Got a Real World Weapons or Armour Question? Mk X

[Spiryt]

WW2 tanks
Which was a better tank the T34/85, the Panzer IV, or the Sherman 76?

With such relatively complicated thing like a tank, answer can be really complicated too...

Particularly considering huge variation in use - T34/85 was in many ways very solidly designed and up to date tank for it's time, but in practice, huge problems with factories, qualified workers, huge demand and maximally cut time of production (they were needed now) meant that a lot of them were just tragically made.

Faulty welding, gearboxes requiring hammer to use, and so on...

Then, German tanks were usually pretty much limousines compared to Soviet ones - together with very hasted production, driving and fighting in T/34 was pretty distressing experience, even compared to other tanks.

Different design principles.

And so on....

[Galloglaich]

Well, to be fair.. it is a whippy metal longsword trainer. Granted, its not as whippy bad as say an I-Beam or one of those horrid nylon noddles that you can bend around covers by hitting flat...

So are the much better tinker blunts and even my much less flexible Albion is STILL a whippy/bendy thing compared to a proper, stiff sharp. Pay near the tip or with the flat still results in distorted and diluted response.


You know some antique historical 'sharps' are quite whippy / bendy right? A lot of 'Viking' swords, quite a few Oakeshott X, XII, XIIa, XIIIa and so on...

G

[Galloglaich]

On an unrelated note.

WW2 tanks
Which was a better tank the T34/85, the Panzer IV, or the Sherman 76?

The best AFV's of those 3 powers in the War:

Su-100 ... man that is a BEAST, and the Joseph Stalin tank

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SU-100

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

Panther of course ... the Hetzer was also really good

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

The Sherman Firefly, and the various open topped tank destroyers which actually had high kill-loss ratios (unlike the Shermans) M10, Achilles, M36, and the M18, fastest armored fighting vehicle of the war, with the best kill / loss ratio on the allied side, and barely any armor. But it was the M10 that was really the unsung hero of the allied armor forces in the difficult 1943-1944 period.

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

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M10_Wolverine

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M36_tank_destroyer

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M18_Hellcat

Anyway my $.02

G

[Thiel]

It should also be noted that while the well made T-34s were rather reliable, once something critical did break down they were extremely hard to fix, to the point were many tanks that the Germans and Western Allies would have returned to service was abandoned.

[Maclav]

You know some antique historical 'sharps' are quite whippy / bendy right? A lot of 'Viking' swords, quite a few Oakeshott X, XII, XIIa, XIIIa and so on...

G


Yes, of course the longswords which the main trainers are supposed to represent tended to be very stiff.

[Straybow]

You know some antique historical 'sharps' are quite whippy / bendy right? A lot of 'Viking' swords, quite a few Oakeshott X, XII, XIIa, XIIIa and so on...

G I've not seen thickness and flexibility in Oakeshott descriptions... without handling samples or replicas no way to know.

[Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll]

Of course, when talking tanks, one must also remember that the role of armoured vehicles in different armies varied. For example: German tank-destroyers mostly had casemate with limited-traverse guns, while American tank-destroyers mostly were turreted.

Then you have the difference between the Infantry Tank doctrine versus the Cruiser Tank doctrine, and other similar doctrines which meant that different tanks had different roles re: how closely they were working with the infantry. The wide-spread Soviet use of tank desant, for example, meant that the immediate post-war Soviet tank designs had handholds built onto them.

[Autolykos]

the Hetzer was also really goodCame in way too late though (IIRC later than the Tiger II). At that point the only advantage it had was that it was reasonably cheap to produce (compared to those over-engineered monstrosities like the Tiger series). Good from a strategic standpoint, but nothing spectacular.

[eulmanis12]

The Sherman Firefly, and the various open topped tank destroyers which actually had high kill-loss ratios (unlike the Shermans) M10, Achilles, M36, and the M18, fastest armored fighting vehicle of the war, with the best kill / loss ratio on the allied side, and barely any armor. But it was the M10 that was really the unsung hero of the allied armor forces in the difficult 1943-1944 period.

G

I didn't think the firefly was used by the americans. I thought that the firefly was a Sherman variant used exclusivly by Britain and its Empire

[Galloglaich]

I didn't think the firefly was used by the americans. I thought that the firefly was a Sherman variant used exclusivly by Britain and its Empire

Yes it was British / Imperial, I was lumping the British and the Yanks together there

G

[rrgg]

Back in middle school I watched a video about the crusades which states that European knights wore thick felt pads over their armor which made them virtually immune to arrow fire as the arrows would simply stick in the felt, however during the crusades the knights had to abandon this tactic because it was simply too hot in the middle east to wear both armor and felt, and thus they were at a big disadvantage to Muslim archers.

I have never heard anything about these felt pads since. Was this a real thing?

Metal armor that isnt covered up by cloth tends to get really hot in the desert sun but I suppose it's possible that they replaced them with something lighter.

However I think it was a muslim source in the first place that described Frankish soldiers being stuck full of arrows but remaining unharmed due to the felt over their mail.

[Mike_G]

Metal armor that isnt covered up by cloth tends to get really hot in the desert sun but I suppose it's possible that they replaced them with something lighter.

However I think it was a muslim source in the first place that described Frankish soldiers being stuck full of arrows but remaining unharmed due to the felt over their mail.

I would think that the sun would make the armor heat up, so a light colored cloth covering would probably help in the hot climate.

[Figgin of Chaos]

I've noticed some shields have a handle and a strap, while others have two straps. Would there be advantages to either one other than personal preference?

[Spiryt]

I've noticed some shields have a handle and a strap, while others have two straps. Would there be advantages to either one other than personal preference?

Throughout much of the history, at least in general Europe and Mediterranean Sea region, shields without any straps at all would be most popular. Just grip just behind the boss (if boss is present, although it usually was).

Straps appeared in 'classic' hoplite aspis/hoplon, for example - in such case we can assume that more stable grip, with support of whole arm and body behind shield, was considered more important than general mobility, reach and so on.

Which fits what we know/suspect about phalanx tactics.

Strapped shields in medieval Europe very often still had central grip, and strap was used if necessary - to hold the reins in hand, grab two handed weapon while still bearing shield etc.

[mcv]

The best AFV's of those 3 powers in the War:

Su-100 ... man that is a BEAST, and the Joseph Stalin tank

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SU-100

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Stalin_tank
And you don't mention the T-34? The T-34 was probably the single most important tank of the war. The design of the best German tank, the Panther, was mostly copying lots of good ideas from the T-34. The T-34 was easy to make (no other tank comes even close to the numbers in which the T-34 was produced), it was fast (it had the same unique suspension mechanism that the earlier Russian BT tanks had), it was one of the first tanks (after some BT tanks I believe) to take full advantage of sloping armor. As a result it was light, fast, very well armored, and there was an enormous amount of them. As a medium tank, it was competitive with much more expensive heavy tanks. It's the tank that could do almost everything, and as such it's basically the predecessor of all modern main battle tanks.

In sheer firepower and armor it was eventually surpassed by later tanks of course, but for most of the war, the T-34s dominated the east front. Who knows how the war might have turned out without it?

[mcv]

Came in way too late though (IIRC later than the Tiger II). At that point the only advantage it had was that it was reasonably cheap to produce (compared to those over-engineered monstrosities like the Tiger series). Good from a strategic standpoint, but nothing spectacular.
Being cheap is an enormous advantage when you're strapped for resources, which the Germans were. Their obsession with over-engineered heavy tanks hasn't done them any good. The Tiger, feared though it was, wasn't really all that important, because there just weren't all that many of them. They were too expensive to make, and not even all that reliable.

[eulmanis12]

Being cheap is an enormous advantage when you're strapped for resources, which the Germans were. Their obsession with over-engineered heavy tanks hasn't done them any good. The Tiger, feared though it was, wasn't really all that important, because there just weren't all that many of them. They were too expensive to make, and not even all that reliable.

and after a while the "Tiger Phobia" they caused among allied troops started hurting them. Rumors of a Tiger being in a location were all that was needed to convice allied forces to bring obscene amounts of firepower to bear. A tiger is a tough tank, but no vehicle can survive the amount of firepower allied forces would direct at a Tiger that they located. There were instances of entire towns being leveled due to a soldier thinking he saw a Tiger tank in it. There is such a thing as being too powerful for your own good.

[Storm Bringer]

And you don't mention the T-34? The T-34 was probably the single most important tank of the war. The design of the best German tank, the Panther, was mostly copying lots of good ideas from the T-34. The T-34 was easy to make (no other tank comes even close to the numbers in which the T-34 was produced), it was fast (it had the same unique suspension mechanism that the earlier Russian BT tanks had), it was one of the first tanks (after some BT tanks I believe) to take full advantage of sloping armor. As a result it was light, fast, very well armored, and there was an enormous amount of them. As a medium tank, it was competitive with much more expensive heavy tanks. It's the tank that could do almost everything, and as such it's basically the predecessor of all modern main battle tanks.

In sheer firepower and armor it was eventually surpassed by later tanks of course, but for most of the war, the T-34s dominated the east front. Who knows how the war might have turned out without it?

Differently. no doubt, but it was not a tank without flaws.

First, thier was the typical russain disregard for Ergonomics, which ment the crew tired much more quickly in prolonged conflict compared to other tanks of the era (let along later tanks).

Second, and more serious, thier was the two man turret, which basically lowered proformance across the whole board. Quite simply, in a two man turret, where the commander is also the gunner, your commander can't fight the tank very effectively becuase he is too busy being a gunner. he#s not keeping his eyes open for new threats/targets, he's not steering the driver, and so his tank is not fighting as well as he could, because he too busy stareing down his sights.

the three man turret was introduced with the t34/85 model of the late war, which is why a poster last page claimed it was amoung the best tanks of the war.

[fusilier]

Second, and more serious, thier was the two man turret, which basically lowered proformance across the whole board. Quite simply, in a two man turret, where the commander is also the gunner, your commander can't fight the tank very effectively becuase he is too busy being a gunner. he#s not keeping his eyes open for new threats/targets, he's not steering the driver, and so his tank is not fighting as well as he could, because he too busy stareing down his sights.

the three man turret was introduced with the t34/85 model of the late war, which is why a poster last page claimed it was amoung the best tanks of the war.

I think this claim tends to be over exaggerated. French tanks had one-man turrets, and people attack them as "disastrous" design flaws. But the French themselves didn't complain about it (they did complain about the lack of a top hatch), and their tanks actually did quite well when they could get into battle. I think people tend to confuse "differences" for "flaws", and we should be careful about that.

If I remember correctly, most of the tanks from that period couldn't really fire on the move (until perhaps later in the war?), so having the commander direct the driver to a position, then operating the gun, rather than directing the gunner, is neither unfeasible, or illogical. It also allows a smaller turret, which means less weight.

I'm not saying that having the commander also be the gunner (and even the loader), is better, I'm just saying that the evidence doesn't bear out that it was a serious flaw. Nowadays it may be, but at the time it seems to have not caused serious problems, and the historical context is necessary in our evaluation.

[Bulldog Psion]

Differently. no doubt, but it was not a tank without flaws.

First, thier was the typical russain disregard for Ergonomics, which ment the crew tired much more quickly in prolonged conflict compared to other tanks of the era (let along later tanks).

Second, and more serious, thier was the two man turret, which basically lowered proformance across the whole board. Quite simply, in a two man turret, where the commander is also the gunner, your commander can't fight the tank very effectively becuase he is too busy being a gunner. he#s not keeping his eyes open for new threats/targets, he's not steering the driver, and so his tank is not fighting as well as he could, because he too busy stareing down his sights.

the three man turret was introduced with the t34/85 model of the late war, which is why a poster last page claimed it was amoung the best tanks of the war.

Yes, the T-34 was pretty much a death trap, too. Required human wave tactics with tanks to overwhelm German tanks, from what I recall. Yes, it was mechanically reliably -- got you very quickly to where you were going to die burning.

That's why the Soviet troops called the SU and ISU self-propelled assault guns "nyekrasivo, no spasibo" -- "ugly, but thank you" -- because they could take on the German tanks with them and have a chance of winning and not dying in the process from inferior fighting capabilities of their equipment.

[Autolykos]

Being cheap is an enormous advantage when you're strapped for resources, which the Germans were. Their obsession with over-engineered heavy tanks hasn't done them any good. The Tiger, feared though it was, wasn't really all that important, because there just weren't all that many of them. They were too expensive to make, and not even all that reliable.While I agree that the Tiger (and later, even more expensive constructions like the Tiger II) didn't have much effect on the war, they might still be a more effective use of resources than mass-producing "cheap" designs. What makes them cheap is generally a low need for industrial/manufacturing capacity (which was pretty much the only thing Germany was not short of), but they might need more raw materials and crew for the same "combat value".
I might over-simplify here a little to get the point across, but I doubt you could build more than two or three Shermans or T-34s from the materials needed for a Tiger (and would need more crew and perhaps even fuel to use them). And numbers alone won't do them much good if they can only hurt the Tiger on a lucky hit (unless you have such masses that luck will become statistics - which the allies had towards the end of the war).
I don't think the results would've been much different if the Germans
had continued building Pz III and Pz IV while the Soviets ignored the T-34 and focused on the KV and IS series (the Americans didn't have that much of a choice since they had to ship their tanks across the ocean). The decisions were (mostly) sensible, given the relative constraints of manufacturing capacity, raw materials and manpower.

[Mike_G]

While I agree that the Tiger (and later, even more expensive constructions like the Tiger II) didn't have much effect on the war, they might still be a more effective use of resources than mass-producing "cheap" designs. What makes them cheap is generally a low need for industrial/manufacturing capacity (which was pretty much the only thing Germany was not short of), but they might need more raw materials and crew for the same "combat value".
I might over-simplify here a little to get the point across, but I doubt you could build more than two or three Shermans or T-34s from the materials needed for a Tiger (and would need more crew and perhaps even fuel to use them). And numbers alone won't do them much good if they can only hurt the Tiger on a lucky hit (unless you have such masses that luck will become statistics - which the allies had towards the end of the war).
I don't think the results would've been much different if the Germans
had continued building Pz III and Pz IV while the Soviets ignored the T-34 and focused on the KV and IS series (the Americans didn't have that much of a choice since they had to ship their tanks across the ocean). The decisions were (mostly) sensible, given the relative constraints of manufacturing capacity, raw materials and manpower.

But more weak tanks lets you use tanks in more places than a few strong tanks. It's not a simple question of two or three Shermans fighting one Tiger, it's the fact that there were enough Shermans to support attacks at multiple points in the line, and the few Tigers couldn't be everywhere. Or if the tried, they'd burn precious fuel getting there, and run the risk of being caught on the move by Allied air power.

Twice as many Pz IV tanks, spread out to cover more ground might have been a better use of resources.

[Yukitsu]

But more weak tanks lets you use tanks in more places than a few strong tanks. It's not a simple question of two or three Shermans fighting one Tiger, it's the fact that there were enough Shermans to support attacks at multiple points in the line, and the few Tigers couldn't be everywhere. Or if the tried, they'd burn precious fuel getting there, and run the risk of being caught on the move by Allied air power.

Twice as many Pz IV tanks, spread out to cover more ground might have been a better use of resources.

Actually, German military doctrine that was actually successful dictated that they wouldn't try to be everywhere. They performed best where they were able to focus a decisive hit at a dispersed enemy. Even if they had enough tanks to reinforce every force, they wouldn't have wanted to ideally.

Dispersing numerous tanks across a wide area is what cost the BEF and the French France.

[Mike_G]

Actually, German military doctrine that was actually successful dictated that they wouldn't try to be everywhere. They performed best where they were able to focus a decisive hit at a dispersed enemy.

Which is nice when you're attacking, but not when the enemy are threatening you on several fronts.

A concentrated reaction force to use in a counterattack is a good idea, but not when American fighter-bombers are just waiting for a chance to kill some Tigers on the move.





Even if they had enough tanks to reinforce every force, they wouldn't have wanted to ideally.

Dispersing numerous tanks across a wide area is what cost the BEF and the French France.

Without a decent tactical reserve, yes it can spell disaster. But a defender more or less has to cover a lot of ground or the enemy will just hit where he isn't. The trick is have enough forces to slow the enemy attack wherever it comes, and a reserve that you can move to meet it.

If the British and French defended the wide front with a speedbump of infantry and anti tank guns and used their tanks as a fire brigade to oppose German attacks when they revealed their position, that might have been a better plan. Unless superior German air support hit those tanks on the move.

By the time Germany was on the defensive in '44 and '45, they didn't have the fuel to keep moving a quick reaction force, or the air cover to protect it. Hull down light tanks or tank killers are hard to root out. Tanks on the move, even heavy ones, can be spotted and knocked out by good tac air.

If superior German close air support

[Yukitsu]

Which is nice when you're attacking, but not when the enemy are threatening you on several fronts.

A concentrated reaction force to use in a counterattack is a good idea, but not when American fighter-bombers are just waiting for a chance to kill some Tigers on the move.

At that point after Kursk, realistically, they couldn't have done much about fighter bombers cleaning up a good deal of their tanks whether they were dispersed or in concentration, the air superiority was simply too complete. (and even assuming it weren't, Bradley would have rolled over France about as fast as Patton later did, owing to the larger number of lighter, softer hitting dispersed tanks having to fight equal quality American tanks that were concentrated.)



Without a decent tactical reserve, yes it can spell disaster. But a defender more or less has to cover a lot of ground or the enemy will just hit where he isn't. The trick is have enough forces to slow the enemy attack wherever it comes, and a reserve that you can move to meet it.

Germans were slowing down the advance on that front more with the panzerfaust and bocages along the countryside more than they could have with panzer IIIs, and at any rate, most of the French countryside was exposed enough that a tank based rather than infantry based speed bump would be far too obvious a target for bombers. Even then, you didn't need a whole tank for those speed bumps. The Germans used their flak cannons to good use in those engagements without taking up anywhere near the resources of a full group of tanks or tank destroyers.


If the British and French defended the wide front with a speedbump of infantry and anti tank guns and used their tanks as a fire brigade to oppose German attacks when they revealed their position, that might have been a better plan. Unless superior German air support hit those tanks on the move.

By the time Germany was on the defensive in '44 and '45, they didn't have the fuel to keep moving a quick reaction force, or the air cover to protect it. Hull down light tanks or tank killers are hard to root out. Tanks on the move, even heavy ones, can be spotted and knocked out by good tac air.


At that point in time, simply focusing production on flak cannons (which to a very large degree they did) was a superior option. Even then however, the lighter tank wouldn't necessarily have been superior to the heavier tanks dug in, simply because the panzer 3's 76mm gun didn't have the same stopping power as the tiger's 88mm anti-tank cannon.

[fusilier]

If the British and French defended the wide front with a speedbump of infantry and anti tank guns and used their tanks as a fire brigade to oppose German attacks when they revealed their position, that might have been a better plan. Unless superior German air support hit those tanks on the move.

The French actually did something like that, if I remember correctly. They had infantry and cavalry tanks. The infantry tanks were spread out to support the infantry, but the cavalry tanks (mostly if not all Somua S.35's), were concentrated into a reaction force. They rushed them to the lowlands, where they achieved tactical success at the Battle of Hannut, but the Germans outflanked them and passed through the Ardennes, they rushed them back, but by then the hard driving started to take it's toll it was too late anyway. In hindsight, the French basically committed their cavalry tank forces too early.

[Autolykos]

Which is nice when you're attacking, but not when the enemy are threatening you on several fronts.I think that's the important point here. The whole Blitzkrieg concept is based on being on the attack pretty much all the time. It's really the only thing you can pull off if you don't have the resources for a long war. You can compensate a little by staying on the offensive at a tactical level while defending at a strategic level, but that's expensive, and generally inferior to a force built for defense.
German military doctrine failed once initiative was lost, and no change in tactics or designs alone would've helped. The Hetzer might have been meant to fill that gap, but it didn't really fit into doctrine and was outdated before construction started. Plus, it was basically a deathtrap and everyone knew it. The StuG III on the other hand was a great design that had the mobility to be used effectively with the German doctine (and the already existing material).

[Galloglaich]

The French actually did something like that, if I remember correctly. They had infantry and cavalry tanks. The infantry tanks were spread out to support the infantry, but the cavalry tanks (mostly if not all Somua S.35's), were concentrated into a reaction force. They rushed them to the lowlands, where they achieved tactical success at the Battle of Hannut, but the Germans outflanked them and passed through the Ardennes, they rushed them back, but by then the hard driving started to take it's toll it was too late anyway. In hindsight, the French basically committed their cavalry tank forces too early.

Apparently most of them were taken out by Stukas, if I remember correctly. Shame that!

For the record I do think the T-34 was a very important, frankly brilliant design, though obviously it did have many flaws which have been mentioned. It was at pretty close to the 'sweet spot' for mass production I think. Good armor, including armor on the sides, very good speed and cross-country mobility, and a pretty good gun. That is a lethal combination. The T-34/85 was an exceptionally good tank by WW II standards, ergonomics issues and production problems notwithstanding, it had all the virtues of the original T-34 plus a bad ass gun.

But I think that Su-100 is just a beast... a beast! That 100m gun can kill just about anything the Germans had and at long range, and it's really fast and well armored. Generally I think the tank-destroyers with the hull-mounted guns are pretty good, better than static AT guns because they can be moved around and some of them had good armor (though it's hard to overestimate the value of the Flak 18/36 88mm gun for the Germans at the critical early phase of the war, it gave them near perfect anti-tank defense. The panzerfaust was really important and effective as well).

The US design of the Wolverine was also interesting along the same lines, because it was so fast and I think (?) it had fixed the turret traverse problems that plagued the earlier M10. It was like a very mobile ATG.

The open top thing is seen as a major design flaw, which in a way it was, but it also seems to have helped enormously with situational awareness and that is critical for tank to tank combat.

G

EDIT: oh and by the way the PZ 3 had a 50mm gun, not a 75, you are maybe confusing it with the Pz IV. Which had a 75mm but only a really useful one from the F2 model on out.

[deuxhero]

What kind of weapons would be used in medieval dueling? Both street and upper class duels.

edit: Were there any western swordsmiths that were held in particularly high regard we still know of?

[Spiryt]

What kind of weapons would be used in medieval dueling? Both street and upper class duels.



In official duels, all kind of stuff, often really weird, would be used. That's kind of to be expected.

There were all kind of duels though, often horsemen duels as well.

On 'the street' all kind of swords, daggers, knives, messers and all other more or less sophisticated portable blades would be popular.

That entirely depends on place and period though, obviously, so hard to give precise answer.

Here you have account from 1370 Germany

http://www.thearma.org/essays/theobald-seitz.html

[Yukitsu]

EDIT: oh and by the way the PZ 3 had a 50mm gun, not a 75, you are maybe confusing it with the Pz IV. Which had a 75mm but only a really useful one from the F2 model on out.

The PZ III increased the size of its cannon over its service life. By the time Normandy rolled around, the tanks they were producing to block the British and Americans would have been 75mm main guns had they decided to mass produce PzIIIs instead of focusing on heavy tanks with the 88.

Do like the Su100 more than either though, but wouldn't want to focus production on it. A bit too purpose built when compared to the panzer 3 or T-34.

[Galloglaich]

I think you are confusing Pz III's with Pz IV's

[Yukitsu]

I think you are confusing Pz III's with Pz IV's

No, the panzer IV was designed with the 75mm in mind. When they upgraded the PZ IV to the 75mmL, they put the old 75s on the PZ IIIs.

[Galloglaich]

Which was a low velocity HE only version, basiclaly, which was all that the turret ring on the Pz III could handle.

G

[The Dark Fiddler]

For some context here, I'm going to be doing a physics project explaining the mechanics behind medieval weaponry. Finding sources through Google has been a bit difficult, so I figured I'd come here. If anybody can point me towards some thorough or in-depth discussions on the physics of such weapons, that'd be great; otherwise, I'll probably start out asking broad questions and get more in depth, asking a series of questions based on responses to earlier ones. Anyway, a few questions to start off:

Would it be accurate to say that slashing and piercing weapons (swords, axes, arrows) function largely off of the concept of pressure; that is, a force applied to a small surface area applying a great pressure?

Would it be accurate to say that armors were developed to reduce the forces suffered when attacked by spreading the force out to a larger surface area?What is the practical difference between a flexible armor and a rigid armor (chain versus plate, for example)?

How did shields work? Did they protect the wielder through the application of pressure, as I assume armors did, or were they more meant to change the angle an attack landed at, reducing the force applied? A combination thereof? Was the force delivered still enough to cause injury?

[Spiryt]

Would it be accurate to say that slashing and piercing weapons (swords, axes, arrows) function largely off of the concept of pressure; that is, a force applied to a small surface area applying a great pressure?



If generalizing it like that, then generally about all weapons can said to function like that - 'bludgeoning' ones as well.

One can smack something good with a frying pan, but actual maces and hammer will be shaped in a way that concentrates force on smaller area.

[The Dark Fiddler]

If generalizing it like that, then generally about all weapons can said to function like that - 'bludgeoning' ones as well.

One can smack something good with a frying pan, but actual maces and hammer will be shaped in a way that concentrates force on smaller area.

Good point, I guess a more accurate question would be why piercing and slashing weapons have such extremely small surface areas, while bludgeoning weapons don't. Are bludgeoning weapons less effective because of it, or do they compensate in other ways?

[J.Gellert]

Good point, I guess a more accurate question would be why piercing and slashing weapons have such extremely small surface areas, while bludgeoning weapons don't. Are bludgeoning weapons less effective because of it, or do they compensate in other ways?

Bludgeoning weapons also have small surface areas.

Compare a real war hammer (link (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_hammer)) with a fantasy one (link (http://fc08.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2010/036/b/f/War_Hammer_by_Inhalmoissa.jpg)) to see what I mean.

Edit: For your physics project, consider also the length of the weapon's handle.

The warrior's grip is on the lower end of the hammer or axe, not high up as often depicted in fantasy art.

[Spiryt]

Good point, I guess a more accurate question would be why piercing and slashing weapons have such extremely small surface areas, while bludgeoning weapons don't. Are bludgeoning weapons less effective because of it, or do they compensate in other ways?

They have different surfaces to transfer energy in different ways and thus have different effect.

If they were "less effective" they wouldn't be used.

[Galloglaich]

Hey welcome to the forum. Good luck on your project. I'll try to chime in on a few of your questions.

First and foremost, there have been several good physics studies done on Medieval and pre-industrial weapons, probably the best and most thorough (at least that I know of in English) were done by the Royal Armouries at Leeds (http://www.royalarmouries.org/home) in the UK. You can contact them for data. Alan Williams, the author of "Knight and the Blast Furnace" did several carefully calibrated tests of weapons against armor, some of which you can find in the partial copy on google books here (http://books.google.de/books/about/The_knight_and_the_blast_furnace.html?hl=de&id=GpVbnsqAzxIC). If you are a grad student and have access to JSTOR you should be able to find several more recent studies, it has become somewhat of a hot topic in Academia in recent years.

As the others pointed out, blunt weapons, at least dedicated military weapons, tended to have a small surface area for striking and this area got smaller over time. Late era war-hammers concentrate a great deal of force on a very small area, late era maces were made 'flanged' with surfaces almost like blades.

Armor generally protected near-total protection, it's an unfortunately persistent myth that armor only protected against 'glancing blows' and so on. This has been thoroughly debunked in recent years. Armor could be defeated however, usually by dedicated armor-piercing weapons such as military picks, roundel daggers and estocs. But this wasn't very common and by far the most reliable way to deal with armor was to go around it: open the visor, cut the helmet straps to take the helmet off, attack unarmored lower legs or armpits or back of the thighs, and so on. Most types of armor in wide use were pretty effective.

"Chain" armor isn't really a word, definitely not used in academia. The more correct term is mail. Mail was typically used with some kind of textile armor, sometimes worn under, sometimes worn over, sometimes both or sandwiched in between (which was typical among the Arabs). It was still quite effective, though slightly less against blunt trauma to places like elbows or knees, which not coincidentally were the first parts of the body to receive supplemental armor going way back.

When armor does fail it tends not to fail so much incrementally as catastrophically, i.e. one is either not wounded, or just trivially wounded, or else the armor doesn't work at all. To get an idea how effective even amateur re-enactor armor can be at withstanding repeated blows from steel weapons and leaving the wearer unharmed (including both stiff and flexible armor) look up "battle of nations" on youtube.

Shields work one of two ways generally speaking. Against missiles (arrows, javelins, darts, rocks) they worked as passive defense somewhat in the manner that you alluded to. They were made out of light but fibrous woods such as linden (lime wood) which was very hard to penetrate, and / or rawhide and other substances which could stop most missiles. Later in the age of firearms and high velocity crossbows shields were increasingly made of steel or laminated wood and textile. Outside of Europe and further back into antiquity shields could be made of lighter substances like wicker and animal hide.

Against hand weapons shields are used actively, like a defensive (and sometimes offensive) weapon. If one just held a shield in place the opponent will just go around it. The exception to this is in jousting, and to some extent in Hoplite era phalanx combat where the shields were held in ranks. Shield use in the medieval context is dynamic and aggressive, one seeks to protect the body, the weapon hand, and the head, while attempting to bind the enemies weapon and / or shield. You can get some hint of an idea how that worked here (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XWSTx0tZHCU&feature=related) and in a little more detail here (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-Ms9RMH7IA&feature=related).

Edged weapons don't cause damage through impact really, again this hearkens back to a persistent Victorian myth about Medieval swords being something like 'sharpened crowbars'. Swords cut like cleavers or slice like razors, most can do both. Some specialize in one type or cutting or the other, sabers for example are specialized for slicing but can also cut. Most swords can also pierce like a needle. For a good primer of what swords were really like I recommend the works of Ewart Oakshott (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ewart_Oakeshott) who invented the modern typology of Medieval swords and who still has several books still in print.

For a good primer on the European martial arts manuals, I recommend this book (http://www.amazon.com/The-Martial-Arts-Renaissance-Europe/dp/0300083521) by Dr. Sydney Anglo.

Hope that helps,

G

[endoperez]

Speaking of physics, sword blade geometry and harmonics might be of interest to you. Obviously you'd have to find better sources than these random links, but they look like they would offer some interesting and relatively easy-to-explain physical phenomena.

http://www.myarmoury.com/feature_properties.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flame-bladed_sword

[Aux-Ash]

Would it be accurate to say that slashing and piercing weapons (swords, axes, arrows) function largely off of the concept of pressure; that is, a force applied to a small surface area applying a great pressure?

This is one of the concepts involved, yes. It is also related to the Toughness and Hardness of the materials involved.
Not to mention a right mess of impulse, momentum and torque.


Would it be accurate to say that armors were developed to reduce the forces suffered when attacked by spreading the force out to a larger surface area?

Partly. All armour certainly does that, but I think the effect of that is rather limited. I think it's mainly of a case of A) deflecting and B) providing the body with a hard external shell.

In simplistic terms:

Both of those two should constitute a considerable defence on their own. By deflecting blows (for instance by ensuring that every blows come in at an angle and thus won't deliver the full Force of the blow) you significantly reduce the ability of your opponent to damage you.

The latter case is also significant. In order to cause damage, you essentially have to deform the target area. By ensuring that the target area is covered in metal, you essentially increase it's resistance to that. If the weapon cannot overcome the target areas Toughness and Hardness, then the Work behind the blow will partly convert into sound and heat and partly "bounce".
After a fashion, similarly like rubber ball being bounced off a hard surface as opposed to loosely packed sand. Though not as extreme... or simple.


What is the practical difference between a flexible armor and a rigid armor (chain versus plate, for example)?

I'd suspect that the flexible armour is good at "absorbing" the blow (by spreading the Work out throughout itself) whereas the rigid armour is Tougher and Harder and thus protects about more powerful blows.

[Matthew]

"Chain Mail" does get used in academia from time to time, but I would not recommend using it myself.

[eulmanis12]

"Chain Mail" does get used in academia from time to time, but I would not recommend using it myself.

chain mail tends to get a bad reputation in media because it does not defend well against stabbing or blunt weapons. "scientific" shows (whose names I will not mention) tend to make the mistake of thinking that the only way people fought was by repeattedly stabbing at eachother, and that chain mail was worn alone with nothing underneath.

Chain mail was part of an armor system, but only part. Padded armor underneath absorbed impact and stopped arrows, padded armor alone was vulnerable to slashing weapons so the chain mail was worn over it, the chain mail prevented slashing weapons from killing the wearer.

Chain defends against a slash, but is nearly useless against piercing or blunt force. Padding defends against piercing and blunt force but is nearly useless against slashing. Thus chain was worn over padding to provide very effective protection.

Due to the various types of mail armor the term chain mail is often confused.
Chain mail refers to small metal rings linked together as armor
Scale mail is a covering of metal plates like a lizard's scales
plate mail is a mixture of large metal plates attached directly to chain mail
and there are many other types but these are the three common ones that are often just described as chain mail

[Spiryt]

chain mail tends to get a bad reputation in media because it does not defend well against stabbing or blunt weapons. "scientific" shows (whose names I will not mention) tend to make the mistake of thinking that the only way people fought was by repeattedly stabbing at eachother, and that chain mail was worn alone with nothing underneath.

Chain mail was part of an armor system, but only part. Padded armor underneath absorbed impact and stopped arrows, padded armor alone was vulnerable to slashing weapons so the chain mail was worn over it, the chain mail prevented slashing weapons from killing the wearer.

Chain defends against a slash, but is nearly useless against piercing or blunt force. Padding defends against piercing and blunt force but is nearly useless against slashing. Thus chain was worn over padding to provide very effective protection.

Due to the various types of mail armor the term chain mail is often confused.
Chain mail refers to small metal rings linked together as armor
Scale mail is a covering of metal plates like a lizard's scales
plate mail is a mixture of large metal plates attached directly to chain mail
and there are many other types but these are the three common ones that are often just described as chain mail


Terms like "chain mail" or "plate mail" are for the most part 19th century inventions, that got really popular in some popular science and fantasy circles.

In actual Medieval period, everywhere when latin was not used, "mail", "maille" etc. meant exactly armor from interlocking rings.

Terms like "plate mail" or "scale mail" are confusing and not really correct.



Chain defends against a slash, but is nearly useless against piercing or blunt force. Padding defends against piercing and blunt force but is nearly useless against slashing. Thus chain was worn over padding to provide very effective protect

This is unfortunately very stupid myth - any sort of cloth armor was by itself much more resistant to slashes and cuts than to thrust - from the very obvious physic reasons.

Thrust with anything remotely pointy concentrates impact on much smaller surface, and it has much, much less material to displace on it's way.... Thrust must displace 'thickness' of material, 'slash' deals with thickness times area of contact.

Adding the softness and 'slipperiness" of soft armor - hard thing to cut.

Mail was in no way "useless" against blunt or piercing force, whatever it is.

Padding was being worn beneath the mail to provide additional dispersion of energy transfered to the links by any sort of attack - so it could be further resisted with reduced damage to wearer and mail itself.



tend to make the mistake of thinking that the only way people fought was by repeattedly stabbing at eachother,

People kind of fought by repeatedly stabbing each other... Arrows, spears, javelins, daggers, more spears - those were basic warfare armament around the Europe and Asia for hundreds and thousands of years.


Padded armor underneath absorbed impact and stopped arrows

Most padded armor that wasn't standalone doesn't really hold much chance of stopping sharp arrow - needs mail for it.

Here at 'test cotas' (http://www.cotasdemalla.es/ma1.htm) we have modern, still rather flawed, but illustrative experiment.

By itself, wool felt, very often found in period cloth armor, is rather easily pierced by arrow, but together with mail, it works wonderfully.

Mail alone fares much, much better, but still not 'optimally'.

[J.Gellert]

chain mail tends to get a bad reputation in media because it does not defend well against stabbing or blunt weapons. "scientific" shows (whose names I will not mention) tend to make the mistake of thinking that the only way people fought was by repeattedly stabbing at eachother, and that chain mail was worn alone with nothing underneath.

Chain mail was part of an armor system, but only part. Padded armor underneath absorbed impact and stopped arrows, padded armor alone was vulnerable to slashing weapons so the chain mail was worn over it, the chain mail prevented slashing weapons from killing the wearer.

Chain defends against a slash, but is nearly useless against piercing or blunt force. Padding defends against piercing and blunt force but is nearly useless against slashing. Thus chain was worn over padding to provide very effective protection.

Considering how long it lasted, it must have been pretty good.

In fact all kinds of armor (including leather) were probably way more useful than what they are given credit for.

[Galloglaich]

Leather wasn't used as armor much, if at all, apparently in Europe, though it was somewhat in Central Asia.

In Europe that niche is really taken up by textile armors, gambeson, aketon, jupon and so on, which turn out to be surprisingly effective.

G

[Spiryt]

Leather wasn't used as armor much, if at all, apparently in Europe, though it was somewhat in Central Asia.

In Europe that niche is really taken up by textile armors, gambeson, aketon, jupon and so on, which turn out to be surprisingly effective.

G

Well, to best of my knowledge, leather armors of CA weren't in the exact same 'niche' though - they tended to be bulky and heavy like lamellars and scales tend to be.

Only with leather instead of metals, obviosuly of thicker plates than similar metallic ones.

Obviously though, cloth armors intended for being standalone protection, tended to be rather hefty too, no question.

~ 30 layers of sound linen is going to weight quite a lot.

[Straybow]

Good point, I guess a more accurate question would be why piercing and slashing weapons have such extremely small surface areas, while bludgeoning weapons don't. Are bludgeoning weapons less effective because of it, or do they compensate in other ways?

The cutting edge of an axe or sword gets dinged up banging against armor. The short spikes or flanges of blunt weapons don't care if they get dinged, and they concentrate the impact force as well or better than a blade. Thrusting weapons are limited in their lines of attack. Blunt, axe, and thrusting weapons other than simple spears have hooks that make them versatile combat tools. Swords are balanced weapons, which is often better for defense.

Boil those factors down into physics terms (center of mass, moment arm, momentum, etc).

[endoperez]

I was about to argue that swords can't cut through wood, in another forum, but then decided to check Youtube for videos first. I foundthis (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHm_pJceN5Q#t=0m19s) video where, at the linked moment, a guy cuts through a rather thick sapling.

Wow! :smalleek: I totally hadn't expected that.

Have any groups performed test on if a sword (or axe, or any bladed weapon/tool in general) can cut through various wooden weapons, such as:

spear shafts (made of tough wood and treated somehow) - I expect it would do some damage, but not cut it, at least not in a single stroke. If it's held aloft, it might not do much at all.
eskrima or kali sticks - if it's hardwood instead of rattan, probably not much. Here's a video of knife vs kali sticks (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yz6Oe6a8TO8), and at the end they show the sticks have taken quite a beating. The damage seems superficial though.
Tonfa or similar - it's probably similar to eskrima or kali sticks in construction, but in this case, they would probably meet the blade straight on. I doubt the sword would cut through.

I'm not familiar with hardwoods, and they are probably quite tough, perhaps too tough to cut through. Then again, I would've said cutting through a fresh sapling like in the video is too difficult as well.

[Fhaolan]

I'm not familiar with hardwoods, and they are probably quite tough, perhaps too tough to cut through. Then again, I would've said cutting through a fresh sapling like in the video is too difficult as well.

I've accidentally cut through an 1-1/4" ironwood jo stick with a blunted sword during a performance. I just happened to hit the stick exactly right to bite into the grain, splitting the wood apart. Both myself and the lady I was working with were a bit surprised when it happened. :) The acting troupe I was working with at that time banned the really hard woods for weapons handles/shafts after several occasions like that one where the wood split/chipped/shrapneled far too easily. The worst offender was the compressed, epoxy-impregnated woods that are usually dyed fancy colours as well. They were technically pretty tough and wore out blades trying to shape them to fit the weapons; but when they did break, they *shattered*.

[Knaight]

I was about to argue that swords can't cut through wood, in another forum, but then decided to check Youtube for videos first. I foundthis (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHm_pJceN5Q#t=0m19s) video where, at the linked moment, a guy cuts through a rather thick sapling.

Wow! :smalleek: I totally hadn't expected that.

Have any groups performed test on if a sword (or axe, or any bladed weapon/tool in general) can cut through various wooden weapons, such as:

My main concern regarding these tests is anchoring. If you clamp a spear to two surfaces, then cut in between them it isn't going to behave like a help spear at all, and the same applies to a much larger extent to shorter one handed weapons. In any case, the capacity to cut them certainly exists to some extent (after all, axes are used to take down entire trees), the question is really just one of how much abuse it is going to take to get through various wooden shafts.

[Brother Oni]

Interesting discussion.

All the questions on mail has reminded me of something.

In most historical Japanese media, mail is usually depicted as being especially effective against the katana, presumably since mail is particularly effective against slashing style attacks and the katana is primarily a cutting tool, not to mention the edge gets blunted fairly quickly.

Is there any truth in this?

[Matthew]

chain mail tends to get a bad reputation in media because it does not defend well against stabbing or blunt weapons. "scientific" shows (whose names I will not mention) tend to make the mistake of thinking that the only way people fought was by repeattedly stabbing at eachother, and that chain mail was worn alone with nothing underneath.

Chain mail was part of an armor system, but only part. Padded armor underneath absorbed impact and stopped arrows, padded armor alone was vulnerable to slashing weapons so the chain mail was worn over it, the chain mail prevented slashing weapons from killing the wearer.

Chain defends against a slash, but is nearly useless against piercing or blunt force. Padding defends against piercing and blunt force but is nearly useless against slashing. Thus chain was worn over padding to provide very effective protection.

Due to the various types of mail armor the term chain mail is often confused.
Chain mail refers to small metal rings linked together as armor
Scale mail is a covering of metal plates like a lizard's scales
plate mail is a mixture of large metal plates attached directly to chain mail
and there are many other types but these are the three common ones that are often just described as chain mail

I think you may have misread me. :smallbiggrin:



Interesting discussion.

All the questions on mail has reminded me of something.

In most historical Japanese media, mail is usually depicted as being especially effective against the katana, presumably since mail is particularly effective against slashing style attacks and the katana is primarily a cutting tool, not to mention the edge gets blunted fairly quickly.

Is there any truth in this?

Sure, mail is a very good defence against cutting attacks, the point the other posters are making above is that it is far from next to useless versus thrusts and chops, whether edged, pointed or blunted. By far the most common experience of war would have been the spear and arrow, of course.

[Autolykos]

Would it be accurate to say that slashing and piercing weapons (swords, axes, arrows) function largely off of the concept of pressure; that is, a force applied to a small surface area applying a great pressure?Absolutely not, except maybe for piercing weapons to achieve penetration in the first place. But even for them, after they've broken through, the damage is done by cutting. Cutting works by microscopic serrations in the blade taking tissue out of its place micrometer by micrometer. It's like a really small saw. Pressure is almost irrelevant here (you need some to make sure the blade has contact everywhere while you draw/push it across, but that's it). If a blade is sharp or not really comes down to the material, how those serrations will be shaped after sharpening it, and how long it will take to get them worn out again. Some materials (glass and obsidian are notorious for this) will shatter again, showing a new sharp edge, while metal tends be deformed and dull out over time.
Blunt weapons are different again. Here it all comes down to energy. When you deposit a lot of energy in an object, it has to go somewhere. Some of it will move the object, but how much is determined by momentum. The less momentum you have for the same amount of energy, the more is left to do damage. That's one reason why lighter war hammers are actually better at doing damage than a huge sledgehammer. If the hit object is somewhat elastic (Hint: Humans are not, armor and shields might be), some energy will be lost in bouncing the weapon back. All the remaining energy will be used for deforming stuff. It might be the target (unlucky for him), his armor (a little more lucky) or the weapon breaking (very lucky).


Would it be accurate to say that armors were developed to reduce the forces suffered when attacked by spreading the force out to a larger surface area?What is the practical difference between a flexible armor and a rigid armor (chain versus plate, for example)?If you want to generalize very broadly, your armor takes damage so you don't have to. Thats only part of it, though. Against sharp/pointy weapons, it works by keeping them from reaching the squishy human inside (ideally). If the armor material is harder (or just as hard) as the blade, you can't cut it, and piercing weapons will have their tip blunted. In short, they will have a harder time going in deeper and doing more damage. They also need to move armor material out of the way to penetrate deeper, which takes even more energy that would otherwise hurt the guy inside. And metal armor (except for chain) tends to be somewhat elastic and will bounce some of the energy in a strike with a blunt weapon back. Thats another bit of energy that's not going to hurt you.


How did shields work? Did they protect the wielder through the application of pressure, as I assume armors did, or were they more meant to change the angle an attack landed at, reducing the force applied? A combination thereof? Was the force delivered still enough to cause injury?Depends on the construction. Norse shields were very light and kinda flimsy. Their use was stopping arrows and thrown weapons (penetrating a wood shield completely is hard), and take damage instead of you. They were expected to get destroyed, and you might go through multiple shields in a battle (duel regulations from the time required each combatant to show up with three shields). Also, large shields can be used to conceal your moves and get the enemies weapon stuck in them, even if they aren't very tough. Fencers even used coats for this purpose.
Metal shields like bucklers or rotellas were meant to deflect hits (or in the latter case projectiles). They would also get deformed, but were a lot less likely to get destroyed.
Most shields are somewhere in between.

TL;DR: For every question, there is a simple, easy to understand, wrong answer. "Armor protects by spreading force" is one of those. It's only part of how armor protects you, and a small one at that (and then only against some types of damage). If you want to over-generalize, "All weapons function by depositing more energy in the target than it can deal with; armor protects by taking damage for you" is way better, but still somewhat wrong.

That's just off the top of my head, so I might be wrong in the details. If you need help with formulas, don't be afraid to ask. I'm a physicist, and there is at least another one around here who reads this thread.

[Spiryt]

Absolutely not, except maybe for piercing weapons to achieve penetration in the first place. But even for them, after they've broken through, the damage is done by cutting.

Well, except that you can have plenty of piercing weapons without any real edge and serrations that can still penetrate target very efficiently....


Pressure is almost irrelevant here (you need some to make sure the blade has contact everywhere while you draw/push it across, but that's it).

There will be a lot of of 'slashing' and 'piercing' actions without any push or draw. Just impact.




Blunt weapons are different again. Here it all comes down to energy. When you deposit a lot of energy in an object, it has to go somewhere. Some of it will move the object, but how much is determined by momentum. The less momentum you have for the same amount of energy, the more is left to do damage.

But momentum of the weapon is absolutely "dealing damage".... If you whack someone to the head with warhammer and it "moves the target" the target being moved will be, rather unavoidably, some parts of the skull of poor target.

Momentum determines tendency of object to stay on it's course, but what happens with stuff on such course, is another thing.

[Autolykos]

Yep, those are some of the details I was talking about. Pretty much every weapon will damage by piercing, cutting and crushing to different degrees, often depending on the amount of armor it faces and the hit location, speed and technique used.

There will be a lot of of 'slashing' and 'piercing' actions without any push or draw. Just impact.Just because the attacker does not consciously apply pressure doesn't mean there is none. Inertia alone can do this for you if the edge is at an angle to the direction the object is moving at.

And yes, deforming objects requires moving parts of them relative to others, and whenever something is moved, momentum is involved. What I meant was knocking the whole target back without doing much harm, not moving one part of a bone relative to the other until you exceed the elastic limits - even though, technically, both is movement. Pretty much any martial artist will differentiate between slower kicks with a lot of weight behind them to stop or knock down a target and fast kicks to damage the target. I don't know what the English terms are, but in German we talk of "Fußstoß" vs "Fußtritt", at least in Ju Jutsu.

EDIT, @OP: For your project, the most important concepts you'll need to elaborate on are inelastic collisions (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coefficient_of_restitution) and fracture mechanics (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fracture_mechanics), with especially the latter quickly becoming way too difficult for school-level physics. Luckily, your teacher probably won't know that much about it either.

[Spiryt]

What I meant was knocking the whole target back without doing much harm, not moving one part of a bone relative to the other until you exceed the elastic limits - even though, technically, both is movement. Pretty much any martial artist will differentiate between slower kicks with a lot of weight behind them to stop or knock down a target and fast kicks to damage the target. I don't know what the English terms are, but in German we talk of "Fußstoß" vs "Fußtritt", at least in Ju Jutsu.

Push kicks, teeps, or whatever any other martial art is calling them cannot be really compared to mace, axe, hammer or anything like that.

Human legs, hips etc. are way more massive, soft, things on hinges with a lot of give, that indeed can push something forward with relatively slow and steady application of force.

With any sort of steel/lead hammer it's not really possible... no matter how much weight of the body one will try to put behind the blow while still making it 'slow' it will still concentrate force on smaller area, and stop way more rapidly, inflicting bigger force on target.

I can't really imagine any weapon actually 'pushing' the target back, even stuff like baseball bat at most can shake head on the neck very violently...

Which is obviously usually very fatal.

By 3rd newton's law it's very understandable too - if a momentum of hand held weapon was to actually push something back.... Then hands and other parts of the striker would pushed back as well due to this momentum.

If someone push kicks someone, proper technique means that large bones, muscles and tendons in leg, hips, back can take this impact 'safely'.

[Autolykos]

Please don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that getting hit by a sledgehammer is harmless, or comparing its effects to kicks. I was just using the concept to illustrate the differences between high-momentum, low-energy hits and low-momentum, high-energy hits. It's relative. Even the fastest kick will probably have more momentum for its energy than the heaviest hammer.

[Spiryt]

And it still will probably do much more 'local' damage, than actual momentum tranfer on larger scale.

To actually push something one generally needs less 'focusing' tools, like feet or shields - that will indeed push something back on impact.


I was just using the concept to illustrate the differences between high-momentum, low-energy hits and low-momentum, high-energy hits. It's relative.

Well, it just seems to me that even with very low energy high momentum hits with something like large mallet won't probably do much in terms of 'pushing' roughly human sized target. Bricks or whatever can be sent flying, but few bricks together will already get cracked.

Can be wrong, of course.

[Autolykos]

Yeah, it won't be much. We're probably talking about 5% of the energy wasted vs 2% of the energy wasted, or something like that. I mainly mentioned it because part of the energy *will* always go this way and some nitpicker was going to point it out otherwise (and physics teachers are amongst the worst nitpickers ever).

Edit: I just quickly ran over the numbers (with a lot of simplifications). Assuming a war hammer weighing 1kg, a sledge hammer weighing 10kg, the target (including armor) weighing 100kg and the strike being made at 10m/s, the war hammer will waste 1% of its energy, the sledge hammer 10%. Still not much, but significantly more. Once you factor in that the war hammer will probably be quite a bit faster, the difference will become even greater.

[Spiryt]

Warhammer will be much faster, but good deal of weight involved in striking (wielders own arm/back/shoulder mass) will be constant though.

So with smaller weapon one can still hit pretty hard, while it maneuverability and general versatility will be much greater.


the war hammer will waste 1% of its energy, the sledge hammer 10%

Well, energy 'wasted' should probably be pretty much always in marks, cause movement of larger part of target will pretty often be damaging on it's own right though.

[Autolykos]

Let's just conclude that reality is complicated, and leave it at that. You could probably fill an entire book (or at least a rather long paper) with this problem alone.
EDIT: "On hitting people with hammers" would be a pretty cool title, though. I'm just not sure if the introduction should quote "Maxwell's Silver Hammer" or "Hammer Smashed Face".

[Matthew]

Just wanted to mention that I have been reading the Gesta Tancredi recently, and that it has quite a lot of military detail in it. The effectiveness of armour is reiterated there, with Tancred shown piercing the armour of his enemies in explicit contrast to its usual effectiveness.

[Straybow]

Oooh, now that the rapier vs broadsword fest has died down I thot I'd stir the pot:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QcMF3cwYabo

I don't speak German but here's a test in which the katana's untempered back edge causes it to deform inelastically when striking a clamped test blade, while the diamond cross-section longsword breaks the test blade.

Not that you'd ever hit a weapon so firmly held that it would be sundered rather than just knocked out of the hand...

[Storm Bringer]

Oooh, now that the rapier vs broadsword fest has died down I thot I'd stir the pot:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QcMF3cwYabo

I don't speak German but here's a test in which the katana's untempered back edge causes it to deform inelastically when striking a clamped test blade, while the diamond cross-section longsword breaks the test blade.

Not that you'd ever hit a weapon so firmly held that it would be sundered rather than just knocked out of the hand...

I've seen that one before, and i;m pretty sure it's on one of this threads forebears somewhere.

still pretty good, though.

[Yora]

Ah that one. I think it's rather questionable.

Katana striking longsword, longsword striking longsword.
What about katana striking katana, or longsword striking katana?

And again, this is a test performed under conditions that are impossible in reality.

At the beginning, they demonstrate a couple of moves that can not be performed with a katana. The entire middle part can be summed up as "results are the same".

An important thing to note is, that the katana was apparently much more used outside of warfare against unarmored opponents, similar to a rapier. When samurai went to war, the primary weapons were spears and bows. Compact size and leightweight construction was an important factor, long-term durability not so much.
On the other hand, longswords were weapons meant for war. Comparing the two would be a bit like comparing a revolver with a rifle.

[Spiryt]

I can't understand much German, and the quality is rather poor, so maybe they have something to support their points and show convention...

But it seems really like another of them silly programs.

Although it wonderfully illustrates why one swords in fact weren't used to wham them into solid metal bars/objects fixed in place firmly....

The sword they were striking against doesn't really look good to me, although hard to tell with that grain.... Like some very cheap overbuild stuff. not that it matters much.

It pretty much repeats standard problem - "das samurai schwert ist" like it was one or even just 10 design of Japanese sword, without counting individual details...



On the other hand, longswords were weapons meant for war.

Well, no, not at all. There's plenty of 'civilian' examples at least since 14th century, and even more "war" longsword would always be, like most swords kind of 'personal' weapon.

In fact katana and longsword are pretty comparable, all in all, because they both most probably evolved from cavalry weapons to two handed personal weapons, both very prized and associated with dedicated warrior class.


The effect of bending at the spine is pretty cool looking, at least.

[mcv]

Oooh, now that the rapier vs broadsword fest has died down I thot I'd stir the pot:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QcMF3cwYabo

I don't speak German but here's a test in which the katana's untempered back edge causes it to deform inelastically when striking a clamped test blade, while the diamond cross-section longsword breaks the test blade.

Not that you'd ever hit a weapon so firmly held that it would be sundered rather than just knocked out of the hand...
I've seen that video before (though I thought it was in English). It's in no way a serious comparison. Mostly just dramatic showing-off.

The moves they show that a longsword can do but a katana can't, are pretty exotic, and don't exactly make a terribly convincing argument. There are many much more interesting, common and useful moves that a longsword can do and a katana can't, but you need to know a bit about swordfighting to recognize that they're different, and they probably don't look as good on TV. Of course there are also moves that you can do with a katana but can't or won't easily do with a longsword (though not as many, I think).

As for the cutting through a sword, well, you're never going to hit a sword that way, so it's not a very useful test. That said, it doesn't surprise me that much that the longsword does better on it than the katana. This particular longsword at least seems to have a much broader blade, which probably helps to keep it from deforming the way the katana does, and that makes sense too, because I think the katana is actually better against lightly armoured targets, instead of steel armour. So the longsword will have been designed to be better at hitting steel.

But more importantly, how have these two swords been constructed? With medieval smithing techniques? With modern steel working technology? That sort of stuff matters quite a bit. Modern steel doesn't tell you much about how the historical swords would have performed. But historical swords' quality could vary wildly, so it's still hard to make a fair comparison.

The makers of this show won't care, though. They just want something cool to show on TV.

[Straybow]

I don't know what they're saying, but at the end it looks like the guy hand forged the longswords himself.

[Spiryt]

From my terrible Deutsche sprechen, I could conclude that main goal of the program seems to be educating masses brainwashed by pop culture - that Japanese swords don't cut trough other swords and street lights - and that's alright, but still it's very sketchy.

[Yora]

The makers of this show won't care, though. They just want something cool to show on TV.
It's a 25 minute daily science show that fills the spot between the afternoon shows and the evening movies with a random topic.

[Galloglaich]

I think the video is actually fairly realistic as those things go. It's been around for a while. Both of those guys doing the demos are HEMA practitioners, and one of them is also a JSA practitioner. One of the two guys doing the demos of the longsword is Colin Richards, an Englishman who lives in Germany who does know his stuff. He runs the international open longsword and rapier competition that they do in Germany every two years. (http://www.artsofmars.com/index.php/id-2012.html)

The sword cutting sword thing was to debunk a myth that Katanas could do this.

The whole show was a bit nationalistic in it's bent but factually pretty well grounded, in the sense that everything they said and showed was pretty accurate, including the differences between the two types of blades, though they do lean a little bit toward the longsword side it's mainly a matter of emphasis, certainly no worse (actualy not nearly as bad) as dozens of videos which lean the other way and are much more poorly researched. The blades they used in the demo were pretty authentic replicas.


An important thing to note is, that the katana was apparently much more used outside of warfare against unarmored opponents, similar to a rapier. When samurai went to war, the primary weapons were spears and bows. Compact size and leightweight construction was an important factor, long-term durability not so much.
On the other hand, longswords were weapons meant for war. Comparing the two would be a bit like comparing a revolver with a rifle.

This isn't really accurate. Both longswords and katanas were sidearms used both on the battlefield and in civilian circumstances, mainly by experts. Neither one was ever a primary battlefield weapon. The main weapon of European infantry were polearms or missile weapons (bows crossbows or guns) same for Japanese; the main weapon for cavalry was a lance or missile weapon... both for European and Japanese cavalry.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/71/Tachi-p1000620.jpg/800px-Tachi-p1000620.jpg

There is a slightly heavier version of the Katana, called the Tachi, which was used more often on the battlefield, but most people couldn't tell the difference (this is a tachi (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tachi)) and there was overlap between the two types and Katanas were also used as battlefield sidearms.

http://img17.imageshack.us/img17/9207/complexlongsword.jpg

There were also lighter (and more complex-hilted) civilian versions of the longsword as well, like this one above.

Katanas and Longswords were both used a lot in medium intensity urban conflicts against unarmored opponents, as well as against armored opponents on the battlefield.

The real differences are that the Katana is

A1) shorter / less reach
A2) single-edged
A3) has less hand protection

but also
B1) has a harder blade
B2) curved for better slicing
B3) very quick close-in

G

[Galloglaich]

What kind of weapons would be used in medieval dueling? Both street and upper class duels.

edit: Were there any western swordsmiths that were held in particularly high regard we still know of?

http://www.warehamforge.ca/BLOG/pattern-test/ulfbert.jpg

There were some very famous ones early in the Medieval period, during the Viking Age. For example there was a guy (or maybe a family) called Ulfberht, probably a Frank but maybe a Scandinavian, who was making really superb swords out of wootz steel (what people call 'Damascus steel') billets from India. He etched his name into the forte of his swords. His swords were of extraordinary quality, and very popular with Vikings, and found in Viking contexts, they were so good that they were apparently copied widely and there were a lot of fake Ulfberfht swords being made back in the day (http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2008/dec/27/archaeology-vikings-sword)

In the early Medieval period swords were enormously valuable, wootz steel swords much more so.

During the period 700 - 1200 AD, Norse and Frankish swords were in high demand by the Arabs and Central Asians, and as far away as China. They were a major export item on the Silk road, from Europe.

Later there were still famous swordsmiths, but I think more locally famous, by the late Medieval period the price of iron and steel had gone done dramatically, the technology of making swords was widespread.

As with so many Medieval industries, certain towns became famous for making swords. Toledo in Spain (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toledo,_Spain#Economy) had a reputation for very good swords in the period roughly 1300 - 1600 AD, though it gradually faded as the industry came under Royal control and the independence of the guilds was suppressed. They still made swords after that, all the way until the 1930s, but they were increasingly fancy looking crap. Solingen (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solingen) in Germany became arguably the most important center of high quality blade production in Central Europe by the late Medieval (1350 - 1550) period, and they still have a strong reputation for good blades there today. Swordmaking there goes way back, Ulfberht himself may have lived in Solingen. They also still have strong independent guilds in Germany.

I suspect though that there were still individually famous swordsmiths around, in spite of how cheap most European swords were in the Middle Ages (about one third to half a mark or 80 -120 silver pennies is an average cost) there were still very fancy ones made, but I unfortunately don't know about any individual sword masters*. I'd like to learn more about that actually.

G

* though we do know that there was a link between sword or knife makers Guilds and the fencing Masters, for example the famous fencing Master Joachim Meyer (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joachim_Meyer) was a member of the messerschmidts, or knifemakers guild.

[Joran]

I was watching American Guns where the hosts were demonstrating a revolver that accept both the .410 shotgun round and .45 Colt cartridge. One example is the Taurus Judge.

When would someone ever want to use the .410 shotgun round rather than the standard .45 cartridge?

[Raum]

When would someone ever want to use the .410 shotgun round rather than the standard .45 cartridge?Home defense. Don't have to worry (too much) about shot going through a wall into a bedroom...or a neighbor's house. Shot is also (usually) less deadly to humans than a slug though it often does more flesh damage. That may be a factor for some.

Other uses (snake rounds (shot), possibly other vermin) are possible but may have more optimal options.

[Galloglaich]

Easier to hit too

[Matthew]

The tachi is generally longer than the katana, though the technical distinguishing factor is supposed to be the way it is hung. Still, many tachi were "cut down" in later periods to serve as katana, which may have made them better foot weapons. I understand that there was a tendency for higher ranking samurai to continue carrying tachi and tanto over katana and wakizashi.

[Theodoric]

Easier to hit too
Not really (http://vuurwapenblog.com/2012/03/27/the-taurus-judge-is-just-not-very-good/). It's a bit of a hype at the moment.

[Autolykos]

When would someone ever want to use the .410 shotgun round rather than the standard .45 cartridge?Wouldn't shot run into a lot of problems with rifling (either destroying it or flying off wildly after leaving the barrel)?

[Matthew]

A year or more ago I was on about fully armoured knights shooting bows or crossbows, and mentioned a manuscript illumination showing a most unlikely event in action. I stumbled on the image I was thinking of today, though you guys might like it:

http://i427.photobucket.com/albums/pp360/The_Icemaiden/Medieval%20Stuff/crossbowmen.jpg

[Straybow]

Hmmm, one guy in mail, the other wearing scale. Not full plate harness...

Where is it from, what is it depicting?

[fusilier]

Wouldn't shot run into a lot of problems with rifling (either destroying it or flying off wildly after leaving the barrel)?

I've *heard* that firing shot out of a rifled weapon results in a poor spread (I think it tends to be tighter, but also somewhat erratic). But I'm not sure now if that's true, or been verified. Cannister shot certainly didn't work with rifled cannon.

--EDIT-- some research on the internet would suggest the opposite. The shot will fling out and form a donut pattern, with a very extreme spread.

[Joran]

I've *heard* that firing shot out of a rifled weapon results in a poor spread (I think it tends to be tighter, but also somewhat erratic). But I'm not sure now if that's true, or been verified. Cannister shot certainly didn't work with rifled cannon.

--EDIT-- some research on the internet would suggest the opposite. The shot will fling out and form a donut pattern, with a very extreme spread.

Yup, the Box o' Truth found firing shot out of a rifled barrel led to a much wider spread. They didn't mention damage to the rifling though.

http://theboxotruth.com/docs/bot43.htm

Edit - Box o' Truth apparently did some tests with the Judge. Apparently, some shotgun shells have a plastic cup holding the shot so they don't contact the rifling.

http://theboxotruth.com/docs/bot41.htm
http://theboxotruth.com/docs/bot53.htm

[fusilier]

I don't see how lead shot could damage the rifling in the first place. The barrel is designed to take a tight fitting lead, or jacketed bullet (in which case the jacket would be harder than lead) at much greater pressures, scraping against the rifling. Maybe iron shot could be damaging, but I would hope that they use a soft iron, and still the pressures would be lower, wouldn't they?

If the shot is "bouncing around" inside the barrel with enough force to damage rifling, wouldn't it also be capable of damaging the walls of a smoothbore barrel? (I assume that rifle and smoothbore barrels are made of metals with similar hardness and density)

[Autolykos]

Yup, the Box o' Truth found firing shot out of a rifled barrel led to a much wider spread. They didn't mention damage to the rifling though.

http://theboxotruth.com/docs/bot43.htmAh, nice, that's pretty much the information I was looking for.

[Matthew]

Hmmm, one guy in mail, the other wearing scale. Not full plate harness...

Sure, since we were not specifically talking about full plate harness at the time that is indeed the case. The particular discussion point was whether knights truly disparaged ranged weapons or whether they in fact used them. I was making the case for knights using missile weapons frequently and without recrimination, mostly at sieges. Richard I and Philip Augustus are well known examples at the siege of Acre, but less prominent knights are also praised for their archery from time to time. Indeed, today I just read Ambroise praising the Count of Ferres, "who put more than hundred Turks on their biers, for he was such a good archer that there was none better from here to Duens." Anyway, I mentioned that I had seen a manuscript illumination where the knights were shooting and wearing great helmets, but could not recall where exactly.



Where is it from, what is it depicting?

Good question. Unfortunately the Dragonsfoot member who posted it, "The Ice Maiden", has dropped off the face of the internet; as I recall, she worked at a museum in Scotland, you can see her original post here (www.dragonsfoot.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=34531&p=688513#p688513).


New Question!

Which is more realistic, a six second round or a one minute round? I always thought that it was pretty well accepted that a six second round made more sense than a one minute round, but I recently encountered somebody who feels the opposite is true. Obviously, rounds of a fixed period are not ever likely to realistically and precisely model combat, but I guess what I am asking is whether mêlée should be measured in minutes or seconds (technically tenths of minutes, I guess)?

[Storm Bringer]

I must disagree, a six second round seems about right for me, considering what you can do in it :

Spar with maybe one or two potential chances to hit

Load, aim and Fire a bow at a short ranged target, or load a heavy crossbow.

cast a quick spell

and so on.

[Autolykos]

Which is more realistic, a six second round or a one minute round? I always thought that it was pretty well accepted that a six second round made more sense than a one minute round, but I recently encountered somebody who feels the opposite is true. Obviously, rounds of a fixed period are not ever likely to realistically and precisely model combat, but I guess what I am asking is whether mêlée should be measured in minutes or seconds (technically tenths of minutes, I guess).
I actually prefer the one second rounds in GURPS (which allow a lot less actions to compensate) or the three second rounds in Shadowrun (which allow multiple initiative passes with about the same amount of actions as a D&D round each for fast characters), because doing multiple different things in six seconds (or, heck, a whole minute) of combat is pretty much expected, and covering all possible combinations would create a darned complex system.
You can chalk this up to abstraction when talking about one-on-one melee, but once firearms come in, six second rounds are silly. That's more than enough time to fire a whole magazine, reload, and fire another one (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLk1v5bSFPw) (not very well aimed, granted).

[Knaight]

Which is more realistic, a six second round or a one minute round? I always thought that it was pretty well accepted that a six second round made more sense than a one minute round, but I recently encountered somebody who feels the opposite is true. Obviously, rounds of a fixed period are not ever likely to realistically and precisely model combat, but I guess what I am asking is whether mêlée should be measured in minutes or seconds (technically tenths of minutes, I guess).

Based on my skirmish practice (duels and full battles obviously require different levels of granularity), I'd go with a six second round. That's about long enough to pull off most maneuvering and at least enter combat or start chasing an archer around*. The situation can certainly change, but it isn't likely to be dramatic.

In a minute, everything is completely different. Everyone is likely in a dramatically different position**, having taken odd routes to get there. A great many people have been taken out. It might well be over. A minute is simply too long at the skirmish level.

With that said, a minute makes perfect sense if you're instead looking at pitched battles with tens of thousands of troops on each side. Six seconds is extremely long for a dueling situation (odds are good somebody is down within six seconds). So it really depends on what's being modeled.

*Running can be remarkably productive for archers, if they have someone they can head towards with proper melee equipment.

**This applies less if the battlefield in question is a gate, bridge, or similar.

[Galloglaich]

A minute can be a looooong time in a sword fight

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f4N3sk2x6uM

G

[J.Gellert]

Now that running was mentioned - how do you guys (those that would know) feel about D&D's (3.5) armor speed penalties? Too harsh, too lenient, or about right?

[Matthew]

Now that running was mentioned - how do you guys (those that would know) feel about D&D's (3.5) armor speed penalties? Too harsh, too lenient, or about right?

Okay, I guess. My understanding is that armour does not really reduce speed directly in terms of limiting mobility, but the weight will tell, and fatigue will eventually considerably reduce the ability to move quickly. D20/3E abstracts this out to overall movement, which seems pretty reasonable.

[Brother Oni]

Okay, I guess. My understanding is that armour does not really reduce speed directly in terms of limiting mobility, but the weight will tell, and fatigue will eventually considerably reduce the ability to move quickly.

In my experience, armour effects depends on the shoes they're wearing and what surface they're fighting on.

Smooth sole shoes, such as what the Normans wore, doesn't affect your straight line speed on grass, but you'd better hope you don't have to stop or change direction suddenly.
Mud or any surface offering some grip shows no real difference, although your comments on fatigue (especially on sunny days) are apt.

If their shoes have some proper grip, then I don't see any issues with mobility.

[Fortinbras]

What are shotgun slugs designed for shooting? As part of the online component of the hunter's ed course I'm taking I had to study a chart which showed various types of ammo and the game they were suitable for. I noticed that slugs were conspicuously absent from the chart. To me they seem to combine the worst aspects of bullets and pellets and I cannot see using them on anything.

On an unrelated note, can anybody recommend so good books (nonfiction or well researched fiction) by or about Gurkhas.

Thank you

[Brother Oni]

What are shotgun slugs designed for shooting?

A quick wikipedia check says they're used for hunting large game where rifles aren't permitted.

Military and police use seems to be immobilising vehicles and defeating body armour or cover such as car doors. I think they'd do a pretty good number on door locks/hinges and the like as well, although over penetration at close range would probably be an issue if civilians/non-combatants are a concern.

[Mike_G]

Slugs have a shorter range and less penetration than a rifle round, so they're better for hunting deer or similar animals in areas where a rifle shot might travel far past or even through the target and endanger somebody.

Shot is good for small, fast animals like birds or squirrels. It doesn't take much damage to kill them, but the spread helps to hit. Buckshot--which is usually 9 larger pellets-- has a bit more power and can take down deer (or people without body armor) at close range, and the scatter means that a quick shot on the fly might hit with some pellets where a single round might miss. A .30 cal pellet makes a nasty wound.

Rifles are accurate over much longer range, and penetrate much better, but need to be aimed more precisely. This makes them good for long range shooting, or penetrating body armor or cover. But it also means that a miss will travel very far, and a hit will go through the target, so it's not a good idea to use a rifle in an area where you care about stuff beyond the target

Slugs are a middle ground between rifle bullets and shot shells. They aren't best at either role, but aren't worst either. And they allow a shotgun to be a multi purpose weapon, which can shoot different sizes of shot or a solid slug.

[Joran]

I think they'd do a pretty good number on door locks/hinges and the like as well, although over penetration at close range would probably be an issue if civilians/non-combatants are a concern.

Quick Internet search reveals that there are purpose built shells for breaching, that are essentially metal powder bound with wax or plastic. Once they destroy the hinges or locks, the round should dissipate and pose no threat to the people behind the door.

Here's the Box o'Truth about using it as an antipersonnel/home defense round...
http://theboxotruth.com/docs/bot25.htm

[Brother Oni]

Quick Internet search reveals that there are purpose built shells for breaching, that are essentially metal powder bound with wax or plastic. Once they destroy the hinges or locks, the round should dissipate and pose no threat to the people behind the door.

Here's the Box o'Truth about using it as an antipersonnel/home defense round...
http://theboxotruth.com/docs/bot25.htm

Oh, I'm fully aware that there are specialised rounds for door breaching, but I was just commenting that slug rounds would double quite nicely for door breaching in a pinch.

Incidentally, the Box o'Truth recommends against using those breaching rounds for home defence due to their penetration (10 layers of dry wall or the equivalent of 6 inches of flesh at 15ft), so it's doubtful they'd dissipate with no threat to people on the other side after going through a door.

[Spiryt]

Now that running was mentioned - how do you guys (those that would know) feel about D&D's (3.5) armor speed penalties? Too harsh, too lenient, or about right?

Well, in the first place, speeds in 3.5 are extremely simple, so hard to really judge speed penalties.

1rst level 'Barbarian' with Run feat shouldn't be able to cover 90 meters in like 12 seconds wearing scale and a lot of other junk, but then again, he shouldn't be able to cover 120 in such time wearing "only" a robe, axe, and stuff.

[Straybow]

Straybow thinks: Must... resist... saying... d20... broken...

[J.Gellert]

Well, in the first place, speeds in 3.5 are extremely simple, so hard to really judge speed penalties.

1rst level 'Barbarian' with Run feat shouldn't be able to cover 90 meters in like 12 seconds wearing scale and a lot of other junk, but then again, he shouldn't be able to cover 120 in such time wearing "only" a robe, axe, and stuff.

Eh, I guess I was asking more about whether or not armor really slows you down that much, actual speeds are another matter altogether.

[gkathellar]

The degree to which armor slows you down is relative to your strength and training in its use on the first count — if you're strong enough, and you know how to move in your armor, you can move just as quickly in it as out of it. Higher quality, better-fitted armor will of course be easier on a warrior in this respect.

The second count is a question of endurance. Moving in armor will tire you out faster than moving without it, so you may end up moving slower in the sense that you'll get tired faster. Of course, again — if the armor is well fitted and well made, you know how to use it, and you have endurance to spare, this won't necessarily become an issue.

[Spiryt]

Eh, I guess I was asking more about whether or not armor really slows you down that much, actual speeds are another matter altogether.

But it's pretty much closely connected, with speeds being pretty damn abstract and vague, one cannot really judge whether said speed reduction is 'right'.

Like mentioned, with 3.5 lacking any serious cardio/endurance system, a lot of drawbacks of being burdened are non existent too.

Seeing how armor actually reduces your general tactical range and limits jumping/balance etc. but not too harshly, I feel it's generally alright for D&D.

[J.Gellert]

The degree to which armor slows you down is relative to your strength and training in its use on the first count — if you're strong enough, and you know how to move in your armor, you can move just as quickly in it as out of it. Higher quality, better-fitted armor will of course be easier on a warrior in this respect.

The second count is a question of endurance. Moving in armor will tire you out faster than moving without it, so you may end up moving slower in the sense that you'll get tired faster. Of course, again — if the armor is well fitted and well made, you know how to use it, and you have endurance to spare, this won't necessarily become an issue.

This tells me it would be plausible to have feats that remove armor speed penalties.

[Mike_G]

This tells me it would be plausible to have feats that remove armor speed penalties.

Kinda-sorta.

Yes, you can move in armor, or you wouldn't be able to fight in it, but nobody, regardless of how hard they train or how well the armor fits, can run the 50 yard dash in plate armor in the same time as they could in shorts and a t-shirt.

Extra encumbrance mostly tires you out faster, but it does slow you down as well.

For game purposes, I'd limit your ability to sprint in heavy armor. So you could have the same walking speed, but the "run" speed would be maxed at a lower multiplier than for an unarmored man.

[deuxhero]

But magic!

Anyways...

Ever any serious military use of two people (on) one horse?

[Matthew]

Light foot are sometimes supposed to have held onto the tails of cavalry and run along behind, but the most famous depiction of two men astride a horse is that of the Knights of the Temple of Solomon:

http://www.hermes-press.com/templar.gif

Of course, if that ever really happened it was in extremis, and not by choice. :smallbiggrin:

[fusilier]

But magic!

Anyways...

Ever any serious military use of two people (on) one horse?

I've heard that "voltigeurs" were trained to do that -- although the purpose was to transport the voltigeur quickly from place to place. I'm not sure if it was ever actually done on the battlefield, however.

[J.Gellert]

For game purposes, I'd limit your ability to sprint in heavy armor. So you could have the same walking speed, but the "run" speed would be maxed at a lower multiplier than for an unarmored man.

That's what I was thinking. Speed 6 squares, run x3.

[GraaEminense]

Ever any serious military use of two people (on) one horse?
I remeber reading that the Assyrians supposedly used horses like chariots without the chariot: one "driver" to control both horses, leaving the other to shoot people. This was a done to avoid the fragile, terrain-dependent chariot but still have mounted archers in a culture without highly developed horsemanship (not unusual for its time, really). So not really what you asked for, but somewhat related.
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/883-859_Cavalry_1.jpg
Can't find other sources than Osprey atm, so take it with the necessary condiments.

[Galloglaich]

That is pretty neat, I'd never heard of that!

G

[Yora]

How much hydrogen is in a "mid range" size fusion bomb, and how much would the equivalent in TNT be?

[Matthew]

Came across another great quote today, in Ambroise's Estoire de la Guerre Sainte, for knights shooting bows during the march from Acre to Jaffa:

p. 117: "there you might have seen knights, when they lost their horses, go on shooting bows with the men-at-arms;"

[Thiel]

How much hydrogen is in a "mid range" size fusion bomb,
None, at least not in modern bombs.

and how much would the equivalent in TNT be?
From what open sources there is it seems that 100-150kT seems to be the average for midsized MIRV warheads currently in service.

[Ashtagon]

None, at least not in modern bombs.

Depends. Are you counting hydrogen's isotopes as hydrogen or as different substances?


From what open sources there is it seems that 100-150kT seems to be the average for midsized MIRV warheads currently in service.

Note that a mirv warhead is actually a cluster of bombs designed to scatter in a specific pattern.

[Yora]

Well, how much fuel that undergoes fusion do you have?
I believe you need a fission chain reaction to create the conditions that trigger the fusion, but I would consider that to be be part of the detonator.

[Autolykos]

Well, how much fuel that undergoes fusion do you have?
Hard to tell from plans/specifications alone, because the Tritium burned in the fusion reaction is usually bred from Lithium in the "blanket", but only a small fraction of the theoretically possible amount will be generated (this trick simplifies maintenance a lot and increases shelf life considerably; it will also give off a little energy, but that's not the reason for doing it).
I'm sure someone did the calculations, but the results are probably secret.

[Straybow]

Nothing top secret about it. If memory serves, E=mc² gives 1g per 10kT in round numbers. The T+D=He reaction is about 0.4% efficient, so something on the order of 250g per 10kT = 3-4 kg for a typical thermonuke. That has to be produced by the neutron flux of the fission trigger hitting the lithium... the mass of all that gets more complicated than I know.

[Autolykos]

That has to be produced by the neutron flux of the fission trigger hitting the lithium...And exactly that's the point where you'll get stuck with pencil and paper (or even a commercially available CAS if you lack a lot of additional data that's not published anywhere). You'd either need a nuclear reactor and a slab of Lithium-6 for testing, or possibly a incredibly complex computer simulation (not even sure if that will actually yield even halfway accurate data in acceptable time with anything short of some seriously big iron).
EDIT: To actually contribute something useful, you'll find most of the publicly available information on (the most common type of) hydrogen bombs here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teller-Ulam_design).

[Yora]

I found an unsourced quote that 1 gram of fusion material produces as much energy as 10 tonnes of coal.
Another one says "One gram of hydrogen releases 6.2 x 10^10 J of energy where as one gram of coal produces 33 KJ of energy."

Wikipedia says coal has 24 megajoules per kg, but that probably depends on the quality of the coal.

TNT produces energy less efficient but much faster at 4.6 MJ per kg.

The Ivy Mike test was over 10 megatons of TNT, which would be:
10,000 kilotons = 10,000,000 tons = 10,000,000,000 kg
10,000,000,000 kg of TNT = 46,000,000,000 MJ

46,000,000,000 MJ divided by 62,000 MJ for one gram of hydrogen would be 741935 gram of hydrogen. Or 750 kg.
At a density of 67.80 g/cm³ as liquid hydrogen, that would be 11 liters.

They probably did not expect complete fusion, so it was probably more. And the entire weight of the bomb was 74 tons, about 100 times the mass of the fusing hydrogen.

[Autolykos]

At a density of 67.80 g/cm³ as liquid hydrogen, that would be 11 liters.As said before, they don't use liquid hydrogen (or deuterium, which is roughly twice as heavy) in fusion bombs. The most common fuel nowadays is lithium deuteride (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium_deuteride#Lithium_deuteride) (density and molar mass can be found in the article). Also, most of the energy in the Teller-Ulam design (over 70% usually) will still come from fission. You can increase the portion generated by fusion (but decrease total yield) by replacing the uranium tamper with lead. That's usually called a neutron bomb.

[fusilier]

Also, most of the energy in the Teller-Ulam design (over 70% usually) will still come from fission. You can increase the portion generated by fusion (but decrease total yield) by replacing the uranium tamper with lead. That's usually called a neutron bomb.

You could also add more stages. The basic idea behind a hydrogen bomb is to use fission, to create fusion, to create even more fission. You could chain the process. The largest was a three-stage, although I believe it's possible to add more stages. Three-stage bombs can get too big. Past about 100 megatons the blast will escape the atmosphere and be directed into space. Look for the PBS show Secrets of the Dead: World's Biggest Bomb

The term neutron bomb, is rather contested: as what's called a neutron bomb nowadays may not be the weapon that was envisioned when the term was first coined. I would avoid using it. Enhanced Radiation Bomb (or Weapon) is less ambiguous. A hypothetical Fusion Bomb (or Pure Fusion Bomb), would create a lot of neutrons for a very small explosive yield (compared to other nuclear weapons).

I think that calling ERWs "neutron bombs" was to make them sound like a new and different weapon, thereby justifying spending. ;-)

[Autolykos]

Agreed and agreed. Even the Tsar (which is the only three-stage design I know of) was kinda excessive. I'd be hard pressed to find a strategic (or, god help me, tactical) use for it. The Soviets seemed to understand this, too. At least they didn't try to build anything even bigger.
And yes, most stuff around "neutron bombs" is propaganda blurbs. There's that widely believed myth it would only kill people but leave infrastructure completely intact and similar bogus claims. It's still a nuke, the radiation will just be deadly in a (slightly) larger radius than the shockwave.

[Dead_Jester]

Agreed and agreed. Even the Tsar (which is the only three-stage design I know of) was kinda excessive. I'd be hard pressed to find a strategic (or, god help me, tactical) use for it. The Soviets seemed to understand this, too. At least they didn't try to build anything even bigger.

Actually, they wanted to put uranium tampers (they put lead instead) in the Tsar, but then they realized the plane dropping it would probably have been caught in the blast wave...

Plus, at that time, that was the best way to ensure destruction of an enemy city; you need a yield much larger than the theoretical minimum because of the inherent inaccuracy of dropping a massive dumb bomb from the high atmosphere (you can't afford to miss the enemy, so you overcompensate so that even if you do miss the target by a couple of kilometers, you still destroy it).

[Mike_G]

Rifled muskets.

A while back, we had a discussion about rifles in the American Revolution. Rifles, while more accurate and able to hit at longer ranges, were a tough sell because of slow loading times and the feeling that the additional training in marksmanship wasn't worth it for the average soldier. The Napoleonic Wars saw infantry armed almost exclusively with smoothbore muskets. The bayonet was still seen as a deciding arm for infantry.

A relative short time later, by the early to mid 19th century, just about every army had changed over their primary infantry weapon to a rifled musket, still muzzle loading but taking advantage of rifling. The bayonet became almost obsolete as a deciding arm. In the American Civil War, only about 1% of wound were caused by bayonets. Infantry assaults had become routinely hard to pull off and with far higher casualties. If a column of Napoleon's Old Guard had shown up for Gettysburg, I doubt any of them would have survived the advance to bayonet range.

So, my question is: do we attribute most of this change over to the Minie ball, which overcame the slow loading, tight fitting bullet problem for rifles, or was it largely a shift in attitudes and doctrine?

[Yukitsu]

Bayonets were considered fairly indecisive in terms of casualties caused even during the Napoleonic era. They were probably more useful for warding away cavalry from squares, and for the psychological comfort and shock they could provide. Since cavalry by Gettysburg seems to have been marginalized, most of the strategic purpose of them seems to have been lost.

Another reason it seems the bayonet charge would have been ignored was the relative inexperience of the Union forces, and the particular battle experience of the Confederates. The Bayonet charge typically required extensive training, drilling and discipline, which Union forces simply didn't have at the onset of the war. By contrast, the veteran Confederate forces had predominantly gained experience in the war against Mexico, where for some reason, a considerable amount of fighting on either side was during sieges against relatively minor fortifications, or where the American army was too small to really provide the necessary weight to panic an enemy army through a bayonet charge.

The actual range, accuracy and rate of fire of a Napoleonic flintlock isn't so poor when compared to a rifled musket firing minnie balls that I'd consider the transition in tactics as likely due to that alone. It was likely due to a general shift in multiple key facets of the army, such as repeating weapons, reduction of the role of cavalry, and the comparative scarcity the Americans had of artillery/artillery munitions during the civil war. Even then, all in all, battles were fought mostly as they had been everywhere else up to that point. The bayonet charge during the Napoleonic era was mostly to shatter an already demoralized enemy force.

Should note as an addendum to that, the bayonet was fairly useful, and still would have been if fighting in a very confined area, such as a narrow city street. They were used apparently to good effect in taking heavily walled farm houses which would not have existed in America at the time.

[Mistral]

Rifled muskets.

A while back, we had a discussion about rifles in the American Revolution. Rifles, while more accurate and able to hit at longer ranges, were a tough sell because of slow loading times and the feeling that the additional training in marksmanship wasn't worth it for the average soldier. The Napoleonic Wars saw infantry armed almost exclusively with smoothbore muskets. The bayonet was still seen as a deciding arm for infantry.

A relative short time later, by the early to mid 19th century, just about every army had changed over their primary infantry weapon to a rifled musket, still muzzle loading but taking advantage of rifling. The bayonet became almost obsolete as a deciding arm. In the American Civil War, only about 1% of wound were caused by bayonets. Infantry assaults had become routinely hard to pull off and with far higher casualties. If a column of Napoleon's Old Guard had shown up for Gettysburg, I doubt any of them would have survived the advance to bayonet range.

So, my question is: do we attribute most of this change over to the Minie ball, which overcame the slow loading, tight fitting bullet problem for rifles, or was it largely a shift in attitudes and doctrine?

I'd suspect that the Minié ball was a contributing factor, but far from decisive. Even with easy reloading, you still have to deal with the fact that machining rifling was difficult, and therefore expensive, for most of the history of rifled weaponry (since the Thirty Years War, at least). Conveniently, however, the Minié ball also appeared fairly close to the Industrial Revolution, which carried with it not just advances in machine power, whether by water or steam, that far exceeded muscle power, but also advances in precision engineering and the development of machine tools (from clockworking, but subsequently generalized) that made reproducible and efficient rifling fast and simple. The lathe in particular was a tremendous advance in this regard. Clamp the barrel, drill in, withdraw the drill, and bam, instant rifling. Without effective and widely-disseminated machine tools, you end up with weapons like the Austrian early rifled muskets (the Lorenz and Augustin, the latter of which being a smoothbore later re-bored for rifling), which were a bit chancy due to inconsistent bore diameters and fittings.

[Storm Bringer]

also, note the fact that while bayonet charges were much harder and costiler, they were still launched becuase the only way, then and now, to get a bunch of infantry out of a defended location is to send your own infantry in.


to paraphrase someone:

"you can shell a hill, naplam it, bomb it until no two stones are on top of each other.....but until you put a 19 year old guy with a rifle and a bayonet on it, it ain't yours".

[fusilier]

Bayonets and rifle muskets

One of the things that I like to tell people, which is admittedly a simplification, is that the point of a bayonet charge wasn't to engage the enemy in hand-to-hand combat, but to scare him out of his position. Charges, even successful ones, rarely resulted in hand-to-hand combat during this time period. Note, that bayonet training itself, only slowly caught on over the course of a couple of centuries (by the beginning of the Civil War there was more interest in it), and was rarely universally applied.

Rifle muskets didn't really change the tactics used by much. They did make them more deadly. Strangely, the extra range of the rifle musket wasn't used that much, with soldiers typically firing volleys at about the same range they would have with smoothbore muskets. So there were more "hits" rather than the same number of hits at a greater range. If the fighting got really close, which did happen sometimes, then the troops with the smoothbore muskets would have an advantage from buck-and-ball.

Breechloading and repeating weaponry had a very small impact on the war. The main weapon was the rifle musket, and some troops (more likely the farther west you went), fought to the end of the war with smoothbore muskets. This is true for both North and South. Breechloading weaponry, and, more significantly, the self contained metallic cartridge proved themselves during the war, and in that sense, as a testing ground, the Civil War and breechloaders are linked. But too few troops were ever armed with such weapons for it to be a significant strategic issue.

@Yukitsu
I would challenge the assumption that Confederate troops were more experienced or better fighters. While it is true that the South sent more volunteers to fight in the Mexican War of 1846-48 than the North, the main area of support for that war was "the West", and there were veterans on both sides of the Civil War. More importantly, the scale of the Civil War was of such proportion that such veterans would have been a drop in the bucket.

I'll need to check the statistics again, but I do believe a disproportionate number of the pre-war officers had Southern sympathies. However, it should be remembered that most of those officers had been lieutenants and captains, with no experience leading the large numbers of troops they were elevated to lead during the Civil War. In fact, outside of Winfield Scott (who stayed loyal to the Union, and was too old to take to the field), I can't think of any other generals of the Civil War that had been generals during the Mexican War. Not of the top of my head any way. I think Karl Marx observed in 1861 that if you took every single soldier from the regular army and made them all instructors (which most would be woefully unsuited for), there still wouldn't be nearly enough instructors to train the volunteers for the Northern army alone! Both sides began the war with basically ill-trained militia. However, high morale could overcome such deficiencies, and I think that was well recognized at the time, but overlooked today given the modern emphasis on military training. In the 19th century as much emphasis was put on esprit de corps and elan as on training.

Finally, Confederate victories in the Eastern theater in the first years of the war, should be contrasted with their defeats in the Western theater(s) during the same period.

[fusilier]

Agreed and agreed. Even the Tsar (which is the only three-stage design I know of) was kinda excessive.

There were other designs, the US deployed the three-stage B41 (25 megatons), and the soviets deployed another design of roughly the same yield. However, I believe that the Tsar Bomba was the only three-stage weapon actually detonated.

[Mike_G]

I'm not saying that the bayonet went away, or than aggressive infantry maneuvering ever went away. Formations got looser and covering fire got more important is all.

Just that in forty-odd years between Waterloo and Antietam, armies went from dense formations with smoothbores, relying on the bayonet charge to take ground and hold off cavalry, to looser formations (even the densest ACW formation was looser than a Napoleonic column, and nobody fought three deep after 1850. And those were orders of magnitude less dense than a matchlock and pike square) firing rifled muskets at greater engagement ranges.

Even the alleged veteran Confederates seldom came to grips with a bayonet, often halting and firing when in range rather than pressing the attack.

The diminishing impact of cavalry speaks to better infantry weapons. ACW cavalry tended to operate like rapid light infantry, using mobility to deploy and then repeating carbines to fight, rather than sword and lance charges.

So.. why?

A Springfield rifled musket didn't load much faster than a Brown Bess. But it made massed infantry charges much more like suicide. Pickett's charge got held up at a rail fence 80 yards from the Union line, taking horrble casualties before being rallied forward, to fail at the point of contact. A generation earlier, at Bunker Hill, Col Stark drove a stake into the ground at less than half that range to indicate the point where his men (three deep, instead of two or even one, as at Gettysburg) would fire.

So, it's still 2-3 rounds a minute, but it works better in practice at stopping the enemy. Is it because it's harder to press on if you're getting cut up at 80-100 yards from your goal than if you just have to weather one volley at 30? Or do 100 rifles just get that many more hits than 100 smoothbores?

[Yukitsu]

@Yukitsu
I would challenge the assumption that Confederate troops were more experienced or better fighters. While it is true that the South sent more volunteers to fight in the Mexican War of 1846-48 than the North, the main area of support for that war was "the West", and there were veterans on both sides of the Civil War. More importantly, the scale of the Civil War was of such proportion that such veterans would have been a drop in the bucket.

I'll need to check the statistics again, but I do believe a disproportionate number of the pre-war officers had Southern sympathies. However, it should be remembered that most of those officers had been lieutenants and captains, with no experience leading the large numbers of troops they were elevated to lead during the Civil War. In fact, outside of Winfield Scott (who stayed loyal to the Union, and was too old to take to the field), I can't think of any other generals of the Civil War that had been generals during the Mexican War. Not of the top of my head any way. I think Karl Marx observed in 1861 that if you took every single soldier from the regular army and made them all instructors (which most would be woefully unsuited for), there still wouldn't be nearly enough instructors to train the volunteers for the Northern army alone! Both sides began the war with basically ill-trained militia. However, high morale could overcome such deficiencies, and I think that was well recognized at the time, but overlooked today given the modern emphasis on military training. In the 19th century as much emphasis was put on esprit de corps and elan as on training.

Finally, Confederate victories in the Eastern theater in the first years of the war, should be contrasted with their defeats in the Western theater(s) during the same period.

The Northern army was quite a lot larger, and even then, the Mexican American war was primarily fought by militia as well, many from states closer to Texas. During the early years, the 50,000 militia from the Mexican American war would have certainly been a stronger nucleus than the regular army.

And even when considering the western theater, while they were losing the war, the actual troops were winning battles, save when outnumbered considerably. The actual Generals were not necessarily competent (Bragg seeming to be a bit poor at it), but the actual troops seemed to have had more experience, or had superior morale even on the west for some reason.

[Yukitsu]

I'm not saying that the bayonet went away, or than aggressive infantry maneuvering ever went away. Formations got looser and covering fire got more important is all.

Just that in forty-odd years between Waterloo and Antietam, armies went from dense formations with smoothbores, relying on the bayonet charge to take ground and hold off cavalry, to looser formations (even the densest ACW formation was looser than a Napoleonic column, and nobody fought three deep after 1850. And those were orders of magnitude less dense than a matchlock and pike square) firing rifled muskets at greater engagement ranges.

Even the alleged veteran Confederates seldom came to grips with a bayonet, often halting and firing when in range rather than pressing the attack.

The diminishing impact of cavalry speaks to better infantry weapons. ACW cavalry tended to operate like rapid light infantry, using mobility to deploy and then repeating carbines to fight, rather than sword and lance charges.

So.. why?

A Springfield rifled musket didn't load much faster than a Brown Bess. But it made massed infantry charges much more like suicide. Pickett's charge got held up at a rail fence 80 yards from the Union line, taking horrble casualties before being rallied forward, to fail at the point of contact. A generation earlier, at Bunker Hill, Col Stark drove a stake into the ground at less than half that range to indicate the point where his men (three deep, instead of two or even one, as at Gettysburg) would fire.

So, it's still 2-3 rounds a minute, but it works better in practice at stopping the enemy. Is it because it's harder to press on if you're getting cut up at 80-100 yards from your goal than if you just have to weather one volley at 30? Or do 100 rifles just get that many more hits than 100 smoothbores?

That's all hard to disentangle really. Recreations of the old brown bess, and IIRC even authentic brown bess smooth bores were actually found to be accurate to 50 yards, accurate against a platoon sized target out to 100 yards, and capable of scoring consistent hits on platoon sized targets out to 175 yards a significant fraction of the time. The idea that you need to see the "whites of their eyes" is probably fictitious, and at any rate, you could load a brown bess faster than you could load a Springfield with a minnie ball. If American Generals were insisting the troops fire at those extremely close ranges, it may have been doctrine, much like how Suvurov during the Napoleonic era actually did advocate the bayonet as the killing weapon.

It doesn't seem at face value that more accurate rifle fire would automatically eliminate mass volleys and tight formations, as the civil war era armies typically didn't engage further out than you could have fired a smoothbore.

It may have had more to do with doctrine for the American army at the time. The Americans didn't have the stiff heirarchy that the Europeans did, so the rather forced use of prestigious and probably ineffective horse regiments wouldn't have applied. Without large formations of expensive cavalry, you don't need to maintain dense formations, so it could simply have been the democratic nature of America that enabled them to loosen up their formations, as in all honesty, a more accurate gun isn't really what you want against a cavalry charge. They make an easy enough target of themselves as is back during Waterloo. You generally wanted a dense formation, good discipline and a pointed stick. Cannon and shrapnel had also had marked improvements since the Napoleonic era, and canister shells ripping through infantry formations would have probably made a significantly sharper impact on formation density than would small arms fire. I think the superior cannon likely had a bigger impact on how infantry fought than their own weapons.

[Mike_G]

But infantry attacks did become more costly after the adoption of the rifle, and not just for the Americans. Cavalry charges almost disappear after that point, despite the looser formations. I can't think of any instance of mounted cavalry overrunning infantry during the ACW, and Campbell's Thin Red Line stopped the Russian charge cold, all without forming squares.

The idea of "Shoulder to shoulder, stiffen your lip and fix bayonets" starts to fade shortly after the mass adoption of rifles. It doesn't totally go away, even when facing machineguns and mustard gas in the Great war, but the tide begins to turn in the first half of the 19th century, before breechloaders and metal cartridges became the norm. Even in the colonial wars where enemy artillery wasn't a concern, the infantry lines tended to thin out from three or more deep to two. I don't see why this would have happened if rifles weren't just that much more effective than muskets.

Muskets may have been theoretically capable of hitting an enemy formation at 100 yards, but they weren't used that way, any time I can recall reading about. The idea seems to have been to reserve that volley for the last minute when it will do the most good. Rifles do extend the effective range for engaging the enemy, and seem to have started firing earlier. Pickett's Charge, Marye's Heights, the Wilderness, Shiloh, all those battles saw the attack ground to a a halt over a distance as casualties mounted. The French columns at Waterloo were destroyed by a point blank volley followed by a bayonet charge. Ditto for the first two assaults at Bunker Hill, although there was no Colonial charge.

And yes, chasing the enemy from his position with a bayonet is more common than jamming it in him, and nearly as good, but that happens a lot less after 1840 or so.

[fusilier]

But infantry attacks did become more costly after the adoption of the rifle, and not just for the Americans. Cavalry charges almost disappear after that point, despite the looser formations. I can't think of any instance of mounted cavalry overrunning infantry during the ACW, and Campbell's Thin Red Line stopped the Russian charge cold, all without forming squares.

The idea of "Shoulder to shoulder, stiffen your lip and fix bayonets" starts to fade shortly after the mass adoption of rifles. It doesn't totally go away, even when facing machineguns and mustard gas in the Great war, but the tide begins to turn in the first half of the 19th century, before breechloaders and metal cartridges became the norm. Even in the colonial wars where enemy artillery wasn't a concern, the infantry lines tended to thin out from three or more deep to two. I don't see why this would have happened if rifles weren't just that much more effective than muskets.

Muskets may have been theoretically capable of hitting an enemy formation at 100 yards, but they weren't used that way, any time I can recall reading about. The idea seems to have been to reserve that volley for the last minute when it will do the most good. Rifles do extend the effective range for engaging the enemy, and seem to have started firing earlier. Pickett's Charge, Marye's Heights, the Wilderness, Shiloh, all those battles saw the attack ground to a a halt over a distance as casualties mounted. The French columns at Waterloo were destroyed by a point blank volley followed by a bayonet charge. Ditto for the first two assaults at Bunker Hill, although there was no Colonial charge.

And yes, chasing the enemy from his position with a bayonet is more common than jamming it in him, and nearly as good, but that happens a lot less after 1840 or so.

Cavalry tactics: briefly the increase deadliness at range, would have messed up traditional cavalry tactics considerably. But I would have to do more research into the subject.

You may need to broaden your research a bit. Rifle-muskets do appear to have made battles more bloody, but the change in infantry tactics wasn't that great with them. Take for example the Franco-Austrian War of 1859. The French and Austrians were armed primarily with rifle-muskets, the Sardinians still had mostly smoothbores (although they may have been using Nessler balls). That war is famous for the Furia Francese, a phrase relating to the furious charges that the French unleashed on the Austrians, successfully.

This left such an impression on the Austrians that they emulated those aggressive charges in the 1866 Austro-Prussian War. But the Prussians were now equipped with breechloading needle rifles. The Dreyse Needle Rifle is in many respects a pretty terrible weapon -- the gas seal is poor, the range is bad, the accuracy not much better, and the recoil would lead soldiers to fire from the hip. But, it was breechloading and fast firing compared to the Austrian rifle-muskets. The Austrian charges were decimated by the rapid fire that the Prussians could put out. The high command passed down orders prohibiting such charges, but they were ignored.

The French paid attention to this war, and adopted their own needle rifle, the Chassepot, which was a superior weapon, and changed their tactics to be primarily defensive. The infantry in rifle slits were to rely on the superior range and rate-of-fire. It wasn't enough to save them during the Franco-Prussian war, but there were other organizational issues at play there. And in some battles they were able to inflict very heavy casualties on the Prussians, who used aggressive tactics, even if they couldn't achieve victory. (It would then be France's turn to learn the wrong lesson, and put more emphasis on elan at the outbreak of WW1 -- but that's an over-simplification of a very complex issue going on in the French high-command at the time)

While the rifle musket had an effect on tactics, it wasn't as great as widespread use of breechloaders. Things changed very rapidly during that period. The percussion cap started a revolution that would culminate in the self-contained metallic cartridge within only a few decades. The minie-gun was almost obsolete within a decade of being developed. It was more of an aberration in the development of firearms, but the time of it's introduction meant that it was involved in the most significant wars of the mid-19th century, and that gives a prominent place in history.

P.S. The Brown Bess may have had a faster rate of fire than a Springfield rifle musket. It's generally accepted that smoothbores were a little bit faster loading than the first rifle muskets. Also, the idea of delivering the first volley at the very last moment, as close as possible to the enemy, was one that carried over to the Civil War. There's probably several reasons for this, but there was a sense that the first volley was the most effective.

[fusilier]

The Northern army was quite a lot larger, and even then, the Mexican American war was primarily fought by militia as well, many from states closer to Texas. During the early years, the 50,000 militia from the Mexican American war would have certainly been a stronger nucleus than the regular army.

And even when considering the western theater, while they were losing the war, the actual troops were winning battles, save when outnumbered considerably. The actual Generals were not necessarily competent (Bragg seeming to be a bit poor at it), but the actual troops seemed to have had more experience, or had superior morale even on the west for some reason.

There are many myths surrounding the Civil War, and especially the confederacy.

The volunteers and militia during the Mexican-American War have a terrible reputation -- they were ill-disciplined, poorly trained, and often rancorous in camp. The US basically gave up on them, and temporarily expanded the regular army to meet it's needs.

Even then, veterans from the Mexican American War, probably had little to no impact on the effectiveness of southern soldiers during the initial stages of the Civil War. There just weren't enough of them. Many officers, in fact most of the high-ranking ones, had seen some service during that war, but there were plenty of them on the Union side too. This is the first time I've heard anybody make the claim that rank-and-file veterans of the Mexican War raised the fighting level of the Confederacy.

A lot of bogus claims out there about the Civil War are the result of exaggerations. For example, I've read history textbooks that make it sound as though the Union army was almost universally equipped with breechloaders and repeaters by the end of the war! Which isn't remotely true. Yes, the Union would have had proportionally more of such weapons than the Confederacy, but it was still just a drop in the bucket compared to the muzzle-loading weaponry.

[Mike_G]

P.S. The Brown Bess may have had a faster rate of fire than a Springfield rifle musket. It's generally accepted that smoothbores were a little bit faster loading than the first rifle muskets. Also, the idea of delivering the first volley at the very last moment, as close as possible to the enemy, was one that carried over to the Civil War. There's probably several reasons for this, but there was a sense that the first volley was the most effective.

This seems to be contradicted by much that I've read and seen. The ranges in the American Revolution were very short. I've stood on a number of Massachusetts battlefields, and at thirty paces, I could have hit an individual Welch Fusilier with a thrown anvil, let alone a musket. The thought of three ranks firing in sequence at that range is horrifying.

But that's not how Union troops defended Cemetery ridge, stoically holding their fire until the rebels got within fifty yards. Indications are that they were firing at at least 100 yards and sustained that fire, rather than hold for the one devastating volley.

The Irish brigade, armed mostly with smoothbores because the Meagher felt that buck and ball would be more effective, were said to find themselves at a disadvantage in several battles when sustained firing at longer ranges.

[Yukitsu]

That not actually how Waterloo went. The French position wanted to essentially shell the English out of their hidey hold behind the hill, while the English were using point blank volleys only because they were staying behind cover to avoid cannon fire. The majority of the attacks were actually either mini sieges over the 2 farm houses holding the English flanks, long range cannon and infantry fire, or a few poorly executed charges by Michelle Ney to the English lines (which fired at point blank from squares because of line of sight restrictions due to the hill, not because they wanted to fire from within 30 yards.)

The "thin red line" was actually expected to have faltered, it was sent only to delay the Russian cavalry, as a square would have been circumvented. The only reason the thin red line held, was the Russians figured it was a trap and ordered a retreat.

I would still conclude it wasn't the infantry, but the artillery that forced the more dispersed formations.


The volunteers and militia during the Mexican-American War have a terrible reputation -- they were ill-disciplined, poorly trained, and often rancorous in camp. The US basically gave up on them, and temporarily expanded the regular army to meet it's needs.

The exact same was said and done of the Canadians during WWI, but none of those opinions of their discipline seemed to matter to their efficacy. The fact is, given two camps of ill disciplined, poorly trained, rancorous militia, the one with experience at all, is still going to be a more effective force at least through morale than the ones that are ill disciplined, poorly trained, rancorous militia that haven't had any experience on a battlefield. In any event, I wouldn't consider the relative minor (in terms of loss comparisons) losses in the west, and the victories in the east as having much to do with the commanders chosen on either side. No one can boast have having had any truly brilliant or revolutionary leaders during the war (Not even Lee IMO), and I don't think any of them were atrocious lemons either (Not even Hooker). I think the actual troops, or if not that then the weapons they used must have played some factor in the difference.

It's also not as though the approximately 50,000 militia from the Mexican American war would have been entirely insignificant in terms of numbers. The Union and Confederate armies at the start of the war weren't breaching even say, 500,000 men, or they were at the very least exceeding a 1 in 10 ratio. They were certainly not so few that they couldn't have even trained the soldiers they were recruiting, that claim is ludicrous.

By 63, certainly the Confederates were running on raw recruits as much as the Union, but you don't find people introducing sweeping doctrine changes in a 2 years time span during the course of a single war. I am still confident that the idea to avoid close combat was due in a large part to earlier experience from the Mexican theater rather than the weapons of the time. (and even without, the raw recuits wouldn't have been better off doing bayonet charges anyway.)

Case in point, over 40 years later, the world concluded that close combat was to be the deciding action against entrenched defenses when they observed the Russo-Japanese war, partly causing the god awful doctrine of human wave assaults during the onset of WWI. By then, the weapons were more advanced, not less so.

[fusilier]

This seems to be contradicted by much that I've read and seen. The ranges in the American Revolution were very short. I've stood on a number of Massachusetts battlefields, and at thirty paces, I could have hit an individual Welch Fusilier with a thrown anvil, let alone a musket. The thought of three ranks firing in sequence at that range is horrifying.

But that's not how Union troops defended Cemetery ridge, stoically holding their fire until the rebels got within fifty yards. Indications are that they were firing at at least 100 yards and sustained that fire, rather than hold for the one devastating volley.

The Irish brigade, armed mostly with smoothbores because the Meagher felt that buck and ball would be more effective, were said to find themselves at a disadvantage in several battles when sustained firing at longer ranges.

There were events in the Civil War where the troops blasted away at each other at around 30-40 yards too, even with rifle muskets. While there may have been more exchanging of volleys at a hundred yards than was done during the Revolution or Napoleonic Wars, a hundred yards was not an uncommon range to exchange volleys during that time either. For that matter I think the longest ranged volley ever, was a Napoleonic volley by an Army Corps in Spain at 1000 yards. (I'm trying to remember all of this from a book I read a long time ago: I don't remember the name, but it was a detailed analysis of tactics of the Civil War, based on statistics -- and volley ranges was something it went into considerably, with the argument being that they fired at roughly the same ranges as they had with smoothbores).

Just because the *idea* of holding off a volley until very close was popular, doesn't mean it was practiced! ;-) With the inability of rifle-muskets to use buck-and-ball, the devastating close range volley wasn't as devastating as it used to be. However, there was still a sense that the first volley was the best, and it should be reserved. Some officers allowed their troops to open fire at 300-400 yards -- not because it was effective at harming the enemy, but because it could relieve anxiety among the troops. I believe those that advocated it, stated it should be done when advancing, and not defending a position. The sights on most rifle-muskets of the period adjusted out to 500 yards (and that was a war-time simplification down from a 1000 yards). So one would certainly be tempted to think that volleys would efficacious out to that range. And I would bet it was tried from time-to-time, but didn't work out to well in practice, and that would have been figured out pretty quickly.

[fusilier]

The exact same was said and done of the Canadians during WWI, but none of those opinions of their discipline seemed to matter to their efficacy. The fact is, given two camps of ill disciplined, poorly trained, rancorous militia, the one with experience at all, is still going to be a more effective force at least through morale than the ones that are ill disciplined, poorly trained, rancorous militia that haven't had any experience on a battlefield. In any event, I wouldn't consider the relative minor (in terms of loss comparisons) losses in the west, and the victories in the east as having much to do with the commanders chosen on either side. No one can boast have having had any truly brilliant or revolutionary leaders during the war (Not even Lee IMO), and I don't think any of them were atrocious lemons either (Not even Hooker). I think the actual troops, or if not that then the weapons they used must have played some factor in the difference.

It's also not as though the approximately 50,000 militia from the Mexican American war would have been entirely insignificant in terms of numbers. The Union and Confederate armies at the start of the war weren't breaching even say, 500,000 men, or they were at the very least exceeding a 1 in 10 ratio. They were certainly not so few that they couldn't have even trained the soldiers they were recruiting, that claim is ludicrous.

By 63, certainly the Confederates were running on raw recruits as much as the Union, but you don't find people introducing sweeping doctrine changes in a 2 years time span during the course of a single war. I am still confident that the idea to avoid close combat was due in a large part to earlier experience from the Mexican theater rather than the weapons of the time. (and even without, the raw recuits wouldn't have been better off doing bayonet charges anyway.)

Case in point, over 40 years later, the world concluded that close combat was to be the deciding action against entrenched defenses when they observed the Russo-Japanese war, partly causing the god awful doctrine of human wave assaults during the onset of WWI. By then, the weapons were more advanced, not less so.

Did they send the Canadians home after a few months service in WW1, and basically disband the CEF? It's a rhetorical question -- the efficacy of the volunteers in the Mexican-American War was at the heart of the issue. Some of the better units, as I recall, were from northern states like Illinois (New York units had a good reputation too, but they didn't get anywhere near their quotas!)

However, more importantly, I'm not convinced that those militia men, could have made much of a difference. First, what are the statistics? How many veterans of the Mexican War did the Confederacy recruit, and how many did the Union recruit?

Second, what impact can be discerned? This is the first time I've heard anybody argue that rank-and-file Mexican War veterans contributed to confederate victories. [Either that, or I've put up a mental block] Do you have sources for some of these claims?

The Confederate draft is almost never mentioned in detail, but it was authorized in April of 1862. The Union draft came later in the year, but most states were able to avoid implementing it for sometime.

[fusilier]

Mike_G

The book may have been:

Battle tactics of the civil war by Paddy Griffith

Seriously, I think I read this in middle school! It was one heck of a flash of memory that allowed me to dredge up the title. It clearly left an impression on me.

Ok, I just read a review of the book on this website:
http://personal.tcu.edu/swoodworth/Griffith-BT.htm

Which contained:

Griffith contends that Civil War rifles did not represent any great advancement in firearms technology. Instead, he cites that Civil War armies tended to fight no further apart than before, suggesting that the gap in technology was not as great as perceived. Griffith also examines artillery and finds similar shortcomings. It was not until the Prussian campaigns of the 1870s, Griffith says, that truly long-range artillery comes to the field and forces noticeable differences in tactics.

I'm pretty sure this is the book I read! His views may be unconventional though, or perhaps were unconventional at the time. And like with many things in life, when you learn something young it tends to be ingrained as the "right" answer. The first printing was in 1987, but Amazon's version lists a publication date of 2001 -- so he may have been persuasive enough in his arguments not to be simply dismissed.

I need to see if I can find the book in a library and read it again -- I'm sure I'm not getting all the details right! Not sure when I will have time to do that though.

[Yukitsu]

Did they send the Canadians home after a few months service in WW1, and basically disband the CEF? It's a rhetorical question -- the efficacy of the volunteers in the Mexican-American War was at the heart of the issue. Some of the better units, as I recall, were from northern states like Illinois (New York units had a good reputation too, but they didn't get anywhere near their quotas!)

They had wanted to get rid of them sooner actually (and at the end of the war did rather unceremoniously ship them off to stop them from breaking everything), but given the scope and intensity of the wars in question, I don't think getting rid of unruly troops was an option. Despite that, there seem to have been very few companies from New York, good reputation or not.


However, more importantly, I'm not convinced that those militia men, could have made much of a difference. First, what are the statistics? How many veterans of the Mexican War did the Confederacy recruit, and how many did the Union recruit?

There were 50,000 approximately in the militia (and a seperate number which I would have to look up for actual soldiers). The militia were predominantly pulled from states closer to Texas, with Texas being the main state they were pulled from. As for recruitment, that statistic will probably be virtually impossible to determine. Tracking the militia and then cross referencing the names from those sign up sheets to the conscription notes during the civil war is beyond the scope of anything I've seen anywhere. However, the density of those militia were concentrated south.


Second, what impact can be discerned? This is the first time I've heard anybody argue that rank-and-file Mexican War veterans contributed to confederate victories. [Either that, or I've put up a mental block] Do you have sources for some of these claims?

Not in particular. It doesn't, however, make any sense to say that untrained, untested conscripts would be equivalent to poor, but at the very least experienced conscripts the first 2 years of the war nor does it make sense to drag militia from say, New York all the way to Texas when you have the Texas state militia at hand to fight the Mexican American war, especially when so few were drafted for that war. Unless you're arguing that the victories in the eastern front were purely due to General Lee, or perhaps due to his opposition. Personally, I'm not willing to credit the victories to any particular genius on the part of Lee, nor to any Ineptitude on the part of Hooker, nor subsequent lack of inspiration from Lee or any genius from Grant.

While most people don't like wiki for anything, they're pretty good if you just want a "who was involved in X" situation, and they have a full list of militia that were enlisted to fight in the Mexican American war. They refer to "regiments" in many cases, which isn't always a useful designation, but the majority of the volunteers came from Texas. The Union state with the largest number of volunteers were from Illinois. Coincidentally, they were further south, and contributed to the rather costly Union victories early in the war on the Western front, while the states that provided fewer militia to the war fared worse, and were concentrated on the Eastern front, so there is a correlation between states that provided troops to the Mexican American war and their pre-draft years of performance during the civil war.


The Confederate draft is almost never mentioned in detail, but it was authorized in April of 1862. The Union draft came later in the year, but most states were able to avoid implementing it for sometime.

When the numbers on either side started getting inflated to approximately 100,000 troops devoted to either side to a single battle (or to one side), the victories the confederates were managing to pull were getting narrower, and their losses started to become much sharper, even considering that they were typically outnumbered. The command on either side had changed very little at that point. While I do recall the confederates were starting to rely on older, younger and generally less fit conscripts at this point in time, even considering that, I would imagine the quality of the soldiers was declining.

[fusilier]

The terminology is a bit strange here, but we're not talking about conscripts, were primarily talking about volunteers. This needs to be understood in the proper terminology of the day: volunteers were NON-professional soldiers that had volunteered for a particular event or war (90 day volunteers were sometimes recruited in peace-time in the territories). Volunteers did not technically fall under the militia system in place in the United States at the time, but using other definitions of citizen militia, they could be called "militia". Militia service in the United States could be compulsory, but at that time it was rarely so, and some states were treating their militia more as a national guard, where individuals volunteered to train on a more regular basis. New York sometimes referred to its militia as New York National Guard, and other times as New York State Militia -- I think certain units preferred one or the other moniker; I haven't seen anything to indicate they were actually different systems. Having said that, the militia could be called out for service in a more conscript like fashion, but that service was for the state, and not the country. Georgia was notorious during the Civil War for activating it's militia, and thereby denying the use of those troops to the Confederate Army!

Concerning the raising of volunteers in the Mexican-American War:
From the Osprey Men-at-arms book:

In May of 1846 president Polk called for 50,000 volunteers to serve a year, in quotas from the various states. To give you some idea of the difficulties:
North Carolina was expected to deliver one infantry regiment of 10 companies. 32 companies were immediately formed -- but they lost interest so quickly, that the North Carolina regiment was shipped off with only nine companies, and none of them were completely filled! Virginia had to send recruiters to Maryland to try to meet quotas! Five companies of the 1st Georgia got involved in a fight, where it was reported that bayonets and muskets and were used freely. The fight had to be quelled by the 4th Illinois Volunteers.

Volunteers are noted as having lower combat deaths than the regulars, because they saw less fighting.

The 7th New York was described as one of the two best disciplined volunteer units in the army. The other was the Mormon battalion, both performed garrison duty in California during the war, and I don't think they saw combat.

From The United States Infantry, by Urwin, has some more information.

Illinois eventually supplied 14 volunteer regiments. 10 above its quota. Tennessee responded to the initial request for 3,000 volunteers by offering 30,000 volunteers. However, that was probably the state legislature's zealous response, and there is no mention of how many troops were actually organized into regiments (like what happened to North Carolina's volunteers).

Urwin notes that the responses to the volunteers were mixed, and their efficacy ultimately relied upon having good officers who could whip them into shape. Buena Vista, he claims, was won by Taylor's artillery supported by the 1st and 2nd Illinois, 2nd Kentucky, and 3rd Indiana Infantry. (All northern states -- despite what Kentuckians say nowadays, the vast majority of the soldiers from that state fought for the North in the Civil War.) However, he notes that the most "outstanding heroes" of the battle were Jefferson Davis's Mississippi Rifles. It should be noted that Jefferson Davis was a West Pointer.

I don't have access to my copy of Brassey's book on the subject. If I get the chance I'll see what it says about the proportions of volunteers from the various states.

[Mike_G]

Mike_G

The book may have been:

Battle tactics of the civil war by Paddy Griffith

Seriously, I think I read this in middle school! It was one heck of a flash of memory that allowed me to dredge up the title. It clearly left an impression on me.

Ok, I just read a review of the book on this website:
http://personal.tcu.edu/swoodworth/Griffith-BT.htm

Which contained:


I'm pretty sure this is the book I read! His views may be unconventional though, or perhaps were unconventional at the time. And like with many things in life, when you learn something young it tends to be ingrained as the "right" answer. The first printing was in 1987, but Amazon's version lists a publication date of 2001 -- so he may have been persuasive enough in his arguments not to be simply dismissed.

I need to see if I can find the book in a library and read it again -- I'm sure I'm not getting all the details right! Not sure when I will have time to do that though.


I read Forward Into Battle by Griffith a few years back. He tends to emphasize the advantage of aggressive maneuvering over firepower, so I can see how he would be less of a rifle disciple.

I just think that since every army in the world spent the money to upgrade from smoothbore muzzle loaders to rifled muzzle loaders, whose only advantage was accuracy, there must have been a sizable perceived advantage.

And the infantry assault gets more and more costly and formations get looser as rifles (and artillery) get better, while the cavalry charge almost vanishes (with a few exceptions, but pretty much it's never the threat it once was)

Full disclosure, I joined the Marines, where marksmanship is a religion, and I spent an ungodly amount of time learning to shoot accurately, and that one well aimed shot is worth a hundred "spray and pray," so that's how my bias runs.

[Storm Bringer]

I have heard quite a lot of sources, over pretty much the whole period of muzzle loading firearms, state the belief that "The first shot is the best".

the explanation normally given is that when the troops first load their musket, their are out of contact and take their time to load it "properly", making sure the bullet is firmly packed, with wadding and such, while when they are in contact, they cut as many corners as possible, in order to speed the rate of fire. thus, the first she is both more accurate and more powerful, compared to later, "rushed" shots, and so something not to be wasted.

I have also seen it proposed that soldiers would often "aim high", either though poor marksmanship, or some desire not to be a killer, meaning that a lot of shots were wasted. Thus, long range fire would often miss completely, so officers would wait as long as they could to ensure maximum effectiveness.

[rrgg]

Early firearms didn't necessarily have a tremendus amount of muzzle velocity. Even if you took perfect aim at man 100 yards away the bullet is going to hit the ground somewhere in front of his feet. Not to mention that it is unlikely a soldier will be able to see where his round struck and compensate in the chaos of battle.

This means it would take quite a bit of training before a marksman gets good at estimating ranges and the physics of their gun. I'm not sure how things changed before the Civil war, but Napoleonic Era troops often got as few as 10 real practice shots per year.

[Storm Bringer]

thing is, due to (by modern standards) loose manufacturing tolerances of powder, ball diamiter, barell diamiter, and such, most muzzle loading weapons were inconsistant form shot to shot, so even knowing where the last shot went didn't really help in aiming the next, as the margin of error was often very large.

[fusilier]

I just think that since every army in the world spent the money to upgrade from smoothbore muzzle loaders to rifled muzzle loaders, whose only advantage was accuracy, there must have been a sizable perceived advantage.

And the infantry assault gets more and more costly and formations get looser as rifles (and artillery) get better, while the cavalry charge almost vanishes (with a few exceptions, but pretty much it's never the threat it once was)

I would agree with the first part. I don't believe that rifle-muskets had no effect on warfare. However, my recollection, is that Griffith provided enough evidence to convince me that they didn't have much effect on the ranges at which battles were fought.

As for the formations getting looser, I don't really see that. Two rank formations were standard in the United States Army manuals, until the 1835 Scott's Tactics. Then three ranks were standard, but two rank was still addressed (whereas prior, three-ranks was not mentioned). The 1835 Scott's Tactics is what would have been used in the Mexican-American War, but I'm not sure which formation (two or three ranks) was preferred. The visual evidence is not consistent. Hardee's tactics, reverted to two ranks, and that was standard throughout the Civil War. Upton's post war tactics focused on both one and two rank formations, with one rank being preferred for the new breechloaders. So in my opinion it was breechloaders that had a bigger effect on the tactics.

I suppose what I'm trying to communicate, is that rifle-muskets were superior to smoothbore muskets, but they still fit within the musket paradigm, at an operational level. They were not revolutionary weapons that changed the entire nature of warfare. Instead, they made it more deadly (but not to such an extent that tactics had to be significantly altered).

However, this is not to say that Civil War tactics were Napoleonic, I view them as part of a transition in a time period. At some fundamental level, would I say that they were Napoleonic -- yes. They still used troops in dense formations lined up in multiple ranks. However, other advances in tactics had occurred. The quick-step and double quick-step were now common to all infantry, and traditional distinctions between light and line infantry were breaking down, with all troops expected to perform both functions. How much those advances in tactics were dictated by new weaponry, and how much they were simply developments of trends begun under older weapons is not known to me. Certainly, maneuvering faster on the battlefield isn't a bad thing when equipped with smoothbores.

[fusilier]

I have heard quite a lot of sources, over pretty much the whole period of muzzle loading firearms, state the belief that "The first shot is the best".

the explanation normally given is that when the troops first load their musket, their are out of contact and take their time to load it "properly", making sure the bullet is firmly packed, with wadding and such, while when they are in contact, they cut as many corners as possible, in order to speed the rate of fire. thus, the first she is both more accurate and more powerful, compared to later, "rushed" shots, and so something not to be wasted.

I have also seen it proposed that soldiers would often "aim high", either though poor marksmanship, or some desire not to be a killer, meaning that a lot of shots were wasted. Thus, long range fire would often miss completely, so officers would wait as long as they could to ensure maximum effectiveness.

That's basically the reasoning that I've heard.

The tendency to aim high probably has a couple of roots. I'd put my money on the fact that when firing volleys, soldiers simply level the musket -- which would put the aiming point high on the chest. The other factor is that unless trained to aim at the center of mass I suspect that many soldiers naturally aimed at the center of the chest.

[fusilier]

thing is, due to (by modern standards) loose manufacturing tolerances of powder, ball diamiter, barell diamiter, and such, most muzzle loading weapons were inconsistant form shot to shot, so even knowing where the last shot went didn't really help in aiming the next, as the margin of error was often very large.

Absolutely. A lot of old muskets that are ostensibly .69 caliber, will be found to have larger bores. And the windage that was allowed on the balls was really high. The main concern was to prevent a ball from being too large to be loaded quickly. So oversized bores, and undersized balls were ok. I have heard of instances where troops with .69 caliber rifled-muskets were issued .58 caliber ammo -- they said they could see the bullets splashing into the puddles just a few yards in front of them. So too much windage (and not enough powder to compensate), could be a problem.

A smoothbore musket with a tight fitting ball (or ball and patch), can be surprisingly accurate. But it will take just as long to load as rifle musket.

[JustSomeGuy]

I have recently been wondering...
Beyond training on laws (and who is THE LAW), region specifics, and tactical formations/instructions, and assuming a generic longsword and light armour combo - what would be the training differences between, say, a light footsoldier, a town/city guard, a rural deputy (or similar).

I'm asking because in a book one of the characters (a sellsword) says the city guard are good fighters but they're no soldiers. Are the differences basically about knowledge of battle formations and the like, or would each have fought differently enough to make grand, sweeping statements on the topic?

I considered the differences between modern (armed) law enforcement and soldiers, and because of tactics and deployment situations they would be armed differently, but more importantly the tactics (or rules of engagement) would very much impact upon their actions. However, in ye olden dayes, they didn't have such encompassing legal restrictions so what, if any, differences would there be in, say, a fight of 1-on-1, 5-on-5, and 20-on-20 (basically individual combat, small group and midsize group - anything beyond i'm assuming soldiers win hands down)

[Spiryt]

I have recently been wondering...
Beyond training on laws (and who is THE LAW), region specifics, and tactical formations/instructions, and assuming a generic longsword and light armour combo - what would be the training differences between, say, a light footsoldier, a town/city guard, a rural deputy (or similar).


Well, longsword and light armor generally wouldn't be generic at all for neither foot soldier, nor town guard, for the record.

Some kind of polearm would pretty much ubiquitously used in such situations.

As far as the rest of the question goes, it's really pretty hard to tell - we don't have that much sources about it, but generally as far as group fighting goes, general cooperation, predictability of your fellow combatants, and general bond would be most important - so one could fight well, knowing that other will stand too, hold formation, protect his sides etc.

So distinction like that would be sketchy at best, one could always theoretically know what to do as far as cooperation etc. goes, but in case of say, town guards who had never seen any serious trouble, it wouldn't be all that useful practically then.

Same goes for sheer fighting though, noone can really be good fighter theoretically or from some dry, light sparring.

[eulmanis12]

Several things on the topic of line infantry and the Civil War.

1. First shot is the best. This was mentioned before, here is my take on it.
It is a simple concept. Say I two equally sized groups of men in firing lines with muskets or rifle muskets facing eachother, for the sake of argument say group A with 100 men and group B with 100 men. Both are arranged in line formation 50 men long by 2 men deep. Every man can fire in this arrangement. If group A fires first, 100 men will fire, a number of men from group B will be hit. When group B returns fire <100 men will fire, and assuming roughly equal quality of marksmenship a smaller number of men from group A will be hit. Group A now outnumbers group B, and has started reloading first and so if of roughly equal quality to group B, will probably fire its second volley before Group B does, most likley improving its numerical advantage.

2. Distances of firing. Yes, a good marksmen with a smoothbore musket has a Good chance of hitting a target at well beyond the distance that musket armed infantry would normally engage at. The chief reason for this was that A, not every man was a good marksmen, B even the good marksmen would be hampered by the fact that most smoothbores had primitive sights at best, often no rear sight, C, Most soldiers did not actually aim (this was more common in Europe than America, in the Americas soldiers depending on the state were encouraged to take careful aim at a specific target), at the command "Present Arms" they leveled their muskets in the general direction of the enemy formation without sighting along the barrel, the assumtion being that it would hit somebody and it didn't matter who. Untrained infantry were more likley to engage at a longer distance, and to take careful aim than veteran infantry. When rifle muskets came along, at first, though now soldiers were all using much more accurate weapons, and now took careful aim at individual enemies, officers who had commanded in the days of the Smoothbore failed to adapt immediatly, massive casualties occured due to the high accuracy an short distance of the engagment. As time went on, most officers adapted to fighting at longer distances, and in looser formations.

Generalship and reasons for Confederate successes in the first half of the war.
On an individual level, the average confederate private and the average union private were about the same in terms of quality. the majority of both armies had next to no experiance, and not a whole lot of training.
The quality of the generals was the major difference in the way the battles turned out. Lee was not a perfect general, but when compared to Burnside, McClellan, and Hooker, he was Sun Tzu. Take Fredericksburg for example. Burside might be forgiven for ordering the first attack though the basic plan of "the enemy is in cover with large amounts of artillery and has the hight ground, let's line up and march forward slowly while pausing once in a while to shoot at targets we probably won't hit" isn't exactly a spark of military genius. Burnside can't be forgiven for ordering 8 additional attacks against the same position using the same tactics after watching the first, then the second, then the third, and so on, not just fail, but fail with as high of casualties as they did upwards of 30% for many units. The definition of madness is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result, I think Burside qualifies. Lee might not have been a genius (Gettysburg comes to mind), but he was at the very least a good general. his northern counterparts were sub-par generals on a good day.

[fusilier]

2. Distances of firing. Yes, a good marksmen with a smoothbore musket has a Good chance of hitting a target at well beyond the distance that musket armed infantry would normally engage at. The chief reason for this was that A, not every man was a good marksmen, B even the good marksmen would be hampered by the fact that most smoothbores had primitive sights at best, often no rear sight, C, Most soldiers did not actually aim (this was more common in Europe than America, in the Americas soldiers depending on the state were encouraged to take careful aim at a specific target), at the command "Present Arms" they leveled their muskets in the general direction of the enemy formation without sighting along the barrel, the assumtion being that it would hit somebody and it didn't matter who. Untrained infantry were more likley to engage at a longer distance, and to take careful aim than veteran infantry. When rifle muskets came along, at first, though now soldiers were all using much more accurate weapons, and now took careful aim at individual enemies, officers who had commanded in the days of the Smoothbore failed to adapt immediatly, massive casualties occured due to the high accuracy an short distance of the engagment. As time went on, most officers adapted to fighting at longer distances, and in looser formations.


1. While individual marksmanship and ability has a bearing, military practice was to use an undersized ball -- this allowed for poor tolerances, and to compensate for fouling. To give you an idea, a .69 musket was to use .65 caliber ball. If it used a .685 ball, accuracy would have been much improved, but loading times would be longer and being slightly out of tolerance would yield to a bullet that couldn't be loaded (this was a problem with minie balls at the time).

Smoothbore muskets were significantly more deadly at very close ranges (~30-40 yards), and there is some evidence to back up the claim that if the soldiers could weather the casualties from rifles to get that close, they could be more effective. The minie ball made it more difficult to close.

2. Unless the soldiers are skirmishing, most of the time your target would be a mass formation, and aiming at individuals wasn't necessary. Skirmishers were ordered to take their time aiming, and to aim using the "rear sight", which involved a different stance, compared to firing in the ranks.

Two-rank fighting was the standard tactic throughout the war. As the war went on, and training increased, more troops probably had better skirmish drill, but rarely did troops get significant target practice. Siege warfare involved different tactics, and in the late war such warfare was more common. But on an open battlefield, infantry would still deploy in two ranks.

[fusilier]

Brassey's book on the Mexican American War, has some more detail on the breakdown of troops from various states.

The Northeast only provided about 8,000 volunteers, the South 20,000 and the West 40,000.

Now it's a bit confusing, as the government kept changes regulations. Initially states were asked to provide one year volunteers -- then there was hesitancy to actually accept all those troops -- then they realized that one year wasn't long enough, and they wanted to recruit volunteers for "during the war". As a result there were twelve-month units that were pretty likely to have seen some conflict -- these were partially replaced by the volunteer units that were raised for the duration, but most of those were just involved in the occupation of Mexico. However, some of the units rased for the duration of the war were formed in late 1846, and may have seen some combat.

He also breaks it down by state and by regiment, but not all regiments saw combat. Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio, did send a lot of volunteers however. If I have time I'll give you a breakdown.

[fusilier]

A quick count of the regiments from each state, gives the following Volunteer forces for the Mexican-American War, organized by where those states were during the American Civil War.

I classified Missouri and Tennessee as Southern states. Kentucky, Maryland, and DC are border states. Battalions were counted as half-a-regiment, and I usually ignored the occasional odd company, unless there were many of them (Ohio, sent 15 independent companies to Mexico!), in which case 10 companies = 1 regiment. Also, I only considered units raised for 12 months or the duration of the war, and ignored the 3 months units that appeared briefly at the beginning of the war.

Southern States: 20.5 Regiments
Border States: 7
Northern States: 24

That's rough, but it shows a slight preponderance of the Volunteers were from the North. The majority of them coming from the old "Northwest territories" (Ohio, Indiana, Illinois).

[Yukitsu]

I'll just leave it at that, as the last thing I want to do is disentangle statistics when the units of measurement are battalions to regiments.

[PersonMan]

How much of an influence does environment have on the types of weapons used? It influences armor, of course, which changes which weapons are the most viable, but I'm interested specifically in the effects a northern Scandinavia-esque environment on weapons. Which sorts of weapons would be the most common, focusing primarily on the ability to function (ignoring logistical problems and the like, i.e. difficult to forge weapons or ones requiring special kinds of ore)?

Specifically, kama-esque weapons, would they be worth using?

[J.Gellert]

Specifically, kama-esque weapons, would they be worth using?

I think that bans on actual weapons were the only reason that kamas (and similar implements) were ever used in the first place.

[Spiryt]

How much of an influence does environment have on the types of weapons used? It influences armor, of course, which changes which weapons are the most viable, but I'm interested specifically in the effects a northern Scandinavia-esque environment on weapons. Which sorts of weapons would be the most common, focusing primarily on the ability to function (ignoring logistical problems and the like, i.e. difficult to forge weapons or ones requiring special kinds of ore)?

Specifically, kama-esque weapons, would they be worth using?

It really depends on what you mean by "kama-esque"... :smallbiggrin:

"northern Scandinavia" is also very vague, but if you mean Norse "Viking" people in early medieval period, then owning some actual weapons would be pretty much obvious thing for free man - much like in most of 'barbaric' Europe.

So improvisations like kama most probably wouldn't have point there.

[Telonius]

I have a question about some ancient fighting styles. Suppose you had a typical khopesh sword - curved blade, whole sword about two feet long. What sorts of movements and strikes would you use with it, during battle? Would it be mostly downward slashes, then pulling back to get another swing? Or would you try to use it to trip or direct the opponent?

Would this be any different if you were in a duel with another person wielding a khopesh?

[Spiryt]

We don't really have all that many detailed descriptions, from obvious reasons - but the principles can be generally guessed from some preserved originals. :smallwink:

Against some 'typical' people with spear and shield, both shield and khopesh would probably be used to try to control enemy's weapons enough to get close and start chopping with weapon that obviously has some range issues due to being significantly curved.

[Mistral]

It really depends on what you mean by "kama-esque"... :smallbiggrin:

"northern Scandinavia" is also very vague, but if you mean Norse "Viking" people in early medieval period, then owning some actual weapons would be pretty much obvious thing for free man - much like in most of 'barbaric' Europe.

So improvisations like kama most probably wouldn't have point there.

Indeed. You'd have to drop Viking angle (if that was what you were going for anyways), but if you want an imperium or some centralized system of governance that would restrict the rights of commoners to maintain weapons and happens to exist in that sort of of geographical environment, any hand sickle would make a very kama-like weapon. It also depends on what you're using it for (a kama used by a classic pop-culture ninja or actual Okinawan is very different from the polearms used by armies), because for obvious reasons, some weapons are more effective than others in particular circumstances. Let's see, looking for theoretical and actual repurposed tools-turned-weapons without regard for the use to which they may be put:
In agriculture, the flail is a threshing tool used for grains that, due to its weight, is useful as a weapon, or the blade of a hoe can be sharpened. For the classic Polish example, however, take a regular scythe, turn the blade so it follows along the handle axis rather than perpendicular to it, and you've got a war scythe, which resembles a fauchard more than anything. Sickles (like the kama) are also possible, but due to the difficulty inherent in using a blade that points back at the wielder as a weapon, are less likely to be used as improvised weapons by the common peasantry except in times of need.
In forestry, a major economic activity in historical Scandinavia, the tang of a billhook could be fixed into the end of a staff in similar fashion to turn the combination into an improvised polearm (reference the bill, which was purpose-designed), while an axe is obvious in its fashion of use. The archetypal machete is unfortunately more commonly seen in tropical areas where the undergrowth and crops both warrant it, and even leaving aside the likely jarring effect of seeing it in this context from a verisimilitude standpoint, would be uncommon in someplace like this variant of serfdom-Scandinavia, where smaller, less threatening tools would be usable.
As far as animal husbandry is concerned, another popular economic activity in such marginal lands as northern Scandinavia, the reason for the popular image of shepherds traditionally being tied to the shepherd's crook is not only its use in guiding the sheep, but also because a heavy blunt staff can do a lot of damage if swung with force. Similar reasons exist for the walking staff carried by solitary travelers in both historical and pop-cultural depictions. Not exactly war-worthy, but worth a mention for other uses.
Hunters and poachers always carry their own weapons to deal with animals, whether it's a bow, spear, knife and/or other what-have-you.
Inside of a town, blacksmiths have their hammers, which, while poorly balanced for war, are better than nothing, while coastal cities might have fishermen who may or may not use gaffs and longshoremen with hooks used to grab heavy cargo. Again, not so much war, but such stevedore hooks got a reputation in criminal activity in fiction around the 19th century.

Really, though, you can't ignore economic angles for this. If anything, civilian life is more likely to care about economic aspects than military purpose-designed weaponry. Something difficult to forge is not likely to appear in common civilian use, unless they're something very special about it that makes it more useful than other, simpler and cheaper tools.

[PersonMan]

"northern Scandinavia" is also very vague, but if you mean Norse "Viking" people in early medieval period, then owning some actual weapons would be pretty much obvious thing for free man - much like in most of 'barbaric' Europe.

So improvisations like kama most probably wouldn't have point there.


Indeed.

-Information-

I meant the meteorological climate, actually, not the socio-political climate, but the information is still good. The question was related to whether or not it could be useful against the type of armor in the region rather than how it could come into use, as the group using it is looking for something effective that won't arouse much suspicion i. e. could be something other than a weapon.

[Storm Bringer]

I meant the meteorological climate, actually, not the socio-political climate, but the information is still good. The question was related to whether or not it could be useful against the type of armor in the region rather than how it could come into use, as the group using it is looking for something effective that won't arouse much suspicion i. e. could be something other than a weapon.

well, the only tool i can think of that fits would be the humble wood axe, which has a good record agianst armour.

[Spiryt]

I meant the meteorological climate, actually, not the socio-political climate, but the information is still good. The question was related to whether or not it could be useful against the type of armor in the region rather than how it could come into use, as the group using it is looking for something effective that won't arouse much suspicion i. e. could be something other than a weapon.

That's a bit weird then, you cannot really guess 'type of armor' from meteorological climate at all, you want to specify region and time, to know material culture of the people... Of just make it up in case of fantasy setting.

Climate will obviously have influence on man thing, but, say, in 10th century CE shortish mail hauberk would be somehow 'expensive' piece of armor used by people who could afford it in Italy, Sweden, just like in England.

[Xuc Xac]

Armor isn't clothing that varies from climate to climate. In every culture in every climate on Earth, the most "common" weapon was the spear. There's only one environmental effect: if you're fighting in a closet, you use a dagger instead of a spear.

What weapons can possibly be used by a clandestine group that wants to appear unarmed will depend on the culture, not the environment. What tools can be openly carried around without arousing suspicion? A farmer could walk around with a sharpened hoe or sickle and ruin someone's day with it as long as his target isn't well armored.

Many tools can be very dangerous but they make very poor weapons. For example, a wood ax can easily remove limbs but no one is going to stand still and let you hit them with one. A battle ax is very light and fast because the bit (the sharp metal part) is as thin as a knife. A wood ax is absurdly heavy and slow for combat because trees don't dodge. A wood carver might be able to get away with a tomahawk-like hatchet or adze, but a tree-felling ax is useless for anything except surprise attacks. Maybe they could work in teams? A farmer/assassin with a hoe could trip an armored foe so a woodcutter/assassin with an ax or a miner/assassin with a pick would have an easier target.

[Traab]

I have a more modern military question. This a hypothetical scenario. Say you are trying to make an escape from a bunch of bad guys, your only weapon, a backpack full of claymore mines. These are directional explosives, (so I assume from "front towards enemy") so how close can you be behind the claymore and not be injured by them going off?

[valadil]

So this is only tangentially related to this thread, but apparently novelist Neal Stephenson is involved in HEMA and trying to build a video game engine for realistic sword based combat.

Here's the Kickstarter (http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/260688528/clang), with informative videos.

I'm not sure there's much to discuss, but I figured at least a few of you would be curious about this.

[Xuc Xac]

I have a more modern military question. This a hypothetical scenario. Say you are trying to make an escape from a bunch of bad guys, your only weapon, a backpack full of claymore mines. These are directional explosives, (so I assume from "front towards enemy") so how close can you be behind the claymore and not be injured by them going off?

If you're within 6m of the back, you're probably dead. If you're within 42m of the back, you're still not safe unless you're in cover.

You can see the diagram and instructions here. (http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/policy/army/fm/23-23/APPII.htm)

[Traab]

Yikes, thats pretty bad. Had no idea that it was that indiscriminate.

[Dervag]

The problem is that it's still a blob of explosives. The front of the bomb casing is specially shaped and cut so that the explosion will smash it to bits and send the bits flying out at great speed, so they travel far and cause terrible wounds. But the same explosion also breaks up the back and sends that part flying too- just not as hard.

Shrapnel from even small explosions can easily travel dozens of yards- it's one of the big things you don't learn from Hollywood explosions.



Well, longsword and light armor generally wouldn't be generic at all for neither foot soldier, nor town guard, for the record.

Some kind of polearm would pretty much ubiquitously used in such situations.

As far as the rest of the question goes, it's really pretty hard to tell - we don't have that much sources about it, but generally as far as group fighting goes, general cooperation, predictability of your fellow combatants, and general bond would be most important - so one could fight well, knowing that other will stand too, hold formation, protect his sides etc.

So distinction like that would be sketchy at best, one could always theoretically know what to do as far as cooperation etc. goes, but in case of say, town guards who had never seen any serious trouble, it wouldn't be all that useful practically then.

Same goes for sheer fighting though, noone can really be good fighter theoretically or from some dry, light sparring.Town guards might also be good at brawling or breaking up street fights (including ones with deadly weapons), but not good at formation fighting on the open field. Or prone to bad morale and indiscipline when kept in a military encampment and expected to follow orders like soldiers instead of like thief-takers.

[Galloglaich]

For those of us still interested in the siege of Malta, this is a great photo gallery from the Armoury of the Knights of St. John of Malta, including both European and Turkish armor and weapons, a really interesting up-close and personal look at period warfare. It looks tough. Kind of scary.

https://picasaweb.google.com/115323771323194185835/ArmouryOfTheKnightsOfStJohnMalta#57525254287916109 94

Photo 3 is a great example of armor vs. guns, as you can see what looks like 4 or 5 musket (?) dents

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-rdfeP1gCp4k/T9USX79XvrI/AAAAAAAACiQ/HfNSlvJyd2U/s640/DSCN0894.JPG

The breast plate in photo 4 looks like it has 2 dents

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-BryiNikgTno/T9USacGnIhI/AAAAAAAAC1o/5ivkqfFRgzc/s512/DSCN0895.JPG

Photo 5 maybe has 2 dents, I can't tell if those are a design feature

There is also a shield, possibly Ottoman, with a bullet dent in it, some dented helmets and one that looks damaged, and this leg armor which looks looks like it has a bullet and / or shrapnel hole.

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-CSc-YatdOiE/T9USvZ0y53I/AAAAAAAACl4/2AJn-W8vCU8/s640/DSCN0920.JPG

G

[Straybow]

I have a more modern military question. This a hypothetical scenario. Say you are trying to make an escape from a bunch of bad guys, your only weapon, a backpack full of claymore mines. These are directional explosives, (so I assume from "front towards enemy") so how close can you be behind the claymore and not be injured by them going off?


If you're within 6m of the back, you're probably dead. If you're within 42m of the back, you're still not safe unless you're in cover.

You can see the diagram and instructions here. (http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/policy/army/fm/23-23/APPII.htm) It says you're safe at 16m if there isn't junk that can become shrapnel within 1m of the back of the mine. I know a guy who made extensive use of them. He'd typically mount it at the base of a tree large enough to take most of the rearward blast (at least 2 feet in diameter), or a boulder, or against a berm or mound of earth, so he could be close enough to see a large portion of the kill zone when he'd set it off. He wouldn't be anywhere near 40m away, even if he didn't have a big enough backstop.

[J.Gellert]

I have another question.

The Strength Ratings for bows, from 3.5, are they a good simulation of how bows work?

Is a bow made with a specific pull, where if you are stronger you'd gain no benefit, and if you are weaker you'd get a penalty?

Also, is it impossible to get that with a "regular" longbow? Did such a thing as a "composite longbow" ever even exist?

Highlighting the parts that seem interesting.


Longbow
You need at least two hands to use a bow, regardless of its size. A longbow is too unwieldy to use while you are mounted. If you have a penalty for low Strength, apply it to damage rolls when you use a longbow. If you have a bonus for high Strength, you can apply it to damage rolls when you use a composite longbow (see below) but not a regular longbow.

Longbow, Composite
You need at least two hands to use a bow, regardless of its size. You can use a composite longbow while mounted. All composite bows are made with a particular strength rating (that is, each requires a minimum Strength modifier to use with proficiency). If your Strength bonus is less than the strength rating of the composite bow, you can’t effectively use it, so you take a -2 penalty on attacks with it. The default composite longbow requires a Strength modifier of +0 or higher to use with proficiency. A composite longbow can be made with a high strength rating to take advantage of an above-average Strength score; this feature allows you to add your Strength bonus to damage, up to the maximum bonus indicated for the bow. Each point of Strength bonus granted by the bow adds 100 gp to its cost.

[Autolykos]

Is a bow made with a specific pull, where if you are stronger you'd gain no benefit, and if you are weaker you'd get a penalty?That's pretty accurate, at least for D&D standards. A bow (obviously) has a specified draw weight that is determined by thickness and materials used. If you can't pull it completely, accuracy will suffer. If you can just barely pull it, you'll start to wobble very quickly, so you can't take much aim. And once you can pull it the whole length and keep it there long enough to aim comfortably, extra strength won't help much with that bow. For more oomph, get a stronger bow.


Also, is it impossible to get that with a "regular" longbow? Did such a thing as a "composite longbow" ever even exist?What material the bow is made from doesn't matter much in this regard. You can (technically) make any type of bow for any draw weight (regular wooden longbows range from 30 to way over 150 pounds of draw weight).
The closest thing to a composite longbow is probably this (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yumi). But usually, composite bows were used to make a bow smaller.
The fact that composite bows were mostly used by horsemen and wooden longbows by footmen seems like a coincidence to me: Most parts of Western Europe are way to woody and hilly to employ horse archers, and the climate is too wet for composite bows (also, it's densely populated, and horse archers suck at sieges). Steppes are great terrain for horse archers, and they're dry enough that composite bows don't come apart.

[Telok]

Speaking of loose standards, we're all quite aware of the gross inaccuracy of D&D weights for just about anything. But I came across something that could explain that.

When it comes to weights and measures we are spoiled by modern methods of standardization and accuracy. We have had international standards and authorities to keep us all agreeing about how much mass is in a pound for so long that we forgot how things used to be.

This is a chart of the old English system of weight measurement.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1e/English_mass_units_graph.svg

TL;DR => A london pound is 7200 grains, a tower pound is 5400 grains, and a grain is a single barley seed. So different "pounds" could be from 350 grams to 467 grams.

I don't have a decent list of real life weapons and armor weights handy, and I'm not going to look for one right now. But this could partially explain why the D&D weights for stuff is so inaccurate. (The other part is "stupid lazy writers")

[Spiryt]

I have another question.

The Strength Ratings for bows, from 3.5, are they a good simulation of how bows work?

Is a bow made with a specific pull, where if you are stronger you'd gain no benefit, and if you are weaker you'd get a penalty?


Pretty much.

Although it's actually the matter of technique in the first place, one cannot shoot well, or even draw, very heavy bow without proper skills, even if he's very strong.


Did such a thing as a "composite longbow" ever even exist?

Highlighting the parts that seem interesting.

"Longbow" meaning can vary from pretty specific design of the bow to some bows that are just "long" without any details.

You can obviously make composite longbow, it just happened that most historical bows that tend to be called 'longbow' were selfbows.

Plenty of longbows from Victorian era and today are made from laminate of few woods, often exotic - as it can cheaper way to make good heavy 'longbow' than to obtain suitably big piece of quality bow wood for selfbow.

Theoretically, 'laminate' is not quite the same, as 'composite' means combination of few materials with vastly different qualities, and woods are all in all usually at least comparable - but great amount of 'typical' steppe composite bows were being made from few different woods as well...

The fact that 'composite' in 3.5 is used as name for bows of greater strength just means that someone didn't bother to even check some dictionary. :smallwink:

[Matthew]

I was recently looking into this, and apparently there were some pretty big "composite" (horn and wood) bows around in China, not to overlook Odysseus' bow of course. Until then it seemed an undisputed matter that the long bows used by Samurai in Chain Mail were the inspiration for the composite long bow, but apparently they are "laminated" bows and are separated for classification. Gygax wrote an interesting article for Strategic Review on he subject as well.

[Spiryt]

I was recently looking into this, and apparently there were some pretty big "composite" (horn and wood) bows around in China, not to overlook Odysseus' bow of course. Until then it seemed an undisputed matter that the long bows used by Samurai in Chain Mail were the inspiration for the composite long bow, but apparently they are "laminated" bows and are separated for classification. Gygax wrote an interesting article for Strategic Review on he subject as well.

http://www.atarn.org/chinese/visible_bow/visible.htm

Total lenght of 6 feet makes them obviously pretty 'long' though constructionally they obviously don't have anything to do with 'round' or D cross section, gradually tapering bows with almost whole arm working - like we tend to define 'longbow' today.

So it's all really matter of convention.

[Brother Oni]

A quick question - when was the system of musket troops firing by ranks (that is, so that a unit can keep up a constant stream of fire, instead of intermittent large volleys) introduced and when was it phased out?

About the earliest reference I can find is a 1764 French manual where they covered firing by platoons and units rather than ranks, and by the late Napoleonic era (early 1800s), firing by ranks was apparently being phased out, although the British Army hung onto it for a while (the latest depiction I can find is the Battle of Rorke's Drift in 1879 in the film Zulu, but I'm going to regard the authenticity as dubious at best).

[Matthew]

http://www.atarn.org/chinese/visible_bow/visible.htm

Total length of 6 feet makes them obviously pretty 'long' though constructionally they obviously don't have anything to do with 'round' or D cross section, gradually tapering bows with almost whole arm working - like we tend to define 'longbow' today.

So it's all really matter of convention.

Indeed, Gygax's article was of considerable interest, though, he divided bows up into several categories, but I do not have it to hand. Here is a link to the thread discussing it, though: Composite Bows (http://www.dragonsfoot.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=54022).



Speaking of loose standards, we're all quite aware of the gross inaccuracy of D&D weights for just about anything. But I came across something that could explain that.

When it comes to weights and measures we are spoiled by modern methods of standardization and accuracy. We have had international standards and authorities to keep us all agreeing about how much mass is in a pound for so long that we forgot how things used to be.

This is a chart of the old English system of weight measurement.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1e/English_mass_units_graph.svg

TL;DR => A london pound is 7200 grains, a tower pound is 5400 grains, and a grain is a single barley seed. So different "pounds" could be from 350 grams to 467 grams.

I don't have a decent list of real life weapons and armor weights handy, and I'm not going to look for one right now. But this could partially explain why the D&D weights for stuff is so inaccurate. (The other part is "stupid lazy writers")

There was a fad for "medievalism" in the 19th century and a lot of very bad reproductions were produced, which is principally where all the bad information comes from. In addition many "display" items were considered to have been intended for the battlefield. Mind, weights and measures are a fascinating subject for coinage, I wrote a short article about it for my Silver Blade Adventures blog a few years back: [Article]　Yggsburgh Coinage (http://silverbladeadventures.blogspot.com/2010/07/article-yggsburgh-coinage.html); there is also an associated pdf dealing with ancient and medieval coinages, which has lots of nice pictures. :smallbiggrin:

[Storm Bringer]

A quick question - when was the system of musket troops firing by ranks (that is, so that a unit can keep up a constant stream of fire, instead of intermittent large volleys) introduced and when was it phased out?

About the earliest reference I can find is a 1764 French manual where they covered firing by platoons and units rather than ranks, and by the late Napoleonic era (early 1800s), firing by ranks was apparently being phased out, although the British Army hung onto it for a while (the latest depiction I can find is the Battle of Rorke's Drift in 1879 in the film Zulu, but I'm going to regard the authenticity as dubious at best).

All the dates given are off the top of my head and are aproximate.

fire by rank is pretty much as old as the mass adoption of muskets. I'm pretty sure it was in use by 1600 or so. in the pike and shot era, the slow loading of the guns led to quite deep formations to allow for fire by rank, up ro ten or so ranks, but as time went on the process was sped up by improvments in techology and the lines thinned to only two ranks by the american civil war.

platoon firing was invented some time before the Seven Years War (~1750s or so), or at least was in common use in that war. "Platoon" fire ment segments of the line would volly together, with a segment being anything form a half-company to a whole battalion (Platoons as a echlon of organsation did not exist until ~WW1, as far as i know.). Volley fire only really stopped being used about the time of the boer war n 1900, when bolt action rifles had raised the rate of fire to the point that centrally controlled volleys would slow the fire down too much,

in any case, for much of the period (1700 onwards, really(), solders in contact would only manage two or three controlled volleys before they disolved into simply firing as fast as they could load.

[Spiryt]

Speaking of loose standards, we're all quite aware of the gross inaccuracy of D&D weights for just about anything. But I came across something that could explain that.

When it comes to weights and measures we are spoiled by modern methods of standardization and accuracy. We have had international standards and authorities to keep us all agreeing about how much mass is in a pound for so long that we forgot how things used to be.

This is a chart of the old English system of weight measurement.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1e/English_mass_units_graph.svg

TL;DR => A london pound is 7200 grains, a tower pound is 5400 grains, and a grain is a single barley seed. So different "pounds" could be from 350 grams to 467 grams.

I don't have a decent list of real life weapons and armor weights handy, and I'm not going to look for one right now. But this could partially explain why the D&D weights for stuff is so inaccurate. (The other part is "stupid lazy writers")

Well, assuming that D&D pounds would be somehow smaller than modern standard English pounds, would be interesting theory, but I don't think so.... :smallbiggrin:


All in all creatures weights, at least few 'correct' weights, indicate 'normal' pounds.

[J.Gellert]

Awesome that it's a good simulation, and I thought as much for the "composite" part. Sweet, thanks for the answers :D Loving this topic always.

[Ashtagon]

Re coin weights

A UK £1 coin weighs 9.5 grams (0.335 oz, or 48 to the lb).

A US quarter (25 c) weighs 5.67 grams (0.2 oz, or 80 to the lb).

A one euro coin weighs 7.5 grams (0.265 oz, or 60 to the lb)

The heaviest UK coin minted in the last 20 years is a £5 coin (generally minted to mark special events only). It weighs 28.28 g (1 oz, or 16 to the lb).

50 D&D coins to the lb seems quite a reasonable figure (9.071 grams, or 0.32 oz).

[hamishspence]

The biggest issue with D&D coins is the size. In The PHB it shows a fairly large coin as the standard. A gold coin that size (given its high density) would be extremely thin- and there tends to be an exchange mechanism (in Forgotten Realms in particular) that assumes the coins are pure- so 50 gold coins are equivalent to a 1 lb gold bar.

In the GP per cubic foot (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=11580754&highlight=density#post11580754) thread, we find that Draconomicon assumes coins are 1/10 of an inch thick- which would require them to be massively alloyed to avoid the issue of being way too light for their size.

[Ashtagon]

The biggest issue with D&D coins is the size. In The PHB it shows a fairly large coin as the standard. A gold coin that size (given its high density) would be extremely thin- and there tends to be an exchange mechanism (in Forgotten Realms in particular) that assumes the coins are pure- so 50 gold coins are equivalent to a 1 lb gold bar.

http://www.pomian.demon.co.uk/weights.htm

Historically, gold coins were 23 3/4 carat purity (99.9%), and "sterling" silver was 92.5% (although some standards were dropped in various times and places). These are close enough to 100% for game purposes.

I think we can safely assume the gold coins in question are magnified versions.

Gold density is 19.3; silver is 10.49. Assuming a 12.7 mm (1/2 inch) diameter, a gold coin is 3.7 mm thick, and a silver coin is 6.8 mm thick.

Silver coins must logically be bigger in diameter than that.

[hamishspence]

I think we can safely assume the gold coins in question are magnified versions.


Draconomicon does say that a "typical coin" of any metal is slightly more than 1 inch wide, and 1/10 of an inch thick.

I'd probably revise one or both of those.

[Matthew]

Ancient Roman gold coins could be about 9 grams, but from the time of Constantine until the end of the high middle ages they were typically around 4 grams or so. The standard silver coin was about 1.5 grams or less, but there were very heavy examples during the late medieval silver boom in Germany. I recommend downloading this handy pdf I made to see some examples: Ancient and Medieval Coinage (http://www.keepandshare.com/doc/2075699/2010-07-18-ancient-and-medieval-coinage-pdf).

[Yora]

All in all creatures weights, at least few 'correct' weights, indicate 'normal' pounds.
There is no such thing as a normal pound.

454g, 373g, 350g, 437g, 467g, 453.6g, 329g, 319 to 324g, 367g, 489g, 560g, 467g, 409.5g, 425g, 498g, 471g, 490g.

The only normal pound is 500g. :smallamused:

[Ashtagon]

At 1-inch diameter, you get a coin 0.938 mm thick (gold), or 1.707 mm tick (silver). Those are aspect ratios (diameter/thickness) of 27.4 and 14.9 respectively.

A US quarter's ratio is 13.9; a UK 20p coin is 12.6; a UK £1 coin is 7.15.

The silver coin can believably have a one-inch diameter. The gold coin should be smaller. At 0.8 inch diameter, it would be 1.44 mm thick and have an aspect ratio of 14 which is in normal modern coinage ratios.

Just ran spreadsheet numbers. For copper and silver coins, a 1-inch diameter gives a thickness on a par with aspect ratios of modern coins. For gold and platinum coins, you need a 0.8 inch diameter to get the same aspect ratio. Electrum coins (anyone ever use those?) would also need to be smaller than 1 inch to avoid being foil coins.

Also, all D&D coins are denser than modern coins by far.

Another fun fact: The density of modern coins, calculated from diameter, thickness, and mass, is much lower than it should be when calculated from the component metal physical properties. For example, 11:1 copper-nickel alloy (used in US 25c, 10c coins) should have a density of 9.75. Calculated values are 7.009 and 6.669. Even allowing 0.1mm for surface feature embossing, that's too low. I wonder if modern coin manufacturing uses some "metal foaming" techniques. They certainly aren't the advertised metal content if those physical dimension numbers are supposed to be correct.

[J.Gellert]

Coins... Only two weeks back, I spent 3 hours trying to calculate late-Roman coin weights and deciding on the perfect balance between realism and ease of use (because I didn't want to use the D&D standard of 1 gold = 10 silver = 100 copper).

Just one of the little things I know my players are never going to appreciate. :smallannoyed:

[Straybow]

Also, all D&D coins are denser than modern coins by far.

Another fun fact: The density of modern coins, calculated from diameter, thickness, and mass, is much lower than it should be when calculated from the component metal physical properties. For example, 11:1 copper-nickel alloy (used in US 25c, 10c coins) should have a density of 9.75. Calculated values are 7.009 and 6.669. Even allowing 0.1mm for surface feature embossing, that's too low. I wonder if modern coin manufacturing uses some "metal foaming" techniques. They certainly aren't the advertised metal content if those physical dimension numbers are supposed to be correct.
Ummm, no. I can't imagine where you are getting those density numbers.

Cu density is 8.96, Ni density is 9.00. We could round Cu and any Cu-Ni alloy to 9.0 as close enough for most calculations.

Yes, Ag is denser at 10.5, but that is only by 16.7%. Au at 19.3 is more than double the density of Cu.

[Ashtagon]

Ummm, no. I can't imagine where you are getting those density numbers.

Cu density is 8.96, Ni density is 9.00. We could round Cu and any Cu-Ni alloy to 9.0 as close enough for most calculations.

Yes, Ag is denser at 10.5, but that is only by 16.7%. Au at 19.3 is more than double the density of Cu.

Yes, density of modern coins based on metal composition should be on the order of 8-9 g/cc. On the other hand, the diameter and thickness are documented, from which it is trivial to calculate volume. And mass is documented; with mass and volume, you can calculate a density figure. This calculated density is much lower than the metal composition should indicate. I've double checked my figures, so I'm not sure where this error is creeping in, or if it's bad data from wikipedia.

[Galloglaich]

Ancient Roman gold coins could be about 9 grams, but from the time of Constantine until the end of the high middle ages they were typically around 4 grams or so. The standard silver coin was about 1.5 grams or less, but there were very heavy examples during the late medieval silver boom in Germany. I recommend downloading this handy pdf I made to see some examples: Ancient and Medieval Coinage (http://www.keepandshare.com/doc/2075699/2010-07-18-ancient-and-medieval-coinage-pdf).

To build on what Matthew said, most Medieval and Classical era coins, at least the type which would be spent normally, were extremely small, as in maybe half to a third the size of a dime ... most of the money used for daily use was silver or bronze... or in some places like in the far East, iron. I have a few Roman and Medieval coins that I bought from Ebay they are really tiny.

Gold was extremely valuable, you could get a sword for a half a mark in the late Medieval period which would be a very small gold coin smaller than a dime, or a larger quantity of silver, about a hundred small silver coins.

Some other prices:

A sheep, 56 dinari (a tiny silver 900-1000 dinari to a mark)
Bushel of wheat 84 dinari
Sword 1/2 a mark
Stirrup Crossbow 1 mark
Coat of plates (platendienst) 1/4 mark
Cuirass with pauldrons, 1 mark
Mail Haubergeon 2-7 marks or 10 marks for a ‘special’ Haubergeon (possibly tempered or fine links)
Half-Armor ‘of Proof’ a little over 2 marks
Milanese Harness 4 Florins (florin is a gold coin worth very roughly 1.5 marks)
Milanese Harness ‘of Proof’ 7 Florins
Equipment for a mounted crossbowman, 11 florins, equipment ‘for a lancer’ 30 florins

Days wage for a Carpenter in Klosternaubourg 20 deniers in the summer (roughly 1/2 mark per month) 16 deniers n the winter

Day wage for a Carpenter or a mason in Saxony 2 groschen and 4 dinari, plus two jugs of ‘hornet’ beer, plus 3 groschen per week for bath money. Monthly wage is roughly 3/4 mark per month (assuming a typical 5 1/2 day work week and not counting the beer)

Mercenaries pay*:
Light Cavalry 2 Florin per month
Gunner or Arbalestier 3 Florin per month
Doppelsöldner Halberdier 3 Florin per month
Leutzule (guide) 2 Florin per month
Lancer (with horse and armor) 10 Florin per month
Knight (‘Lance’)** 20 Florin per month

* Mercenaries pay was considered extremely high
** Knights pay would also cover at least 2 mounted attendants who were also expected to fight plus one mounted servant (veleti)

G

[Straybow]

Yes, density of modern coins based on metal composition should be on the order of 8-9 g/cc. On the other hand, the diameter and thickness are documented, from which it is trivial to calculate volume. And mass is documented; with mass and volume, you can calculate a density figure. This calculated density is much lower than the metal composition should indicate. I've double checked my figures, so I'm not sure where this error is creeping in, or if it's bad data from wikipedia.
No, the data from the US Mint is the same. The diameter counts the reeded edges of the dime and quarter. The thickness is the stacking ring, which is equal to the maximum relief of the image. The high relief parts of the image take up a very small percentage of the face, and the difference in mass is that missing volume.

[Straybow]

I have another question.

The Strength Ratings for bows, from 3.5, are they a good simulation of how bows work?

Is a bow made with a specific pull, where if you are stronger you'd gain no benefit, and if you are weaker you'd get a penalty?

Also, is it impossible to get that with a "regular" longbow? Did such a thing as a "composite longbow" ever even exist?
No, it is horribly inconsistent and even nonsensical. If "strength bows" should be allowed at all, the low mass of the arrow should impose the same limitation as a light weapon: half the strength bonus.

Follow this reasoning:

A short bow has about 50-80 lb draw and 5' length. Limb tip velocity is the limit of arrow velocity, and with no major change in geometry tip velocity is proportional to limb length. A longbow made to the same draw weight would have 20% longer limbs, resulting in 20% higher arrow velocity, which is 44% more energy. Raise the draw weight to 140+ lbs (at least double) and make a heavier arrow to maximize the energy transfer and you get the same 20% higher velocity with about 100% more energy than the short bow.

This accounts for the difference between the listed damages of 1d6 shortbow and 1d8 longbow. Double the power (energy), only one point extra damage on average, two points maximum damage by die size.

Now, do you think an average shlub with a strength of ten can effectively draw and use a 140 lb longbow? Sorry, no. That 140 lb draw is a one-arm press (pressing 140 lb with one hand, pulling 140 lb with the other) that implies a bench press strength of about 280 lb. Military press is generally about 70% of bench press, so that comes to 196 lb. That's 4 lb shy of the overhead lift limit for a strength of 15. That means the strength bonus happens to correspond to the change in die size (+2), and the change in average damage is half the strength bonus (+1).

It's a very sloppy way to get there, but it is at least in the correct neighborhood.

So, longbow should require a strength of 14 for anybody to use without lengthy training (far more than reflected in d20). Historical records show that yeomen trained from the age of 14 and became eligible for the King's service at 22, so about 8 years to allow men of somewhat more average strength (probably around 12) to wield the longbow with precision.
1
Now, suppose you want to add more "strength bonus" to that bow. You can't really make the limbs substantially longer, so you can't add to the missile velocity (the most efficient route, since velocity is squared). You can only add to the missile mass.

Carrying capacity as a rough measure of strength increases by 32% for each +1 strength bonus, so you'd need to increase the draw weight by about 32% to keep pace. But remember, it took a doubling of energy to get a +1 average damage increase or +2 to die size going from shortbow to longbow. That means a +41% for +½ to damage and +1 to die size. We need to lengthen the bow (and therefore, release velocity) by a few percent to keep the pace.

Now, if you wanted to start with a longbow at strength 10 (the +0 composite longbow), you see how enormous the draw weights become, just multiplying by rate of increase in carrying capacity and handwaving the increased arrow mass and a couple inches of limb length for each step.

+0 140 lb 1d8
+1 184 lb 1d9
+2 244 lb 1d10
+3 322 lb 1d11
+4 424 lb 1d12

Note that the whole scheme falls apart with the composite shortbow, at about half the draw weight:

+0 70 lb 1d6
+1 92 lb 1d7
+2 122 lb 1d8

Oops, it took a 20% longer bow and a 15% heavier draw (equivalent to 1 Strength point) just to get to 1d8 damage for the longbow, and the 20% longer bow accounted for more than half of the logarithmic energy increase. The +2 strength shortbow arrow must get all it's extra energy from missile mass. The draw is roughly proportional to optimal missile mass, so we're 15% too light of draw for the estimated doubling of energy to match the longbow arrow.

So, allowing half strength bonus (or add strength bonus to die size) for strength bows is actually too generous. In fact, I'd impose a half strength bonus limit for thrown weapons as well, for these and additional reasons.

[Galloglaich]

I should add, those prices I quoted were from the 15th Century in Northern Germany (Holy Roman Empire) and the Baltic area.

G

[J.Gellert]

Interesting stuff

That's pretty good to know. Of course even I (that usually go straight for realism) will admit that perhaps it's looking too much into things; because we don't know what damage means. What is a +1 Strength bonus to damage when you are wielding a dagger, or a warhammer?

But judging from the above, the math would simply make more sense if the Longbow did, say, 1d10 instead of 1d8.

Which brings me to another question; Shouldn't crossbows be doing more damage, by this reasoning? A heavy crossbow is essentially a bow that the average person can't pull (hence the cranequin), so its damage should be comparable to +Strength bonus bows, not just simple bows.

[Ashtagon]

No, the data from the US Mint is the same. The diameter counts the reeded edges of the dime and quarter. The thickness is the stacking ring, which is equal to the maximum relief of the image. The high relief parts of the image take up a very small percentage of the face, and the difference in mass is that missing volume.

Yeah, but based on the physical mass and dimensions given and the calculated density from metal composition, something like a quarter of the theoretical volume should be empty space to allow for surface features. Examining the coins, it certainly doesn't look like there's that much empty space in there.

[Ashtagon]

stuff


A few basic errors...

* The launch velocity is determined by the speed of the string, not the limbs. That can be vastly different, depending on the way the limbs are designed bend when the bow is drawn.
* Changing the proportion of riser to limb can affect launch velocity.
* Different materials technology can change the effective draw weight without changing physical dimensions.
* Draw weight and arrow mass are completely unrelated, except to note that high draw weights with light or poorly constructed arrows can result in the arrows fairly to fly true. A heavy arrow certainly doesn't result in a higher draw weight.

http://e23.sjgames.com/item.html?id=SJG37-2633 has an article for gurps which is supposed to model arrow dynamics very well. I haven't personally read it yet though.

[Spiryt]

Which brings me to another question; Shouldn't crossbows be doing more damage, by this reasoning? A heavy crossbow is essentially a bow that the average person can't pull (hence the cranequin), so its damage should be comparable to +Strength bonus bows, not just simple bows.

"Developed" crossbows in general have shorter draw lengths, it was kind of the point of them - so they could be raised at head height, carefully aimed, supported etc.

With shorter draw length, one cannot gather the same energy in the prod using the force of, say 100 pounds.

Bow that requires 100 pounds of force over 23 inches of power stroke and crossbow of 250 pounds over 9 inches will store roughly the same amount of energy if drawn.

That's obviously very simple example, because with actual materials and geometry it will get way more complicated.


Heavy crossbow should obviously be doing more damage, but 3.5 is very simple and poorly written in general.

Calculating carrying capacities into bow draws and into damage is just a headache without point.



A longbow made to the same draw weight would have 20% longer limbs, resulting in 20% higher arrow velocity, which is 44% more energy.

It would also have heavier limbs, which would obviously consume some of energy, among other things already pointed out.

[Galloglaich]

Yeah but the strongest Medieval crossbows could be up to 1200 lb draw, and probably were more powerful than any bow.



G

[Spiryt]

Early crossbows apparently were sort of very short bows with immense draw that could be still spanned with two hands - but then evolution went for shorter power stroke...

Still, 600 pounds/8 inches well built crossbow was anyway more powerful than most practical bows out there.

It already needed some more substantial mechanical advantage, or hard work with simpler system though.

[fusilier]

A quick question - when was the system of musket troops firing by ranks (that is, so that a unit can keep up a constant stream of fire, instead of intermittent large volleys) introduced and when was it phased out?

About the earliest reference I can find is a 1764 French manual where they covered firing by platoons and units rather than ranks, and by the late Napoleonic era (early 1800s), firing by ranks was apparently being phased out, although the British Army hung onto it for a while (the latest depiction I can find is the Battle of Rorke's Drift in 1879 in the film Zulu, but I'm going to regard the authenticity as dubious at best).

As storm bringer already noted an early version of fire by ranks was probably standard practice by the late 1500s. In this case the formations were loose enough that after firing the front rank could retire to the rear. Volley fire, involving multiple ranks, started to become popular around 1630 or so. I'm not sure when firing by rank became common -- it was often used as a ploy to trick cavalry into charging. Other methods included firing by company and fire by files (which was a way of starting independent firing).

[Daosus]

I should point out that people today have difficulty agreeing on which gun caliber is best, even with well-known parameters like diameter, projectile mass, and muzzle velocity. Trying to do the same sort of thing for something as broad as "big bows, small bows, compound bows and two kinds of crossbows" is likely an exercise in madness.

With that said, energy is pretty easy to figure, if you make some (inaccurate) assumptions, like a linear force-displacement curve for force on the arrow/bolt. Crossbows, which tend to have shorter prods, will be closer to this assumption. Bows, which get more fancy, will tend to have more energy than this assumption. However, that's "muzzle" energy, and bolts tend to lose energy slower than arrows due to higher cross sectional density, and lower drag coefficient. But, again, without picking a specific bow and a specific crossbow, and a specific range, it is difficult to make an accurate estimate of which is "better."

[Yora]

A basic understandig question:

In an aircraft carrier group (I think that's what it's called), isn't the carrier effectively providing protection for the rest of the group with it's aircraft?

So what are all the other ships for which are not carrying supplies? Probably not for ship to ship battles.

[Storm Bringer]

A basic understandig question:

In an aircraft carrier group (I think that's what it's called), isn't the carrier effectively providing protection for the rest of the group with it's aircraft?

So what are all the other ships for which are not carrying supplies? Probably not for ship to ship battles.

protecting the carrier.

carriers are glass jawed boxers. they can deal massive amounts of damage, but they can't take much punishment without sinking. thierfore, you need the other ships to keep threats form hitting the carrier, by providing platforms for Missles, Anti sub weapons, and if all else fails, by providing alternate targets on the radar screen for the incoming to aim it, or be drawn too.

They also are for all those boring, routine patrol, customs and anti-pirate stuff that navies need to do when not fighting wars.

[Yora]

Ah, okay. There's already enough stuff on an aircraft carrier, no need to cram all those cruise missiles and other specialized weapons into it as well.

[Dead_Jester]

Ah, okay. There's already enough stuff on an aircraft carrier, no need to cram all those cruise missiles and other specialized weapons into it as well.

There is also the fact that if you put everything in the same ship, it becomes not only less effective at it's primary job, but it becomes an even more inviting target. Add to that the fact that a "universal" ship being theoretically able to patrol and/or engage by itself encourages commanders to reduce the size of escorts, and you have a recipe for disaster.

Plus, placing cruise missiles on huge warships is usually wasteful, as it limits you tactical capabilities to deploy them where you want and to spread them out efficiently.

[Galloglaich]

I should point out that people today have difficulty agreeing on which gun caliber is best, even with well-known parameters like diameter, projectile mass, and muzzle velocity. Trying to do the same sort of thing for something as broad as "big bows, small bows, compound bows and two kinds of crossbows" is likely an exercise in madness.

With that said, energy is pretty easy to figure, if you make some (inaccurate) assumptions, like a linear force-displacement curve for force on the arrow/bolt. Crossbows, which tend to have shorter prods, will be closer to this assumption. Bows, which get more fancy, will tend to have more energy than this assumption. However, that's "muzzle" energy, and bolts tend to lose energy slower than arrows due to higher cross sectional density, and lower drag coefficient. But, again, without picking a specific bow and a specific crossbow, and a specific range, it is difficult to make an accurate estimate of which is "better."

Better is probably not applicable, different

the five top long-range missile weapons of the Medieval era break down something like this:

http://www.replicacrossbowworld.com/cms/resources/lightcrossbow1-w640h480.jpg

Heavy crossbow (stirrup crossbow, heavy crossbow, stegelarmbrust, knottelarmbrust)

Appears around 1050 AD, gradually improves in power and efficiency reaching a peak from 1350-1550 AD

Spanned with: goats foot and / or belt hook
Expense: moderate to high
Use on horseback: moderately difficult (requires skilled marskman, costing about half as much as a knight and requires wippe or goats-foot)

Advantages
Relatively easy to handle, usable by semi-skilled soldiers and militia.
Good strait line accuracy at individual targets,
Long range for individual targets, up to 80m effective range according to period sources
Can be held in readiness indefinitely
Can be aimed supported (leaning on something) which improves accuracy
Good armor-piercing capabilities
Moderate expense

Disadvantages
Relatively slow rate of shots (this is remedied by shooting in pairs)
Not as good at area shots (bolts lose energy fast when speed drops)
Moderately difficult to use on horseback
Ammunition is expensive
Shallow arc

http://bellsouthpwp.net/d/e/deodand23/Weapon-List/Missile/xbow7.jpg
Arbalest ('stinger' (statchel), halb rustung),

Appears around 1350 AD, reaches peak efficiency 1450 -1550 AD

Advantages
Very accurate at individual targets, up to 120m or more
Highly lethal, can kill a horse with one shot
Very good armor piercing
Moderate intimidation effect: Bolts sound scares horses and men
Can be aimed supported

Disadvantages
Very expensive
Takes a long time to make,
Requires highly skilled labor to make (steel prod versions require both skilled blacksmith and bow maker)
Dangerous to use for the shooter, requires skilled marksman
Requires expensive cranequin to span
Slow rate of shots
Ammunition is expensive
Shallow arc

http://www.recurvebowshop.com/pictures/traditional%20recurve%20bows/mongol%20bow/tn/mongol%20recurve%20bow1.jpg
Mongol / Turkish recurve
Appears in early form as far back as the 6th Century BC or much earlier, reaches various peaks of efficiency in the 4th Century AD, 12th Century AD, and the 15th Century AD

advantages
High rate of shots
Very long (longest) range for indirect / area shots, especially using flight-arrows
Cheap ammunition
Most effective of the group from horseback (by people who grow up with both horsemanship and archery)
Light and relatively small
Can be shot in high arc

disadvantages
Relatively light arrows mean limited armor-piercing ability at range
Shorter direct-shot range against individuals
Composite bows arguably most susceptible to poor weather
Takes a long time to make (up to 1 year to dry)

http://fourriverscharter.org/projects/Inventions/images/English_longbow3.jpg

English* Longbow / Warbow
* actually also used in many other parts of Europe going way back
Appears in far antiquity (neolothic period) reaches peaks of efficiency in the 11th Century AD (Welsh), 14th Century AD (English longbow) and 15th Century

advantages
Long range especially for area shots
heavy arrows have good armor-piercing ability
hard-hitting: can kill horses. Arguably most devastating area -shot weapon of the group.
Fast rate of shots
Relatively cheap to make (but generally requires imported wood)
Can be shot in high arc

disadvantage
Not as long area-shot range as the recurve
Not as long direct-shot range as the crossbow
Somewhat awkward to shoot from horseback (though it was done)

http://images.wikia.com/deadliestfiction/images/d/da/Arquebus.jpg
Matchlock arquebus / harquebus
Appears in primitive form as early as 1300 (hook-gun), early peak (recognizable as an arquebus) by circa 1400, reaches a second peak circa 1520 (much more efficient designs)

advantages
Good armor piercing ability at close range
Can be held in readiness indefinitely
Best intimidation effect of the group: Noise and flash scares horses and men
Long range in volley fire (effectively area shot)
High lethality, can kill horses
Can be aimed supported

disadvantages
Poor accuracy against individual targets (max 50m)
Accidents with gunpowder can cause major catastrophes (i.e. explosions and fires) so early firearms require well trained / experienced gunners
No arc (very flat arc compared to the bows and even the crossbows)
Requires a lit match (which can give away the position of the shooter)
Creates cloud of smoke (which has both advantages and disadvantages)
Gunpowder is highly succeptible to weather
Until 1450 gunpowder has to be mixed on the spot (i.e. before corned powder)


G

[Straybow]

A few basic errors...

* The launch velocity is determined by the speed of the string, not the limbs. That can be vastly different, depending on the way the limbs are designed bend when the bow is drawn.
* Changing the proportion of riser to limb can affect launch velocity.
* Different materials technology can change the effective draw weight without changing physical dimensions.
* Draw weight and arrow mass are completely unrelated, except to note that high draw weights with light or poorly constructed arrows can result in the arrows fairly to fly true. A heavy arrow certainly doesn't result in a higher draw weight.

http://e23.sjgames.com/item.html?id=SJG37-2633 has an article for gurps which is supposed to model arrow dynamics very well. I haven't personally read it yet though. Sorry, proportional to limb speed, and since geometry of self bows doesn't change enough to matter, the math is OK.

I didn't say heavier arrow results in higher draw weight, I said the heavier draw needs the heavier arrow. If your objective is range, use a lighter arrow. If you want to increase damage, you need a heavier arrow.

[Spiryt]

For the record, that english longbow picture doesn't have much to do with actual longbows/other from medieval, it has typically modern lamination, geometry and leather grip. :smallbiggrin:



Requires highly skilled labor to make (steel prod versions require both skilled blacksmith and bow maker)

Very heavy arbalests were still being made from horn/wood/sinew composite, not that it changes much as far as skilled labor goes, perhaps required even more of it.



Moderate intimidation effect: Bolts sound scares horses and men

Why put this only under "arbalest" though? It generally could be just as applicable to arrows and bolts from lighter crossbows. Would depend mostly on fletching, which was very often made from wood in case of bolts, anyway.



Relatively light arrows mean limited armor-piercing ability at range

Well, heavy arrows could be used just as well though.



Appears in far antiquity (neolothic period) reaches peaks of efficiency in the 11th Century AD (Welsh), 14th Century AD (English longbow) and 15th Century

It would probably be more accurate to say that it reaches peak of it's military use then, cause indeed we already have some traces of very dynamic and well made longbows from Neolithic indeed. (Along with flatbows etc. obviously).

[Straybow]

That's pretty good to know. Of course even I (that usually go straight for realism) will admit that perhaps it's looking too much into things; because we don't know what damage means. What is a +1 Strength bonus to damage when you are wielding a dagger, or a warhammer?

But judging from the above, the math would simply make more sense if the Longbow did, say, 1d10 instead of 1d8.

Which brings me to another question; Shouldn't crossbows be doing more damage, by this reasoning? A heavy crossbow is essentially a bow that the average person can't pull (hence the cranequin), so its damage should be comparable to +Strength bonus bows, not just simple bows. Higher draw weight, much smaller span (as little as 8 inches). Momentum and energy in the quarrel isn't vastly higher. It wasn't about damage, the heavier arrows and bolts were for armor penetration.

The really powerful ones can't be drawn by hand. They take a minute or two (tens of rounds) to crank, even slower than a muzzle-loader, and for games that means one shot.

I'm not trying to model arrow behavior, I'm trying to model strength bonus behavior, hence the use of carry capacity as a gauge for increasing draw to match strength. I'm using the 1d6 shortbow and 1d8 longbow and typical characteristics (50-80 lb vs 140+ lb) as the basis for comparison.

To go on a "what is damage" path does not lead to the dark side. Using a hand weapon involves more than just moving a weapon. It is moving your body, and transmitting the momentum of your arm or body through the weapon to the target. Using a two-handed weapon allows greater leverage and more momentum behind the weapon (1½×Str mod). A light weapon doesn't transmit the momentum as well and the advantage of strength in the blow is diminished (½×Str mod). We know all this by experience. You can try to use a hatchet in both hands but it just doesn't increase the effect by much. You can try to use a wood axe with one hand, and while you can get the head speed up you don't have leverage to transfer momentum.

You can try to transfer body momentum into a thrown weapon, but it is an inefficient process. With your mass no longer physically connected the momentum simply isn't there, to a greater degree than with a light weapon. But it isn't practical to go less the ½×Str.

When you're comparing arrows, quarrels, and even javelins you do have one common factor: the wound track. For each of these the difference in size of the head is not that big. With a broadhead you have cutting damage through the wound track. With a bodkin that's not as much of a factor. Really there should be a differentiation, with a smaller damage die for the bodkin. Either way, this is another strong case for not ramping up the damage just because the power of the bow is higher. If the game mechanics had armor as DR, and some kind of penetration factor, that is where the greatest effect would be.

[Kalaska'Agathas]

Ah, okay. There's already enough stuff on an aircraft carrier, no need to cram all those cruise missiles and other specialized weapons into it as well.

Also, you'll frequently find that sortieing aircraft and ASW require mutually exclusive actions (carrying the necessary speed and heading to launch jets versus sprint-and-drifting to triangulate a target) so you simply can't do both simultaneously.

Edit: At least not with the same platform.

[rrgg]

My opinions on Ranged weapons:

The key with each one is how energy is stored and transferred to the projectile.
First, throwing weapons are for the most part a direct transfer of a person's arm strength to the object. The primary issue is the ratio of weapon weight to arm weight (since it is moving as well).
Javelins/darts generally break down into either "heavy" or "light" varieties.
Heavy javelins tend to be in the 2-5 lb range and include things like the pilum or simply general purpose spears. Normally these tend to be extremely short range weapons but their energy can often get into the 200 (well-built reenactor) to 300+ Joules (Olympic javelineer). For comparison, most mail armor likely needed around 100-200 J to penetrate depending on point type and quality. Obviously the effectiveness of the weapon would vary immensely depending on user strength and skill.
Light javelins on the other hand were intended for distance and were much shorter, thinner, and lighter, usually well under 1 lb. They were't nearly as powerful though. Some Roman accounts suggest that the light infantry's javelins could be turned aside by even thick gaelic cloaks.
Other throwing-type weapons achievied greater efficency by using some meathod of lengthening the arm.
throwing axes and throwing maces do this but are inconsistant and have less peircing ability.
atlatls are efficient but require a rather light, springy projectile which prevents them from being scaled up.
slings are actually capable of a lot of energy, but rely on blunt force rather than a sharp point.

Bow weapons meanwhile work by storing energy in a spring and releasing it all at once. This allows them to propell lighter projectiles at far greater speeds and distances. The limiters here are the efficiency of the spring and again the strength of a person's arm.
Traditional bows (short, long, composite, etc) were made to the user's strength with varying degrees of efficiency depending on quality of construction, but the overall doesn't seem to have been that great. Most Warbows tended to stay well below the 100 J level for their projectiles with 150 J perhaps a semi-mythical max.

Crossbows are among the first weapons that focus on storing more raw energy rather than simple efficiency.
A hand-drawn sturrup crossbow can theoretically achieve around double the energy of a traditional bow, but there seem to have still been some efficiency issues. With such short power-strokes, most designs don't achieve much more penetration than traditional warbows.
The winch is what really liberates the crossbow even if the speed is dratically reduced. Arbalests could do a ton of damage, but I'd argue that by the time you are reliably peircing high-quality armor you are into siege engine territory.

And finally, as far as storing and releasing energy goes gunpowder came along and broke everything.

[Autolykos]

Straybow, you're assuming 50-80 pound draw for a "regular" (STR 10) shortbow, but 140+ pounds for a "regular" (also STR 10) longbow, and then state that it would be impossible for a STR 10 individual to draw that longbow. This leads me to believe that your initial assumption is incorrect. A STR 10 longbow should be pullable (and aimable) by the average joe, which would put its draw weight well under 50 pounds. That's more in the "sporting" than in the "weapon" range, but historically, longbowmen needed training since childhood to get the necessary strength for pulling a longbow strong enough for military use. A 140 pound longbow should have a minimum STR bonus of +2 or +3, and those 180+ monsters should be at +4 and over.
Like I stated before, only allowing for stronger composite bows but not for stronger wooden bows is the silly part of the rule. If you take that at face value, you can easily create contradictions like the one you found.

[Straybow]

Straybow, you're assuming 50-80 pound draw for a "regular" (STR 10) shortbow, but 140+ pounds for a "regular" (also STR 10) longbow, and then state that it would be impossible for a STR 10 individual to draw that longbow. This leads me to believe that your initial assumption is incorrect.
Not quite what I meant, which may have been lost in the wall of words. :smallsmile: I said:
So, longbow should require a strength of 14 for anybody to use without lengthy training (far more than reflected in d20). Historical records show that yeomen trained from the age of 14 and became eligible for the King's service at 22, so about 8 years to allow men of somewhat more average strength (probably around 12) to wield the longbow with precision. Then I cited how ridiculously huge the draw weight would have to be if strength bows started at Str10 and went up proportionally with the logarithmic strength scale.

I would allow folks to use the longbow below Str14 with a feat that represents years of training. PCs wouldn't bother if they don't have Str14, but that's the explanation for more average Str12 soldiers (who don't choose their mandated training).

[Ashtagon]

I would allow folks to use the longbow below Str14 with a feat that represents years of training. PCs wouldn't bother if they don't have Str14, but that's the explanation for more average Str12 soldiers (who don't choose their mandated training).

I know — we can call this feat "Martial Weapon Proficiency"!

[Spiryt]

I would allow folks to use the longbow below Str14 with a feat that represents years of training. PCs wouldn't bother if they don't have Str14, but that's the explanation for more average Str12 soldiers (who don't choose their mandated training).

Historically, a lot of things that would go as "longbow" would have very 'mundane' draw weights, so there's no reason to do require 14 Str for 35 pound bow that can be used by any reasonably fit person with training.

[Straybow]

Historically, a lot of things that would go as "longbow" would have very 'mundane' draw weights, so there's no reason to do require 14 Str for 35 pound bow that can be used by any reasonably fit person with training. Yes, but those "longbows" would have performance like the shortbow. Some high draw weight longbows were designed for long range flight arrows that do much less damage, less than a shortbow.

[Spiryt]

Yes, but those "longbows" would have performance like the shortbow. Some high draw weight longbows were designed for long range flight arrows that do much less damage, less than a shortbow.

:smallconfused:

They would have performance like ~ 50, maybe a bit more pounds shortbows, assuming that "shortbow" here is constructionally like longbow, but too short to store energy effectively.

If one takes such shortbow of 100 pounds, it would still have better performance.

I'm not really aware of longbows and other selfbows being optimized specifically for flight shooting, but I guess they could happen.

Still one could easily fire heavy arrow from them, doing 'more damage than shortbow'.

The bottom line is that in thread about "real world weapons" talking about rather silly weapon categories from 3.5 doesn't really have much sense.

[Yora]

What's actually the deal with these fancy modern plastic and pulleys bows?

After all, isn't the amount of energy transfered to the arrow always the same as the amount of muscle energy used to pull the string?
Or does that construction make it easier somehow to hold the arrow in place to aim, while putting a lesser strain on the muscles that keep the bow from springig back. (Kind of like pulleys in general, spreading the same amount of energy over a longer amount of time, reducing the effort at any given moment.)

[Spiryt]

What's actually the deal with these fancy modern plastic and pulleys bows?

After all, isn't the amount of energy transfered to the arrow always the same as the amount of muscle energy used to pull the string?


no

To actually elaborate, amount of energy used to pull the string is very loosely connected to energy transfered to arrow, there are quite a few different energy transfers here.

You can quite easily build bow that will require a lot of energy to pull, without propelling arrow very much.

The trick is to don't do it. :smallwink:


Modern compound bow basically offer huge mechanical advantage with pulleys - by drawing the 60 pound bow at, say, 30 inches one is able to turn the pulleys quite a lot, storing huge amount of energy in the short bending arms of the bow.

Traditional bows obviously cannot have that excellent efficiency in storing energy, all reflexes, siyahs, recurved tips, etc. can only go so far in providing good leverage/mechanical advantage.

The problem is still somehow amount of energy wasted for pulley movement itself, as they are still pretty heavy, even with modern materials and engineering.

[DrewID]

Modern compound bow basically offer huge mechanical advantage with pulleys - by drawing the 60 pound bow at, say, 30 inches one is able to turn the pulleys quite a lot, storing huge amount of energy in the short bending arms of the bow.

A science article I read years ago pointed out that when you draw and loose a self bow, much of the stored energy goes into moving not the arrow, but the bow. Think about it. The ends of the bow arms move about half as far as the arrow, and the grip hardly at all. But the bow arms weigh much more than the arrow. It doesn't matter that the arms are moving themselves, physics demands that the energy to propel them from a dead stop to rapid forward motion must come from [i]some[i/where, and it's from the stored energy that you expended drawing the bow.

On a modern compound bow, with it's pulleys and whatnot, the arms of the bow move very little, and less of the stored energy has to be expended in moving the bow arms, and so more is available to propel the arrow.

DrewID

[Straybow]

They aren't just pulleys, they are cams. That means they are egg-shaped, having more leverage on one side of the cam than on the other. That way when the bow is in the fully drawn position the smaller force required to hold the string is multiplied by the greater leverage. On release the cam rotates and within a few inches the force is back up to the full value. Making the string go between the cams also allows a 2:1 mechanical advantage, so the limbs only travel half as far and use up less energy despite the extra mass of the cams.

[Straybow]

The bottom line is that in thread about "real world weapons" talking about rather silly weapon categories from 3.5 doesn't really have much sense. Well illustrating how huge the draw force would have to be to require strengths of 16 or 18 or more is part of examine real world weapon design.

For a game one can simply close the eyes and think of England.

[Spiryt]

On a modern compound bow, with it's pulleys and whatnot, the arms of the bow move very little, and less of the stored energy has to be expended in moving the bow arms, and so more is available to propel the arrow.

DrewID

Yes, but much of it has to be expended to propel the wheels themselves, which with all modern materials are still pretty heavy, have not very aerodynamic shape and are obviously located in the worst place possible - very end of the arms which move rapidly.

That's the main limitation of compound bow, and why as far as sheer dynamics go, they beat traditional bows 'just' soundly, not by several times. :smallwink:

[Yora]

There always is also the factor of style, which is an area in which they just can't compete. :smallbiggrin:

[Autolykos]

That way when the bow is in the fully drawn position the smaller force required to hold the string is multiplied by the greater leverage.
THAT is actually the important point. Everything else is just small details that wouldn't warrant all those complicated mechanics. With a longbow, the required force rises pretty much linearly with draw distance, making it pretty hard to hold the bow steady to aim. With modern compound bows, the force drops massively over the last few inches, which means that the draw weight is only limited by what you can pull once, not by what you can hold comfortably. You can easily use compound bows with about twice the (nominal) draw weight you would have on a longbow.
In theory, you can't cheat conservation of energy - every Joule in the arrow has to be put in it by the archer. In practice, the total energy isn't the limiting factor (it's a few hundred Joules, at most), it is the maximum force required to pull and hold. And with clever use of mechanics, you can distribute that force along the draw distance pretty much any way you like (and compound bows do that better than longbows).

[JustSomeGuy]

Well illustrating how huge the draw force would have to be to require strengths of 16 or 18 or more is part of examine real world weapon design.

For a game one can simply close the eyes and think of England.

As i understand it, STR is an imperfect measure of numerous physical abilities - the ability to knock someone out with a punch, break a door off it's hinges, lift heavy awkward stuff overhead, carry heavier stuff, endure arduous physical exertions for hours/days on end, etc.

So a STR 10 guy operating a bow technically requiring STR14+ is just one facet of his STR, which is generally low enough to justify his 10 (would Bruce Lee qualify as having a massive STR score, and huge powerlifters who tire after 30 seconds walking upstairs - do they get penalised similarly?). I can accept bows as they are, butthen again i'm certainly no expert!

[JustSomeGuy]

Well illustrating how huge the draw force would have to be to require strengths of 16 or 18 or more is part of examine real world weapon design.

For a game one can simply close the eyes and think of England.

As i understand it, STR is an imperfect measure of numerous physical abilities - the ability to knock someone out with a punch, break a door off it's hinges, lift heavy awkward stuff overhead, carry heavier stuff, endure arduous physical exertions for hours/days on end, etc.

So a STR 10 guy operating a bow technically requiring STR14+ is just one facet of his STR, which is generally low enough to justify his 10 (would Bruce Lee qualify as having a massive STR score, and huge powerlifters who tire after 30 seconds walking upstairs - do they get penalised similarly?). I can accept bows as they are, but then again i'm certainly no expert!

[Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll]

There always is also the factor of style, which is an area in which they just can't compete. :smallbiggrin:

I'm with Yora: the pulley bows are really ugly, I like simpler bows!

[Kalaska'Agathas]

So, I've got a question: what would be the potential naval applications of a stealthy Ekranoplan (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ground_effect_vehicle)? I know the Lun (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lun-class_ekranoplan) carried missiles, and I suspect that an Ekranoplan-***-DDG could be a pretty excellent surface-to-surface missile platform, given their potential speed and maneuverability. Similarly, I suspect they could perform well in the littoral, as a sort of high speed Corvette. Would they be suitable for any other roles, however?

Edit: And apparently certain terms in Latin have the unfortunate ability to upset the forum's censor. No offense intended, simply trying to say "an Ekranoplan which has been designed and built to fulfill the role of a Guided Missile Destroyer."

[Raum]

We're already using ground effect vehicles in the littoral. I don't remember the exact number, but they allow landing forces on several times as much coast land as you can with WW2 era landing craft. That alone probably makes them worthwhile.

That said, I think most modern GEVs are on the hovercraft model rather than fixed wings. The fixed wing / ekranoplan appears to be too much of a compromise - the disadvantages of an airplane without the advantages.

[Kalaska'Agathas]

We're already using ground effect vehicles in the littoral. I don't remember the exact number, but they allow landing forces on several times as much coast land as you can with WW2 era landing craft. That alone probably makes them worthwhile.

That said, I think most modern GEVs are on the hovercraft model rather than fixed wings. The fixed wing / ekranoplan appears to be too much of a compromise - the disadvantages of an airplane without the advantages.

A hovercraft isn't really a GEV - it's an Air Cushion Vehicle, so it's taking advantage of a different (albeit similar) effect. Do you have any sources on the ekranoplan being too much of a compromise?

[Raum]

Do you have any sources on the ekranoplan being too much of a compromise?Well, longitudinal stability (http://www.se-technology.com/wig/html/main.php?open=stability&code=0) is a major issue. WIG craft will generally be slower than aircraft due to increased air density at sea level - this really affects small craft, larger craft are more cost effective. The wikipedia page you linked also mentions the dangers of banking at low altitudes...along with the possibility of large waves and the inability to react to steep terrain changes on land. Add to that the tactical limitations of low altitude and low relative speed if you're considering it for military use.

A boat or hovercraft will carry more weight and an aircraft will have a higher rate of speed and more space for avoidance and recovery. The WIG ends up with a compromise not as good as either.

[Thiel]

A boat or hovercraft will carry more weight and an aircraft will have a higher rate of speed and more space for avoidance and recovery. The WIG ends up with a compromise not as good as either.
On the other hand it'll carry more weight than an aircraft and it'll be a whole lot faster than a boat.
From a tactical perspective the Ekranoplan isn't without its advantages.
Since they skim along the surface they're significantly harder to spot than aircraft, and while aircraft can fly at those heights as well, an Ekranoplan is optimised for it and takes full advantage of the extra carrying capacity the Ground Effect grants to carry more payload and fuel.
It's hardly surprising that the few operational Ekranoplans have all been either transports or Fast Attack Craft.

[deuxhero]

Is the "low" stance from the Way of the Samurai series based on anything from reality?

http://i50.tinypic.com/2iqc1nr.jpg

[kugelblitz]

Is the "low" stance from the Way of the Samurai series based on anything from reality?

http://i50.tinypic.com/2iqc1nr.jpg

Dunno about the series, never watched it. I can say that a knees flexed stance IS used in some japanese sword stances, especially when the sword is held with the point close to the ground. Since much of your leverage comes from the movement of your hips, you are increasing that force by doing so.

Regards.

[Brother Oni]

Dunno about the series, never watched it. I can say that a knees flexed stance IS used in some japanese sword stances, especially when the sword is held with the point close to the ground. Since much of your leverage comes from the movement of your hips, you are increasing that force by doing so.

I believe that Suio-ryu uses a fairly low stance for certain techniques. In popular culture, it's the style used by Ogami Itto from Lone Wolf and Cub.

[Spiryt]

Stances looking about like that seem to appear in sources, like Fiore for example:

http://www.thearma.org/pdf/dlr2.jpg


Here (http://www.aemma.org/onlineResources/liberi/liberi4.htm)
you have some interpretation of it.

And as such are used in all kinds of European martial arts recreations.

Here fellow with longswords tries to engage the rapier guy quite a lot with right leg forward sword held down. Roughly similar to your picture, although guy on it has really radically bent knees, as if he was skiing or expecting double leg takedown whole time. :smallwink:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6r7VWIQCHvM

[Fortinbras]

This isn't a weapon/armor question per se, but does anybody know of some good sources on what went into preparing a medieval nation for war.

Specifically, what would Edward I have had to do to prepare for his invasions of Scotland. Did the army do any training once it was assembled or was it assumed that all of archers and men-at-arms were ready to fight when they were called up? Who (job titles) was in charge of what?

Same goes for Henry V's invasion of France.

[J.Gellert]

Is the "low" stance from the Way of the Samurai series based on anything from reality?

http://i50.tinypic.com/2iqc1nr.jpg

That seems similar to the "fool's guard (http://www.thealmightyguru.com/Boffer/Wiki/images/2/27/Alber_vomtag.jpg)", I think?

[Spiryt]

Specifically, what would Edward I have had to do to prepare for his invasions of Scotland. Did the army do any training once it was assembled or was it assumed that all of archers and men-at-arms were ready to fight when they were called up? Who (job titles) was in charge of what?

Same goes for Henry V's invasion of France.

Archers would certainly do some shooting just to stay in rhytm, knights would quite probably do some lance competitions or hunting to stay in shape as well, but obviously no real 'organized' trainings.

Organizing a march of medieval army generally depended on people who 'naturally' emerged to be in charge of certain units, due to feudal hierarchy, or nomination of king/lord etc.

At Agincourt, Henry's forces would be probably divided to 3 main battles - under Henry himself, Duke of York and Thomas de Camoys.

[Haruspex_Pariah]

If a space suit was strong enough to withstand direct hits from space debris, would it be effectively bulletproof? Wikipedia says that the micrometeoroids can move at relative speeds of kilometres per second, which is faster than a bullet, no?

[Yora]

Yes. Most bullets would be peanuts against small space debris. .50 BMG is a different matter, but most bullets would be stopped very effectively.
That is, if you were able to make space suits that durable. :smallwink:

[Yora]

That seems similar to the "fool's guard (http://www.thealmightyguru.com/Boffer/Wiki/images/2/27/Alber_vomtag.jpg)", I think?
Even though it's called the Fool, it's not really stupid but works quite well in certain situations. But even centuries ago, when this style was state of the art, master swordmen were very well aware how stupid it looks. :smallamused: