Got a Real World Weapons or Armour Question? Mk XIII

[fusilier]

That does sound like a huge difference! Could it be as "simple" as the 17th having been trained in a way that led to all or most of the men actually shooting to kill?

They were very well drilled and at full strength (perhaps a little over-strength). That needs to be emphasized. A full strength infantry regiment was around 1000 men. Most regiments by the time they reached the field were at most 500-600, after some campaigning, 300-400.

When the Maine regiment first formed on the field, the Confederates were surprised to see a "Brigade" moving with such cohesion, and they sent over a messenger to find out which "Brigade" it was. Surprised to hear it was a single regiment, they correctly deduced that it must be a new regiment. The Confederate regiment (possibly from Georgia, a friend is checking it up for me), lined up to challenge these novices, the 17th Maine fired a single volley, and something like 30 Confederates wandered off the field uninjured. (There are witnesses on both sides to this event).

Volley fire isn't about shooting at individuals, it's about shooting together and uniformly. The nature of volley fire probably circumvents issues with "shooting to kill". That concept doesn't fit within the concept of volley fire to begin with -- you don't pick an individual person to aim at -- in fact you don't really "aim" (despite the command being given), you just point the musket downrange. If their training was better it was probably that they had been trained with a better "aiming point"(?) for the rifles. I'm not aware, however, of the 17th Maine continuing to destroy confederate regiments with single volleys -- more likely it was one of those flukes that happen in warfare.

Civil War soldiers often didn't do any practice shooting at all (it was very rare when it happened, and usually it was just a few volleys, no target practice). Volley firing doesn't put any emphasis on target shooting anyway, so generally low hit rates aren't unexpected.

Also, while it's common to say two regiments "exchanged volleys" -- in practice they probably spent most of their time "firing at will", at which point the problem of "shooting to kill" could be a problem. However there are other factors, hurried firing and loading was usually less accurate (and less deadly), then slower more careful shooting, etc.

[fusilier]

That's part of Grossman's point. From On Killing, page 21: "The extra ammunition and muskets must have been supplied and loaded by the firers' less aggressive comrades." (He gave 40 as the usual number of shots carried by one soldier.)

I haven't heard of that being done, and the American Civil War is pretty well documented from the soldiers point of view. The older three-rank tactics actually dictated that it was done when firing at will (the rear-rank would trade muskets with the center-rank, and only reload). However, two-rank tactics were standard during the Civil War. I'll keep an eye out for an references that might corroborate that it was done during the Civil War, but for now I would be skeptical.

(At least in a standard battle line -- under unusual circumstances it may have happened)

[Rhynn]

I'll keep an eye out for an references that might corroborate that it was done during the Civil War, but for now I would be skeptical.

I think the source was mainly Paddy Griffith, with Battle Tactics of the Civil War cited. On Killing isn't written with inline citations though - it's not really a science book or academical dissertation.


Volley fire isn't about shooting at individuals, it's about shooting together and uniformly. The nature of volley fire probably circumvents issues with "shooting to kill".

Well, Grossman's contention, and apparently Griffith's, is that staggering amounts of soldiers never even fired the muskets - thousands of muskets were apparently recovered at e.g. Gettysburg loaded between 2 and 6 times each without having been fired in between (2 could be accidental, but more than that?). Their suggestion (I can't say how well its corroborated by reports and records from the time) is that, as in WW2, most soldiers did other things for the majority of a battle: running messages, helping the wounded, getting ammunition, reloading weapons for the shooter, etc.

Certainly, the first volley a unit fires is going to be a very different matter from the rest of a battle (and WW2 wouldn't have had such volley firing, since infantry no longer fought as solid closed-rank units), especially if it turns into hours of "standing" (probably taking cover anywhere you can?) and exchanging fire...

[fusilier]

Well, Grossman's contention, and apparently Griffith's, is that staggering amounts of soldiers never even fired the muskets - thousands of muskets were apparently recovered at e.g. Gettysburg loaded between 2 and 6 times each without having been fired in between (2 could be accidental, but more than that?). Their suggestion (I can't say how well its corroborated by reports and records from the time) is that, as in WW2, most soldiers did other things for the majority of a battle: running messages, helping the wounded, getting ammunition, reloading weapons for the shooter, etc.

We went over this earlier. By the way, I've read Griffith's book, and it has informed my opinions considerably, but it was a long time ago that I read it, and I don't remember (and don't think I agree with) all the details.

The issue with guns having multiple loads, is that they had probably misfired, and not been noticed (this is very possible).

The suggestion that soldiers "did other things" is problematic given the linear tactics of the time. If you step out of line (literally), the file closers are there to put you back in your place. You might be able to run past them, but at that point you're not doing anything useful toward the fighting at all, you've simply run away (which did happen). Command-and-control over a Civil War unit was much tighter than later tactics.

The WW2 comments are well documented, although a lot of firing was done for suppression. In fact novice soldiers were told to forget their training (that told them only to fire if they had a target), upon reaching the front lines.

[AMFV]

I think the source was mainly Paddy Griffith, with Battle Tactics of the Civil War cited. On Killing isn't written with inline citations though - it's not really a science book or academical dissertation.



Well, Grossman's contention, and apparently Griffith's, is that staggering amounts of soldiers never even fired the muskets - thousands of muskets were apparently recovered at e.g. Gettysburg loaded between 2 and 6 times each without having been fired in between (2 could be accidental, but more than that?). Their suggestion (I can't say how well its corroborated by reports and records from the time) is that, as in WW2, most soldiers did other things for the majority of a battle: running messages, helping the wounded, getting ammunition, reloading weapons for the shooter, etc.

Certainly, the first volley a unit fires is going to be a very different matter from the rest of a battle (and WW2 wouldn't have had such volley firing, since infantry no longer fought as solid closed-rank units), especially if it turns into hours of "standing" (probably taking cover anywhere you can?) and exchanging fire...

Well if modern numbers are true it should be about 4 to 1, or maybe even 8 to 1 as far as fired vs. support troops goes. So for every weapon fired there should be between 7 and 3 unused, particularly once mechanized warfare begins. Although that's probably less accurate to Civil War tactics, or so I would suppose.

[Incanur]

I recommend taking Grossman with a huge grain of salt (http://www.journal.dnd.ca/vo9/no2/16-engen-eng.asp). Many historical soldiers appear to have be quite willing to kill - some downright eager.

As far as cavalry charges go, in the 16th century men-at-arms did at times into and even through pike formations. No military writer encouraged charging into steady pikers, but at the same time they assume that men-at-arms could charge right into pikes. Sir John Smythe, for example, specifically note that the halberdiers behind the first five ranks of pikers could deal with any horsemen who managed to get through. Humphrey Barwick advised pikers to aim for the horses breast rather than its head when resisting cavalry because the head was more likely to be armored and more likely to be thicker metal if both were armored. Both these sources suggest that lancers could literally slam into and sometimes penetrate prepared pike formations. I tend to think that 16th-century men-at-arms on barded horses would flatten bayonet-armed infantry caught without powder.

[fusilier]

Light infantry in the age of the musket and rifle generally fought in a skirmish line (almost by definition). I can't see them withstanding a cavalry charge, at least frequently - no doubt it may have happened.

It depends upon what is meant by "light infantry" -- untrained American riflemen, then you are correct (but they had trouble standing up to infantry charges).

Trained light infantry, were usually a kind of "elite" troop, that had all the training of line infantry, plus skirmisher training. If threatened by cavalry, they would form up like line-infantry. If they didn't have time to form, then things could be more dangerous. Usually they rallied into small groups (Civil War skirmishers would "rally-by-fours"), then rally into larger groups as situation permitted. There should be some line-infantry nearby to back them up, and help extricate them from a situation like that.

One report from the Crimean War stated that Russian Infantry, once broken, would stand in small groups and fight hand-to-hand with cavalry that was sent to run them down. It was found easier to gun them down after they had broken . . . a very bizarre situation.

[Storm Bringer]

I haven't heard of that being done, and the American Civil War is pretty well documented from the soldiers point of view. The older three-rank tactics actually dictated that it was done when firing at will (the rear-rank would trade muskets with the center-rank, and only reload). However, two-rank tactics were standard during the Civil War. I'll keep an eye out for an references that might corroborate that it was done during the Civil War, but for now I would be skeptical.

(At least in a standard battle line -- under unusual circumstances it may have happened)

it's true that swapping weapons was in the manual, but the accounts* i have read suggest that this almost never happened in battle. the troops would just load and fire thier own guns. Likewise, organised, controlled volley fire lasted only for one or two volleys, after which it degenrated into fire at will.


however, the above is only really true for line infantry in the feild. swapping weapons more than likey happened by light infantry, where at least one formation had the troops in groups of four, where one guy fired and the other three loaded. i can see the same sort of thing happening in sieges and other situations where the loaders can hide in cover. flim example in the 2004 Alamo flim, where Davy Crockett has about 3 loaders passing him loaded guns in the final battle, and making every shot count.


on a slight tangent, it was also noted by theorists of the time that the third ranks fire was almost useless, as the they couldn't really aim though the first two ranks. the front rank was supposed to kneel, but it's really diffcult to load a 5 foot muzzle loading musket on your knees, or laying down, so the front rank nomally remained standing. the second rank was also quite squashed in a three rank formation, with the trouble of trying to aim between the front rank while the rear rank trying to aim though them.

The brits started to ignore their the offical british drill manual (Principles Of Military Movements: Chiefly Applied To Infantry (1788), by David Dundas) which maintianed thoughout the period that you should fight in three ranks. However, almost every eyewitness account says they fought and drilled in two ranks, to the point that an officer insisting that his troops be in three ranks was seen as being anal about it.

The switch to two ranks was, in theory, a trade of "steadiness" for firepower, in that a thinner line wasn't supposed to be more likely to break and run and would be less effective in melee. however, british battlefeild proformance showed that any loss of staying power form the thinner ranks was so small as to be swamped by other factors (increased accruacy of fire, support form other formations, ect).


*napoleonic war accounts, not american civil war, i must add.

**

[Brother Oni]

I suspect it was mostly wishful thinking on Franklin's part after all, he was also suggesting pikes.

Wow, not much more I can add to this discussion (curse you fail flesh and your need to sleep!).

Only thing I will add is that Washington himself ordered a number of pikes (or at least long pointy wooden sticks) to be distributed to sentry posts when he was besieging Boston in case of an enemy cavalry raid.

[fusilier]

it's true that swapping weapons was in the manual, but the accounts* i have read suggest that this almost never happened in battle. the troops would just load and fire thier own guns. Likewise, organised, controlled volley fire lasted only for one or two volleys, after which it degenrated into fire at will.


however, the above is only really true for line infantry in the feild. swapping weapons more than likey happened by light infantry, where at least one formation had the troops in groups of four, where one guy fired and the other three loaded. i can see the same sort of thing happening in sieges and other situations where the loaders can hide in cover. flim example in the 2004 Alamo flim, where Davy Crockett has about 3 loaders passing him loaded guns in the final battle, and making every shot count.

There might be some confusion here, so I'll explain the tactic a little bit better, according to the 1830s manual that I've read (which returned the US Army to three rank tactics, although it seems like two ranks may have been more common anyway).

When firing by volley, the first rank kneels, and the rear two ranks stand and fire (as discussed above aiming isn't an issue when volleying). However, when firing by file, which becomes fire at will, the front rank is expected to be standing to reload. The rear-rank could not fire through both front ranks if they are both standing, the front rank will get a facefull of the blast. So, for fire by files, they used a different technique:

All ranks stood, but only the front two ranks fired. At first the front and center rank man of a file would fire together, then the next file would fire, etc., on down the line. After this first synchronized fire, the front rank man would load and fire at will. The center-rank man would trade muskets with the rear-rank man, then fire the rear-rank man's musket. Then both (center and rear rank) would load their muskets. This was to keep up as much fire as possible in three ranks.

That's the only thing I've read about officially swapping muskets on the battlefield.

As for light infantry skirmishing, swapping muskets goes contrary to doctrine. The key to skirmishers was fighting in pairs. One soldier was supposed to be loaded at all times to "cover" his partner in an emergency (i.e. if he spotted an enemy soldier taking aim at either one of them). Standard firing and loading was to take aimed fire, reload, then your partner would fire, reload, etc. It was very slow and very deliberate. I'm not aware of any doctrine stating that skirmishers should simply pass their muskets. They were usually spaced out enough that it would have been awkward anyway.

Davy Crockett at the Alamo, was defending a fortified fixed position, and I think the idea was having those who were non-combatants, or unfit, load surplus muskets for those that were still fighting at the wall. That's what I would consider an unusual situation. It's also something of trope in frontier movies. ;-)

(I actually worked on that film).

[fusilier]

Wow, not much more I can add to this discussion (curse you fail flesh and your need to sleep!).

Only thing I will add is that Washington himself ordered a number of pikes (or at least long pointy wooden sticks) to be distributed to sentry posts when he was besieging Boston in case of an enemy cavalry raid.

In defense of Franklin, I think he was trying to come up with solution to a very serious problem: a potentially crippling lack of gunpowder. Bows may have been too difficult, but he wouldn't be the the last person to recommend using pikes. The Confederacy actually ordered some pikes, but in the event didn't use them. Some German (Prussian Landwehr?) and Russian militia units used pikes during the Napoleonic Wars. It was due to shortages of weapons or powder, not because they thought the pike would be a better weapon.

[AgentPaper]

There was something mentioned before, about muskets found at a battlefield being found with a very high percentage of them not being fired. This was taken as evidence that most soldiers didn't actually fire. However, I realized that there's a key consideration that was glossed over here, which is that these are the muskets that were left behind.

That is, these are the muskets that weren't A) Carried off by still-alive soldiers, B) carried off with wounded soldiers, or C) Scavenged after the battle. This means most of the muskets would come from soldiers that either died or ran away (in both cases, not surprising that the gun wasn't fired), and then weren't picked up later by scavengers, who probably quickly learned to leave dangerously over-loaded muskets alone.

[Thiel]

There was something mentioned before, about muskets found at a battlefield being found with a very high percentage of them not being fired. This was taken as evidence that most soldiers didn't actually fire. However, I realized that there's a key consideration that was glossed over here, which is that these are the muskets that were left behind.

That is, these are the muskets that weren't A) Carried off by still-alive soldiers, B) carried off with wounded soldiers, or C) Scavenged after the battle. This means most of the muskets would come from soldiers that either died or ran away (in both cases, not surprising that the gun wasn't fired), and then weren't picked up later by scavengers, who probably quickly learned to leave dangerously over-loaded muskets alone.

I suspect a lot of those were discarded by troops after they misfired or realised they'd double loaded them.

About shooting to kill in WWII, it's worth taking into consideration that, especially amongst the Germans, that the "killing weapon" was the machine gun. The rest of the squad existed to feed and defend the machine gun.

[Rhynn]

That is, these are the muskets that weren't A) Carried off by still-alive soldiers, B) carried off with wounded soldiers, or C) Scavenged after the battle. This means most of the muskets would come from soldiers that either died or ran away (in both cases, not surprising that the gun wasn't fired), and then weren't picked up later by scavengers, who probably quickly learned to leave dangerously over-loaded muskets alone.

This is addressed by Grossman and Griffith and is, in short, not enough to explain it.


About shooting to kill in WWII, it's worth taking into consideration that, especially amongst the Germans, that the "killing weapon" was the machine gun. The rest of the squad existed to feed and defend the machine gun.

The statistics were from US troops, and it worked to a very specific level: in a squad of 10 men, with no machine gun, for instance hunkered down in a trench, maybe 2 (not 2 at a time, but a specific 2) would be doing the shooting and the rest would be doing other things.

Grossman's contention is that we have a big psychological barrier to killing, and that military training has to strive to overcome it to create effective soldiers who shoot to kill. Philip Zimbardo's research on diffusion of responsibility, etc., has similar things to say (and he specifically addressed WWII propaganda and its effects in helping soldiers become, psychologically, killers).

I also recall separate reports that similar behavior was found among Finnish soldiers in the Winter War (defending against an invading force), with some men even intentionally missing their marks, firing too low or too high to avoid hitting anyone... active and armed pacifism.

Finnish military pacifism in WWII is fairly interesting... it was more common in the Continuation War, where Finland allied with Germany was the aggressor, and apparently not a few soldiers refused to cross the pre-WWII border into Russia, for instance.

[AMFV]

This is addressed by Grossman and Griffith and is, in short, not enough to explain it.

Grossman is an officer, he's never known the fear of losing a rifle in the same sense, or at least I suspect not, you don't just "lose" your rifle in battle, the ones that were found were either from the dead, or were not working properly. And not being able to fire quickly is more likely something that would get you dead in a battlefield. Double loading for example is something that I would suspect a boot soldier of doing. And I suspect that the casualty rate is much higher for the boot soldier than for the others.




The statistics were from US troops, and it worked to a very specific level: in a squad of 10 men, with no machine gun, for instance hunkered down in a trench, maybe 2 (not 2 at a time, but a specific 2) would be doing the shooting and the rest would be doing other things.

Grossman's contention is that we have a big psychological barrier to killing, and that military training has to strive to overcome it to create effective soldiers who shoot to kill. Philip Zimbardo's research on diffusion of responsibility, etc., has similar things to say (and he specifically addressed WWII propaganda and its effects in helping soldiers become, psychologically, killers).

I also recall separate reports that similar behavior was found among Finnish soldiers in the Winter War (defending against an invading force), with some men even intentionally missing their marks, firing too low or too high to avoid hitting anyone... active and armed pacifism.

Finnish military pacifism in WWII is fairly interesting... it was more common in the Continuation War, where Finland allied with Germany was the aggressor, and apparently not a few soldiers refused to cross the pre-WWII border into Russia, for instance.

I doubt very much that it is the case. I've seen too many kids who were completely willing to blow themselves to kingdom come to kill hundreds of others to make a political point, if we had any kind of biological pretension against killing this would not be the case. Furthermore having just read the interesting linked counter article, I can tell you that I'm not exactly convinced by their approaches. I've been in the military, and most people are willing to do some pretty messed up stuff very early in, and most people are verbally willing to do the same before they even go to Boot. People are completely willing to murder each other under the right circumstances, and to suppose otherwise seems to me to be at least a fantasy. And one I've seen pretty strong evidence, anecdotal though it may be, against.

[Rhynn]

I doubt very much that it is the case.

What, the statistics? :smalleek:


I've been in the military.

Er, well, Dave Grossman's a retired lieutenant colonel of the US Army and a professor of military science, so... possibly better credentials and no less personal experience?

I really do recommend reading On Killing and On Combat - I find a lot of the conclusions in On Killing pretty hysterical (in the sense of being products of, or aimed at creating, hysteria), but the books are damned interesting. I can't exactly do justice to a 400-page book here, and it obviously makes Grossman's points better than I could explain them...

[AMFV]

What, the statistics? :smalleek:



Er, well, Dave Grossman's a retired lieutenant colonel of the US Army and a professor of military science, so... possibly better credentials and no less personal experience?

I really do recommend reading On Killing and On Combat - I find a lot of the conclusions in On Killing pretty hysterical (in the sense of being products of, or aimed at creating, hysteria), but the books are damned interesting. I can't exactly do justice to a 400-page book here, and it obviously makes Grossman's points better than I could explain them...

And he's an officer as I addressed, an officer has a very different perspective. I've read On Killing I thought it was terrible and ludicrous. It had many of the same problems I see as so prevalent in the social sciences, however an ethical test of these would be impossible. I suspect that most people would kill fairly quickly, furthermore the Milgram Experiment confirms that, and is in pretty much direct contradiction to his findings.

Furthermore I've never heard of Marines refusing to shoot as an epidemic problem, never. Not in all my years of service. And I suspect that if it were a problem, people would have brought it up. Being an officer gives you a decidedly skewed perspective on many things. I've known too many clueless Captains to be really able to take an officer as the best source of how an Enlisted man thinks, because they really aren't.

I'll draw from even further back in my experience. My parents kept animals as a child. Most children are willing to participate in butchering, that admittedly is cross-species, but that's children, I doubt that most grown folk are as squeamish as he suspects. Particularly since the only experiments conducted to examine this have been almost completely to the contrary of his conclusions, which are based on data that is already fairly questionable.

Edit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment

Further statistical examination, is shown there, 65% of people were willing to administer a lethal shock to somebody just because they were told to do so, this is without that person threatening them or pointing a gun at them, which I think would increase the numbers to much higher than that. So at a baseline that is 65% of people who are willing to attempt to kill another human being just because they were ordered to.

Edit 2: Secondly Lt Colonel Grossman has zero deployment ribbons, which means that he has ZERO real world experience, the amount I'm going to trust a boot officer who has never been to war to actually understand it or be able to comment on it is significantly less than I could throw said officer.

Source: http://www.killology.com/military_bground.htm

That's his webpage, and that's a very small stack for an Army officer, so I'd take his statements with a grain of salt, actually several.

[Stephen_E]

The statistics were from US troops, and it worked to a very specific level: in a squad of 10 men, with no machine gun, for instance hunkered down in a trench, maybe 2 (not 2 at a time, but a specific 2) would be doing the shooting and the rest would be doing other things.



It should be noted that Marshall, whom Grossman uses as his primary source from WWII in support of his theory, is generally considered to have grossly inflated his claims from my understanding. To have interviewed the numbers he claimed to have he would have needed to have filled an absolute minimum of 12 notebooks (probably more) and yet among a fairly meticulous collection of papers of his life only 2 notebooks were found. This matches the amount of time that he had to do all these interviews in been far to short to do the interviews he claimed to have done. Grossman covers this in his revised forward by claiming the dubious work by Marshall has been duplicated elsewhere, but sadly fails to mention where. I'm working through "On Killing" at the moment but so far I've been unimpressed as a factual or scholarly work. He comes across more as someone with a belief who accepted anything that might support his belief and skipped anything else. I suspect some useful data is in there but would be leary of taking anything from it without support from elsewhere.

[Mr. Mask]

Rhynn: Well, castle walls are the best for stopping cavalry. It is a lot easier to stop light cavalry.


A Mind Forever Voyaging: I never said muskets weren't the best military choice... they were. If the other countries kept using bowmen and crossbowmen, then they would have been outnumbered by musketeers. The loss of a musketeer is also a lot less than that of a good crossbowman.

With many of the muskets, "aim," is a questionable word. When firing into a line of men at close range, it's mostly a matter of being willing to kill a person--it's argued many people weren't. At the ranges you would need to aim a crossbow, your enemies couldn't fire back effectively.

I am unable to think of any musket with greater range than late heavy crossbows. Some of the marksman's rifles of about the American civil war, maybe (their effective range was far better, able to pick out single-man targets--not sure about possible range).

You feel such extra spacing would be a problem?

As for the trick of having others reload your guns, it is a good one--for one thing you can get the people willing to take lives shooting while the ones who aren't just have to reload. I don't see much reason it couldn't be done for crossbows. Since they could fire from more than two or three ranks, it was unnecessary.

I remember discussing the deadliness of muskets with Hearts of Oak (a historical tall sail game by the Sea Dog/PotC modders). It was agreed that most of the casualties occur from infection much later. The tumbling effect is painful, but stopping power is exaggerated. Some will drop from the pain, others will keep fighting and die of infection a week later. It depends a lot on what gets hit and if and how the bullet ends up ricocheting.


Raum: His claim at the beginning is just that. His claims thereafter are advantages.

Smoke and guns are scary, yes. The side which has the bloodier injuries and more casualties will be more upset. And yes, I am familiar with the weapon. It was more effective when they used shot, really (or buck and ball).

And yes, their industry was set towards guns not bows or crossbows, as I had stated. Isn't the 5th point about arrows sticking into wounds? I looked back, and it appeared to be.

As Jackson said, the bayonet is important.

Thank you for elaborating on the situation of the time.


Mike: Yeah, getting your horses to charge pikes is a trick. Hussars cavalry had a lot of fun breaking pike formations when they got good at it.

I wouldn't say psychology is the largest factor. Either you compromise their formation so they can't effectively hit you, or they effectively hit you and compromise your formation.

You don't need to wipe out a cavalry unit to break its charge. Killing some of the horses, particularly if you disrupt their formation with fallen horses, can be enough to break the effectiveness to a level where they can't threaten you.


Rhynn: Well, the casualties of the American civil war are greater than what America lost in both world wars. A large portion of that death toll was unarmed civilians.

Much of what I say is also what I learned from here and other places.


Mike: I wish I could remember how wide spread the use of the miné bullets was. I had thought most infantry were stilling using round shot.


A Mind Forever Voyaging: "Unfortunately, killing is just one of those things that gets easier the more you do it." That's a favourite quote of mine.

A small percentage of people are natural sociopaths, and can kill without much hesitation (their own safety is still a concern). Others are trained to be sociopathic towards outside groups, and in the most extreme cases will feel no worse about killing a person than killing an animal (or taking out the garbage...). People can kill animals without developing PTSD and with less difficulty.

I recall the experiment you bring up. I don't think the people were told that the shocks would kill the recipient. Many have a natural trust that what an authority figure tells them is the right thing even when there's evidence to the contrary. It's also much easier to distance yourself with indirect forms of violence (If Hitler had killed all of those people personally, watched their faces as they died... he wouldn't sleep at night).

Have the same situation, but give the people guns or knives instead. The number of people willing to comply will drop, and those who do comply will with few exceptions look for assurances from the authority that the gun or knife won't really kill the other person.

[AMFV]

A Mind Forever Voyaging: "Unfortunately, killing is just one of those things that gets easier the more you do it." That's a favourite quote of mine.

A small percentage of people are natural sociopaths, and can kill without much hesitation (their own safety is still a concern). Others are trained to be sociopathic towards outside groups, and in the most extreme cases will feel no worse about killing a person than killing an animal (or taking out the garbage...). People can kill animals without developing PTSD and with less difficulty.

I recall the experiment you bring up. I don't think the people were told that the shocks would kill the recipient. Many have a natural trust that what an authority figure tells them is the right thing even when there's evidence to the contrary. It's also much easier to distance yourself with indirect forms of violence (If Hitler had killed all of those people personally, watched their faces as they died... he wouldn't sleep at night).

Have the same situation, but give the people guns or knives instead. The number of people willing to comply will drop, and those who do comply will with few exceptions look for assurances from the authority that the gun or knife won't really kill the other person.

They were in fact told that.

The problem I have is that the book, was written by an armchair officer who never even served in a wartime military, he doesn't even have an NDM, so he was never in the military during wartime. I have been in the military during wartime, and I've never heard of boot Marines refusing to fire their weapons, never, not even one instance of that, not in any of the after actions I've read and was made to read, never. I've never heard of that happening. Most people are quite capable of killing without any practice at it. It's just how it is. The SVEST bomber, doesn't get to practice killing, and does just fine at it. In fact, more people go through with it, than chicken out, which is suggestive.

Furthermore large sections of the book as I recall are anti-culture bits, again written by an armchair BOOT officer that's never been around war, never in the military during wartime, and is claiming some kind of knowledge based on that fact. That's absurd. I've never heard of what he claims being a problem, never. Outside of this study, I'd heard nothing of the sort, and I've been in the military, I've been through that training, if these things were really a problem, they would be mentioned at that point. I suspect that the Lt Col was interested in bending the data to fit his ideas, and as I recall when I read it (when I was also a boot, a LCpl in fact and didn't know any better), even then it left a bitter taste in my mouth.

If only 2% of the population could kill then wars would never have existed on the scale that they have throughout history, and it's sad, but it's a fairytale world that simply doesn't hold up under observation, even observation such as the Milgrim experiment is pretty heavily against that, even supposing that you halve that number it's still statistically way more than he was suggesting. And that's under no stress, without being threatened, how do you think the numbers would change under duress.

Edit: The Aftermath is also kind of irrelevant, whether or not killing leaves a mental scar isn't really the point of the discussion, while it is a nasty fact, and one that somebody who's never been a wartime military can't really understand, at least to my thinking, that's perhaps why the book bothers me so much, because it's based on a pretension that has very little grounding in fact.

[Mr. Mask]

Oh, so it was a test whether people would execute criminals if told to? Depending on the behaviour of the actor, and what they are told about the criminal, I can see that happening.

Grossman's book is riddled with problems. It has its good points as well, but you need to read between the lines.

His book goes on to say that since about Vietnam, the psychological training of soldiers has gotten much more effective results. His data about earlier soldiers is likely still exaggerated.

If you mean the percentage of sociopaths, it might be smaller than 2%. You don't need to be a sociopath to kill. Did Grossman claim only 2% of soldiers would fire? Even a mouse will bite if cornered. People can freeze up when faced with the situation, but if they don't they'll either surrender, flee, or fight back, depending on the person and situation. If fleeing and surrendering don't seem like options, anyone who doesn't freeze up will fight back (with few exceptions).

PTSD is connected with the difficulty of killing. Humans are built to be adverse to killing their own, as are some animals. You don't get PTSD when you kill animals or they try to kill you, and it is easier mentally to kill them. True sociopaths don't get PTSD from killing people, but they still develop it from conflict where their lives were threatened by other humans. As for continuing to kill once you've started, PTSD can stop that... but many have and continue to learn to live with it in their violent occupations, continuing to kill. If you can distance yourself from the killing, by ordering others to do it, by launching artillery shells a mile away or dropping bombs far below, or being attacked by impersonal threats such as flak, that prevents some people from incurring PTSD, and makes it easier to kill.

[AMFV]

Oh, so it was a test whether people would execute criminals if told to? Depending on the behaviour of the actor, and what they are told about the criminal, I can see that happening.

Grossman's book is riddled with problems. It has its good points as well, but you need to read between the lines.

His book goes on to say that since about Vietnam, the psychological training of soldiers has gotten much more effective results. His data about earlier soldiers is likely still exaggerated.

The fundamental problem is that the only source that supports this allegation is an extremely problematic one at best (a survey taken of soldiers by somebody without the proper training to conduct the surveys. The Milgrim experiment wasn't about execution in general it was a "learning experiment" or so the participants were told and they were told to continue applying shocks to a stranger who failed to correctly answer questions, most of them were willing to go to a lethal level.



If you mean the percentage of sociopaths, it might be smaller than 2%. You don't need to be a sociopath to kill. Did Grossman claim only 2% of soldiers would fire? Even a mouse will bite if cornered. People can freeze up when faced with the situation, but if they don't they'll either surrender, flee, or fight back, depending on the person and situation. If fleeing and surrendering don't seem like options, anyone who doesn't freeze up will fight back (with few exceptions).

That was certainly the assertion that I recall, and furthermore one that's been discussed elsewhere. I've just never heard of it being a problem and even if training has improved, then it would still be something that was discussed, it isn't.



PTSD is connected with the difficulty of killing. Humans are built to be adverse to killing their own, as are some animals. You don't get PTSD when you kill animals or they try to kill you, and it is easier mentally to kill them. True sociopaths don't get PTSD from killing people, but they still develop it from conflict where their lives were threatened by other humans. As for continuing to kill once you've started, PTSD can stop that... but many have and continue to learn to live with it in their violent occupations, continuing to kill. If you can distance yourself from the killing, by ordering others to do it, by launching artillery shells a mile away or dropping bombs far below, or being attacked by impersonal threats such as flak, that prevents some people from incurring PTSD, and makes it easier to kill.

I don't believe that's the case, after all human's nearest relatives participate in full scale wars. I've known people who developed PTSD who were not anywhere near the front lines, it's not as simple a matter as all that. And some people do get PTSD from survival situations (being attacked by animals) or the reverse. PTSD is linked to stress, not killing humans as a general function.

[Mr. Mask]

Hmm, can't comment on this Milgrim experiment till I've read up on it more.

I'm not sure what you mean by relatives. Creatures do not need to be predisposed to killing or war to kill or make war.

Whoops, that was poor wording. Yes, you can get PTSD from other forms of stress, including animal attack. Depending on the person, they can suffer worse stress than veterans. However, even with the same situation, not everyone will traumatized by accidents which have severely traumatized some.

Bloody conflict with humans on the other hand... such as killing someone with a knife... no one comes out of that without PTSD (unless you really see your opponent as an animal). Sometimes it hits you ten years after the fact. You can recover from some traumas, including shell shock (depending highly on the person, and partially on the case)--but I've never met anyone nor heard anything of someone recovering from PTSD caused by bloody conflict with humans.

[Mike_G]

Rhynn: Well, castle walls are the best for stopping cavalry. It is a lot easier to stop light cavalry.




Mike: Yeah, getting your horses to charge pikes is a trick. Hussars cavalry had a lot of fun breaking pike formations when they got good at it.

I wouldn't say psychology is the largest factor. Either you compromise their formation so they can't effectively hit you, or they effectively hit you and compromise your formation.

You don't need to wipe out a cavalry unit to break its charge. Killing some of the horses, particularly if you disrupt their formation with fallen horses, can be enough to break the effectiveness to a level where they can't threaten you.


I totally disagree.

It's almost all psychology. If the infantry panic and break, they are screwed. If the hold steady, the cavalry probably will not charge home. Even if every single shot misses and you kill nobody, those horses still don't want to run into a fence of bayonets.

Plenty of charges were turned away with very light losses. There are very, very few instances of cavalry smashing into steady infantry and having a melee.

Charges against infantry formations were a big game of chicken. If the infantry blink, they get run down, If the cavalry blink, they wheel away. if nobody blinks, which almost never happened, you get a hideous crash of horses into sharp points and trampling and impaling and slashing. Nobody actually wants that. Better to wheel away and bring up your guns to soften the enemy first.




Mike: I wish I could remember how wide spread the use of the miné bullets was. I had thought most infantry were stilling using round shot.





The rifled musket and the Minie ball were standard issue for Union troops throughout the war. There were a few units who used smoothbore with buck and ball, but they were by far the minority.

If a company of 100 men levels smoothbore muskets and with a loose fitting ball (not even aims, per se, but points at a formation) 100 yards away, lot of those shots will go high or low and accomplish nothing. Those same 100 leveled rifles with Minie balls will result in far more shots passing though the formation, maybe hitting somebody. even if you aren't aiming at a single target, putting your rounds within a few feet of your aim point versus the same time zone as your aim point means a lot more rounds will find somebody.

By the middle of the nineteenth century, everybody had abandoned smoothbores and never looked back. The only advantage was quicker loading than rifles. Once the Minie ball solved that, the increased accuracy more than made up for the small loss of speed. Two aimed shot a minute will beat the living crap out of four unaimed shots.

[Mr. Mask]

Actually.... yeah, that sounds like a perfect description.

I'm sorry, I misunderstood. I thought you were arguing that infantry were safe from cavalry if they stayed in place, that they couldn't be hurt.


Not sure where I got the impression round shot was still the main armament... Thanks for clarifying on that.

[Incanur]

The Confederacy actually ordered some pikes, but in the event didn't use them.

From what I recall - and this was a long time ago that I read it - there was a bit more to it than that. Some commanders and/or armchair generals argued that the pike - which was only around 9-10ft and would have been more like a half-pike in the 16th or 17th century - would beat the bayonet up close and that winning up close would be a great example of Southern valor and all that. The soldiers actually equipped with pikes, on the other hand, thought it was a horrible joke and thought themselves utterly unfit for battle against guns. As you say, I don't think anyone actually fought with a pike in that war.


Charges against infantry formations were a big game of chicken. If the infantry blink, they get run down, If the cavalry blink, they wheel away. if nobody blinks, which almost never happened, you get a hideous crash of horses into sharp points and trampling and impaling and slashing.

I'd say roughly the same dynamic applies to close combat across the ages. It's extremely difficult to endure hand-to-hand fighting. However, at least before gunpowder, hideous crashes happened enough to matter. At Ravenna in 1512 according to Florange (http://books.google.com/books?id=RtkePoWkij8C&pg=PA12&lpg=PA12&dq=ravenna+%2B+florange&source=bl&ots=cNY4qW1juU&sig=7DMyb2eBo3pJvHi0TvFhY04_ep4&hl=en&sa=X&ei=vN_eUta8KMvtoATyiYGICg&ved=0CEwQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=landsknecht&f=false), for instance, over 99% of the men in the first rank of the losing pike formation died and victors experienced equally severe losses. Florange only survived with his forty-six wounds because his father charged into the infantry melee with a few other men-at-arms and pulled Florange from among the dead. That's another example of how ridiculously badass Renaissance men-at-arms could be. :smallsmile:

Triumphant armies would often lose 5-10+% killed in a hard-fought battle from antiquity through the Renaissance.

[AMFV]

Hmm, can't comment on this Milgrim experiment till I've read up on it more.

I'm not sure what you mean by relatives. Creatures do not need to be predisposed to killing or war to kill or make war.

Whoops, that was poor wording. Yes, you can get PTSD from other forms of stress, including animal attack. Depending on the person, they can suffer worse stress than veterans. However, even with the same situation, not everyone will traumatized by accidents which have severely traumatized some.

Bloody conflict with humans on the other hand... such as killing someone with a knife... no one comes out of that without PTSD (unless you really see your opponent as an animal). Sometimes it hits you ten years after the fact. You can recover from some traumas, including shell shock (depending highly on the person, and partially on the case)--but I've never met anyone nor heard anything of someone recovering from PTSD caused by bloody conflict with humans.

I've known plenty of vets that never got PTSD, beyond that of people involved in accidents. I've known plenty of combat vets with the same sort of thing. Shell shock is PTSD, the same as Battle Fatigue is PTSD. You never really recover from PTSD, but then again you nver really recover from PTSD from a car accident either, it's like having a heat injury, once you've had it, it's pretty nearly done.

The problem with the creatures don't need to be predisposed issue, is that it directly contradicts Grossman's claim that people do need to have a certain temperament to kill. I think there is no learned temperament for killing and more than there is for any other animal instinct. In any case the Milgram experiment, directly contradicts Grossman's research which is all based on two very flawed studies.

The musket study, as I've said as an Enlisted, the only case where I can see dropping your musket is desertion or death, or the musket ceasing its operation. The Double loading issue was probably most common among boot troops, who would not have known better, it's very unlikely that it was a planned behavior, but rather that it was a common reaction to being told to "Load" in a situation like that.

The second, the interviews, have some pretty clear issues, fundamentally there is not enough data, and anybody who doesn't show their statistical analysis will claiming it is typically full of inaccurate information.

[Mr. Mask]

It's possible to be in combat situations without getting PTSD, and so to be a Vet. without PTSD. If some of them had a particularly bloody experience and aren't suffering,there are a few possibilities for why they mightn't be. The possibility that someone can gut a person and not suffer PTSD from it is currently beyond my expectations.

Many traumas never recover. Some will improve without recovering. Combat trauma is something no one ever recovers from. Exceptions of a sort are shell shock and battle fatigue. If you were in an area under bombardment, the stress is enough to induce PTSD for many. Some of those cases will recover (thank God). If the situation involves dispatching people with a bayonet, it's going to feel very different with different effects.

That is certainly an exaggeration. It's also a slightly different matter from whether people can and will kill. I mean, there are soldiers who didn't have to exchange fire in a war, or the fire was under such conditions they couldn't hope to land shots. If you took those same soldiers, and put them in a kill or die situation against an enemy, few wouldn't choose the former.

I agree on the muskets. You may also drop it for surrender (depending on how trigger happy your captors seem).

[Mike_G]

From what I recall - and this was a long time ago that I read it - there was a bit more to it than that. Some commanders and/or armchair generals argued that the pike - which was only around 9-10ft and would have been more like a half-pike in the 16th or 17th century - would beat the bayonet up close and that winning up close would be a great example of Southern valor and all that. The soldiers actually equipped with pikes, on the other hand, thought it was a horrible joke and thought themselves utterly unfit for battle against guns. As you say, I don't think anyone actually fought with a pike in that war.



I'd say roughly the same dynamic applies to close combat across the ages. It's extremely difficult to endure hand-to-hand fighting. However, at least before gunpowder, hideous crashes happened enough to matter. At Ravenna in 1512 according to Florange (http://books.google.com/books?id=RtkePoWkij8C&pg=PA12&lpg=PA12&dq=ravenna+%2B+florange&source=bl&ots=cNY4qW1juU&sig=7DMyb2eBo3pJvHi0TvFhY04_ep4&hl=en&sa=X&ei=vN_eUta8KMvtoATyiYGICg&ved=0CEwQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=landsknecht&f=false), for instance, over 99% of the men in the first rank of the losing pike formation died and victors experienced equally severe losses. Florange only survived with his forty-six wounds because his father charged into the infantry melee with a few other men-at-arms and pulled Florange from among the dead. That's another example of how ridiculously badass Renaissance men-at-arms could be. :smallsmile:

Triumphant armies would often lose 5-10+% killed in a hard-fought battle from antiquity through the Renaissance.


That's why good commanders advocated disrupting the enemy before making an assault. Whether that was with artillery or archery or just maneuvering to hit them in the flank or rear, or disrupting the formation by luring them into broken terrain.

An army that wins the field but loses a tenth of probably their best troops, (the ones brave enough to press a charge home and slog it out in melee) won't be a very good army after a few battles like that.

[AMFV]

It's possible to be in combat situations without getting PTSD, and so to be a Vet. without PTSD. If some of them had a particularly bloody experience and aren't suffering,there are a few possibilities for why they mightn't be. The possibility that someone can gut a person and not suffer PTSD from it is currently beyond my expectations.


But it's true, not all people who have killed other people have PTSD, and some people that haven't do. It's not as easy as all that. I've met people who have shot at and likely killed others, I would certainly not classify them as sociopaths, as Grossman does. In fact, the fact that he would classify other soldiers (those of whom actually served in combat) that way is perturbing to me, especially since he was never in the military during wartime.



Many traumas never recover. Some will improve without recovering. Combat trauma is something no one ever recovers from. Exceptions of a sort are shell shock and battle fatigue. If you were in an area under bombardment, the stress is enough to induce PTSD for many. Some of those cases will recover (thank God). If the situation involves dispatching people with a bayonet, it's going to feel very different with different effects.


But it won't in all cases result in PTSD, as I've said, I've met people who have killed other people and they don't all have PTSD. Your statement is erroneous and not backed by evidence. PTSD is linked to stress which is not always linked to "if you killed somebody".



That is certainly an exaggeration. It's also a slightly different matter from whether people can and will kill. I mean, there are soldiers who didn't have to exchange fire in a war, or the fire was under such conditions they couldn't hope to land shots. If you took those same soldiers, and put them in a kill or die situation against an enemy, few wouldn't choose the former.

So you're agreeing that most people can kill? I mean the experimental data shows that and the only data that is not in line with that is extremely questionable. As I said, I've never heard about it being a problem.

[GraaEminense]

As I said, I've never heard about it being a problem.
Haven't read Grossman's books so I can't really comment on on the validity of his claims. However, from what I understand of them it really shouldn't be surprising that a modern army (and especially highly-trained troops as I understand the USMC is) does not suffer from not-shooting-to-kill-syndrome to any significant degree, because modern training regimes aims at breaking these barriers down to a much larger degree.

Do I understand Grossman correctly in this case?
If so, does the above have any truth to it? I have read numerous statements confirming it, but am somewhat skeptical of the source material.

[AMFV]

Haven't read Grossman's books so I can't really comment on on the validity of his claims. However, from what I understand of them it really shouldn't be surprising that a modern army (and especially highly-trained troops as I understand the USMC is) does not suffer from not-shooting-to-kill-syndrome to any significant degree, because modern training regimes aims at breaking these barriers down to a much larger degree.


I wouldn't say that's the case, most instruction in the military at a basic level involves practicing to obey orders quickly and precisely, not in killing people and more than is necessary, violent cadences aren't sung in Boot camp (and not within hearing range of officers in most other places). The training tends to focus on obedience and efficiency, not on some kind of killing training. There are a few exercises to this effect but not much. Mostly because the military already decided that the shots fired ratio was absolute bunk, for a variety of reasons.



Do I understand Grossman correctly in this case?
If so, does the above have any truth to it? I have read numerous statements confirming it, but am somewhat skeptical of the source material.

I don't believe this to be the case, it was certainly not my experience in training, which focused on obeying orders and dealing with stress. Even the combat training portion of my experience was almost completely focused on using the weapons and basic tactics, not in actually targeting people (in fact you can't even point a weapon at people during training.) And I've still never heard of the problem Grossman describes. Again, he doesn't have the experience to comment on it, and his only sources are highly suspect. The book is in large part an anti-video game and culture tract which is already suspect at that point, and he only cites two very questionable sources as his primary sources, I would argue that this is pretty ludicrous. Additionally he uses Freudian Psychology, which is almost completely debunked by modern psychological methods, it's pop tripe at it's worst, and worst of all it's offensive to those who have served in a combat capacity. Implying that those were willing to kill were converted into sociopaths, a ridiculous allegation.

Edit: One should always be suspect of something with a rosy conclusion and an easy scapegoat. His conclusion "people don't kill naturally", is proven wrong by history, but it's nice to hear. And he then puts the blame for modern ills on our culture and video games, which is a nice scapegoat. It's all too convenient, too easy on the ears and too poorly researched.

[Mike_G]

I could see it being more of an issue with conscripts, who didn't ever really want to be soldiers, or soldiers in an unpopular war, like Vietnam, where many soldiers didn't feel very inspired to be there, that they were accomplishing anything by killing the enemy. Hugging the bottom of the hole, retreating when pressed, or firing high makes sense if you really just want to survive your tour and go back to the block with all your limbs.

Volunteers who ask to go fight, and soldiers in more elite units want to be soldiers, want to fight, and even if they aren't convinced of the political necessity of a particular war, will kill the enemy for their fellow soldiers. To kill the enemy so that guy won't have a chance to shoot more of my buddies. To win a battle because US Marines don't retreat from some ragtag peasant scum with AK 47s. But probably phrased with more banned language than that. Ooh-rah.

[AMFV]

I could see it being more of an issue with conscripts, who didn't ever really want to be soldiers, or soldiers in an unpopular war, like Vietnam, where many soldiers didn't feel very inspired to be there, that they were accomplishing anything by killing the enemy. Hugging the bottom of the hole, retreating when pressed, or firing high makes sense if you really just want to survive your tour and go back to the block with all your limbs.

Volunteers who ask to go fight, and soldiers in more elite units want to be soldiers, want to fight, and even if they aren't convinced of the political necessity of a particular war, will kill the enemy for their fellow soldiers. To kill the enemy so that guy won't have a chance to shoot more of my buddies. To win a battle because US Marines don't retreat from some ragtag peasant scum with AK 47s. But probably phrased with more banned language than that. Ooh-rah.

Those ragtag peasants will fight though, just as easily as Marines. Just like kids be responsible for SVEST or SVBIED attacks, there's no prevention from killing, no moral that stops people, people will kill with very little provocation, that's been my experience. Also the ratio of fire numbers were closer to 90% in Vietnam, it was World War 2 where they were lower, which was not an unpopular war. The issue is that the methodology used for those numbers is not very stringent and wasn't peer reviewed and while Marshall published his findings there were no actual tables or statistical analysis done, it's just words on paper.

[Mike_G]

Those ragtag peasants will fight though, just as easily as Marines. Just like kids be responsible for SVEST or SVBIED attacks, there's no prevention from killing, no moral that stops people, people will kill with very little provocation, that's been my experience. Also the ratio of fire numbers were closer to 90% in Vietnam, it was World War 2 where they were lower, which was not an unpopular war. The issue is that the methodology used for those numbers is not very stringent and wasn't peer reviewed and while Marshall published his findings there were no actual tables or statistical analysis done, it's just words on paper.


I'm coming from the same place you are, I can't see anybody I went to Parris Island with not shooting at the enemy. I was just trying to look for an explanation.

I could see a guy who was drafted, or a guy who joined the Guard to get free college trying not to shoot an enemy he didn't really feel any grudge against.

And I'm not saying that filthy peasants can't kill you. Only that the thought of being beaten by them is worse than the thought of being wounded. Elite units spend a lot of time instilling the idea that we're better than them. Part of that is so that you won't think they can beat you, and it becomes kinda self fulfilling.

[Mr. Mask]

A Mind Forever Voyaging: Certainly. I already mentioned that artillery crews rarely suffered PTSD, and artillery is responsible for most of the casualties of the world wars. Similarly, people who were merely in a site that was under bombardment might never get over their shell shock.

Now, you say shot at and likely killed someone. If you shoot at little shapes in the distance, and aren't sure if they ducked or if you hit them, it would be unusual to get PTSD from that.

You're friends probably aren't sociopaths. All sociopathy really adds up to is not identifying with other humans, which makes it easier to do them harm (sociopathy =/= evil, all the same). Killing when you aren't much of a sociopath just means it'll hurt more.


I'm afraid I can't comment any differently without more details than, "have killed." WW2 bombers often killed many civilians, but I don't think their PTSD occurrences were that high.


"Can kill," is an odd statement. There are very many kinds of killing. Many people couldn't kill for minor monetary gain--others will literally kill you for as little as your shoes. But, given a definite kill or die situation, most are going to pick, "kill."

I remember one case of a highly decorated figure of WWI or WWII. Turned out, he had been avoiding killing anyone, since he didn't feel good about the war. When a group of Germans were coming upon him, and his friends, though... he killed such a number of them that he was highly decorated for it. ((I really wish I could remember his name...))


The military training has a little more effect than you describe (it imprints the instinct to shoot at threats in place of freezing up, and the idea of reacting to man-shaped targets popping out of cover), but you're right that it doesn't make killers.


When you say no moral which, "stops," people, you are correct. Still, physically and culturally ingrained is a resistance to killing, which needs to be overcome one way or another. Unfortunately, killing is one of those things that just keeps getting easier the more you do it.


Mike: Elite units and corps are unlikely to have people unwilling to shoot. You'll get a few odd ones out, for reasons personal and as you've mentioned. And of course, the harder you press a group, the more likely they are to shoot to kill (that or surrender).

[AMFV]

A Mind Forever Voyaging: Certainly. I already mentioned that artillery crews rarely suffered PTSD, and artillery is responsible for most of the casualties of the world wars. Similarly, people who were merely in a site that was under bombardment might never get over their shell shock.

Artillery crews suffer from PTSD, frequently, I'd like to see a source that states that arty is less likely to suffer from PTSD. Now I would believe that those who were not in as direct a combat position might hesitate to get help for PTSD. I know that was problem for people I know, actually here I'll be honest, it was a problem for me when I started having trouble like that, I still don't know to this date if it was legitimate or why that sort of thing affected me, but it did.



Now, you say shot at and likely killed someone. If you shoot at little shapes in the distance, and aren't sure if they ducked or if you hit them, it would be unusual to get PTSD from that.

YOU DON'T GET PTSD FROM KILLING. You get it from stress, I worked with intelligence I was much less bothered by the thought that people might have died because of what I did (which almost certainly is the case, or is very likely) than that CF troops might have died from my mistakes. I've got actual experience with this, unlike Grossman, and I can tell you, he's dead wrong. If he were right Doctors wouldn't get PTSD, and they do, the medical profession is rife with that sort of thing, because it is high stress.



You're friends probably aren't sociopaths. All sociopathy really adds up to is not identifying with other humans, which makes it easier to do them harm (sociopathy =/= evil, all the same). Killing when you aren't much of a sociopath just means it'll hurt more.

Grossman is arguing that it isn't really possible to kill without being a sociopath or training yourself to be tantamount to a sociopath, that's a problem, his fundamental argument is based on that idea, that there is a resistance to killing it simply isn't the case.



I'm afraid I can't comment any differently without more details than, "have killed." WW2 bombers often killed many civilians, but I don't think their PTSD occurrences were that high.

Show me sources, I've read many journals and war stories about Bombers that had "battle fatigue" they even had a maximum number of missions because battle fatigue was so bad on those bombers (25 if I recall correctly). So your statement is completely wrong and in fact the opposite of the truth, bombers are just as likely to suffer PTSD as is anybody else.



"Can kill," is an odd statement. There are very many kinds of killing. Many people couldn't kill for minor monetary gain--others will literally kill you for as little as your shoes. But, given a definite kill or die situation, most are going to pick, "kill."

Which is something Grossman argues is not the case... which is why I believe that his thesis is not a good one.



I remember one case of a highly decorated figure of WWI or WWII. Turned out, he had been avoiding killing anyone, since he didn't feel good about the war. When a group of Germans were coming upon him, and his friends, though... he killed such a number of them that he was highly decorated for it. ((I really wish I could remember his name...))

Sgt Alvin York, he killed five, and the thing is that he did kill, quickly and without hesitation, hesitation against the charging Germans would have meant death, and there was no hesitation, and he was pacifist previously, so if he can override his "natural urge against killing" then anybody can.



The military training has a little more effect than you describe (it imprints the instinct to shoot at threats in place of freezing up, and the idea of reacting to man-shaped targets popping out of cover), but you're right that it doesn't make killers.

No, it imprints the instinct to assess situations and react decisively. You're not supposed to just shoot threats, that would be ridiculous, you have to assess the threat and react decisively, any training to the contrary would encourage lots of blue on blue and lots of civilian death, and that's not what we train for (sometimes it comes out in practice, but that's shortcomings in training, not it's intended goal).



When you say no moral which, "stops," people, you are correct. Still, physically and culturally ingrained is a resistance to killing, which needs to be overcome one way or another. Unfortunately, killing is one of those things that just keeps getting easier the more you do it..

There is no physically and culturally ingrained resistance to killing. The only experimental data absolutely and unequivocally disputes this. Grossman used bad data, it was anecdotal, non-experimental data, that's pretty shoddy for a supposed researcher. There is no such resistance, as I said, I've seen children that would kill. Children. If there was a biological resistance to killing they're the ones that should have it, and they clearly don't.


I'm coming from the same place you are, I can't see anybody I went to Parris Island with not shooting at the enemy. I was just trying to look for an explanation.

I could see a guy who was drafted, or a guy who joined the Guard to get free college trying not to shoot an enemy he didn't really feel any grudge against.

And I'm not saying that filthy peasants can't kill you. Only that the thought of being beaten by them is worse than the thought of being wounded. Elite units spend a lot of time instilling the idea that we're better than them. Part of that is so that you won't think they can beat you, and it becomes kinda self fulfilling.


Well the reason that it's a problem is that Grossman, is trying to make an anti-video games and violent movies statement, and Marshall is using bad data, that's why it's coming out skewed like that. The data is just not good data. Although I could see that it might be higher for conscripts but I imagine that you'd desert before you tried to not shoot at an enemy and then went back to battle, at least I would if I were that against being in a fight.

[Mike_G]

Although I could see that it might be higher for conscripts but I imagine that you'd desert before you tried to not shoot at an enemy and then went back to battle, at least I would if I were that against being in a fight.

Well, if you desert, you can get in loads of trouble. If you shoot high, or just hug the ground, you don't. Assuming it's a situation where it isn't him-or-me, just enemy muzzle flashes or shapes seen at a distance. Who would know you missed intentionally, or even if you missed.

That way, you don't go to Leavenworth, or have to be a fugitive to Canada. You try to slide through, keep your head down, and hope that you can get home without any blood on your hands.


The other point about men who never shot could very well be men who never had a target. There are plenty of times in modern battle where a unit can be engaged, but some or even most of the unit can't see the enemy. And your squad leader might not see you to tell you to gte that weapon in action. And shooting draws attention to you, and attention from the nemy is bad. So, if you don't see a real compelling target, you stay low and don't shoot.

Like I said, I can see it if you really don't want to be a grunt, you could try to just do enough to get by and hope to go home.

[AMFV]

Well, if you desert, you can get in loads of trouble. If you shoot high, or just hug the ground, you don't. Assuming it's a situation where it isn't him-or-me, just enemy muzzle flashes or shapes seen at a distance. Who would know you missed intentionally, or even if you missed.

The problem is that this sort of thing wouldn't even show up on Marshall's data, since he used interviews and there's all kinds of incentive to lie on them.



That way, you don't go to Leavenworth, or have to be a fugitive to Canada. You try to slide through, keep your head down, and hope that you can get home without any blood on your hands.

Well when there was conscription there was a conscientious objector status that would relegate you to non-combat roles.



The other point about men who never shot could very well be men who never had a target. There are plenty of times in modern battle where a unit can be engaged, but some or even most of the unit can't see the enemy. And your squad leader might not see you to tell you to gte that weapon in action. And shooting draws attention to you, and attention from the nemy is bad. So, if you don't see a real compelling target, you stay low and don't shoot.

Like I said, I can see it if you really don't want to be a grunt, you could try to just do enough to get by and hope to go home.

I could see it, but it's not borne out by any reliable data though, and I've never heard of it, and you've never heard of it. Both of us have the experience and have never heard of it being an issue, I've never heard of Afghan locals deliberately missing, and that's probably the same sort of thing as the conscript situation. It just is not reflected in data, except for one potential data source which is rife with problems.

Edit: I'm not saying that the conscript theory doesn't make some intuitive sense but it has some serious issues, and it really hasn't been borne out by reliable data, if we were using that as a solid theory then Vietnam's fire ratio should be dramatically lower than World War 2's. And is not, what we're seeing is bad data. Plain and simple.

[fusilier]

From what I recall - and this was a long time ago that I read it - there was a bit more to it than that. Some commanders and/or armchair generals argued that the pike - which was only around 9-10ft and would have been more like a half-pike in the 16th or 17th century - would beat the bayonet up close and that winning up close would be a great example of Southern valor and all that. The soldiers actually equipped with pikes, on the other hand, thought it was a horrible joke and thought themselves utterly unfit for battle against guns. As you say, I don't think anyone actually fought with a pike in that war.

My suspicion is that it's a combination of bluster, wishful thinking, and the desire to put the best possible spin on the situation. A lack of weapons was the real reason they were given pikes, a soldier with a pike is better than one without a weapon at all. I'll admit that I haven't studied it that closely, but I'm fairly confident, nobody was being given pikes when muskets were available. ;-)

[fusilier]

The rifled musket and the Minie ball were standard issue for Union troops throughout the war. There were a few units who used smoothbore with buck and ball, but they were by far the minority.

While I agree, I caution that this should not be overstated. Smoothbore muskets were in use with Union forces throughout the entire conflict (and possibly a bit longer). Earlier in the war, and the farther west you go, the more common they will be among Union forces. Even so, I know of one New Jersey regiment that used smoothbores throughout the entire war. Depending upon local circumstances they may not have been that uncommon. Often whole brigades were armed with smoothbore muskets.

It should also be kept in mind, that early in the war they bought just about anything that might qualify as a military weapon. The US purchased many dubious smoothbore muskets in Europe, sometimes just to deny them to the Confederates, but they issued them to their own troops too. Usually the troops that ended up with them were not too happy. ;-)


If a company of 100 men levels smoothbore muskets and with a loose fitting ball (not even aims, per se, but points at a formation) 100 yards away, lot of those shots will go high or low and accomplish nothing. Those same 100 leveled rifles with Minie balls will result in far more shots passing though the formation, maybe hitting somebody. even if you aren't aiming at a single target, putting your rounds within a few feet of your aim point versus the same time zone as your aim point means a lot more rounds will find somebody.

Yes. At 30-40 yards a smoothbore would have a significant advantage, but past that the minie-gun had a better hit rate.


By the middle of the nineteenth century, everybody had abandoned smoothbores and never looked back. The only advantage was quicker loading than rifles. Once the Minie ball solved that, the increased accuracy more than made up for the small loss of speed. Two aimed shot a minute will beat the living crap out of four unaimed shots.

And very quickly they abandoned muzzle-loading. It was a time of considerable development.

[fusilier]

Milgram experiment

It's been sometime since I've studied it, but I seem to recall that attempts to repeat the experiment have had mixed results. So while it's an interesting experiment, it's not clear that it's conclusions are accurate or clear-cut.

[AgentPaper]

Milgram experiment

It's been sometime since I've studied it, but I seem to recall that attempts to repeat the experiment have had mixed results. So while it's an interesting experiment, it's not clear that it's conclusions are accurate or clear-cut.

According to the wikipedia article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment), it's been mostly re-affirmed by later studies.

[Stephen_E]

The military training has a little more effect than you describe (it imprints the instinct to shoot at threats in place of freezing up, and the idea of reacting to man-shaped targets popping out of cover), but you're right that it doesn't make killers.


I think everyone would agree that military training is to a significant degree there to stop people freezing up. The trouble is with going "They are freezing up because of a reluctance to kill" when there is already a well established behaviour that applies in combat and also outside combat that creates the same effect. Namely in high stress situations people go into a fugue state where they freeze or go into a patterned/reflex behaviour if they have a pattern that is somewhat appropriate. This behaviour of freezing or "running on automatic" has been repeatedly seen when a theorectical reluctance to kill has no relevance. Car accidents, both during and after. I have read of people who's jobs involve informing people of a loved one's death frequently running in to it.

When you have a general behaviour that fits the situation then any claim that there is a special behaviour going on requires superior proof. Grossman doesn't provide such proof.

[Incanur]

That's why good commanders advocated disrupting the enemy before making an assault. Whether that was with artillery or archery or just maneuvering to hit them in the flank or rear, or disrupting the formation by luring them into broken terrain.

Definitely. On the other hand, some warriors cared more about doing great deeds and winning renown than long-term strategic goals. And relentless aggression can prove an effective military approach, albeit a costly one. The ancient Romans stand out in this regard. King Pyrrhus and Hannibal repeatedly defeated Roman armies and killed many thousands of Roman citizens, but Rome just kept on raising new armies until they eventually triumphed. For a more efficient example, a small Swiss force attacked a vastly larger invading French army at St. Jakob an der Birs in 1444. They died to last man, but took so many of their enemies with them that the French force decided to turn around afterward.


An army that wins the field but loses a tenth of probably their best troops, (the ones brave enough to press a charge home and slog it out in melee) won't be a very good army after a few battles like that.

You bet - just ask Pyrrhus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyrrhus_of_Epirus). :smallamused:

[Fortinbras]

Anyone know how much a lamellar cuirass would weigh?

[Yaktan]

When you have a general behaviour that fits the situation then any claim that there is a special behaviour going on requires superior proof. Grossman doesn't provide such proof.

The thing is, Grossman's thesis is not simply that humans have an aversion to killing. It is that we do not simply have a fight-or-flight adrenal response, but rather fight, flight, submission, or posturing. Having general behavior match actually supports his thesis.

[AMFV]

The thing is, Grossman's thesis is not simply that humans have an aversion to killing. It is that we do not simply have a fight-or-flight adrenal response, but rather fight, flight, submission, or posturing. Having general behavior match actually supports his thesis.

But it doesn't, there is no proof of his thesis, he uses outdated psychology, terribly flawed studies (of which there were only two) Submission is a part of the flight response, and posturing is part of the fight response. Basically he's bending evidence to try to fit his thesis.

Posturing generally can lead to fighting. I've seen this happen, more than once, from people I suspect are not sociopaths. Submission can turn into flight if you think that its going south, it's a matter of degree.

And there's still strong proof that people will go as far as lethal force on average for an experiment, and that's in a situation with no stress and no danger, in a dangerous scenario it would likely go the opposite way.

[Mr. Mask]

A Mind Forever Voyaging: I don't think our opinions are as different as it seems I've inadvertently lead you to believe.

I'm not saying killing causes PTSD regardless of stress... I'm saying that if you kill someone with a knife, you're so close, so threatened, that it's impossible to not feel an incredible amount of stress. I've yet to know anyone who can claim they have done that without having nightmares about it years later. Fighting at extremely close range is an incredible kind of stress.


Fortinbras: Try to think of it another way. Let's say you have 40 pounds of articulated plate armour. 60 pounds of lamellar armour might be just as protective as that, but heavier (!!Those are just example numbers, don't assume they're correct or near correct!!).

So, how heavy it is depends on how much protection you want. You could try kitting yourself in 80 pounds of lamellar, but moving in that would exhaust you very quickly.

I think a cuirass is generally around 10 pounds for heavy combat armour? You might want to look up plate armour or something and see if they break down the weight of the different pieces. Note they'd sometimes use chest plates from tournament armour in battle.

[AMFV]

A Mind Forever Voyaging: I don't think our opinions are as different as it seems I've inadvertently lead you to believe.

I'm not saying killing causes PTSD regardless of stress... I'm saying that if you kill someone with a knife, you're so close, so threatened, that it's impossible to not feel an incredible amount of stress. I've yet to know anyone who can claim they have done that without having nightmares about it years later. Fighting at extremely close range is an incredible kind of stress.


Certainly true, but the point is that the stress isn't necessarily associated with the things that one might expect. Also different people can react dramatically differently under the same stress. In fact one person may react differently under the same sort of stress at different times. Stress is not a predictable response, beyond the fact that a person is likely to experience it.

Grossman's reduction of the factors involved in PTSD is a significant issue. Because it implies that the stresses are caused by killing (which isn't necessarily the case), and that the other stresses are not as significant (also not the case). It's also attempting to use those suffering from PTSD for his own ends (striking out against what he considers to be culture issues.

[Mr. Mask]

Stress is a very unpredictable response. Fighting at that distance, killing people with blades, how you react to it is very unpredictable. Because of the interviews I've done and other reasons, I unfortunately keep comparing statistics and many things to those instances. When conflict is that close up and bloody... the stress really has little comparison.

[AMFV]

Stress is a very unpredictable response. Fighting at that distance, killing people with blades, how you react to it is very unpredictable. Because of the interviews I've done and other reasons, I unfortunately keep comparing statistics and many things to those instances. When conflict is that close up and bloody... the stress really has little comparison.

I think all combat stress has no real comparison. I would suspect that it's the risk to one's person and one's friends that inspires the most stressful responses. Otherwise the bomber pilots wouldn't suffer from that sort of stress, and they do, and combat doctors wouldn't suffer from the same sort of stress.

[Mr. Mask]

Not arguing, but to say what honestly comes to mind... as far as I'm aware, 100% of those who have faced that kind of combat receive serious stress, and few avoid PTSD. That's why my figures seem weird, since I unfortunately associate anything less than 100% of cases to be an improvement. Those with experience on the subject have thus far agreed, feeling no one could go through that level of stress without that effect.

[AMFV]

Not arguing, but to say what honestly comes to mind... as far as I'm aware, 100% of those who have faced that kind of combat receive serious PTSD. That's why my figures seem weird, since I unfortunately associate anything less than 100% of cases to be an improvement. Those with experience on the subject have thus far agreed, feeling no one could go through that level of stress without that effect.

I don't think that's an accurate statistic. I haven't seen the statistics and as far as I know they would be difficult to impossible to collect. But there are more people that see combat action than actually get PTSD, and there are those who don't see much action that do develop PTSD. It suggests that the stress isn't completely tied to the things that might be the most immediately intuitive.

[Mr. Mask]

I honestly believe that statistic is not inaccurate. Many who experienced it would say the same.

I'd be happy if I was incorrect. I keep looking for a case of someone who was not traumatized by blade combat.

[AMFV]

I honestly believe that statistic is not inaccurate. Many who experienced it would say the same.

I'd be happy if I was incorrect. I keep looking for a case of someone who was not traumatized by blade combat.

I don't think there has been an incident of blade combat in a very long time, so far as I am aware there were only a handful of bayonet fatalities in the current war. We have no statistics from any period where that sort of warfare was common. In the Civil War, certainly it was, and we know that not all the people who fought had PTSD to a degree where it was debilitating. The same thing holds true for World War 2, we know that the statistics are not one hundred percent, at least not a degree where it is debilitating.

And a claim of 100% without much statistical evidence is extremely difficult to use. There are many people who were involved in room clearing that don't have PTSD. And that's roughly as close-quarters as the sort of combat you're describing. It's just not an argument that can be supported by statistical evidence.

[Mr. Mask]

Edited my post. That was an embarrassing misuse of a term I should be very familiar with...

As for occurrences of blade combat, it's not infrequent. Most of it is from street crime (admittedly, a lot of those cases are more slaughter than combat).

[AMFV]

Edited my post. That was an embarrassing misuse of a term I should be very familiar with...

As for occurrences of blade combat, it's not infrequent. Most of it is from street crime (admittedly, a lot of those cases are more slaughter than combat).

Not all of those lead to PTSD in any case. While there may be trauma, I would argue that the stress isn't necessarily going to lead to PTSD. We still don't have a large scale example, and I would argue that it's not necessarily more stressful than any other kind of combat, at least I have seen no statistics that would indicate that it would be.

[Mr. Mask]

Yeah, that's what I changed about my post. The number of cases of PTSD from blade combat is extreme, but not 100% as I accidentally said.

As to whether it is the most stressful kind of combat... it's a bit complex. As an example, guilt can elevate the same situation's stress by a lot, so if you ended up shooting a friend by accident, it might be more stressful than if you had killed an enemy in blade combat. These situations are hard to compare.

[Brother Oni]

@AMFV: Sorry, I'm having problems with some of your acronyms: SVBIED - Suicide Vehicle Borne Improvised Explosive Device (aka a driven car bomb), SVEST is Suicide Vest?


Anyone know how much a lamellar cuirass would weigh?

Made out of what material?

I've seen values of 24-35 lbs for an o-yoroi dou (samurai armour breastplate) made out of leather and iron scales, which would be on the heavier end of the scale (it's about 65 lbs for the whole armour).

[AMFV]

Yeah, that's what I changed about my post. The number of cases of PTSD from blade combat is extreme, but not 100% as I accidentally said.

As to whether it is the most stressful kind of combat... it's a bit complex. As an example, guilt can elevate the same situation's stress by a lot, so if you ended up shooting a friend by accident, it might be more stressful than if you had killed an enemy in blade combat. These situations are hard to compare.

Well I think that the problem is that you're associating the stress with only the killing aspect and I think that's clearly not the case, because there are those who get PTSD that have not been involved in killing, the stress is therefore related to a more complex set of circumstances than simply killing.

And as somebody who knows people who have PTSD, and who suffers from PTSD symptoms myself, I am bothered by the accusation by Grossman that it boils down to some kind of killing guilt. Because it is infinitely more complex than that.


@AMFV: Sorry, I'm having problems with some of your acronyms: SVBIED - Suicide Vehicle Borne Improvised Explosive Device (aka a driven car bomb), SVEST is Suicide Vest?

Yessir.

[Kaww]

I have a weapons question that's not related with Roleplaying games. Mark told me to post it in Gaming(Other) and provide a link here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=326943). I hope some of you might help me.

Best regards,
kaww

[Mr. Mask]

A Mind Forever Voyaging: PTSD occurs from extreme stress for many. Blade combat has most of the factors of extreme stress.

The very close, personal threat your person by another human. The very personal way in which you kill another human. And all the blood which results. The danger. Those are all very stressful.

Killing people on a personal level isn't a matter of guilt. You feel trauma and can get post trauma from killing people who you felt honestly deserved it.

[Mr. Mask]

I've forgotten how to metallurgy... Could someone please reteach me what properties are desirable for, "rigid," armours such as plate harness?

Nevermind. I worked out where my calculations were going wrong.

[AMFV]

A Mind Forever Voyaging: PTSD occurs from extreme stress for many. Blade combat has most of the factors of extreme stress.

The very close, personal threat your person by another human. The very personal way in which you kill another human. And all the blood which results. The danger. Those are all very stressful.

Killing people on a personal level isn't a matter of guilt. You feel trauma and can get post trauma from killing people who you felt honestly deserved it.

But the trauma isn't necessarily from killing. As I've said, I've seen children who could kill, children. Teenagers, there is no predisposition against killing, no biological imperative to prevent it. The trauma is far more complex than that, which is part of the reason why Grossman makes me so angry.

[Mr. Mask]

Well, if you just throw some American kid a knife and ask them to slit a prisoner's throat... you're not going to get good results. If you curse at them, threaten to kill them, and have already shot their parents, they tend to comply (Lord Saviour's Army starts its child soldiers that way.....). If you tell them about the evil men from when they're tykes, and how they have to grow up and kill them, you can get toddlers clumsily trying to remove heads with swords (....seen that one).

Give people guns, convince them they're real, then ask them to shoot people who answer the questions incorrectly... That's an experiment I'd like to see.

[AMFV]

Well, if you just throw some American kid a knife and ask them to slit a prisoner's throat... you're not going to get good results. If you curse at them, threaten to kill them, and have already shot their parents, they tend to comply (Lord Saviour's Army starts its child soldiers that way.....). If you tell them about the evil men from when they're tykes, and how they have to grow up and kill them, you can get toddlers clumsily trying to remove heads with swords (....seen that one).

Give people guns, convince them they're real, then ask them to shoot people who answer the questions incorrectly... That's an experiment I'd like to see.

The Milgrim experiment has already proven that people are willing to kill complete strangers. So we've had this already proven, the data is not on your side, or on Grossman's in this case. People are fundamentally able to violent for very little reasons, it's part of the reason why military conflict happens.

[Galloglaich]

Both circumstances are true, and it actually is supported by the data. It depends on the conditions and the people involved, where they are from and so on. A kid growing up on the farm (or in goat herding pastures of Afghanistan) is less squeamish about killing than someone who grew up in middle class suburbia in the West.

Historically you have plenty of events like the rape of Nanking but you also have the opposite (like in the siege of Paris in 1871 and in many other cases in the 20th Century) where troops refuse to fire on civilians. And also battlefield truces which have to be forcibly broken up (as happened frequently in WW I and sometimes in WW II).

Human nature is complex. Is that news?

G

[AMFV]

Both circumstances are true, and it actually is supported by the data. It depends on the conditions and the people involved, where they are from and so on. A kid growing up on the farm (or in goat herding pastures of Afghanistan) is less squeamish about killing than someone who grew up in middle class suburbia in the West.

Cite your sources? The only experimental data correlates with people being willing to kill in a significant majority.


Historically you have plenty of events like the rape of Nanking but you also have the opposite (like in the siege of Paris in 1871 and in many other cases in the 20th Century) where troops refuse to fire on civilians. And also battlefield truces which have to be forcibly broken up (as happened frequently in WW I and sometimes in WW II).

Human nature is complex. Is that news?

G

Yes, human nature is complex, but we don't have a programmed imperative against killing. I wasn't discussing murdering civilians, but killing in general as Grossman suggests. Furthermore, the problem is that the data has mostly been suggesting that people are willing to kill. Because people can rise above their inclinations to kill doesn't mean that they have a biological imperative not to.

[Mr. Mask]

I looked up a little more... apparently some of them went into hysterics, and some went into seizures over it... that isn't stress?

[AMFV]

I looked up a little more... apparently some of them went into hysterics, and some went into seizures over it... that isn't stress?

Over what, participating in knife combat, or the Milgrim experiment? I'm not saying that combat doesn't involve stress, I'm saying that the causes of the stress aren't as simple as you might suggest. Tests and experiments are inherently stressful as well, and there are many factors that can influence this sort of thing. Reducing it to something as simplistic as "guilt over killing" as Grossman does is inherently problematic, and in no small part offensive to those people who suffer from PTSD.

[Mr. Mask]

Stress from tests relates to a fear of failure, from the challenge being too much for you when you're working as hard as you can, from confusion, etc.. The Milgrim experiment required them to push a button when the stranger answered a question incorrectly?

[AMFV]

Stress from tests relates to a fear of failure, from the challenge being too much for you when you're working as hard as you can, from confusion, etc.. The Milgrim experiment required them to push a button when the stranger answered a question incorrectly?

Yes, and they were chastised if they refused to continue pushing the button even when seeing the person get "shocked". And even observing that the shock was into the "lethal" range. Fear of chastisement is certainly stressful.

[Mr. Mask]

What kind of chastisement were they using, to put some of them into seizures? If they were using normal chastisement, then you should get normal reactions.

[AMFV]

What kind of chastisement were they using, to put some of them into seizures? If they were using normal chastisement, then you should get normal reactions.

It's just verbal chastisement. But in the end despite that 65% of people were willing to push all the way into a deadly level, so that would be a strong suggestion that there is no biological imperative against killing, and even if there is it is so far from the 2% number that Grossman quotes as to make his numbers completely erroneous, and if his numbers are bad then his conclusions are probably boundless.

Edit: And even if there is an imperative it can be violated simply because you're told to violate it in the majority of cases.

[AgentPaper]

The Milgram experiment does not prove that people will kill others "for little reason." It was very specific in what it proved, which is that many people will trust and obey authority, even when that authority is contradicted by what is right in front of their eyes. The participants knew that what they were doing was wrong, which is why so many of them showed signs of extreme stress and dismay. What's significant, is that they continued to apply more and more dangerous shocks despite their natural distaste, simply because an authority figure (in this case, a scientist) was ordering them to and re-assuring them that what they were doing was OK.

What should be taken away from the Milgram experiment isn't that the resistance to kill is weak, but that the compulsion to obey authority is even stronger.

[AMFV]

The Milgram experiment does not prove that people will kill others "for little reason." It was very specific in what it proved, which is that many people will trust and obey authority, even when that authority is contradicted by what is right in front of their eyes. The participants knew that what they were doing was wrong, which is why so many of them showed signs of extreme stress and dismay. What's significant, is that they continued to apply more and more dangerous shocks despite their natural distaste, simply because an authority figure (in this case, a scientist) was ordering them to and re-assuring them that what they were doing was OK.

What should be taken away from the Milgram experiment isn't that the resistance to kill is weak, but that the compulsion to obey authority is even stronger.

I do not believe that there is a resistance to killing that is biologically prescient. There is no evidence that supports this particular allegation. The only sort of thing that we know is that most people are willing to kill. Children are willing to kill, and as such I just don't see that there'd be more evidence of it. There is no evidence that supports this allegation, except for the Marshall report where no statistical data was ever really presented, only unsupported conclusions, and the musket recovery, which has many many flaws as well.

[AgentPaper]

I do not believe that there is a resistance to killing that is biologically prescient. There is no evidence that supports this particular allegation. The only sort of thing that we know is that most people are willing to kill. Children are willing to kill, and as such I just don't see that there'd be more evidence of it. There is no evidence that supports this allegation, except for the Marshall report where no statistical data was ever really presented, only unsupported conclusions, and the musket recovery, which has many many flaws as well.

I'm not sure what you're trying to say here. Are you saying that, if I take two random people off the street, give one of them a gun and tell them to shoot the other, they will do it? Of course there is a resistance to killing people. That doesn't mean that it can't be overcome, and often is in various circumstances, but just because it can be overcome doesn't mean it suddenly stops existing.

[Mr. Mask]

A Mind Forever Voyaging: So, you're not saying there is no resistance to killing, but that most people don't have it.

[Mr. Mask]

Looking at the Milgrim experiment, the people were told the shocks were not deadly.

[Brother Oni]

Looking at the Milgrim experiment, the people were told the shocks were not deadly.

Looking at the wiki article they were told no such thing. They were initially told that the test subject had a heart condition and the actor started shouting, banging on the wall and complaining about his heart condition after the voltage went above a certain level, with all further responses ceasing shortly thereafter.

If that isn't suggestive of administering a lethal shock to the test subject, I don't know what is. As AgentPaper said, the experiment proves the compulsion to obey authority is very strong.

[Mr. Mask]

I'm talking about humans, here. If a scientist tells them the shocks won't kill them, and the scientist knows about the heart-problems--why would a scientist not tell you when you ask that these shocks are lethal?

This is different from what I thought it was. Give these same people a gun, ask them to shoot a man--you won't get them to.

[Mr. Mask]

I watched a couple of the videos of it on youtube, unfortunately I couldn't find the whole thing.

Modern one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BcvSNg0HZwk

Original: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W147ybOdgpE

[AgentPaper]

The relevant parts from the wiki (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment):


If at any time the subject indicated his desire to halt the experiment, he was given a succession of verbal prods by the experimenter, in this order:

Please continue.
The experiment requires that you continue.
It is absolutely essential that you continue.
You have no other choice, you must go on.

If the subject still wished to stop after all four successive verbal prods, the experiment was halted. Otherwise, it was halted after the subject had given the maximum 450-volt shock three times in succession.

The experimenter also gave special prods if the teacher made specific comments. If the teacher asked whether the learner might suffer permanent physical harm, the experimenter replied, "Although the shocks may be painful, there is no permanent tissue damage, so please go on." If the teacher said that the learner clearly wants to stop, the experimenter replied, "Whether the learner likes it or not, you must go on until he has learned all the word pairs correctly, so please go on."

If you haven't already, I'd highly suggest reading the wikipedia article in it's entirety. It goes into more detail about the experiment, it's results, and some of the follow-up studies that were done.

[Galloglaich]

All that experiment proves is that the power of authorities and the appearance of conventional propriety (lab workers and scientists) on that particular population (middle class people and students for the most part), could fairly easily be persuaded to do something crazy (kill somebody with electric shocks).

But people can be conned into doing all kinds of idiotic things, give their bank account numbers to Nigerian hackers, for example, or kill themselves in AUM or Jim Jones cult. Or for the Taliban. That doesn't mean that there isn't any inherent resistance to impoverishing yourself, or killing yourself, it simply means that people can be convinced (or conned) to do things against their normal inclinations.

I grew up in New Orleans and watched con artist work tourists every single day. They didn't even need to be particularly smart. There are just specific patterns of speech and behavior which can steer ordinarily smart people toward doing dumb (or transgressive) things. Our entire economy depends on it, how do you think marketing works?

There are many variables in that Milgram experiment. One is that certain populations of people are much more inherently willing to obey authority than others. This too, has been demonstrated with experiments. I'm not going to bother to go looking for data-it's out there.

If you took a different group of people with less inherent respect for authority - hardcore punk rockers for example or in a more military context, green berets as opposed to say regular infantry or rangers- I think you'd find different results.

G

[AgentPaper]

All that experiment proves is that the power of authorities and the appearance of conventional propriety (lab workers and scientists) on that particular population in the early 1960's, could fairly easily be persuaded to do something crazy (kill somebody with electric shocks).

The experiment has been repeated a fair number of times, on people from different groups of background, in different settings (a backstreet office rather than a Yale university building, for example), and different time periods, and while you're correct that the results are different each time, they didn't change by all that much. The majority of people still went all the way through with it in each case. If you can find a counter-example I'd be interested in hearing about it, but I haven't been able to find one.

You're correct though in that the experiment proves the power of authority, not the weakness of human conscience. If anything, it provides pretty clear evidence of how much resistance the participants had, with various signs of extreme stress, both during and after the tests and many people did end up refusing to go on with it despite the circumstances. But that only further proves how powerful obedience and trust of authority figures can be, when all of that resistance is overcome by a few simple commands.

[Mr. Mask]

I think the type of person used would have an effect. Say, if you used scientists, whose view of the authority figure and experiments is very different.

Problem is, how are you going to find scientists who don't know about the experiment already...?

[AgentPaper]

I think the type of person used would have an effect. Say, if you used scientists, whose view of the authority figure and experiments is very different.

Problem is, how are you going to find scientists who don't know about the experiment already...?

You could do that, but I don't see what it would prove. The whole point of the experiment is to show how people react to authority figures telling them to do things they don't want to do. If you have someone that doesn't respect a scientist as an authority figure, then you would need to change the test so that the person telling them to do things is someone they would see as an authority figure, whether it be a commanding officer, a doctor, an instructor, a parent, a priest, or whatever.

[Mr. Mask]

I see your point. Unless you could convince the scientists that the people conducting the experiment were their authorities, it doesn't prove much. That makes it even harder to conduct the experiment, requiring big names behind it.

[Mr. Mask]

You are going into a battle that includes modern assault rifles as well as most medieval and renaissance weapons (bows, crossbows, early guns, swords, poleaxes, etc.). You may fully armour yourself with any material of your choosing. What material and design would you select?

[AMFV]

A Mind Forever Voyaging: So, you're not saying there is no resistance to killing, but that most people don't have it.

Well I don't believe that it exists in any real sense. People have been known to kill because they're angry, because they're afraid, because they're hungry, because they were told to do so, because they think it will help them survive, because they think it will get them material benefits, because they're jealous.

If such a resistance exists it can be overridden by too many other impulses. It's not a strong enough factor to even really be considers.


All that experiment proves is that the power of authorities and the appearance of conventional propriety (lab workers and scientists) on that particular population (middle class people and students for the most part), could fairly easily be persuaded to do something crazy (kill somebody with electric shocks).

But people can be conned into doing all kinds of idiotic things, give their bank account numbers to Nigerian hackers, for example, or kill themselves in AUM or Jim Jones cult. Or for the Taliban. Or victims of the Holocaust walking into the gas chambers. That doesn't mean that there isn't any inherent resistance to impoverishing yourself, or killing yourself, it simply means that people can be convinced (or conned) to do things against their normal inclinations.

That much is certainly true, and I would agree that people often have morals constructed that would make killing difficult, but I would fundamentally argue that the notion that it's a biological imperative is absurd.



I grew up in New Orleans and watched con artist work tourists every single day. They didn't even need to be particularly smart. There are just specific patterns of speech and behavior which can steer ordinarily smart people toward doing dumb (or transgressive) things. Our entire economy depends on it, how do you think marketing works?

There are many variables in that Milgram experiment. One is that certain populations of people are much more inherently willing to obey authority than others. This too, has been demonstrated with experiments. I'm not going to bother to go looking for data-it's out there.

Actually the data has been proven that the authority obedience factors are fairly similar.



If you took a different group of people with less inherent respect for authority - hardcore punk rockers for example or in a more military context, green berets as opposed to say regular infantry or rangers- I think you'd find different results.

G

The problem with this idea is that you're looking at groups that respect different authorities, I guarantee you that Green Berets would obey their own officers likely without question. Just because the authority figures they respect are different doesn't mean that they have none.

[TuggyNE]

You know, this pages-long debate on the psychology of killing does not appear to have very much to do with real-world weapons or armor anymore. Can we shelve it and get back to the fun stuff?

Stuff like "Why is hand-loading still so common for various guns on tanks, ships, and self-propelled artillery?" (I'm thinking specifically of the M1A1 and the Iowa-class battleships.)

[Thiel]

You are going into a battle that includes modern assault rifles as well as most medieval and renaissance weapons (bows, crossbows, early guns, swords, poleaxes, etc.). You may fully armour yourself with any material of your choosing. What material and design would you select?

This. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7aKAYmysQVk)
Modern firearms makes melee weapons superfluous except in very specific circumstances. If faced with vastly superior numbers I'd replace the assault rifle with a belt-fed machine gun.

[Mr. Mask]

Tuggy: Probably to do with concern of malfunction, but it may also be technology lag. There are some auto-loading tanks and the like.


Thiel: It was to make the situation more fun and difficult to answer. Most of the bullet proof armours now aren't made to withstand the melee weapons of old.

[Thiel]

Stuff like "Why is hand-loading still so common for various guns on tanks, ships, and self-propelled artillery?" (I'm thinking specifically of the M1A1
Because they want to be able to shift between several types of shells at a moments notice.


and the Iowa-class battleships.)
Because they're really old and making a system that can handle multi ton explosives is hard to do on land, let alone on a moving ship.

[Thiel]

Thiel: It was to make the situation more fun and difficult to answer. Most of the bullet proof armours now aren't made to withstand the melee weapons of old.
True, but if I've got an automatic weapon capable of penetrate any reasonable level of metal protection why would I let you get within range at all?
You armour yourself against the most credible threat and rely on your weapons to take care of the rest.

[Mr. Mask]

Well, the situation wasn't supposed to make sense. It's like if a DnD planar dimension was devoted to the SCA.

[AMFV]

Tuggy: Probably to do with concern of malfunction, but it may also be technology lag. There are some auto-loading tanks and the like.


Thiel: It was to make the situation more fun and difficult to answer. Most of the bullet proof armours now aren't made to withstand the melee weapons of old.

Most of the armor today can't withstand multiple hits from a bullet even. That's more of a weight issue than anything else. But modern combat is terribly lethal to be fair. I'd probably go without much armor at all, since maneuverability is more important to me, depending on what the enemy was armed with. Probably an Interceptor with SAPI plates since those are pretty good weight to actual exposure ratio. As far as the weapon goes, I'm partial to AK-47 in almost any environment, unless we're on an open field and long range is better, simply because the AK is so easy to maintain and simple to use.

[Mr. Mask]

The AN94 or the AK12 would also be my choice.

As far as bullet armour, I wonder about the heavy Chinese or Russian armours.

If I was facing mostly medieval weapons... I'd probably go for plate harness with modern materials, along with some level of ballistic protection in place of the regular padding.

[AMFV]

The AN94 or the AK12 would also be my choice.

As far as bullet armour, I wonder about the heavy Chinese or Russian armours.

If I was facing mostly medieval weapons... I'd probably go for plate harness with modern materials, along with some level of ballistic protection in place of the regular padding.

Well really we'd need to know more about the battlefield and our objectives, are we killing everybody else? Are we trying to hold a position, capture a position, are we in an urban environment in an open field.

If it's a killing spree I'd take a lead suit and use a nuke... my lack of mobility won't matter and everybody else will be toast. Literally.

[fusilier]

Because they want to be able to shift between several types of shells at a moments notice.

I wondered if the auto-loading systems are also somewhat bulky, and take up space that could be otherwise used? To my knowledge, and I could be wrong, auto-loading is primarily used on self-propelled artillery.

[Mike_G]

Sorry, had to go back to this.

These are quotes Rhynn pulled from On Killing.

And if they are direct quotes, the book is crap.

I need to go through this.




A soldier could generally fire four or five rounds a minute. In training, or while hunting with a rifled musket, the hit rate would have been at least as good as that achieved by the Prussians with smoothbore muskets when they got 25 percent hits at 225 yards, 40 percent hits at 150 yards, and 60 percent hits at 75 yards while firing at a 100-foot by 6-foot target. Thus, at 75 yards, a 200-man regiment should be able to hit as many as 120 enemy soldiers in the first volley. If four shots were fired each minute, a regiment could potentially kill or wound 480 enemy soldiers in the first minute.


OK these numbers are done under range conditions, which will always produce better shooting than field conditions, largely because nobody was, oh I dunno, trying to KILL the Prussians when they were practicing. Troops under fire, with bullets snapping past their ears will rush, fumble the loading, make mistakes, shoot without aiming, flinch and ruin their aim, etc. You can't possibly expect men in battle to gte score like on the range.

And the 100 foot x 6 foot rectangle is kinda-sorta the size of an enemy regimental line, it does not account for gaps between men, guys shorter than six foot, etc.

If we use those numbers to extrapolate actual hits, we are already in crazy town.

Or Marines would kill every enemy within 300 yards within one minute, since I can put a full magazine in the black with a good prone position and a support sling at that distance. So, I should expect a decent Marine infantryman to get 30 kills per minute at any range under 300 yards, right? So my platoon should kill 300 guys per minute?

I could do it at 500 yards, but I'd need more aim time, so say I could only kill maybe 10 guys per minute.

Do you see how insane that sounds?




A soldier could generally fire four or five rounds a minute. In training, or while hunting with a rifled musket, the hit rate would have been at least as good as that achieved by the Prussians with smoothbore muskets when they got 25 percent hits at 225 yards, 40 percent hits at 150 yards, and 60 percent hits at 75 yards while firing at a 100-foot by 6-foot target. Thus, at 75 yards, a 200-man regiment should be able to hit as many as 120 enemy soldiers in the first volley. If four shots were fired each minute, a regiment could potentially kill or wound 480 enemy soldiers in the first minute.

With the rifled muskets of that era, the potential hit rate was at least as high as that achieved by the Prussians with smoothbore muskets when they got 60 percent hits at seventy-five yards. But the reality was a minute fraction of this.

An average engagement would take place at thirty yards.



Lies.

I'm sure there were fights at that close, but that is absurdly not an average.

30 yards was where John Stark drove his stake at the Battle of Bunker Hill, to have his men hold fire until the enemy passed that point. But that was smoothbore muskets against an advancing enemy, in the hopes of saving the volley to break a charge, because who knew if they'd get a chance for a second volley? The Brits didn't stop 30 yards away and have a little gunfight.

I'm sure ACW regiments started shooting much further apart, since they had more accurate weapons, and if you don't want to close and stab a guy, why close to 30 yards?




But instead of mowing down hundreds of enemy soldiers in the first minute, regiments killed only one or two men per minute. And instead of the enemy formations disintegrating in a hail of lead, they stood and exchanged fire for hours on end.




Hours on end is another lie. And individuals shooting 400 rounds is a lie. Troops didn't carry enough ammo to stand and shoot for hours. And I don't think any regiment could stand the stress for hours.

I'm sure exchanges took place, but a few volleys, then one side would break.

The idea that two regiments, armed with weapons that were perfectly useful at 100 yards would advance to thirty yards, which is a easy field goal in football, let alone a rifle shot, and just pick one another off for hours on end-- or rather, 10% of them would pick off enemy soldiers for hours while 90% of them just kept overloading their muskets...

Is the single most asinine picture of warfare I have ever heard put forth.

[AMFV]

Sorry, had to go back to this.

These are quotes Rhynn pulled from On Killing.

And if they are direct quotes, the book is crap.

I need to go through this.



OK these numbers are done under range conditions, which will always produce better shooting than field conditions, largely because nobody was, oh I dunno, trying to KILL the Prussians when they were practicing. Troops under fire, with bullets snapping past their ears will rush, fumble the loading, make mistakes, shoot without aiming, flinch and ruin their aim, etc. You can't possibly expect men in battle to gte score like on the range.

And the 100 foot x 6 foot rectangle is kinda-sorta the size of an enemy regimental line, it does not account for gaps between men, guys shorter than six foot, etc.

If we use those numbers to extrapolate actual hits, we are already in crazy town.

Or Marines would kill every enemy within 300 yards within one minute, since I can put a full magazine in the black with a good prone position and a support sling at that distance. So, I should expect a decent Marine infantryman to get 30 kills per minute at any range under 300 yards, right? So my platoon should kill 300 guys per minute?

I could do it at 500 yards, but I'd need more aim time, so say I could only kill maybe 10 guys per minute.

Do you see how insane that sounds?



Lies.

I'm sure there were fights at that close, but that is absurdly not an average.

30 yards was where John Stark drove his stake at the Battle of Bunker Hill, to have his men hold fire until the enemy passed that point. But that was smoothbore muskets against an advancing enemy, in the hopes of saving the volley to break a charge, because who knew if they'd get a chance for a second volley? The Brits didn't stop 30 yards away and have a little gunfight.

I'm sure ACW regiments started shooting much further apart, since they had more accurate weapons, and if you don't want to close and stab a guy, why close to 30 yards?



Hours on end is another lie. And individuals shooting 400 rounds is a lie. Troops didn't carry enough ammo to stand and shoot for hours. And I don't think any regiment could stand the stress for hours.

I'm sure exchanges took place, but a few volleys, then one side would break.

The idea that two regiments, armed with weapons that were perfectly useful at 100 yards would advance to thirty yards, which is a easy field goal in football, let alone a rifle shot, and just pick one another off for hours on end-- or rather, 10% of them would pick off enemy soldiers for hours while 90% of them just kept overloading their muskets...

Is the single most asinine picture of warfare I have ever heard put forth.

Well, what would you expect from a Boot Lt Colonel who never deployed, and used questionable historical sources. I'm surprised that a lot that stuff got through in any case, with him having gone through at least some training though, I would imagine that he's principally trying to sell his books and prove his point.

[warty goblin]

Thiel: It was to make the situation more fun and difficult to answer. Most of the bullet proof armours now aren't made to withstand the melee weapons of old.
I have no proof, but somehow I find it fairly hard to believe that a vest with rifle plates can't stop a spear or sword thrust. Now a plain kevlar vest made to stop soft, blunt and (relatively) slow pistol bullets? I might buy that, although my understanding is that it's perfectly possible to make a handgun-resistant vest that doubles as a good stab vest with modern materials.

My worry would more be about coverage than penetration when it came to melee weapons, if I thought it likely for some reason that despite my machine gun somebody was going to get all in my business with a halberd or other bit of striking weaponry. So far as I'm aware, modern armor isn't so big on things like covering arms, legs, or faces. Shooting somebody in the face is difficult. Stabbing somebody in the face is pretty easy, and I'd figure a person in plate harness with chain voiders and a dagger could absolutely ruin a person with a combat knife and modern body armor in combat wrestling. By the standards of harnessfechten modern body armor is embarrassingly partial.


I wondered if the auto-loading systems are also somewhat bulky, and take up space that could be otherwise used? To my knowledge, and I could be wrong, auto-loading is primarily used on self-propelled artillery.
I'd also figure that tanks, battleships etc are designed to take hits plays a role. It kinda diminishes the use of all that armor if the impact breaks the autoloader, whereas even if it kills the hand loader, another crewmember can still keep the weapon operational.

[fusilier]

I'm sure ACW regiments started shooting much further apart, since they had more accurate weapons, and if you don't want to close and stab a guy, why close to 30 yards?

This is something that Griffith's book covered, and if my memory serves me right, during the ACW they blasted away at each other from all sorts of ranges. They rarely opened up fire at much more than 100 yards, which was about the range that most Napoleonic volleys started too. I think exchanging volleys at around 100 yards was more common in the Civil War, than at 30 yards, but it happened.


Hours on end is another lie. And individuals shooting 400 rounds is a lie. Troops didn't carry enough ammo to stand and shoot for hours. And I don't think any regiment could stand the stress for hours.

Yeah, I addressed that earlier. I think 100 rounds is the most a Civil War soldier would have carried on his person, but in practice it was more like 60. (The standard cartridge box held 40).


I'm sure exchanges took place, but a few volleys, then one side would break.

Not necessarily "break", but basically. There's a good number of stories from the ACW where they exchanged volleys for some time at rather close range, then one side might fall back for a bit, and be replaced by another unit, or take a break from the fighting.

[Mr. Mask]

A Mind Forever Voyaging: Well, if we allow nukes, we don't necessarily need to even be on the battlefield.


Goblin: A marine decided to test his combat knife on one of the ballistic plates. He managed to get it through with a heavy stab (I can't remember how far through). A sword or spear would generally have less trouble.

Plain kevlar vests without trauma plates or mail cut easily. Knife vests stop knives effectively as far as I'm aware. I'm not sure how much effect a sword or spear would have on them.

Halberds, poleaxes, axes in general, and most medieval weapons, they were designed to break much tougher armours (as far as melee weapons are concerned).

I don't know how a knife vest would do against arrows. Crossbows with armour in mind would have no trouble.

[AMFV]

A Mind Forever Voyaging: Well, if we allow nukes, we don't necessarily need to even be on the battlefield.


Which is why we need the specifics to be able to make an informed choice. If we're in a building with 20' long hallways at angular directions then you might want a very different type of weapon than if we're engaging at 60 miles.

[TuggyNE]

I wondered if the auto-loading systems are also somewhat bulky, and take up space that could be otherwise used? To my knowledge, and I could be wrong, auto-loading is primarily used on self-propelled artillery.

Presumably, but saving space because you have one or two fewer crew members is certainly also useful, and may easily outweigh the cost.

I do know there are or were tanks that used autoloaders of various sorts, so it's been tried, at least. Which actually makes it more puzzling: what was so bad about them that later designs skipped that?


I'd also figure that tanks, battleships etc are designed to take hits plays a role. It kinda diminishes the use of all that armor if the impact breaks the autoloader, whereas even if it kills the hand loader, another crewmember can still keep the weapon operational.

I'm (obviously) not an expert, but it seems like this wouldn't be terribly effective, since any crew member in a tank that's busy loading is one that's not aiming the gun, driving, or keeping track of the battlefield and enemies, which tends to mean you either fire a lot more slowly or are something of a sitting duck. Planning for that is not all that helpful since performance is already so heavily degraded.

On the other hand, a decent auto-loading mechanism should be no more vulnerable to spalling or outright hits than the gun elevation/stabilizer, the turret bearings, the engine, the fire suppression systems…. There's a lot of stuff to hit in a tank, and most of it is pretty important. Some of it performs jobs that crew members could do instead, so there's no obvious reason why loading is so special.

Now, naval artillery is a bit different, since there are dozens of crew members in the turret, and none of them have any other role than "keep the guns firing", so if a few are killed there's obvious redundancy there. However, having to heave around more than one and a half tons of powder and shell for every shot seems exactly like the sort of thing that heavy machinery can speed up, and faster fire is hard to argue against.

[Storm Bringer]

Tank autoloaders:

Historically, most, but not all, autoloading designs were russian (the T-64, T-72, T-80, and T-90 are all autoloaders), though western designs do exist (the french Leclerc, for example). This is due to doctrinal reasons i will go into later.

Autoloader systems take up less space than a human loader needs to manhandle a tank round. This reduction in interior space to encase in armour means you can make significant weight savings (the russian tanks i named above are all 40-45 tons, compared to 60-70tons for a crew loaded Abrams or a Challenger) and lets you make a tank with simmilar gun, speed and armour levels smaller. Russains tank theory placed a greater emphasis on tanks being small and easy to hide, so they went for it in a big way.

Their are trade offs, however. Autoloaders have historically proven to be more vunerable to damage form pentrating hits, as they hold a lot more ammo in the crew compartment compared to crew loaded guns. A hit in the crew compartment tends to be fatal for the crew. They also tend to have somewhat slower max fire rates (10-12 rounds a minute, to 15+ for the best human crews), though few tanks have actaully needed to fire at that sort of rate.

[fusilier]

Presumably, but saving space because you have one or two fewer crew members is certainly also useful, and may easily outweigh the cost.

I do know there are or were tanks that used autoloaders of various sorts, so it's been tried, at least. Which actually makes it more puzzling: what was so bad about them that later designs skipped that?

--EDIT-- ninja'd by Storm_bringers well informed post --EDIT---

[TuggyNE]

Their are trade offs, however. Autoloaders have historically proven to be more vunerable to damage form pentrating hits, as they hold a lot more ammo in the crew compartment compared to crew loaded guns. A hit in the crew compartment tends to be fatal for the crew. They also tend to have somewhat slower max fire rates (10-12 rounds a minute, to 15+ for the best human crews), though few tanks have actaully needed to fire at that sort of rate.

I see. Speed seems like it should be fixable, although of course this is from the perspective of a layman. It might be possible to reduce the amount of ammo in passage to the breech as well, but I suppose that might reduce firing speed or have weird effects on turret geometry or something.

[AMFV]

I see. Speed seems like it should be fixable, although of course this is from the perspective of a layman. It might be possible to reduce the amount of ammo in passage to the breech as well, but I suppose that might reduce firing speed or have weird effects on turret geometry or something.

The other problem is that you have one point of failure, you can fire a weapon with a reduced crew, but you can't fire one that needs an auto-loader with a broken autoloader.

[Roxxy]

Now, naval artillery is a bit different, since there are dozens of crew members in the turret, and none of them have any other role than "keep the guns firing", so if a few are killed there's obvious redundancy there. However, having to heave around more than one and a half tons of powder and shell for every shot seems exactly like the sort of thing that heavy machinery can speed up, and faster fire is hard to argue against.You won't find anything bigger than a mortar caliber that doesn't have lot of mechanical assistance for loading aboard ship. The rounds are just too damn heavy. Even with the a lot of mechanical assistance, a turret with 3 16 inch guns like you see on an Iowa class carries a minimum crew of 75. There was some leadway in that minimum to account for casualties, but the minimum crew to keep the guns firing would still be fairly large. The mechanical system is a multilevel system of hoists and rollers that takes a ton of weight out of the sailors' hands, not a machine that loads the gun for the crew. Having it is crucial, but it's not going to do all of the work. Here's a US Navy training video that explains the entire process. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_wT1xkRpCKk)

[Storm Bringer]

I see. Speed seems like it should be fixable, although of course this is from the perspective of a layman. It might be possible to reduce the amount of ammo in passage to the breech as well, but I suppose that might reduce firing speed or have weird effects on turret geometry or something.

It's more than fast enough. At that rate of fire (12-15 RPM), your not really got time to properly observe the fall of shot, see if yours damaged the target and make any corrections. most of the time you want to be taking more time about each shot. Plus, modern tanks only carry about 40-50 rounds anyway, so you can't keep up that rate of fire.

Also, with modern targeting systems, the first round hit rate when stationary is something like 90%. This, combined with the very high leathality of modern combat (most tanks hit by current gen weapons are out of action), Means that follow up shots are a fairly low priority.

However, you are right, most of these problems can be fixed, with enough time and money. It's just that it takes a lot of time and money. things like virbation, compensating for tank being on a tilt, and so on mean that autoloaders need to be very well designed, with extensive testing to catch and iron out the problems. the autoloaders on russian tanks are the result of a very extensive and expensive research program.

with reducing vrunability, again, it's a case of taking the time and money to do so. the current suggestion for increasing crew safety is to move the whole autoloader into a ammo bustle, but that reduces the space for ammo.


--EDIT-- ninja'd by Storm_bringers well informed post --EDIT---


:smallredface::smallredface:
why, thankyou.

[Jallorn]

So bow vs. sling. I understand that Slings can do a lot more damage but require more training, but what about strength necessary? Does a good war bow require more or less strength than a good war sling?

That is to say, should halflings be better with slings, or would they be more likely to stick with bows?

[Brother Oni]

So bow vs. sling. I understand that Slings can do a lot more damage but require more training, but what about strength necessary? Does a good war bow require more or less strength than a good war sling?

That is to say, should halflings be better with slings, or would they be more likely to stick with bows?

I don't know much about the mechanics of sling, but for the specific instance of halflings, there's going to be an upper limit to the size of bow they can use due to their height, which in turn limits the draw (power) a bow can have.

A typical English warbow is greater than 6 foot in length, with a standard draw length of ~32 inches (how far the bow has to be pulled to achieve maximum power). I don't think a halfling's arms can stretch that far, not to mention he'd probably have to stand on a stool to shoot it.

Even with an off centre bow like the Japanese yumi that wouldn't require a stool to stand on, the draw length is still long (one archery shop says 90cm, which is ~35"!).

In my opinion, a sling or a crossbow would be a better choice for shorter people who want to maximise their lethality.

[Thiel]

I'd definitely consider a staff-sling.

[Mike_G]

This is something that Griffith's book covered, and if my memory serves me right, during the ACW they blasted away at each other from all sorts of ranges. They rarely opened up fire at much more than 100 yards, which was about the range that most Napoleonic volleys started too. I think exchanging volleys at around 100 yards was more common in the Civil War, than at 30 yards, but it happened.


I'm not saying it didn't happen. But the flat statement that "the average engagement was at 30 yards" made me see red. That means that for every engagement beyond that range, there was one at under 30 yards.

And I'l bet the longer range fight were the longer duration ones. A few volleys at 30 yards and the units will be devastated.

I keep bringing up Bunker Hill, but it's a well documented example of volley fire at 30 yards. Three ranks of rebels firing volleys by rank at 30 yards broke the charge of the British light companies (the best the regiments had to offer) with horrible casualties. Of a paper strength of 47, the light company of the Welch Fusiliers had five men unwounded. 97 men are reported killed of the whole 350 light infantrymen who made the assault. I can't find a number for wounded, but it must have been at least as many more.

The idea that men can slug it out "for hours on end" at an "average range of 30 yards" is just ... insulting to my intelligence.



Yeah, I addressed that earlier. I think 100 rounds is the most a Civil War soldier would have carried on his person, but in practice it was more like 60. (The standard cartridge box held 40).


I have no idea what dark crevice he reached into to pull that number.

I haven't read his book, just the comments here, but if he said that, he's an idiot.




Not necessarily "break", but basically. There's a good number of stories from the ACW where they exchanged volleys for some time at rather close range, then one side might fall back for a bit, and be replaced by another unit, or take a break from the fighting.

Agreed. I may have been careless with terms.

But a unit would fall back. They might reform and go back in, but I can't see standing for that long.

Did ACW regiments stop and shoot it out rather than push home a charge with the bayonet? Sure. Did units move up and fall back in succession to make an assault? Probably. That's what Little Round Top sounds like, where successive Confederate regiments made attacks and were driven back before the 20 Maine made a charge because they ran out of ammo. Which would have taken maybe fifteen minutes of firing, not hours.

I just got offended at the mathematical breakdown of what should have been hits, then at the insane assertions of 30 yards and hours on end.

Does he even think about the hell that is the noise and smoke and screams of wounded of a fight at close range? Of the difficulty aiming once both lines are obscured by smoke? Of the gaps in a line that balls will pass right through?

How long could any man take that?

The idea that men fired ineffectively in that hell compared to the results on the parade ground, then fell back to regroup after a few minutes of it makes some sense. The idea that the small percentage of sociopaths fired 400 rounds while the rest of the regiment just milled around and looked busy for three hours at the distance from Home plate to First base just boggles the mind.

[Incanur]

So bow vs. sling. I understand that Slings can do a lot more damage but require more training, but what about strength necessary? Does a good war bow require more or less strength than a good war sling?

That is to say, should halflings be better with slings, or would they be more likely to stick with bows?

Muscle-powered weapons by definition require muscle power. Stronger folks hit harder with bows, slings, javelins, and so on, assuming they can properly apply their strength. While a skilled and strong slinger probably delivers most kinetic energy per shot than a skilled and strong archer, it's just harder to cause debilitating and especially lethal wounds with a round or (semi-round) projectile than it is with a steel point. Sure, sling bullets/stone might deliver a sharper blow against armor, but they're much less likely to cause anybody to bleed to death. With all respect to Vegetius, I suspect the sling fell out of use over the course of the medieval period for a reason.

Halflings wouldn't do terribly well with either bows or slings, because in both case longer arms help. With both a shorter draw and lower draw weight, halfling bows would be much weaker than human bows. But arrows need much less kinetic energy to inflict deadly wounds, so I think halflings would do better that way. Crossbows would be another option, as European designs tended to have very short power strokes anyway.

[Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll]

A

Sounds like you are talking about Mamelukes or Janissaries, both of whom fit that description (slave soldiers trained from early youth, if not birth) and had their own characteristic weapons and kit.

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

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



Digging this up again.

The Muslims were, as you can tell, especially famous for this. Janissaries (c.1400 - 1826, when the last of the Janissaries were executed) were at first primarily bow armed, increasingly armed with firearms as technology advanced. The Janissaries were organized and trained almost as if they were monks, together with religious chaplains, vows of chastity, and brotherhood bonds like the spoon hidden in a pocket of their hat, symbolizing that they always ate together. They weren't front-line troops initially from what I understand, being armed with sidearms like axes and swords. The royal guards were armed with Halberds, but my interpretation is that they were more like the Swiss Guard, a personal and household guard that was nevertheless highly trained, but not expected to fight on the battlefield.

Mamluks can't really be understood without first referring to their predecessors, the Ghilman, singular Ghulam (c. 800-1000). The Ghilman were turkish horsemen, generally fighting in traditional manners, but armed and trained by their masters. Often celibate or forced to marry as chosen by their masters. They sometimes became independent mercenary bands. The Ghilman system wasn't systematized, and tribal links between Ghilman still existed.

The later system of Mamalik, singular Mamluk (900-1831, when the last Mamluk ruler was deposed), grew directly from the Ghulman system. You'll often see the terms used exchangeably. I would say that the Mamluk system was more systematized though. For one, training became more formal, as can be seen by non-Turkish slaves being trained as Mamluks now. Early on, they were trained as a sort of medium to heavy cavalry, armed with bows and lances, probably using maces and clubs as sidearms. They became the backbone of Muslim military power, eventually leading to their takeover of political power, not only famously in Egypt but in Iran and Iraq as well. The only Ghulam dynasty to take power, by contrast, is the Ghaznavids in Bukhara, because of a combination of a) less rigid hierarchy and b) no family ties. Later Mamluks became light melee cavalry, lightly armoured, and armed with sabre and lance. Mamluks were no longer slaves after training, it must be noted.

Of course, all of this supposes a dominant military culture of the horse, and a certain romanticization of bow and lance as the weapons of nobility.


Muscle-powered weapons by definition require muscle power. Stronger folks hit harder with bows, slings, javelins, and so on, assuming they can properly apply their strength. While a skilled and strong slinger probably delivers most kinetic energy per shot than a skilled and strong archer, it's just harder to cause debilitating and especially lethal wounds with a round or (semi-round) projectile than it is with a steel point. Sure, sling bullets/stone might deliver a sharper blow against armor, but they're much less likely to cause anybody to bleed to death. With all respect to Vegetius, I suspect the sling fell out of use over the course of the medieval period for a reason.

Halflings wouldn't do terribly well with either bows or slings, because in both case longer arms help. With both a shorter draw and lower draw weight, halfling bows would be much weaker than human bows. But arrows need much less kinetic energy to inflict deadly wounds, so I think halflings would do better that way. Crossbows would be another option, as European designs tended to have very short power strokes anyway.

One large reason I often see cited is the influence of tradition. In antiquity, slingers from the Balearic islands (Minorca and Majorca) were some of the most respected warriors a Mediterranean force could bring to bear. Archers were rare, especially in Hellenic traditions where they took third place amongst ranged combatants to the javelin and the sling (with exception of Crete). Balearic slingers are said, by the writers of antiquity, to have a culture surrounding the sling wherein "they would not so much as give bread to their children unless they first hit it with the sling" according to Strabo. That, and the sling gave them the advantage of super easy ammunition. The initial salvos would be lead, or shaped clay or other shaped stones, not round but more oval or maybe football shaped, probably more accurately termed "bullets" due to their artificial nature than simply "stones". After that, however, they could either a) throw back the slightly deformed bullets thrown at them, or b) pick up random stones that were roughly the right shape to replenish their stocks if necessary.

After antiquity, however, the slinging traditions fell out of fashion, as did most ranged combat, as it did not hold well with Germanic ideals of warfare. When ranged combat became more important again, the traditions of warfare had shifted to the bow of the hunter, rather than the sling of the herder.

The exception is the staff sling, which I've only seen in pictures of sieges. Basically a pocket at the end of a long staff, it's advantage is range and a high arc, and is well suited to throwing projectiles OVER a high wall.

[fusilier]

. . .

The idea that men can slug it out "for hours on end" at an "average range of 30 yards" is just ... insulting to my intelligence.

Yeah, we're generally in agreement, I'm just elaborating on the details. ;-)



The idea that men fired ineffectively in that hell compared to the results on the parade ground, then fell back to regroup after a few minutes of it makes some sense. The idea that the small percentage of sociopaths fired 400 rounds while the rest of the regiment just milled around and looked busy for three hours at the distance from Home plate to First base just boggles the mind.

Yes. It's actually quite inconceivable that so many people in a battle line just stood around looking busy. Maybe they aimed high intentionally, although given how exposed they were in line of battle there may have been strong encouragements to shoot to hit.

[Stephen_E]

I haven't read his book, just the comments here, but if he said that, he's an idiot.


You just have to keep in mind that he starts at a basic precept "The vast majority of Humans are reluctant to deliberately kill humans". Then everything works, sort of.

He claims very close ranges as standard and then argues the reason they normally didn't to the devastating damage we know they would is because most of the people would shoot high.

He uses the accuracy from firing ranges because his theory is the only reason to assume they would fire that accurately. Since he can show that they didn't fire that accurately then it confirms he's right.

Basically if you start from the point that he is right, and that his theory is the only factor affecting hit/miss effects, then it all sort of holds together. Of course if you don't accept any of his assertions the whole thing falls apart. :smallbiggrin:

I will note that there is good quality psychological research out there..., but I wouldn't include his work as an example of that. LOL

[Spamotron]

AMFV you keep bringing up the Milgrim experiment. I wouldn't (http://www.npr.org/2013/08/28/209559002/taking-a-closer-look-at-milgrams-shocking-obedience-study) take it (http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/fulfillment-any-age/201301/the-secrets-behind-psychology-s-most-famous-experiment) as gospel. (http://lareviewofbooks.org/essay/psych-lies-and-audiotape-the-tarnished-legacy-of-the-milgram-shock-experiments)

To sum up the above links. Milgrim had an agenda and fudged his data to make it more shocking.

[AMFV]

AMFV you keep bringing up the Milgrim experiment. I wouldn't (http://www.npr.org/2013/08/28/209559002/taking-a-closer-look-at-milgrams-shocking-obedience-study) take it (http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/fulfillment-any-age/201301/the-secrets-behind-psychology-s-most-famous-experiment) as gospel. (http://lareviewofbooks.org/essay/psych-lies-and-audiotape-the-tarnished-legacy-of-the-milgram-shock-experiments)

To sum up the above links. Milgrim had an agenda and fudged his data to make it more shocking.

There were other experiments that repeated many similar results. In any case even if we assume that his data was fudged even if only a third of the people would under normal circumstances have made the same sort of decision that's still an order of magnitude higher than the 2% proposed by Grossman. That's enough to show that his data is pretty bunked up.

I suspect that there is an incentive to disprove the Milgrim experiment because people don't want it to be true, but as I've said, I've seen too many people willing to kill to believe that there is really any inherant resistance to it.

Edit: And I'm not taking it as gospel, even if it is deeply flawed it is still enough to significantly disprove Grossman's theory, I haven't been discussing the merits of the experiment as a proof that the number of people that are willing to kill is that high, only that the results are certainly enough to disprove the other suggested number (which is taken from the average presence of sociopathy, not a very good statistic to use), because Grossman is supposing that only sociopaths can kill, or psychopaths.

And then furthermore he is publishing the results as an anti-culture tract, I'm fairly sure that his results were more flawed than the ones present in the Milgrim experiment. In fact, as someone who has served I can tell you that his results are just really really bad, and clearly his agenda doesn't help.

[AgentPaper]

AMFV you keep bringing up the Milgrim experiment. I wouldn't (http://www.npr.org/2013/08/28/209559002/taking-a-closer-look-at-milgrams-shocking-obedience-study) take it (http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/fulfillment-any-age/201301/the-secrets-behind-psychology-s-most-famous-experiment) as gospel. (http://lareviewofbooks.org/essay/psych-lies-and-audiotape-the-tarnished-legacy-of-the-milgram-shock-experiments)

To sum up the above links. Milgrim had an agenda and fudged his data to make it more shocking.

Or a better summary: A bunch of people with agendas and no data accuse Milgram of fudging his data". I mean really, the arguments they make are about as good as saying "nuh-uh!" while plugging your ears.

Perhaps there's a compelling argument hidden in there somewhere, but all I could see was poo-slinging.

[Stephen_E]

Re: Tank Auto loaders.
I did hear that one reason they weren't loved by their Soviet crews is that their loaders had open moving parts and every now and then someone would have their clothing catch in the loader with nasty results - torn/mangled/amputated limbs.:smalleek:

Not saying that this happened often, but it doesn't have to before it makes the crews leary. Having the crew nervous about their own Auto-Loader doesn't help performance.

[Brother Oni]

I suspect that there is an incentive to disprove the Milgrim experiment because people don't want it to be true, but as I've said, I've seen too many people willing to kill to believe that there is really any inherant resistance to it.


No offence intended but you may be seeing confirmation bias. As somebody mentioned the people you served with volunteered, so they may have been predisposed towards it, particularly with the reputation the Marines have.

I've been told that during the current conflict that if a Marine convoy was hit, they would be more likely to dismount and go kill the enemy, while an Army convoy would tend to break clear of the blockade instead.

I'd like to make it clear that I agree with you on your assessment on Grossman's book - it also seems questionable to me that an US soldier with no personal deployment medals could speak so specifically on what constitutes a killer without field experience. It's just that your personal experiences may also be somewhat biased.

[AMFV]

No offence intended but you may be seeing confirmation bias. As somebody mentioned the people you served with volunteered, so they may have been predisposed towards it, particularly with the reputation the Marines have.

I've been told that during the current conflict that if a Marine convoy was hit, they would be more likely to dismount and go kill the enemy, while an Army convoy would tend to break clear of the blockade instead.

I'd like to make it clear that I agree with you on your assessment on Grossman's book - it also seems questionable to me that an US soldier with no personal deployment medals could speak so specifically on what constitutes a killer without field experience. It's just that your personal experiences may also be somewhat biased.

Which is why I used the studies and then only discussed my own personal experience later. The study is pretty well done comparatively, and while it maybe flawed as I pointed out even if it is only one third of the expected numbers we're still an order of magnitude higher than Grossman and that's enough to disprove his book.

And when you get hit, you get out of the kill zone to avoid secondary devices, or at least that's what I was taught. My suspicions about the willingness to kill have less to do with fellow Marines (who are already a small fraction of the population, than it does with insurgents particularly those of a young age)

[Berenger]

So bow vs. sling. I understand that Slings can do a lot more damage but require more training, but what about strength necessary? Does a good war bow require more or less strength than a good war sling?

That is to say, should halflings be better with slings, or would they be more likely to stick with bows?

I'd say that halflings would perform below average with both weapons, but significant worse with bows. A sling could counter the shorter arm with a somewhat longer sling, but they can't pull a bow as far as a human or elf could and the bow has to be shorter, otherwise the floor gets in the way.

Honestly, I'd expect them to carry crossbows. They seem to be the biggest equalizer - if you are strong enough to operate the cocking mechanism, strength and length of arms stop to matter.

I suppose that halflings have this sling-thing because it evokes the image of a peaceful, pastoral society. Shepherds, green meadows, halfling kids that use slings to keep birds away from the crops on the field... can't have this with expensive weapons of war, plus, bows and crossbows are already the iconic ranged weapon of elves and dwarves.

[AMFV]

I'd say that halflings would perform below average with both weapons, but significant worse with bows. A sling could counter the shorter arm with a somewhat longer sling, but they can't pull a bow as far as a human or elf could and the bow has to be shorter, otherwise the floor gets in the way.

Honestly, I'd expect them to carry crossbows. They seem to be the biggest equalizer - if you are strong enough to operate the cocking mechanism, strength and length of arms stop to matter.

I suppose that halflings have this sling-thing because it evokes the image of a peaceful, pastoral society. Shepherds, green meadows, halfling kids that use slings to keep birds away from the crops on the field... can't have this with expensive weapons of war, plus, bows and crossbows are already the iconic ranged weapon of elves and dwarves.

I think if we're fine with plumbing non-western stuff, a halfling might be able to perform quite well with a blowgun, I mean their small size makes them inherently good at sneaking about, and generally (at least in most of the lore I've seen they are exceptionally good at that otherwise), so with that they'd be able to perform quite well. I could also see them using those weapons.

Also poison would be a good equalizer for their lack of relative strength, although you are correct in that we'd be losing the pastoral shepherd bit.

[Brother Oni]

Also poison would be a good equalizer for their lack of relative strength, although you are correct in that we'd be losing the pastoral shepherd bit.

Give them a repeating crossbow with poison tipped bolts like the Chinese historically used and you've probably maximised their individual effectiveness short of magic and crew served weapons, not to mention quite firmly trampled the pastoral shepherd image to bits. :smallbiggrin:

A blowgun is still a mucle powered weapon, not to mention extremely close ranged, so unless we're assuming RPG halflings with an innate bonus to concealment and dodgy hiding merchanics, with the additional information on how slings work, I'm quite firmly in the crossbows camp now.

[AMFV]

Give them a repeating crossbow with poison tipped bolts like the Chinese historically used and you've probably maximised their individual effectiveness short of magic and crew served weapons, not to mention quite firmly trampled the pastoral shepherd image to bits. :smallbiggrin:

A blowgun is still a mucle powered weapon, not to mention extremely close ranged, so unless we're assuming RPG halflings with an innate bonus to concealment and dodgy hiding merchanics, with the additional information on how slings work, I'm quite firmly in the crossbows camp now.

Well halfllings would be better at hiding in the real world as well due to being smaller. The crossbow is probably more effective, I'd just be concerned about the cranking and weight of it. We'd really have to know what sort of halflings we were dealing with to be honest.

[Brother Oni]

We'd really have to know what sort of halflings we were dealing with to be honest.

I agree. According to the SRD20, a lightfoot halfling is approximately the same height/weight as a 3 year old human child (~3ft and 30-35 lbs) but is on average about 80% the strength (3d6-2 STR gives an average of 8.5 compared to a standard human's 10.5 from 3d6), which makes spanning a crossbow with a mechanical aid not an issue (I don't think they could do a human sized crossbow with just a stirrup).

Carrying one isn't an issue either as a 18lb crossbow is under a light load for a 9 STR Small character.

I've got a new healthy respect for halflings now - they're surprisingly tough and wiry for their size. In comparison, checking with a small child of the same height and weight, he says 18lbs is very heavy (I'd guess above a heavy load since he was able to lift it but was staggering).

[GraaEminense]

In comparison, checking with a small child of the same height and weight, he says 18lbs is very heavy (I'd guess above a heavy load since he was able to lift it but was staggering).
I love this kind of research.

[Brother Oni]

I love this kind of research.

Especially since when they ask "Daddy, what are you doing?", you can reply "It's for SCIENCE!". :smallbiggrin:

[fusilier]

Or a better summary: A bunch of people with agendas and no data accuse Milgram of fudging his data". I mean really, the arguments they make are about as good as saying "nuh-uh!" while plugging your ears.

The second article linked there doesn't seem to follow that summary to me . . .

It was a detailed review of the data generated by the Milgram experiment, conversations with both those who ran and participated in the study, etc. It pointed out several flaws, potential problems with methodology, and the fact that some of the results weren't published.

Another problem that scientists deal with is how to communicate the results to the general public. Media likes a sensational story, and the general public often lacks the background for a complicated scientific discussion, while the scientists often lack the ability to explain things adequately to those who lack that background -- it's generally believed that it can be done, but you need special individuals that are good at it, and it may be more time consuming than a news blurb. Historically Carl Sagan, and now people like Neil DeGrasse Tyson fill that role, but they are few and far between.

What the articles about the Milgram experiment seem to be saying, is that, even among psychology students, the results, and their interpretations, may not be as straightforward as we thought they were, and certain kinds of biases/perceptions may be difficult to remove from the experiments. Also, some of the methodology used in the experiment is no longer considered acceptable practice. Which makes a true replication of the study difficult.

[Mr. Mask]

Since you have said the second link leads to a good look/criticism of the study, I'll read it.

[Fortinbras]

While we're talking small fantasy warrior guys, I have a couple of questions about writing good, high medievalish dwarves.

I made my dwarves a little bigger (about 5'2', roughly the average height of a Gurkha) than the D&D ones so they could compete with humans in melee combat.

How do people think this would effect their abilities as horsemen and archers? Could a (very strong) 5'2' man handle a big yew bow?

What about cavalry? Would the standard, lance-and-sword Frankish charge be an option for people this size if they were going up against humans?

I also want to have a scene where the protagonists visit the beating heart of the dwarven military-industrial complex. In a lot of fiction this is a one huge forge that makes everything, from maille to swords to jewelry, but I know that historically forges this big didn't really exist. If my dwarves have a sort of 13th century German-style craft guild system, what kind of workshop would be the most impressive and awe inspiring?

Thanks, guys.

[fusilier]

Since you have said the second link leads to a good look/criticism of the study, I'll read it.

Heh, I gravitated toward the second link because I saw it was on the psychologytoday website. :-) I think the other links are ok too, but are a bit more popular news. (The NPR one is merely snippets from an interview).

[Mike_G]

While we're talking small fantasy warrior guys, I have a couple of questions about writing good, high medievalish dwarves.

I made my dwarves a little bigger (about 5'2', roughly the average height of a Gurkha) than the D&D ones so they could compete with humans in melee combat.

How do people think this would effect their abilities as horsemen and archers? Could a (very strong) 5'2' man handle a big yew bow?

What about cavalry? Would the standard, lance-and-sword Frankish charge be an option for people this size if they were going up against humans?


Thanks, guys.

I'm 5'2", I was a Marine, and a nationally rated sabre fencer. And I've had no problem using a bow or riding a horse. I never fought on horseback, but I've ridden and used recurve bows with no problem.

So, I might be biased, but I'm gonna say "sure."

The short guy will have a bit less reach, but that can be overcome by being quicker. I fenced a lot of people a lot taller than I, and you get used to it. You don't try to win on reach. You try to parry his first attack, hit with your ripost. Or get inside his guard and gut him.

With sword combat, just remember, if he can hit your body, you can reach his sword arm.

As far as lance combat, the difference in reach will be minimal.

[Mr. Mask]

Milgram Experiment: Looked at that second article. In one sense, they have a true point some won't realize: While they're able to administer shocks to strangers in another room, who aren't communicating with them besides the occasional sound of pain, they won't be able to level a gun and shoot their wife over a mildly stern telling off.

If you read the study another way, it's attempting to claim excellent data should be disregarded because the media decided to exaggerate it into, "everyone is a sociopath."

The commentary on the man himself also disturbs me... If his science is bad, go ahead and say it--but I HATE IT when people sling mud rather than arguing. I don't care if he was a NAZI scientist when it comes to his research (though him personally, if he took part if the more infamous experiments, would be best hanged), the man's character does not change the data unless you're pointing out a history of editing data as evidence that they have edited the current data.


Fortinbras: I wouldn't say you need to grow them to make them able to compete. Being shorter is a disadvantage, but if they have better metallurgy and equipment, and are tougher, then I think it would balance out (or imbalance in their favour, if you did it too much).

For horsearchery, look into how the Samurai do it. You can use massive bows from horse without being of a great height (not to say the Samurai were at all short, I haven't seen evidence to that effect yet). Obviously, if you make them smaller, that's going to make it harder for them to use bigger bows. Admittedly, they might be able to use a bigger bow while riding on a horse (or standing on a footstool) than while standing on the ground, if they're strong.

At five feet tall, I don't think they'd have trouble as lancers. If you made them smaller than that, then having shorter lances would put them at a disadvantage, but it could be balanced out by various factors. The fact they weigh less, for example, makes it easier on your horse, and since they're also known for being good with metals, they could armour their horses pretty well.

As for an awe inspiring smithy's... I'd recommend basing it off royal armourers' workshops. Henry the 8th had a pretty impressive one. If the dwarves are supplying more armour, it probably could be bigger.

[fusilier]

Milgram Experiment: Looked at that second article. In one sense, they have a true point some won't realize: While they're able to administer shocks to strangers in another room, who aren't communicating with them besides the occasional sound of pain, they won't be able to level a gun and shoot their wife over a mildly stern telling off.

If you read the study another way, it's attempting to claim excellent data should be disregarded because the media decided to exaggerate it into, "everyone is a sociopath."


Hmm. I read it more as, the manner in which the data was collected was questionable, and, importantly, not all of it was presented. Thus the results were somewhat skewed. I think the more fascinating thing is the question of what do the Milgram experiments actually "mean"?

[fusilier]

With sword combat, just remember, if he can hit your body, you can reach his sword arm.

As far as lance combat, the difference in reach will be minimal.

In the 19th century US cavalry had height and weight requirements. You had to be *above* a certain height, and *below* a certain weight. Reach with the saber important, as was not fatiguing the horse too much. It's not clear how strictly these requirements were followed.

[Mr. Mask]

Fusilier: That the NAZIs who took part in the holocaust aren't such inhumanly different monsters as people wish (some of them were). That evil is not done by otherworldly monsters, but by humans.

I'm confused as to why he would hide his other research. It doesn't damage the main publicised test's results.

[Mr. Mask]

Fusilier: While that is so, supposedly a dwarf has the advantage of being lighter, and possibly the advantage of being stronger. While they would perhaps be less suitable still, I think these advantages could make them a reasonable choice?

[AMFV]

I agree. According to the SRD20, a lightfoot halfling is approximately the same height/weight as a 3 year old human child (~3ft and 30-35 lbs) but is on average about 80% the strength (3d6-2 STR gives an average of 8.5 compared to a standard human's 10.5 from 3d6), which makes spanning a crossbow with a mechanical aid not an issue (I don't think they could do a human sized crossbow with just a stirrup).

Carrying one isn't an issue either as a 18lb crossbow is under a light load for a 9 STR Small character.

I've got a new healthy respect for halflings now - they're surprisingly tough and wiry for their size. In comparison, checking with a small child of the same height and weight, he says 18lbs is very heavy (I'd guess above a heavy load since he was able to lift it but was staggering).

This brings up an interesting question, what kind of warfare style would the halflings need to be competitive in a world filled with men, dwarves and elves? Would they need a magical advantage or a significant terrain advantage. I mean if they're around they clearly have some military technology or capacity. This is of course supposing a more accurate interpretation of the strength to weight ration than is present in D&D.

[Deffers]

My speculation is that they get by mostly by having little in the way of precious resources, much in the way of things other races also have, and by focusing on guerilla war and hit-and-run tactics whenver possible.

I mean, look at it like this-- you're not as strong as the other guy and you're not as big as the other guy. The other guy's only reason to mess with you is because he's a jerk-- you've got sheep, bread, and maybe tin as things that you have much access to. You live mostly in villages, so there's no Army of the Halflings on the march. Thus, you make your inconspicuousness into an advantage and go full Rambo Baggins on the asses on those who would try to take your land from you. I'd echo the idea of poison-tipped repeater crossbows as possible ranged weapons, with perhaps a stronger crossbow for taking out more armored targets showing up sometimes. If you live someplace grassy, perhaps a series of pits covered up with grass would be helpful for tripping up heavier ground units, to better attack up close with daggers searching for weak points in the armor.

Other than that, I can't really think of how they'd survive.

Also, cherish the image of Rambo Baggins, if only for a brief second. I know I did.:smalltongue:

[AMFV]

My speculation is that they get by mostly by having little in the way of precious resources, much in the way of things other races also have, and by focusing on guerilla war and hit-and-run tactics whenver possible.

I mean, look at it like this-- you're not as strong as the other guy and you're not as big as the other guy. The other guy's only reason to mess with you is because he's a jerk-- you've got sheep, bread, and maybe tin as things that you have much access to. You live mostly in villages, so there's no Army of the Halflings on the march. Thus, you make your inconspicuousness into an advantage and go full Rambo Baggins on the asses on those who would try to take your land from you. I'd echo the idea of poison-tipped repeater crossbows as possible ranged weapons, with perhaps a stronger crossbow for taking out more armored targets showing up sometimes. If you live someplace grassy, perhaps a series of pits covered up with grass would be helpful for tripping up heavier ground units, to better attack up close with daggers searching for weak points in the armor.

Other than that, I can't really think of how they'd survive.

Also, cherish the image of Rambo Baggins, if only for a brief second. I know I did.:smalltongue:

Well we'd still have the issue of the crossbow being significantly heavy and possibly needing more strength to crank than a halfling would half, particularly one that applies the size ratio for strength slightly better.

Clearly firearms would help to close the gap. I'm wondering if other technology or tactical styles prior to that might work (I'm not as knowledgeable as I'd like to be regarding medieval stuff to be honest)

[AgentPaper]

This brings up an interesting question, what kind of warfare style would the halflings need to be competitive in a world filled with men, dwarves and elves? Would they need a magical advantage or a significant terrain advantage. I mean if they're around they clearly have some military technology or capacity. This is of course supposing a more accurate interpretation of the strength to weight ration than is present in D&D.

Why do they need to compete with the other races? Halflings have always seemed like the sort of "get along with everyone" race, fitting in anywhere but belonging nowhere as well. They would form their own little communities in various cities, maybe have a few towns here and there, lots of nomadic shepherds, merchants, advisers, adventurers, thieves, etc.

Their fighting style would match whatever setting they were in. The more nomadic types would likely favor a sling, simply because it's easy to make, maintain, and practice, and is effective enough for keeping wolves and bandits away. They would likely also carry blades, mainly for utility, but also as a last resort weapon if the sling fails.

Merchants, advisers, and other wealthy types probably wouldn't fight at all, and simply hire larger people to fight for them. Thieves and adventurers would of course use a variety of weapons and tools, which you're probably familiar with already.

If you really just want to put together an elite halfling military unit, though, Pikes and crossbows are a fairly good fit. Neither requires you to be particularly tall or strong to use, though limited strength would limit the length of their pikes somewhat, and wouldn't be able to hold very well in a "push of pikes" if it came to that. Still, superior training and experience could make them work well as a mercenary unit, since slightly inferior pikemen are still much better than no pikemen.

If I had to give halflings any particular trait, I'd say resourcefulness would be a good one. The ability to adapt to changing conditions, a certain happy-go-lucky optimism that lets them get up and keep going after being knocked down. Obviously this doesn't offer any direct combat ability, but it helps the survival of the race as a whole.

A halfling might start as the son of an adviser in a royal court, then after his father falls out of favor, uses their limited capital to start a business selling roses. Hard times hit and nobody wants roses anymore, so he hires out a caravan and starts trading them to a nearby country that's more prosperous. Those nations go to war, and he loses almost all of his stock to raiders, so he buys a crossbow, a pavise, and a metal cap and jerkin, and joins a mercenary company. The war ends, he sells his equipment and buys some cattle, selling beef, leather, and milk to various towns while raising a family. And then his son decides to take his father's crossbow that he secretly never sold and heads out to make his own fortune in the world, and the story continues.

[AMFV]

Why do they need to compete with the other races? Halflings have always seemed like the sort of "get along with everyone" race, fitting in anywhere but belonging nowhere as well. They would form their own little communities in various cities, maybe have a few towns here and there, lots of nomadic shepherds, merchants, advisers, adventurers, thieves, etc.

Well everyone winds up competing with everybody at some point, there has never been a country that has never been involved in a military conflict at some point, the only way that I could see the halflings completely avoiding this is by either having no resources, having some kind of financial recriminations against people (as the Swiss in World War 2), or having the seat of a religion (such as the Papacy in the Middle Ages, although even that wasn't a perfect system).

Historically the peaceful folks tend to fare pretty terribly in the long run. At least once somebody else wants something they have.



Their fighting style would match whatever setting they were in. The more nomadic types would likely favor a sling, simply because it's easy to make, maintain, and practice, and is effective enough for keeping wolves and bandits away. They would likely also carry blades, mainly for utility, but also as a last resort weapon if the sling fails.

But the problem is that blades and slings are terrible for them, being strength based weapons. Furthermore we have a style that plays against their strengths. I would imagine that if they had a successful culture they would need some successful means of self-defense or a way to avoid conflict.



Merchants, advisers, and other wealthy types probably wouldn't fight at all, and simply hire larger people to fight for them. Thieves and adventurers would of course use a variety of weapons and tools, which you're probably familiar with already.

Possibly true, although depending on foreign mercenaries is generally a terrible policy.



If you really just want to put together an elite halfling military unit, though, Pikes and crossbows are a fairly good fit. Neither requires you to be particularly tall or strong to use, though limited strength would limit the length of their pikes somewhat, and wouldn't be able to hold very well in a "push of pikes" if it came to that. Still, superior training and experience could make them work well as a mercenary unit, since slightly inferior pikemen are still much better than no pikemen.

If I had to give halflings any particular trait, I'd say resourcefulness would be a good one. The ability to adapt to changing conditions, a certain happy-go-lucky optimism that lets them get up and keep going after being knocked down. Obviously this doesn't offer any direct combat ability, but it helps the survival of the race as a whole.

A halfling might start as the son of an adviser in a royal court, then after his father falls out of favor, uses their limited capital to start a business selling roses. Hard times hit and nobody wants roses anymore, so he hires out a caravan and starts trading them to a nearby country that's more prosperous. Those nations go to war, and he loses almost all of his stock to raiders, so he buys a crossbow, a pavise, and a metal cap and jerkin, and joins a mercenary company. The war ends, he sells his equipment and buys some cattle, selling beef, leather, and milk to various towns while raising a family. And then his son decides to take his father's crossbow that he secretly never sold and heads out to make his own fortune in the world, and the story continues.

We still have no way to fix the fact that a crossbow would be really heavy to carry relatively. And that the mechanism would be difficult to manage for somebody as weak as a halfling. I mean it might be untenable for them to defend themselves, but they would certainly have attempted a method that plays to their strengths.

[Caustic Soda]

@AMFV & AgentPaper:

you seem to have different, contradictory, base assumptions here. If I'm understanding AMFV correctly, he's assuming that the halflings have (an) independent state(s)/tribes/what-have-you.

AgentPaper seems to assume that it'd be common for halflings to be members of multi-species states, in which others could do the fighting.

Is this correct?

[AgentPaper]

Well everyone winds up competing with everybody at some point, there has never been a country that has never been involved in a military conflict at some point, the only way that I could see the halflings completely avoiding this is by either having no resources, having some kind of financial recriminations against people (as the Swiss in World War 2), or having the seat of a religion (such as the Papacy in the Middle Ages, although even that wasn't a perfect system).

My point was that there wouldn't be a halfling country in the first place. At least, not in the traditional sense. There might be a sort of "elder council" or the like that has some kind of authority over halflings, but in practice they'd probably identify more with whatever country they were in, or not country at all, rather than any kind of racial thing. The real-world counterpart would basically be the Jews of Gypsies of medieval Europe.


But the problem is that blades and slings are terrible for them, being strength based weapons. Furthermore we have a style that plays against their strengths. I would imagine that if they had a successful culture they would need some successful means of self-defense or a way to avoid conflict.

By blade I meant a dagger or other short knife. And they don't use them because they're the most effective weapon, they use them for the same reason people in real life used them, because they were available and effective enough. You don't need a sophisticated fighting style and weapons to drive off bandits, just the willpower to stand up to them and enough show of force to make them seek easier targets.


Possibly true, although depending on foreign mercenaries is generally a terrible policy.

I'm not talking about a nation of halflings hiring mercenaries as an army, I'm talking about a halfling merchant hiring guards for his caravan.


We still have no way to fix the fact that a crossbow would be really heavy to carry relatively. And that the mechanism would be difficult to manage for somebody as weak as a halfling. I mean it might be untenable for them to defend themselves, but they would certainly have attempted a method that plays to their strengths.

Crossbows are not as heavy as you're implying, humans did it just fine, plus armor, plus provisions, plus a large shield, and they did fine. And as mentioned before, halflings aren't exactly weaklings. Weaker than the average human, sure, but still plenty strong enough to wind a crank. At worst, they might need to gear it down a bit extra adding a few seconds to their reload time, but even that seems unnecessary.

The problem with playing to their strengths is that they don't have any. Instead, they can either find a line of work where their lesser strength doesn't matter (merchant, adviser, shopkeeper, etc), or they accept their weakness and do their best to compensate for it.

If you're really dead-set on giving halflings a country of their own, though, then they don't really need any kind of specific advantage, just any kind of advantage. Being smaller is going to be a disadvantage basically no matter what. It might be less influential in, say, the age of pike&shot versus the age of charging each other with swords and axes, but it's still a disadvantage. The counter-advantage can be basically anything, though, whether it's wealth, magic, technology, or just simple numbers.

[AMFV]

My point was that there wouldn't be a halfling country in the first place. At least, not in the traditional sense. There might be a sort of "elder council" or the like that has some kind of authority over halflings, but in practice they'd probably identify more with whatever country they were in, or not country at all, rather than any kind of racial thing. The real-world counterpart would basically be the Jews of Gypsies of medieval Europe.

Although neither the Gypsies or the Jews did really well as far as avoiding persecution and that sort of thing.



By blade I meant a dagger or other short knife. And they don't use them because they're the most effective weapon, they use them for the same reason people in real life used them, because they were available and effective enough. You don't need a sophisticated fighting style and weapons to drive off bandits, just the willpower to stand up to them and enough show of force to make them seek easier targets.


And bandits aren't going to be scared off by people the size of children without some significant reason to be scared off that's part of the problem. Without some way to have them protected we don't really have a sustainable culture.



I'm not talking about a nation of halflings hiring mercenaries as an army, I'm talking about a halfling merchant hiring guards for his caravan.


Crossbows are not as heavy as you're implying, humans did it just fine, plus armor, plus provisions, plus a large shield, and they did fine. And as mentioned before, halflings aren't exactly weaklings. Weaker than the average human, sure, but still plenty strong enough to wind a crank. At worst, they might need to gear it down a bit extra adding a few seconds to their reload time, but even that seems unnecessary.

The problem with playing to their strengths is that they don't have any. Instead, they can either find a line of work where their lesser strength doesn't matter (merchant, adviser, shopkeeper, etc), or they accept their weakness and do their best to compensate for it.

If you're really dead-set on giving halflings a country of their own, though, then they don't really need any kind of specific advantage, just any kind of advantage. Being smaller is going to be a disadvantage basically no matter what. It might be less influential in, say, the age of pike&shot versus the age of charging each other with swords and axes, but it's still a disadvantage. The counter-advantage can be basically anything, though, whether it's wealth, magic, technology, or just simple numbers.

Well if you're thinking of a 30 lb human though... then we might have a lot of problems. We've already had a test where a 30 lb human was having difficulty with an 18 lb load if you'll see above. So it's not untenable to suggest that the amount of weight would be difficult to carry for a halfling. The thing is that being small can give you certain advantages, I'm just not sure if they would ever work up to counter the disadvantages.

[Brother Oni]

Going by the Warhammer world, the halflings there simply got subsumed into the Empire, by virtue of simply being there since time immemorial (before Sigmar) plus they were granted control of the province by a previous Emperor.

They help out with the Empire's military by running the logistics side of things, but they also take part in foraging (more important for medieval armies) and scout work.

If you wanted the halflings to have their own separate country and governance, then they would either need to be nomadic, occupy territory that nobody wanted or be too costly to overrun.

AMFV mentioned the Swiss earlier but in a modern context - the last point is how they survived until the modern era. Switzerland is highly defensible and any army attempting to take it by force would incur such losses that it couldn't be a cost effective venture.
This is aside from the fact that while your army is off fighting the Swiss, your rival neighbours could (and probably would) take to opportunity to annex a couple of border provinces.



And bandits aren't going to be scared off by people the size of children without some significant reason to be scared off that's part of the problem. Without some way to have them protected we don't really have a sustainable culture.

People the size of children but are still decently strong. Putting it this way - two halflings could out lift a human, while it would take lots of 3 year olds to achieve the same. For a graphical representation, two of these guys in a team:

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-S5pSkEzGVIU/T49GGlfBieI/AAAAAAAAHrA/GrW2hEBpWnk/s1600/3%2B007.jpg

Could compete with this guy:

http://www.theplace2.ru/archive/mariusz_pudzianowski/img/Mariusz_Pudzianowski-3.jpg

With regard to combat tactics, taking advantage of their small size would be best - guerilla hit and run would work and if the soil is suitable, tunnels much like the VC did in Vietnam.
Forcing them out into a standup fight would be a winning situation for you.

Their small size and higher strength to weight ratio would make them formidable special forces troops though - the thought of a three year old with the co-ordination, strength and training to pin you down and push a knife through your ribs or your throat worries me.

[AMFV]

Going by the Warhammer world, the halflings there simply got subsumed into the Empire, by virtue of simply being there since time immemorial (before Sigmar) plus they were granted control of the province by a previous Emperor.

They help out with the Empire's military by running the logistics side of things, but they also take part in foraging (more important for medieval armies) and scout work.

If you wanted the halflings to have their own separate country and governance, then they would either need to be nomadic, occupy territory that nobody wanted or be too costly to overrun.

AMFV mentioned the Swiss earlier but in a modern context - the last point is how they survived until the modern era. Switzerland is highly defensible and any army attempting to take it by force would incur such losses that it couldn't be a cost effective venture.
This is aside from the fact that while your army is off fighting the Swiss, your rival neighbours could (and probably would) take to opportunity to annex a couple of border provinces.



People the size of children but are still decently strong. Putting it this way - two halflings could out lift a human, while it would take lots of 3 year olds to achieve the same. For a graphical representation, two of these guys in a team:

I'm not sure that they would be strong enough to lift a guy between two of them on average. Unless we are using the D&D statistics. I mean assuming two of me could lift 1000 pounds (assuming that the person you are talking about them being able to weighs 160 lbs), which is not the case. So if we are using more realistic statistics then our halflings will not be strong enough, which is the assumption I'm operating under.



With regard to combat tactics, taking advantage of their small size would be best - guerilla hit and run would work and if the soil is suitable, tunnels much like the VC did in Vietnam.
Forcing them out into a standup fight would be a winning situation for you.

Their small size and higher strength to weight ratio would make them formidable special forces troops though - the thought of a three year old with the co-ordination, strength and training to pin you down and push a knife through your ribs or your throat worries me.

Do we have a scenario where that kind of guerrilla warfare was applied in a medieval context though? I used to study this sort of stuff, but I don't recollect that stuff that well now. Of course if we are using the D&D statistics, then halflings will come out ahead.

Edit: So we would need either D&D strength halflings, or some sort of magical stuff to make it equivalent? We could halflings some kind of control over animals for this to work (although that is starting to diverge from the pseudo-real world setting)

[Mr. Mask]

Remember that strength and weight are different things. Even if you were as strong as Superman, you couldn't just pick up tanks and throw them into buildings. The motion of throwing the tank would cause it to go a few feet away, and you'd be flung backwards.

Similarly, the halflings might be strong enough to have a really painful hold of your neck or arm and be hard to remove, but they're too light to keep such a person down (there'd be be tricks for this, if one is pulling on their leg or legs as the other is sitting on their chest).


We also need to remember that the idea isn't to fight as well as humans, but to maximize the hobbit's fighting potential. They won't be able to use crossbows as strong as men can use, but the crossbows they can use are probably still useful to them within given contexts.


I'm also curious about a specific case of such guerilla warfare. There must have been cases, but I don't know any off hand.

[Brother Oni]

I'm not sure that they would be strong enough to lift a guy between two of them on average. Unless we are using the D&D statistics. I mean assuming two of me could lift 1000 pounds (assuming that the person you are talking about them being able to weighs 160 lbs), which is not the case. So if we are using more realistic statistics then our halflings will not be strong enough, which is the assumption I'm operating under.


I'm talking about purely D&D stats here. If we started trying to imagine a more 'realistic' halfling, then I'm in full agreement with you.

While it is possible for a small humanoid to have a better power to weight ratio than a human (chimpanzees are an example of this), they wouldn't look like D&D halflings.

Going back to chimps, the way they achieve their strength is through a combination of their muscle fibres being considerably better than human tissue plus the way their skeleton and muscles are connected. For example, their arms have more power than humans but at the cost of fine motor control, so while a human would beat them in manual dexterity, they could simply rip our arm out of its socket.



Do we have a scenario where that kind of guerrilla warfare was applied in a medieval context though? I used to study this sort of stuff, but I don't recollect that stuff that well now.

According to the wiki article, there were a number of instances during medieval times where the stereotypical view of guerilla warfare happened:link (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_guerrilla_warfare).

In the context of small raids against a larger opponent, the most famous example is Chevauchee (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevauchee) practised by the English during the Hundred Years' War. This style of asymmetric warfare was more common during Medieval times.



Edit: So we would need either D&D strength halflings, or some sort of magical stuff to make it equivalent?

I'm inclined to agree, at least with the 'small human child' depiction of halflings from Tolkien's books and D&D. If we had a looser definition of halfling, like some sort of intelligent killer chimp then we could potentially keep it realistic and not resort to magic.

[Stephen_E]

Historically the peaceful folks tend to fare pretty terribly in the long run. At least once somebody else wants something they have.


Historically aggressive folks have fared pretty badly in the long run. Actually everyone has fared pretty badly in the long run. In the short run peaceful folk have done OK. The thing is that people don't write much about them because they are boring unless they get really wealthy, in which case they do get attacked and one way or another they stop been peaceful.

Short folks/Halflings. Be very wary of comparing children with Halflings. A couple of decades I did a bunch of research into heights/weights. Digging up a bunch of papers from the Uni Library. Basically humans massively increase in density when they hit puberty. Also shorter people do very nicely when you compare their lift/weight ratio. So expect a Halfling to weigh a LOT more than a human child of the same height even without looking much heavier. And it's entirely reasonable to expect them to lift significantly more per Kg of weight when compared to taller human adults.

Re: Chimpanzees. It's not something I've ever read up on but my understanding was that they have longer limbs to torso ratio and the way their muscle/limb arrangement is set up gives them better leverage with what they have. And lets not forget the much stronger jaws lets them bite someones face of. It's hard to wrestle back when the chimp just bit half your face off. :smallwink:

[Mike_G]

Small and sneaky people would be good at guerrilla tactics. Maybe they can't stand against you in a pike square, but if they sneak into camp and poison your wells...

And the use of tunnels would be perfect. Hard for a 6 foot man to fight in a four foot high tunnel. Crossbows have mechanical advantage which makes it easier to span a heavier bow than you could draw by hand, so a weak person couldn't use the same bow a a strong person, but better a small crossbow with a cranequin than a small self bow for getting damage. Poisoned bolts are a further tactic.

Halflings are at a disadvantage in normal combat, whgere strength and size count for a lot. So they have to use what they have, which is being small, quick, skilled and sneaky.

Some weapons take less strength to do damage. Maces, clubs and hammers are a bad choice, narrow piercing blades a good choice. A short, fairly weak guy can still put a narrow blade deep enough in you to reach organs. He probably can't swing a heavy mace and bash your skull in.

But he can hide in low scrubby brush, pop up and shoot you with a crossbow. Then disappear down a spider hole, move through a tunnel, and pop up on the other side of you and shoot you in the back. Or pop out of his spider hole and stick a small sword in your kidney, or the back of your knee.

If they are good at traps and snares and ambushes, they could make any army trying to occupy Halfling lands pay a price. They couldn't stop the army from moving in, but they could make them pay every night.

Tucker's Kobolds' tactics would work well for halflings.

I've been a small guy all my life. I've learned you can't try to beat a big guy on reach or strength. You beta him by being quick, sneaky and nasty.

And in general, you learn to avoid fights. Being a jovial, friendly Hobbit would keep you safe in most societies. Turning into Rambo Baggins the Varmint Cong in war time would be the other side of the coin.

[Brother Oni]

So expect a Halfling to weigh a LOT more than a human child of the same height even without looking much heavier.

For anything other than a D&D Lightfoot Halfling, I'd agree with you.
The SRD20 states what their average height and weight ranges are (3-3.5 ft, 30-35lbs), which puts them about the same height and weight as a 3 year old child: link (http://0.tqn.com/d/pediatrics/1/0/7/1/boysbirth.gif).

I think Warhammer halflings are a bit bigger and heavier, as are the various other types of D&D halfling (Tallfellows are bigger, heavier and stronger).

[Stephen_E]

For anything other than a D&D Lightfoot Halfling, I'd agree with you.
The SRD20 states what their average height and weight ranges are (3-3.5 ft, 30-35lbs), which puts them about the same height and weight as a 3 year old child: link (http://0.tqn.com/d/pediatrics/1/0/7/1/boysbirth.gif).

I think Warhammer halflings are a bit bigger and heavier, as are the various other types of D&D halfling (Tallfellows are bigger, heavier and stronger).

My point is that the weights given in moster game systems for halflings are simply wildly unrealistic. They should be a lot heavier. The problem is that the weights for the smaller races have generally been developed by either -
1) Scale down the weight for a normal sized Human. Which is terrible because the normal weight/height ratio gets higher as humans get shorter (Yes, BMI doesn't work for significantly shorter/taller people).
or
2) Use height/weight tables for human children. Which fails because as I've mentioned human children are significantly lighter for their height than human adults. The weight change happens around puberty as far as I could track.

I still have all the data around somewhere in a box in a cupboard I think but finding it would be hell. It is amazing what a difference diets makes though. Their was a study of 2 African tribes that lived relatively near each other and commonly interbreed. Their locations were different enough that they had different staple crops but interbreeding was such that their was no significant genetic difference. The Tribe with the higher protein staple grain food were about 5" higher in both men and women! Both Tribes were fairly healthy but the higher protein in childhood made a huge difference in height.

[Mr. Mask]

Hobbits could kill people with axes and maces. They might need the guy to bend over, if they want to smash his head. After they take out his leg, smashing a head with a flanged mace is easy as making jelly with a flanged mace.

With blades, you don't need to worry about strength aside from being able to wield the weapon. You mightn't get a nine-bodies cut, but you can surely cut one sucker in two.

Don't even need to cut him in two... and inch-deep slash is usually more than enough on the legs.

[AgentPaper]

Although neither the Gypsies or the Jews did really well as far as avoiding persecution and that sort of thing.

They both did well enough to survive the era.


And bandits aren't going to be scared off by people the size of children without some significant reason to be scared off that's part of the problem. Without some way to have them protected we don't really have a sustainable culture.

And that significant reason would be the hail of bullets flying towards them.


Well if you're thinking of a 30 lb human though... then we might have a lot of problems. We've already had a test where a 30 lb human was having difficulty with an 18 lb load if you'll see above. So it's not untenable to suggest that the amount of weight would be difficult to carry for a halfling. The thing is that being small can give you certain advantages, I'm just not sure if they would ever work up to counter the disadvantages.

I'm assuming DnD stats, with a grain of salt. Or rather, the closest real-world analogue to DnD stats, which in this case would simply be people with dwarfism.

And I agree that the advantages of being small would never really make up for the disadvantages in strength, weight, and leverage. My point, though, is that they can survive as a race and as a culture without needing to go toe-to-toe with the other races. They'll get the short end of the stick more often than not, being a bit more vulnerable to bandits overall, vulnerable to persecution, and likely never have a country of their own, but they can survive and even thrive in the era despite all that.

Giving them some kind of arbitrary advantage like guns or "magic +1" seems a bit lame to me. Unless we're talking about specifically player characters, the races do not need to be balanced perfectly against each other. Asymmetry makes for a far more interesting and diverse world. For PCs, you can simply take a class that doesn't need a high strength, or take advantage of a really good stat roll and play an abnormally strong halfling with 14-16 strength.

[No brains]

Here's kind of a wild question: If one could obtain a human skull and spinal column attached Predator/ Sub-Zero style, how effectively could they wield it like a flail?

I assume a human spine free from all mooring would be pretty flexible, and a skull with a brain presumably still inside would add some good weight to the end. The thing is, most weapons are built specifically to overcome the materials in the human body, and I have no idea how well spinal discs and cartilage would stand up to the force pulling on them as the skull is swung and smashed around. That guy on TV said 'inversion' helps realign my spine, so it must work really well!

[Mr. Mask]

The morale effects of that weapon will be significant, especially if you obtain the weapon violently from one of your enemies in front of the rest.

As a general weapon, it isn't great. It won't be balanced well, and using bone to break bone is ineffective. Incapacitating and killing people with it will be very hard due to those factors.

Still, the effect of making everyone half-pause in horror, allowing you to pick your targets and continue the descent of their morale, is a worth while thing.


I'm pretty sure the spine could handle being swung around. I mean, it's going to be rough on it since it doesn't have muscle to support it and since it can't heal. So, if you were using this as a weapon for an extended period, it wouldn't go through a lot of use before the skull and spine were unusable.

[warty goblin]

Pretty much useless. Anybody with any sense would attack and destroy your spinal flail with their own sensibly made metallic weapon.

Even aside from that, it wouldn't be stiff enough to work as anything but a flail, but wouldn't have anywhere near the flexibility of an actual military flail. It'd be like trying to win a fight with a very heavy pool noodle.

[AgentPaper]

Of course, if you're strong enough to rip out a person's spine, then using a weapon is probably just a formality anyways.

[Brother Oni]

Of course, if you're strong enough to rip out a person's spine, then using a weapon is probably just a formality anyways.

Aaaand we're back to throwing rocks again. :smalltongue:

[Mike_G]

Here's kind of a wild question: If one could obtain a human skull and spinal column attached Predator/ Sub-Zero style, how effectively could they wield it like a flail?

I assume a human spine free from all mooring would be pretty flexible, and a skull with a brain presumably still inside would add some good weight to the end. The thing is, most weapons are built specifically to overcome the materials in the human body, and I have no idea how well spinal discs and cartilage would stand up to the force pulling on them as the skull is swung and smashed around. That guy on TV said 'inversion' helps realign my spine, so it must work really well!

Bone isn't very hard or strong or heavy, compared to steel. If you hit a guy on the helm with your skull flail, the skull will break before the helm.

But it would be a scary looking thing, and would have a long reach. It would do some damage to unarmored foes.

[No brains]

Of course, if you're strong enough to rip out a person's spine, then using a weapon is probably just a formality anyways.

On that subject, getting a spinal flail would be pretty difficult. As I understand spines to work, they're like the central support column of a body. Everything is made specifically to be attached to the backbone, and it probably couldn't be pulled cleanly out like we see in media.

From the other comments, it seems like the knife needed to flense the awful thing out would probably be more useful because horrible weapon is a horrible weapon.

But suppose I dual-wielded them...:smalltongue:

[Brother Oni]

There's always the possibility of making a normal steel flail to look like a spine and skull or adding bone ornamentation to a normal one and letting rumour and reputation do the rest.

[Broken Crown]

Re: Halfling Warfare

Any "realistic" halfling is going to be relatively ineffective (not necessarily helpless, but definitely at a big disadvantage) as an archer or slinger compared to a human, to say nothing of melee combat, but once you get weapons technology (like crossbows) that doesn't rely on the direct application of muscular force, I can see halflings actually having an advantage over the "Big Folk."

A halfling will probably need to use a lighter crossbow, with a lower rate of fire. How much weaker the bow would need to be would depend on how it's employed. For various reasons, I expect halflings would prefer to defend fortified positions rather than use high-mobility tactics, so their weapons wouldn't need to be very portable; a powerful crossbow would be a viable option under such circumstances.

This allows the halflings to take advantage of their inherent advantage: They're very small – small enough that a given area of farmland should be able to support four times as many halflings as Big Folk. This, in turn, allows the halflings to take full advantage of Lanchester's Square Law (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lanchester%27s_laws), which states that on a battlefield where everyone can choose their targets, the relative power of two sides, all other things being equal, is equal to the square of the relative numbers.

I ran some quick calculations based on the following assumptions:
1) A halfling crossbowman is half as effective as a human crossbowman, in terms of the number of opponents killed per unit time. (Specifically, I assumed that one halfling soldier can kill 0.05 human soldiers per minute, while one human soldier can kill 0.1 halfling soldiers per minute. I freely admit that I have no idea whether these numbers are anything like realistic for actual combat with crossbows, but the relative numbers are all that really matters in the end.)
2) A halfling nation with equal territory can field four times as many troops. (In this hypothetical battle, I had a company of 400 halflings against a company of 100 humans.)

The result was that in five minutes, the humans were wiped out, while the halflings suffered only 8% casualties.

My other big assumptions here:
1) The halflings can actually afford to equip four times as many troops as the humans, not just feed them. This is a sizeable flaw with my hypothesis.
2) The Big Folk are unable to close the range and engage in melee combat, where the Square Law no longer applies. It's for this reason that I think halflings would make heavy use of fortifications in warfare. Fortifications also make aimed shots more necessary, likewise emphasizing effect of the Square Law.

Any comments/thoughts/glaring weaknesses you'd like to point out?

[warty goblin]

From the other comments, it seems like the knife needed to flense the awful thing out would probably be more useful because horrible weapon is a horrible weapon.

Generally when it comes to rendering a carcass, you want a bonesaw. Or, if you're feeling modern and efficient, a Saws-all with a small toothed blade. I can assure you from personal experience it'll bisect the spinal column longways like a knife through warm butter. Knives are better for detaching skin from meat, meat from bone, or removing an appendage at a joint.


But suppose I dual-wielded them...:smalltongue:

Fixes everything, obv.

[Animastryfe]

This allows the halflings to take advantage of their inherent advantage: They're very small – small enough that a given area of farmland should be able to support four times as many halflings as Big Folk. This, in turn, allows the halflings to take full advantage of Lanchester's Square Law (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lanchester%27s_laws), which states that on a battlefield where everyone can choose their targets, the relative power of two sides, all other things being equal, is equal to the square of the relative numbers.




Why four times, specifically?

[AMFV]

They both did well enough to survive the era.



And that significant reason would be the hail of bullets flying towards them.


Well if we're talking slings then those bullets aren't going to have a great deal of range or damage relative. If we're talking guns, then those are the great equalizer and while a halfling would have significant disadvantages with this, they would be able to cope with the matter.



I'm assuming DnD stats, with a grain of salt. Or rather, the closest real-world analogue to DnD stats, which in this case would simply be people with dwarfism.

Which is why I used my own strength as a benchmark to suggest that two thirty pound individuals would have trouble with an average sized human, even a sixty or seventy pound individual would have serious problems.



And I agree that the advantages of being small would never really make up for the disadvantages in strength, weight, and leverage. My point, though, is that they can survive as a race and as a culture without needing to go toe-to-toe with the other races. They'll get the short end of the stick more often than not, being a bit more vulnerable to bandits overall, vulnerable to persecution, and likely never have a country of their own, but they can survive and even thrive in the era despite all that.

Giving them some kind of arbitrary advantage like guns or "magic +1" seems a bit lame to me. Unless we're talking about specifically player characters, the races do not need to be balanced perfectly against each other. Asymmetry makes for a far more interesting and diverse world. For PCs, you can simply take a class that doesn't need a high strength, or take advantage of a really good stat roll and play an abnormally strong halfling with 14-16 strength.

Well the reason I was suggesting it was just to produce an interesting effect, I was more interested in answering could halflings be a part of a nation (or hobbits or whatever), so far it looks like we're going to have to have some kind of anthole type structures, magic, or unrealistic strength for this to be the case.


Re: Halfling Warfare

Any "realistic" halfling is going to be relatively ineffective (not necessarily helpless, but definitely at a big disadvantage) as an archer or slinger compared to a human, to say nothing of melee combat, but once you get weapons technology (like crossbows) that doesn't rely on the direct application of muscular force, I can see halflings actually having an advantage over the "Big Folk."

A halfling will probably need to use a lighter crossbow, with a lower rate of fire. How much weaker the bow would need to be would depend on how it's employed. For various reasons, I expect halflings would prefer to defend fortified positions rather than use high-mobility tactics, so their weapons wouldn't need to be very portable; a powerful crossbow would be a viable option under such circumstances.

This allows the halflings to take advantage of their inherent advantage: They're very small – small enough that a given area of farmland should be able to support four times as many halflings as Big Folk. This, in turn, allows the halflings to take full advantage of Lanchester's Square Law (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lanchester%27s_laws), which states that on a battlefield where everyone can choose their targets, the relative power of two sides, all other things being equal, is equal to the square of the relative numbers.

I ran some quick calculations based on the following assumptions:
1) A halfling crossbowman is half as effective as a human crossbowman, in terms of the number of opponents killed per unit time. (Specifically, I assumed that one halfling soldier can kill 0.05 human soldiers per minute, while one human soldier can kill 0.1 halfling soldiers per minute. I freely admit that I have no idea whether these numbers are anything like realistic for actual combat with crossbows, but the relative numbers are all that really matters in the end.)
2) A halfling nation with equal territory can field four times as many troops. (In this hypothetical battle, I had a company of 400 halflings against a company of 100 humans.)

The result was that in five minutes, the humans were wiped out, while the halflings suffered only 8% casualties.

My other big assumptions here:
1) The halflings can actually afford to equip four times as many troops as the humans, not just feed them. This is a sizeable flaw with my hypothesis.
2) The Big Folk are unable to close the range and engage in melee combat, where the Square Law no longer applies. It's for this reason that I think halflings would make heavy use of fortifications in warfare. Fortifications also make aimed shots more necessary, likewise emphasizing effect of the Square Law.

Any comments/thoughts/glaring weaknesses you'd like to point out?

The analysis sounds good. We could suspect that the halflings have a much higher rate of reproduction, biologically smaller social races tend to have higher rates of reproduction and mature faster, at least in my experience. So we could suppose that was true and that might help resolve the issue with equipping, also you can equip smaller troops at a much lower expense, so I think that your analysis is probably the best way to get realistic halflings.

Although then we wind up with hordes and hordes of halflings who are violent and militaristic, which is definitely interesting, a really nifty direction for that sort of thing to go.

[AgentPaper]

I still don't think that the disadvantage is as huge as you're making out. Assuming that a halfling has around the same strength as the closest real-life equivalent (a human with dwarfism), they would still be able to compete with the larger races just fine, without any kind of special advantage to make up for it. It would be a disadvantage, certainly, but not any more than the other natural disadvantages or advantages that a nation might have, such as low mineral wealth, or a bad geopolitical position, or especially corrupt nobles/officials, or simply not being a very large country to begin with.

I don't see why being short is such a dealbreaker, rather than just one out of a list of many possible disadvantages. Certainly they're less likely to create some kind of all-mighty empire, but as long as they play the political game right, they could still do well enough.

[Mr. Mask]

Crown: On an open battlefield, hobbits will have less range (I'm not sure exactly how much less). They can definitely kill people with slings and bows, though. Their range ought to be fine for guerilla warfare (farthest shot you can make in woods is about 150 feet, if you're lucky). They could get closer to humans' effective range with crossbows.

Being small also makes it harder to keep the farmland, depending on precisely their physical abilities. Hobbits did seem to have talent for growing things, and it might still work as an advantage in their favour.


That formula might work for parts of WWI, when people were sitting in trenches and taking pot shots. As soon as one side attacked the other, those numbers don't help in guessing the outcome.

We should remember that human armour is going to be somewhat better than halfling armour, by virtue of size.

Fortifications are a good idea. The little guys could try setting up hillforts. Building castles would be harder for them. They could make tons and tons of spike traps if they have a larger population.

You're not likely to have that many men die in five minutes. You could in a masterfully planned ambush or the like, but that's a different set of calculations.

We should note that if halflings rely on fortifications and defences, they're only going to fight stronger enemies, not equal enemies (otherwise, they'll have to be the ones attacking).

Materials-wise, hobbits are easier to equip. Won't change production rates too much though. Having a larger population means they can balance it out by having more smiths.


I wouldn't say there are glaring weaknesses in the idea. Just that it's a little simplified, which might give the wrong impression.



A Mind Forever Voyaging: Well, when little guys and slings come up... David and Goliath comes to mind. Don't mess with kids who can use a sling on a man, they can kill you.

Sumo wrestlers like to play a game. It involves all the kids in the audience trying to wrestle them to the ground. They never do. If two of them had knives though, even a sumo wrestler would be in a lot of trouble.

If hobbits don't have the war ability to defend themselves, there are still a few ways they could have a nation.
- If there simply isn't anyone nearby who is willing or able to take their land. This would be unusual, but you can go with uncrossable wastelands or hidden halfling lands in fantasy.
- The hobbit does have the war potential due to other means. It's simply so big, or there is a confederacy of hobbit nations.
- They are under the protection of a war-capable group, as someone pointed out with Warhammer.
- The hobbits have been conquered, but their nation retains its hobbit population and much of its ways.

Militaristic hordes of halflings sounds familiar. Goblins, I think they're called.

[Incanur]

Based on how scaling works, with muscle strength based on cross-sectional area (square) versus weight (cube), halfings could be considerable stronger per pound. If they had access to crossbows able to manage at least 60 J, they could be quite dangerous as skirmishers. Poison would be ideal, and would also allow for much weaker projectile to be dangerous.. Mass battles would probably still be difficult, but halfings could be deadly guerrillas. Under this model, settled halfings could simply be too much trouble for anyone to want to conquer.

They dwarves in my own fantasy setting typically fight with poison crossbow bolts, albeit very powerful ones. They're as strong as the strongest humans despite being only four-feet tall and about eighty pounds. They can do fine up close, but ranged combat plays to their strengths the most.

[AMFV]

I still don't think that the disadvantage is as huge as you're making out. Assuming that a halfling has around the same strength as the closest real-life equivalent (a human with dwarfism), they would still be able to compete with the larger races just fine, without any kind of special advantage to make up for it. It would be a disadvantage, certainly, but not any more than the other natural disadvantages or advantages that a nation might have, such as low mineral wealth, or a bad geopolitical position, or especially corrupt nobles/officials, or simply not being a very large country to begin with.

I don't see why being short is such a dealbreaker, rather than just one out of a list of many possible disadvantages. Certainly they're less likely to create some kind of all-mighty empire, but as long as they play the political game right, they could still do well enough.

A human with Dwarfism is going to have a significant problem competing with a full sized human as far as any strength based weapons go. Clearly significant enough for it to be a serious problem, I don't imagine that it would help that much.


Crown: On an open battlefield, hobbits will have less range (I'm not sure exactly how much less). They can definitely kill people with slings and bows, though. Their range ought to be fine for guerilla warfare (farthest shot you can make in woods is about 150 feet, if you're lucky). They could get closer to humans' effective range with crossbows.

Being small also makes it harder to keep the farmland, depending on precisely their physical abilities. Hobbits did seem to have talent for growing things, and it might still work as an advantage in their favour.


That formula might work for parts of WWI, when people were sitting in trenches and taking pot shots. As soon as one side attacked the other, those numbers don't help in guessing the outcome.

We should remember that human armour is going to be somewhat better than halfling armour, by virtue of size.

Fortifications are a good idea. The little guys could try setting up hillforts. Building castles would be harder for them. They could make tons and tons of spike traps if they have a larger population.

You're not likely to have that many men die in five minutes. You could in a masterfully planned ambush or the like, but that's a different set of calculations.

We should note that if halflings rely on fortifications and defences, they're only going to fight stronger enemies, not equal enemies (otherwise, they'll have to be the ones attacking).

Materials-wise, hobbits are easier to equip. Won't change production rates too much though. Having a larger population means they can balance it out by having more smiths.


I wouldn't say there are glaring weaknesses in the idea. Just that it's a little simplified, which might give the wrong impression.



A Mind Forever Voyaging: Well, when little guys and slings come up... David and Goliath comes to mind. Don't mess with kids who can use a sling on a man, they can kill you.

Sumo wrestlers like to play a game. It involves all the kids in the audience trying to wrestle them to the ground. They never do. If two of them had knives though, even a sumo wrestler would be in a lot of trouble.

If hobbits don't have the war ability to defend themselves, there are still a few ways they could have a nation.
- If there simply isn't anyone nearby who is willing or able to take their land. This would be unusual, but you can go with uncrossable wastelands or hidden halfling lands in fantasy.
- The hobbit does have the war potential due to other means. It's simply so big, or there is a confederacy of hobbit nations.
- They are under the protection of a war-capable group, as someone pointed out with Warhammer.
- The hobbits have been conquered, but their nation retains its hobbit population and much of its ways.

Militaristic hordes of halflings sounds familiar. Goblins, I think they're called.

Well yes if you give the children an asymetric advantage in the fight (having knives when the wrestler doesn't) it's a big change, also I would bet on a Sumo wrestler beating two children with knives. Every single time. Also I'm not sure if David V. Goliath is an actual account (and discussing that would be against forum rules in any case). David in the story was not a child he was an adult, and he was a manual laborer, those are things that do not work as well.


Based on how scaling works, with muscle strength based on cross-sectional area (square) versus weight (cube), halfings could be considerable stronger per pound. If they had access to crossbows able to manage at least 60 J, they could be quite dangerous as skirmishers. Poison would be ideal, and would also allow for much weaker projectile to be dangerous.. Mass battles would probably still be difficult, but halfings could be deadly guerrillas.

They dwarves in my own fantasy setting typically fight with poison crossbow bolts, albeit very powerful ones. They're as strong as the strongest humans despite being only four-feet tall and about eighty pounds. They can do fine up close, but ranged combat plays to their strengths the most.

I don't think that works out exactly as you're implying. The strength thing, we'd have to have halflings that were constructed very differently than humans.

[Broken Crown]

Why four times, specifically?
I based it on a combination of relative body mass and height.

If halflings were proportioned identically to humans, then at half the height of humans, they should have one-eighth the mass and one-quarter of the surface area, which means they should lose heat to their surroundings twice as quickly as humans relative to their mass (assuming they're warm-blooded). This, in turn, would mean that they would need about twice as much food per unit mass as a human (hence "second breakfast"), or about one-quarter as much food per halfling, so a given area of land should be able to support four times as many halflings as humans.

Looking at the 3.5 rules more closely, humans only average about 4.8 times the mass of halflings, rather than 8 times, so halflings must have much stockier builds, proportionately, and should be more thermodynamically efficient. Since the height/mass ratio is only half as great, then the heat loss/mass ratio should be similar. Since increased food consumption due to doubling the mass vs. decreased food consumption due to halving the area/mass ratio should cancel each other out, the sustainable population shouldn't change.

This assumes that halflings, like humans, spend most of their energy maintaining their body temperature. It also suggests that halflings might have trouble in tropical climates.

[Mr. Mask]

Paper: Being smaller means less reach, armour, less powerful weapons, and that bigger enemy weapons are more effective on your person (and against your armour). Various modes of manual labour are also harder. Luckily for hobbits there are advantages to balance those problems.

If strong for their size that means (usually) they'll be fast, that they can carry more compared to their weight, that they can climb well, and that digging their burrows will be easier (since their burrows are smaller than human ones would have to be). Stuff like hanging onto horses better and other stuff, too.

Politics does require that they're providing something for others, or are scary enough to keep their enemies at bay. This is likely to happen in the form of tribute to a military power.

If you'll help me, we'll look for a video of a riot where the kids are using slings. The ones I saw, the range they get is surprising.



A Mind Forever Voyaging: Was talking about if the sumo wrestler had knives too. Many abusive men have been killed by this, despite great weight and size differences. If the involved combatants are skilled, it's a matter of who is the most skilled. Kids would normally be less skilled.

"V." a way of writing, "vs."?

Though there is some historical evidence that the fight between the two of them took place, I think it would be unwise to discuss it, as the line between religious and political discussion is too narrow.

Strength and weight is handy for using slings, you are right about that. But they are fine weapons... Even a skinny white collar child could kill a man if they were proficient with a sling. The effective range would change drastically between the professional slinger and that child. Hobbits fall somewhere between those two points, having ranges not so suitable for war, but suitable for ambush.

If you'll help me, we can look for some videos of riots where the kids use slings. Of what I've seen, the ranges they got were pretty amazing... though they did suck with accuracy, couldn't hit what they aimed at (with that showing, they'd never hit their bread).

[AMFV]

A Mind Forever Voyaging: Was talking about if the sumo wrestler had knives too. Many abusive men have been killed by this, despite great weight and size differences. If the involved combatants are skilled, it's a matter of who is the most skilled. Kids would normally be less skilled.

Yes, many people have died to smaller opponents, but we're looking at trends, and an opponent of equal skill with greater strength will win, one of lesser skill with greater strength will often win as well. Strength is a pretty important thing in an actual fight. One of the problems with most of the simulated forms of fighting (fencing, Iajutsu, UFC) is that they make attempts to equalize strength (weight classes etc), or have rules that would make that sort of fighting impracticable.




"V." a way of writing, "vs."?


Yep.




Though there is some historical evidence that the fight between the two of them took place, I think it would be unwise to discuss it, as the line between religious and political discussion is too narrow.

Strength and weight is handy for using slings, you are right about that. But they are fine weapons... Even a skinny white collar child could kill a man if they were proficient with a sling. The effective range would change drastically between the professional slinger and that child. Hobbits fall somewhere between those two points, having ranges not so suitable for war, but suitable for ambush.

If you'll help me, we can look for some videos of riots where the kids use slings. Of what I've seen, the ranges they got were pretty amazing... though they did suck with accuracy, couldn't hit what they aimed at (with that showing, they'd never hit their bread).

Well the problem is that even if the kids can use the slings, they will never be as good as their opponents and so without significant numerical advantages they'll lose. The more I'm seeing this, the more I'm agreeing with the model that suggests a much greater population and then using that in combination with savage ambush tactics, that sort of warfare would be different than most normal halflings.

[Broken Crown]

Crown: On an open battlefield, hobbits will have less range (I'm not sure exactly how much less). They can definitely kill people with slings and bows, though. Their range ought to be fine for guerilla warfare (farthest shot you can make in woods is about 150 feet, if you're lucky). They could get closer to humans' effective range with crossbows.
Regarding slings and bows: I'm not concerned so much about the range as about the lethality. A shorter draw multiplied by a weaker draw weight will mean a much less powerful arrow, which would mean a far lower chance of incapacitating the target, would it not? Especially since the Big Folk can also wear thicker armour.


Being small also makes it harder to keep the farmland, depending on precisely their physical abilities. Hobbits did seem to have talent for growing things, and it might still work as an advantage in their favour.
I'm presuming halflings make use of draft animals for heavy labour, just as humans do.


That formula might work for parts of WWI, when people were sitting in trenches and taking pot shots. As soon as one side attacked the other, those numbers don't help in guessing the outcome.

Fortifications are a good idea. The little guys could try setting up hillforts. Building castles would be harder for them. They could make tons and tons of spike traps if they have a larger population.

We should note that if halflings rely on fortifications and defences, they're only going to fight stronger enemies, not equal enemies (otherwise, they'll have to be the ones attacking).

I wouldn't say there are glaring weaknesses in the idea. Just that it's a little simplified, which might give the wrong impression.
I did make a lot of assumptions for those calculations (which were literally done on the back of an envelope). The main challenge for the halflings would definitely be keeping the Big Folk at a distance, hence the emphasis on forts. The Big Folk would almost certainly break cover and charge at some point if they were losing an archery battle, which would give them a temporary disadvantage, but which could turn the tide if they broke through the defensive lines.

Thanks for the commentary!


You're not likely to have that many men die in five minutes. You could in a masterfully planned ambush or the like, but that's a different set of calculations.
My very rough guesstimate was based on one shot per thirty seconds per human crossbowman, with about 5% accuracy, with halflings needing longer to reload a crossbow of any given strength. In hindsight this seems like unrealistically good shooting for battlefield conditions, especially against targets with cover. For the Square Law, it's ratios that matter, rather than absolute numbers, but that ignores things like ammunition supply and how long it takes for your enemy to overrun your position.

Any idea what a realistic rate of accurate fire with crossbows would be under those circumstances? My (limited) reading of medieval history suggests that nobody wanted to be exposed to sustained archery for very long, but the actual numbers of casualties due to archery are vague. (Actually, wasn't that discussed earlier on this thread? I should go back and reread it.)

In any case, it looks as though my hordes of halfling crossbowmen are going to need to carry more ammunition.

---

Incidentally, my calculations regarding halfling metabolism in my previous post are at least as oversimplified as anything else I've posted here, so if there are any biologists here who would like to correct me, I'd welcome it (though it might be going a bit off-topic).

[AMFV]

Regarding slings and bows: I'm not concerned so much about the range as about the lethality. A shorter draw multiplied by a weaker draw weight will mean a much less powerful arrow, which would mean a far lower chance of incapacitating the target, would it not? Especially since the Big Folk can also wear thicker armour.


I'm presuming halflings make use of draft animals for heavy labour, just as humans do.


I did make a lot of assumptions for those calculations (which were literally done on the back of an envelope). The main challenge for the halflings would definitely be keeping the Big Folk at a distance, hence the emphasis on forts. The Big Folk would almost certainly break cover and charge at some point if they were losing an archery battle, which would give them a temporary disadvantage, but which could turn the tide if they broke through the defensive lines.

Thanks for the commentary!


My very rough guesstimate was based on one shot per thirty seconds per human crossbowman, with about 5% accuracy, with halflings needing longer to reload a crossbow of any given strength. In hindsight this seems like unrealistically good shooting for battlefield conditions, especially against targets with cover. For the Square Law, it's ratios that matter, rather than absolute numbers, but that ignores things like ammunition supply and how long it takes for your enemy to overrun your position.

Any idea what a realistic rate of accurate fire with crossbows would be under those circumstances? My (limited) reading of medieval history suggests that nobody wanted to be exposed to sustained archery for very long, but the actual numbers of casualties due to archery are vague. (Actually, wasn't that discussed earlier on this thread? I should go back and reread it.)

In any case, it looks as though my hordes of halfling crossbowmen are going to need to carry more ammunition.

---

Incidentally, my calculations regarding halfling metabolism in my previous post are at least as oversimplified as anything else I've posted here, so if there are any biologists here who would like to correct me, I'd welcome it (though it might be going a bit off-topic).

So then fortifications and tunnels would be where the halflings would have an advantage, archery battles out of murder holes that could only be accessed by folks who are really small, since fighting in tunnels would give them an advantage.

[Mr. Mask]

A Mind Forever Voyaging: All else being equal, the stronger guy has an advantage. Unarmed, this difference can be extremely significant--no number of kids or amount of martial arts training allows them to bring down a sumo wrestler. With blades, the decisiveness of it decreases dramatically. With handguns, it can still have effects like recoil and controlling your gun a little better, and absorbing lead. Bigger guns are the same, only more so.

Children can't get the same effective range as adults, yeah. In ambush tactics at ranges within their effective range, then it's a matter of who hits the most accurately and with enough force to deal with the armour--where kids will have had less training than an adult trained for it and lose out as well.

Ambush and numbers are your best bet when your effective range is smaller and your individual men weaker. What were their tactics like when Frodo returned to the Shire? I can't remember.

When VC dugout were found, rat hunts were sometimes instigated to see if there's anything neat in the hole like war plans, and to see if you can work out where the entrances are. After that, or skipping that part, they tried to collapse the tunnels and cover the entrances. Since humans couldn't fit into the dugouts if they tried, either they need their own hobbits or goblins to do the rat hunt, or just skip that step.



Crown: Lethality isn't so much of a concern with the human body. It is a concern depending on the armour and weapons available. Slings are really impressive, so even the best body armour isn't going to allow you to shrug and ignore a direct hit, but the specific slings and ammo used and the specifics of the armour will change how effective an attack is.

I thought about it a while... I think I overestimated some factors. They probably could contain a much larger population with the same land, without having to increase their workforce too much, as you originally proposed. Admittedly, this is assuming they eat the amount your calculations reckoned, rather than the amount of Tolkien's hobbits which appeared to be considerable.

You may want to keep the big folk close. The Romans could defeat much larger numbers of personage with short swords, who in some cases were bigger and stronger (the disparity being far, far lesser). Or close in a relative way, in the form of ambushing them at your effective range in woods where their greater range doesn't come into effect. With fortifications, you can have height advantages which increase your effective range and decrease the enemy's.

Who would lose an archery battle depends on the specifics of the terrain, the armies' organizations, and specifics of the hobbits' abilities. For example, if they have a shorter effective range, it means their enemy can fire on them before they get into range. However, hobbits are also faster, so that reduces that problem. However, hobbits are also likely to have lesser armour, which could increase their casualties. However, if hobbits have greater numbers, the casualties might be less significant. However, morale and cohesion will remain a concern if first blood is against you.
There are other problems too. If their effective range is larger, then it means they have control of your movement to an extent. They can get close enough that they can fire on you and not viceversa, and you'll have to enter treacherous ground to be within range to fire back. Of course, if you fight defensively, you can stick to high ground which increase your effective range--though you'll be back to square one if you move off that hill. Because of stuff like this, hobbits on the field would probably be best to swap between very defensive and aggressive strategies.

For realistic rates of accuracy and battle time, there really are too many possible circumstances for me to be able to list them. You could get an encounter where everyone dies in five minutes, if everyone was really going for it like naked fanatics. It also depends on when you consider the encounter to have started in timing it.

[warty goblin]

I'd suspect that if you can make a plate harness that's capable of deflecting musketfire, it's gonna shrug off slingstones - whether thrown by a human or a halfling.

[Mr. Mask]

Yeah, if you could make plate harness that could deflect musket fire.

[Storm Bringer]

Yeah, if you could make plate harness that could deflect musket fire.

you can.

https://www.google.nl/search?hl=nl&site=imghp&tbm=isch&source=hp&biw=1440&bih=728&q=bullet+proofed+armour&oq=bullet+proofed+armour&gs_l=img.3...1170.8861.0.9188.23.13.0.7.0.0.499.20 61.2-3j2j1.6.0....0...1ac.1.32.img..18.5.1702.9KrjRHiWX eQ#hl=nl&q=bullet+proofed+brestplate&tbm=isch

see the breastplates with the dents in them? they were sold like that, as the "bullet proof" that showed it was up to spec.

its just much thicker and heavier than arrow proof armour. it's wasn't practical to make whole body bullet proof armour, it was just too heavy, so they tended to only armour the chest and head to that standard.

[Mr. Mask]

I can't remember learning if there was a standard to proofing. Muskets get very superficial if you use them from considerable range. Never the less, I have seen tests with certain breastplates which very successfully managed to stop musket balls at close range (with less pleasant-looking dents). The problem is, you can't shrug off sling stones with that. You'd need your armour to deflect them the way rifle rounds deflect off tank armour. Get hit by four sling stones in any of that, and you'll be thinking, "Wow, this really sucks!"

Admittedly, multiplex plate armour might be better for cushioning the blows... Never let anyone throw rocks at me while I wore it, or watched someone else stupid enough to try, so I can't comment on that.

[Brother Oni]

I'd suspect that if you can make a plate harness that's capable of deflecting musketfire, it's gonna shrug off slingstones - whether thrown by a human or a halfling.

Further to this, longbow penetration was tested against varying thickness plate armour (I want to say in The Knight and the Blast Furnace, but I'm not sure) and it was found that anything above 2mm was basically impervious to arrows.
This is effective thickness, so 1mm plate with a 45 degree or higher angle of impact is also arrow proof.

Unless Mr Mask is arguing that a sling is better than an English warbow, heavy infantry would just stroll up to the halfling lines and either scatter them or chase them from the field, leaving the cavalry to mop up the remnants.

This is why I said earlier that forcing the halflings into open battle is a win solution for the larger folk.

With regard to Broken Crown's usage of Lanchester's Laws, there's a very important caveat that's been overlooked - equivalent weaponry. As mentioned, the larger folk can use much thicker armour and more effective weapons. Forts aren't going to be much use if the big guys have set up trebuchets outside the effective range of the halfling artillery/missile weapons and since they can build bigger trebuchets, the range advantage is going to be towards the attackers.

Hill forts are even less effective, since the shielded and armoured big folk can simply walk up the sides.

The other important point that's been overlooked regarding the Square Law in particular is that it only estimates victory and casualties caused by attrition. If a group of crossbowmen and a group of crossbow halflings set up at 100 yards away from each other and traded shots, then the Square Law would apply (although potentially biased in favour of the halflings as they're smaller targets).
If one side had pavises, then that side is going to win. If the other side was a combined force of infantry, cavalry and crossbowmen instead, then that side is going to win.



If halflings were proportioned identically to humans...

This is the primary assumption which is the sticking point. Under this model, halflings are just miniaturised humans however Stephen_E has pointed out that these values were derived from human infants, which have a very different body composition to adult humans.

Stockier halflings are found in other literature and not with such a silly strength to weight ratio.

Other than that, I fully agree with your assessments of food requirements due to being a smaller mammal, although clothing would offset that.
The miniaturised human version wouldn't have trouble in the tropics as the thermoregulation mechanisms are still the same, although I would think their reliance on water would be higher.

[Mr. Mask]

Out of arrows and sling stones, I might prefer the sling stone embedding itself inside my torso with a sizeable hole rather than the massive bleeding of an arrow. In armour, rocks are worse. You need to strap some harness on, the stuff that stops arrows, then get ten friends to throw rocks at you, as hard as they can. You'll hate me for getting you to try that experiment. Even so, I won't ask you to get experienced slingers placing rounds on your head and legs at close range with lead stones... I don't want to injure you.

You're not going to get anything useful out of Lanchester's law. It's a method soldiers and warriors use to explain to politicians why their war plan is going to work, and projected casualty rates. In other words, it's nonsense.

The Roman Legions had trouble with hillforts. They have earth banks so steep that it's hard to walk up them when unarmoured during peace time. Walking up them when you have rocks and logs rolling down at you, and arrows and stones knocking you off balance, falling back into sharpened stakes which will impale you, stopped at every defensive wall it has... hillforts are truly horrible to deal with. You can't hit the walls with artillery, because it has such thick earthramps that it won't make a difference (modern artillery from directly above could work, if they haven't dug out trenches against it). It's rocks, sticks, and mud--and a terribly effective defensive formation. Relatively easy to make, too. If hillforts had guts, many armies would have hated them.

Being small doesn't make a decisive difference to your likelihood of being hit when you're in a formation.

I don't think there's any reason Hobbits couldn't build trebuchets of the same size. They'd need to adjust the human-powered mechanism to work with animals or more hobbits.

[Mike_G]

I still say the best bet for small, sneaky people is guerrilla warfare. If they live in mountains or forest, they could use the terrain to stage ambushes and escape. And sneak into enemy camps to spread poison, sabotage equipment, slit throats, etc.

They will lose in a straight up fight.

And while strength always helps, you need less strength for some weapons, so that's the route they should go. They're never going to bash through armor with a polaxe or warhammer, but they could find the gaps with a narrow sword. Crossbows use mechanics to multiply your effective strength.

[Mr. Mask]

I agree with your points.

I will comment that it is easier for halflings to target the legs with a poleaxe, so I think they'd still be quite capable of incapacitating someone in great armour. With such weapons, you couldn't just shrug off a blow made against the strong points of your armour, but their effectiveness would be reduced significantly.

Regardless, the main problem is the rude lack of cooperation from the hobbits' opponents, who will instead kill the little guys.

[Mr. Mask]

Something I need to add in fairness to the hillfort bit. You couldn't always build your forts on choice hills, so the steepness can vary even with earthworks. If you had a low, rolling hill, you could just walk up it more slowly than across flat ground, albeit with the same problems of stones and arrows from the palisade (so it's not to say it has become easy, but it has become a lot easier).

If you need a hillfort in a specific place, you have to make do with whatever hill is there.

[Berenger]

If you need a hillfort in a specific place, you have to make do with whatever hill is there.

The truth of this statement depends entirely on the available amount of shovels and unskilled labor.

[Mr. Mask]

I see your point, but there are limits to how much you can change the geology.

[Berenger]

Well, in theory you can remove everything short of a mountain (forests, swamps, rivers...) with enough shovels. Of course, it might not be cost-effective or even possible with the resources a given society can spare, so in practice you are right in the regard that favorable natural conditions will yield a better hill fort, require less labor or even both.

[Mr. Mask]

Maybe it's possible to make a really great hillfort from flat lands. Just, I don't know of any examples of it.

[AMFV]

Well, in theory you can remove everything short of a mountain (forests, swamps, rivers...) with enough shovels. Of course, it might not be cost-effective or even possible with the resources a given society can spare, so in practice you are right in the regard that favorable natural conditions will yield a better hill fort, require less labor or even both.

That's not necessarily true, shovels are going to not be sufficient fairly quickly and you're going to start needing dynamite or serious digging implements. Reshaping the land is really difficult even in the modern era, back in medieval times it was very nearly an impossibility.

[Berenger]

I don't know of hill forts, but I heard of motte-and-bailey castles built on otherwise flat terrain. Unfortunately, I have not source at hand to support this claim. In any case, I imagine a hill fort to be roughly one magnitude bigger than a typical motte-and-bailey castle (source: unscientific guesstimate) so this may be irrelevant.

[SowZ]

Well, in theory you can remove everything short of a mountain (forests, swamps, rivers...) with enough shovels. Of course, it might not be cost-effective or even possible with the resources a given society can spare, so in practice you are right in the regard that favorable natural conditions will yield a better hill fort, require less labor or even both.

People said I was daft to build a castle in a swamp...

[Mr. Mask]

A Mind Forever Voyaging: Well, they did manage pretty impressive stuff since ancient times. Roman strip mining is pretty cool, and some of the underground complexes built long ago.


Berenger: I think a Motte and Bailey could be constructed on a flat. I can't confirm it either.


Sowz: Is that a comment on past treatment in the thread, or a Monty Python reference?

[AMFV]

I don't know of hill forts, but I heard of motte-and-bailey castles built on otherwise flat terrain. Unfortunately, I have not source at hand to support this claim. In any case, I imagine a hill fort to be roughly one magnitude bigger than a typical motte-and-bailey castle (source: unscientific guesstimate) so this may be irrelevant.

You wouldn't be able to produce a stable foundation on raw or packed earth, it would just not support any decent walls, I mean you might be able to a weak wall up, but it wouldn't hold against any real seige equipment.

[Mr. Mask]

I don't know enough about artificial hills to comment.

[AMFV]

I don't know enough about artificial hills to comment.

I know enough about geology to know that you can't just build a hill, at least not a decent one. Not good enough for the kind of foundation you'd want for something that was going to take a siege, now you could build some kind of stockade, but it wouldn't stand up to a major seige.

[Berenger]

@SowZ: It is less daft if the swamp has been drained and is no longer a swamp.

@AMFW: Perhaps we have wildly different conceptions of "hill forts". I assume a very early / primitive structure without expensive features like masonry - something made from "dirt" and perhaps wooden stockades.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-r4hGmKQN0Uw/Tp8cBDeUkrI/AAAAAAAAAXo/SsiixVL5VJY/s1600/hillfort.jpg

[warty goblin]

You wouldn't be able to produce a stable foundation on raw or packed earth, it would just not support any decent walls, I mean you might be able to a weak wall up, but it wouldn't hold against any real seige equipment.

This is I believe an issue that a lot of castles are suffering from in fact. They were built on artificial (or artificially enhanced) hills, as a consequence of which they are now crumbling as the hill settles.

[Incanur]

I don't think that works out exactly as you're implying. The strength thing, we'd have to have halflings that were constructed very differently than humans.

How so? It's well-known (http://books.google.com/books?id=PCU0RwDI6c4C&pg=PA34&lpg=PA34&dq=muscle+%2B+cross+sectional+area+%2B+square+%2B+ scaling+%2B+strength&source=bl&ots=sy0F1nKcYh&sig=mv0RoQY7G7fDpwG-fksuTZIlwLk&hl=en&sa=X&ei=40vlUqHbJ8SZrgH844HgCg&ved=0CDAQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=muscle%20%2B%20cross%20sectional%20area%20%2B%20 square%20%2B%20scaling%20%2B%20strength&f=false) that muscle strength is directly related to cross-sectional area (http://britton.disted.camosun.bc.ca/scalefactor/factors2.html). With all things being equal, a 3ft-tall person would be considerably stronger per lb than a 6ft-tall person.

Under this logic, a halfling equivalent to a 180lb, 6ft human would weigh only 22.5lbs and 25% as strong. So if the human could draw a 150lb bow, the halfling could draw a 37.5lb one, though because of draw length this bow would only deliver 12.5% of the energy. The halfling would be strong enough to wear armor of the same thickness as the human, as both strength and armor weight drop to 25%, though such armor would be significantly more of its body weight than for the human. This would mean than halfling bows (and weapons in general) wouldn't have any chance of penetrating halfling armor! Scaling is funny like that.

So you could have halfling guerrillas armed with poisoned projectiles and wearing armor - maybe brigandines - capable of stopping human arrows. They might do a number on humans, particularly in rough terrain.

[snowblizz]

I know enough about geology to know that you can't just build a hill, at least not a decent one. Not good enough for the kind of foundation you'd want for something that was going to take a siege, now you could build some kind of stockade, but it wouldn't stand up to a major seige.
I saw a program on Göbekli Tepe recently. Built by humans still hunter-gatherers it's a series of massive stone "temples" of course for some reason they buried each and every one after a few centuries of use, essentially creating (or at least heavily augmenting) a sizeable artificial hill.

http://www.gobeklitepe.info/

The Normans built a huge number of Motte-and-Bailey castles when they conquered England and not a few of them were subsequently converted to stone castles.

The Japanse sometimes had to artificially create the hill needed for a hirajiro castle, though they learned to stone clad it to improve the durability. The one (foundation, the rest of the castle not so much) in Hiroshima survived an atomic blast.

I'm going to have to say that history shows it can be done. Naturally it requires some level of upkeep.

[Galloglaich]

The Lithuanians made two lines of hill forts on their borders with the territories of the Teutonic Knights and the Livonian Order, as well as the Golden Horde, which were for the most part built on top of artificially constructed mounds of earth and rubble, and made in a specific iron-age fashion out of wood and stone. They were often intentionally situated in the bends of rivers or on man-made hills inside of large ponds or lakes.

http://www.piliakalniai.lt/data/radiniai/normal/522_461.jpg

http://www.piliakalniai.lt/data/radiniai/large/399_248.jpg

Some were more sophisticated, like this one

http://www.archeologijosdraugija.lt/itvirtinimai/data/radiniai/radiniai_large/6___.jpg
But even the better developed ones were very simple compared to equivalent Christian - European designs of the times.

These piliakalnis, as they call them, were, nevertheless, effective in fighting off the Crusaders for 200 years and the Mongols for longer than that, partly because they were in thick swampy forests. They made over 800 of them. I know a guy who is doing archeology in this area, tracing the course of medieval battles by using metal detectors to find crossbow bolt-heads in trees and in the ground.

There are dozens of the original mounds still surviving:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/1f/Piliakalniai.jpg/799px-Piliakalniai.jpg

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Hillforts_in_Lithuania

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hill_fort#Lithuania

Their capital, Vilnius, was built on a natural cliff on the advice of a pagan priest, who told their "Duke" of a dream he had of an iron wolf howling on a hill overlooking the river. It held out for years against numerous massive sieges.

There are also many surviving hill-forts in nearby Estonia and Latvia.

The type of substrate that a given castle or fort was built on was extremely important once systematic 'mining' operations had been revived by the 13th Century. The mighty and extremely impressive Crusader fortress "Krak des Chevaliers" in Syria was taken out fairly quickly because it happened to be built on a hill made of soft substrate.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_qdMJj-Na-xk/S_AfsLicz5I/AAAAAAAAGqk/5U-cApT7YEU/s1600/krak_des__chevaliers.jpg
Sadly my understanding is that it has recently been damaged during the civil war in Syria, I don't know how much.

One of the reasons why many of the Free Cities in Central Europe were able to endure so long is that they were built on rivers, often incorporating islands on the river as part of the fortifications. If the water table was high this made it very hard to do tunneling operations, which were the number one means of destroying such walls until the advent of somewhat effective cannon in the early 14th Century, which began to be perfected as a system especially in France and Burgundy by the late 14th especially with the development of cast-iron and cast-bronze gun-barrels in Flanders and shortly thereafter, throughout Italy and Central Europe. Though the French King and Duke of Burgundy had some battlefield successes with these cannon, it was the towns who had the most of them (and the best*) and who also developed the first effective countermeasures in terms of new types of fortification (including but not by any means limited to the so called 'Trace Italienne' style forts).

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/10/Gdansk_sztych_ok_1628.jpg/320px-Gdansk_sztych_ok_1628.jpg

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/08/View_of_Gda%C5%84sk_win_1575.PNG/800px-View_of_Gda%C5%84sk_win_1575.PNG

In the Baltic, several of the larger fortified towns, abbeys and complexes were so well protected that even after the entire region was overrun by enemies they could hold out for years. The City of Danzig / Gdansk did this when they got into a feud with the King of Poland and had to face off the entire Polish army under Stephen Bathory (and after he wiped out the mercenaries they had hired), then again later when the Swedish invaded under Gustav Adolphus, and many other times - to the extent that they were often able to dictate their own policies to the most powerful warlords since it was considered impossible to storm the city.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/82/Panorama_of_Malbork_Castle%2C_part_4.jpg/320px-Panorama_of_Malbork_Castle%2C_part_4.jpg

http://www.kids-n-fun.com/Wall/kastelen/malbork%20castle%20of%20teutonic%20knights,%20pome rania%201.jpg

The Teutonic Order had their mighty and gigantic castle "Malbork", which is made of brick and doesn't really look so much like a conventional castle, but was incredibly effective and held out numerous times in sieges in the 15th and 16th Centuries, sometimes for years.

All fortifications were a combination of the terrain where they were situated (hard ground vs soft, in the open high or low, surrounded by water or not) what they were made of, the style of architecture used, what kind of armaments the defenders had (guns, crossbows, and by the 15th Century, cannon, all being indispensable, as well as a wide variety of more creative and specialized weapons). It's hard to reduce it to just one factor. A lot of money, a great deal of skilled labor, and a creative imagination are all very helpful (which is why the Free Cities did so well with defensive fortifications), but so is just picking a very good location.


*except that is, for the Ottomans who were particularly good at making gigantic bombards, though they sometimes found it fatally difficult them to move them where they were needed in time.

G

[Mr. Mask]

Thank you all for teaching me about artificial hills. It's very good to get verified information of something like that, like this.


I'll put out a new topic of discussion and see if it gets any bites: Humans versus dragons. We'll ignore extreme dragons for obvious reasons, sticking the fundamentals of a flying, armoured, fire-breathing lizard which is clever.

Ideas I've heard for making things miserable for dragons include ballista, spiked chains attached to the ground and air balloons acting as a sort of air mine, a trick of hitting them with a ballista bolt attached to a chain which is then attached to a tree via another ballista bolt, and burying them alive in their dens with under/overmining.

[GraaEminense]

Find out where it lives, poison its food and collapse or trap the cave entrance while it sleeps? What would happen if the rats in your house were malevolent, intelligent, tool-using and highly cooperative critters that blamed you for poisoning their families and letting your murder-beasts roam free?

[Berenger]

How big is that dragon and which weapons are rendered useless by its scales?

There is a nice novel in german, Die Mächte des Feuers... sadly, it has not been translated. It features a century-old monastic order of dragonslayers, each line descended from a particular Saint. They compete against dragon hunters, which are mercenaries for hire and not blessed in any way. Therefore, the dragon hunters fight in greater numbers and with bigger artillery. There are a variety of mentioned methods:

- dragonscale armor against fire + bastard sword

- poison (boring but practical)

- explosives hidden in the dragons food (awesome but practical)

- glass armor + chemicals that react with the dragons stomach acid (they try to be swallowed alive - on an unrelated note, this line of saints is almost extinct)

- singing the dragon into submission (huh)

- ballistae with chains

- fighter biplane *dakkadakkadakkadakkadakka*

- WWI artillery (battery of Big Bertha - they don't aim at the dragon, they level the dragons mountain while it is asleep in its cave)

[Mr. Mask]

Graa: Either you'd manage to get peace settlements with them, or you'd have one heck of a genocidal war going on (not just the humans genociding the rats... intelligent rats could get REALLY nasty for people).

That war is either more interesting than the one with the dragons, or so bloody, constant, and direct that it isn't worth discussion (mass attempts to poison each other's food and water, gassing, rats cutting people to bits, etc.).


For poisoning a dragon's food, that's a little questionable. Dragons supposedly can feed off a very wide area of land, so you wouldn't be sure of where it was going to eat. You could try to bait it with sheep with drug-soaked wool or something.

Collapsing cave entrances, over or undermining it are definite possibilities (if it had the ability to sense vibrations through the rock, it would make the process a lot more awkward).


Berenger: Let's give a range of size. Anything from the size of a bull, to something the size of an elephant (though supposedly not the weight).

Supposedly hand-carried weapons are mostly ineffective, I'd say would be reasonable. Maybe you could try to lance a bull-sized dragon.

They have biplanes and are still trying to kill dragons with swords?

[warty goblin]

I can't figure a ballista actually working against a dragon. Sure it might if you hit, but they aren't exactly the most mobile or fastest-turning of weapons. And they are quite flammable.

[GraaEminense]

Graa: Either you'd manage to get peace settlements with them, or you'd have one heck of a genocidal war going on (not just the humans genociding the rats... intelligent rats could get REALLY nasty for people).

That war is either more interesting than the one with the dragons, or so bloody, constant, and direct that it isn't worth discussion (mass attempts to poison each other's food and water, gassing, rats cutting people to bits, etc.).
My thoughts, pretty much. The dragon wars in a classic setting probably wouldn't be quite as nasty (given medieval tech and less competition for the same space), but it's an interesting thought experiment: Much like rats, people would depend on not being seen by the dragon. That would limit civilization severely. Now I want to write a fantasy setting...

Thinking about dragons in an otherwise realistic setting, I'd expect people to mostly stay out of dragons' territories and for the frontier settlements to have enough anti-dragon-weaponry to be considered too much hassle to eat. Then, when population pressure becomes strong enough people start coming too close, some get eaten, and war breaks out as some king or other has an excuse to declare war on the neighbouring monster to grab its lands.

But that is beside the question: fighting dragons. A medieval army won't be able to bring it to battle and it is too smart to attack a place with heavy AA capabilities, so apart from poison and hidden ballistae I can't see an alternative to attacking the lair.

Except exterminating all large wildlife in the region and forcing it to come to you, of course.

EDIT: Heavy poisoned crossbows would be a better bet than ballistae I think. Easier to hide, easier to turn.

[Berenger]

Tradition and stuff. Plus, artillery and biplanes are expensive, slow to deploy, require lots of support crew and are very noticeable. Also, weapons and ammunitions are made out of rare dragon bone (and the biplane is made from dragonbone and dragonskin... otherwise it would easily be burned / crashed). Swording them works most of the time, because dragons in the setting are somewhere between the size of young cows and a truck. In short, they are pathetic, chaotic stupid critters (hilarity calamity ensues when the great, venerable, supernaturally gifted, shape-changing beasts of legend decide to stop hiding and get rid of slayers and hunters. Casualties skyrocket...).

[Mr. Mask]

Well, short of some of the cannons that came later, ballistas were the most mobile, fast-turning, and accurate for mobile targets of the available artillery pieces (trebuchet is theoretically more accurate, but I think it takes too long to adjust for mobile targets). Probably the cheapest to produce out of artillery.

If you could penetrate a dragon well enough with a heavy crossbow, and the poison was effective enough, then it would be an improvement over that.

There aren't a lot of options for nonflammable devices to harm the dragons. You could try making iron ballistas, but by the time the dragon is breathing fire on them, the crew will likely be toast or routed, and they might get too hot to be used for a while (cannon already have problems with overheating). The idea would be to have multiple ballistas, so you have a chance of getting the dragon while they're taking some of them out.

Eliminating all large wildlife would probably be more harmful than the dragons, sadly.

As Graa pointed out, a dragon won't attack the well defended areas. If it did, it probably wouldn't be such a problem.


Berenger: If biplanes and artillery require rare materials in the setting, that's reasonable. Especially if their abilities aren't up to a high enough level of use.

[Brother Oni]

I can't figure a ballista actually working against a dragon. Sure it might if you hit, but they aren't exactly the most mobile or fastest-turning of weapons. And they are quite flammable.

Actually the ballista (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballista)/scorpio (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scorpio_%28Dart-thrower%29)/chieroballistra (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheiroballistra) development line were quite accurate to the point of they were used to 'snipe' high value targets.

With some training and analysis of a dragon's ground attack patterns (eg whether it dive bombed ground targets like a stuka, pylon turned like an AC-130 or just strafed it like a A-10 warthog), they could theoretically hit a dragon in flight.

Set up enough of them and you have such depth of coverage that even if the dragon burns out the first couple ranks, it's made itself a sitting duck for the others to the side or rear.

[Mr. Mask]

That's pretty much it. Depending on the agility of the dragons and their armour, it could be anyhing from a slaughter if they attack such a group, to a battle of wills between the dragon and the ballista crews.

They can also use stuff like the air-mines and the like.

[Stephen_E]

I'd suspect that if you can make a plate harness that's capable of deflecting musketfire, it's gonna shrug off slingstones - whether thrown by a human or a halfling.

I suspect "withstand" might be more accurate than "Shrug off". :-)

When proofing armour TTBOMK it was put on a arming stand rather than been worn. :smallbiggrin:

[Stephen_E]

People said I was daft to build a castle in a swamp...

Historically some of the nastiest castles to attack were just that, built in swamps. You can't mine them or use Siege towers. Offensive trenchs are pretty limited as well unless you can breath water. Disease was more prevalent for the siegers. The timber around was often crap for making catapults/balistae and ladders (often siegers only brought along the iron work/critical parts and relied on local timber to make siege engines) and fire doesn't work well in swamps.

Trying to charge or hold tight formations is soggy ground is as painful as steep hills and you really don't want to go down in churned up mud where the water table is a inch or less below the surface while in armour.:smalleek:

[Mr. Mask]

To be fair, it's hard to use siege towers anywhere. They don't roll so well over very uneven ground.

[snowblizz]

To be fair, it's hard to use siege towers anywhere. They don't roll so well over very uneven ground.

Well, you can clear and smooth out ground to some degree (which is what they tended to do IIRC, didn't always work out of course). Swaps just have no purchase at all for the heavy construct.

[Matthew]

There is at least one known instance of a timber castle in England being rebuilt in stone and collapsing because it was constructed on top of an artificial earthen motte that had not quite settled yet.

[Mr. Mask]

Snow: Mm. Hard to use them, but not impossible. Many castles were placed where siege towers couldn't be used all the same, picking terrain too rough and/or steep to even out.

[Brother Oni]

Snow: Mm. Hard to use them, but not impossible. Many castles were placed where siege towers couldn't be used all the same, picking terrain too rough and/or steep to even out.

The Romans were quite adept at building siege ramps to breach walls often in conjunction with siege towers, Masada (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Masada) being a good example.

If I had to hazard a guess why siege ramps fell out of fashion, it would be because siege weapons got better so the laborious task of shifting tons of earth and rocks to build the ramp was no longer necessary.

[warty goblin]

Actually the ballista (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballista)/scorpio (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scorpio_%28Dart-thrower%29)/chieroballistra (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheiroballistra) development line were quite accurate to the point of they were used to 'snipe' high value targets.

With some training and analysis of a dragon's ground attack patterns (eg whether it dive bombed ground targets like a stuka, pylon turned like an AC-130 or just strafed it like a A-10 warthog), they could theoretically hit a dragon in flight.

Set up enough of them and you have such depth of coverage that even if the dragon burns out the first couple ranks, it's made itself a sitting duck for the others to the side or rear.
I'm aware of the sniping applications of ballistae. However it's a lot harder to hit a flying target than a walking one, particularly with a fairly slow projectile.

My intuition is that because of the low projectile velocity, a ballista simply won't have a reasonable hit chance except at exceedingly close range against a dragon that's taking any sort of evasive maneuver.

Now if the dragon can put on a reasonable head of speed, it won't spend much time in the area threatened by the ballista during its attack run. Getting a hit on something that can move across your horizon much faster than your weapon traverses isn't going to be reliable. Against wooden shafted arrows, simply breathing fire at the weapon is also likely to provide an effective defense, even if the fire falls short of the ballista itself.

[Mr. Mask]

Goblin: Making ballista bolts which are going to hit you into flaming ballistae bolts doesn't sound like an improved situation. The dragon's breath would have to be extremely hot to degrade the bolts in the short time before impact. Less than The Fury from MGS3, but still pretty extreme.

If the dragon's breath has enough force, it could try to knock them off course and slow them down. I'm not sure what force it would have.

I agree that it is unlikely you could reliably hit dragons in flight.


Oni: True, you can still use siege towers if you can build a siege ramp. And you can build a siege ramp to pretty much anywhere... building one for Masada is three months though? These Romans are crazy. (http://s3.hubimg.com/u/4727434_f520.jpg)

I can see a commander being hesitant to build a siege ramp. The reason to use a siege tower is to reduce losses to your men and grant them easier access to the enemy's walls. Building a siege ramp can involve a period of exposure that is both time consuming and will claim lives. To effectively besiege a castle, you may need to build several siege ramps.

That said, I'm not sure enough of the numbers to really comment as to how worth while it was for the problems and compared to other available techniques.

[warty goblin]

Goblin: Making ballista bolts which are going to hit you into flaming ballistae bolts doesn't sound like an improved situation. The dragon's breath would have to be extremely hot to degrade the bolts in the short time before impact. Less than The Fury from MGS3, but still pretty extreme.

An arrow is all surface area, and in flight has a hell of a draft. Get it hot enough and it'll burn in a right hurry. Whether a dragon can in fact do that depends on the dragon.


If the dragon's breath has enough force, it could try to knock them off course and slow them down. I'm not sure what force it would have.

Probably not very much. Fire is, among other things, very hot air. Which is to say turbulent air, or the windage from hell. Speaking of windage, the downdraft from a dragon's wings would be fairly considerable as well, adding more fun - and a better draft to keep all that burning stuff on the ground going extra-hot.

[AgentPaper]

An arrow is all surface area, and in flight has a hell of a draft. Get it hot enough and it'll burn in a right hurry. Whether a dragon can in fact do that depends on the dragon.

Still would need to be mighty hot to burn the ballista bolt away in the fraction of a second it takes to move from the edge of the breath's range to the dragons mouth, though. And then you'd still have to worry about the steel tip, which is now red-hot on top of being very sharp and moving very fast.

[Mr. Mask]

Goblin: I can't see it as being more than a second of fire exposure.

Good point about the wings. I'm not sure how much wind force would be generated by a few-ton dragon's wings, but it sounds very considerable. Makes me wonder how that would effect ballista bolts.

[AMFV]

Still would need to be mighty hot to burn the ballista bolt away in the fraction of a second it takes to move from the edge of the breath's range to the dragons mouth, though. And then you'd still have to worry about the steel tip, which is now red-hot on top of being very sharp and moving very fast.

It depends on large part in how the dragon is built. If we have a dragon with significant flame resistance (many of them do as far as fantasy dragons go). Then reducing the momentum and destroying a large portion of the projectile or at least weakening it, could be completely worthwhile. Although if the dragon has time to turn to burn the arrow he probably has time to move out of the way as well.

[Mr. Mask]

I don't know of any fire which would destroy a ballista bolt enough to effect its impact within less than a second.

[AMFV]

I don't know of any fire which would destroy a ballista bolt enough to effect its impact within less than a second.

It would weaken the wood, which cause collapse on impact and lower secondary damage and the actual force of the impact since the shaft would be likely to collapse rather than pushing the point through. It wouldn't destroy it, but it would lessen the impact.

[Mr. Mask]

That's what I meant by effecting impact. I don't think you can do that with fire in less than a second. You might be able to with something more like molten copper.

[AMFV]

That's what I meant by effecting impact. I don't think you can do that with fire in less than a second. You might be able to with something more like molten copper.

Well that really depends on the heat of the fire, with a hot enough fire you can definitely reduce wood to ash in less than a second. Or at least damage the structure enough that it won't survive an impact.

[AgentPaper]

It would weaken the wood, which cause collapse on impact and lower secondary damage and the actual force of the impact since the shaft would be likely to collapse rather than pushing the point through. It wouldn't destroy it, but it would lessen the impact.

That is...very unlikely. Wood takes time to burn. Unless your dragon is breathing fire that is literally hotter than the surface of the sun, it's not going to do any appreciable damage to a 2-inch thick piece of wood in half a second.

[Mr. Mask]

And there's a funny thing about the sun. Humans can actually make plasma hotter than the sun's plasma. However... the sun's plasma has a mass larger than the Earth, so it generates a lot more heat than we ever could.

I don't think a dragon would be able to generate fire hot enough or in large enough quantity to damage ballista bolts with its fire to a degree where it would reduce their effectiveness. As A Mind Forever Voyaging pointed out, the time and energy doing that could be spent on better stuff like dodging.

[AMFV]

That is...very unlikely. Wood takes time to burn. Unless your dragon is breathing fire that is literally hotter than the surface of the sun, it's not going to do any appreciable damage to a 2-inch thick piece of wood in half a second.

You can do it with a Lahar and that's a helluva lot cooler than the sun.

[warty goblin]

The surface of the sun is a somewhat nebulous concept, since it's an enormous blob of gas.

But yeah, burning a bolt out of the air is probably a no-go. I maintain the relative plausibility of the intense turbulence of a fireblast could have some noticeably detrimental effects on accuracy though.

[AMFV]

The surface of the sun is a somewhat nebulous concept, since it's an enormous blob of gas.

But yeah, burning a bolt out of the air is probably a no-go. I maintain the relative plausibility of the intense turbulence of a fireblast could have some noticeably detrimental effects on accuracy though.

Burning it out of the air isn't workable, but significantly reducing the damage it'll do since it loses mass and becomes brittle really isn't.

Edit: Also a Lahar is hot enough to weld rock, so it'd be enough to do some pretty significant damage to the point, although even that's a lot of energy for the dragon to generate.

[AgentPaper]

You can do it with a Lahar and that's a helluva lot cooler than the sun.

Is there some evidence to back this up? Because that's a pretty wild claim.

[Mr. Mask]

Goblin: You would need extreme turbulence to effect a ballista bolt over such a short distance. If the dragon's breath had a lot of force it could slow it down, knock it off centre a bit. I don't see why its breath would have force or turbulence though.

[AMFV]

Is there some evidence to back this up? Because that's a pretty wild claim.

That a lahar can weld rock?

http://www.pitt.edu/~cejones/GeoImages/2IgneousRocks/IgneousTextures/9Pyroclasticz/TuffWelded.JPG


There's a picture of a welded tuff.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuff#Welded_tuff

There's the link for the description of a welded tuff. I'm pretty sure that you could significantly reduce the structural integrity of wood.

Edit:
http://www.goes-r.gov/users/comet/volcanic_ash/impacts/media/graphics/chaiten_lahar.jpg

That's some of the effects of a Lahar on full sized trees. I assume that the effect on a bolt would be much more dramatic. Of course a Lahar is probably more heat than a Dragon could generate, but you could certainly have a dragon capable of doing this.

[AgentPaper]

That a lahar can weld rock?

No, that a lahar, or even molten lava for that matter, could significantly reduce the structural integrity of wood in less than a second.

The less than a second part is the key factor here. I can tell you already though that the answer is a resounding "no", since neither a lahar or molten lava is as hot as an open flame, and it takes an open flame, even in the heart of a roaring bonfire, much more than a second to do considerable damage to a piece of wood that thick.

[AMFV]

No, that a lahar, or even molten lava for that matter, could significantly reduce the structural integrity of wood in less than a second.

The less than a second part is the key factor here. I can tell you already though that the answer is a resounding "no", since neither a lahar or molten lava is as hot as an open flame, and it takes an open flame, even in the heart of a roaring bonfire, much more than a second to do considerable damage to a piece of wood that thick.

Open flame burns at 1500 C? That seems unlikely... Most materials do not burn at anywhere near the temperature of lava. If you disagree try to partially melt a rock with an open flame, you'll find you can't.

http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/fuels-ignition-temperatures-d_171.html

As you can see almost none of those reach the temperatures of a pyroclastic flow. Which is actually what I was talking about, I had a huge brain issue. But a pyroclastic flow will definitely weld rocks and destroy trees.

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There you go, there's a tree destroyed by a pyroclastic flow, sorry about the misnomer earlier, I was having some trouble with my brain apparently.

A pyroclastic flow only takes about a second to weld rock, that's welding rock, that's a lot more power than it would take to destroy wood.

[AgentPaper]

Open flame burns at 1500 C? That seems unlikely... Most materials do not burn at anywhere near the temperature of lava. If you disagree try to partially melt a rock with an open flame, you'll find you can't.

http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/fuels-ignition-temperatures-d_171.html

As you can see almost none of those reach the temperatures of a pyroclastic flow. Which is actually what I was talking about, I had a huge brain issue. But a pyroclastic flow will definitely weld rocks and destroy trees.

Those are the temperatures needed to light those materials, not the temperature they burn at. And a pyroclastic flow isn't 1500 C, molten lava is only 700-1200 C, and only when it first comes out of the ground.

I was mistaken in saying that lava wasn't as hot as fire, though. A normal wood fire burns at ~1000 C, which as I noted above lava can surpass (though not always).


There you go, there's a tree destroyed by a pyroclastic flow, sorry about the misnomer earlier, I was having some trouble with my brain apparently.

The link appears to be broken (in the most hilarious way possible). :smalltongue:


A pyroclastic flow only takes about a second to weld rock, that's welding rock, that's a lot more power than it would take to destroy wood.

Again, evidence? Also, I wouldn't be surprised if the rock-welding had more to do with extreme pressure rather than extreme heat.

[AMFV]

Those are the temperatures needed to light those materials, not the temperature they burn at. And a pyroclastic flow isn't 1500 C, molten lava is only 700-1200 C, and only when it first comes out of the ground.

It depends on what sort of lava. 1500 C is certainly possible for ultramafic lavas, although those are extremely rare currently. In any case they have enough heat to do significant damage.




I was mistaken in saying that lava wasn't as hot as fire, though. A normal wood fire burns at ~1000 C, which as I noted above lava can surpass (though not always).


Well a normal wood fire is still not going to melt rock though, and lava can.




Again, evidence? Also, I wouldn't be surprised if the rock-welding had more to do with extreme pressure rather than extreme heat.

Pyroclastic flows are sub-aerial, it's mostly the heat. We're not talking sub-surface stuff, welded tuffs are produced in a sub-aerial environment.

In any case there are certainly visual evidences of pyrcoclastic flows destroying trees and wooden structures.

Edit:

http://www.photovolcanica.com/VolcanoInfo/Chaiten/CHAI09_0152s.jpg

There's some examples.

[Knaight]

Pyroclastic flows are sub-aerial, it's mostly the heat. We're not talking sub-surface stuff, welded tuffs are produced in a sub-aerial environment.

Bringing this back to the original question - even if the hypothetic breath hit temperatures of pyroclastic flows, it wouldn't have a similar effect. We're comparing the rate of heat exchange to wood from an extremely viscous liquid and a hot gas - probably a low density hot gas at that. The gas is thus going to need to be far hotter to burn wood anywhere near as quickly.