Got a Real World Weapons or Armour Question? Mk XI [Archive] - Page 4

Brother Oni

2013-01-29, 03:14 PM

How useful would the cavalry armour in the Fire Emblem series be in reality? Pictures below:

http://images.ados.fr/bd-manga/photo/hd/8355304835/fire-emblem/oscar-1307072e4b.jpg
http://cubemedia.ign.com/cube/image/article/614/614561/fire-emblem-gcn-20050516023242949.jpg

Further to previous posts, the bottom character's leg plates are so unsecured to be useless when she's mounted (they really need to be strapped to her thigh/knee, like the first character's).
Traab's assessment is right on the money though - the lack of abdominal protection mark these out as unfeasible.
I would also say that the armour depicted also has a general emphasis on flexibility, since it leaves large parts of the arm unprotected (especially compared to western armour).

You're right in that cavalry armour tends to leave the rear and inner leg unprotected (that's covered by the horse) but the thigh plates you're interested in were sorted in one of two ways - either very elaborate layered armour or an armoured 'skirt' with leg plates:

http://greatestbattles.iblogger.org/Renaissance/05_Lancer_&_Reiter.gif

http://prometheus.med.utah.edu/~bwjones/wp-content/uploads/iblog/King%20Henry%20VIII%20armor.jpg

http://www.japanese-armor.com/images/source/Samurai_Do_maru_armor_piece.jpg

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c6/Japantag_2009_-_010_-_Samurai_armour.jpg

Some cavalrymen got around the issue by having the leg protection built into the saddle, so they were pretty much strapped into their horse (I have a sneaking suspicion that this was mostly for jousting though).

Since this very interesting and productive discussion probably burried it, I would like to repeat my previous question:

For Britain, you're mostly looking at the Saxons during that time period.

Wikipedia gives me this link (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Saxon_military_organization).

Essentially it was very loosely structured with no real hierarchy. Aside from the chief, it was generally a matter of experience and strength that dictated the pecking order.

Later by the 10th century you get some more structure with a standing army along with the king's elite bodyguard, the huscarls.

Galloglaich

2013-01-29, 05:40 PM

Armies in this period break down to Tribal, Militia, Feudal, and Royal types.

Scandinavia is almost exclusively Tribal, with some Royal elements thrown on top of that during the reign of some very powerful Cheiftains (Harold Bluetooth in Denmark, Harald Finehair in Norway and so on). England is a mix of tribal and Feudal mostly with the exception of a few powerful Kings (Alfred the Great of Wessex and later Canute the Great but he’s really after this period). In Germany it was also a mix, mostly Tribal, Militias in some of the larger towns, some Feudal areas and a few Kings (mostly Carolingian plus some in the Slavic / Wendish areas). France had the strongest Royal army, but also a lot of urban militias, feudal armies, and some tribal armies.

Tribal
Tribal armies are clan based militaries, built around extended families or septs, like Scottish, Welsh or Irish Clans. Leaders are elected, usually from the richest and strongest in the community (in the Gaelic areas this was done according to a complex ruleset called tanistry, which meant the next leader was always chosen from a different wing of the clan, specifically to prevent hereditary rule). In Scandinavia these guys were called Hersir, or sometimes Godi or Gothi. In Saxon England Thegns. In Germany they were called different things, I know one term used in Bavaria was Herzog. The term konig or ‘king’ was sometimes also used in this way, which was probably the original meaning of that term, an elected war leader of a tribal army. In the Slavic areas (which you didn’t ask about, but they were mixed up quite a bit in the area which is now Germany, especially in places like Mecklenburg and lower Saxony) these type of leaders were sometimes called Voivode or Starost, the former meaning war-leader the latter meaning just village elder, but both terms were sometimes used to mean military leaders in period documents. They also used the term Knyaz in Russia, which is really the same word as Konig, usually translated as ‘Prince’, but this meant Chieftain. Tribal armies have heavy and light skirmishers, the ‘heavy’ skirmishers have wooden shields, iron helmets, some kind of armor, (maybe just textile) and weapons like spears and axes as well as javelins. The ‘light’ skirmishers are armed with light (hide and / or wicker shields), darts and javelins, and / or throwing axes, as well as the sax knife for backup. In Scandinavia some documents from this period shows that the muster required people show up with bows as well as spears, swords, shields and armor, and they were most often organized as ships crews. This overlaps with the feudal system there but the Feudal system was never very strong in Scandinavia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knyaz#Middle_Ages
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herzog#History
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leidang

Tribal chieftains, whatever they were called, often had special bodyguards who were more heavily armed and armored. In Scandinavia, (Saxon) England and Germany these guys would often be mounted though typically fight on foot, and were called Huskarls (house karls). In Russia they were known as Druhzina. In West Slavic areas Tovarich (Towarzysza pancerni,Mailed Companions’, which I think came to eventually be a Euphemism for knights). In the Slavic world they were more likely to fight on horseback. These bodyguards are also the ones most likely to have a sword and armor. As the chieftains and their bodyguards became more well established, it usually (though not always) correlated with conversion to Christianity and Latin culture and a switch to Feudalism.

Militias
Militias are armies which derive from towns and villages, quasi-urban communities or ‘communes’. They are led by the advocates (Church or Royal representatives or governors who lived in the towns) also sometimes called alderman. In Germany these men were called Schöffen, in France, échevin, in Italy Scabino and in Czech šepmistři. These terms were also used for the elected town magistrates of independent towns and villages. Some towns were basically independent even this early but most were at least nominally under the control of a Feudal Lord or a Prelate (Bishop, Abbot, or Archbishop). When the towns went to war in this period (6th-10th Centuries) they most often did so under the banner of a Prelate, who were typically warlike at this time (and were known as Prince-Bishops, Prince-Abbots and so on). These armies were similar to the Tribal armies but more disciplined and much better equipped, with many more of the soldiers being armored and more likely to have crossbows, swords and other expensive weapons. They mostly fought as infantry, both heavy infantry and ‘shooters’ with crossbows and bows and so on. They could be effective especially in defense but they usually wouldn’t go too far away from their town walls.

Feudal
The lowest level leader of a local administrator was called a Vogt in some parts of Germany, who would organize peasant levies and groups of better-armed henchmen (the foremen and henchmen on the local ranches and farms) which would be called the Comitatus. In Saxon England this came to be called a Reeve (as in Shire Reeve, Sheriff). These guys were organized into banners lead by a Knight (Ritter in German speaking areas, Chevalier in France) who would in turn gather around the banner of a Comes (count) or Duke, or some other Prince. In the period 6th –Century – 10th Century there was considerable overlap between Feudal and Tribal armies, but the Feudal ones would have more and better armed bodyguards or henchmen serving with each knight, and more emphasis on cavalry. Most of the gentry and nobility fought as heavy cavalry, and this cavalry can be very good – better and better toward the end of this period. Conversely, their infantry isn’t as good.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vogt
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comitatus_(classical_meaning)

Royal
Royal armies were basically Feudal armies with an added layer of administration, a larger and better equipped bodyguard layer, and then elements of the Tribal, Feudal, and Militia armies who owed fealty to the King. This is most characteristic of the Franks. Another interesting thing about the Royal armies of this time is that you see them bringing in tribes from Central Asia, notably Iran, such as the Alans and the Taifals (see article below) who had very good cavalry, both heavy cavalry of the Cataphract type, as well as light cavalry. These Iranians eventually became part of the aristocracy in France, Germany and some other places in Europe.

I made a detailed post a few years ago about the military organization of the Franks in the 10th Century (I think it was originally done for an earlier incarnation of this forum thread, though I can’t remember now) but anyway you can read it here, it holds up pretty well I think.

http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?242110-History-Mythology-Art-and-RPGs/page37&p=5345843&viewfull=1#post5345843

fusilier

2013-01-29, 09:37 PM

Someone just sent me a link to this, I thought it was fascinating. Mentions using crossbows on horseback, and tactics for fighting on ships. From Norway 13th Century.

http://web.archive.org/web/20110910150927/http://www.deremilitari.org/resources/sources/kingsmirror.htm

G

Most of what I've read lately (not all), is of the opinion that mounted crossbowmen were expected to dismount in battle. Now, the sources agree that they became popular as bodyguards -- so they don't imply that the weapon couldn't be used from horseback, just that it wasn't practical in battle conditions.

However, I'm not totally convinced either way. The article linked above claims that a bow or light crossbow (which is easy to draw) should be used on horseback. And, as has been pointed out before, the cranequin was available by the 15th century, and it is wellsuited to horseback (although it is slower loading than some other methods). On the other hand, Stradiots used bows and javelins, and Spanish Jinetes used javelins, which would have less range than a crossbow (I assume), yet such troops were becoming increasingly popular, alongside mounted crossbowmen and arquebusiers.

I liked the list of weapons for ship combat. Some old pictures show them dropping stones and javelins from the fighting tops.

Galloglaich

2013-01-29, 10:42 PM

It's obvious and very well established that in the German - speaking and Latin-Slavic parts of Europe (i.e., most of Europe) mounted crossbowmen shot from horseback, and that people also hunted this way, from at least the 14th Century onward.

The details of how they spanned the heavier weapons, when they shot vs. when they reloaded, did they linger after a shot or ride away to reload and so on, are not entirely clear. But there is no doubt that they were shooting from horseback.

What I found surprising about that document is that it mentioned shooting crossbows from horseback in the 13th Century and in Western Scandinavia. I would not have expected that. But that is so great about primary sources, they always (to my experience) seem to expand and enrich the world you are looking at, overthrowing your expectations.

G

fusilier

2013-01-29, 11:02 PM

It's obvious and very well established that in the German - speaking and Latin-Slavic parts of Europe (i.e., most of Europe) mounted crossbowmen shot from horseback, and that people also hunted this way, from at least the 14th Century onward.

The details of how they spanned the heavier weapons, when they shot vs. when they reloaded, did they linger after a shot or ride away to reload and so on, are not entirely clear. But there is no doubt that they were shooting from horseback.

Oh, yeah -- there's no doubt that they could shoot their crossbows from horseback, but there is doubt that they deployed that way in battle. My guess is that either rate of fire, or proper coordination of troops, or both, are assumed to have been adversely affected on horseback. Certainly hunting, and bodyguard duties could be performed while mounted, but that's under a different set of conditions. But, I'm not certain that they weren't employed in a mounted fashion during battle, at least on occasion.

Galloglaich

2013-01-29, 11:45 PM

Well, they were deployed as cavalry with cavalry, at least some of the time. It was common throughout Central Europe, certainly in the Baltic, Poland, Bohemia, for knights to be accompanied by 1 or 2 mounted crossbowmen, whose equipment (including the horse) cost half as much as the lancers did, much more than any infantry. Knights themselves also frequently carried a crossbow on their saddle.

I don't think knights or their retainers usually fought on foot in the open, other than in the English army where it seems to have been a common practice. Sometimes they did, but not commonly.

They were also used as Scouts, Jan Ziska gave crossbowmen captured warhorses at the beginning of the Hussite wars and trained them to fight as armed scouts. I have read accounts of how they used to harass enemies with 'bremsen' (whistling) bolts from horseback, to panic the enemies horses. In that part of the world there wasn't a whole lot of fighting on foot in the open since it was important to be able to move quickly.

And it was common enough that Talhoffer and some others devoted whole sections in their fechtbucher to dealing with the problem of a lancer fighting a mounted crossbowman and vice versa.

I think it was just like with guns. When it was basically almost physically impossible to shoot them from horseback (powder you had to mix in the field, touch-hole firearms) they were only very rarely used on horseback (there is some evidence both the Mongols and the Mamelukes may have used some fire-lances that way in the 13th Century), but as soon as they were a little easier to use, (matchlock arquebus) you started to see some increasing mounted use, by the time you had pretty easy to use systems (i.e. wheellock) their use became widespread.

I'd say the goats-foot (and the other similar spanners in that family), the lachett, and the cranequin are roughly equivalent to these systems, for different grades of crossbows. Certainly it is no harder to re-span a crossbow with one of those than it would be to reload a horse pistol or a dragon.

It's also interesting in that Norwegian "King's Mirror" that they mention using 'horn bows' from horseback, I wonder if he's talking about a Central-Asian style recurve.

G

fusilier

2013-01-30, 02:26 AM

I know that in Italy, the lance began to expand from the traditional three man unit to four men around 1450, and the new man was often a mounted crossbowman. [The others being the man-at-arms, a less well-armored/equipped sergeant, and a "page"]. The expansion in the size of the lance had to do with the man-at-arms needing more logistical support: his armor, and his horse's armor, were both increasing, requiring more horses, and more people to look after the horses and maintain the equipment. However, it is believed that the mounted crossbowmen were formed in their own units during battle. Their logistical function being primarily a strategic one (while the pages were expected to have more of tactical support function).

Concurrent with this development, dedicated companies of mounted crossbowmen were being employed. They were certainly employed as "light cavalry" -- but in a strategic sense (scouting, etc.).

Did the mounted crossbowmen in Central/Eastern Europe deploy with their knights on the field? Or did they fight as separate units?

As for mounted arquebusiers -- I'll need to track down the sources -- I recently saw a discussion on another forum where the consensus was that they never fought on horseback, they were purely mounted infantry. The wheellock, seems to have made mounted firearms more practical.* Schwartzreiters and the like did use pistols on horseback, but those weapons were almost hand-to-hand weapons: firing immediately before contact, and then they either charged into hand-to-hand or pulled away to reload (classic caracole method) -- I've never heard of crossbows being used in a similar way, although I suppose it's possible . . .

Also, by way of analogy -- mounted English longbowmen, and mounted hand-gunners are attested, but they are also believed to have been just mounted infantry. [As an aside, mounted infantry in Italy in the 15th century usually drew more pay than regular infantry as they had to maintain a horse, equipment, and were usually considered more prestigious/valuable in general.]

*Matchlock pistols did exist. They are usually associated with "the east", but if memory serves me right, they may have been used by forces in the Balkans. Western Europeans, at the very least, seem to have been reluctant to use matchlock weapons on horseback.

fusilier

2013-01-30, 02:54 AM

Here you can read a discussion about mounted arquebusiers, and their development in Italy, France, and Germany:

http://theminiaturespage.com/boards/msg.mv?id=277151

Returning to crossbowmen, Paul Dolnstein sketched an encounter he had with a mounted crossbowman during the Landshut war -- however the description was patrols encountering each other, and not a full-fledged battle. In such conditions, shooting from horseback then fleeing to reload, or attacking with some other weapon seems plausible. Were they expected to do the same in full battle? Or were they expected to shoot many times at an opposing force -- in which case dismounting them seems preferable. Were they used in both styles -- some as mounted infantry, and others fought as light cavalry?

The link above, when talking about mounted arquebusiers, states that references to them fighting on horseback don't appear very much until the 1540s (once wheellocks have had time to spread). I get a similar feeling about crossbows, but I'll admit that there's not much information out there. We *know* that crossbowmen were being mounted, but so far there's not much to say that they fought on horseback in battle (other than minor skirmishes). Likewise, there's nothing denying it. So while I lean toward the position that they were intended as mounted infantry, I'm keeping it open that they may have been used as light cavalry.

--EDIT-- I'm not sure if they were used as light cavalry in a full-scale battle -- there's no doubt in my mind that they were used as light cavalry for patrols, skirmishing, etc. Although in some cases, entire infantry forces were mounted purely to increase the mobility of the army, those probably couldn't be considered light cavalry in any real sense of the term. --EDIT--

fusilier

2013-01-30, 03:19 AM

I happened to find this throw away line on another forum:

According to Seldeneck's manual, mounted crossbowmen were to attack in hand-to-hand after shooting their bolts. Whether this was done in practice I do not know.

Who is Seldeneck??? Some searching reveals "Philipp von Seldeneck" who wrote a "Kriegsbuch" sometime in the 15th century? But another line states that he's the only source for the use of mounted crossbowmen in such a way.

Light crossbows called "latches" were apparently used by the Border Reivers basically as pistols.

Yora

2013-01-30, 06:45 AM

Brother Oni

2013-01-30, 07:44 AM

How did overall strategy work in the centuries before total war?
I think I have a pretty good understanding of the overall objectives in the wars of the past 100 years or so, and there's lots of information on how battles were won and lost before that. But what where the actual overall goals of military leaders in medieval and early modern wars?

The objectives in warfare haven't changed much from ancient to modern times - areas of resource production (food, ore, weapons, etc), supply lines and vital strategic points like bridges/fords or mountain passes.

Capturing forts and cities were also common as they gave you control of the surrounding area. Ports were also common targets as they let you embark/disembark troops and supplies more effectively (it's one thing to try and land a platoon, entirely another for a regiment).

About the only thing that is different is capture of religious sites - I believe a number of skirmishes in European warfare revolved about capturing the Vatican and hence the Pope.

As can be deduced from Galloglaich's excellent outline of military hierarchy, a lot of wars could be finished by killing the enemy leader, something that wouldn't happen these days.

It surely wasn't that two political leaders got into a heated argument until one said "let's meet with our armies on a field next month and whoever has the most men standing at the end wins this debate".

Surprisingly enough this did happen.

During the Sengoku Jidai (16th century Japan), two warlords, Takeda Shingen and Uesugi Kenshin, met and fought at Kawanakajima a total five times over the course of the war: link (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battles_of_Kawanakajima).

Their friendship/rivalry reached the stage where Takeda was ambushed by another lord (Hojo) cutting off his supply lines, Uesugi sent Takeda supplies, saying "Wars are to be won with swords and spears, not with rice and salt."

GraaEminense

2013-01-30, 08:07 AM

From what I understand, pre-modern wars often ran something like this:

The overall goal would usually be to force the enemy to negotiations from a weak position rather than conquest.

The strategy to achieve this usually seems to have been wide-scale siege: harass, plunder and burn their trade routes, production sites and food supply until continuing the war becomes too costly in money or suffering. Good way to feed and pay the army as well. Occasionally sack a town, to hasten the process and gain more loot.

The counter would be to force battle in the hope of a quick victory, or at least chase the enemy army around to limit their ability to effectively plunder. Alternatively return the favour and hope they withdraw their armies to defend their territory.

(Awaiting correction :smalltongue: )

Brother Oni

2013-01-30, 08:39 AM

(Awaiting correction :smalltongue: )

I believe this style of warfare was known as Chevauchee (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevauch%C3%A9e), unless Galloglaich gives another ridiculously detailed post that humiliates all of us well crafted and highly informative post. :smalltongue:

GraaEminense

2013-01-30, 08:53 AM

Indeed, though the term was new to me. I´m not certain that the strategy was actually abandoned as early as the 1400s though, it seems to have remained in use through the 30-years´-war at least?

Spiryt

2013-01-30, 08:57 AM

I don't think that 'dragoon' crossbowmen in Central/Eastern Europe are very defensible - whole Battle of Grunwald/Tannenberg was being fought of horses, for example. Ridden into battle, fought, retreated, new lances/bolts taken...

In whole region of battlefield, at least 10 bolt-heads were being found, more than any other form of weapon, AFAIK (founds that can be attributed to Grunwald are sadly very scarce from few reasons).

Galloglaich

2013-01-30, 10:30 AM

I don't think that 'dragoon' crossbowmen in Central/Eastern Europe are very defensible - whole Battle of Grunwald/Tannenberg was being fought of horses, for example. Ridden into battle, fought, retreated, new lances/bolts taken...

Yes this is my understanding as well, the mounted crossbow was used a lot like the lance, just from further out, attack, wheel away, re-arm, attack again. I know from as early as the 1330's, the Lance formation for the Teutonic Order consisted of a lancer, two mounted crossbowmen, a demi-lancer, and a 'valet'. IIRC the cost was 22,11 (x2), 6, and 2 zloty / gulden respectively to equip these different troop types.

Of course both lancers and crossbowmen might be compelled to fight in a sustained manner with swords, and / or on foot, but the goal was to attack, wheel away, attack again in the typical cavalry manner.

In whole region of battlefield, at least 10 bolt-heads were being found, more than any other form of weapon, AFAIK (founds that can be attributed to Grunwald are sadly very scarce from few reasons).

A Polish archeologist I was corresponding with out of the UK who is working on the big ecological analysis of the Baltic Crusades said they were tracking the course of battles by finding crossbow bolt-heads embedded in the ground and sometimes trees with metal detectors. But of course these can also be from infantry crossbowmen. Many battles in the region however, as you noted, consisted largely of cavalry.

G

Galloglaich

2013-01-30, 10:32 AM

I believe this style of warfare was known as Chevauchee (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevauch%C3%A9e), unless Galloglaich gives another ridiculously detailed post that humiliates all of us well crafted and highly informative post. :smalltongue:

Hahah oh dear ... yes I think you are right, the Cheavauchee, also called the 'Reysa' in the East, was a very common type of warfare in Medieval times. So were small sieges, buidling castles and forts as an offensive strategy, naval blockades, and more rarely, large pitched battles just like in modern times (though typically on a smaller scale, as Medieval armies tended to be small in numbers.)

G

Maquise

2013-01-30, 11:00 AM

Yora

2013-01-30, 11:19 AM

All demonstrations of lances I've seen looked pretty much exactly like spears and in contemporary depictions there isn't any real difference either.

Unmounted, you probably could wield them like pikes, but those are used in formations with other pikemen. For one on one combat, I think they would be too large and heave to effecively fight with, and probably impossible if you also carry a shield.

Galloglaich

2013-01-30, 11:19 AM

I have a few questions about lances. I understand that they were the primary weapons of knights, but I don't actually know much about them.

1. What did war lances actually look like? I know most people think of the wide, conical jousting lances, but I've seen depictions where they more closely resembled spears.

They varied enormously, from dual purpose spears not very different from infantry spears, and were about 9'-12' more or less, to specialized heavy lances not to much unlike jousting lances, but around 9'-12' range, to 'extreme' lances specialized for dealing with pike squares, which could be 18-20' long or more, and were very carefully made so that they could be handled in spite of that length.

A lot of times they would have a tassel or pennet at the end, which was there to absorb the blood from what I understand (so the lance didn't get slippery after you killed people)

So an example of the first type

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/47/Normans_Bayeux.jpg

Examples of the second

http://www.fromoldbooks.org/Duerer/pages/1513-Knight-Death-and-the-Devil/1513-Knight-Death-and-the-Devil-q75-545x707.jpg

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f0/Hausbuch_Wolfegg_21v_22r_Scharfrennen.jpg/800px-Hausbuch_Wolfegg_21v_22r_Scharfrennen.jpg

Example of the third

http://www.badassoftheweek.com/hussars.jpg

More details about the Polish Hussars lance

http://www.kismeta.com/diGrasse/lance.htm

2. If you were dismounted, how effective would a lance be as a weapon? Could you use it like a spear?

They were typically broken in half when they had to be used this way, and it was fairly common (if not ideal) that they were.

G

Maquise

2013-01-30, 11:29 AM

Thank you, that basically answers all the questions I have at the moment.

Spiryt

2013-01-30, 11:39 AM

I have a few questions about lances. I understand that they were the primary weapons of knights, but I don't actually know much about them.

1. What did war lances actually look like? I know most people think of the wide, conical jousting lances, but I've seen depictions where they more closely resembled spears.

2. If you were dismounted, how effective would a lance be as a weapon? Could you use it like a spear?

There were a lot of things that one could call 'lance'.

Latin "lancea" was being used in Medieval period as description of general spear like stuff, together with few other terms.

Today, we generally use 'lance' to describe long(ish), heavy(ish) spear that was mainly usable for charging while mounted.

From roughly 14th century, lance was beginning to take it's 'stereotypical' form - long, large haft with compact spearhead on the end, with cionical, round, spherical etc. hand support.

http://media.kunst-fuer-alle.de/img/41/m/41_00044368.jpg

Pictorial sources still show countless examples of more 'simple' lances way into the 15th century anyway.

Before, pretty much most lances were just long spears optimized for heavy cavalry use.

And before 12th century, 'normal' spear and lance probably weren't really very distinguishable. Probably one and the same in most cases.

In results, some lances, especially early ones, most probably could be used on feet without much problem.

While more 'developed' ones most certainly weren't very good at this.

I believe that Froissart chronicles mentioned dismounting knights shortening their lances to fight on foot many times.

Storm Bringer

2013-01-30, 02:31 PM

lsfreak

2013-01-30, 02:43 PM

As raiding was brought up in the context of larger wars, I recently set up a world where it seems like small-scale raiding for goods/gold/possibly slaves would be the primary form of warfare (small clans of 20-60 miles square patchworked together). Basically I just want confirmation that the idea I have is fairly realistic.

There would be small raiding forces of 50-150 men, sent into enemy territory. The entire raid might last a day, from setting out, spending a few hours getting to a village that a) lacked defenses but b) wasn't so close to a major settlement a runner could get to a major settlement and back with reinforcements, defeating any resistance and getting the goods organized, and retreating back into friendly territory. Targets would be livestock, objects made of precious metals, and possibly food stores, probably using the village's own resources (oxen and carts) to return the goods. And of course, these might escalate into bigger wars, but the raid itself is mostly just for slightly weakening an enemy clan and the boon of an extra two dozen pigs and some harvest for your village. Raids are also semi-ritualized, so they may be specifically for goods with as little damage to enemy lives and infrastructure as possible, in part to mitigate the chances for escalation.

Now, I know nothing about how raids were actually conducted (except for when they were part of that chevauchee strategy) and this was just brainstorming on my part. Are there glaring problems with this?

GraaEminense

2013-01-30, 02:50 PM

Sounds like you are describing the Border Reivers of the English-Scottish border in the 1500s.

Read up on those and you'll get all the material you'll ever need (Steel Bonnets by George MacDonald Fraser of Flashman fame is good fun). In sum though, what you are describing is fairly realistic.

Spiryt

2013-01-30, 03:05 PM

Well, not sure how well I understand, but quick glare at google maps and view from my window suggests that 60 square miles is pretty small area.

Capable of supporting limited amount of villages/life in roughly medieval setting, depending on climate and stuff.

It would be also pretty easy to control, although it also depends on terrain/climate, I guess.

If those things were getting repeated, even if some serious escalation doesn't happen from some reason, such raids would probably become quite complicated charade... Everyone would know where x could attack, what could y plunder, and how it can be stopped.

That's all assuming that significant forces are all stationed around said area.

And raiding party that's burdened with loot becomes obviously easier to intercept.

All that can obviously be incorrect, haven't ever raided much more than a snow-fort. :smalltongue:

Galloglaich

2013-01-30, 03:18 PM

while hardly a primary soruce, in one of Benard Cowells novels (Harlequin) the english knights at cercy are discribed as using thier lances a pikes, though only in a disposeable sense (they use the lances to absorb some of the impact of the charge, then switch to other hand weapons for the melee).

Yeah I think that happened quite often, especially with English knights who often fought on foot.

Regarding the raiding scenario, I think it's not too far off the mark (you see situations like this in many parts of the world) with one exception - if you assume this raiding has been going on for a while, it seems unlikely to me anyway that you would find a lot of undefended villages very near the border area. This is why the Tartars for example would go on deep penetration raids well beyond the border zone to catch people unprepared.

This is one of my pet peeves with fantasy genre films (et al) is that the simple / crude / medieval caveman villagers are always astounded when the raiders with the animal horn helmets show up to slaughter them and overturn their square wheeled ox-cart. Even though they live right next to Mount Doom. It's kind of a problem in video games and RPG's too, the assumption seems to usually be that people never notice that they are in danger even though they are repeatedly in danger. Actual people in real life are usually a little smarter.

Historically in border areas villages were often either hidden, or fortified, or were situated near a castle.

Also villagers not too likely to have precious metals in any significant quantity. Cattle on the other hand, and horses and other livestock* would be valuable and quite common to steal.

* depending on how realistic you want to be, human livestock was often the goal of raids. The Mongols / Tartars used to call their raids into Poland and the Ukraine "Harvesting the Steppe". Of course real life Nomads are a little more harsh than Orcs...

G

lsfreak

2013-01-30, 03:49 PM

Well, not sure how well I understand, but quick glare at google maps and view from my window suggests that 60 square miles is pretty small area.
I worded that poorly. Roughly a square of 20x20 to 60x60 miles, or 400-3600 square miles, with the vast majority on the small end.

And raiding party that's burdened with loot becomes obviously easier to intercept.
That's my biggest concern - any raid deep enough to get past defended villages would either be but off by soldiers from the border villages, or intercepted by soldiers at a capital. How long would it realistically take for, say, 100 soldiers to go from doing their day-to-day to being ready to march out on the road? It doesn't seem likely there would soldiers just sitting around doing nothing waiting for a raid to happen (they're not that common), but I wouldn't imagine it would take too long to get organized and on the road either.

Historically in border areas villages were often either hidden, or fortified, or were situated near a castle.
Yep, that's my assumption :smallsmile: Raids then become a matter of a) getting in and overpowering the garrison of a border villages, b) feints to draw castle forces away from the actual target, or c) maneuvering around the border areas to get deeper into enemy territory, risking being cut off by border forces and/or intercepted by a standing force in a clan's capital.

So what I have is pretty realistic. Yay! Now it's just a matter of actually figuring out the ratio of how long a group takes to raid versus how long it's going to be before they're in trouble...

You know what, that actually leaves me with another question. What does a soldier's daily life look like? I don't imagine hundreds of soldiers would sit around the castle all day goofing off on the off chance they're actually needed? (EDIT: That is, I assume a guard is paid to guard and will do that most days. I assume soldiers at a castle would be expected to do some of that, but at least the way I imagine castles working [a strong enough force to actually be able to do something, unlike what I'm using to seeing in RPG's and the like] there's far more soldiers than would ever be needed for manning the walls).

Storm Bringer

2013-01-30, 04:25 PM

I worded that poorly. Roughly a square of 20x20 to 60x60 miles, or 400-3600 square miles, with the vast majority on the small end.

That's my biggest concern - any raid deep enough to get past defended villages would either be but off by soldiers from the border villages, or intercepted by soldiers at a capital. How long would it realistically take for, say, 100 soldiers to go from doing their day-to-day to being ready to march out on the road? It doesn't seem likely there would soldiers just sitting around doing nothing waiting for a raid to happen (they're not that common), but I wouldn't imagine it would take too long to get organized and on the road either.

Yep, that's my assumption :smallsmile: Raids then become a matter of a) getting in and overpowering the garrison of a border villages, b) feints to draw castle forces away from the actual target, or c) maneuvering around the border areas to get deeper into enemy territory, risking being cut off by border forces and/or intercepted by a standing force in a clan's capital.

So what I have is pretty realistic. Yay! Now it's just a matter of actually figuring out the ratio of how long a group takes to raid versus how long it's going to be before they're in trouble...

You know what, that actually leaves me with another question. What does a soldier's daily life look like? I don't imagine hundreds of soldiers would sit around the castle all day goofing off on the off chance they're actually needed? (EDIT: That is, I assume a guard is paid to guard and will do that most days. I assume soldiers at a castle would be expected to do some of that, but at least the way I imagine castles working [a strong enough force to actually be able to do something, unlike what I'm using to seeing in RPG's and the like] there's far more soldiers than would ever be needed for manning the walls).

things a full time soldier could spend his day doing:

training

guarding something (main gate, the great hall, the pay chest, etc)

on a patrol, away form the castle (trying to be in a forward position to catch a raid, or just showing the flag)

practising some trade (for example, one of the guards might also be the castle fletcher, or the butcher, or otherwise have a "day job" in addition to his guard duties)

that said, most castles had suprisingly small permanent garrisons, often only a hundred or less. a small force can easily hold off much larger force for months, thus serving as a "trip wire" that holds a invading army still long enough for relief to arrive. the attackers couldn't just bypass a castle, as that would leave a hundred angry blokes sat smack bang on thier supply routes, so they are tied up besieging the castle.

lsfreak

2013-01-30, 04:44 PM

things a full time soldier could spend his day doing:

on a patrol, away form the castle (trying to be in a forward position to catch a raid, or just showing the flag)

practising some trade (for example, one of the guards might also be the castle fletcher, or the butcher, or otherwise have a "day job" in addition to his guard duties)

Sorry, apparently 5 hours of sleep last night is affecting me more than I thought. I completely spaced off patrolling somehow. My big question was more along the lines of the second and I don't know why I didn't just ask it; would a soldier be expected to have another job, possibly requiring some expertise, around the castle? (Yes, and remembering patrols takes care of most of the rest). Another question is whether food is grown around the castle by its residents, or if any food grown there would be common people who just wanted the protection of farming next to a castle, with food being brought in through taxes, etc.

that said, most castles had suprisingly small permanent garrisons, often only a hundred or less.
Interesting. By "hundreds" I meant something more in the 100-300 range rather than higher, but it's good to know I don't have to feel like I'm understaffing castles.

I swear that's the last of my questions for a while :smallwink:

Spiryt

2013-01-30, 04:51 PM

You know what, that actually leaves me with another question. What does a soldier's daily life look like? I don't imagine hundreds of soldiers would sit around the castle all day goofing off on the off chance they're actually needed? .

Yes, around some castle, town etc. most soldiers of ancient/medieval world - would be exactly goofing around, spending their salary, drinking, gathering equipment, repairing armor, and if possible, socializing with women on many different terms...

In case of raid like you describe, it would obviously be suicidal, and all individuals taking part in it would actually be constantly vigilant, or screwed.

So it all depends on circumstances - for quickest, who rules said castle, how (un)friendly local population is, is any enemy nearby, etc.

Galloglaich

2013-01-30, 05:05 PM

the last option (had some kind of day job) would be by far the most common. There were very few full time soliders in the Medieval world, except for Byzantium.

One of the strangest things about Medieval Europe for us today, is getting our head around how much those people multi-tasked. Many famous people whose names you know of from back in this time, like Copernicus, or Machiavelli, or Dante, or Leonardo Da Vinci, did not live the kind of one-trak lives we might have expected for someone at such a great height of what we think of as their professions.

These people did a lot of different things, they practiced war, politics, religion, law, medicine, different crafts... they spoke (and wrote and read) multiple languages, they were often very close to nature, but also urban and cosmopolitan, they knew how to make things with their hands, as well as how to design; they understood philosophy, how to do very practical things, about what we consider today engineering or science, but also what we would think of today as superstition or magic (alchemy, astrology, dowsing, the use of talismans...). It's the idea of the "Renaissance" man, which you can kind of extrapolate downward into the more ordinary people of this era, and further back in time than the Renaissance since most of the Medieval period was like this.

Getting back to the question, in a village, for the villagers to not be pretty heavily armed themselves, they would have to be under a very strong feudalism and forcibly disarmed. You did see this in some places for example in parts of France, or in zones where one ethnic or religious group was dominant over another, like in the formerly Moorish parts of Spain or in some parts of Eastern Europe.

How prepared the villagers were also dependant on how dangerous the raiders were. In Sweden, Bohemia and Poland, it was typical in the late Medieval period for peasants to be very heavily armed, with armor, polearms, crossbows, guns, even warhorses in some cases. In the most dangerous border regions like Masovia it was at one point mandatory to be armed, equipped and trained - failure to meet the standards was severely punished.

So in this case the 'soldiers' were farmers, fishermen, loggers, miners and so on. It's the same in towns, the 'soldiers' were made up of the craft guilds and the elite of their army was made up of merchants and the richest guilds, who fought like knights.

In heavily Feudal areas like France, peasants were a little less likely to be armed and would rely on protection from the castle. The 'soldiers' were aristocrats, gentry, and henchmen. So in their "day jobs" they were managing estates, bossing around the peasants, dealing with problems. Kind of like cowboys in a Western hanging around the big boss. At the highest level their job would be as courtiers, administrators, diplomats, or (for the clergy) theologians, prelates. And also quite often, (though in theory they were not supposed to stoop to this type of activity) merchants, bankers, industrialists.

G

Galloglaich

2013-01-30, 05:25 PM

Another question is whether food is grown around the castle by its residents, or if any food grown there would be common people who just wanted the protection of farming next to a castle, with food being brought in through taxes, etc.

Lol! Ah, no, they were forced to give food (and labor) to free to the armed men, i.e. the nobility.

Interesting. By "hundreds" I meant something more in the 100-300 range rather than higher, but it's good to know I don't have to feel like I'm understaffing castles.

I think actually in a lot of cases it could be more like 10 or 12 men.

I swear that's the last of my questions for a while :smallwink:

No problem, it's fun answering them, that is why we post here... ;)

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Yora

2013-01-30, 05:39 PM

I think actually in a lot of cases it could be more like 10 or 12 men.
I think such fortifications would be only keeps and rather on the small side. I would assume they were by far the most common type, but would rather serve as reinforced guardposts overlooking important roads, passes, and waterways.

As I understand, the purposes of castles were either to protect the residents living inside them, or controlling the sournding area by making it too dangerous for attackers to advance deeper inside the territory while there are still enemy troops sitting in their back, waiting to strike them from the rear or attack their supply lines. With under a dozen men, I don't think the later function can be performed. And in the former case, you would need living space for great numbers of people, or a sufficient bodyguard for the resident VIP. Again, I'm not sure if a dozen men could successfully defend a small keep against a serious attempt to breach the gate by a hostile army.

The permanent residences of sovereign lords would be much bigger affairs.

Thiel

2013-01-30, 06:19 PM

fusilier

2013-01-30, 06:35 PM

fusilier

2013-01-30, 06:48 PM

I think such fortifications would be only keeps and rather on the small side. I would assume they were by far the most common type, but would rather serve as reinforced guardposts overlooking important roads, passes, and waterways.

As I understand, the purposes of castles were either to protect the residents living inside them, or controlling the sournding area by making it too dangerous for attackers to advance deeper inside the territory while there are still enemy troops sitting in their back, waiting to strike them from the rear or attack their supply lines. With under a dozen men, I don't think the later function can be performed. And in the former case, you would need living space for great numbers of people, or a sufficient bodyguard for the resident VIP. Again, I'm not sure if a dozen men could successfully defend a small keep against a serious attempt to breach the gate by a hostile army.

The permanent residences of sovereign lords would be much bigger affairs.

Yes, but there might only be 10-12 soldiers that could be considered "professional" full-time soldiers. They could be augmented by what is essentially militia working on a rotation basis. Permanent garrisons, usually infantry in the medieval period, were not typically very large unless the local populace wasn't trustworthy. Even then, 50 or so would probably be enough to hold out in a citadel. Otherwise, it was cheaper to rely upon the local militia to defend fortified places, and if they were in good shape there was little problem with doing so.

fusilier

2013-01-30, 07:03 PM

Re: Mounted Crossbowmen

Having researched this late into the night, I'm now aware that there is more evidence to support the use of mounted crossbowmen even in full-fledged battles. However, I add the caveat, that just because they are listed as "mounted" doesn't necessarily mean that they fought battles mounted -- depending upon time and place, and probably the whims of their commander, they could be dismounted to be fielded as infantry crossbowmen. On the battlefield it's pretty clear that while mounted they could serve at least as skirmishers, and provide a fast moving screen for heavy cavalry when necessary. The mounted crossbowmen in Italy are described as forming up on the flanks of the heavy cavalry, towards the end of the 15th century.

I haven't seen any evidence to suggest that they acted like dragoons: riding into battle, dismounting, shooting, remounting, riding to another spot, dismounting, etc. Instead, I imagined that if they were dismounted, they were dismounted before going into battle and functioned as infantry. I'm sure that particular circumstances/necessities caused an occasional violation of these tactics.

I would hazard that infantry (dismounted) crossbowmen could provide greater firepower, both in terms of rate of fire, and concentration of fire. Whereas mounted crossbowmen provided greater mobility, which could make them ideal for skirmishing or screening other forces (including other cavalry). There's some evidence that in Germany, and maybe Eastern Europe, mounted crossbowmen were used even more aggressively, but, like the rest of this, that's also debated.

Galloglaich

2013-01-30, 07:21 PM

A point about soldiers riding out from fortified villages to catch raiders.
I'm not really sure how likely that would be. First off, since the concept of a nation and thus loyalty to it wasn't really a fully developed concept at this point it seems likely that the defenders would think that raiders who're raiding other people are those other peoples problem.
Then there's the slight issue that if they ride out they'll leave their own village under, if not outright undefended. And since the soldiers also double as farmers et al they'll also leave their village critically short handed during the busiest part of the year, both in terms of manpower, but also draft animals.

Obviously it would depend a lot on the district, but typically they would be obligated (and usually highly motivated) to catch aggressive raiders even of their more distant neighbors - if possible. This would be enforced by the local prince, (in the case of Masovia which I alluded to upthread, not showing up properly armed to the muster could lead to dire punishments), or by the landfried, the commons of the various estates of the local community.

However that also depended on who the raiders were and how big the raiding force. During major Mongol raids in the earlier Medieval period people would stay locked up in whatever forst were available or often just hide in the forest until it was all over. Later more concerted and systematic efforts were made to stand up to raiders from wherever, but this could still be cowed by an overwhelming force.

More often than not though, raiders could get into real trouble with the local population.

G

fusilier

2013-01-30, 09:10 PM

More often than not though, raiders could get into real trouble with the local population.

G

Yeah, on a rpg forum, we especially need to remind people of this. There's often an attitude that the local populace was totally hopeless without some sort of knight defender, but that attitude doesn't hold up historically.

An invading army was often pretty mean to the local populace -- stealing and taking whatever they wanted. If that army was defeated and scattered, the retreating soldiers could find themselves facing a hostile, and angry, civilian population, spoiling for a chance at revenge.

Galloglaich

2013-01-30, 09:24 PM

fusilier

2013-01-30, 09:52 PM

That certainly happened in Italy a couple of times didn't it? Especially with foreign armies.

I know of a couple of good examples in Poland, Hungary and Bohemia too.

G

Foreign armies could be really brutal to the local populace, including massacres -- but even other "Italian"* armies typically lived off the land while in foreign territory, and took what they wanted from the local populace by force. Also, in Italy, there was a tendency to use pioneers, guastatori(? - "devastators") to attack the land itself, i.e. burn crops, destroy stockpiles, etc. to reduce the ability of the enemy to keep his own armies supplied. It was very much a war of attrition.

This activity might be curtailed, *if* the invader was hoping to conquer the territory being invaded. In which case there was a desire to not annoy the local populace. But this desire often ran counter to the conventions of warfare.

* Italy not being a single state at the time, Venetians would be foreigners to the Florentines, etc. Although there does seem to be a distinction between the "Italian" foreigners and the "ultramontane" foreigners.

Brother Oni

2013-01-31, 06:03 AM

Yeah, on a rpg forum, we especially need to remind people of this. There's often an attitude that the local populace was totally hopeless without some sort of knight defender, but that attitude doesn't hold up historically.

An invading army was often pretty mean to the local populace -- stealing and taking whatever they wanted. If that army was defeated and scattered, the retreating soldiers could find themselves facing a hostile, and angry, civilian population, spoiling for a chance at revenge.

It doesn't even have to be an invading army - there's been sufficient 'peasant' revolts over the years to show the common folk have sufficient power given enough cause: link (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peasants%27_War).

The 1381 Poll Tax rebellion (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_peasants%27_revolt_of_1381) managed to cause some significant damage and the (in)famous Itto Ikki (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ikk%C5%8D-ikki)in 15th and 16th Century Japan became powerful enough to warrant full scale attacks by clan armies.

Edit: Huh. I didn't know the Yellow Turban Rebellion was classed as a peasant revolt. I know that one took some serious effort to quell.

This activity might be curtailed, *if* the invader was hoping to conquer the territory being invaded. In which case there was a desire to not annoy the local populace. But this desire often ran counter to the conventions of warfare.

* Italy not being a single state at the time, Venetians would be foreigners to the Florentines, etc. Although there does seem to be a distinction between the "Italian" foreigners and the "ultramontane" foreigners.

I know in The Prince, Machiavelli suggested a sneaky trick to help calm a recently conquered populace: assign a loyal but incredibly brutal henchman to the governance of the conquered area then tell him to go to town and rule it how he likes.
6 months to a year later (or after a number of petitions from the suffering populace) the ruler turns up to see the conditions for himself, looks around in fake horror and vows to seek justice for their wrongs, usually by executing the henchman then restoring the people's rights to what they were before they conquered him.

This way he gets to look like a good guy with no loss in taxation benefits and a less troubled populace, because they're are so glad to have their original freedoms and rights back, they're going to overlook the fact that they were conquered in the first place.

Galloglaich

2013-01-31, 10:38 AM

It doesn't even have to be an invading army - there's been sufficient 'peasant' revolts over the years to show the common folk have sufficient power given enough cause: link (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peasants%27_War).

Huh... yeah that list doesn't even begin to scratch the surface ... it only seems to be a list of 'peasant' revolts (some of these are really town revolts) which were successfully repressed. You get a lot of that in the English language sources, why? I have no idea.

But in many cases like that the commoners defeated the nobility or kings. Just a few examples, the Dithmarschen (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dithmarschen#History) was a region in lower Saxony with a mixed population of Saxons (Germans, basically) and Frisians (a bit closer to Dutch) who were basiclaly all peasants. They didn't want any feudal overlords, though their neighbors, the King of Denmark and the Dukes of Saxony thought they needed some... so they invaded I think 5 or 6 times across 3 or 4 Centuries. Each army was defeated and wiped out, one after the other. It wasn't until after the Middle Ages in the 16th Century when the Dithmarschers were finally beaten by the King of Denmark.

Another rather obvious example was the Swiss Confederation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Swiss_Confederacy) who started out as a group of recalcitrant peasants who didn't want to be ruled by the Hapsburgs, who they repeatedly defeated and slaughtered (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_morgarten).

The Bohemians, who I've often mentioned, were mostly peasants, as well as some townsfolk, who rebelled against the Emperor of the Holy Roman EMpire and the Pope, and they won (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hussite_Wars). Bohemia remained largely under local control and with a heretical religious sect dominant for over 150 years.

Back in the 12th Century, the towns of Northern Italy joined together in the Lombard League (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lombard_league) to defeat the Holy Roman Emperor.

Throughout the Holy Roman Empire itself, there were over 200 Free Cities, almost all of which became free after fighting wars at some point with a Prince or Prince-Bishop. A couple of examples are Colone defeating (and capturing) their Archbishop at the Battle of Worringen in 1288, and Strasbourg defeating theirs at the Battle Oberhausbergen in 1262.

In some parts of Europe peasants were disarmed and repressed into the status of serfdom. Revolts like the Wat Tyler rebellion in England and the Jacquerie in France, and the big "German Peasants Uprising" in the 16th Century, failed because they consisted mostly of serfs who had lost their martial skills. However in many other places like in Sweden, in the Tyrol in Austria, in Catalonia in Spain, in certain parts of Germany, in Lithuania (especially Samogitia), in the Pyrennes, in Flanders, the peasants tended to be quite dangerous. It seems to have depended a lot on the terrain. Places like Bohemia and Sweden had a lot of heavy forests; Switzerland and the Tyrol and the Pyrennes are mountainous. The Dithmarschen was mostly a big swamp. Venice itself was founded by people who were hiding in a swamp.

The towns made themselves defensively powerful with their walls, the peasants needed a little help from nature to retain their free status.

I know in The Prince, Machiavelli suggested a sneaky trick to help calm a recently conquered populace: assign a loyal but incredibly brutal henchman to the governance of the conquered area then tell him to go to town and rule it how he likes.
6 months to a year later (or after a number of petitions from the suffering populace) the ruler turns up to see the conditions for himself, looks around in fake horror and vows to seek justice for their wrongs, usually by executing the henchman then restoring the people's rights to what they were before they conquered him.

This way he gets to look like a good guy with no loss in taxation benefits and a less troubled populace, because they're are so glad to have their original freedoms and rights back, they're going to overlook the fact that they were conquered in the first place.

Good anecdote. That is pretty .... Machiavellian.

What I had been referring to was in Italy, sometimes the foreign troops, especially the French and Spanish, were particularly cruel to Italians and they often would not take prisoners among Italian commoners (they would just execute them).

Sometimes the foreign armies could commit unspeakable atrocities, one of the famous cases was the sack of Rome in 1527 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sack_of_Rome_(1527)) in which something like 80% of the population of Rome was murdered in a rampage by the soldiers, all the women raped and so on.

This created very bad feelings among the Italians themselves, and when these armies had bad luck, they found themselves hard pressed by the peasants and townsfolk during retreats back to their home countries. I know this happened to at least one French Army though I don't remember which campaign it was (of the 5 or 6 French invasions during the 16th Century).

The Italians had a concept called 'Good War / Bad War', the former being War fought under somewhat more reasonable conditions, you might say something like a Medieval version of the Geneva Convention, where prisoners would be ransomed or paroled in most cases, civilians spared outright murder if not robbery, and most of the infrastructure of the countryside: mills, bridges, churches, granaries and so on, left intact. They had a similar concept in Germany and in Poland and Bohemia and other places. They didn't always stick to it of course, but it was a surprisingly influential idea.

The French and Spanish armies would often kill anyone except rich nobles during these invasions, and so in return, Italian Condottieri would kill French and Spanish prisoners. The Swiss generally didn't take any prisoners, especially during invasions on their own soil, they just killed everyone they caught - since this is what was done to them by the Hapsburgs, the Burgundians and so forth.

Interestingly in France itself, during the course of the generations long 100 Years War, English, Burgundian and French soldiers apparently worked out more 'equitable' arrangements in which even common soldiers would be ransomed rather than killed.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/01/130124091540.htm

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Brother Oni

2013-01-31, 11:39 AM

Good anecdote. That is pretty .... Machiavellian.

You should read The Prince if you haven't already. It's full of things like this that essentially advocate that a ruler who wishes to remain in power, doesn't (and shouldn't) have the luxury of morality in his ruling decisions.

The Italians had a concept called 'Good War / Bad War', the former being War fought under somewhat more reasonable conditions, you might say something like a Medieval version of the Geneva Convention, where prisoners would be ransomed or paroled in most cases, civilians spared outright murder if not robbery, and most of the infrastructure of the countryside: mills, bridges, churches, granaries and so on, left intact. They had a similar concept in Germany and in Poland and Bohemia and other places. They didn't always stick to it of course, but it was a surprisingly influential idea.

I believe the samurai had a similar concept called High War /Low War, but I can't find a reference to it at the moment.

The concept's modified to fit around Japanese culture, with High War being simply straight up warfare with troops. When one side gets desparate enough (or just plain fed up), they start using Low War, which includes espionage, assassinations and all the other sneaky things that bushido doesn't allow.
It also included general infrastructure damage in raiding and robbery/murder/rape of the peasants who were generally spared from the horrors of war by the samurai as they're the Emperor's subjects.

Of course that opens up the door for everybody to start using Low War, so the initiating side had better hope their first strike counts.

Galloglaich

2013-01-31, 11:55 AM

You should read The Prince if you haven't already. It's full of things like this that essentially advocate that a ruler who wishes to remain in power, doesn't (and shouldn't) have the luxury of morality in his ruling decisions.

I have, and I have a copy, but it has been a while. Machiavelli and his context (and the Medici's, Borgias and other "princes" of this era) are a fascinating subject and window into the marvelously complex world of the Italian Renaissance.

I believe the samurai had a similar concept called High War /Low War, but I can't find a reference to it at the moment.

The concept's modified to fit around Japanese culture, with High War being simply straight up warfare with troops. When one side gets desparate enough (or just plain fed up), they start using Low War, which includes espionage, assassinations and all the other sneaky things that bushido doesn't allow.
It also included general infrastructure damage in raiding and robbery/murder/rape of the peasants who were generally spared from the horrors of war by the samurai as they're the Emperor's subjects.

Of course that opens up the door for everybody to start using Low War, so the initiating side had better hope their first strike counts.

That is fascinating. I actually think you can find this kind of thing in many cultures all over the world; it is something which seems to generate spontaneousy to some extent in many places, though not all. You see it in the rules of Chivalry among the European nobility, (and some of their near-Eastern equivalents). I'm sure there is some sophisticated game-theory explanation of how it works. In some cases it can even be reduced to formal dueling and / or sports, and even board games! You see this quite a bit among the Norse, for example, the Irish, Native North Americans, and in a lot of other places. Some links..

Lacrosse, Irish Hurling, and a Viking game called "Knattleikr" seem to have had similar quasi-military social roles historically

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_lacrosse
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knattleikr
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurling#History

You also have interesting traditions like 'Counting Coup'
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counting_coup

And concerted efforts to change the culture of violence, like this
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_and_Truce_of_God

Speaking of militaristic sports, and Italy, check out this 16th Century nobles version of rugby, kind of like Rugby mixed with MMA

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=493_1339908673

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Yora

2013-01-31, 12:34 PM

You should read The Prince if you haven't already. It's full of things like this that essentially advocate that a ruler who wishes to remain in power, doesn't (and shouldn't) have the luxury of morality in his ruling decisions.
The book that many people have interpreted as "How to ruin your dictatorship in 10 easy steps" or "Why Republics are so much better".

Galloglaich

2013-01-31, 12:47 PM

Another interesting one, from Normandy

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

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fusilier

2013-01-31, 09:12 PM

The Italians had a concept called 'Good War / Bad War', the former being War fought under somewhat more reasonable conditions, you might say something like a Medieval version of the Geneva Convention, where prisoners would be ransomed or paroled in most cases, civilians spared outright murder if not robbery, and most of the infrastructure of the countryside: mills, bridges, churches, granaries and so on, left intact. They had a similar concept in Germany and in Poland and Bohemia and other places. They didn't always stick to it of course, but it was a surprisingly influential idea.

The French and Spanish armies would often kill anyone except rich nobles during these invasions, and so in return, Italian Condottieri would kill French and Spanish prisoners. The Swiss generally didn't take any prisoners, especially during invasions on their own soil, they just killed everyone they caught - since this is what was done to them by the Hapsburgs, the Burgundians and so forth.

Interestingly in France itself, during the course of the generations long 100 Years War, English, Burgundian and French soldiers apparently worked out more 'equitable' arrangements in which even common soldiers would be ransomed rather than killed.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/01/130124091540.htm

G

What constituted good war/bad war also changed over time. At one point striking at the horse was considered "bad war", but as the use of armor increased it became an acceptable practice.

Italians could be equally ruthless to foreign foes, but among other Italian armies they typically released rank and file prisoners (after stripping them of arms and equipment of course). There were exceptions, for example in the mid-15th century captured hand-gunners were usually put to death. (I imagine as those weapons became more common and accepted that practice ended)

The sack of a city or town is always a potentially dangerous and ugly event, especially if the troops can't be controlled. The early condottieri (circa 14th century) often roamed the peninsula threatening various towns and cities into bribing them to go away. This was often a better outcome for a city than running the risk of being sacked. The sack of Rome (1527) is a good example of a common problem with the big armies of that time, those troops were already in a state of mutiny when they moved against Rome. A lot of the trouble was a result of the troops not having been paid, and sacking a city and looting it was a way for them to get the compensation that they felt they deserved.

I would be very wary of using Machiavelli as an example of attitudes at the time. The Prince is often considered to be satire, or a trick to cause monarchies to fail and allow republics to rise instead:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Prince#Interpretation_of_The_Prince_as_politic al_satire_or_as_deceit

I have read his Art of War -- in addition to much of his history being full of inaccuracies and extreme exaggerations, the modern commentary is not kind to his tactical precepts. Sometimes even I felt that they were too hard on him.

Dienekes

2013-01-31, 09:30 PM

The book that many people have interpreted as "How to ruin your dictatorship in 10 easy steps" or "Why Republics are so much better".

Well he does come out and say he thinks Republics are better in the actual book. But I honestly don't think that he was trying to ruin the dictatorship. I mean look at his history, he was desperately trying to land a job working for a prince, why would he send his potential future employer a book to destroy the system he was going to be apart of. And once he was a part of it there is no evidence at all that he worked against the princedom in question.

Of course, it is still being debated, and honestly with Machiavelli's peculiar sense of humor I think he would have been overjoyed to know that in his own life time.

And definitely don't use Machiavelli as an example. He was know even in his own time for twisting history to benefit his own interpretation and in completely ignoring common perceptions to draw his own conclusions. It's what makes him so interesting.

Galloglaich

2013-01-31, 09:44 PM

fusilier

2013-01-31, 09:52 PM

And definitely don't use Machiavelli as an example. He was know even in his own time for twisting history to benefit his own interpretation and in completely ignoring common perceptions to draw his own conclusions. It's what makes him so interesting.

He's also a huge literary figure, especially in Italy. As a result, he's well known and widely read. Exaggeration was a common literary tactic at the time, and we need to be cautious of his claims especially when he's making an argument. While disparaging condottieri he points to a battle that he describes as only one person being injured and he fell off his horse and was trampled. The actual number of casualties were in the hundreds, among relatively small armies, and the contemporary chroniclers remarked about how the countryside reeked of death for weeks after the battle.

Galloglaich

2013-01-31, 09:53 PM

Well he does come out and say he thinks Republics are better in the actual book. But I honestly don't think that he was trying to ruin the dictatorship. I mean look at his history, he was desperately trying to land a job working for a prince, why would he send his potential future employer a book to destroy the system he was going to be apart of. And once he was a part of it there is no evidence at all that he worked against the princedom in question.

Of course, it is still being debated, and honestly with Machiavelli's peculiar sense of humor I think he would have been overjoyed to know that in his own life time.

And definitely don't use Machiavelli as an example. He was know even in his own time for twisting history to benefit his own interpretation and in completely ignoring common perceptions to draw his own conclusions. It's what makes him so interesting.

For that matter, the relationship between his would-be patron, the Medici family, and the Republic, are rather more complex than one might assume, at least in the earlier years of their life in Florence (two and three generations previous).

G

Dienekes

2013-01-31, 09:56 PM

A lot of the modern criticism of Macchiavelli is because he is seen (superficially I think) as the representative of cynicism. I suspect The Prince is actually satirical to some extent and also has other intentions which are more "at right angles" to what it appears to be; I think it has many layers, which is in fact why I think it does represent the times so well.

G

You see the problem I have with that is that Machiavelli's other works are just as cynical. Discourses of Livy which is where he says how much he likes Republics (a sentiment corroborated by letters to friends) is almost as bloody minded as the prince was. At one point he even makes the claim that republics work because since almost everyone is corrupt and out for themselves making the political pool as large as possible is the only way that some guy of virtu (not goodness in any way) can possibly rise to the top. Also a lot of the advice he gives to princes is the same he gives in Livy and Art of War. You should focus on military above all else, don't trust mercenaries at all, religion is a tool to be used and manipulated by the ruling body, the roles of Fortuna and virtu, and so forth. That's not to say he's right on these points, but they appear almost unchanged in each of his major works, yet the Prince is the one that gets pointed out as a satire.

Also his Life of Castruccio Castracani seems to praise in Castracani the same virtues he embraces in the Prince (even though he had to change Castracani's actual personality to make it work. Like I said above, he manipulates history to prove his point a lot).

He's also a huge literary figure, especially in Italy. As a result, he's well known and widely read. Exaggeration was a common literary tactic at the time, and we need to be cautious of his claims especially when he's making an argument. While disparaging condottieri he points to a battle that he describes as only one person being injured and he fell off his horse and was trampled. The actual number of casualties were in the hundreds, among relatively small armies, and the contemporary chroniclers remarked about how the countryside reeked of death for weeks after the battle.

Yeah, he gets blinded by his hatred of the condottieri I think. He did have a particularly bad encounter with them during the conquest of Pisa he orchestrated and he likes to take every opportunity to disparage them after that point.

fusilier

2013-01-31, 10:15 PM

Yeah, he gets blinded by his hatred of the condottieri I think. He did have a particularly bad encounter with them during the conquest of Pisa he orchestrated and he likes to take every opportunity to disparage them after that point.

He's also a Florentine, and Florence lagged behind the other Italian states in their military organization and relationships with their mercenaries.

I recently read a contrast of Venetian humanists and their Tuscan contemporaries concerning their opinions of mercenaries. The Venetians also harkened back to Ancient Rome and liked the idea of a militia, but they were also realists and understood that the current state of the militia couldn't be relied on. They also appreciated the growing professionalism of the condottieri.

Galloglaich

2013-01-31, 11:43 PM

I didn't say he was a nice guy, I just think the modern view of him is typically too simplistic, and that he is a good window on these times.

When it comes to the Condotierri though, I agree with him. :)

G

Brother Oni

2013-02-01, 02:51 PM

Wow this thread suddenly got rather highbrow. :smallbiggrin:

hamishspence

2013-02-01, 03:28 PM

You see the problem I have with that is that Machiavelli's other works are just as cynical. Discourses of Livy which is where he says how much he likes Republics (a sentiment corroborated by letters to friends) is almost as bloody minded as the prince was. At one point he even makes the claim that republics work because since almost everyone is corrupt and out for themselves making the political pool as large as possible is the only way that some guy of virtu (not goodness in any way) can possibly rise to the top. Also a lot of the advice he gives to princes is the same he gives in Livy and Art of War. You should focus on military above all else, don't trust mercenaries at all, religion is a tool to be used and manipulated by the ruling body, the roles of Fortuna and virtu, and so forth. That's not to say he's right on these points, but they appear almost unchanged in each of his major works, yet the Prince is the one that gets pointed out as a satire.
Haven't read Art of War but have read the other two- and the similarities do stand out.

Hjolnai

2013-02-01, 09:31 PM

What is the latest age that someone might begin training to become a soldier if they were wealthy enough to wear plate harness, in the 16th century? If you saw someone in harness, would you know they had certainly been training since they were 10?

Galloglaich

2013-02-02, 12:34 AM

Lots of people could afford plate harness in the 16th Century including peasants.

G

Yora

2013-02-02, 06:39 AM

I saw an article that Iran presented a new fighter aircraft that supposedly is one of the most advanced in the world and comparable to the F/A-18.

And I am no expert on this, but this thing looks to me like a fake, and a really bad one.

http://theaviationist.com/2013/02/02/iran-new-stealth-fighter/#.UQz6oiCYMxc
http://www.spiegel.de/fotostrecke/qaher-313-irans-neuer-kampfjet-fotostrecke-92729.html

It's tiny and looks like it's made of plywood and cardboard. Or maybe just a metal frame wrapped in plastic. And how would the canopy close? There doesn't seem to be anything to seal the connection. Really old car doors are better sealed.

Raum

2013-02-02, 09:04 AM

Lots of people could afford plate harness in the 16th Century including peasants.Are you including the merchant class as "peasants"?

Yora

2013-02-02, 09:06 AM

The intended word was probably "commoners".
Would the ruling class of the Italian city states have been nobles? Or were they technically commoners as well?

Spiryt

2013-02-02, 09:17 AM

Are you including the merchant class as "peasants"?

Probably not really, that wouldn't make sense.

A lot of peasants all over Europe were very wealthy in 16th century, and some cheap, rudimentary plate armor became affordable even for rather poor people.

What is the latest age that someone might begin training to become a soldier if they were wealthy enough to wear plate harness, in the 16th century? If you saw someone in harness, would you know they had certainly been training since they were 10?

Well, neither plate armor nor any real skill was actually required to be a 'soldier' - some people fought unarmored, some in mail, some in textile armor...

And since way earlier times, we have complains about knights being poorly suitable for battle in sources - so among pretty much any class or population that could end up in war, there would be absolute war machines, and people who ended up there because they had to, for example.

lsfreak

2013-02-02, 12:10 PM

http://theaviationist.com/2013/02/02/iran-new-stealth-fighter/#.UQz6oiCYMxc
http://www.spiegel.de/fotostrecke/qaher-313-irans-neuer-kampfjet-fotostrecke-92729.html

It's tiny and looks like it's made of plywood and cardboard. Or maybe just a metal frame wrapped in plastic. And how would the canopy close? There doesn't seem to be anything to seal the connection. Really old car doors are better sealed.

That's the first thing I noticed. Compare the scale of the pilot/cockpit to the rest of the plane with this (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/66/F-35A_-_Inauguration_Towing.jpg).

Thiel

2013-02-02, 01:46 PM

It has analog dials, that should tell you plenty.

Yora

2013-02-02, 03:57 PM

Kalaska'Agathas

2013-02-02, 04:21 PM

I saw a video of that thing on a rotating platform and when it stopped the plane kept swining back and forth for a couple of seconds. It really is plywood and plastic. Maybe it really is just a miniature model, but even then it's so cheap I would be ashamed of showing it in an official announcement.

Yeah, it definitely looked to me like a scale model (and a non-flying one at that). Also, it seems to be a tandem wing biplane. Not sure how such a configuration would be conducive for stealth - and the shape around the nozzle looks like it would generate some serious radar returns.

fusilier

2013-02-02, 05:55 PM

The intended word was probably "commoners".
Would the ruling class of the Italian city states have been nobles? Or were they technically commoners as well?

Depends upon where and when. For example the Venetian ruling class were technically nobles, but they were all of equal rank (ostensibly, which resulted in some weird habits to prevent a show of deference). Florence, on the other hand, typically shunned the nobility, which tended to be rural, but then in the 16th century the Medici family was ennobled.

fusilier

2013-02-02, 06:01 PM

I saw a video of that thing on a rotating platform and when it stopped the plane kept swining back and forth for a couple of seconds. It really is plywood and plastic. Maybe it really is just a miniature model, but even then it's so cheap I would be ashamed of showing it in an official announcement.

It could be a mock-up, although why not a full-sized one I couldn't say. During WW2 there were small fighter designs, mainly designed to be cheap and use fewer strategic resources, and this could be in a similar vein, but I don't know.

Thiel

2013-02-02, 08:22 PM

It could be a mock-up, although why not a full-sized one I couldn't say. During WW2 there were small fighter designs, mainly designed to be cheap and use fewer strategic resources, and this could be in a similar vein, but I don't know.

Potentially, but unlikely. There's simply too many things wrong with this thing engineering wise for it to qualify as a serious concept.

lsfreak

2013-02-02, 08:35 PM

Whether or not it's really the case, given current political climate, it is very hard not to see it as a blatant attempt at some combination of intimidating one group and boosting the morale of another. I'll leave it at that.

Galloglaich

2013-02-02, 09:32 PM

Are you including the merchant class as "peasants"?

No I mean peasants, as in farmers of non-noble blood.

There is a cliche that all of Europe was under a very strict feudalism, 99% of the population were serfs / Medieval cavemen and that nobody except for the tiny minority of aristocrats ever had any education, took a bath, had any leisure time or money, or could do anything other than toil in the mud, ala Monty Python. Or pretty much every fantasy / historical genre film made my Hollywood or the British film industry.

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_CVxm5d_3xFU/ShaCQm7vRRI/AAAAAAAAAhQ/Be4yotHrzNg/s400/Oppressed-monty-python-and-the-holy-grail-591149_1008_566.jpg

For some reason the idea that there was no middle class and Medieval life was basically exactly like Jabberwocky is a very satisfying notion to people in general and gamers in particular, for reasons I can't fathom, and thus it's a very persistent idea.

Of course there were some places which were like that, but the majority of Europe was not made up of serfs during the Middle Ages. Medieval Europe is a very complex place, heterogenius, but it was not the wreckage of poverty and mud as most people seem to think.

Peasant is not the same thing as serf, and the majority of the population outside of the towns were peasants, not serfs. In the towns, the majority of the population were craftsmen, with an elite of guild masters, and above or beside them (depending on the politics of the particular town) the merchant class who were often much richer than any of the nobility (rich enough to buy their own noble titles if they wanted them). Those people were called patricians. The top level of the merchant patricians like the Medici, the Fuggers, the Welsers and so on, were as rich and powerful as any prince in Europe.

A few statistics for the cost of various things in the 15th Century:

A sheep, 56 dinari
Bushel of wheat 84 dinari
Sword 20 Kreuzer
Crossbow (not sure what specific type) 1 Mark or 40 Kreuzer
Coat of plates (platendienst) 12 Kreuzer
Cuirass with pauldrons, 39 Kreuzer
Mail Haubergeon 2-7 Marks or 10 marks for a ‘special’ Haubergeon (possibly tempered or fine links)
Milanese Harness 4 Florins
Milanese Harness ‘of Proof’ 7 Florins, 4 Kreuzer
Equipment for a mounted crossbowman, 11 florins, equipment ‘for a lancer’ 30 florins

Rough estimate of the coins: 1 Guilder (Gulden / Florin) = 60 Kreuzer = 120 Groats = 240 Pennies = 1440 Dinari

Sources:
Geschichte des deutschen Volkes seit dem Ausgang des Mittelalters,
“History of the German People at the close of the Middle Ages”, Johannes Janssen, 1896, various sections.

Uzbrojenie w Polsce średniowiecznej 1350-1450, “Armaments in Medieval Poland 1350-1450”, Andrzej Nadolski, Polska Akademia Nauk, Instytut Historii Kultury Materialnej, (1990), page 471

A typical 15th Century Peasant in Poland could earn 20-30 florins per year from the sale of lumber, wheat, various animals, meat, eggs, honey, butter, fruit and vegetables –all over and above their own subsistence needs and the rent required by the Lord, prelate or town to whom they owed fealty. One Polish peasant mentioned in records from the early 16th Century owned four old and two young oxen, five milch cows, six dry cows, four pigs and five horses.

Source: Polish-Lithuanian State, 1386-1795, Daniel Stone, page 71

Records from battle musters in the 15th Century show that Polish peasants arrived with their own armor and weapons, and that these were of high quality, including plate harness.
Source: Arms and Armor in Medieval Poland 1350-1450, Andrzej Nadolski (1990), page 475

I don't know the exact stats on this for France or England but I have no reason to assume it was very different. In Sweden the Leidang (rural / naval militia muster law) stipulates peasants of a certain level of property bring mail armor (which is often more expensive than plate harness in the late Medieval period) as early as the 12th Century.

A mercenary infantryman (who would usually be either peasants or burghers, i.e. townsfolk) could earn between 2 -5 florins a day while on contract. Very roughly that is something like $400 - $1000.

In Sweden most of the peasants had plate armor as a result of their many successful ambushes of condottieri*. It was the same in Flanders, Switzerland and Bohemia; when the peasants and burghers defeated the nobility, they kept their armor.

As for the burghers (townsfolk), the ordinary craftsmen were obligated by law to own armor, usually plate armor. But don't take my word for it, listen to the Pope:

“…not only every noble, but even every burgher in the Guilds has
an armoury in his house so as to appear equipped at every alarm.
The skill of the citizens in the use of weapons is extraordinary.”
-Enea Silvio Piccolomini, the future Pope Pious II, commenting on the state
of military preparedness in Germany in 1444 AD.

This is an excerpt from the guild regulations of the Shearers guild of the Flemish (today Belgian) town of Arras in 1236 AD:

7. And whichever brother of this fraternity of shearers
does not come to the militia when it is called, shall not
remain in the city, unless it is through the aldermen of
the city, 20 sous should go to the confraternity.
25. And each master should have his arms when
someone summons them. And if he does not have them,
he owes 20 sous.
26. Whichever of the brothers does not go around with
the burgomeister, the first night that the militia
overnights, owes 10 sous.
27. Whichever of the brothers leaves the district by land
and by day, and will not embark, owes 10 sous to the
confraternity.
28. And whichever of the brothers takes the weapons of
the fraternity, if he does not return them on the day that he
took them, he owes 20 sous to the fraternity, unless he is
keeping them with the consent of the burgomeister and the
aldermen.
29. And if any brother begins to mix it up after the militia
has been quieted, he owes 40 sous to the confraternity,
saving that which is owed to the lord.
30. And at the hour when the mayor and the aldermen order
the brothers to arm, he who does not arm owes 10 sous.

Source: ‘Recueil de documents relatifs à l'histoire de l'industrie drapière en Flandre’, publiés par Georges Espinas et Henri Pirenne. Brussels, 1920. Translation by Ariella Elema 2012

-Galloglaich

* by which I mean, in the generic sense, and the specific, since they defeated numerous mercenaries in the pay of the King of Denmark, some of whom were Italian condotto.

lsfreak

2013-02-02, 10:26 PM

I'm assuming a Mark is roughly identical to a Gulden/Florin? EDIT: Nevermind, I see it now.

TL;DR version seems to be:
20-30 florins a year in "for-fun" spending
Proofed plate is 7 and change
If you have any chance of being called to fight, saving for all of four or so months for some really, really good armor seems like a good idea.

Galloglaich

2013-02-02, 10:56 PM

Yes but this also masks all their other expenses like clothes, livestock, horses, farm equipment (animal harness, plows, horseshoes, tools) fixing things up on the farm, paying employees, paying to have grain milled, tithing to the church and so on and so forth. And these are the richer ... I don't know, two thirds? Of the peasants in Poland. They had various rather amusing terms for the different social brackets, yokel, I think a boor was a German peasant.

Some more details here:

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=403582

The currency they mention on there 'Zloty' I think means roughly equivalent to gulden or florin. I think back then it was a generic term for gold foreign currency. Spiryt may be able to elaborate further.

EDIT, to put it in perspective, if your salary is $30,000 for the year, in this case the armor would be $7,000 - you could afford it, in theory I could buy this replica Gothic harness (http://www.ageofarmour.com/sigismundnew.html) for $12,500... it's within the amount of money I have left over after I pay rent, and I would love to own it, but it doesn't mean I necessarily will. For one thing my wife would find a way to kill me in spite of the super protection it offers ;) For another I probably wouldn't be able to actually save that much, though I am not as thrifty as a peasant.

Also I suspect that 'proofed' cost for the armor represents the 'first proof', which means it's resistant against the 'small' crossbow. If I remember correctly from Alan Williams, the Italians had two grades of proofed armor, proofed against the 'large' crossbow being more expensive ... and by the second half of the Medieval period the German harness was probably better anyway. The equipment for a 'lancer' was listed as 30 florins, of which the two most expensive things would be the horse and the armor. I might guess military grade gothic harness might be as much as 10 or 15 florins.

But there is no doubt that A) peasants could be a lot richer than we tend to assume today, and B ) armor of a very good quality had gotten quite cheap by the end of the 15th Century, considering it's value. That seems to have changed through the 16th Century though and by the end of the 16th Century armor had gotten less effective (more likely to be made of iron than tempered steel) and more expensive.

G

lsfreak

2013-02-02, 11:14 PM

Alrighty, yea right after I posted that I realized it probably didn't include some necessary costs in that 20-30 florins. Still though, it's nothing like the silliness of 3.5 D&D where a well-off farmer who saved every coin could still spend half a decade saving up.

I love this info on peasants, though; the utterly silly economics of typical fantasy gets to me, but I don't really know much more than to know it's silly.

Galloglaich

2013-02-02, 11:22 PM

Hjolnai

2013-02-03, 12:37 AM

Galloglaich

2013-02-03, 01:51 AM

Thanks, this is all very interesting information. I appreciate (and hope everyone else does) having the resource which is this thread, and the work people put into it.

Interesting to note that by the prices Galloglaich provided, Milanese harness (4 Florins=5760 Dinari) costs about 103 sheep (5768 dinari total), or 69 bushels of wheat (5796 dinari).

Yeah that is interesting. Keep in mind you have to take prices with the proverbial grain of salt, since both currency and commodities fluctuated wildly in value from year to year.

but to continue to extend this, I thought it would be interesting to look at more modern comparisons. If I'm reading this right, a bushel of wheat today is $9

http://www.indexmundi.com/commodities/?commodity=wheat

Looks like a sheep is rather more today, anywhere from around $80 to $250, and $500 for a ram (for rare breeds it goes up into the thousands). You can get a lamb for as little as $15, which might be more in the ballpark of an economy where these animals are still plentiful. (I wonder how much they cost in New Zealand? or Scotland?)

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_much_does_a_sheep_cost

http://www.ads.agrisupportonline.com/csv/csvread.pl?show=6322&mytemplate=tp1

g

EDIT: minor correction on the post above, Arras is today in France, not Belgium.

Yora

2013-02-03, 07:02 AM

Spiryt

2013-02-03, 07:24 AM

Currencies back then weren't such exact science,obviously, but I believe that in 16th century "Złoty" equaled 30 groschen.

Relation to ducat or florin changed during 16th century, I believe, from very roughly ~ 1/1 in the beginning, to florin being worth 58 groschen in the end.

Raum

2013-02-03, 09:11 AM

No I mean peasants, as in farmers of non-noble blood. Ah, I understand. You're using a much broader definition of peasant in some ways and narrower in others. Did the mainland differentiate between yeoman and peasant ranks? Also, are you intentionally excluding villagers and towns folk whose primary support comes from something other than farming?

I've typically seen peasant defined as someone who earns a living by their own manual labor whether at farm, village, or town.

Thiel

2013-02-03, 09:51 AM

Galloglaich

2013-02-03, 12:46 PM

Ah, I understand. You're using a much broader definition of peasant in some ways and narrower in others.

I think it's pretty standard, really. There are still many peasants in Europe, quite a few in France for example in all the rural areas and they still call themselves and are called peasants. I can assure you none of them are serfs!

Did the mainland differentiate between yeoman and peasant ranks?

Yeoman really just means 'rich peasant', though there can be some overlap with the gentry there. If you look at the link I posted upthread, they describe various sub-classes of peasants.

Also, are you intentionally excluding villagers and towns folk whose primary support comes from something other than farming?

Peasant has a specifically rural connotation. Many peasants lived in villages and some were craftsmen, inkeepers and so on. Again, if you look into that link I posted upthread, click on a few of the spoiler tags particularly down toward the end of it, it gets into all that, including specific percentages of each subclass in the 16th Century.

Townsfolk were called burghers and they were really a separate class. Townsfolk may have been commoners but were definitely not peasants.

I've typically seen peasant defined as someone who earns a living by their own manual labor whether at farm, village, or town.

Well, I'm not sure exactly what that means. You mean to be a peasant you can't have any employees? Because that would be incorrect. Most peasants had servants, sharecroppers and so on. And if they lived in a town, they by definition were not peasants.

It's kind of irrelevant to the original question though since both townsfolk and peasants could afford plate harness. As I already pointed out most townsfolk (full citizens of the town) were typically required by law to own armor, and other things like guns, crossbows and so on.

G

lsfreak

2013-02-03, 02:26 PM

I think translating to dollar prices is always a problem since a dollar is worth different amounts in differnt places. I would guess in Pakistan you would get a sheep much more cheaply. I think a better comparison would be how many hours a worker with basic job training would have to work to make enough wages to pay for the item.

I think the ratio is more important to look at than the actual numbers. And there are a few ways to get a closer adjustment. For example, with the wheat versus sheep thing, we can establish:
$9 for a bushel of wheat
$80-250 for a sheep
- Current farming is roughly 20:1 returns while the time periods we're talking about it was was closer to 4:1, so we can increase $9 to something more like $45
- The provided links give wool sheep as the least expensive, and my understanding is most sheep were raised for wool rather than slaughter, so we're looking at the $80 figure more than the $250 one
- Cotton is cheaper than wool, by about six times (83c/pound vs ~13.50$/kg). Now I have no idea what affect this has on wool - lowering it to be closer to the competitive, or driving it up due to being rarer, or what. But if wool is closer to a "luxury" (very broadly used) compared to cotton, it's reasonable its price would be higher, so we'd expect the $45:$80 ratio to become even closer together.

The above, of course, is extremely rough, and it's dependent on me remembering a few things correctly and implying correctly. But it does likely give us some ideas as to why the price of sheep and wheat changed as they did, and taking these into account gets us a ratio closer to the 15th century prices.

EDIT: And while we're on the talk of peasants and farms, I was trying to find - very roughly - how much cropland a single person could reasonably work, but Google is just giving me what looks like the internet's collective guessing power rather than anything useful (or modern multicrop "farms" that are more like oversized veggie gardens). Those "yokels" with 17ha, how many people would they need to hire to work that? I've heard one acre takes about a day to plow with an ox, but that doesn't really tell me much about how much someone could farm in total.

Galloglaich

2013-02-03, 02:50 PM

Throughout Europe there was this unit of measure for land, roughly equal to the amount of work one man could work, and also theoretically enough to sustain one family with some degree of comfort. The actual amount of acreage varied from place to place depending on how fertile the soil was, what was grown there, how long the growing season was and so on.

But very roughly it usually averaged out to between 20-50 acres. As in the old '40 acres and a mule' concept of a yeoman farmer. In Poland this was usually called a "Lan", in Germany a "Hof", I think in England it was called a "Hide" and so on. You can search for those terms along with other related ones and maybe find some useful things.

In some parts of Poland and the Ukraine the soil was extremely fertile so you could do pretty well with less land, an average peasant might own say half a Lan to 1 Lan, a richer peasant maybe 2-4 Lan. A member of the Gentry perhaps 5 or 10. In other areas, I don't know, something like Scotland where the soil is rocky and the population density was a little lower, it might require more acreage to support a family. I don't know the exact figures. Also as the three field system became more widespread this amount ended up being actually more than most farmers really needed, leading to surplus and hiring of more employees (poorer peasants) as well as extended family. Also toward the latter Middle Ages, 12th-15th Century, you see many more export crops, and much, much more automation in the form of water wheels and wind-mills which allow much more efficient processing of grains, textiles, wood, and really just about everything. So you have profitable secondary and tertiary industries rise up in the towns, and also in casltes, monasteries, and villages, and as a result see more specialized raw materials production.

In villages you also have the commons, meaning both wasteland where grazing is done, and fields which are shared for a collective harvest, and individual families have little strips, narrow and long, linked to the road system or in other places (like where I live in Louisiana) along the river, bayou or canal if that was the main means for transporting things as it so often was (the Vistula river being the main highway of grain in Poland for example). That shape makes it easier to get stuff to the market.

Sadly like with almost all historical matters, relatively little is available (or at least not easy to find) via a google search, if you want the good, accurate information on anything real related to the pre-industrial era you really need JSTOR access.

G

Starshade

2013-02-03, 05:03 PM

Thiel

2013-02-03, 06:17 PM

Isnt that thing even smaller than a Predator drone?
If I was to guess wild, I'd guess it's retro engineered out of US stealth drones.
If its not fake, who I think it could more likely be.

Oh it's fake, there can be little doubt about that.
You won't be able to see the pictures unless you have an account, but this Secret Project's thread (http://www.secretprojects.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,18332.90.html) has an interesting discussion about it. They even identify all the cockpit instruments. (Which btw are all usually found in Lightweight aircrafts such as Cessna 172s and such)

Straybow

2013-02-03, 09:24 PM

Rough estimate of the coins: 1 Guilder (Gulden / Florin) = 60 Kreuzer = 120 Groats = 240 Pennies = 1440 Dinari

G, Isn't that a later currency standard? I haven't seen a "kreuzer" mentioned before the 1559 standard set by the HRE. The Italian florin, ducat, and genoveso were nominally 54 grains (3.5 g) of gold, worth 24 dinari di grossi or 1/10 of a silver lira. (Sort of, some of the cities used 239 dinari to a lira for obscure reasons, some cities in the convention didn't issue gold coins and their currency floated, etc.)

The older Florentine lira of 240 dinari (called lira di picollo and dinari di picolli) was approximately equal to the new (1252) gold coins, but the actual currency was debased from any standard "lira" (pound) of silver. The florin and ducat in particular traded all over Europe and like coins were issued in many places. The florin/ducat almost never divided evenly into local schillings, pennies, deniers, etc, especially for debased currencies (as almost all were by the 15th century).

For example, the original 1559 standard was 60 kreuzer to the florin, but the new kreuzer was 4.2 pfennig until they changed the size of the pfennig. The 1559 standard was not based on the old florin/ducat but on the reichsgulden that was nearly the same weight but only 22k gold.

The sou was nominally 12 deniers parisis, equivalent to an English groat (4 p) or 3 schillings of Cologne, but by 1236 the latter two were debased to differing degrees. The sou was probably 3 days' wages for a shearer if not debased.

Galloglaich

2013-02-03, 09:34 PM

My friend Krisztina translated another passage from the Hungarian Wiki on Matthias Corvinus, including a couple of excerpts from his letters. It's interesting because as opposed to contract mercenaries, who typically had very short contracts and often didn't get paid (which offsets their astronomical salary), the "Black Army" of Corvinus was a full-time professional force, (albiet also comprised mostly of mercenaries) who remained in the field for years at a time, and they were paid a regular salary. So it gives us a bit more insight into the economy of the period.

„(...) the military here divides to three orders: the first of these orders consists of the heavy cavalry; these wish for 15 golds [gulden / guilder] every quarter of a year after every horse, otherwise they won't come here. The other order of the light cavalry, whom we call hussars; these want 10 forints [florins] a quarter of a year after every horse, otherwise they won't come here. The third order consists of the infantry, and there are different classes distinguished: as there are light infantry, others are heavy infantry, and again others, the shield-wielders. The light infantry requires 8 golds per person a quarter of a year, the heavy armed and the shield-wielders, since they can not carry the weapons [I]and shields [pavises?] without varlets [valets / valetti] and servants and since they must keep these children [sic.] out of necessity, they want to keep these to the weapons [crossbows] and shields with the payment of two people. Apart from these, there are gunmen, who know their way around guns and pistols ,[I] but neither can they be used for shooting affairs so sedulously, nor as well as the infantry, thus only after the shield-wielders, in the beginning of the clash, (...) and also, they are the best for the siege or protection of castles.”

– ( Mathias' report to his father in law, Ferdinand, king of Naples, 1481.)

If I'm reading this correctly, he is saying the heavy infantry and crossbowmen get paid double, because of all their servants and assistants. That means the pay breaks down as follows:

Type Quarterly/Annual pay
Heavy cavalry / lancers 15 / 60 florins
Light Cavalry / hussars 10 / 40 florins
Light Infantry 8 / 32 florins
Heavy Infantry 16 / 64 florins
Shield Bearers (Crossbowmen?) 16 / 64 florins

Which means the more elite among the infantry are actually paid more than heavy cavalry, which is a surprise to me.

But it does make sense because the Black Army was mostly built around it's infantry and war-wagons. This is also, interestingly enough, how guild - masters were paid: they would be paid as if they were two or three people and then they in turn would pay their apprentices and journeymen a fraction of that amount. Presumably this would also be the case with the 'varlets' and 'servants' of the heavy infantry.

G

Galloglaich

2013-02-03, 09:53 PM

Of course if he is paying 'by the horse' this may mean that a knight receives 4 or 5 times the base pay listed above, since they would typically be in a lance of 4 or 5 horses.

G

fusilier

2013-02-04, 02:34 AM

My friend Krisztina translated another passage from the Hungarian Wiki on Matthias Corvinus, including a couple of excerpts from his letters. It's interesting because as opposed to contract mercenaries, who typically had very short contracts and often didn't get paid (which offsets their astronomical salary), the "Black Army" of Corvinus was a full-time professional force, (albiet also comprised mostly of mercenaries) who remained in the field for years at a time, and they were paid a regular salary. So it gives us a bit more insight into the economy of the period.

Yeah, the little of the Black Army that I've looked into, it certainly looks very impressive -- in fact one of the reasons I saw for its demise was that it was emptying the coffers too quickly! ;-)

Mercenaries in Italy by that time had longer contracts (except in Florence), but I don't know the details of Hungarian contracts for a proper comparison. In Italy it was usually routine by the second half of the 15th century that contracts were essentially permanent for the heavy cavalry (i.e. they were automatically renewed, barring special, and unusual circumstances). The infantry component seems to have been more flexible, especially in Venice -- I have more information about Venice, but I'm also wary against extrapolating that to the rest of Italy (as there are both explicit and implicit differences between the Italian states listed in my sources). In Venice, permanent infantry were primarily hired directly by the state, with some peacetime mercenary contracts for infantry (usually these troops were dispersed to garrisons during peacetime, and others were in overseas garrisons). Mainly, they retained the services of the infantry captains/constables. I know that other parts of Italy did similar things but I don't know to what degree.

Most fascinating about the Hungarian Black Army was it's peacetime size! It was a very big army to keep in being. Although, again, without details of the contracts, it's possible that the troops were more "on call" than they were "standing" -- but so far the sources that I've seen imply that there were on "active" duty the whole time!

Of course if he is paying 'by the horse' this may mean that a knight receives 4 or 5 times the base pay listed above, since they would typically be in a lance of 4 or 5 horses.

Yeah, that's potentially confusing. Also, the knight himself could, and likely did, have more than one horse. In Italy, it was common to pay the "Lance" a set amount, and the followers were paid according to whatever internal agreement existed -- this might be defined in the contract that they signed with their company, but I don't actually know if that was done.

I imagine paying a lump sum for a *unit* was a pretty standard procedure throughout Europe. I've read references to civilian commissioners in Venice, being paid a wage that expected them to maintain some clerks, secretaries, bodyguards, etc., from that wage. (In a way, it's like sub-contracting).

fusilier

2013-02-04, 02:58 AM

No I mean peasants, as in farmers of non-noble blood.
. . .

This is a good point. Depending upon time and place it may be rare, but a peasant could be relatively wealthy, primarily through land ownership, but they may also have influence on village councils (not towns, that would be burghers), etc.

* by which I mean, in the generic sense, and the specific, since they defeated numerous mercenaries in the pay of the King of Denmark, some of whom were Italian condotto.

Which condottieri in particular? I know that Italian mercenary officers served in wider Europe, like the notorious Cola di Monforte and Jacopo Gaelota served Charles the Bold, Gaelota and Boffillo del Giudice served France under Louis XI. But there's not much detail on "ultramontane" service by condottieri in any of my sources, unfortunately.

fusilier

2013-02-04, 03:14 AM

G, Isn't that a later currency standard? I haven't seen a "kreuzer" mentioned before the 1559 standard set by the HRE. The Italian florin, ducat, and genoveso were nominally 54 grains (3.5 g) of gold, worth 24 dinari di grossi or 1/10 of a silver lira. (Sort of, some of the cities used 239 dinari to a lira for obscure reasons, some cities in the convention didn't issue gold coins and their currency floated, etc.)

Ah old monetary standards . . .

First, we should keep in mind that many states minted their own "versions" of coins. So a florin, isn't necessarily a florin. If we can we should try to establish which version we are talking about, usually the context sets it.

Second, the metal content could change. The florin (i.e. the Florence florin), was popular because it remained unchanged for a long time. Other nations also minted florins, which usually had a similar metal content when first made, but it could vary.

Third, the use of a bimetallic system means that the relative values of silver coins to gold coins fluctuated. As a result, regulating the relative values only worked for a short while. This needs to be kept in mind when looking at changes in wages. For example, the statement: In Italy the pay of condottiere dropped during the course of the 15th century, isn't necessarily true. Why? Because their wages were usually quoted in gold florins (or ducats), but they were typically paid with silver currency. The relative value of gold to silver had increased during the same period . . . (Of course it's a relative statement, the value of silver can also be seen as "dropping", and determining how that affected their actual pay depends upon questionable ways of estimating relative worth and inflation -- the best we can usually do is state it in terms of other known yearly wages and costs, to give some idea as to how valuable something was.)

One source that I have states that, in Florence, a florin was worth roughly 960 denari in 1400, but by the end of the century it was worth 1,680 denari.

--EDIT-- A grosso was a term for a silver coin varying from 30-128 denari. This is probably what is meant by "denari di grossi" in your source. --EDIT--

Galloglaich

2013-02-04, 11:21 AM

GraaEminense

2013-02-04, 11:36 AM

One of the causes of these wars was the mistreatment of Swedish peasants, who were unaccustomed to strict Feudalism, by foreign mercenary administrators in the pay of the Danish King. Among those were Italian Condottieri, Scottish, and German mercenaries.
Seems like someone read their Machiavelli, but didn't quite manage to get rid of the administrators fast enough :smallwink:

Galloglaich

2013-02-04, 11:56 AM

Seems like someone read their Machiavelli, but didn't quite manage to get rid of the administrators fast enough :smallwink:

Hahahah yep. I have a feeling King Christian didn't really like his job that much anyway

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/18/Christian-I-DenmarkNorwaySweden.JPG

Apparently the job could be kind of a drag. One of his predescesors King Eric actually quit his job and became a pirate in Gotland for 10 years

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_of_Pomerania#Reign

G

Yora

2013-02-04, 02:04 PM

Does anyone know of a list of assault rifles currently and recently in service, that fire full-auto?

Storm Bringer

2013-02-04, 03:20 PM

Does anyone know of a list of assault rifles currently and recently in service, that fire full-auto?

not a complete list, no.

but to name a few:

AK series weapons, all types (ie -47, -74, AKM, AKS, the 100 series, etc. this rifle family has a bigger production run that all the others mentioned, and amost as many as the others combined)

L85A2 (current british rifle)

G36 (current german rifle)

AUG (austrian rifle)

G3 (an older 7.62mm rifle. former german service rifle, in use with a lot of countries)

FN FAL (some modles. again, a older 7.62 rifle that was very widly exported. the british SLR version was semi auto only.)

FAMAS (french)

some versions of the M-16 (i think the A1 and A2. the later models have 3 shot burst)

any number of M-16 replacements (XM-8, M416, M27 IAR, etc).

fusilier

2013-02-04, 07:10 PM

Does anyone know of a list of assault rifles currently and recently in service, that fire full-auto?

I don't know much about it, but the Mexican FX-05 "Xiuhcoatl" is reported as having a full auto setting.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FX-05_Xiuhcoatl

Galloglaich

2013-02-04, 07:58 PM

I think the Israeli Galil too, and certain versions of the M-14 though I don't know if the full auto variants are still in use any more (kind of unwieldy). The Steyr Aug if that is still around. Numerous other variants of the M-16 and Ak families.

There is a whole family of unusual Russian variants, the ones I think are most interesting are these 9mm x 39mm subsonic assault rifles, which were invented to deal with Chechen terrorists. Pretty scary weapon:

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

G

Straybow

2013-02-05, 01:08 PM

Mike_G

2013-02-05, 02:11 PM

MP5, FN P90, Uzi, etc, though technically are of "machine pistol" or sub-machine gun class, would probably be lumped in as well. The only difference is they shoot pistol or "carbine" ammunition rather than rifle ammunition.

That makes them sub machineguns, not assault rifles, in a military sense. The pistol round just can't do the same job we expect of an assault rifle.

The M16A2, adopted in the mid eighties by the Marines and a bit later by the Army, changed the full auto setting to a three round burst because a full auto rifle does nothing more to kill the enemy, and lots to strain your supply system. The recoil from first few rounds kicks your aim off target, and rounds four through thirty just annoy the birds. A short burst does increase your chance of hitting a poorly seen target. Three rounds seems like a good compromise.

Thiel

2013-02-05, 03:03 PM

How does that old saying goes? Miss three times and you're a bad shot, miss thirty and your the Squad Automatic Gunner.

Mike_G

2013-02-05, 03:35 PM

Even with a machine gun, the theory is to fire short bursts, then reacquire your target.

Full auto burns out barrels, wastes ammo, and invites return fire.

Straybow

2013-02-06, 10:41 AM

Yes the other common denominator is the mark (244 'pennies' of silver), pound, livre (tournais or other standard) lire etc. This could mean either a full pound (16 ounces) or 12 ounces of silver, in theory, with as you say varying degrees of debasement, and it was far more often used as a book-keeping standard (i.e. with fiat currencies, promises from Kings and Princes, or merchants) than actual coin though it could be both. In the East-Slavic areas (Novgorod, Moscow, Pskov, Tver, throughout Ruthenia and the crimea) the 'pound' was a unit of currency called a Grivna which was actually a 12 or 16 ounce silver bar. The name is still the basis for the standard currency in the Ukraine today.

Regarding the Kreuzer, like a lot of these types of coins this one seems to have been a local currency which later spread to a larger area when it got popular. Kreuzer was widespread in the Northern part of Central Europe from the early 15th century. Not as popualar as the Groschen... Hmmm, never heard of the grivna before but I stuck mostly to western Europe in my studies.

I found that trying to pin down the subunits was a mess. The one common factor is the widespread use of the old Latin accounting system that was made a standard in all territories of the HRE under Charlemagne: 1 liber = 20 solidi = 240 dinari, with mixed amounts noted as L/s/d. The most common appearance was s/d, and the "/" actually became known as the "solidus" mark in English.

In Cologne and surrounding German region the mark was 3600 grains. In London the pound was 5400 grains. Compare to the pound Av at 7000 grains. This ratio of 2:3 persevered as the exchange rate until the Renaissance (and maybe later). The 2:3 ratio was used for establishing the Euro relative to the GBP.

I've been unable to fix a value on the Frankish livre, but at a later time extremely debased French money exchanged for 1/3 of the English. The Carolingian denier was about 1.3 g, enlarged to about 1.75 g under Charlemagne. His contemporary King Offa of Anglo-Saxon Mercia minted pennies of 1/240 of the London pound at 1.46 g and adopted the shilling as the 12 d money of account (no shillings were minted for at least 500 years).

In Cologne their coins were called schillings, 1/120 of the mark (which made penny:schilling 3:4). They didn't want to use the abbreviation "d" for them and invent another "s" as a money of account. Instead they invented a pfennig of 1/12 schilling and a pound of account at 20 schillings that everyone ignored because "pound" meant the London pound of 1½ marks. They may have had 6 pfennig and 3 pfennig coins (probably schillings cut into halves and fourths) but never anything smaller except in bookkeeping and barter.

In other places they started with a mark of 8 groschen = 480 heller. So they added in the solidus and denarius under the name schilling or shilling and pfennig. Now they had mark = pound and groschen = 60 heller = 30 pfennig = 2½ shilling, so that they could report to HRE in L/s/d and keep their old mark/groschen/heller system for day to day use.

Almost every state had dozens of coins introduced, particularly in the prosperous late medieval. Sometimes they originated as foreign coins and then were minted locally. For example, as continental coins became highly debased English coins (still 80% silver in the 13th-14th c) were sought, so some states minted "Sterlings" to meet the demand. And many minters produced gold coins similar to florins and ducats.

Ah old monetary standards . . .

First, we should keep in mind that many states minted their own "versions" of coins. So a florin, isn't necessarily a florin. If we can we should try to establish which version we are talking about, usually the context sets it.

Second, the metal content could change. The florin (i.e. the Florence florin), was popular because it remained unchanged for a long time. Other nations also minted florins, which usually had a similar metal content when first made, but it could vary.

Third, the use of a bimetallic system means that the relative values of silver coins to gold coins fluctuated. As a result, regulating the relative values only worked for a short while. This needs to be kept in mind when looking at changes in wages. For example, the statement: In Italy the pay of condottiere dropped during the course of the 15th century, isn't necessarily true. Why? Because their wages were usually quoted in gold florins (or ducats), but they were typically paid with silver currency. The relative value of gold to silver had increased during the same period . . . (Of course it's a relative statement, the value of silver can also be seen as "dropping", and determining how that affected their actual pay depends upon questionable ways of estimating relative worth and inflation -- the best we can usually do is state it in terms of other known yearly wages and costs, to give some idea as to how valuable something was.)

One source that I have states that, in Florence, a florin was worth roughly 960 denari in 1400, but by the end of the century it was worth 1,680 denari.

--EDIT-- A grosso was a term for a silver coin varying from 30-128 denari. This is probably what is meant by "denari di grossi" in your source. --EDIT-- Yes, the denari in each city was a different value, then they tried to standardize across the board at 32 grains, and afterwards currencies continued to be debased at varying rates.

I tried to study the Italian bookkeeping practice, but after wading through a couple of dissertation-style papers I gave up. The exchange rate between gold and silver continuously varied, the exchange and interest rates among the gold currencies varied, the exchange and interest rates among the silver currencies varied, with preferred interest rates given to the gold-based currencies of Venice and Genoa above silver-based ones elsewhere...

I'm convinced it is a miracle that the princes didn't hang all the bankers just on suspicion that they must be milking every transaction.

Galloglaich

2013-02-06, 10:45 AM

Unless you have a water cooled one...

G

Galloglaich

2013-02-06, 10:59 AM

I'm convinced it is a miracle that the princes didn't hang all the bankers just on suspicion that they must be milking every transaction.

Well I'm sure they would have if they didn't owe them so much money, and if the bankers couldn't hire their own soldiers away from them...

As an example of how money got debased, after the Battle of Grunwald in 1410 in which the Teutonic Order was defeated by Poland and Lithuania, they made the Prussian towns largely bear the huge cost of ransoming all their knights. The towns balked and this created a crisis between the towns and the Teutonic Order, which resulted in the Order assassinating 2 members of the Danzig town council in 1411. So the Prussian towns paid the Order, but they immediately debased their currency up to 80%, so that all their other taxes and fees were almost worthless. This caused ripple effects throughout the region as various Prelates (Bishops and archbishops) and other Princes who were traditionally owed money by the towns went into an uproar, but the Order was stretched too thin to do anything about it, as their number 1 priority was bailing out their members and the foreign Crusaders who had been captured.

Meanwhile the Polish King released his 200 Danziger prisoners from the battle for 'free' (along with 14,000 other prisoners who were not rich or part of the Order), which sent a signal to the Prussian towns that he would be an easier ruler to deal with.

So effectively the Prussian cities like Danzig, Torun, Chelmno, Elbing and so on paid a big ransom but then stopped paying almost all their rents and duties. Trade went back to bullion value for currency, and effectively, barter. The Order tried to molify the towns by creating an Estates General but it backfired on them. Within a generation the towns formed the Prussian Confederation and began forming alliances with Knightly Leagues and Church leaders against the Order. In 1454 they rose up against the Order and after 13 years of war, became an autonomous part of Poland.

This problem with coin debasement continued though, Copernicus wrote a complex paper on trying to fix the problem in 1517.

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

I think it's actually funny how a lot of people today think going to a hard currency will fix all our fundamental financial problems since currency manipulation went on quite a bit with gold and silver...

G

Yora

2013-02-06, 12:22 PM

Once you start not paying back your loans or even hurting the bankers themselves, you're going to have a very hard time getting any more money in the future.

but to name a few:
That looks almost like "almost every common assault rifle there is"?
Maybe I should have asked how many there are with selective fire and including burst fire?

The actual question being more along the lines if full auto is still commonly used or only retained as a feature that might come in handy in some situations?

In Sub-machine guns it makes a lot of sense to have full auto. I think their main purpose to be used in tight spaces, where the compact size and short length really makes a difference. And at distances of 2 to 10 meters, recoil should be a severly smaller problem, while getting your target dead as close to instantly as you can becomes much more important. If you shot a rifleman at 50 meters and he's still alive and conscious for half an hour while lying in cover, that's not nearly as much as a problem as a guy with a handgun 3 meters away from you, who stays conscious for 10 seconds.
Do militaries even use SMGs, except for special forces and MP?

Straybow

2013-02-06, 01:04 PM

I've never handled them, but I've never heard of a submachinegun with burst fire. So many of the modern rifles have burst selection that I think it might be easier to list those that do not. Somebody already mentioned that current versions of the M16 no longer have full auto.

Storm Bringer

2013-02-06, 01:22 PM

Once you start not paying back your loans or even hurting the bankers themselves, you're going to have a very hard time getting any more money in the future.

That looks almost like "almost every common assault rifle there is"?
Maybe I should have asked how many there are with selective fire and including burst fire?

The actual question being more along the lines if full auto is still commonly used or only retained as a feature that might come in handy in some situations?

In Sub-machine guns it makes a lot of sense to have full auto. I think their main purpose to be used in tight spaces, where the compact size and short length really makes a difference. And at distances of 2 to 10 meters, recoil should be a severly smaller problem, while getting your target dead as close to instantly as you can becomes much more important. If you shot a rifleman at 50 meters and he's still alive and conscious for half an hour while lying in cover, that's not nearly as much as a problem as a guy with a handgun 3 meters away from you, who stays conscious for 10 seconds.
Do militaries even use SMGs, except for special forces and MP?

its not quite every assault rilfe, but to my knowledge all assault rifles have either full auto or 3 shot burst, or sometimes both. weapons of that calibre that are not capable of burst or full auto are just called rifles, not assualt rifles.

it doesn't help that in modern times, the term "battle rifle" has come into use to disribe the M14/G3/FN-FAL generations of semi-auto 7.62mm guns that were termed assault rifles at the time.

The actual question being more along the lines if full auto is still commonly used or only retained as a feature that might come in handy in some situations?

the latter, basically, at least in professional armies. I have, personally, only shot full auto a handful of times during my time in the army. the only time I know of it being standard is in CQB or assaulting a position.

most western armies place the emphasis on controled and aimed semi auto fire, with full auto used in certian siturations. or by a LMG gunner providing a base of fire. untrained militias, of coruse, do just empty mags in general direction of the enemy. a lot of times, the insurgents in Iraq or Afgan have been seen doing things straight out of Rambo flims, like spraying form the hip, guns held round corners, and other tricks not taught on a army firing range.

I've never handled them, but I've never heard of a submachinegun with burst fire. So many of the modern rifles have burst selection that I think it might be easier to list those that do not. Somebody already mentioned that current versions of the M16 no longer have full auto.

the MP5, one of the classic postwar western SMG's has 3-shot burst in at least some of it's models. it;s not common, but some do.

AMX

2013-02-06, 02:21 PM

Do militaries even use SMGs, except for special forces and MP?

Some still have them, but mostly, SMGs have been replaced with assault rifles.

Galloglaich

2013-02-06, 03:39 PM

They still have a few machine pistols like the FN P90 and that cool H&K one

G

Storm Bringer

2013-02-06, 03:41 PM

Some still have them, but mostly, SMGs have been replaced with assault rifles.

case in point: the brits, instead of adopting a PDW*, instead used the L22 version (http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_80_yaznP3lM/TTh5T3u3wcI/AAAAAAAABcw/7p3BQnBcTz4/s1600/L22A1.jpg) of their existing L85.

*for those who don't know, PDW= Personal Defense Weapon. a SMG/carbine sized gun firing above pistol calibre ammo, intended for rear area troops who need something more powerful than and SMG, but don't need a bulky, full sized assualt rifle. The P90 and the MP7 are both examples of this gun, and both use special, new ammo types to get the required armour pirecing abilty form small, light rounds. this has hampered thier uptake somewhat, as it would mean buying and addiing a new round into the supply chain (which armies these days are loath to do, due to the hundreds of millions of cold war era rounds they have stocked up).

Brother Oni

2013-02-06, 05:16 PM

*for those who don't know, PDW= Personal Defense Weapon. a SMG/carbine sized gun firing above pistol calibre ammo, intended for rear area troops who need something more powerful than and SMG, but don't need a bulky, full sized assualt rifle.

To expand a little here, it's not just rear area troops, but tank crews, chopper pilots and other people who have limited space but need something with a bit more grunt than a pistol/SMG if things go pear shaped.

Kalaska'Agathas

2013-02-06, 08:10 PM

To expand a little here, it's not just rear area troops, but tank crews, chopper pilots and other people who have limited space but need something with a bit more grunt than a pistol/SMG if things go pear shaped.

And, also, it needn't fire above pistol-caliber ammunition. Russia has developed an overpressure 9x19mm cartridge with a steel penetrator which offers PDW performance in a common cartridge, though to safely use it the weapon must be designed with higher operating pressure in mind.

Mike_G

2013-02-07, 08:38 AM

SMGs are used in very limited roles now. Back in WWII, when standard rifles were big and heavy and low capacity, and many armies used bolt action, that's just a bad weapon for close quarters, so a SMG is a good addition to a fire team or squad.

It's still good for CQB, but now that the standard arm is the assault rifle which is shorter, lighter, higher capacity and quicker firing, there's less need for the SMG. The assault rifle can be used at long range or short, the SMG really can't be used at long range, the pistol round just won't carry that far accurately and retain power. It also had less punch and can be defeated by body armor more easily.

I've fired both the old Thompson and a modern MP5. The Tommy gun is a lot of fun, but hard to control on long bursts. It's accurate enough firing semi auto or shirt bursts, but you need to use discipline on those, there's no burst setting.

The MP 5 is a joy to shoot. It's nice and maneuverable, there really isn't much recoil from the 9 mm round, and the operating is very simple and intuitive.

Yora

2013-02-07, 08:57 AM

case in point: the brits, instead of adopting a PDW*, instead used the L22 version (http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_80_yaznP3lM/TTh5T3u3wcI/AAAAAAAABcw/7p3BQnBcTz4/s1600/L22A1.jpg) of their existing L85.
That's where carbines come into play. I'm not sure how much the US still uses the "full size" M16, as they seem to focus more on the "compact" M16.
The G36 also comes in a "short" and a "compact" version and there is a short version of the AK-74 as well. And the entire point of bullpup designs is to achieve the very same result.
You have almost exactly the same parts, which is good for training and maintanance, but with a shorter barrel that doesn't get as much in the way when moving through tight spaces. There should be a slight decrease in accuracy (or was that precesion?), but I think combat ranges have become increasingly shorter in recent decades, so that shouldn't be too much of a downside, especially when you can expect to fight inside buildings. But you still have the full power of rifle cartridges.

Completely different question: What would be common weights for chainmail armor, both for the variant with full sleeves and legs, and the one with quarter-sleeves and a short skirt?

Spiryt

2013-02-07, 09:40 AM

Completely different question: What would be common weights for chainmail armor, both for the variant with full sleeves and legs, and the one with quarter-sleeves and a short skirt?

-About 15 pounds.

- Are you crazy? My mail is 40 pounds and still won't protect well from pollaxes on bohurt in Belarus....

And so on. :smallbiggrin:

Generally, we have really, really few even remotely complete mail suits from before ~ 1450, so answering that question can be very challenging.

There certainly were some "typical" combinations, but generally, everything will depend on rings size, wire thickness, construction etc.

Wallace Collection (http://wallacelive.wallacecollection.org/eMuseumPlus?service=ExternalInterface&module=collection&objectId=60492&viewType=detailView) has some roughly complete hauberks from XVth century, and weigh visibly varies a lot between similar examples.

Galloglaich

2013-02-07, 11:15 AM

-About 15 pounds.

- Are you crazy? My mail is 40 pounds and still won't protect well from pollaxes on bohurt in Belarus....

And so on. :smallbiggrin:

Generally, we have really, really few even remotely complete mail suits from before ~ 1450, so answering that question can be very challenging.

There certainly were some "typical" combinations, but generally, everything will depend on rings size, wire thickness, construction etc.

Wallace Collection (http://wallacelive.wallacecollection.org/eMuseumPlus?service=ExternalInterface&module=collection&objectId=60492&viewType=detailView) has some roughly complete hauberks from XVth century, and weigh visibly varies a lot between similar examples.

I agree it could vary a lot but based on what has survived I'm personally closer to the 15 lbs (or less) end of the spectrum like that very nice 10 lb shirt Spiryt linked above from the Wallace Collection. For a complete panoply covering the entire arms, legs, neck and so on, you might be closer to that 40 lbs.

But they did make mail with rings of various guage, some was steel especially later in the period which tended to be lighter and of smaller rings, most was iron which was by necessity a bit heavier.

But generally speaking most RPG's and computer games tend to badly overestimate how much mail weighs.

Of course the other thing is that mail was usually worn with textile armor, at least in any period where we can verify; often not just under the mail but also over the mail which seems to help a great deal with making the mail impervious to arrows.

Note for example in 'The Kings Mirror', section XXXVIII

The rider himself should be equipped in this wise: he should wear good soft breeches made of soft and thoroughly blackened linen cloth, which should reach up to the belt; outside these, good mail hose which should come up high enough to be girded on with a double strap; over these he must have good trousers made of linen cloth of the sort that I have already described; finally, over these he should have good knee-pieces made of thick iron and rivets hard as steel. Above and next to the body he should wear a soft gambison, which need not come lower than to the middle of, the thigh. Over this he must have a strong breastplate made of good iron covering the body from the nipples to the trousers belt; outside this, a well-made hauberk and over the hauberk a firm gambison made in the manner which I have already described but without sleeves.

Of course that is 13th Century so you are already getting into transitional / plate armor.

G

Spiryt

2013-02-07, 11:46 AM

I always thought that such really light mail like one from WC would obviously be one used mainly as addition to something - under breastplate or linen jack etc.

While actual standalone mail of earlier centuries, which was main protection, would be obviously more substantial.

Sadly, it just "sounds logical" - there's generally nothing about mail hauberk that really tells what was it intended use, sadly.

As far as King's Mirror goes, I wonder what exactly was "blackened linen". Somehow I doubt that one would care about colour that much. :smallwink:

Kalaska'Agathas

2013-02-07, 01:09 PM

That's where carbines come into play. I'm not sure how much the US still uses the "full size" M16, as they seem to focus more on the "compact" M16.
The G36 also comes in a "short" and a "compact" version and there is a short version of the AK-74 as well. And the entire point of bullpup designs is to achieve the very same result.
You have almost exactly the same parts, which is good for training and maintanance, but with a shorter barrel that doesn't get as much in the way when moving through tight spaces. There should be a slight decrease in accuracy (or was that precesion?), but I think combat ranges have become increasingly shorter in recent decades, so that shouldn't be too much of a downside, especially when you can expect to fight inside buildings. But you still have the full power of rifle cartridges.

The USMC still primarily uses the M16, the Army has mostly switched over to the M4. A shorter barrel will decrease precision and velocity (and, consequently, energy).

As to combat ranges, they have been generally getting shorter. However, recent experience in Afghanistan has shown a need for longer effective ranges, leading to a return to the larger 7.62x51mm cartridge.

Yora

2013-02-07, 01:12 PM

Joran

2013-02-07, 02:25 PM

The USMC still primarily uses the M16, the Army has mostly switched over to the M4. A shorter barrel will decrease precision and velocity (and, consequently, energy).

As to combat ranges, they have been generally getting shorter. However, recent experience in Afghanistan has shown a need for longer effective ranges, leading to a return to the larger 7.62x51mm cartridge.

I was about to ask what guns they were going to use, since the M-14 was the only U.S. standard issue rifle that I knew used the 7.62 NATO and I thought it was out of date.

Then Wikipedia came to the rescue: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mk_14_Enhanced_Battle_Rifle

Galloglaich

2013-02-07, 03:02 PM

I should probably have instead asked how much a complete set of armor weighs and not just the mail shirt itself.
That's actually a bit like asking for the weight of a tank without the gun, fuel, ammunition, and crew, which is quite a different thing.

It depends on the amount of coverage, say, anywhere from 40% (torso and head) to 95% (everything but the eyes) which might range in weight from 15 -20 lbs all the way up to 60 lbs or more for mail.

For plate armor the range is probably something like 20 lbs on the light side to around 80 lbs for a full 'heavy' Milanese harness, whereas some of the lighter Gothic harness (which may lack protection for the back of the legs or thigh) could be as low as 30 -40 lbs for basically cap-a-pied protection.

I always thought that such really light mail like one from WC would obviously be one used mainly as addition to something - under breastplate or linen jack etc.

While actual standalone mail of earlier centuries, which was main protection, would be obviously more substantial.

There is a lot of debate if mail was ever worn or used without textile armor - I have my doubts about that. But I've seen a bunch of tests done with light, pretty good (not great, but pretty good) quality riveted mail armor which seemed almost impervious to every some pretty good swords, though the late -medieval type swords with very narrow points could get inside of a ring.

Like this series of tests by ARMA Hellas

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YbJ6_KoXvqM

Sadly, it just "sounds logical" - there's generally nothing about mail hauberk that really tells what was it intended use, sadly.

I think that depends a lot on the period, we do have graves (Towton, Wisby) where bodies were found with armor, in some cases including traces of the textiles, and plenty of literary (records, accounts) evidence of what people wore and how it was made from as far back as the 10th Century. In Northern Europe before that it gets a little more rare but we still do have data.

Consider for example this account from Usamah Ibn Munquidh

"In the morning we found ourselves near Dumayr. Salah-al Din (Saladin)
said to me 'Shall we not dismount and eat something? I am hungry and have
been up all night.' I replied 'I shall do what thou orderest.' So we
dismounted, and no sooner than we had set foot on the ground, when he said
'Where is thy jerkin?' Upon my order, my attendant produced it. Taking it
out from it's leather bag, I took my knife and ripped it at the breast and
disclosed the side of the two coats of mail. The jerkin enclosed a Frankish
coat of mail extending to the bottom of it, with another coat on top reaching
as far as the middle. Both were equipped with the proper linings, felt
pads, rough silk, and rabbits hair."

They were still using mostly mail armor on both sides in this period (1190 AD) but it seems to have been remarkably effective...

“By this time the vanguard of the Frankish horsemen had reached me, so I retired before them, turning back my lance in their direction and my eyes toward them lest some one of their horse should prove to quick for me and pierce me with his lance. In front of me were some of our companions, and we were surrounded by gardens with walls as high as a sitting man. My mare hit wit it’s breast one of our companions, so I turned it’s head to the left and applied the spurs to it’s sides, whereupon it leaped over the wall. I so regulated my position until I stood on a level with the Franks. The wall only separated us. One of their horsemen hastened to me, displaying his colors in a green and yellow silk tunic, under which I thought was no coat of mail. I therefore let him alone until he passed me. Then I applied my spurs to my mare, which leapt over the wall, and I smote him with the lance. He bent sideways so much that his head reached the stirrup, his shield and lance fell off his hand, and his helmet off his head. By that time we had reached our infantry. He then resumed his position, erect in the saddle. Having had linked mail under his tunic, my lance did not wound him. His companions caught up to him, all returned together, and the footman recovered his shield, lance, and helmet.”

-An Arab-Syrian Gentleman and Warrior in the period of the Crusades. Usamah Ibn-Minqidh, 12th Century AD

That sounds like a pretty hard hit to me!

As far as King's Mirror goes, I wonder what exactly was "blackened linen". Somehow I doubt that one would care about colour that much.

Yeah I was wondering about that too. I have a theory which exists on a rather thin thread; in the Hebrides and Orkneys and in certain parts of Scotland and Ireland, where Norse-Gaelic Galloglass mercenaires were operating as late as the 16th Century (or maybe later, 17th?) there were some references to a special type of 'aketon' which was covered in pitch, apparently as a form of waterproofing. Which would make a lot of sense for wearing something like that in a damp climate or on ship-board, a textile armor would get waterlogged pretty easily and rot if exposed to the rain for a long time.

The blackened linen might be something like that. The Galloglass were linked to Scandinavian immigrant culture and they still used mail armor quite late.

G

Cerlis

2013-02-07, 03:05 PM

Spiryt

2013-02-07, 03:32 PM

There was misunderstanding, I also think that some textile armor, or at least, substantial, thick textile would be most probably worn under mail.

I'm just wondering, if mail hauberk worn under breastplate, or coat of plates, like this would be usually done, wouldn't be much lighter than 'standalone' main defense one worn only with aketon/gambeson/whatever.

Such really fine 10 pound ones from Wallace collection got my interest here.

That would make plenty of sense, because everyone only had one spine, but haven't ever seen any actual evidence.

Kalaska'Agathas

2013-02-07, 03:57 PM

I was about to ask what guns they were going to use, since the M-14 was the only U.S. standard issue rifle that I knew used the 7.62 NATO and I thought it was out of date.

Then Wikipedia came to the rescue: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mk_14_Enhanced_Battle_Rifle

There's also the Mk. 11/SR-25 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SR-25), the M110 SASS (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M110_Semi-Automatic_Sniper_System), and the Mk. 17 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FN_SCAR), in service with various units.

Mike_G

2013-02-07, 04:41 PM

The old M 14 is still in limited use as well.

Matthew

2013-02-07, 09:44 PM

Yeah I think that happened quite often, especially with English knights who often fought on foot.

Late to say so, but the Battle of the Standard is my favourite example of knights fighting with cut down lances.

Thiel

2013-02-08, 02:44 AM

Yeah I was wondering about that too. I have a theory which exists on a rather thin thread; in the Hebrides and Orkneys and in certain parts of Scotland and Ireland, where Norse-Gaelic Galloglass mercenaires were operating as late as the 16th Century (or maybe later, 17th?) there were some references to a special type of 'aketon' which was covered in pitch, apparently as a form of waterproofing. Which would make a lot of sense for wearing something like that in a damp climate or on ship-board, a textile armor would get waterlogged pretty easily and rot if exposed to the rain for a long time.

The blackened linen might be something like that. The Galloglass were linked to Scandinavian immigrant culture and they still used mail armor quite late.

G

Sounds a lot like oilskin. Take your sailcloth of choice and stitch it into a set of loose fitting clothes then cover it in pitch. It was used as late as the 1940ies at least. The reason you used sail cloth was that it was very common and quite cheap since you could make an entire suit of oilies out of scraps. In Scandinavia wool remained the sail cloth of choice for a long time. Im not sure how far back it dates, but the materials were in common use on Viking ships so it's not much of a stretch to assume the Vikings knew how to make it. If that's the case then I'd be very surprised if they didn't wear it on land.

Brother Oni

2013-02-08, 06:24 AM

I was wondering about how many miles the average traveler would cover in a day using a wagon or horse. This is assuming non rushed and camping to sleep.

Trying to figure out how big the adventuring area should be. I dont want it to take more than a week or two to get to the edge of the plains.

This is highly dependent on the pace, terrain, numbers and how much travelling time a day.

I've read for a modern holidays with a horse drawn caravan, they cover 7-20km in 2-5 hours on roads. A wagon drawn at walking pace (4mph) would cover the same distance as a man on foot, while trotting (~8mph) can be maintained for several hours over a few days with ease depending on load of the wagon.

On horseback, I've seen values of 20-100 miles for a lone traveller in a day's travel, depending on how hard they push their horse.

Usually the larger the numbers of travellers, the slower the pace since getting everybody organised is an issue, but there are exceptions: a Mongol army covered 180 miles in 3 days before the battle of Mohi (they use multiple horses to allow them to set a high pace).

I'd set it to be ~200 miles for a week's travel on decent terrain at a leisurely pace (30 miles a day) for a small group of people on horseback. With a medium loaded wagon, probably about 25 miles a day.

GraaEminense

2013-02-08, 07:27 AM

For what it´s worth, I´ve also heard the interpretation of "blackened linen" as linen cloth covered in pitch or tar. It does fit reasonably well with both the modern Norwegian and the old Norse meaning, and it makes some sense as armour as well -in addition to waterproofing, "blackening" cloth would seem to greatly increase friction, making it more resistant to arrows in particular.

For wear over mail, I could see the use.

Massive amounts of disclaimers: I have not actually tried to blacken a gambeson and shoot it full of arrows, nor have I seen such a test done.

Mathis

2013-02-08, 08:09 AM

Galloglaich

2013-02-08, 10:55 AM

This is highly dependent on the pace, terrain, numbers and how much travelling time a day.

I've read for a modern holidays with a horse drawn caravan, they cover 7-20km in 2-5 hours on roads. A wagon drawn at walking pace (4mph) would cover the same distance as a man on foot, while trotting (~8mph) can be maintained for several hours over a few days with ease depending on load of the wagon.

On horseback, I've seen values of 20-100 miles for a lone traveller in a day's travel, depending on how hard they push their horse.

Usually the larger the numbers of travellers, the slower the pace since getting everybody organised is an issue, but there are exceptions: a Mongol army covered 180 miles in 3 days before the battle of Mohi (they use multiple horses to allow them to set a high pace).

I'd set it to be ~200 miles for a week's travel on decent terrain at a leisurely pace (30 miles a day) for a small group of people on horseback. With a medium loaded wagon, probably about 25 miles a day.

One thing to add to this, is the reality of the horses. Horses can't ride forever, and different horses have different capabilities vis a vis riding. Most people "back in the day" in Europe anyway would try to get a horse with an ambling gait for traveling, which is a special sort of fast-walk (very interesting to watch, they still have some icelandic ponies which can do this)

See the 'Tolt' starting at 1:51:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ijnYlcJQ6w

Notice the rider was holding a beer while riding without spilling it, the ambling gait was very easy on both the horse and the rider.

that a horse can maintain for a long time. But even amblers can only walk for so long, they have to be watered and fed, and horses have to be allowed to cool down especially if they have been running, or else they just die. Horses can only run for so long, it varies by breed and I am no horse expert, but I think it ranges from something like an hour to a few hours. Not all day and all night like you typically get in genre fiction. None of this ever seems to be represented in RPG's or computer games.

Like Brother Oni said to deal with this problem in real life the Mongols used to bring a string of many horses per rider, sometimes as many as six per rider, in order to be able to sustain a fast pace on the march. This was one strategy also used by others in Europe and Central Asia, (a knight for example would often have an ambler for travelling, a courser for scouting / war, and a charger for war as well as pack horses or mules) but obviously there was a downside (care and maintenance / feeding of 6 horses per rider), another strategy was to walk more and ride the horse less.

G

Galloglaich

2013-02-08, 11:00 AM

Sounds a lot like oilskin. Take your sailcloth of choice and stitch it into a set of loose fitting clothes then cover it in pitch. It was used as late as the 1940ies at least. The reason you used sail cloth was that it was very common and quite cheap since you could make an entire suit of oilies out of scraps. In Scandinavia wool remained the sail cloth of choice for a long time. Im not sure how far back it dates, but the materials were in common use on Viking ships so it's not much of a stretch to assume the Vikings knew how to make it. If that's the case then I'd be very surprised if they didn't wear it on land.

For what it´s worth, I´ve also heard the interpretation of "blackened linen" as linen cloth covered in pitch or tar. It does fit reasonably well with both the modern Norwegian and the old Norse meaning, and it makes some sense as armour as well -in addition to waterproofing, "blackening" cloth would seem to greatly increase friction, making it more resistant to arrows in particular.

Yah that is very interesting, thanks for chiming in with that. I think this is probably the meaning then. Good to know.

I can also see using linen for this instead of wool when it comes to armor because you get so hot so quickly when fighting, even in cold weather.

G

Mike_G

2013-02-08, 12:07 PM

One thing to add to this, is the reality of the horses. Horses can't ride forever, and different horses have different capabilities vis a vis riding. Most people "back in the day" in Europe anyway would try to get a horse with an ambling gait for traveling, which is a special sort of fast-walk (very interesting to watch, they still have some icelandic ponies which can do this)

See the 'Tolt' starting at 1:51:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ijnYlcJQ6w

Notice the rider was holding a beer while riding without spilling it, the ambling gait was very easy on both the horse and the rider.

that a horse can maintain for a long time. But even amblers can only walk for so long, they have to be watered and fed, and horses have to be allowed to cool down especially if they have been running, or else they just die. Horses can only run for so long, it varies by breed and I am no horse expert, but I think it ranges from something like an hour to a few hours. Not all day and all night like you typically get in genre fiction. None of this ever seems to be represented in RPG's or computer games.

Like Brother Oni said to deal with this problem in real life the Mongols used to bring a string of many horses per rider, sometimes as many as six per rider, in order to be able to sustain a fast pace on the march. This was one strategy also used by others in Europe and Central Asia, (a knight for example would often have an ambler for travelling, a courser for scouting / war, and a charger for war as well as pack horses or mules) but obviously there was a downside (care and maintenance / feeding of 6 horses per rider), another strategy was to walk more and ride the horse less.

G

Infantry can actually move faster on a sustained march over rough terrain than mounted troops, because men need less rest per hour marching than horses do.

This assumes good light infantry, in decent shape, used to marching.

Spiryt

2013-02-08, 12:28 PM

How much would a height advantage for a unit of archers positioned on a hill say 50 meters, or 100, or 200 meters higher than the ground below it benefit this unit if they were firing down on a similar unit of archers on flat ground firing up at them?

Would the units on the higher ground recieve an advantage from added momentum since they are firing downwards, and not upwards? If so does anyone know how much, or how I could calculate the difference?

Could someone explain to me what exactly the benefits of firing from a high ground are? I think I know, but I've been proven wrong so many times that I'd like to hear it from someone with some proper experience.

They would obviously benefit from greater range. Details will really hugely depend on fletching, bow, arrow spine, angle, wind etc. But from 50 meter elevation, at least 20-some meters of additional flight can be obtained.

I'm not sure if any 'additional' momentum would be really acquirable, but certainly momentum losses would be much lower - arrow actually has some gravity on it's side the whole time, so losses due to friction and vibrations are diminished.

While shooting upwards, effect is obviously reverse - arrow looses velocity rapidly while flying up - and it doesn't have any time to gain some of it back.

Beleriphon

2013-02-08, 12:35 PM

Infantry can actually move faster on a sustained march over rough terrain than mounted troops, because men need less rest per hour marching than horses do.

This assumes good light infantry, in decent shape, used to marching.

However, infantry can't care 200 pounds of gear each and still march. So there is that. Horses for long distance travel for warfare are much better for carrying heavy loads at a moderate pace. If you really want to haul truly massive loads you use oxen, but then you're moving at an absolute crawl.

Galloglaich

2013-02-08, 01:41 PM

I think they used mules and burro's a lot for carrying supplies, as well as horses and sometimes oxen pulling wagons.

G

Galloglaich

2013-02-08, 04:27 PM

Leo shooting a Balestrino. I never realized from all the photo's I'd seen how small these things were

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=se_N8CrooPY&feature=youtu.be

G

fusilier

2013-02-09, 05:13 AM

However, infantry can't care 200 pounds of gear each and still march. So there is that. Horses for long distance travel for warfare are much better for carrying heavy loads at a moderate pace. If you really want to haul truly massive loads you use oxen, but then you're moving at an absolute crawl.

Infantry can carry a fair amount of equipment on their backs. A horse can carry more than *a* infantryman, but it may be cost effective to have more infantry (especially if you are expecting horses to carry soldiers as well). Discipline, health, and motivation are factors, although health is also a factor for horses and mules. Well trained and/or motivated infantry can sustain hard marching (i.e. over several days) better than horses. The traditional response among cavalry is to have spare horses, but that might be costly. Generally speaking infantry survives "force marches" much better than cavalry.

As a side note, during WW1 there were positions on the Italian Front where everything had to be brought in on foot, they couldn't even get pack mules up there. When the war ended the equipment was often left behind, because it was too hard to retrieve. This has resulted in small war "museums" in difficult to reach caves that only rock climbers can visit. :-)

Brother Oni

2013-02-10, 01:57 PM

Leo shooting a Balestrino. I never realized from all the photo's I'd seen how small these things were

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=se_N8CrooPY&feature=youtu.be

G

The scary thing I found was that he could take the bow down in about a minute, along with the extremely inconspicuous readying with the screw jack. I can see how they were termed assassin's bows.

Infantry can carry a fair amount of equipment on their backs. A horse can carry more than *a* infantryman, but it may be cost effective to have more infantry (especially if you are expecting horses to carry soldiers as well). Discipline, health, and motivation are factors, although health is also a factor for horses and mules. Well trained and/or motivated infantry can sustain hard marching (i.e. over several days) better than horses. The traditional response among cavalry is to have spare horses, but that might be costly. Generally speaking infantry survives "force marches" much better than cavalry.

Expanding on this a bit, the Roman Legion usually managed ~25 miles a day on force marches, 15-18 on normal. This is including setting up camp (with fortifications) at the end of the day.

The optimal weight carried by fighting infantry was found early on and has remained pretty much stable at about 60lbs since antiquity.

As a side note, during WW1 there were positions on the Italian Front where everything had to be brought in on foot, they couldn't even get pack mules up there.

Unless you're Polish and thus had Private Wojtek (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wojtek_%28soldier_bear%29) on your side. :smallbiggrin:

Galloglaich

2013-02-11, 12:22 AM

Unless you're Polish and thus had Private Wojtek (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wojtek_%28soldier_bear%29) on your side. :smallbiggrin:

That is ... an amazingly wonderful story. And really, a continuation of an old tradition isn't it? In the Medieval period (and before, presumably) many armies adopted bears as their symbol, and used to keep actual bears. I know it was the mascot, so to speak, of the Swiss city of Berne and their militia (see below) and also of the Samogitians in Lithuania. I believe it was also pretty common in Poland as well in various places.

Very amusing, thanks for posting!

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/2d/Schilling%2C_Spiezer_Chronik%2C_Bern_im_Laupenkrie g.jpg/406px-Schilling%2C_Spiezer_Chronik%2C_Bern_im_Laupenkrie g.jpg
In Switzerland, even the bears carry longswords!

G

Brother Oni

2013-02-11, 02:30 PM

That is ... an amazingly wonderful story.

You're welcome. :smallbiggrin:

Some more links have been added to the Wikipedia article since I last read it and you're correct that other regiments had animal mascots, such as bears, but Wojtek was the only one to be formally inducted into the Polish Army (apparently when the British said 'no animals', the Poles made him a private then waved the recruitment papers at the British officials as they boarded the ship :smallbiggrin:).

I'm a big fan of little footnotes in history like these, something that adds a little quirkiness or human touches to the big sweeping events of history, like the hapless Korean conscripts that were captured by the Allies on D-Day (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yang_Kyoungjong).

Saph

2013-02-12, 08:37 AM

Raum

2013-02-12, 09:05 AM

A question for the military types (since I know you visit this thread!):

What would the effective range for a modern pistol/SMG and for a modern rifle/assault rifle be for the following rough classes of gun user?

• Novice (no marksmanship training at all)
• Hobbyist (someone who shoots occasionally on an amateur basis)
• Professional (competent infantryman)

By 'effective range' I mean the distance at which the shooter can hit a man-sized target with at least 50% accuracy.Not sure I'd call 50% effective. ;) It really depends on what type of shooting we're talking about - a static target at a range with all the time in the world; a speed competition where time matters; or a stress situation where you may well be a target as well?

As an ex-military hobbyist who shoots at amateur Steel Challenge and USPSA matches, I can hit multiple targets at 25 yards with very few misses. At a static range with no time pressure I can hit a silhouette target at 25 yards 20 of 20 shots. Do note, this is with a pistol not an SMG. Don't use an SMG if you want targeted shooting. :smalltongue:

I've taught friends to shoot at a static range. It doesn't take long to get them on target at 10 yards. Past that it's a matter of practice, getting used to the mechanics, and refining small movements.

Edit: For stress situations Fairbairn & Sykes' Shooting to Live, Jeff Cooper's Principles of Personal Defense, and even Paul Kirchner's Jim Cirillo's Tales of the Stakeout Squad are worth reading.

Mike_G

2013-02-12, 12:19 PM

A question for the military types (since I know you visit this thread!):

What would the effective range for a modern pistol/SMG and for a modern rifle/assault rifle be for the following rough classes of gun user?

• Novice (no marksmanship training at all)
• Hobbyist (someone who shoots occasionally on an amateur basis)
• Professional (competent infantryman)

By 'effective range' I mean the distance at which the shooter can hit a man-sized target with at least 50% accuracy.

Pistols can be accurate within 10 yards with some quick instruction. Nobody shoots a pistol very well over thirty yards. The biggest aspect of training is learning to aim under pressure. Pistol fights are at close quarters, which is scary. People tend to panic and jerk the trigger. SMGs are great under 30 yards. Using one semi auto, you can hit a static target easily. Short bursts are good if you are dealing with moving targets at close range.

Rifles take lots of training to get good. Marine Corps recruits are trained to shoot --without a scope-- at man sized targets out to 500 yards. We don't use anything under 200 yards for qualification. If you miss a static target at less than 200 yards under range conditions, we make fun of you and give you directions to the nearest Army recruiter.

But for a total novice, rifles should be accurate under fifty yards.

All these ranges are for a stationary target and no rushing the shot. If you are shooting a a guy who is running and dodging and shooting back, the accuracy goes down very fast.

Brother Oni

2013-02-12, 01:36 PM

Further to these excellent posts, the longest range shots should be mentioned as the upper limit for effective range: link (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longest_recorded_sniper_kills).

Apparently for the longest range shot listed there (2.815km), the round was in flight for 6 seconds.

I know for Cpl Harrison's shot (2.475km), he was aiming something like 30 degrees off the target to account for the wind and I think he said it took him about 6 shots to zero in on the targets.

These are with specialised sniper rifles though - more general purpose rifles would have the ranges listed by Mike_G. It's worth noting however that the US Marine Corp tends to treat marksmanship like a religion and take it very seriously.

I had a bit of training with the cadet version of the SA80 and I could put a 4" grouping on a figure 11 at 100m with iron sights (it was with the RTR, so Mike_G's well within his rights to laugh at me), so the estimation of 50 yards for a novice is accurate.

Doing research for your next book, Saph? :smallbiggrin:

Saph

2013-02-12, 03:23 PM

Doing research for your next book, Saph? :smallbiggrin:

That too. :smallbiggrin: This is for my Alex Verus RPG system. It's actually getting close to done.

Galloglaich

2013-02-12, 05:15 PM

Given the same amount of training (average soldier in a modern army) and aiming time (say 1-3 seconds) I think you could further subdivide shooting 'from the hip' or at least 'from kneeling' and 'from standing' positions vs. prone, the latter is much easier to hit things from, especially prone / supported. I'd take a wild guess that 'from the hip' means about 10% accuracy, kneeling about 50%, standing 75%, prone 100%, and prone-supported maybe 120%

You could also probably subdivide modern 'assault rifles' like the M4, which tend to be short and have relatively short barrels, with earlier generation 'assault rifles' (M-16) and the still earlier generations of full sized 'battle rifles', today represented by the M-14 family, as well as deer rifles and so on.

The latter have arguably an effective range more in the 400-600 meter range, maybe 800 or more with a prone-supported position and a scope, whereas the M4 is probably best under 300 meters.

Some of the really long barreled rifles of the WW I era, Mauser K98 ad so on, probably could push the range out even a bit further. They even designed them to be able to do long range volley fire (the long range sights) at ranges up to 1000 meters and more though I doubt they were ever used that way.

A tripod mounted machine gun can fairly easily hit targets 1000 meters and more.

G

Saph

2013-02-12, 06:16 PM

Brother Oni

2013-02-12, 07:23 PM

A tripod mounted machine gun can fairly easily hit targets 1000 meters and more.

That's less sniping and more hitting things via probability and saturation fire. :smalltongue:

Do these numbers look anywhere near right?

Are those ranges in feet or yards?

Mike_G

2013-02-12, 07:24 PM

Hmm, okay. More specific question:

The current system I'm using has the range increment of the firearm multiplied by the wielder's skill rank (meaning that more skilled shooters can shoot a lot further). Do these numbers look anywhere near right? Bear in mind that the system's VERY abstract and I'm deliberately averaging gun categories together for the sake of simplicity (the only ones I've really got are 'handgun' and 'long gun').

Novice range:

Pistol: 20' short, 40' long, 80' extreme
Rifle: 100' short, 200' long, 400' extreme

Amateur range:

Pistol: 60' short, 120' long, 240' extreme
Rifle: 300' short, 600' long, 1200' extreme

Professional range:

Pistol: 100' short, 200' long, 400' extreme
Rifle: 500' short, 1000' long, 2000' extreme

The pistol ranges seem a bit long. Over 100 yards with a pistol is a hell of a shot for anybody. I'd say you can cut the pistol ranges in half across the board.

The rifle ranges seem ok, assuming a good firing position and plenty of time to aim. That's pretty long if you're talking about shooting moving targets in a combat situation. If there are going to be penalties for moving targets or cover or moving while shooting these aren't bad as a baseline.

As has been said, there are better and worse rifles. A short assault rifle is a lot less accurate than a sniper rifle, but it's all down to how complex you want to go. For back-of-the-envelope stuff, I'd keep the rifle ranges as is and cut the pistol ranges down by at least a third, maybe half.

Saph

2013-02-12, 07:27 PM

Are those ranges in feet or yards?

Ranges are in feet, sorry.

(Yes, there are additional penalties for movement/cover – this is for hitting a standing stationary target).

Joran

2013-02-12, 11:42 PM

That's less sniping and more hitting things via probability and saturation fire. :smalltongue:

The thing that always blew my mind was that the cartridge for the largest sniper rifles, .50 BMG (Browning Machine Gun), is the cartridge for the M2 heavy machine gun.

Apparently, some soldiers even mounted telescopic scopes to the M2 to make it into a sniper rifle. Carlos Hathcock scored a kill a 2,500 yards with one; a record that held up for awhile.

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

A question for the military types (since I know you visit this thread!):

What would the effective range for a modern pistol/SMG and for a modern rifle/assault rifle be for the following rough classes of gun user?

• Novice (no marksmanship training at all)
• Hobbyist (someone who shoots occasionally on an amateur basis)
• Professional (competent infantryman)

By 'effective range' I mean the distance at which the shooter can hit a man-sized target with at least 50% accuracy.

I just hit the gun range for the first time. Up until then, my overall familiarity with guns was only with video games. We had a 45 minute class on safety as well as the general sight picture (how to line up the sights with the target) and then were let loose on the range with .22 pistols.

Firing at 10.5"x12" targets (about the size of center of my chest), my friends and I could easily hit all pistol shots into the target and about 75% in the 5.5" diameter center at 25-30' after about 25 practice rounds. This is of course with very careful aiming with a couple seconds before each shot.

I doubt we'd be able to get anywhere near that accuracy with a gun that could actually stop someone (.22 bullets are tiny) nor if told to fire quickly.

Straybow

2013-02-12, 11:53 PM

Novice range:

Pistol: 20' short, 40' long, 80' extreme
Rifle: 100' short, 200' long, 400' extreme

Amateur range:

Pistol: 60' short, 120' long, 240' extreme
Rifle: 300' short, 600' long, 1200' extreme

Professional range:

Pistol: 100' short, 200' long, 400' extreme
Rifle: 500' short, 1000' long, 2000' extreme

The pistol ranges seem a bit long. Over 100 yards with a pistol is a hell of a shot for anybody. I'd say you can cut the pistol ranges in half across the board.
Yes, that would be more realistic. And we're talking about hitting a full silhouette, not just a circular "bullseye" target, so you have novices aiming CoM and hitting 'em in the shins. :smallsmile:

Spiryt

2013-02-13, 08:12 AM

Xuc Xac

2013-02-13, 09:04 AM

Shooting targets on a practice range is much, much easier than shooting someone in a real combat situation. When you're in a real firefight, the target doesn't want to be hit and can move and shoot back. How accurate do you think you can be when a large burly man is holding your arms and vigorously shaking you while you try to aim? That's what adrenaline does to you.

Mike_G

2013-02-13, 09:08 AM

I guess my complete lack of experience, partially due to dead firearm tradition over here, :smallfrown: is really showing, but I've always found those pistol ranges surprisingly short...

I mean 20 yards is like no distance, I can hit rather small stuff at that range. Let alone airgun - I can throw a damn stick at target from that distance, or even hit it pretty reliably with a bow, and I'm pretty terrible archer.

So what gives, that with weapon that has so (relatively) flat trajectory, is easy to move around and aim, and requires like almost no fitness to shoot once etc. it's hard to hit human sized target?

A handgun that throws a decent sized round jerks your hand a lot more than an airgun. A .22 target pistol is great for punching holes in a paper target, but if you shoot somebody with it, you'll just make him mad.

Handgun fights are all at close range. Chances are you are full of adrenaline since there's a guy within ten feet of you trying to kill you, so you aren't taking a second to aim. If you look at ranges for handgun shootings, they're all short, most involve people emptying the gun, and people miss mroe than they hit.

On a pistol range, 25 yards is a respectable distance. Using a proper stance, taking your time and aiming, you can probably learn to hit a man sized target. But most fights happen at half that range, and most pistol shots miss.

Brother Oni

2013-02-13, 09:21 AM

So what gives, that with weapon that has so (relatively) flat trajectory, is easy to move around and aim, and requires like almost no fitness to shoot once etc. it's hard to hit human sized target?

Mike_G's already listed the primary reason - short ranged gun fights are scary, thus your accuracy is already at sub-par with you moving, jerking the trigger instead of squeezing it gently (causes pistol movement), target moving, etc.

The cross section of a round is also relatively small, so while you may think it's easy to hit such a close target, a couple of degrees off and you've missed (I've heard reports of insurgents bursting into a room, unloading their rifles on full auto and not hitting a thing).

Additionally a pistol also has a short barrel, thus long ranged accuracy is poor, plus potential round deformation or rifiling effects can make for a very un-aerodynamic projectile (early versions of the M16 used to make their rounds tumble in mid-air, causing additional damage but making them very inaccurate).
The latter two effects also affect rifle rounds, but the increased barrel length helps to alleviate that. Sniper rifles in particular also tend to get the best quality ammo (referred to as 'green spot' in British forces, which are the first few hundred rounds off a brand new set of tooling) to help with round flight consistency (it would be the equivalent of inconsistent draw length and mis-matched arrows with archery), but I'm not aware of such a thing for pistols.

I'm sure the more experienced shooters have more reasons that will explain the difference.

Spiryt

2013-02-13, 09:27 AM

Oh, any kind of 'real' situation is completely different matter and out of question.

I'm talking about sheer 'technical', shooting range results, like in this thread and so many other discussions.

A handgun that throws a decent sized round jerks your hand a lot more than an airgun.

This doesn't obviously have any effect on that round. Will make aiming the next one properly much more difficult though.

Mike_G

2013-02-13, 09:39 AM

Oh, any kind of 'real' situation is completely different matter and out of question.

I'm talking about sheer 'technical', shooting range results, like in this thread and so many other discussions.

This doesn't obviously have any effect on that round. Will make aiming the next one properly much more difficult though.

It does, though.

Your hand and the gun are moving before the round exits the barrel. And it doesn't take much movement to nudge that round off target.

It's a lot easier to put .22 rounds in the black than .44 rounds at the same range, and that's all down to recoil.

Other than going to a pistol range and seeing just how hard it is to put big rounds on target, I can't offer you much more than "Trust me."

Saph

2013-02-13, 09:51 AM

The pistol ranges seem a bit long. Over 100 yards with a pistol is a hell of a shot for anybody. I'd say you can cut the pistol ranges in half across the board.

Sounds good! That'll give a base range increment of 10' for pistols and 100' for rifles, then.

Interesting that rifles have such a longer effective range than pistols – I'd expected a figure of 2x or 4x, not 10x.

Spiryt

2013-02-13, 10:20 AM

It does, though.

Your hand and the gun are moving before the round exits the barrel. And it doesn't take much movement to nudge that round off target.

I find it hard to believe...

Even with very slow bullets, they cover that few inches of barrel in like 1/400 of second.

Even with such damn ancient device, bullet is already few inches from barrel before hand starts to jerk to any noticeable degree.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Um9Eos9bJDk

Interesting that rifles have such a longer effective range than pistols – I'd expected a figure of 2x or 4x, not 10x.

Well, proper rifle bullets tend to have much, much flatter trajectory, due to more 'optimal' shape and being much faster than pistol ones - usually by like 2 times.

And there's few times longer aiming line from eye to the end of the barrel as well, so that's not so surprising.

Brother Oni

2013-02-13, 11:33 AM

Interesting that rifles have such a longer effective range than pistols – I'd expected a figure of 2x or 4x, not 10x.

I think it's less that rifles are so much better and more that pistols are that bad.

I find it hard to believe...

Even with very slow bullets, they cover that few inches of barrel in like 1/400 of second.

Even with such damn ancient device, bullet is already few inches from barrel before hand starts to jerk to any noticeable degree.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Um9Eos9bJDk

You do realise that looks like an Old West era pistol, which tend to have little recoil and it's a revolver (less moving parts)?

With something a bit more modern and powerful, you can see the recoil effects: 1911 pistol (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MxyDt3nDf2A).

I suppose we could start talking about how and when the recoil starts propogating and whether the round clears the barrel before the recoil force overcomes the pressure threshold of your grip, but Mike_G's suggestion of going down the range and seeing for yourself is probably the best proof.

Spiryt

2013-02-13, 11:54 AM

I think it's less that rifles are so much better and more that pistols are that bad.

You do realise that looks like an Old West era pistol, which tend to have little recoil and it's a revolver (less moving parts)?

With something a bit more modern and powerful, you can see the recoil effects: 1911 pistol (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MxyDt3nDf2A).

I suppose we could start talking about how and when the recoil starts propogating and whether the round clears the barrel before the recoil force overcomes the pressure threshold of your grip, but Mike_G's suggestion of going down the range and seeing for yourself is probably the best proof.

Uh, I'm not sure why should they have 'less recoil' - they had comparable barrels, bullets, while they were pretty light.

Power doesn't have anything at all to do with it - question is whether any movement of barrel/pistol, hand etc. starts before bullet leaves the barrel.

This video of Colt 1911 doesn't really show anything, not quite enough slowing down.

I keep reading everywhere that recoil doesn't have any significant effect on the bullet causing it at all - physics itself suggest so as well.

Force starts to act on the gun itself at the moment of ignition, but it takes way more time to accelerate the gun supported by arms that to acc. the bullet. Thus the effect will usually be rather negligible.

http://www.ar15.com/archive/topic.html?b=1&f=5&t=495048

That's at least what I keep reading, as well.

I can be wrong, but going to some shooting, even if I had opportunity wouldn't tell me anything. Quite a lot of time would have to pass before I could distinguish effect of recoil on my inaccuracy. :smalltongue:

AMX

2013-02-13, 11:58 AM

Recoil may be negligible, but your own movements are not.

Spiryt

2013-02-13, 12:01 PM

Recoil may be negligible, but your own movements are not.

Well, I have never claimed otherwise. Just pointing out that movement due to recoil obviously cannot really affect trajectory of that particular bullet that caused the recoil.

Galloglaich

2013-02-13, 12:19 PM

I don't know the exact physics of it, but I spent a lot of time at the pistol range when I was a medic in the army (used to do that for a detail). It's like Mike_G said, if you jerk the trigger you miss, if you flinch you miss, the more recoil (and even noise) there is the more likely this is to happen especially with inexperienced shooters.

G

Mike_G

2013-02-13, 12:22 PM

I'm not a physicist. I don't know what physics says the heavier round should do to your aim.

But I'm a damn fine shot, and I'll tell you that a larger round with more recoil throws off your accuracy much more than a small round with no recoil.

To bastardize Hamlet: Get thee to a gunnery.

Mike_G

2013-02-13, 12:35 PM

I can be wrong, but going to some shooting, even if I had opportunity wouldn't tell me anything. Quite a lot of time would have to pass before I could distinguish effect of recoil on my inaccuracy. :smalltongue:

You'd be surprised. With a light target pistol, like a .22, it's very easy to learn to put rounds on target. Then try a bigger round, like one that would actually be used in combat. So at least a 9mm. All else being equal, your accuracy will be much, much worse.

With a .22, I can put rounds in the bull's eye all day at 10 yards. With a .45 I can hit a man sized target somewhere but I would never bet on nailing a head shot at that range.

I assumed it was recoil moving the gun as it fired. Maybe it's something else, but whatever it is, it's there, it affects pretty much everybody and it affects every shot, not just second shots.

JustSomeGuy

2013-02-13, 12:45 PM

Raum

2013-02-13, 06:56 PM

I find it hard to believe...
Take a look at this video - about 1:44 in (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_LyyyG1i38). Watch how much the laser sight bounces around the target at the different ranges. He's using a .22 which is light and doesn't have the recoil of a heavier caliber.

Aiming a handgun comes down to extremely fine movement details. Just look at the geometry of it - at a distance of 10 yards a 1 degree movement will result in ~6.3" change on the target. To make it more interesting, your sights usually cover more than one degree of arc. ;) Finally, movement starts before the bullet is fired. If your grip is wrong you'll pull or push the barrel up or down, if your finger positioning on the trigger is off you'll move it left or right, and if you're not used to the weapon you'll flinch or jerk.

Matthew

2013-02-15, 01:19 AM

Of course the other thing is that mail was usually worn with textile armor, at least in any period where we can verify; often not just under the mail but also over the mail which seems to help a great deal with making the mail impervious to arrows.

Note for example in 'The Kings Mirror', section XXXVIII

The rider himself should be equipped in this wise: he should wear good soft breeches made of soft and thoroughly blackened linen cloth, which should reach up to the belt; outside these, good mail hose which should come up high enough to be girded on with a double strap; over these he must have good trousers made of linen cloth of the sort that I have already described; finally, over these he should have good knee-pieces made of thick iron and rivets hard as steel. Above and next to the body he should wear a soft gambison, which need not come lower than to the middle of, the thigh. Over this he must have a strong breastplate made of good iron covering the body from the nipples to the trousers belt; outside this, a well-made hauberk and over the hauberk a firm gambison made in the manner which I have already described but without sleeves.

Of course that is 13th Century so you are already getting into transitional / plate armor.

Nice link. DeReMilitari is/was a fantastic website. Sounds like a padded surcoat, perhaps.

Galloglaich

2013-02-15, 02:30 PM

You see gambesons over armor a great deal in artwork from the late 13th and 14th centuries, some of those guys look like the Michelin tire man. I've seen some modern tests which show excellent performance against arrows with the gambeson over the mail - not because the gambeson is doing all the work, as someone suggested upthread, because the same tests tried gambeson alone (even twice as thick) and it didn't work.

http://www.myarmoury.com/talk/files/french_destroy_genoa_186.jpg

This is 'the look' I'm referring to in historical art.

G

Matthew

2013-02-17, 05:09 AM

Yeah, I know. I was just floating the similarity. For what it is worth, my take on why textile armour was sometimes worn over mail is that it is more effective against "armour piercing" weapons. That is to say, for example, that broadheads have an easier time penetrating textile than "piles" or bodkins.

AMX

2013-02-17, 06:14 AM

Galloglaich, myArmoury does not allow hotlinking.
Please post a link to the page with the image.

Hjolnai

2013-02-17, 06:16 AM

It may also be an issue of cost. If a mail link is damaged or broken by an arrow and the arrow then stops in the gambeson, this would be more expensive to fix than if the gambeson is punctured and the mail stops the arrow.

This would be more pronounced in plate, if dealing with a crossbow bolt (I wouldn't expect any bow to do more than dent plate, when not finding a good gap), because just patching the hole is not going to be very effective.

Brother Oni

2013-02-17, 08:21 AM

It may also be an issue of cost. If a mail link is damaged or broken by an arrow and the arrow then stops in the gambeson, this would be more expensive to fix than if the gambeson is punctured and the mail stops the arrow.

As I understood the texts, it refer to wearing a second gambeson or other textile armour over the mail, since you always wear something under the mail.

I'm unfamiliar with how gambesons are repaired (I assume cloth patches rather than just the hole sewn up), but replacing a damaged link takes from about 30 seconds for split links (all you need is a pair of pliers) to a bit longer for riveted links (need a hammer and anvil for this) so it may depend on availability of materials and whether a tailor or blacksmith is closer.

...I wouldn't expect any bow to do more than dent plate, when not finding a good gap...

Depends on the armour thickness and the arrow head.

There's a paper where they did some warbow penetration tests against plate armour: A report of the findings of the Defence Academy warbow trials Part 1 Summer 2005 (http://www.tforum.info/forum/index.php?act=attach&type=post&id=13822).

Essentially it found that good quality late Medieval armour thicker than 3mm would defeat any arrow from a 150lb draw warbow.

All three arrow heads tested (long bodkin, short bodkin and lozenge) would penetrate 1.15mm while the latter two would penetrate 2mm plate.

This is all at a 90 degree impact angle, so in reality 2mm would probably be fairly effective, and the plate didn't have an arming doublet or other padding behind it, further reducing the effectiveness of the test.

TimeWizard

2013-02-17, 01:26 PM

What's the design idea behind the Kukri? I can't think of why you wouldn't rather have a hatchet or a knife, but that may just be my Western bias.

endoperez

2013-02-17, 01:45 PM

What's the design idea behind the Kukri? I can't think of why you wouldn't rather have a hatchet or a knife, but that may just be my Western bias.

Europe had bladed tools with a similar (but not the exact same) top-heavy shape.

A billhook has a similar curve, at least in some cases. I understand it's often used with a hatchet, and some versions are basically just big and heavy knives. I haven't used a machete, but I imagine a billhook (and a kukri?) would be used in a pretty similar way.

Rhynn

2013-02-17, 03:30 PM

Brother Oni

2013-02-17, 03:38 PM

What's the design idea behind the Kukri? I can't think of why you wouldn't rather have a hatchet or a knife, but that may just be my Western bias.

From Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kukri), it seems that the khukri is intended more for slashing/chopping motions and would hence have an advantage over a machete using the same stroke.

I would indeed think it's your Western bias, since the Gurkhas still use the khukri as both weapon and utility tool, and given their reputation, I seriously doubt they would continue to carry it if it were a subpar implement.

The kukri is supposedly able to decapitate a man in a single blow, but that sounds unlikely. (Not just because of the kukri's size, either.)

I'm not sure of the circumstances, but there was recent incident which suggests that did happen.
A unit from the Royal Gurkha Rifles were told to bring back a high value target's body (a Taliban commander) for DNA testing for identification. While they were recovering the body, they came under heavy fire and low on ammo, a private took the decision to remove the dead target's head and bring that back instead of dragging the heavy body back

I seriously doubt that in those circumstances, it would have taken him more than a couple swings (if multiple swings were required) to remove the head, although I'll admit the only real proof would be to perform a cutting test.

warty goblin

2013-02-17, 04:02 PM

Also compare the kukri to the Greek kopis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kopis) and makhaira (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Makhaira) swords, the Canaanite sickle-sword (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khopesh) (usually known by the Egyptian name, khopesh), the Iberian falcata (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falcata). The kukri has a slightly more pronounced curve. It basically makes for good single-edged chopping/cleaving/hacking, and seems to have been more common in ancient swords (which were probably mostly bronze or poor iron, which necessiated different design from later steel swords).

The Dacian rhomphaia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhomphaia) and Thracian falx (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falx) of ancient Europe were also similarly curved.

The kukri is supposedly able to decapitate a man in a single blow, but that sounds unlikely. (Not just because of the kukri's size, either.)

My understanding is that the khopesh was sharpened on the outside edge of the curve, not the inside.

Thinking about it, the advantage of a forwards curved blade should be rather substantial. On the draw cut the curvature should cause the blade to track deeper into the cut. The extremis of the blade where it arcs back to the spine to form the tip has a fairly extreme curvature, much more than is practical in a traditionally curved sword. Curved blades obviously cut better than straight, and the steeper the curve, the better the cut. It also sets the widest part of the blade right where you'd naturally strike your enemy, again leading to better cutting performance.

I've also read that such blades thrust better than one would expect (http://www.myarmoury.com/review_ws_falcata.html).

Spiryt

2013-02-17, 04:13 PM

Well, there's absolutely nothing in this story indicating that he had removed the head with one, or even few cuts.

In this situation it's really hard to talk about "blows" either, it was damn dead body, so in fact head could be very well be 'sawed off' for clean job and less exposure to fire.

So it cannot prove anything.

But anyway, AFAIR, a lot of kukri's are in fact of pretty much almost 'swordlike' proportions, so I wouldn't doubt that they can chop something off with one good blow at all.

http://www.antiqueswords.com/product-2291-A-Nepalese-Kukri.htm#ad-image-0

JustSomeGuy

2013-02-17, 04:45 PM

warty goblin

2013-02-17, 05:26 PM

Guys: As luck would have it, i have an authentic nepalese kukhri (i served 18 months with a ghurka unit a few years back, so i'm pretty confident it's the real deal). Is there anything not-to-crazy to arrange to test it's chopping ability? For what it's worth, it's weighted pretty well - as well as being pretty weighty - towards chopping as best i can tell, and i have no doubts it could easily get to bone in one hit... although whether it'd carry on through is another matter.

First, that's totally awesome.

Second, how much do you want to have a cookout? My impulse would be to get something like a bone-in pork shoulder, hang it up over a tarp, and give it a couple whacks before BBQing up the results.

Thiel

2013-02-17, 06:11 PM

What's the design idea behind the Kukri? I can't think of why you wouldn't rather have a hatchet or a knife, but that may just be my Western bias.

It's awfully hard to skin a goat with a hatchet, cut firewood with a knife or dig holes with either. The Kukri is a utility knife and it does all three passably well.

Brother Oni

2013-02-17, 06:33 PM

Well, there's absolutely nothing in this story indicating that he had removed the head with one, or even few cuts.

Hence why I stated I was unsure of the details at the very start.

In this situation it's really hard to talk about "blows" either, it was damn dead body, so in fact head could be very well be 'sawed off' for clean job and less exposure to fire.

I do dispute this one though. Have you ever tried to saw through a joint with a knife? You don't saw it, you chop it as any good butcher or chef will tell you.
Given the neck is essentially just a mass of joints, sawing at it isn't time efficient.

Guys: As luck would have it, i have an authentic nepalese kukhri (i served 18 months with a ghurka unit a few years back, so i'm pretty confident it's the real deal). Is there anything not-to-crazy to arrange to test it's chopping ability? For what it's worth, it's weighted pretty well - as well as being pretty weighty - towards chopping as best i can tell, and i have no doubts it could easily get to bone in one hit... although whether it'd carry on through is another matter.

First off - nice. :smallbiggrin:

Secondly, I'd suggest a good thick chopping board (to protect the knife and yourself) and either a nice shoulder joint or a big rack of ribs and attempt to use the kukhri as a butcher's knife substitute.

Rhynn

2013-02-17, 06:36 PM

Guys: As luck would have it, i have an authentic nepalese kukhri (i served 18 months with a ghurka unit a few years back, so i'm pretty confident it's the real deal). Is there anything not-to-crazy to arrange to test it's chopping ability? For what it's worth, it's weighted pretty well - as well as being pretty weighty - towards chopping as best i can tell, and i have no doubts it could easily get to bone in one hit... although whether it'd carry on through is another matter.

Hang a dead pig up, chop it in the neck, measure depth of penetration... it probably won't correspond closely enough, though, since you'll have to cut through more fat and meat before you even get to the bone. But chopping various parts of a dead pig with a kukri would probably get you some idea about how well it would cut into a human.

The craziness level is probably a matter of taste.

GraaEminense

2013-02-18, 03:58 AM

Whole pig is the best, but any sizeable chunk of an animal of similar size or bigger will do. Preferably complete, with skin, fat, sinew and bone in addition to the yummy bits. Legs are good.

Hang it high with a tarp under it, prepare for BBQ and start chopping bits off. If you have enough animal, take the opportunity to compare your kukri to other sharp implements you have around -kitchen knives, hatchets and the like.

It´s a wholesome learning experience and good eating too.

JustSomeGuy

2013-02-19, 06:51 PM

warty goblin

2013-02-19, 07:48 PM

Guys, remember the whole 'not too crazy' bit - i'm not going to start hacking up a pig in my kitchen!! I've got a butternut squash int cupboard, would that do for now? I'll look at some meat based options next time i go shopping, next week sometime! I'll try and figure out videoing it on youtube and then you guys can laugh at my limp wristed attacks while judging the massacred vegetable deal.

Butternut squash is, in my experience, a bit tougher than meat due to that hard outer shell*, though probably softer than bone. The real issue fun part is that you're going to end up with squash guts everywhere. I suggest doing this out of doors.

Because the squash is unlikely to be in particularly good shape after the first hit, maybe take a couple practice chops at a bit of soft wood or something? I know in my limited experience cutting things to remind myself beforehand that the blade will in fact go through. Otherwise there's a part of the brain which pulls the cut at the last minute so you don't put a lot of stress on your arm and hurt something.

*The hard outer shell is also slightly brittle. I used to cut up excess overgrown zucchini for my chickens using a tiling spade. If I torqued the blade a bit on impact, the fruit tended to split rather than cut. Later I used a machette for the same job, and this tended to happen a lot less, probably because a machette's blade is flat instead of curved like a shovel's.

Galloglaich

2013-02-20, 08:28 AM

If you don't want something so messy, you can try foam pool noodles.

Plastic water bottles are also a decent substitute; you just balance them on top of something and if you cut well, the top will fall off while the bottom stays in place with the water still in it. Some types of water bottles are a lot harder than others, milk jugs are really easy, two-liter soda bottles a little harder.

And you can get cheap straw mats, ideally rice straw mats, soak them in water, and roll them up to cut them

I know in my limited experience cutting things to remind myself beforehand that the blade will in fact go through. Otherwise there's a part of the brain which pulls the cut at the last minute so you don't put a lot of stress on your arm and hurt something.

This is very true... most of us are not used to cutting through something. Cutting is surprisingly a lot like shooting, the same type of relaxation and breathing control helps a great deal. It's also a lot of fun for most of the same reasons.

If you do the thing with the pork shoulder or pig carcass, make sure you put down a few tarps, as the pieces tend to fly pretty far. Every time we did that we ended up having to rinse off some big hunks of meat before throwing them in the BBQ.

G

Yora

2013-02-20, 09:04 AM

Plastic water bottles are also a decent substitute; you just balance them on top of something and if you cut well, the top will fall off while the bottom stays in place with the water still in it. Some types of water bottles are a lot harder than others, milk jugs are really easy, two-liter soda bottles a little harder.
I wonder how the reusable bottles used by Coca Cola in Germany would fare. They are really tough and were marketed as indestructable when they were introduced 20 years ago.

warty goblin

2013-02-20, 01:15 PM

This is very true... most of us are not used to cutting through something. Cutting is surprisingly a lot like shooting, the same type of relaxation and breathing control helps a great deal. It's also a lot of fun for most of the same reasons.

G

What I found surprising was just how much difference this made. A couple years ago I was clearing scrub, and for one reason or another the only tools I had available were old kitchen knives. When I started my cuts would bite a quarter or half an inch. Once I started thinking the knife could go through something, it nearly always did. By the end I could knock it through a two inch diameter branch in one go without any real difficulty.

inexorabletruth

2013-02-22, 05:18 PM

DrewID

2013-02-22, 08:33 PM

I'm trying to remember the name of a specific type of club.

I remember seeing it in Tanzania, Africa:
It's a kind of shillelagh with that tapers to a sharp point at one end and a mallet on the other end that looks kind of like the head of a golf club, about 16 inches long and made of ebony. If I remember the history behind it, it's more a weapon of status than combat. Tribal leaders or shamans would brandish these weapons to show their importance.

Does anyone have any ideas?

Possibly Rungu, "a wooden throwing club or baton bearing special symbolism and significance in certain East African tribal cultures." (Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rungu_(weapon))). Optionally, take a look at the entry on Club (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Club_(weapon)), which lists several ethnic variants.

DrewID

inexorabletruth

2013-02-23, 03:55 AM

I think it is the Rungu. That sounds right. But for the one I saw, it had been sharpened to a spear-like point on the other end. Probably a variation...

Thanks for the help! :smallsmile:

JustSomeGuy

2013-02-27, 12:03 PM

Brother Oni

2013-02-27, 05:42 PM

I like the hat. :smallbiggrin:

It seems to me that the curve of kukhri appeared to be throwing your aim off a bit, but I'm fairly sure if it were sharpened and with a bit more practice, you'd do even better.

Only other comment I'll make is that your free hand was wavering a bit too close to the cutting point at times and from personal experience of butchering meat, that's a very good way of losing fingers when trying to cut through bone (seriously, I was wincing at times as I was expecting screaming and blood spurting from severed fingers).

Matthew

2013-02-28, 05:02 AM

Very entertaining! :smallbiggrin:

Galloglaich

2013-02-28, 11:30 AM

Here they are guys, somewhat underwhelming and excessively long... to be fair, you could probably watch just video 2 and skip all my messing about. I think the khukri did reasonably well, given that it was both a blunt tool and wielded by a [i'm sure you get where i'm going with that...]

http://youtu.be/LRIUy0GoA08

http://youtu.be/WGX8r5KQqzY

EDIT: Also, i'm sure i coulda got more 'damage' if i had room to swing it properly and use two hands (as learnt from the other thread!), although you could perhaps reduce the damage to a living creature by removing the fact it was sitting on a chopping board and not swinging freely from a creature's torso - although perhaps mass and inertia would hold a larger limb (or neck) still more effectively? Who knows the mysteries of these things...

Ok first of all, really enjoyed watching the video, cheers for doing it all and posting it. The hat was a nice touch! You could see clearly the difference in effectiveness between the kukri and the kitchen knife.

Fun isn't it?

A few comments, for what little they are worth:

That is a nice kurkri, if you sand off those rust spots and put a little ordinary 3-1 oil on it it will stay nice for a long time. Shame to let it rust. It will also keep better if you store it outside of the sheath, especially if you live in a humid area.

The kurkri (and the kitchen knife) will cut better if you touch them up a bit with a sharpener.

I agree with brother Oni, be careful with your hands.

If you watch the video, you'll notice there was a pretty big difference in how well it cut depending on where you hit it on the blade. When you hit it in the 'sweet spot' (the broad part just past the curve) you cut a lot deeper.

If you have a back yard and have time for it, I'd recommend another experiment: hang the pigs foot from a rope, or tape it to a stake and drive that into the ground, and then cut. A lot of your cuts on the counter were hitting the counter, which was stopping the blade from making progress. Kind of 'percussive' cuts. I'd also recommend the pool noodle for a little bit of practice, you stick on of those into a wooden stake or a little pvc pipe or something, drive that into your lawn, and hack away. Pretty quickly you'll see some progress in how you are cutting as you learn what works and what doesn't.

Finally... I think I have to take up the challenge! I'll film our next little cutting party and post to youtube, and I'll make sure we get a pigs foot to cut with. Maybe I can organize something this weekend.

G

Galloglaich

2013-02-28, 11:35 AM

Here is a short clip of a guy who was visiting our group from Sweden cutting milk jugs (which are very easy to cut) but as you see, if you cut reasonably well, the bottle will stay on the platform with the water still in it even with a piece sliced off.

This was his first time cutting so he missed pretty often but .... you get the idea

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZN1MPSi2JEI

G

JustSomeGuy

2013-02-28, 07:24 PM

I have since had some further thoughts on the matter:

It was really awkward trying to swing that in a meaningful way, the curve is definately a big part of that (but eve nwithout having a weighted curved chopping edge, i was not using the full length of the blade to get enough rotational and linear speed into the hits), but also i don't think i was using it effectively - far too little wrist rotation and downward/backward chopping, it feels to me on playback that i'm almost trying to karate chop with a tool. I would like to add that in no way do i have any experience doing anything with that style of motor pattern so it was pretty alien to me... perhaps if i have room to step and swing in a more rotational pattern (similar to a hook punch) i'd hopefully do better tha nrelying on brute force and ignorance. Weapon proficiency is no joke people! Also, i was kinda surprised just how innefective both tools were, but especially the kitchen knife. I'm not wholly decided (or knowledgeable) on how much difference there would be between the chops i made and more of a slash (and definately a thrust), but in fighting off a home intruder movie style, i'd expect more stopping power from a big kitchen knife. Also, ALL GLORY TO THE HAT i'm already thinking of trying it out again, it seems like it could be addictive!

Brother Oni

2013-03-01, 04:44 AM

It was really awkward trying to swing that in a meaningful way, the curve is definately a big part of that (but eve nwithout having a weighted curved chopping edge, i was not using the full length of the blade to get enough rotational and linear speed into the hits), but also i don't think i was using it effectively - far too little wrist rotation and downward/backward chopping, it feels to me on playback that i'm almost trying to karate chop with a tool.

I don't think the motion you were using was wrong for the task at hand (cutting through the pig's trotter), just that your aim was off - as Galloglaich said, you need to hit the 'sweet spot' right at the outward curve.

Also, i was kinda surprised just how innefective both tools were, but especially the kitchen knife. I'm not wholly decided (or knowledgeable) on how much difference there would be between the chops i made and more of a slash (and definately a thrust), but in fighting off a home intruder movie style, i'd expect more stopping power from a big kitchen knife.

Typically in knife fights, thrusts are what cause the damage. Slashing, unless it hits an artery or severs a tendon, tends to be less effective.
Accordingly, the better knife in this situation would be one with a slim but not overly long blade to avoid hitting bones but not getting so deep to get stuck in the wound.

Getting through bones and joints is always tricky. During beheadings, it was a mark of a good headsman that could decapitate with a single blow (note that they used swords or large double handed axes).
Any executioner so cack handed to require several blows was usually villified by the crowd for causing excessive suffering.

For normal culinary work, getting through bone usually requires a cleaver of some sort:

http://proknivesworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/CCK-KF2205-500x335.jpg

http://vishalhotelsupply.com/vishalnewimg/Kitchen/Chopper%20and%20Butcher%20knives.jpg

I'm used to using the second from the left in this picture.

There are some videos on youtube of the first knife in action (some street butchers in Hong Kong) and the ease that knife goes through flesh and bone can be quite chilling: link (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TkV4Z2wnd4o).

Rhynn

2013-03-01, 05:37 AM

in fighting off a home intruder movie style, i'd expect more stopping power from a big kitchen knife.

Evaluating the efficiency of a weapon without knowing how it is actually used (don't look at me, no kukri experience) is probably not a good idea.

But yeah, the way to actually knife-fight is to bind your opponent's knife hand/arm (hopefully where they can't just reach over with the other hand and grab the knife), and then stab them in the belly/torso until they stop moving. And you'll probably still get hurt, and likely badly. Knife-fighting is for people who don't mind going to the hospital with a lot of nasty wounds. (Now, a shanking attack is a different matter...)

Yora

2013-03-01, 05:43 AM

Have there been weapons that use clips except World War 1 and 2 rifles? I think I vaguely remember one German handgun also having them.

Starshade

2013-03-01, 06:00 AM

Well, some carcano versions use them, and that's a version of the weapon who was used to assasinate J F Kennedy. and type 92 japanese Machineguns used clips in ww2 (big clips).

Rhynn

2013-03-01, 06:25 AM

Revolvers: the "speed loader" AKA full-moon clip/half-moon clip. I guess you're counting the SKS as a WW2 rifle (although it didn't enter Soviet Army use until after WW2). There's also the Hakim rifle (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hakim_rifle), loaded with stripper clips.

Brother Oni

2013-03-01, 06:35 AM

I think the pistol you're thinking of is the distinctive Mauser C96 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mauser_C96).

It's not clear how the repeating crossbow (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Repeating_crossbow) was reloaded, but the magazine was non-detachable, so they could have loaded new bolts by hand or had a clip to help them.

Some tank autoloaders I believe use a clip equivalent to hold the shells.

Some revolvers have a speed loader accessory (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speedloader) which effectively replicate what a clip does for automatic weapons.

Generally though, detachable magazines have replaced clips, particularly for automatic weapons.

Edit: Some more digging has thrown up the T93 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T93_sniper_rifle) and M24A1 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M24_Sniper_Weapon_System) sniper rifles, both of which have internal magazines.

AMX

2013-03-01, 06:42 AM

Have there been weapons that use clips except World War 1 and 2 rifles? I think I vaguely remember one German handgun also having them.

I think the handgun you're thinking of is the Mauser C96 - it's reasonably famous.

Clips (both stripper and en-bloc) were quite common before WWI - all Mannlicher, Roth, and Krnka pistols, for example.

Several WWII-era autocannon, like the 37mm FlaK37 and the 40mm Bofors; also, the post-war 30mm Rarden.

fusilier

2013-03-01, 05:24 PM

Have there been weapons that use clips except World War 1 and 2 rifles? I think I vaguely remember one German handgun also having them.

As already mentioned the Broomhandle Mauser pistol used a stripper clip, and so did several of the Steyr pistols. I'm not aware of any that used an en-bloc clip.

The Breda 30 (LMG) used an unusual 20 round charger to load it's magazine: it was inserted into the magazine, then pulled out leaving the rounds behind. It was a bizarre and disliked weapon, although I don't think it's loading procedure was a problem -- it's Achilles heel was the oil lubrication which proved a disaster in North Africa. I've actually got to handle one of them. For reasons that are not entirely clear it was decided that the receiver face should be non-rotating; without the rotational movement when extracting the spent cartridge, the cartridge tended to stick -- so oil lubrication was the solution.

http://www.warrelics.eu/forum/military_photos/ordinance-ammo/351467d1337955255t-ammo-clip-for-breda-m30-lmg-breda-1.jpg

The Breda 30 was so bad that its reputation has marred almost all Italian machine guns! No other Italian machine gun used oil-lubrication, but it's often reported that they all did, or that they all had (overly) complex loading systems. The Fiat-Revelli M1914 is often reported to have used oil-lubrication, but this is a mistake, born of confusion involving later variants.

Otherwise, several machineguns did use strips (if you can count those as clips?): the Hotchkiss machineguns and their derivatives, the Breda 37, etc.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/98/Musee-de-lArmee-IMG_1026_cropped.jpg/320px-Musee-de-lArmee-IMG_1026_cropped.jpg

The Fiat-Revelli M1914 used a box device of 50 rounds, 10 stacks of 5 rounds each. It was loaded and ejected much like a strip. 100 round versions existed for aircraft use, along with others with even more rounds.

http://world.guns.ru/userfiles/images/machine/mg85/fiat-revelli_m1914_2.jpg

Seharvepernfan

2013-03-02, 09:35 AM

In Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, during the famous fight scene, the older of the two women tries to use this big heavy axe-like weapon with a long shaft....what are those called?

Spiryt

2013-03-02, 09:57 AM

http://www.shaolincom.com/Images-S/Photos/MZ-S/MonkSpade99-02d.jpg

This thing?

It's called monk's spade, or Crescent Moon Spade.

Rhynn

2013-03-02, 09:58 AM

A game of "What's That Polearm" might need a bit more description... unless Spiryt just got lucky.

Spiryt

2013-03-02, 10:05 AM

A game of "What's That Polearm" might need a bit more description... unless Spiryt just got lucky.

If I watched the right scene, there was one polearm used there, save very obvious spear, so not that much luck involved. :smallbiggrin:

Seharvepernfan

2013-03-02, 10:07 AM

Yes, that's it! Thank you!

Brother Oni

2013-03-02, 06:25 PM

Judging from the club used later and the colour of it, that monk's spade appeared to be made out of bronze. I think it must have been a ceremonial or training weapon of some sort as it was far too heavy for Shu Lien to use.

Yora

2013-03-03, 09:00 AM

Well, it was a joke anyway. :smallbiggrin:

In a wuxia movie. Probable level of historic accuracy: low.

Galloglaich

2013-03-03, 12:37 PM

Check out this incredible collection of antique crossbows and spanners. I learned a great deal just looking a these images.

http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showthread.php?t=7457

G

Straybow

2013-03-06, 01:21 PM

Any executioner so cack handed to require several blows was usually villified by the crowd for causing excessive suffering. Probly depended on how despised the criminal was. If the court/king wanted a clean execution they'd usually just make sure the executioner was sober. It does make one appreciate how the guillotine was looked upon as a merciful method.

For normal culinary work, getting through bone usually requires a cleaver of some sort: The "vishalhotelsupply" link is a 404.

Brother Oni

2013-03-06, 02:31 PM

Probly depended on how despised the criminal was. If the court/king wanted a clean execution they'd usually just make sure the executioner was sober. It does make one appreciate how the guillotine was looked upon as a merciful method.

I remember reading somewhere that a sword was usually reserved for nobility as it made a cleaner cut, rather than the axe used for everybody else, but I find no evidence for this.

In England, we switched over to hanging from 1747 onwards and with a good hangman, it was almost as quick as beheading and probably a lot less painful for the accused.

The "vishalhotelsupply" link is a 404.

Odd, I can still see it just fine.

Trying a different image:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/af/Chinese_and_old_North_American_cleavers.JPG

Top knife in this one.

Traab

2013-03-06, 06:02 PM

Did the guillotine always work? Or did we have any situations along the lines of crappy ass axemen needing multiple whacks with an axe to finally kill the poor bastard?

Dienekes

2013-03-06, 06:36 PM

Did the guillotine always work? Or did we have any situations along the lines of crappy ass axemen needing multiple whacks with an axe to finally kill the poor bastard?

I vaguely remember one example where the victim was not aligned properly beneath the guilotine and the blade dug into their shoulder and they survived, screaming, and they had to be dealt with. I don't remember if it was just resetting up the guilotine or if someone just put the bugger out of their misery.

I also do not quite remember where I heard it from, so, take this with a grain of salt.

Yora

2013-03-07, 11:48 AM

Rhynn

2013-03-07, 12:41 PM

The point of a guillotine is to make exactly these kinds of mishaps impossible. With an axe, this is always a possibility, but with a guillotine that couldn't happen, unless the person wasn't secured.

Even then, how would you shove your shoulder into a head-sized hole so that the blade that descends between two plates/boards could hit it?

Yeah, seems impossible. I can't even imagine a body position that'd allow your shoulder to be anywhere under the guillotine blade, unless you just shoved one arm through the hole as far as you could.

I guess if the whole guillotine suddenly fell apart while you're being put into it, the blade might hit your shoulder...

Brother Oni

2013-03-07, 02:21 PM

Even then, how would you shove your shoulder into a head-sized hole so that the blade that descends between two plates/boards could hit it?

Perhaps this particular guillotine didn't have an upper restraining board and one or more of the executioners were in a hurry so got a bit trigger happy with the release mechanism?

Rhynn

2013-03-07, 03:29 PM

Perhaps this particular guillotine didn't have an upper restraining board and one or more of the executioners were in a hurry so got a bit trigger happy with the release mechanism?

I tried to find images of different designs of guillotine, but the design seems pretty specific. Did ones with no upper board exist?

cucchulainnn

2013-03-07, 04:30 PM

there was an earlier version with out the neck restraint and with a different name. at the moment i have no idea what it was called.

some quick research shows this
a halifax gibbet.

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

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d0/The_Halifax_Gibbet_-_geograph.org.uk_-_350422.jpg/440px-The_Halifax_Gibbet_-_geograph.org.uk_-_350422.jpg

and the maiden
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maiden_%28beheading%29

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/65/The_Maiden%2C_National_Museum_of_Scotland.jpg/360px-The_Maiden%2C_National_Museum_of_Scotland.jpg

Haruspex_Pariah

2013-03-07, 10:06 PM

Is there a reason why you couldn't stick tank armor and a tank gun on something with wheels? I thought it might be weight, but they can make heavy trucks and such...

Raum

2013-03-07, 10:15 PM

Is there a reason why you couldn't stick tank armor and a tank gun on something with wheels? I thought it might be weight, but they can make heavy trucks and such...No, it has been done (http://www.militaryphotos.net/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=91296). Tracks perform better on many types of terrain (just about anything not relatively flat and firm) while wheeled vehicles tend to be faster...until they can't handle the terrain. :)

fusilier

2013-03-07, 11:29 PM

Is there a reason why you couldn't stick tank armor and a tank gun on something with wheels? I thought it might be weight, but they can make heavy trucks and such...

Yeah, check up "armored car" -- most of them are "light", armed only with machine guns or light cannons, but some had heavy cannons and are/were basically used as tank destroyers.

Rhynn

2013-03-07, 11:53 PM

there was an earlier version with out the neck restraint and with a different name. at the moment i have no idea what it was called.

Thanks! That explains why I couldn't find the images.

Okay, so definitely possible to get the wrong bit of yourself into some beheading devices, if not the actual guillotine (which I guess wasn't so much an invention as an improvement).

Brother Oni

2013-03-08, 07:41 AM

Okay, so definitely possible to get the wrong bit of yourself into some beheading devices, if not the actual guillotine (which I guess wasn't so much an invention as an improvement).

There's always the possibility that that this due to the sheer amount of prisoners they had to process (or they were just lazy), the executioners started taking shortcuts in procedure.
I'm sure during the height of the French Revolution, untrained executioners took part or the normal operators just got a bit blase about the whole procedure (somewhere between 16.5 to 40 thousand people were execued in under a year (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reign_of_Terror)).

Storm Bringer

2013-03-08, 08:57 AM

Is there a reason why you couldn't stick tank armor and a tank gun on something with wheels? I thought it might be weight, but they can make heavy trucks and such...

they can be done, and are, as Raum showed ( i think the vehicle shown is a french design, but quite a few nations have similar ish vehicles in service, generally with six or eight wheeled chassis. check out the US Stryker/LAV III family, or the old russain BTR series).

as pointed out, wheel vehicles generally have worse off road proformance than tracked ones, but they can still manage reasonably rough terrian, and are faster on flat terrian, and i think have lower contruction and running costs. some nations make extensive use of them.

their seems to have been an significant increase in wheeled armour since the end of the Cold war, with several nations adopting new "medium" wheeled armoured vehicles to fill the gap between thier heavy armour built for fighting the Cold war (for example, the M1 abrams or a Bradley IFV) and the mostly unarmoued or lightly armoued support vehicles (Humvees and simmilar designs).

A number of modern conflicts have been of a limited nature that were not suitable for the deployment of heavy armour, or required more armoured vehicles than were feasible to supply. thier has been a growing need for a armoured vehicle that can take a RPG hit or a roadside bomb, but is lighter and cheaper than a MTB designed to shrug off everything can be thrown at it by a conventional army in a full scale war. also, the old supply vehicles were built to be used in a secure, rear area enviroment, but are now being used in hostile, unpacified areas where thier is a greater threat of beng shot at. most wheeled armoured designs in service were built for this "light" role, often to replace unarmoued vehicles in logictic and patrol duties.,

Thiel

2013-03-08, 09:09 AM

Is there a reason why you couldn't stick tank armor and a tank gun on something with wheels? I thought it might be weight, but they can make heavy trucks and such...

You can to an extend but the inherent limitations of a wheeled design in regards to suspension and weight carrying carrying capacity means that you won't be able to have the same level of protection as a heavy tracked vehicle.
Hence why the Stryker MGS weighs in at just under 19 tonnes as opposed to the similarly armed 50 tonne M60.

Yora

2013-03-08, 11:47 AM

A number of modern conflicts have been of a limited nature that were not suitable for the deployment of heavy armour, or required more armoured vehicles than were feasible to supply. thier has been a growing need for a armoured vehicle that can take a RPG hit or a roadside bomb, but is lighter and cheaper than a MTB designed to shrug off everything can be thrown at it by a conventional army in a full scale war.
I think one problem with MBTs is that after RPGs, you have nothing of a bigger punch for quite some time, until you get to anti-tank missiles. And something like a Javelin or a Hellfire has such a punch that trying to protect a vehicle with thicker plates of steel is just pointless.
I think the only type of weapon against which MBT armor is useful is MBT guns. But to take out enemy tanks, you don't need to have tanks yourself, there are lots of other options that can also be used for many other tasks than destroying tanks. So I think tanks are mostly still in use because armies allready (or still) have them and they can be used for tasks for which it would be too expensive to buy new equipment in sufficiently large numbers. But aside from using already established maintanance and supply systems, I don't think there is much point in buying any new tanks. Or at the very least, not in developing any new tanks.
If you are going to develop replacements for tanks, better look into fast vehicles with missiles or air support.

A new question: Does anyone here know more about the capabilities and development problems ofthe F-35 than is reported in the news?
Some stuff I read sounds a lot like it would be easier to just scrap the whole thing and instead build new F-16s and F-18s. Not only because of the cheaper price, but because they have superior performance.

Mr. Mask

2013-03-08, 01:18 PM

Here is a question I bet you don't often get:

How heavy is light armour, designed not to impair movement--when it is created for an 800 pound tiger to wear?

Not joking with this. I tried looking up horse armour weights for comparison, but had trouble finding a good example.

Yora

2013-03-08, 02:01 PM

The weight of armor always depends on the material you use and the amount of material. Once you have chosen your material, you usually chose to use as much of it as you think you can carry.
When you would design armor for a tiger, the weight would be the first thing you chose. Once you have set an upper limit for the weight, you could start to looking into ways to make the most efficient armor that does not exceed this limit.
You can always go lighter, but that also means less protection. Or you can get better protection, but that also means more weight.

Mr. Mask

2013-03-08, 02:29 PM

That is all extremely true.

A limitation of this particular problem, is how flexible cats are. This invents new challenges for the less-flexible armour types, which work fine on humans, but would be restrictive to cats.

Sine the armour needs to be flexible, that tends to mean mail armour. The problem with mail armour, is that you need more layers and intricate weaves to have it perform similarly to plate armours--which makes it quite heavy.

Picking a weight is also rather tricky... A friend recommended 200 pounds, a quarter of the cat's weight. Compared to the 60 pounds of certain armours, more than a quarter a strong, large warrior's weight... it's possible. Cats are stronger for their weight than humans, also, so it might work out as bearably heavy.

Still, have my doubts... so I came to ask here.

hamishspence

2013-03-08, 03:06 PM

Here is a question I bet you don't often get:

How heavy is light armour, designed not to impair movement--when it is created for an 800 pound tiger to wear?

That is one big tiger.

Don't know how realistic it is- but in D&D, barding for a Large creature weighs twice as much as the corresponding armour for a Medium creature.

So- chain shirt barding (chain shirt being the lightest and least restrictive of the mails) would weigh 50 lb (compared to 25 lb for a normal chain shirt).

Is 25 lb realistic for light mail armour, or is it way underweight?

Mr. Mask

2013-03-08, 03:21 PM

Is 25 lb realistic for light mail armour, or is it way underweight? Not certain. Never had the chance to put on armour, so I don't know how much weight I could wear before it would weaken my orc-killing talents.

I know that about 60 pounds is the most you can wear before the armour starts to weigh you down, based off seeing people in plate armour. So 25 is probably quite light.

Spiryt

2013-03-08, 03:22 PM

25 pounds can actually be easily overweight for mail 'shirt' - assuming we're talking about roughly mid-thigh lenght and very short sleeves.

Anyway, question is interesting, but there's lack of actual attempts to armor (large) cats... :smallbiggrin:

I would guess that if somebody wants to keep them very flexible, mail would be way to go, with some plate on places that don't bend anyway.

Thiel

2013-03-08, 07:46 PM

I think one problem with MBTs is that after RPGs, you have nothing of a bigger punch for quite some time, until you get to anti-tank missiles. And something like a Javelin or a Hellfire has such a punch that trying to protect a vehicle with thicker plates of steel is just pointless.
I think the only type of weapon against which MBT armor is useful is MBT guns. But to take out enemy tanks, you don't need to have tanks yourself, there are lots of other options that can also be used for many other tasks than destroying tanks. So I think tanks are mostly still in use because armies allready (or still) have them and they can be used for tasks for which it would be too expensive to buy new equipment in sufficiently large numbers. But aside from using already established maintanance and supply systems, I don't think there is much point in buying any new tanks. Or at the very least, not in developing any new tanks.
If you are going to develop replacements for tanks, better look into fast vehicles with missiles or air support.
Considering how well tanks have been showing themselves in Afghanistan, Iraq and Kosovo I really don't think that's true.
The advantage of being able to advance in the face of pretty much anything the insurgents might have cannot be stressed enough and has been used on numerous occasions in Afghanistan. As for being able to take out tanks, anti tank weapon development, be it rockets, missiles or mines, isn't standing still and so far there's actually a number of RPGs capable of knocking out tanks though they remain rare.

A new question: Does anyone here know more about the capabilities and development problems ofthe F-35 than is reported in the news?
Not really, only that it's ahead of its testing schedule

Some stuff I read sounds a lot like it would be easier to just scrap the whole thing and instead build new F-16s and F-18s. Not only because of the cheaper price, but because they have superior performance.
Like anti tank weapons SAM development isn't standing still. If the USAF want to continue to be able to carry out operations Like Desert Storm then
they need to keep up. Buying legacy fighters might be easier in the short run, but it's a bad idea in the long run.
The marines are also going to be in serious trouble without the F35B since Harrier II production stopped in 2003 and even with the acquisition of most of the former RAF and RN airframes they're going to run out of spares within a couple of years.