would probably have pretty good armor penetration for the time. But we are talking about the best armor designed and improved during the renaissance. If you are actually dealing with medieval armor, or poor renaissance armor, then most firearms would be relatively effective at puncturing them.

[Fhaolan]

Leather.

Anyone know the early history of leather? Specifically, when/where first invented, and when/where the leather boiling/hardening/armour-making process was invented.

All I can find is that the oldest leather sling dates back to 1300 BC.

It's not really... possible to know. All we know is that leather is old enough to predate record-keeping, and that due to leather/cloth being rather hard to keep from rotting away, actual physical evidence of leather disappears before the written evidence does. Makes it difficult to trace it any further back.

[Raum]

Thats exactly the point I'm trying to make. Surface fleets are a suboptimal choice for naval combat, they are only needed for support and escort roles. If you want to fight other ships, subs give you the most "bang for your buck".They aren't suboptimal though. Submarine warfare has revolved around ballistic missile subs and the hunter subs out to make sure the missile subs can't tarry too close to your shores for a long time. Hunting surface military ships with subs has never been a good option - it wasn't in WWI or II and now it's only getting worse!

These days sonar is not only deployed from ships and planes, it's also deployed on surface and subsurface drones. The subsurface drones are capable of removing the only real hiding spot subs used to have - thermoclines. Problem is, the subsurface drones can go deeper than most manned subs.

When it comes down to it, power projection (which includes and requires combat capability) relies on carriers*. In many ways, the rest of the fleet is simply there to protect and support the carrier.

*One exception - it still takes boots on the ground to control territory. MEU's provide that, not carriers.

The biggest (non-nuclear) threat to a surface ship are air to ship missiles and, if you can control the air enough to do it, air to ship bombs. Check out the 1982 Falklands war for examples. Two ships sunk by Exocet missiles and two destroyed by bombs. One incident of damage by Exocet, thirteen by bombs, and only four by cannon or rocket fire.

As for the USSR, they didn't deploy much of a surface fleet because a) they had very few usable year-round ports and even fewer were secure, b) supporting a deployed navy requires a distributed support structure (bases not ships), c) the USSR had no navy tradition to draw on so training would have been time consuming, d) they had no ports in the Pacific so couldn't have projected power world-wide via a navy in any case, e) deploying a subpar navy could only have detracted from the nuclear threat and, f) couldn't have afforded all of the above even if they'd wanted to try. In other words, the Soviets didn't build a surface navy because they couldn't do so effectively. Not because surface ships aren't effective.

[Diamondeye]

Talking about Soviet naval doctrine after the early 80s is kinda moot anyway, since the days of the SU were numbered anyway and everyone knew it.

True, although that period when the "days were numbered" also was one of the more likely times for a war to break out. Creating an external enemy is one way to divert attention from internal problems.


Thats exactly the point I'm trying to make. Surface fleets are a suboptimal choice for naval combat, they are only needed for support and escort roles. If you want to fight other ships, subs give you the most "bang for your buck".

No, this is not accurate, unless by "surface fleets" you mean exclusively surface combatants exclusive of aircraft carriers. In any case, defending cargo shipping against submarine attack (or bomber attack) is naval combat. Surface combatants escort aircraft carriers, which provide the primary striking power against land or sea targets, but playing that escort/support role does not make them suboptimal; that's just as important a role as the carrier or submarine plays.

Moreover, the use of submarines as the main antiship weapon by the Soviets does not show that submarines are superior at all; it shows that they are more cost-effective if you are the Soviet Union, which was economically and technologically behind the U.S. and the rest of NATO. The U.S. had both the money and extensive experience with carrier operations from WWII to easily build large carriers capable of handling large jet fighters, the Soviets did not because they'd never really needed much naval power until the Cold War, and submarines and bombers were a technically easier and cheaper way to do what they had to do.


I never claimed anything as ludicrous as one sub being able to sink a whole carrier group - and even the 14 subs will come in much cheaper.

Really? Precisely which sub classes are you talking about compared to which carriers and escorts, in what time period. More importantly, how would that total cost fit in as a percentage of available resources. Assume, for example, that the USSR lost 10 or 12 Oscar IIs sinking a carrier group. The USSR could not have afforded so many, but that still leaves the U.S. with 11-15 carrier groups depending on when we're talking about. Where are the Oscars to sink them going to come from? Even though the carrier and aircraft may cost more than the subs (which I find hard to believe unless the sub manages to sink a large number of escorts as well) the U.S. can afford the loss of a carrier while the USSRs ability to sink the other 11+ carriers is greatly jeopardized by the loss of the subs - because, even if those subs are much cheaper than carriers, the USSR still cannot afford enough of them.


You may be able to tell them apart, but the old anti-ship missile will render your ship inoperable just as well as the new one (probably won't sink you, but that's not needed anyway).

You're moving the goalposts. Yes, it will if it hits. However, the point of the older missiles in your example was that they were supposed to decoy from the better, newer missiles. Again, unless they have identical flight profiles, and possibly even identical airframes, it gets very very easy for later air defense systems like AEGIS to classify and deal with them in order of threat. Before AEGIS this might work better, but if you look carefully at Soviet ship and sub designs you'll see they really don't carry that many missiles, so you would need to commit quite a few launch platforms for this to work - launch platforms that must avoid getting sunk in the process of locating the carrier group and making their attack.


It will probably harm the surface fleet more because their role is different. You can usually take good guesses on where the surface fleet is going to appear based on their missions (or just block the routes to any place where a carrier group would hurt you and where the enemy has to move supplies through). Much harder to guess where the subs will be attacking your fleet.

It's not helpful to talk in abstractions. You can't "just block" vague "areas". If you're the Soviets, what you have to block is ports in Europe, which are south of the GIUK gap, or you have to defend against carriers getting close to the Kola Penninsula and pounding your submarine pens and air bases there.

As far as blocking the ports, that's what we've been talking about the whole time. You may know where the carrier is escorting the cargo ships to, but they also then know where you need to be to intercept them, or at least what path you'll be along, so no, it is not any harder to know where the subs will be. You have to get there in time, and at higher speeds, your noisier sub is more likely to be noticed by SOSUS or by NATO subs before you even get there.

If you want to protect the Kola Penninsula, that's a much easier proposition, because your subs can work in conjunction with surface elements and land-based aircraft that are close to their airfields, and there's no SOSUS network to worry about - although NATO subs are still a danger. Notice, however, that it gets easier for the USSR with all 3 elements - air, surface, and submarine. What makes it more effective is not some inherent superiority of submarines, but the conditions of combat - closer to home bases, while NATO forces are further away from theirs.

Your comments, especially the use of the word "suboptimal" leads me to believe you are thinking of this in an excessively abstract way, which is causing you to be misled. I would advise you to try to consider the problem in the context of the real world as it existed at whatever point you're interested in. I'd also caution you to look carefully at what artificial internal divisions you're putting into your thinking, for example you separated naval combat from escorting.

Naval combat (or any warfare) doesn't work like that; ships don't go out and try to sink each other because there's a war on. They're trying to accomplish a task in support of the national objectives of the war. If that objective is supporting an army, and requires escorting cargo ships, that's what you do. If your enemy never does try to, or isn't very good at attacking your cargo ships, you win (assuming everything goes right in other aspects) without having to sink many, maybe any of his ships because you made the sea do what you needed and he couldn't stop you.

For example, look at Jutland. Jutland wasn't a battle fought because it was 1916 and it was high time Britain and Germany got down to the main event. It was because Germany was being strangled by blockade, and all those dreadnoughts they had did them no good at all if they couldn't break the blockade. They decided to go for it. It didn't work out, they had to go back to unrestricted submarine warfare, and that didn't have good long term consequences. Castles of Steel by Robert K. Massie is excellent, if you're interested.

[Autolykos]

True, although that period when the "days were numbered" also was one of the more likely times for a war to break out. Creating an external enemy is one way to divert attention from internal problems.Correct, but a war in such a situation would have turned nuclear in very short order since the SU knew they were horribly outclassed in a conventional war.
On other roles of surface fleets: Point taken, they are much more versatile.
But they are a luxury only the superior Navy can afford, since they are easier to find and attack. The underdog has to rely on more cost-effective methods and move supplies by land (and try to force his enemies to do the same), unless he can win by attrition (which is a poor option, but the only one he has).

Moreover, the use of submarines as the main antiship weapon by the Soviets does not show that submarines are superior at all; it shows that they are more cost-effective if you are the Soviet Union, which was economically and technologically behind the U.S. and the rest of NATO.More cost effective and doable with inferior technology usually means "better", at least in a strategic sense. Just like a single Tiger would have beaten a Sherman, but was so expensive it was probably the worse option from a strategic standpoint.

You're moving the goalposts. Yes, it will if it hits. However, the point of the older missiles in your example was that they were supposed to decoy from the better, newer missiles.No, that's the point of the decoys - which can afford to have similar flight characteristics to the new missiles since they don't need a payload. The point of the older missiles is to create a credible threat that still needs defending against. They aren't much of a threat on their own, but they can bind valuable resources.

As far as blocking the ports, that's what we've been talking about the whole time. You may know where the carrier is escorting the cargo ships to, but they also then know where you need to be to intercept them, or at least what path you'll be along, so no, it is not any harder to know where the subs will be. You have to get there in time, and at higher speeds, your noisier sub is more likely to be noticed by SOSUS or by NATO subs before you even get there.Well, of course they know that the attack has to be somewhere along their route - it's hard to attack ships where they aren't. It still forces them to protect all convoys and patrol all routes, while the attacker can concentrate his forces on one (or a few) spots. The whole point of stealth is to avoid any kind of "fair" slugging match between fleets.

Your comments, especially the use of the word "suboptimal" leads me to believe you are thinking of this in an excessively abstract way, which is causing you to be misled. I would advise you to try to consider the problem in the context of the real world as it existed at whatever point you're interested in. I'd also caution you to look carefully at what artificial internal divisions you're putting into your thinking, for example you separated naval combat from escorting.That seems to be the central misunderstanding here. I say: "If you want to sink ships, use subs." You say: "But look, those ships can do cool stuff subs can't."
True, but that's a completely different topic. Plus, those ships will have trouble fulfilling their other tasks once they lie at the bottom of the sea.

[Hawkfrost000]

QUOTE WAR! :smalleek: *dives for cover in nearest foxhole*

[Diamondeye]

Correct, but a war in such a situation would have turned nuclear in very short order since the SU knew they were horribly outclassed in a conventional war.

That depends. The Soviet Union was not really that outclassed on land, where their numerical superiority was much more decisive. It is quite possible, in certain time frames that the Soviet Union could win in Europe while being utterly defeated at sea. That would be most likely to cause a nuclear confrontation if NATO resorted to nuclear weapons to stop the Soviet advance. Once that happens, things can get out of control very very quickly, perhaps in a matter of hours.


On other roles of surface fleets: Point taken, they are much more versatile.
But they are a luxury only the superior Navy can afford, since they are easier to find and attack. The underdog has to rely on more cost-effective methods and move supplies by land (and try to force his enemies to do the same), unless he can win by attrition (which is a poor option, but the only one he has).

They are not a "luxury" at all; they are the right tool for the job. Imagine the situations were reveresed where the USSR had to defend convoys and the US just had to sink them. The USSR would then need carriers and surface ships while the US could, if it chose, rely on B-52s and submarines to attack them - except now the defender is on the wrong side of the technological and economic equation.

I'm also curious how you think NATO would get supplies to Europe by land.. again, we are discussing reality, not abstraction.


More cost effective and doable with inferior technology usually means "better", at least in a strategic sense. Just like a single Tiger would have beaten a Sherman, but was so expensive it was probably the worse option from a strategic standpoint.

That is correct - insofar as you remember the "effective" part in "cost effective". Submarines would not be cost-effective for the NATO mission of convoy escort, because they wouldn't be effective at it. They would be cost effective for other NATO missions such as hunting down SSBNs or stopping Soviet SSNs/SSGNs from getting through GIUK or the occasional cruise missile strike.

You're correct that the economically weaker power is more constrained in terms of what is cost effective for it, but remember that whether a system is cost effective depends on the mission you want it to do.


No, that's the point of the decoys - which can afford to have similar flight characteristics to the new missiles since they don't need a payload. The point of the older missiles is to create a credible threat that still needs defending against. They aren't much of a threat on their own, but they can bind valuable resources.

You're going to end up with some very expensive decoys then. Simply removing the warhead is not going to cheapen them that much because the rocket or jet engine and the guidance system are very expensive components - far more so than the warhead. More importantly, you're taking up space on launch platforms that could be used for real missiles, and the launch platforms are just as real and expensive.

Let me explain this again. If you want to shoot a few attack missiles and a bunch of decoys, you have to launch them from something. If it's surface ships or subs, you're looking at maybe 8 missiles tops for most of them. Only Slavas with 16 and Kirovs with 20 are going to have more. More importantly, they don't all have the same launchers and can't all fire the same missile, so, unless you're going to build an assload of Slavas to launch decoys, you're pretty much out of luck. Then, the ships or subs have to get into position to launch without getting sunk.

Now, the missiles must confront defenses. We've got F-14s and F-18s that can attack with air to air missiles, missile defenses for surface ships, guns and point defenses, and ECM and decoys to get through. Early on, these defenses might be more sparse and have a hard time stopping ASMs but the ASMs themselves are much more primitive. Once AEGIS comes along, and then VLS, you're talking about hundreds of SAMs alone for the CVBG, controlled by AEGIS, not to mention the aircraft and other defenses. It's simply not going to serve any purpose to make a bunch of decoys; you're better off to make all attack missiles and hope one gets through, or else shoot them in onesies and twosies (if you're a sub skipper) and hope to catch someone napping with a close-range shot.


Well, of course they know that the attack has to be somewhere along their route - it's hard to attack ships where they aren't. It still forces them to protect all convoys and patrol all routes, while the attacker can concentrate his forces on one (or a few) spots. The whole point of stealth is to avoid any kind of "fair" slugging match between fleets.

The entire point of warfare in general is to avoid a fair fight. However, you don't need to patrol the whole route all them time. You concentrate around the convoy, and then use other assets, such as land based P-3s and Nimrods from France or the UK, and their subs and surface ships, to work the area while the convoys are elsewhere along the route.


That seems to be the central misunderstanding here. I say: "If you want to sink ships, use subs." You say: "But look, those ships can do cool stuff subs can't."

That's because A) you're incorrect that it's better to use subs to sink ships and B) no one is talking about "cool stuff". We're talking about using the right tool for the job. When you have to sink ships a long way from your own bases in areas dominated by your enemy, and can't build large carrier fleets, sure, use subs, or use heavy bombers. One goes in by stealth, the other by speed. If however, you need to sink ships in order to make an amphibious landing, or hit enemy bases, or otherwise conduct sustained operations, you use surface ships and carriers, probably with some subs attached.

Every platform has advantages and disadvantages, When you decide what mix of ships to build, you look at what you expect to need to do and what you can afford to build and make a plan based on that. You don't decide that submarines, or bombers, or whatever, are "optimal" at some task in the abstract (such as "sinking ships" without thinking about what ships might need to be sunk, where, and why) and then build a bunch. That's a case of creating a solution and then looking for a problem to fit it to. This is why you occasionally see people advocating for nuclear-powered hydrofoil battlecruisers with railguns, or some nonsense. When you encounter this sort of person, they will invariably avoid mentioning such things as exactly what geopolitical/strategic need the hydrofoil nuclear battlecruiser is intended to confront, and why that would make it a wise use of funds.


True, but that's a completely different topic. Plus, those ships will have trouble fulfilling their other tasks once they lie at the bottom of the sea.

If they lie at the bottom of the sea. That seems to rely on your assumption that submarines have all kinds of superiority in combat against surface ships, and so far, I've seen very little evidence of that.

[Autolykos]

They are not a "luxury" at all; they are the right tool for the job. Imagine the situations were reveresed where the USSR had to defend convoys and the US just had to sink them. The USSR would then need carriers and surface ships while the US could, if it chose, rely on B-52s and submarines to attack them - except now the defender is on the wrong side of the technological and economic equation.In that case the USSR would be seriously screwed. You can't support an army on the other side of the ocean without near-total naval superiority, period. They might be able to hold onto continental Europe, try to blockade Britain and establish a stalemate, but they couldn't afford a landing in America (yeah, pretty much the plan that didn't work out for the Nazis, but that was mainly because of the two-front war with the Soviets that used up most of their resources). Maintaining an army on the other side of an ocean is a luxury in itself. But using any other kind of ship wouldn't help them either. Using their production capacity on carriers would be even worse - they would lose their fleet the moment they tried to use it, and couldn't even hope for the stalemate above as the US are now free to move whatever they want across the Atlantic without much fear of being attacked.

I'm also curious how you think NATO would get supplies to Europe by land.. again, we are discussing reality, not abstraction.Actually, I was discussing abstraction and you started with a real scenario - and that seems to be the reason for this endless discussion.
I was more concerned with the general question of how vulnerable surface ships are, while you set out to prove that carriers are the sensible thing to build for the US - which I don't contest at all, looking at what the US wants to do with them (namely waging wars on the other side of the earth and pummeling enemies that can't even hope to strike back).

On that whole "Spamming Anti-Ship Missiles"-Thing: This only works well in a land-based approach (to prevent landings, counter shore bombardments or to keep carriers at a distance). When using sea-based platforms, it's better to use the real thing. It's still the much cheaper option. Please don't mix this argument with the whole sub debate, it was a completely different point about how surface ships would have trouble surviving any kind of determined resistance by an enemy with similar resources. New Technologies (like AEGIS) might make this harder to pull off or shift the balance, but the math favors the attacker. You need to shoot down all the missiles, but if only one gets through, you're sunk.
It's actually a very similar problem to cryptography. You only need to add a few bits to your key, and a simple problem becomes impossible. Trying to defend surface ships will always be a losing battle IMO.

[Raum]

In that case the USSR would be seriously screwed. You can't support an army on the other side of the ocean without near-total naval superiority, period. That's correct. Why do you think they worked through proxies outside of Eastern Europe?

[Autolykos]

That's correct. Why do you think they worked through proxies outside of Eastern Europe?
Which statement you think I made are you trying to challenge with this? I can't remember saying anything that contradicts this.

[hamishspence]

Euh
But just to put things in scale... to heat a single kilogram of air 1 Kelvin (or 1 degree Celsius, the unit is comparable) you need about 1,4 kJ (and over 4 KJ for water). And there's potentionally a lot of mass one can cram in in 400 m (or several kilometers of varying air density).
While a MJ is considerably more... it's still not that much on a big scale... you use more just to move your body about in a day.
And on an orbital cannon? What are you intending to do? Make your garden pool lukewarm? :smallwink:

Not to mention that energy transfer is not instantaneously, which means you're going to make a lot of air very close to the cannon very very hot but the air closest to your target is going to be much less heated (let alone the target). It's also not perfect, so you'll be losing plenty of energy hitting matter you don't particularly want superheated.

Now, if we're talking residual heat in the weapon's platform. That'd be an entirely different matter. Impossible to tell without more information really.

I'd say for the typical science fiction short-burst-laser... Joule/Watt is the wrong unit entirely. Instead measuring the destructive power in "tons of TNT" like nuclear weapons would be far more accurate. And probably what you're actually interested in as well.
Now... if you keep said laser ongoing for long "bursts" (or transmissions, which might be the more accurate term) then Watt becomes an interesting terms. 1 MJ is not a lot. But 1 MWm (Mega-Watt minute) is. And 1 MWh is mindboggingly powerful.

Energy concentration may play a part.

For example, a high powered bullet might have a cross-sectional area of 1 sq cm, or a bit less- and a kinetic energy of 4000 joules.

A railgun round might have a kinetic energy of 10 megajoules and a cross-sectional area of 10 square cm (approximations).

So- if the laser's energy concentration is high, it might have dramatic effects on the target it's fired at.

[Aux-Ash]

Energy concentration may play a part.

For example, a high powered bullet might have a cross-sectional area of 1 sq cm, or a bit less- and a kinetic energy of 4000 joules.

A railgun round might have a kinetic energy of 10 megajoules and a cross-sectional area of 10 square cm (approximations).

So- if the laser's energy concentration is high, it might have dramatic effects on the target it's fired at.

Well... the solid projectiles you list as examples do have the advantage of being solid objects and thus reacting with the air through a large amount of impulses. Each impulse only imparting a little bit of heat to the surrounding air. Here the non-instant energy transfer actually works in our favour.

An infrared laser quite different. It doesn't have a mass. It is heat. And every single atom along the way is capable of absorbing heat into both nucleus and electron shells. Unlike a bullet or a shell or whatnot, it doesn't have mass. It isn't affected by inertia or forces (well... in the mechanical sense). It is simply, pure energy. The very same thing the bullet imparts on the surrounding air when it pushes through.

And the cross-section of a laserbeam is it's amplitude. It can be absolutely tiny (we're talking nanometers). But it matters not, since the effective mechanics governing that is essentially pressure. And light, lacking mass, will not be exerting any (measurable) pressure.
Though you are correct in the sense that the smaller an area we aim at, the more of the energy will be imparted to a smaller area. But the problem isn't the width of the target, but the number of atoms and molecules we have to pass to get there.

The trick would be to limit the mass it has to pass, rather than minimise the area the weapon will be affecting, the less molecules that can aborb the light the better. This is why modern lasers are either projected over really short distances (or are in wavelengths that won't be absorbed that much) or in vacuum. You will lose considerably less energy to absorption that way.

[Johel]

Main advantages of submarines :

They benefit from some amount of stealth
They are shielded from most surface missiles


Problems :
Technology to detect subs paced faster than technology to hide subs.
So yes, subs are still stealthy buggers on which you can't get a visual and which are a pain in the ass to detect through other means.
Therefor, they WILL tie up some of the ennemy's assets as he is looking for them.
But they are hardly undetectable by a whole carrier group.
They are shielded from most missiles but not all.
Specialized missiles have been developped for decades now.
So once a sub is detected, it is as vulnerable as any surface ship is.
Worst : unlike surface ships, they lack any anti-missile active defense.
So they are even more vulnerable once detected.
Mind you, it is still a long an time-consuming task to actually find a sub's position.

Conclusion :

Subs are still a useful tool if you want to use them to harass the ennemy's civil ships and force him to dedicate part of his fleet to the hunt.
But they are hardly the undetectable threat looming invincibly under the waves that some ill-informed enthusiasts like to imagine.

"11 subs can take a whole carrier group" argument :

You DON't gather that many subs together in a nuclear war.
To concentrate them in large number is just increasing the chance of detection for the whole pack and their destruction.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_depth_bomb

[Autolykos]

(Probably the best post I've read in this whole discussion)Thanks man, I can pretty much sign this (I got the impression that my claims were mistook for something they weren't - didn't know that sub-bashing has reached similar popularity as katana-bashing these days).
What I wanted to say with my original post is that surface ships won't survive being close enough to a determined enemy with comparable abilities to do any good, while subs still have a good chance to do this (Ballistic Missile Subs perfectly illustrate this point IMO - even though you might get some, you can't ever be sure you've got them all). I might have gotten a little carried away in this debate, and apologize for this.
Now, the US is a bad example to illustrate this point, since there's nobody hostile to them with comparable abilities around nowadays (though the Chinese might become a contender in a decade or two).
But (for a more balanced, though less likely scenario) imagine Sarkozy got off his rockers and sends his Navy to attack Shanghai. Two Questions:
How long would you expect the Charles De Gaulle to still be swimming afterwards?
Do you think the Chinese will send their surface fleet after him or do something else, probably using land-based assets?

[hamishspence]

And the cross-section of a laserbeam is it's amplitude. It can be absolutely tiny (we're talking nanometers). But it matters not, since the effective mechanics governing that is essentially pressure. And light, lacking mass, will not be exerting any (measurable) pressure.
Though you are correct in the sense that the smaller an area we aim at, the more of the energy will be imparted to a smaller area. But the problem isn't the width of the target, but the number of atoms and molecules we have to pass to get there.

The trick would be to limit the mass it has to pass, rather than minimise the area the weapon will be affecting, the less molecules that can aborb the light the better. This is why modern lasers are either projected over really short distances (or are in wavelengths that won't be absorbed that much) or in vacuum. You will lose considerably less energy to absorption that way.

Actually, the amplitude of a wave has little to do with the cross-section of the beam. It's quite possible to produce a huge number of photons, in sync, with individually tiny amplitudes, but the beam itself is much wider (and gets wider still through diffraction).

Some Infrared frequencies, as well as the optical spectrum, are in wavelengths that won't be absorbed much.

If the laser intensity is enough to ionize the air- that energy is indeed being wasted against the air- but it's still possible that the amount of energy wasted will be small compared to the total energy of the beam.

[Autolykos]

You'd even want the beam to be as wide as possible while still damaging the target and being practical to build - the width of the beam doesn't play any role at all in the Beer-Lambert Law, but a wider beam has less energy density and thus less non-linear effects (like turning the air into plasma, etc) that dissipate the energy.

[Johel]

But (for a more balanced, though less likely scenario) imagine Sarkozy got off his rockers and sends his Navy to attack Shanghai. Two Questions:
How long would you expect the Charles De Gaulle to still be swimming afterwards?
Do you think the Chinese will send their surface fleet after him or do something else, probably using land-based assets?

Blue waters :
Subs are basically the only way for chinese to get there without screaming "WE ARE COMING !!!" while advancing sluggishly.
With little to no efficient air support, their destroyers and frigates would be ripped apart in a frontal confrontation with the French carrier group.
And at such a distance, cruise missiles and ballistic missiles fired from the mainland would have a long flighttime, giving time to the French to prepare.
Not saying the PLA wouldn't eventually win but the cost would be high.
So subs it is.

Near coastal waters :
Missile boats + Land-based missiles + aircrafts.
This is enough to :

deplete the French's anti-missile missiles through MASSIVE barrage of their own crappy but still potent missiles.
deplete the French's ballistic and cruise missiles because there are more target than they got missiles for.
prevent airstrike because of the sheer number of interceptors ready to just ZERG the French aircrafts once they leave the surrounding of the carrier.


It's a question of strategy :
Chinese fleet isn't currently build to contest the high sea against other navies.
It is meant to protect the mainland exactly against such strikes.
So yeah, the Chinese would send subs against a carrier group if they have to.
But unless the situation forces it upon them, they are more likely to just sit at home and let the "silly occidentals" circle around.

[hamishspence]

You'd even want the beam to be as wide as possible while still damaging the target and being practical to build - the width of the beam doesn't play any role at all in the Beer-Lambert Law, but a wider beam has less energy density and thus less non-linear effects (like turning the air into plasma, etc) that dissipate the energy.

That said, the high energy density may be necessary to reliably kill armoured vehicles under the beam.

The image of a pillar of ionized, glowing air hundreds of metres wide, stretching all the way into the upper atmosphere (orbital strike), is an interesting one.

At 1 megajoule per square cm, that would correspond to 250 g of TNT per square cm.

[Johel]

The image of a pillar of ionized, glowing air hundreds of metres wide, stretching all the way into the upper atmosphere (orbital strike), is an interesting one.

At 1 megajoule per square cm, that would correspond to 250 g of TNT per square cm.

Against low-power nations, that would basically be a "I win" weapon.
An omnious doomsday device with selective destructive power.

Against anything with a anti-satellite capability, that would be a waste of money.
Since the canon would have to be right on top of its target, it would be like lighting up a large beacon "Shout Me" in the sky.
You destroy a few tanks. Minutes after, 10 ICBMs take off and blow the **** out of the satellite.

[hamishspence]

If the shots are being fired from geostationary orbit, however, hitting the firer will be more difficult. Especially if it keeps moving around from the firing position.

Since ICBMs aren't really designed for intercepting orbiting objects, and would have to be redesigned some in order to do this.

[Johel]

If the shots are being fired from geostationary orbit, however, hitting the firer will be more difficult. Especially if it keeps moving around from the firing position.

Since ICBMs aren't really designed for intercepting orbiting objects, and would have to be redesigned some in order to do this.

Geostationary orbit :
Only that this would limit strikes to the equator latitude.
(though I guess you could fire the laser in oblique, if you don't mind risking to shoot down a few neutral aircrafts in the process...)

ICBMs suck against satellite :
Maybe I don't have the right sense of scale (we are talking space, after all).
But even a low yield nuclear weapon, if detonated a few kilometers away from its target, will do the trict.
No need to be as accurate as current anti-missile weapons are : compared to an incoming missile, the target is here basically static.
Geostationary orbit means it's further away than low orbit.
But then it limits the targeted area to a narrow band a few kilometers wide.

[hamishspence]

Geostationary orbit is over 30,000 km from the surface. Basically, the weapons needed would be less "ICBM" and more "space rocket with a bomb instead of a pilot".

The attacking ship would move to the ideal spot, fire, then move away from it.

Main advantage of firing from there is- the planet is, from your point of view, stationary. Thus, you don't have to keep tracking while firing.

Only at the extreme north and south, might it reach the point where the beam has to transit twice as much atmosphere, or leave a "spot" that's an oval twice as long as it is wide.

[Thiel]

Of course if someone where to build a kill-sat then you can bet ASAT development would pick up its pace drastically.
If it takes a space-rocket to kill it, then that's what's going to be build.

[hamishspence]

Or a comparably sized laser to return fire.

Still, rockets are likely to be more efficient. Unless they get shot down while incoming.

In an age of spacegoing battleships, the laser, while it might have advantages (adjustable beam width and power) these might not be enough to make up for lack of efficiency compared to other weapons.

[Autolykos]

Or a comparably sized laser to return fire.Probably this. The land-based system will always be superior to the orbital one (you can afford to pump much more energy into it - solar panels only get you about a kW/m², and batteries are pretty heavy, so you probably won't be able to store a second shot), it will be cheaper to build, does not have to fit on a rocket (even in parts) and can have much larger sensors (that have a better resolution). Plus, hiding the satellite before firing will be hard - after firing it will be impossible (you might even see it glowing with the naked eye, at least at night).

[hamishspence]

Yes- the spaceship, if it wanted to be safe from retaliation, would need to take out the ground defenses before they can fire on it.

Which would be difficult.

[Johel]

Plus, hiding the satellite before firing will be hard - after firing it will be impossible (you might even see it glowing with the naked eye, at least at night).

This.
Today, there's no such thing as stealth in space.
Missiles (for current tech) or laser, as soon as the satellite reveals its true nature, its lifetime is a matter of hours or even minutes.
Why pay a fortune to put a weapon in orbit if it's going to be a sitting duck ?

Unless you plan to strike first, hard and dirty, with everything you've got.
And then pray for the ennemy to be so badly beaten that it can't retaliate.
That would suppose to have dozens of such satellites, with the risk of the ennemy firing first.
And the satellites getting destroyed before they even fire a single shot.

So again :
Heavenly good if planned for regular use against small nations or non-state actors.
Impracticle if planned for a total war.

[hamishspence]

I was thinking more "spaceship" than "satellite"- but the home field advantage is indeed something that might make a bit difference to the viability of orbital bombardment as a strategy.

[Johel]

I was thinking more "spaceship" than "satellite"- but the home field advantage is indeed something that might make a bit difference to the viability of orbital bombardment as a strategy.

Nothing beats nature for orbital bombardment :
Bring down asteroids !!!:smallsmile:

[hamishspence]

Or nearest equivalent- heavy metal objects. Much less complex than lasers.

Given that an object travelling at 3 km per second has energy equivalent to its own mass in TNT, and that energy goes up as velocity squared (so triple the velocity = nine times the energy) a gun firing very big bullets might be as good as a futuristic laser at a fraction of the price.

[Aux-Ash]

Actually, the amplitude of a wave has little to do with the cross-section of the beam. It's quite possible to produce a huge number of photons, in sync, with individually tiny amplitudes, but the beam itself is much wider (and gets wider still through diffraction).

Some Infrared frequencies, as well as the optical spectrum, are in wavelengths that won't be absorbed much.

If the laser intensity is enough to ionize the air- that energy is indeed being wasted against the air- but it's still possible that the amount of energy wasted will be small compared to the total energy of the beam.

True enough, I suppose I typed that other post a bit too quick.

Yes, you could choose wavelengths that won't get absorbed much. That is true. Even air (or rather, especially air) has a varied degree of absorbption. Mind however that infrared is the easiest to absorb but also the most useful wavelength for your laser since it's the easiest one to emitt that can be weaponised. The optical spectrum will actually be rather harmless (well... with a lot of energy I suppose it's possible to blind your opponent).
Microwaves (thus a maser) would be plausible, against organic targets (boil 'em from the inside!). But radiowaves and optical light aren't exactly weaponisable. Ultraviolet is tricky, and would probably not cause direct damage. X-rays and gamma rays are plain dangerous to use (and very difficult to shield against/aim in the proper direction).

For a weaponised laser, infrared is probably what you want (or a maser, that works). And one with a wavelength with a high absorbance peak of the material you intend to melt.


That said, the high energy density may be necessary to reliably kill armoured vehicles under the beam.

The image of a pillar of ionized, glowing air hundreds of metres wide, stretching all the way into the upper atmosphere (orbital strike), is an interesting one.

At 1 megajoule per square cm, that would correspond to 250 g of TNT per square cm.

Careful, don't confuse energy and energy. While on a molecular level all forms of energy are one and the same.

On a macro level they are worlds apart.
TNT is mostly kinetic energy. A laser is heat. They will not have the same kind of destrutive capabilities. A laser will melt stuff, not make them explode (well... it can make combustible stuff explode... but that's beside the point). It'd be like a ant under a looking glass (good analogy I think :smallbiggrin:), not a firecracker. One form of energy does not simply convert to another, despite that they technically are one and the same.

You cannot increase the "density" of the beam other than making it narrower. It doesn't have density. The only thing remotely close to "density" that can be measured is not the beam itself, but rather the air it heats on it's way down.

Light and matter operate on entirely different rules. The potential energy in TNT is nothing remotely close to the energy making up a beam of light (which this is).

Also... there's one problem with firing a laser inside the atmosphere... you're going to be heating your surroundings just as fast as the target.
And if you fire into an atmosphere then you have to take refraction and diffraction into account (basically, when the light goes from a less dense medium (like say... space) into a denser medium (normal atmospheric pressure) then the light will both spread out and change direction.
Space to space though, there I could see it being -very- handy.

[Autolykos]

You cannot increase the "density" of the beam other than making it narrower. It doesn't have density. The only thing remotely close to "density" that can be measured is not the beam itself, but rather the air it heats on it's way down.Of course it has (power density is the most often used measure, see Poynting-Vector (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poynting_vector)). If you mean that light can't impart much momentum, you're right though.

Also... there's one problem with firing a laser inside the atmosphere... you're going to be heating your surroundings just as fast as the target.You can't actually mean that the way you wrote it, 'cause you just said that different wavelengths have different absorption in different media. Most of the energy is going to end up in the target, unless you chose a bad wavelength (also precious few stuff except for gases is actually very transparent to infrared - and neither metal nor humans are one of them).

And if you fire into an atmosphere then you have to take refraction and diffraction into account (basically, when the light goes from a less dense medium (like say... space) into a denser medium (normal atmospheric pressure) then the light will both spread out and change direction.Won't be much of a problem though, because your aim is probably off by the same amount. Much more of an issue if you use particles (or the wavelengths you aim and fire with have very different diffraction, which would be an example of bad design and should be compensated by a good targeting computer).

[hamishspence]

All electromagnetic radiation has the power to heat, not just infrared- though infrared may be more efficient.

A very sudden, very violent heating of a surface, effectively makes that surface explode.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Directed_energy_weapon

It doesn't provide a source- but it describes the effect of a laser pulse as follows:


Laser weapons usually generate brief high-energy pulses. A one megajoule laser pulse delivers roughly the same energy as 200 grams of high explosive, and has the same basic effect on a target. The primary damage mechanism is mechanical shear, caused by reaction when the surface of the target is explosively evaporated.

[Autolykos]

The point of using infrared lasers is not that they are especially well suited to heating their target. It's just that CO2-Lasers fire infrared, and they are one of the easiest to build for high power output.

[hamishspence]

That said, other laser designs appear to be catching up.

[wayfare]

Wise Weapon Folks:

I'm running a sea based game, and I was wondering what were the effective ranges of ship weapins like ballista and cannon> By effective range, I mean, how far could these weapons fire and expect to hit their target, as opposed to the maximum distance the weapon could fire, period.

Thanks for the help!

[Thiel]

Wise Weapon Folks:

I'm running a sea based game, and I was wondering what were the effective ranges of ship weapins like ballista and cannon> By effective range, I mean, how far could these weapons fire and expect to hit their target, as opposed to the maximum distance the weapon could fire, period.

Thanks for the help!

Depends on the timeframe of course but my RDN gunnery manual from 1962 claims that the 30lb 40 centner (Not CWT) smooth-bore guns on the Jylland had an effective range* of about a mile though they were unlikely to hit anything past 300 or 400m.

*The book defines effective range as the range at which the shell can be expected to penetrate the sides of a frigate.

[fusilier]

Wise Weapon Folks:

I'm running a sea based game, and I was wondering what were the effective ranges of ship weapins like ballista and cannon> By effective range, I mean, how far could these weapons fire and expect to hit their target, as opposed to the maximum distance the weapon could fire, period.

Thanks for the help!

I'm guessing you mean during the early period of cannon armed ships? I don't know about a ballista, but for a cannon it varies considerably on many factors. Bigger cannon generally have greater range, and the experience of the gunner and the sea conditions are factors to consider. An experienced Venetian galley gunner in the 16th century, may be able to hit his target at 500 yards in calm seas. That would be impressive until the development of rifled cannon in the 19th century. Bear in mind that the main cannon on a galley at that time would be 50 pdr, so a very large gun indeed.

[wayfare]

I'm guessing you mean during the early period of cannon armed ships? I don't know about a ballista, but for a cannon it varies considerably on many factors. Bigger cannon generally have greater range, and the experience of the gunner and the sea conditions are factors to consider. An experienced Venetian galley gunner in the 16th century, may be able to hit his target at 500 yards in calm seas. That would be impressive until the development of rifled cannon in the 19th century. Bear in mind that the main cannon on a galley at that time would be 50 pdr, so a very large gun indeed.

16th century is about right. I'm trying to figure our how close ships were before they fired upon eachother. Both at range, and when firing broadside.

[Yora]

Without getting into detail: Can a well trained fighter punch a dagger blade through a skull? Assuming average arm strength for a non-championship level martial artist and favorable combat conditions.

[Mike_G]

Without getting into detail: Can a well trained fighter punch a dagger blade through a skull? Assuming average arm strength for a non-championship level martial artist and favorable combat conditions.

Yes.

Bone is hard, but not hard like plate armor is hard. The skull has thinner spots and suture lines, and a hard stab at a good angle with a stiff blade could penetrate.

That said, it's much easier to get a sure puncture if you target a softer spot on the body. A weak hit, or a hit at a slight angle are likely to glance off the skull.

[Galloglaich]

Yes.

Bone is hard, but not hard like plate armor is hard. The skull has thinner spots and suture lines, and a hard stab at a good angle with a stiff blade could penetrate.

That said, it's much easier to get a sure puncture if you target a softer spot on the body. A weak hit, or a hit at a slight angle are likely to glance off the skull.

Agreed, and a dagger is particularly good at piercing just about anything.

G.

[J.Gellert]

Or nearest equivalent- heavy metal objects. Much less complex than lasers.

Given that an object travelling at 3 km per second has energy equivalent to its own mass in TNT, and that energy goes up as velocity squared (so triple the velocity = nine times the energy) a gun firing very big bullets might be as good as a futuristic laser at a fraction of the price.

But then you have to reload, where an energy weapon might simply recharge :smallbiggrin:

[fusilier]

16th century is about right. I'm trying to figure our how close ships were before they fired upon eachother. Both at range, and when firing broadside.

Through most of the 16th century, the usual tactic was to fire a broadside as you were closing for a boarding attack. So it was typically very close. As a result broadsides could have more of a defensive role, forcing off an enemy ship attempting to board. In 1558 there was a battle off the coast of Guinea, where the Portuguese were able to keep the French and English from closing to board through the use of broadsides. On the other hand, sinking a large ship with broadsides alone, was difficult. That's not to say that ships weren't sunk by cannon fire, it just didn't seem to happen often. A large fortress cannon, or sometimes the main gun on a galley, from time-to-time could sink a ship. The Mary Rose *may* have been sunk by a French (Genoese) galley, which appeared to be firing at extreme range, then backing off to reload. Still, the typical galley tactic was to fire at close range just before boarding.

The Spanish Armada of 1588 is generally taken as the turning point, where sailing ships were well enough armed to sink other ships with broadsides. Nevertheless, it took a prodigious amount of cannon-fire and time to sink a ship, at close range, and even then it wasn't always guaranteed. The San Martin, was attacked by 8 English warships for hours and still sailed on. So even then, I think a boarding fight was more decisive, but a standoff broadside fight was probably less risky - if you could get numerical superiority.

[Traab]

So the role of cannon on ships was less to sink the enemy than it was to cripple their vessel so it cant escape, and hopefully weaken the defenders as well? Makes sense. I mean, unless you are very accurate, it would take one hell of a shot to hit a vessel close to the waterline so it takes on water, or to swiss cheese the ship so badly it actually starts falling apart.

[Karoht]

But then you have to reload, where an energy weapon might simply recharge :smallbiggrin:
But then we get into outerspace, and the large heavy objects likely still win. Cheap to build a modern artillery cannon, crazy good range, easy to propel the round at high velocity.
Laser is more complex (expensive) takes sensitive components to build which might not survive the rigors of space very well, much less wear and tear of an actual battle, but could theoretically be solar powered or nuclear powered, would still have a high degree of accuracy... not really sure what the other advantages of a laser would be in space. Heat transfer? Plenty of objects (people, satellites, ships) are already heat shielded to a degree for the temperature range of space, as well as radiation shielding and shielding for micro-particles.

[Knaight]

But then we get into outerspace, and the large heavy objects likely still win. Cheap to build a modern artillery cannon, crazy good range, easy to propel the round at high velocity.
Laser is more complex (expensive) takes sensitive components to build which might not survive the rigors of space very well, much less wear and tear of an actual battle, but could theoretically be solar powered or nuclear powered, would still have a high degree of accuracy... not really sure what the other advantages of a laser would be in space. Heat transfer? Plenty of objects (people, satellites, ships) are already heat shielded to a degree for the temperature range of space, as well as radiation shielding and shielding for micro-particles.

Besides, if you have a gravity well you can exploit you might as well do so.

[Traab]

I remember reading a story once where they had killer satellites, but they didnt fire nukes, or lasers, they used rail gunt ype setups to launch huge rods of incredibly dense metal that would plummet through the atmosphere and collide like an asteroid impact with whatever they hit. They werent city destroyers, but they could easily be considered block busters, or at least take down pinpoint target structures depending on size of the rods.

[Thiel]

I remember reading a story once where they had killer satellites, but they didnt fire nukes, or lasers, they used rail gunt ype setups to launch huge rods of incredibly dense metal that would plummet through the atmosphere and collide like an asteroid impact with whatever they hit. They werent city destroyers, but they could easily be considered block busters, or at least take down pinpoint target structures depending on size of the rods.

Rods from God (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/10/magazine/10section3a.t-9.html)

[fusilier]

So the role of cannon on ships was less to sink the enemy than it was to cripple their vessel so it cant escape, and hopefully weaken the defenders as well? Makes sense. I mean, unless you are very accurate, it would take one hell of a shot to hit a vessel close to the waterline so it takes on water, or to swiss cheese the ship so badly it actually starts falling apart.

I think basically you are right. Cannon were primarily to rake the crew with shot so they will be less of a threat in a boarding fight. Galleys typically fired only one shot, and even their main cannon would be loaded with grapeshot or something similar, to maximize damage to the enemy crew, not the ship. Also, a lot of fighting at sea was instigated by raiders and pirates, who would be attempting to capture the other vessel anyway. Capturing an enemy vessel, even in all-out war, or battle, was still considered preferable. But, I would point out that longer ranged duels (like the galleys at the Battle of the Solent), do seem to have happened as well. So it seems to depend upon the conditions of the particular fight, and possibly the nature of the commanders.

[Thiel]

Even as late as 1864 boarding was still considered a viable tactic.
During the Battle of Heligoland the RDN squadron attempted to board the SMS Radetzky. Whether it would have worked is unknown since they didn't manage to catch her, but they clearly considered it viable.

[Knaight]

Even as late as 1864 boarding was still considered a viable tactic.
During the Battle of Heligoland the RDN squadron attempted to board the SMS Radetzky. Whether it would have worked is unknown since they didn't manage to catch her, but they clearly considered it viable.

Tactics tend to be overestimated for a while near their end. Consider the emergence of trench warfare, which we saw as early as 1904 - this is off the top of my head, its probably a bit older. 10 years later, in WWI, people still considered Napoleonic era tactics a good idea. They quite clearly weren't, and that was demonstrated rather dramatically in the early WWI battles.

[Theodoric]

Even as late as 1964 boarding was still considered a viable tactic.
During the Battle of Heligoland the RDN squadron attempted to board the SMS Radetzky. Whether it would have worked is unknown since they didn't manage to catch her, but they clearly considered it viable.
You mean 1864, right? :smalleek:

[Thiel]

You mean 1864, right? :smalleek:

Oops. Yes of course.

[fusilier]

Even as late as 1864 boarding was still considered a viable tactic.
During the Battle of Heligoland the RDN squadron attempted to board the SMS Radetzky. Whether it would have worked is unknown since they didn't manage to catch her, but they clearly considered it viable.

During the famous battle between the CSS Virginia (former Merrimack), and the USS Monitor, the Confederates prepared for a boarding attack, but the two ships bounced off of each other before they could attempt it. I don't know when the last boarding action (of a warship) actually took place.

[fusilier]

So the role of cannon on ships was less to sink the enemy than it was to cripple their vessel so it cant escape, and hopefully weaken the defenders as well? Makes sense. I mean, unless you are very accurate, it would take one hell of a shot to hit a vessel close to the waterline so it takes on water, or to swiss cheese the ship so badly it actually starts falling apart.

I just came across some information today, that may be useful. During the Armada fight, the English found that they had to get within 100 yards of the Spanish to do any significant damage with their cannon. Also in a stand-off artillery duel galleys had the edge over galleons until the 1590s (and even after that galleys remained tactically viable). Keep in mind the centerline gun on a galley could be a fifty-pounder, whereas the heaviest cannon on a galleon might be as much as a twenty-four pounder (and those would probably be bow or stern chasers).

[Autolykos]

But then we get into outerspace, and the large heavy objects likely still win. Cheap to build a modern artillery cannon, crazy good range, easy to propel the round at high velocity.I don't think artillery would work well in outer space. It's way too slow to hit any moving target at more than point blank range, the projectiles are heavy (you don't want any additional mass on a space ship - it costs lots of fuel) and the recoil will throw your ship around, ruining your aim and maneuvering (conservation of momentum is a bitch).
It would work fine from orbit (at least on stationary targets), but it just can't match the range of lasers (or sensors) when in open space.