Index Got a Real-World Weapon or Armour Question? Mk. XV [Archive] - Page 5

Martin Greywolf

2014-08-14, 03:40 AM

George Silver, shields and english swordsmanship: One thing to consider is that english, in general, were never very good swordsmen. They did have some good individuals, but they mostly trained in Italy, Germany or, later, even France. Swordsmen of the British empire doesn't paint very competent picture of average englishman - when you hear an account about good fencer, it's a scotsman in about a third of them. It seems there were never very good teachers on the Isles, or that no one listened to those that knew their stuff.

With that in mind, what Silver says about rapierists, and combat in general, makes a lot more sense. As for longsword having advantage over targe, targe is small, almost buckler small, and certainly smaller than rotella. Personally, I think longsword and targe-and-sword are about equal, but different people have different preferences.

Another thing is, we don't know how the shields were actually used - few manuals describe them in any way, and the ones you have deal either with rotellas, or german duelling shields. What we know before that period (late medieval) is basically assumptions based on chronicles and shape of weapons. This can be very, very dangerous to take seriously, for one, hoplites weren't such an unstoppable force as greek writers would have you believe. Taking their word for it is like reconstructing modern warfare from Rambo movies (granted, the first one is somewhat reasonable, but the rest...).

Wizards as artillery: Again, you forget the assumptions of DnD - heroic individuals on par with Conan or Aragorn are level 5. That gives you one fireball, two if you are evoker. Not exactly comparable to a cannon, especially when you start to look at things like range and how effective it is against castles. Things like Sleep or Grease are a bit more dangerous, but, again, how many do you have? Maybe enough to stop one small cavalry charge.

Wizards would be a lot more comparable to high nobility on the battlefield - turning the tide of battles at critical points (or supposed to, anyway) that to blanketing the battlefield with fire.

Once you get high-level wizards there, with stuff like Cloudkill or Symbol of Pain, it's a different story, but high-level wizards either have better things to do, or are there to counter other high-level wizards, kinda like a king wouldn't be present for all battles personally (Sigismund wasn't there for invasion of Poland in retaliation for battle of Grunwald, his friend and vasal, Stibor of Stiboricz and Beckov led the army), unless it's a show of force.

Storm_Of_Snow

2014-08-14, 03:43 AM

There are two answers to this, one stemming from game mechanics, the other from fluff descriptions.
First, there probably wouldn't be any changes to battlefield tactics involving mages because mages shouldn't be involved in battles. The spell spent on a fireball would be better suited to divinations to gather intelligence or some other way to sidestep the fight in its entirety.

Which is in the days, weeks and months leading up to the battle - so the mage would have time to cast their divinations, scry, and do whatever else they want, before revising their battle spells the night before. And that's assuming you only have the one mage who can do all that, if you've got multiple, chances are they're going to specialise, and some will be battlemages.

Espionage and associated tactics to disable or remove mages from the theatre, whilst massively different in their implementation, would be no different in principle to the same tactics being used against military officers and political leaders.

Brother Oni

2014-08-14, 06:08 AM

Again, you forget the assumptions of DnD - heroic individuals on par with Conan or Aragorn are level 5. That gives you one fireball, two if you are evoker. Not exactly comparable to a cannon, especially when you start to look at things like range and how effective it is against castles. Things like Sleep or Grease are a bit more dangerous, but, again, how many do you have? Maybe enough to stop one small cavalry charge.

I'm not forgetting, it's just that Milodiah hasn't placed a level limit on his scenario and was specifically interested in the blasty side of things affecting tactics and formation.

Suppose we cap it to level 5/6, a quick check on the D20SRD gives me a number of battlefield control spells (Fog/Stinking Cloud, Sleet Storm) or critical disruption spells (Glitterdust/Fireball/Lightning Bolt for breaking up that cavalry charge or Hold Person to incapacitate an enemy general/officer). I'm sure people who play D&D would come up with even more inventive uses.
While they wouldn't have the firepower of a cannon, if cannon or other siege weaponry isn't available then a wizard would be the next best thing, not to mention easier on a logistics front.

Breaking up a cavalry charge with artillery (or its wizard equivalent) isn't that difficult since I believe that D&D generally makes the assumption that bodies don't hinder movement, which is most definitely not the case on the battlefield - often killing the entire front rank of a charge suddenly can be enough to stop it (cannon with cannister for example, or the really nasty double cannister/cannister or cannister/round shot combo that the British were known to use).

JustSomeGuy

2014-08-14, 06:28 AM

Mike_G

2014-08-14, 07:52 AM

Bayonets and rifles:

The training i had for 'bayonet drills' was a joke. About 30 of us stood in a circle switching between 'high guard' and 'ready' (there probably was at least one more position, but they were all ridiculous and more of a drill movement than a fighting one) while shouting. After about 1/2 hour of this, we got to walk (not run, oh no!) towards a frame and stab a sandbag twice.

If i were to have to fight someone armed with a sword or whatever, i would try and use the body of the rifle as a kind of shield to catch their weapon and start grappling quick. The SA80a2 is just too heavy to wield efficiently, you coudl get off one thrust or swing then either they're dead or you're about to be. If i was expecting to fight at the range where i would hold the rifle with anything like a balanced grip, my reach would be about the same or less as if i were just holding the bayonet like a knife anyway, so i'd go for that to be honest.

I have no martial weapons experience (nor would anyone else wh orelied upon the army to train them!) but plenty of unarmed fighting, so that probably flavours my strategy somewhat.

To be fair, if you aren't well trained, you won't be any good with a bayonet. But if I handed you a rapier or halberd or sabre, without training, you wouldn't be any good at that, either.

You, as a modern soldier, aren't expected to use the bayonet the way an 18th Century solider was. Your gun is a lot more capable of destroying the enemy at range, and you aren't going to be fighting in formation, so training is totally different.

So, your experience says nothing about a bayonet being a good or bad weapon. Any more than a soccer player should be choosing golf clubs.

Deepbluediver

2014-08-14, 08:41 AM

Honestly, I think it'd probably be best if we just dropped the whole "DnD got the names of everything wrong!" schtick. If I've learned anything from this thread, it's that the terminology of weapons and armor has changed immensely over the course of history, with a name meaning one thing this century and something completely different in the next.
But the problem is that since most people today DON'T go around with 3 feet of sharpened steel strapped to their hip, we need to rely on the historical definitions because there IS no real modern definition.
And when you say "longsword" people often picture different things, so it's leading to confusion. I don't care that D&D is "wrong" so much as I want to know what a given term refers to. I want to be able to say "longsword" and have everyone know what I mean, regardless of what that turns out to be.

It seems like the D&D "short-sword" was intended to be something like a roman gladius, 1-handed use only, with the blade around 18-24 inches long.

A "longsword" was the same thing, just bigger, around 28-36 inches in length. Historically speaking, an "arming sword".

And a "bastard sword" was 34-40, with a grip big enough to get a second hand on there. But historically this and the "longsword" where the same thing.

While I'm sure that from a trained swordman's perspective, all of those, plus the sabre, falchion, rapier, dirk, and probably many more all have distinctive and important differences in real combat, how crucial are they to running a workable fantasy game?

If you wanted to create a no or low magic setting where all combat was dominated by melee, then sure, by all means feel free to bog it down with as many complex stats and calculations as you need to get the strategic rock-paper-scissors-gun-dynamite-nuke-volcano feeling you want.

For my verison of high fantasy though, I think I'd probably stick with just the shortsword, bastard-sword, and greatsword (zweihänder). Plus maces and various slashing weapons of course.

Galloglaich

2014-08-14, 09:38 AM

George Silver, shields and english swordsmanship: One thing to consider is that english, in general, were never very good swordsmen. (snip) Another thing is, we don't know how the shields were actually used - few manuals describe them in any way ...

Provisionally, agreed, though there clearly were some very good English infantry and cavalry mercenaries, Henry V seems to have been a bad mofo as did Sir John Hawkwood, and English mercenaries in general had a pretty good reputation for effectiveness going back to the Byzantine Empire.

Wizards as artillery: Again, you forget the assumptions of DnD - heroic individuals on par with Conan or Aragorn are level 5. That gives you one fireball, two if you are evoker. Not exactly comparable to a cannon, especially when you start to look at things like range and how effective it is against castles. Things like Sleep or Grease are a bit more dangerous, but, again, how many do you have? Maybe enough to stop one small cavalry charge.

Wizards would be a lot more comparable to high nobility on the battlefield - turning the tide of battles at critical points (or supposed to, anyway) that to blanketing the battlefield with fire.

Once you get high-level wizards there, with stuff like Cloudkill or Symbol of Pain, it's a different story, but high-level wizards either have better things to do, or are there to counter other high-level wizards, kinda like a king wouldn't be present for all battles personally (Sigismund wasn't there for invasion of Poland in retaliation for battle of Grunwald, his friend and vasal, Stibor of Stiboricz and Beckov led the army), unless it's a show of force.

Interestingly, there actually are some historical examples of wizards being used as Strategic or Operational assets on the battlefield. One good example is the Battle of the Mire also known as the Battle of Tashkent in 1365

http://www.historyofwar.org/articles/battles_the_mire.html

This was a battle between the forces of Timur the Lame (Tamarlane) and the Moghul Empire (former Mongol horde which had taken over most of India and Pakistan in the earlier 14th Century). Apparently there were 'wizards' or 'sorcerers' (called jadaci by the Mongols) used by both sides, but the strategic advantage was being conferred by a Moghul jadaci using so-called rain stones or yada tasi some of which still exist (see photo below). The Mongol leaders believed in the power of these things, and they allegedly used these against the Chinese several times with success.

http://www.xenograg.com/350/excerpts/supernatural-tactics-of-the-mongols

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-SmLpEVaOhCw/TbiuOl4n6rI/AAAAAAAAAA8/MEh7giLKUlA/s400/arasuk_cult_3.jpg

Whatever the actual efficacy of Rain Stones, not all the Mongol sorcery was mumbo jumbo, all the accounts of the battle of Leignicz describe what appears to be a chemical or biological weapon (a head on a stick which made a noise that made everyone sick) Jan Dlugosz describes how they used a magical 'curse', clearly poison (as Dlugosz himself noted) to kill huge numbers of Ukranians in the 14th Century by poisoning springs, rivers and wells. We also know that the Mongols used gunpowder weapons (fire lances) in several sieges in the 13th century, and possibly also at Liegnicz and Sajo river, which at the time was considered sorcery by both the Mongols and the Europeans.

This historian David Nicolle says that the Mongol chronicles describe the battle of Tashkent as hinging on the power of the jadaci . Allegedly the Moghul Wizard was up on a cliff using the rain stones which caused a deluge that was severely impairing Tamarlane's forces, but when this wizard was finally killed on the second day of the battle, the rain immediately stopped. Take that for what you will, but it makes a pretty interesting example for your game context.

http://everything2.com/user/mirv/writeups/Battle+of+the+Mire

G

Deepbluediver

2014-08-14, 10:34 AM

Incanur

2014-08-14, 10:39 AM

That is actually not true at all - they never disappeared from the battlefields in the 15th-16th Centuries and remained quite popular and ubiquitous until at least the mid 16th.

I never claimed they disappeared, but rather that they declined in importance. If you want to contest this, good luck!

But given that you wrote that after posting two images of people training with sword and rotella, and that you think George Silver is an authority on 15th Century warfare, (or even warfare in his own time) it's really not worth trying to explain it.

I also just defended Machiavelli regarding targetiers (men armed with sword and shield), arguing he didn't advocate them simply out of reverence for the Romans. Targetiers had a place on the 16th-century battlefield. I do indeed consider George Silver an authority, a status I afford to authors of historical fencing and military manuals in general but especially to ones I find insightful and reasonable. And Silver knew his physiology! You've got to hit the central nervous system to cause an instant stop.

Lets suffice to say I disagree, and that shields actually never did go away in that period. The only difference from earlier was from the late medieval period onward there were other options.

There had always been other options - even in antiquity the Dacian falx existed. Two-handed non-ranged weapons appear to have become progressively more popular in Europe starting in perhaps the 10th century with Dane axes. Such weapons - such as the Swiss halberd - particularly took off in the 14th century. By the 16th century, the pike - wielded without a shield in Swiss fashion - was the dominant non-ranged infantry weapon in Western Europe. Swiss and German mercenaries used few if any shields during this period. Shields didn't disappear, but they saw limited use despite notable advocates like Machiavelli. The Spanish mostly phased out their targetiers in the second quarter of the 16th century. Targets of proof - thick iron/steel shields designed to stop bullets - remained a feature of later 16th-century armies, but their weight made them awkward. The Dutch under Maurice of Nassau employed targetiers with some success in the early 17th century, but as far as I know that was the shield's last hurrah in Western Europe.

By my interpretation - based on period sources - targetiers excelled at fighting in the press of battle, fighting in confined spaces such as many siege situations, and resisting projectiles. They fairly poorly against lancers. While at least two 16th-century military manuals favor targetiers over halberdiers, I tend to think the halberd served better against armored infantry than the sword and target, though it likely required a little more room. The halberd certainly resisted cavalry better.

I'm intrigued by how the shield's prominence differed across time and space. For example, handheld shields saw little use in Japan for most if not all of its recorded history. In China, two-handed non-ranged weapons wielded without a shield become militarily important much earlier than in Europe, though shields saw action there too. The weight of the evidence tells that both shields and two-handed weapons got the job done at various tech levels.

In all cases it's worth remembering that a) a weapon had to offer significant advantage in order to replace another weapon, b) military systems possessed great inertia, and c)weapon choice emerged out of cultural and economic matrix.

One thing to consider is that english, in general, were never very good swordsmen. They did have some good individuals, but they mostly trained in Italy, Germany or, later, even France. Swordsmen of the British empire doesn't paint very competent picture of average englishman - when you hear an account about good fencer, it's a scotsman in about a third of them. It seems there were never very good teachers on the Isles, or that no one listened to those that knew their stuff.

I recommend reading Terry Brown's English Martial Arts. The evidence suggests that English soldiers in Silver's time and before fought with swords as well as anybody. Here (http://www.thearma.org/essays/digby.html#.U-zUcvldUsI) is an example of English swordplay from a couple decades after Silver published. 19th-century accounts have little to do with Silver, though it's worth noting the British swordsmen in general held their own during that period and that Silver's manual saw a brief revival in that era.

As for longsword having advantage over targe, targe is small, almost buckler small, and certainly smaller than rotella.

Silver's target (not targe) was the same or virtually the same as the Italian rotella. It was considerably larger than the buckler, to the point that it interfered with various guards. Silver actually gave odds to the sword and buckler over the sword and target for single combat, though he preferred the latter for the battlefield. A number fencing manuals indicate how the shield could prove a hindrance, particularly through blinding the wielder when used to defend the face. Larger shields also tended to a weigh quite a bit and could cause fatigue.

P.S. Here (http://marozzo.com/2012/09/18/the-purposes-of-the-rotella/) is a great article on the rotella.

Spiryt

2014-08-14, 10:59 AM

I have another question:

Can anyone explain to me the functional differences between a sabre, falchion, and scimitar?
Or is this just a variation on the long/short/bastard sword line of thought where they are merely different names for weapons that are similar, except for minor difference in weight and size?

Scimitar and sabre are pretty much different names for same thing.

Though 'Scimitar' is apparently general Anglicization of 'shamshir' and as such is used to describe sabers of Central/Near Asia origin, rather than European, Turkish etc.

As such, there will be obviously be some differences as different forms were popular in different places trough the centuries.

More complex hilt furnitures for example were pretty much unseen in general Middle East. Really kicked in pretty much only in Western Europe.

'Falchion' is generally used to describe European weapons, different forms of one edged, usually somehow stout and short, cutting oriented blade that is more or less sword hilted.

http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m7/Lunaman1/London%20and%20Paris%202011/LondonandParis2011418.jpg

http://www.algonet.se/~enda/images/pj_falchion.jpg

Carl

2014-08-14, 11:01 AM

Incanur

2014-08-14, 11:13 AM

@Incanur: Be very careful about listening too hard to military manual's and like of the era.

Period documents constitute the best evidence available, followed by archaeology, replica testing, sparring, and artwork. Dubious ground indeed, but that's history for you. Hayden White calls history fiction for a reason. :smallamused:

Galloglaich

2014-08-14, 11:29 AM

@Incanur: Be very careful about listening too hard to military manual's and like of the era. Even today when high literacy and ease of communication as well as formalized reporting to allow large volumes of very detailed reports, (with detail usually in the right places), to reach the people in question there is both a lot of disagreement on many points of weapon employment, with much of it on analysis being based on equally valid evidence and history shows that even in this environment, training, doctrine, and even, (usually on a limited piece or two scale), equipment can lag behind operational realities. Bureaucratic Inertia only makes this worse.

And nothing prior to the modern era has quite that degree of speed of communication, ease of volume communication, ability for large numbers of soldiers to produce reports or the kind of careful emphasis on certain types of detail needed to produce a report that as accurate as we have today. Different era's would have closer approximations that others so they certainly weren't totally awful in that respect. But nonetheless you can fully expect a greater number of error's in any training, doctrine, or equipment based off such reporting than you'd see today. And as i noted the modern world is rife with examples of screw up's like that. And the slower communication would only increase bureaucratic inertia.

So whilst i don't doubt Silver and his contemporaries have a lot of good stuff to say, i'd also expect several minor but important errors to be present in any such document, and whilst no means guaranteed, an outright blooper would not be a surprise either.

Basically don't treat them as gospel truth just because they're of the period.

Yeah you beat me to it. English military theory as it related to continental military practices are particularly unreliable. One source among many, no doubt, but you also have to consider records, personal accounts, archeology and so on.

In particular, when you said that German and Swiss mercenaries didn't use shields in the 16th Century, you are dead wrong.

http://www.codexmartialis.com/download/file.php?id=117

I've posted this image before, it's from a chronicle of the Landshut War of Succession (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_the_Succession_of_Landshut) and it represents a very common type of open-battlefield military formation at that time, which continued in use through the mid 16th Century at least, mostly but not only East of the Rhine. Pavises (large and small), bucklers, and rotella continued to be used not just by the Spanish but also the Germans, Dutch, Ottomans and Swiss through the 16th Century, especially during sieges but also in the open field.

G

Incanur

2014-08-14, 11:50 AM

In particular, when you said that German and Swiss mercenaries didn't use shields in the 16th Century, you are dead wrong.

I didn't actually write that.

Swiss and German mercenaries used few if any shields during this period.

Since you like images:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/10/Urs_Graf_Schrecken_des_Kriegs_1521.jpg

http://www.landsknecht.com/assets/images/pikes.jpg

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d0/Bad-war.jpg

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-xfDNRQjMiB0/UmUHHSQwfOI/AAAAAAAAB14/MIvJOQqpBYw/s1600/Dolstein+2.jpg

http://www.umiacs.umd.edu/~kuijt/dba169x/Lansknet.jpg

http://www.landsknechts.com/gallery/var/albums/Erhard-Schoen/HL21089a.jpg?m=1328546784

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1a/Marignano.jpg

How many shields do you see? How about in this piece (http://s277.photobucket.com/user/Dstaberg/media/Dolnstein/Dolnsteinschlacht.jpg.html)? I don't recall seeing a single shield in Dolstein's sketchbook (http://www.myarmoury.com/talk/viewtopic.php?t=11100).

As a general rule, Swiss and German mercenaries in the 16th century fielded soldiers armed with the pike, the halberd, the greatsword, the crossbow, or the gun. They sometimes used targets and pavises in relatively small numbers.

Carl

2014-08-14, 12:00 PM

Period documents constitute the best evidence available, followed by archaeology, replica testing, sparring, and artwork. Dubious ground indeed, but that's history for you. Hayden White calls history fiction for a reason.

Not disagreeing with that, just pointing out that you perhaps need to evaluate the evidence, look at it and see if there are any assumptions that may not apply, or places where the physics don't make sense.

Talking of the later, someone, (may have been you can't remember without looking), mentioned an historian saying 1mm Bronze breastplates could be effective then expressing skepticism. Having found a source that gives a rough range for ancient bronze (http://www.ehow.com/info_8162597_characteristics-bronze-metals.html). Based on that with some conversion the Yield strength comes out similar to the steels used in car sheet metal paneling today, and anyone who's spent any time around scrapyards knows that that stuff can be beaten back into shape, (often with a simple DIY hammer though i believe your supposed to use specialist tools), without requiring anywhere near the force the heavier medieval weaponry of the battlefield could produce. Sadly we can't easily compare thicker armor's as research reveals car paneling maxes out at somewhere between 1.5 and 2 millimeters, though i know the later is consider workable but more trouble than it's worth to mess with usually, (at least with the hammer technique). Such steel also isn't much use for determining historical steel properties as it's very low carbon and neither work nor heat treated, (usually, some cars these days are aluminium, carbon fiber or high and low tensile steels of a different composition). Nor can we really do much extrapolating on the ease of penetration of sharp pointy things as it's both harder than ancient bronze, and anything likely to hit it will be even harder still producing a much higher hardness differential than would be observed on the battlefield, except potentially in the case of steel vs bronze. Even then the most common thing I've seen do this in the way of hand swung stuff is accidental use of the wrong end of a claw hammer, which concentrates the force better than most weapons barring perhaps Picks, and spiked or flanged maces, (though all 3 would achieve much higher forces so that would tend to counteract the hardness issue and then some). Also note that even such low carbon steel generally has a much higher tensile strength and lower ductility meaning it will take more force to make it break from blunt force whilst simultaneously deforming less before breaking.

EDIT: I'd treat artwork as just that art. It will either have been commissioned by a books author and will thus fit his prejudices, or it will be done by an artist who likely has no more clue than modern day Hollywood what the realities where. Though like Hollywood exceptions will exist.

Incanur

2014-08-14, 12:11 PM

EDIT: I'd treat artwork as just that art. It will either have been commissioned by a books author and will thus fit his prejudices, or it will be done by an artist who likely has no more clue than modern day Hollywood what the realities where.

Both Urs Graf (Swiss) and Paul Dolstein (German) - two of the artists featured above - actually fought as mercenaries armed with pike or halberd. I'm skeptical of artwork in many cases, but it does provide valuable information at times and often matches written accounts as well as archaeological evidence.

Carl

2014-08-14, 12:24 PM

Both Urs Graf (Swiss) and Paul Dolstein (German) - two of the artists featured above - actually fought as mercenaries armed with pike or halberd. I'm skeptical of artwork in many cases, but it does provide valuable information at times and often matches written accounts as well as archaeological evidence.

That's fairer though i would point out that despite the emphasis you and others have placed on mixed weaponry in pike units the last 3 images show a distinct lack of this, (it's harder to tell with some of the others, though none seem to show more than 2 or 3 weapon types), yet as you've pointed out there's plenty of evidence for much greater weapon mixing. Don't dismiss that even a seasoned veteran might engage in "lies to children (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LiesToChildren)" as it where. Alternatively it could be a thing specific to their mercenary regiments, after all it's undoubtedly expensive to acquire and maintain many different weapons so mercenaries might well have gone for less varied kit for obvious reasons. Certainly i'm not qualified to comment on the issue under discussion, though i would say that a look at the number of shields dug up vs the number of any other type of weapon, particularly after factoring in ease of decay, and source location would probably be very informative.

Spiryt

2014-08-14, 12:31 PM

Polish infantry squads were pretty consistently including about 10-15% of pavisemen, troughout late 15th and early 16th century.

We know this rather well, trough the detailed equipment registries of those retinues.

I imagine that there should be plenty data like that available for different German lands as well.

Artwork is often pretty much best when it comes to general picture of clothes, weapons, composition, but it obviously isn't very useful for numbers

Galloglaich

2014-08-14, 01:26 PM

Of course it's not. It's all over the place especially in sieges. You just have to not be actively trying to filter it out to fit preconceived notions.

I sadly just lost a post with about 15 images and a quote from Matthias Corvinus about his pavisemen and other shield armed troops but I'll have to repost later. In the meantime, this is German, 16th Century

http://spqr.se/pictures/products/shild/med_sh11_6.jpg

G

Incanur

2014-08-14, 01:29 PM

Dolstein never referred to shields in the text either as far as I recall. An early 16th-century description (http://books.google.com/books?id=HbfJX2Y1bBkC&printsec=frontcover&dq=renaissance+france+at+war&hl=en&sa=X&ei=q_7sU62ADIb1oAS_7oC4Dg&ved=0CB4Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=pike&f=false) of 17,000 German infantry makes no mention of shields: 12,000 pikers, 2,000 men with greatswords, 800 halberdiers, 2,000 guners, and 200 unspecified. Machiavelli in 1520 specifically described German and Swiss infantry as lacking shields. The Spanish had mostly dropped (http://books.google.com/books?id=HTekAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA34&lpg=PA34&dq=16th+century+swiss+pike+weight&source=bl&ots=kigxmAND3H&sig=V2oNO7-04U-zvc_qBXiF-V79KCQ&hl=en&sa=X&ei=0yrIU9evNJTboAS53oBo&ved=0CEcQ6AEwCQ#v=onepage&q=16th%20century%20swiss%20pike%20weight&f=false) targetiers by the 1530s. English armies fielded them at times until the 17th century or so. The Scots employed various shields at Flodden Field 1513 and Scottish pikers wore shields on their left arms at Pinkie Cleugh 1547. Lighter cavalry and perhaps occasionally men-at-arms also could use shields during this period. Etc.

Again, I'm well-aware of shield use in the 16th century. I stand by the claim that the shield was markedly less important than in previous centuries in Western Europe. Most pikers didn't use shields - though some did - and the pike was the main infantry weapon in the 16th century.

No brains

2014-08-14, 04:27 PM

You seem to be ignoring the existence of an entire class dedicated to doing what you say won't happen, which is the warmage. It's going to happen, because the tactical value of obliterating whole columns of infantry or stopping cavalry dead in its tracks is almost irresistible, and sometimes shouldn't be resisted. That's the reason we have all these things like close air support and 200mm+ rocket artillery in the modern world; and since there are equivalents to those staring us all in the face, we'd better acknowledge that they're going to happen.

Without going too deep into the rules and metagame, warmage is unfortunately a sub-optimal class. They are a fun and practical idea, but the specific rules of that class make them less versatile and even less able than a wizard or sorcerer in the same role. What it boils down to is that non-war mages got enough defensive countermeasures, especially by the time warmages were introduced, that their advantage of wearing armor is a poor trade and their deep specialization in only damage dealing spells hurts worse in the long run.

Another element that could interfere with imagining wizards in war is the logistics of magic in any given world. If magic is rare and expensive to develop, then warfare might develop around magicless strategy. If magic were everyday, inexpensive, or both, then magic may very well be the only method of warfare and large armies of massed troops might not ever exist.

Depends on the circumstances. During WW2 after D-Day, the Allies learnt combined arms tactics very quickly and some of their specific tactics and ideas for improvements were implemented in days, for example: using cut off bits of tank traps welded to tanks to get through the hedges of bocage country, which later changed to using the same tubes to create ideal holes to put explosives in to breach the hedge; putting a telephone on the outside of tanks, so the supporting infantry could direct the buttoned up tank to points of resistance.

It got to the point that tactics were developing so quickly, reinforcing troops had to re-learn all the tricks of the trade that the out-going troops had learnt the hard way (later on during the campaign, they typically ensured that newer troops got the benefit of hard earned experience of the veterans).

Elves and Dwarves being more resistant to developing new tactics, may equally be due to cultural influences rather than just due to physical and psychological preferences.

You're right, I should have specified the tactics of fantasy creatures. Human tactics change all the time IRL or in fiction.

Which is in the days, weeks and months leading up to the battle - so the mage would have time to cast their divinations, scry, and do whatever else they want, before revising their battle spells the night before. And that's assuming you only have the one mage who can do all that, if you've got multiple, chances are they're going to specialise, and some will be battlemages.

Espionage and associated tactics to disable or remove mages from the theatre, whilst massively different in their implementation, would be no different in principle to the same tactics being used against military officers and political leaders.

Again, I want to reply without getting too deep into specifically unreal weapons and armor. D&D, especially 3.5, spells can be more useful than making a fiery burst. A fireball will only deal a set amount of damage to a restricted area once. The wounds will last until the end of the fight, but the spell's usefulness has been set. If the same spell slot were instead used to increase the damage a group of soldier's weapons will do, then the amount of damage dealt by the spell could be much higher. This is especially because enemies might not move in the perfect way to allow a spell to go off, but allies usually will. Add to this that expendable soldiers will carry the risk of getting anywhere near the enemy and one can make a much lower risk, higher yield strategy for using magic.

@ All: The toughest part in thinking of all this is that a 5d6 fireball has a real-world practical equivalent in a cannon, but more abstract ideas like increasing the likelihood a group of soldier's weapons will deal damage by 5% is harder to imagine. It's possible that the more concrete ideas could give better results in a more concrete setting, but in the game of D&D, less flashy ideas play better to the given rules most of the time.

Carl

2014-08-14, 05:03 PM

Again, I want to reply without getting too deep into specifically unreal weapons and armor. D&D, especially 3.5, spells can be more useful than making a fiery burst. A fireball will only deal a set amount of damage to a restricted area once. The wounds will last until the end of the fight, but the spell's usefulness has been set. If the same spell slot were instead used to increase the damage a group of soldier's weapons will do, then the amount of damage dealt by the spell could be much higher. This is especially because enemies might not move in the perfect way to allow a spell to go off, but allies usually will. Add to this that expendable soldiers will carry the risk of getting anywhere near the enemy and one can make a much lower risk, higher yield strategy for using magic.

Short of bringing in some atrociously balanced splatbook, (which have equally insane blaster spells), there are no spells that do what you describe so try again.

There are plenty of buff spells in the SRD, the problem is they all have the same 1 target per caster limit and supply very limited bonus's. Not to mention many of the best ones have awful duration's of just a few minutes.

Buffing the troops simply isn't an effective strategy because you lack the means to apply a large enough benefit to a large enough number of people for a large enough period of time. Not to mention Widen metamagic exists, and if your talking a cleric or especially druid you can be looking at a firestorm spell which can kill 8 x caster level troops per cast at higher levels.

Certainly i'd agree there's a lot better spells than blasting, but buff spells are not amongst them. The best are probably wall spells and the various cloud/fog spells, same for certain mind affecting mass application spells.

Mr Beer

2014-08-14, 06:01 PM

Certainly i'd agree there's a lot better spells than blasting, but buff spells are not amongst them. The best are probably wall spells and the various cloud/fog spells, same for certain mind affecting mass application spells.

If it's a D&D setting, I agree with that to a point but think we need to go further and say the best spells within a battlefield would likely be "movement" + "save-or-die" vs. enemy commanders e.g. teleport + charm, invisibility & flying + disintegrate. Though I guess maybe the defending wizards would be taking care of that.

Outside the battlefield context, I think D&D wizards would be doing strategic missions per Brother Oni's commentary. Destroying enemy logistics, their ability to transport troops or their high command means you can win without even meeting them on the battlefield.

JustSomeGuy

2014-08-14, 06:15 PM

To be fair, if you aren't well trained, you won't be any good with a bayonet. But if I handed you a rapier or halberd or sabre, without training, you wouldn't be any good at that, either.

You, as a modern soldier, aren't expected to use the bayonet the way an 18th Century solider was. Your gun is a lot more capable of destroying the enemy at range, and you aren't going to be fighting in formation, so training is totally different.

So, your experience says nothing about a bayonet being a good or bad weapon. Any more than a soccer player should be choosing golf clubs.

yeah that was kind of my point; but if you gave me a sword or something and told me to fight random enemy trooper 12, I'd have a fair stab, it would be a step up from being bare handed, whereas a bayonet on a rifle seems to me to be more of a drawback. I'm not saying ye olde muskets etc. wouldn't work well with them (they clearly did), but a modern battle/assault rifle? They seem to short and unwieldy to have much use beyond a rapid thrust at someone jumping through a doorway or what have you. I'll obviously defer to your experience though, seeing as how you probably went beyond shouting as an effective use of them!

Incanur

2014-08-14, 08:42 PM

I sadly just lost a post with about 15 images and a quote from Matthias Corvinus about his pavisemen and other shield armed troops but I'll have to repost later.

Is this (http://www.academia.edu/4152525/THE_PAVISE_INFANTRY_SHIELD_OF_MATTHIAS_CORVINUS_AR MY_LATE_MEDIEVAL_INFANTRYS_TACTICS_IN_CENTRAL_EURO PE_) the quotation? It indicates that the Hungarians in the late fifteenth century used pavises to erect a makeshift wall and then defended it with guns. The Bohemians (http://www.myarmoury.com/talk/viewtopic.php?t=2711&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0) also notably employed pavises.

P.S. Much of my affection for 16th-century military manuals comes from the level of detail they provide. Sir John Smythe in particular excelled in this regard. I was just rereading how he described the exact pieces of armor and clothing for each type of soldier, that proper clothing was key to wearing armor well, that armored soldiers must tie the red scarves of their burgonets rather than leave them flapping untied, that pikers' breastplates should be high upon the stomachs to help them breathe better but that the armor over the belly should be flat to they can more easily draw their swords, etc.

Mr. Mask

2014-08-14, 09:30 PM

Mr Beer

2014-08-14, 10:12 PM

Would it be possible to design artillery rounds where their shrapnel is effective against unarmoured/lightly armoured men; but less effective/ineffective against your well-armoured troops? I was thinking about something like this to decrease the risk of walking artillery in front of your men.

Just HE, no added shrapnel?

I think the problems you might encounter are a) an unpredictable radius of effect and b) a given artillery shell of a large size will produce some shrapnel that thick clothing would deflect and others that would chop an armoured man in half and c) even HE alone will produce shrapnel according to the environment it impacts into.

EDIT

I guess if you have some kind of power armour and use airburst shrapnel so you can control the shrapnel material so it's predictable, that might work well. I doubt there are any real life armour suits would make me happy to walk through showers of super-sonic ball-bearings.

Galloglaich

2014-08-14, 10:37 PM

Dolstein never referred to shields in the text either as far as I recall.

Again, I'm well-aware of shield use in the 16th century. I stand by the claim that the shield was markedly less important than in previous centuries in Western Europe. Most pikers didn't use shields - though some did - and the pike was the main infantry weapon in the 16th century.

Ok. Well, that's interesting but, what you actually said upthread was:

"while shields indeed dominated the battlefield in antiquity, they weren't so important in Western Europe in the 15th and 16th centuries."

and

"Swiss and German mercenaries used few if any shields during this period."

So lets examine that for minute.

First the low hanging fruit, the 15th Century.

First, the Hungarian Black Army (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Army_of_Hungary), the Fekete Sereg, which was the largest, most sophisticated and best organized army in Europe in the late 15th Century. The only European army with a proven ability to defeat the Ottoman Empire on the open battlefield, was made up largely of Czech and German mercenaries, as well as Swiss. The infantry of the Black Army carried a large number of shields of two types, and the cavalry carried shields as well. Since you like literary evidence I will cite some for you.

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

„ …we regard the armored heavy infantry as a wall, who never give up their place, even if they are slaughtered to the last one of them, on the very spot they are standing. Light soldiers perform breakouts depending on the occasion, and when they are already tired or sense severe danger, they return back behind the armoured soldiers, organizing their lines and collecting power, and stay there until, on occasion, they may break forth again. In the end, all of the infantry and shooters are surrounded by armoured and shielded soldiers, just as those were standing behind a rampart. Since, the greater pavieses, put next to each other in a circle, show the picture of a fortress, and are similar to a wall, in the protection whereof the infantry and all the ones standing in the middle, fight like from behind tower-walls or rampart, and they occasionally break out of there."

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

(Source (http://mek.oszk.hu/07100/07105/pdf/matyaslev1.pdf))

http://m.cdn.blog.hu/ha/hadtorteneti/image/2011/Augusztus/feketesereg.jpg

This of course is a modern depiction, but it looks a lot like the early 16th Century image I posted upthread from Bavaria from the Landshut War of Succession don't it? This type of use of pavises and smaller shields also remained part of Venetian infantry kit well into the 16th Century.

As for the Swiss, here is a pavise with the colors of Bern, and another one, 15th Century

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/13/Bernese_arms%2C_14th_century.jpg/270px-Bernese_arms%2C_14th_century.jpg http://media-cache-ec0.pinimg.com/736x/8a/32/b7/8a32b76a434809899f4838ea2dfd6860.jpg

In case you think that was a fluke, this is from the Bern Chronicle

http://i72.servimg.com/u/f72/11/56/32/25/protec13.jpg

here (http://www.e-codices.unifr.ch/en/list/one/bbb/Mss-hh-I0001) is the source from 1483

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a6/SiegeOfRhodes1480.jpg/640px-SiegeOfRhodes1480.jpg
Shields were particularly common in sieges. Siege of Rhodes 1480

Finally, the full image of that Durer pic of Maximillian dueling

http://media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/45/5c/d4/455cd48d65e3fcaf8fa2c1210e3a819f.jpg

This is a type of shield which was widely used by both the infantry and cavalry of the Teutonic Knights in the second half of the 15th Century, as David Nicolle notes (http://books.google.com/books?id=W4PxUoyWyNkC&pg=PT42&lpg=PT42&dq=%22teutonic+knight%22+pavise&source=bl&ots=xuU0kiv-5D&sig=BXTksyPsSr8CvDjyZlEdpubrYAE&hl=en&sa=X&ei=qXftU6ksiqGiBLO2gJgO&ved=0CDIQ6AEwBw#v=onepage&q=pavise&f=false) in his Osprey book on them

Then of course we have the 16th Century

I already posted the images of shield-armed troops from the Triumph of Maximilian (1515-1520), but if you want to see them again look here (http://www.therionarms.com/reenact/com339j.jpg) and here (http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Nqks9NLYI2M/Tz1N13gB6gI/AAAAAAAAAl4/ZKNwOYif6ZE/s400/Triumph+of+Maximilian+Hungarian+lords.jpg).

Here are some sword and targe men from the same procession

http://www.thearma.org/essays/SandB/Triumphzug1.JPG

No comment

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/94/Siege_of_Rhodes.jpg/753px-Siege_of_Rhodes.jpg
Siege of Rhodes again, 1522

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/__dCb5tmxOb0/ShGMpPU-_CI/AAAAAAAAAYA/eO2bRDo5zKs/s1600/BHC0257_Siege_of_Malta_Assault_on_the_Post_of_the_ Castilian_Knights_21_August_1565_oil_of_8.jpg
Siege of Malta 1565

http://media-cache-ec0.pinimg.com/736x/80/12/a7/8012a794acbca17e4dbfd2bdaba0c017.jpg
Depiction of an armored duel, with shields and warhammers (I think that is Maximilian again) there is another one some where with shields and hurlbats.

You went out on a limb here, you know a lot about George Silver and some 16th Century books on military theory, but you aren't up to speed on warfare by German mercenaries or any other kind of Central European warfare in general. Some battles in Italy that you have heard of were largely (though by no means entirely) fought by infantry with pikes and halberds and cavalry of various types... but this is a gross oversimplification of warfare in this period. You'll do yourself and the rest of the people on the thread a favor if you stick to your areas of expertise when commenting in such a definitive way.

Shields never went away in this period. They remained widely used especially in the Eastern part of Central Europe and particularly by German soldiers of all types. They were a standard equipment of the Teutonic Order, the Hapsburg armies, the Hungarian Black Army and the armies of town militias through the 15th and well into the 16th Century. They remained especially popular for sieges and of course all over Europe, went through a phase of near dominance in 'the West' (I.e. on the radar of English historians) with the rise of the steel rotella which was copied from bullet-proof Ottoman shields used by the Janissaries in the late 15th and early 16th Century. Most of the troops of Cortez were Rodeleros during his conquest of Mexico. The shield remained particularly useful against bows, against which pike squares could be vulnerable, and didn't really go away until the Ottomans started using less bows after the Battle of Lepanto in 1571 (some say, due to the loss of so many trained archers)

G

Galloglaich

2014-08-14, 10:53 PM

Is this (http://www.academia.edu/4152525/THE_PAVISE_INFANTRY_SHIELD_OF_MATTHIAS_CORVINUS_AR MY_LATE_MEDIEVAL_INFANTRYS_TACTICS_IN_CENTRAL_EURO PE_) the quotation? It indicates that the Hungarians in the late fifteenth century used pavises to erect a makeshift wall and then defended it with guns. The Bohemians (http://www.myarmoury.com/talk/viewtopic.php?t=2711&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0) also notably employed pavises.

Re-read that passage and then look at the picture from upthread of the army with their wall of shields in front.

The Bohemians were Czechs and Germans, mostly Czechs. As I noted the Black Army was made up primarily of Czechs and Germans, the latter from Silesia, Austria, Poland and Bavaria, as well as some Swiss and others.

P.S. Much of my affection for 16th-century military manuals comes from the level of detail they provide. Sir John Smythe in particular excelled in this regard. I was just rereading how he described the exact pieces of armor and clothing for each type of soldier, that proper clothing was key to wearing armor well, that armored soldiers must tie the red scarves of their burgonets rather than leave them flapping untied, that pikers' breastplates should be high upon the stomachs to help them breathe better but that the armor over the belly should be flat to they can more easily draw their swords, etc.

You'll find that chronicles and letters and archives from the period get into as much detail as that, and they are talking about stuff which actually happened (right down to the receipts) rather than what the author thinks should happen in theory.

Not that the theory isn't also interesting, but by the 16th Century you start to se a lot of outlier military strategists so it's an extra challenge to figure out what is really representative of some kind of common or at least somewhat typical mindset, and what is just the fantasy of a particular opinionated person or their attempt to create controversy to sell a book.

Edit: More Swiss shields, from the Bern Chronicle, late 15th Century:

http://www.e-codices.unifr.ch/manuscripts/e-codices/film/bbb-Mss-hh-I0016/bbb-Mss-hh-I0016_053.jpg
http://www.e-codices.unifr.ch/manuscripts/e-codices/film/bbb-Mss-hh-I0016/bbb-Mss-hh-I0016_125.jpg
http://www.e-codices.unifr.ch/manuscripts/e-codices/film/bbb-Mss-hh-I0016/bbb-Mss-hh-I0016_124.jpg
http://www.e-codices.unifr.ch/manuscripts/e-codices/film/bbb-Mss-hh-I0016/bbb-Mss-hh-I0016_128.jpg
http://www.e-codices.unifr.ch/manuscripts/e-codices/film/bbb-Mss-hh-I0016/bbb-Mss-hh-I0016_130.jpg
http://www.e-codices.unifr.ch/manuscripts/e-codices/film/bbb-Mss-hh-I0016/bbb-Mss-hh-I0016_137.jpg

...and there are dozens more if you need to see them. Most of the chronicles I've seen from the 15th and 1st half of the 16th Century depict a lot of shields in at least some of the battlefield scenes.

G

Martin Greywolf

2014-08-15, 03:24 AM

I've read several military manuals, from Vegetius and Xenophon up to chairman Mao, and let me tell you, they are almost useless when you try to reconstruct what actual armies looked like. When someone writes a manual, he does it pretty much because he thinks other people are doing it wrong, and he wants to tell them how to do it right. Therefore, all manuals, without exception, are proscriptive, rather than descriptive. They tell you what to do, not what is actually being done.

De Re Militari: Vegetius himself notes that army he describes is no longer used, and claims that "the Ancients" (i.e. old Romans) did it this way. He describes legionaries and cavalry in some detail, and tells us almost nothing about using auxiliary troops, like archers. And Romans did use archers extensively, albeit mostly ones recruited from local population, they just didn't leave much written accounts of them, we know about it mostly from archaeological finds.

Machiavelli: Writes about how best model is the Roman model and how army should have its' core (about third to half) comprised of swordsmen with shields, arrayed in legion-like ranks. This is a terrible idea, and no one did it. They did have shields, but they were used in a combined arms fashion, not as a solid block, Galloglaich provided enough evidence on this.

George Silver: Some advice he gives you against rapier is terrible, and any rapierist who has any idea about what he is doing will run through your favourite organs if you follow it. "Cut him down with mighty hews from above," suuuure. "Keep your space narrow" is a sound advice, though.

English and swords: Sorry, not convinced. yes, there were some manuals in england about fighting. Most of them aren't that good. Galloglaich is right, there were some famous english mercenaries, but all I have seen to this point studied swordplay on the continent. Hawkwood became famous in Burgundy, and, later, Italy.

That said, I meant this from a one-on-one combat, what english always excelled at was warfare, they were known for their discipline, even amongst knights - especially compared to France. I hope we can all agree that fighting in formation and fighting in a loose melee are two very different things.

snowblizz

2014-08-15, 05:44 AM

If it's a D&D setting, I agree with that to a point but think we need to go further and say the best spells within a battlefield would likely be "movement" + "save-or-die" vs. enemy commanders e.g. teleport + charm, invisibility & flying + disintegrate. Though I guess maybe the defending wizards would be taking care of that.

Outside the battlefield context, I think D&D wizards would be doing strategic missions per Brother Oni's commentary. Destroying enemy logistics, their ability to transport troops or their high command means you can win without even meeting them on the battlefield.

I'd like to broaden the discussion with some other "systems", since we are talking fantasy.
First Warhammer FB, the current 8th edition of the rule-set definitely premiers buff/support over "blasty". This of course is a result of the rules mechanics where improving the fighting capabilities of 40 men does more damage than directly killing d6 opponents. Although there are a few major exceptions. The direct damage output of a wizard is comparable to artillery or bow/gunfire so no changes really.

Secondly I'm reminded of the Wheel of Time series of fantasy books. Where the setting wizards tend to start out as blasters because that's a directly application of their powers they understand. As the series progresses when military thinkers get "access" to them and start incorporating the other abilities wizards have for divination/transport/healing/support their impact is much greater tactically and strategically than killing hundreds or even thousands of enemies.

At one point one of the "great captains" muses how if he had his way the wizards would only be engaged in "divination"/transport and such. Much to the annoyance of said wizards, most who consider themselves above such common tasks and to a degree seemed to prefer the flashy-showy-blasty side of things.

So yeah it kinda depends on of how the setting/rules work. But I kinda like the WoT application since it's a kinda logical progression that follows from solving more or less mediaeval army issues.

Storm_Of_Snow

2014-08-15, 06:27 AM

Would it be possible to design artillery rounds where their shrapnel is effective against unarmoured/lightly armoured men; but less effective/ineffective against your well-armoured troops? I was thinking about something like this to decrease the risk of walking artillery in front of your men.
The big issue there is that armour isn't uniform, someone getting hit in the chest from in front might be fine, but if it comes in at the side, they're badly wounded.

Maybe something like a shaped charge, possibly on a missile rather than an artillery shell (where you can control the orientation), so that the shrapnel goes in a specific direction?

Alternatively, you could probably use a smaller charge, and prepare the casing so that it splits into larger, slower moving pieces of shrapnel, designed to be stopped by the majority of your troops armour.

Or a massive pallisade shield, which would be difficult to move on the battlefield, and make you a target for any enemy artillery.

Carl

2014-08-15, 06:45 AM

First Warhammer FB, the current 8th edition of the rule-set definitely premiers buff/support over "blasty". This of course is a result of the rules mechanics where improving the fighting capabilities of 40 men does more damage than directly killing d6 opponents. Although there are a few major exceptions. The direct damage output of a wizard is comparable to artillery or bow/gunfire so no changes really.

No one would ever use WHFB magic on the battlefield, in practice any wizard will fry himself inside a couple of battles, it's just too unreliable.

Then again shock horror. WHFB is in many respects pure **** as far as decent rules go so "shrug".

If it's a D&D setting, I agree with that to a point but think we need to go further and say the best spells within a battlefield would likely be "movement" + "save-or-die" vs. enemy commanders e.g. teleport + charm, invisibility & flying + disintegrate. Though I guess maybe the defending wizards would be taking care of that.

Outside the battlefield context, I think D&D wizards would be doing strategic missions per Brother Oni's commentary. Destroying enemy logistics, their ability to transport troops or their high command means you can win without even meeting them on the battlefield.

Oh no question and there is one spell large-scale enough in core to be really worth it, even if it high level. Fabricate. That can easily turn raw ore's into high quality steel masterwork equipment in quantities large enough for mass use by entire armies. It's not in a D&D setting going to be decisive, (since padded armor in the right hands is as good as, if not better, than full plate), but it's large scale enough to be a noticeable advantage.

Aedilred

2014-08-15, 08:58 AM

In case you think that was a fluke, this is from the Bern Chronicle

http://i72.servimg.com/u/f72/11/56/32/25/protec13.jpg
I think this picture has made my day.

Yora

2014-08-15, 10:13 AM

Aedilred

2014-08-15, 10:29 AM

What exactly is the historic significance of the Crimean War? It generally doesn't get more than a mention that it did happen in summaries of european history in the 19th century, and I assume the strategic gains were not that important in the long run. But it does get a lot of mention regarding how it changed how wars betwen the major powers were fought. What exactly makes it so significant in this regard?

A couple of things about it, really.

Firstly, it ended the long period of peace between the great powers of Europe that had endured since 1815. There had been minor scuffles in the meantime, many of them internal, especially around 1848, but nothing that had ever erupted into proper war. It also, critically, severed the long-standing alliance between Austria and Russia (while also damaging the relationship between Britain and Austria), which led to Austria becoming politically isolated, and, ultimately contributed, over the next fifteen years, to the Italian wars of independence, the Austro-Prussian War, the Franco-Prussian War, the unification of Germany and the effective reduction of Austria to second-tier status.

The Ottoman Empire, while thoroughly exposed as a straw man, had been kept from falling into Russia's hands, so Britain and France were able to take and retain control of the Med (and later, the Suez Canal). Having failed to expand westwards, Russia started looking more to the east and south, which led to an escalation of "the Great Game" with Britain around central Asia, notably Afghanistan.

The war also exposed a lot of deficiencies in the structure of the great powers' militaries. Britain in particular had done little to adapt its army since 1815 (largely thanks to Wellington's influence) and the war was an embarrassment. Russia also emerged with relatively little credit, which encouraged the reforms of Alexander II. In general, the war acted as an impetus to improve the administration and technology of various militaries. The army became increasingly professionalised, with stuff like sale of commissions being abolished (in Britain at least), breech-loading rifles were adopted almost universally, and widespread introduction of steam power and ironclads to navies.

Carl

2014-08-15, 10:41 AM

I've mostly seen Crimea mentioned in the context of the points Aedilred made. But particularly in that it spelled an end to the Napoleonic formations and the first signs of what would become visible more firmly in WW1 in terms of the limits of pure infantry attacks in an environment with long ranged fire capabilities. Indeed Crimea and WW1 are textbook examples of doctrine, training, and common perception amongst experts of how wars would be fought lagging behind technological advances.

Incanur

2014-08-15, 11:44 AM

Ok. Well, that's interesting but, what you actually said upthread was:

"while shields indeed dominated the battlefield in antiquity, they weren't so important in Western Europe in the 15th and 16th centuries."

and

"Swiss and German mercenaries used few if any shields during this period."

I stand by what I wrote because it was comparison with antiquity. Nor am I alone (http://www.myarmoury.com/feature_shield.html) in this opinion. If you think shields saw just much use in the 15th century in Western Europe as in ancient Rome, that's on you. Also, Hungary isn't exactly Western Europe. :smallwink:

In ancient Roman armies any infantry soldier expected to fight up close had a shield. This wasn't remotely the case in the 15th and 16th centuries. That's the distinction I'm making. I realize you enjoy picking fights ever since our epic debate about muskets and armor, but come on. :smallsigh:

You went out on a limb here, you know a lot about George Silver and some 16th Century books on military theory, but you aren't up to speed on warfare by German mercenaries or any other kind of Central European warfare in general.

No, that's nonsense. I'm well-aware of everything or almost everything you posted. None of that changes that relative decline of the shield's importance in the 15th and 16th centuries in Western Europe. I love how you think telling me such I already know defeats and discredits me, though. It's cute, though the pictures of armored dueling with shields as evidence of battlefield use really take the cake. :smallsmile:

Props for the great historical pictures. Those are always nice. Shields, especially large pavises and such but also targets, certainly saw use at sieges and whatnot through the 16th century, including by the English.

You'll do yourself and the rest of the people on the thread a favor if you stick to your areas of expertise when commenting in such a definitive way.

Good luck with that! :smallsmile:

Shields never went away in this period. They remained widely used especially in the Eastern part of Central Europe and particularly by German soldiers of all types.

Except German pikers, halberdiers, soldiers with two-handed swords, and many/most gunners. And men-at-arms, etc. Again, the piker without a shield was the preeminent infantry soldier for field battles in Western Europe in the 16th century. The gunner came next. There's overwhelming evidence for this.

Machiavelli: [/B] Writes about how best model is the Roman model and how army should have its' core (about third to half) comprised of swordsmen with shields, arrayed in legion-like ranks. This is a terrible idea, and no one did it. They did have shields, but they were used in a combined arms fashion, not as a solid block, Galloglaich provided enough evidence on this.

That's not true. The Spanish fielded blocks of targetiers, especially in the Americas but also in Europe before the 1530s or so. The Dutch did so later on.

George Silver: Some advice he gives you against rapier is terrible, and any rapierist who has any idea about what he is doing will run through your favourite organs if you follow it. "Cut him down with mighty hews from above," suuuure. "Keep your space narrow" is a sound advice, though.

Experienced martial artists who study Silver say otherwise. And in many ways his advice mirrors other historical instructors who address shorter vs. longer weapons.

English and swords: Sorry, not convinced. yes, there were some manuals in england about fighting. Most of them aren't that good.

You'll believe whatever you like, I'm sure, but it's not support by any historical evidence. Did you read the account of Sir Kenelm Digby? You don't need manuals to have good fencing. We don't have manuals for what tons of 15th century knights studied, but we know that many of them fought exceptionally well. Etc.

Just to keep the game alive, check out all the shields in the following 15th- and 16th-century images:

http://www.humanist.de/rome/housebook/hausbu2.gif

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/52/Reislaeufer_Luzerner_Schilling.jpg

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8b/Novara_1500.jpg

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b7/Luzerner_Schilling_Battle_of_Grandson.jpg

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/da/Dornach-1499.jpg

http://www.art-wallpaper.com/21312/Sch%C3%A4ufelein+Hans/Battle+of+Pavia-1600x1200-21312.jpg

http://www.hroarr.com/wp-content/oqey_gallery/galleries/chronicon-helvetiae/galimg/ms-wettf-16-3-06.jpg

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-4sbcfYHA9Js/TaGl55VZHZI/AAAAAAAAHcY/RuI2jmdbAxI/s1600/Brabantsche%2BYeesten%2Bduo.jpg

Galloglaich

2014-08-15, 01:43 PM

I stand by what I wrote because it was comparison with antiquity. Nor am I alone (http://www.myarmoury.com/feature_shield.html) in this opinion. If you think shields saw just much use in the 15th century in Western Europe as in ancient Rome, that's on you.

You are trying to move the goalposts. You wrote: "while shields indeed dominated the battlefield in antiquity, they weren't so important in Western Europe in the 15th and 16th centuries."

and

"Swiss and German mercenaries used few if any shields during this period."

The first is overstating the case and the second is utter nonsense. Everyone is well aware that there were a lot of troops who didn't use shields in the 15th and 16th Centuries, but you apparently thought that that was essentially the only kind of fighting which was done in "Western" Europe, and specifically by the Germans and the Swiss. That's ok to think that, but it kind of sucks if you are telling other people in a thread designed to disseminate accurate information, because it's not even close.

The fact is that the shield remained in very wide use in the 15th Century, in the Western battlefields like northern France as well as Italy, Germany, the Baltic and Hungary. Speaking of which

Also, Hungary isn't exactly Western Europe. :smallwink:

This is I think where you got tripped up, since this cold-war idea of "Western Europe" isn't really applicable to the late medieval and Early Modern period especially for Swiss and German mercenaries, since the latter lived in Central Europe meaning while they may fight with or for the French in Flanders or for Milan in Italy or in Spain, they also tangled with the Ottomans in Austria and Hungary and with the Tartars and Lithuanians in Prussia and Livonia.

That is one way your analysis broke down. The other is in just maybe taking too theoretical of an idea of military theory (as Martin suggested) instead of the far messier and more complex reality.

In ancient Roman armies any infantry soldier expected to fight up close had a shield. This wasn't remotely the case in the 15th and 16th centuries. That's the distinction I'm making.

So you figure a rodelero isn't meant to fight up close with a shield? Maybe you need to look at some of those images I posted from the Berner Chronik. Those guys are literally on top of each other. This is how they often fought in this period in the open fields and not just during sieges. Shields were also used for protection against missiles, but that was the case in antiquity too.

No, that's nonsense. I'm well-aware of everything or almost everything you posted. None of that changes that relative decline of the shield's importance in the 15th and 16th centuries in Western Europe. I love how you think telling me such I already know defeats and discredits me, though. It's cute, though the pictures of armored dueling with shields as evidence of battlefield use really take the cake. :smallsmile:

You know as well as I do that those are battlefield weapons they were dueling with, and I showed you 15 other images which were all on the battlefield.

Props for the great historical pictures. Those are always nice. Shields, especially large pavises and such but also targets, certainly saw use at sieges and whatnot through the 16th century, including by the English.

Sieges is where they were most common, but they were also widely used on the battlefield, as you can see in those Berner Chronik images I posted very clearly. About half of the images I saw in the chronicle showed shields in them. Not pavises, but hand-shields.

Except German pikers, halberdiers, soldiers with two-handed swords, and many/most gunners. And men-at-arms, etc. Again, the piker without a shield was the preeminent infantry soldier for field battles in Western Europe in the 16th century. The gunner came next. There's overwhelming evidence for this.

Gunners were still using shields in the 15th century and well into the 16th, whereas you said "German Mercenaries" didn't.

Experienced martial artists who study Silver say otherwise. And in many ways his advice mirrors other historical instructors who address shorter vs. longer weapons.

Silver is respected I think, but not necessarily as a system to deal with rapiers.

Just to keep the game alive, check out all the shields in the following 15th- and 16th-century images:

http://www.humanist.de/rome/housebook/hausbu2.gif

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/52/Reislaeufer_Luzerner_Schilling.jpg

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8b/Novara_1500.jpg

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b7/Luzerner_Schilling_Battle_of_Grandson.jpg

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/da/Dornach-1499.jpg

http://www.art-wallpaper.com/21312/Sch%C3%A4ufelein+Hans/Battle+of+Pavia-1600x1200-21312.jpg

http://www.hroarr.com/wp-content/oqey_gallery/galleries/chronicon-helvetiae/galimg/ms-wettf-16-3-06.jpg

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-4sbcfYHA9Js/TaGl55VZHZI/AAAAAAAAHcY/RuI2jmdbAxI/s1600/Brabantsche%2BYeesten%2Bduo.jpg
[/quote]

You realize that is pretty pointless right? I could post 500 more images from the chronicles showing they were using shields in exactly the places you said they didn't. I think that pretty much settles it. I never claimed they used them in every battle or in every group of soldiers, but clearly they were used and quite a bit. You might as well post images of pineapples and crow that there are no shields in them, it doesn't mean anything.

The difference between antiquity vs. the late medieval period is that in antiquity just about every troop type (except certain specialists) carried shields, whereas in the late medieval there were also pikemen, heavy cavalry, halberdiers and two handed swordsmen and so on who often didn't. But that is not the same as saying shields went away or that they "used few if any shields during this period"

G

Mr. Mask

2014-08-15, 02:07 PM

Kind of interested in the mentioned epic discussion of muskets and armour. Possible to get a brief summary of the positions on it (or an idea of where it starts)?

Yora

2014-08-15, 02:07 PM

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/52/Reislaeufer_Luzerner_Schilling.jpg
Watch out for that woman! She marches into battle with a cheese grinder.

Lilapop

2014-08-15, 02:48 PM

Watch out for that woman! She marches into battle with a cheese grinder.
The artist probably thought the rolling pin trope to be overused. Or forgot to add the glow to the lantern.

On a more serious note, I'm not sure what to think about this ongoing feud between Galloglaich and Incanur. While it pushes the both of you into bombarding us with information (which is kind of a good thing), seeing almost every post start with an almost childish wording ("You're wrong!" "No, you're wronger!") kills my motivation to read the contributions themselves and I just skim/skip them. As such, I dont even know if my assessment is correct, and most of that precious knowledge rushes right past me.

Didn't I speak up the last time it happened? Definitely considered it, but I can't remember if I actually posted something.

Yora

2014-08-15, 04:05 PM

When you start quoting a post by paragraphs to reply to each of them specifically, people usually stop reading.

Incanur

2014-08-15, 04:16 PM

I stand by my earlier statements regarding shields, though I've also elaborated on them. I acknowledge I could have been clearer in the beginning, but I'm fond of brevity. :smallamused:

So you figure a rodelero isn't meant to fight up close with a shield?

Yes, clearly I've ignored all the 16th-century military manuals I keep referencing. :smalltongue: There's a key word you apparently missed in what you quoted from me:

In ancient Roman armies any infantry soldier expected to fight up close had a shield. This wasn't remotely the case in the 15th and 16th centuries. That's the distinction I'm making.

In ancient Roman armies, 100% of heavy infantry had handheld shields. In 16th-century armies, that number could be 0% (as I've shown with Dolnstein, early 16th-century army records, Machiavelli's account of Swiss and German soldiers, post-1530s Spanish armies, etc.) and rarely exceeded 25% (a guess: I can't think of any documented 16th-century army that included so many with shields). That's a big difference.

To anyone who doubts that Landsknechts and Swiss mercenaries used few shields, in addition to Paul Dolnstein's sketchbook I recommend surveying images of Landsknechts and Reisläufer by 16th-century artists such as Nikolaus Stör, Albrecht Dürer, Jost Amman, Virgil Solis, and so on. I just flipped through the collection of dozens of such images included here (http://hss.ulb.uni-bonn.de/2003/0285/0285.pdf) and saw exactly one shield – a buckler.

The difference between antiquity vs. the late medieval period is that in antiquity just about every troop type (except certain specialists) carried shields, whereas in the late medieval there were also pikemen, heavy cavalry, halberdiers and two handed swordsmen and so on who often didn't.

Yes, except that the troops that didn't use shields – mainly pikers, also halberdiers - were fielded in far larger numbers. The Swiss system of pike and halberd prompted a transformation in Western European warfare, with eventually every major power extensively employing pikers. Targetiers remained potent, especially in a pitched infantry battle, and as I've noted before numerous 16th-century military writers advocated the target. Heavy cavalry constituted the targetier's key weakness. Even George Silver of all people identified the sword and target as a quality weapon system for the field!

As far as the great musket debate went, as I recall Galloglaich held strictly to Alan Williams's 3000 J figure for heavy musket energy and thus concluded that it could pierce good armor only at close range if at all while I cited 16th-century manuals and argued that period muskets likely delivered much more than 3000 J given the amount of powder used. Folks like Humprhey Barwick and Sir Roger Williams argued that heavy musket balls could pierce quality harness at 100-200 yards.

Galloglaich

2014-08-15, 05:28 PM

To anyone who doubts that Landsknechts and Swiss mercenaries used few shields, in addition to Paul Dolnstein's sketchbook I recommend surveying images of Landsknechts and Reisläufer by 16th-century artists such as Nikolaus Stör, Albrecht Dürer, Jost Amman, Virgil Solis, and so on. I just flipped through the collection of dozens of such images included here (http://hss.ulb.uni-bonn.de/2003/0285/0285.pdf) and saw exactly one shield – a buckler.

And yet, four of the images I posted upthread of soldiers (2 of which depicted Landsknechts) were by Albrecht Dürer, and more importantly, the Swiss chronicle, of the most powerful city in the Swiss Condederation, shows dozens of images of their militia and their German enemies in which warriors are carrying shields and fighting with them. So that puts paid to what you said.

Yes, except that the troops that didn't use shields – mainly pikers, also halberdiers - were fielded in far larger numbers.

If you had said that to begin with you would not have had an argument.

As far as the great musket debate went, as I recall Galloglaich held strictly to Alan Williams's 3000 J figure for heavy musket energy and thus concluded that it could pierce good armor only at close range if at all while I cited 16th-century manuals and argued that period muskets likely delivered much more than 3000 J given the amount of powder used. Folks like Humprhey Barwick and Sir Roger Williams argued that heavy musket balls could pierce quality harness at 100-200 yards.

Basically we were arguing about the efficacy of guns vs. plate armor. The conclusion was that only the best guns, (early muskets made specifically for armor-piercing, which were remarkably powerful even by modern standards) could penetrate the really good armor at anything but very close range. A lot of armor wasn't that good, but there also weren't that many heavy muskets around, most troops were armed with the less powerful arquebus or equivalent.

The rise of guns coincided with a decline in the quality of armor and by the 17th Century, though armor was still being used, it was no longer being made of tempered steel as it often was in the heyday of armor 100 years earlier. Instead it was being made of iron, which made need to be almost twice as thick or more and therefore much heavier. So this further contributed to the decline of armor.

The original debate I think sprang out of someone asking a 'what if' question about 15th Century infantry fighting in the 30 Years War or Napoleonic War or some such period. I was pointing out that a lot of the kit, especially the armor, was actually better in the earlier period.

G

Galloglaich

2014-08-15, 05:31 PM

The artist probably thought the rolling pin trope to be overused. Or forgot to add the glow to the lantern.

On a more serious note, I'm not sure what to think about this ongoing feud between Galloglaich and Incanur. While it pushes the both of you into bombarding us with information (which is kind of a good thing), seeing almost every post start with an almost childish wording ("You're wrong!" "No, you're wronger!") kills my motivation to read the contributions themselves and I just skim/skip them. As such, I dont even know if my assessment is correct, and most of that precious knowledge rushes right past me.

Didn't I speak up the last time it happened? Definitely considered it, but I can't remember if I actually posted something.

I know it's a drag when people argue on forums (which is why I'm not on many forums, and I'm really only on this one as an outsider) but when your whole purpose of being on a forum is to dispense accurate technical information on a specific range of subjects, it's kind of pointless if you just ignore bad data. Usually when people make big mistakes on here most of the older regulars on the forum correct them more or less in unison, but sometimes we disagree. Then you are basically damned if you do and damned if you don't.

As I used to say, in any discussion there are two people: the person who is right, and the person who is wrong. As the person who is right it's my job to explain to you why you are so stupid. And why your head is wopped.

G

Matthew

2014-08-15, 05:36 PM

But the problem is that since most people today DON'T go around with 3 feet of sharpened steel strapped to their hip, we need to rely on the historical definitions because there IS no real modern definition.

There are not really any historical definitions either.

And when you say "longsword" people often picture different things, so it's leading to confusion. I don't care that D&D is "wrong" so much as I want to know what a given term refers to. I want to be able to say "longsword" and have everyone know what I mean, regardless of what that turns out to be.

It seems like the D&D "short-sword" was intended to be something like a roman gladius, 1-handed use only, with the blade around 18-24 inches long.

A "longsword" was the same thing, just bigger, around 28-36 inches in length. Historically speaking, an "arming sword".

And a "bastard sword" was 34-40, with a grip big enough to get a second hand on there. But historically this and the "longsword" where the same thing.

Weapon nomenclature is a huge minefield, but most people do have a clear idea of what is intended by "short", "long" and "two-handed", much like "light", "heavy" or whatever. Of course, when the terms originated in AD&D they had a clearer, though imperfect, definition.

Mr. Mask

2014-08-15, 06:00 PM

As far as the great musket debate went, as I recall Galloglaich held strictly to Alan Williams's 3000 J figure for heavy musket energy and thus concluded that it could pierce good armor only at close range if at all while I cited 16th-century manuals and argued that period muskets likely delivered much more than 3000 J given the amount of powder used. Folks like Humprhey Barwick and Sir Roger Williams argued that heavy musket balls could pierce quality harness at 100-200 yards.
Basically we were arguing about the efficacy of guns vs. plate armor. The conclusion was that only the best guns, (early muskets made specifically for armor-piercing, which were remarkably powerful even by modern standards) could penetrate the really good armor at anything but very close range. A lot of armor wasn't that good, but there also weren't that many heavy muskets around, most troops were armed with the less powerful arquebus or equivalent.

The rise of guns coincided with a decline in the quality of armor and by the 17th Century, though armor was still being used, it was no longer being made of tempered steel as it often was in the heyday of armor 100 years earlier. Instead it was being made of iron, which made need to be almost twice as thick or more and therefore much heavier. So this further contributed to the decline of armor.

The original debate I think sprang out of someone asking a 'what if' question about 15th Century infantry fighting in the 30 Years War or Napoleonic War or some such period. I was pointing out that a lot of the kit, especially the armor, was actually better in the earlier period.

G Thanks guys! Saves me reading through a few thousand words of back and forth.

That about matches my estimates for quality plate armour and muskets. Out of curiosity, I guess you two were thinking of the triplex plate armour?

On a side note, anyone know of forces combining thick leather surcoats with plate armour against guns? Someone suggested this as an effective means against gunfire.

fusilier

2014-08-15, 06:43 PM

A couple of things about it, really.
. . .
The war also exposed a lot of deficiencies in the structure of the great powers' militaries. Britain in particular had done little to adapt its army since 1815 (largely thanks to Wellington's influence) and the war was an embarrassment. Russia also emerged with relatively little credit, which encouraged the reforms of Alexander II. In general, the war acted as an impetus to improve the administration and technology of various militaries. The army became increasingly professionalised, with stuff like sale of commissions being abolished (in Britain at least), breech-loading rifles were adopted almost universally, and widespread introduction of steam power and ironclads to navies.

Just a quick correction to this good post. It was *muzzle* loading rifles (the minie gun) that made their stamp during the Crimean War. Breechloaders had to wait until the American Civil War, to prove themselves, and it wasn't really until after that war that everybody started going to breechloaders -- Prussia was an exception.

The British had pretty much their entire force armed with Minie guns (not the Enfield rifle however, that was trialled in Crimea but not issued in large numbers until afterwards).

The French used a mixed force with some troops having the minie guns, and others having smoothbore muskets apparently modified to use the Nesslar ball (a kind of minie ball for smoothbores, that greatly increased accuracy and range, but not as good as a rifle).

The Russians were apparently unaware of the technology until they captured some bullets and figured out what was going on (not entirely sure if that's true, I don't think the minie ball was much of a secret).

Rifled artillery was experimented with during the war as well. First use of ironclads, etc. The war also shows some similarities to the American Civil War -- ending with an incomplete siege of a city.

It was also one of the few continental wars that Britain participated in during that period, so I think it gets a lot of attention in Britain (it also really showed how backwards a lot of their military structure was). Whereas France, Russia, Turkey, had several other wars during the second half of the 19th-century.

fusilier

2014-08-15, 06:59 PM

As far as the great musket debate went, as I recall Galloglaich held strictly to Alan Williams's 3000 J figure for heavy musket energy and thus concluded that it could pierce good armor only at close range if at all while I cited 16th-century manuals and argued that period muskets likely delivered much more than 3000 J given the amount of powder used. Folks like Humprhey Barwick and Sir Roger Williams argued that heavy musket balls could pierce quality harness at 100-200 yards.

If I recall correctly, William's musket was .75 caliber, whereas in the 16th century a heavy musket could be .85 caliber up to about an inch. More importantly there's evidence that they overcharged their muskets compared to modern standards.

The other thing that I pointed out was the large amount of variation possible. The musketeer could arbitrarily vary the amount of powder, and if using the flask could do this between each shot. The quality of the gunpowder could vary greatly. Also, there's some evidence that they used different sized bullets -- a loose ball that required no ramming for rapid fire, but was terribly inaccurate and would have a lower velocity (unless the firer drastically increased the powder). Or, a tight-fitting ball, which could require considerable ramming to seat it on top of the powder, but should be surprisingly accurate and would be pretty powerful.

These variations may explain why the period documentation (and anecdotes) sometimes vary widely. In general, I think the musket had more room to improve than armor did. It could be made bigger and more powerful in response to better armor, but armors ability to adapt was limited. Combined with the increasing expense of armor, and the growing size of armies, it started to squeeze armor out of the equation.

Incanur

2014-08-15, 08:46 PM

If I recall correctly, William's musket was .75 caliber, whereas in the 16th century a heavy musket could be .85 caliber up to about an inch. More importantly there's evidence that they overcharged their muskets compared to modern standards.

Williams didn't test any muskets for The Knight and the Blast Furnace. He relies on the Graz Arsenal tests. He does specifically cite a .70 caliber wheellock as the apparent basis for his 3000 J figure. That gun weighs 5.48kg (12lbs), has a 1m barrel, and managed 3125 J with a 11g charge of modern black powder. 11g would be a light charge for a caliver - a step down from the musket - according to Sir Roger Williams. The heavy musket as described by Niccolo Tartaglia and Williams took a charge of 30-50g. We don't really know how 16th-century powder compared with modern, and it likely varied a great deal, but I suspect that at least heavy muskets loaded with heavy charge of good powder managed well over 3000 J at the muzzle. Because how round shot loses velocity, a heavy musket would need 8000 J or more at the muzzle to kill men in the best armor (3+mm of hardened steel) at 100 yards.

Galloglaich

2014-08-15, 09:12 PM

Williams didn't test any muskets for The Knight and the Blast Furnace. He relies on the Graz Arsenal tests. He does specifically cite a .70 caliber wheellock as the apparent basis for his 3000 J figure. That gun weighs 5.48kg (12lbs), has a 1m barrel, and managed 3125 J with a 11g charge of modern black powder. 11g would be a light charge for a caliver - a step down from the musket - according to Sir Roger Williams. The heavy musket as described by Niccolo Tartaglia and Williams took a charge of 30-50g. We don't really know how 16th-century powder compared with modern, and it likely varied a great deal, but I suspect that at least heavy muskets loaded with heavy charge of good powder managed well over 3000 J at the muzzle. Because how round shot loses velocity, a heavy musket would need 8000 J or more at the muzzle to kill men in the best armor (3+mm of hardened steel) at 100 yards.

8000 J would be amazingly powerful, a lot more than a modern assault rifle for example. That is about half the power of a modern .50 caliber BMG round.

G

Incanur

2014-08-15, 09:24 PM

8000 J would be amazingly powerful, a lot more than a modern assault rifle for example. That is about half the power of a modern .50 caliber BMG round.

G

Indeed. While we've no definite conformation that 16th-century heavy muskets were so powerful, the Graz tests plus period documents suggest that possibility. A wall gun with a 1.655m barrel managed nearly 7000 J with a mere 20g of modern powder. Heavy muskets (http://www.alderneywreck.com/index.php/artefacts/firearms/terminology-and-ballistic-capability) as described by Sir Roger Williams and company had 1.2-1.4m barrels and took 30+g of powder. They typically weighed around 20lbs and require a rest to shoot - almost a handheld artillery piece.

Williams and Humphrey Barwick may well have exaggerated the range at which muskets could kill through the best armor, but I'm certain muskets managed more than 3000 J at the muzzle under ideal circumstances (good powder, skilled operator, dry weather, etc.). The 16th-century musket Alan Williams uses as the basis for musket power was basically a caliver - the standard English gun of the time - by Sir Roger Williams's standards. And Williams considered it too weak, writing that one musket shot did more harm than two caliver shots.

Galloglaich

2014-08-15, 09:48 PM

fusilier

2014-08-15, 10:07 PM

Don't you start running into potential risk of blowing up the barrel as you start heaping in the gunpowder? Were early modern musket barrels made of tempered steel? Similar quality to modern gun barrels?

G

Old musket barrels were overbuilt by modern standards, usually with a very strong taper, resulting in a surprisingly fat breech. Same goes for arquebuses too - a .62 caliber arquebus barrel could be three inches wide at the breech.

You absolutely run the risk of putting in too much powder and blowing up the barrel and it did happen. The amount of powder used in cannon at the time usually borders on overcharging (which doesn't necessarily mean the cannon will explode, just that any more powder won't increase the velocity of the projectile). They seem to have charged these weapons to the max, probably right up to (and sometimes past) the safety margin.

The quality of powder is the big question mark that hangs over these historical discussions. Almost certainly it varied, but the formula used in the 16th century is basically the same as what is used now.

Incanur

2014-08-15, 10:48 PM

It's worth noting that modern bullets have much better ballistic and penetration properties than round lead shot. In the Graz tests, a modern assault rifle with a mere 1764 J at the muzzle penetrated 9mm in mild steel at 100m while the big wall gun with nearly 7000 J at the muzzle only penetrated 4mm at the same distance. So a 16th-century gun that could blow through a given breastplate at 30 yards might fail against the same at 100 yards.

Ideally someday somebody will test the kind of guns described by Sir Roger Williams and company with powder made according to period standards. Until then we can be fairly confident that heavy muskets penetrated any practical armor at close range and that relatively few 16th-century soldiers had access to the highest-quality harness. Alan Williams makes clear that good heat treatment was really something special, a skill possessed primarily by an elite of armorers at only a handful of locations (Innsbruck, Augsburg, Landshut, Greenwich, etc.).

snowblizz

2014-08-16, 05:20 AM

The original debate I think sprang out of someone asking a 'what if' question about 15th Century infantry fighting in the 30 Years War or Napoleonic War or some such period. I was pointing out that a lot of the kit, especially the armor, was actually better in the earlier period.

G
Guilty as charged I think! I was postulating whether the earlier periods heavier, better armour would actually allow a "medieval" force to combat a more modern force, 17th century or even Napoleonic, since the latter two would have been more vulnerable to the former's weapons. Longbows would probably have swept the unarmoured gunners from the field leaving the attending pike block unsupported and combating a better armoured foe which would have equipped with more suitable close-combat weapons.
Something along those lines went my thoughts.
It may have started from the ironic insight that by the time European imperialism really got going they had made themselves vulnerable to the weapons of their less developed opponents.
I'm pretty certain the question was also brought up if the Brits would have been better served by a 100YW army in the Zulu wars than their redcoats. At least I thought about that too.

On a side note, anyone know of forces combining thick leather surcoats with plate armour against guns? Someone suggested this as an effective means against gunfire.
Yes. "Everybody"* in the 17th-18th centuries. In essence, the "buffcoat" is a leather surcoat, in itself very protective. It was essentially standard equipment for the "horseman" in ECW and 30YW and later.

*I'm using it colloquially, Galloglaich and Incanur, deep breaths and count to 10 ;-)
sorry guys, couldn't resist

Mike_G

2014-08-16, 08:38 AM

I'm pretty certain the question was also brought up if the Brits would have been better served by a 100YW army in the Zulu wars than their redcoats. At least I thought about that too.

I think that's too much of a stretch.

While I think longbows would be better against unarmored men on formation than a Brown Bess muzzle loader, so maybe an upgrade at Waterloo, any bow loses to a breech loading Martini-Henry, for accuracy, rate of fire, penetration and ease of use, and you can't stick a bayonet on the bow, so I think the redcoats of 1879 would beat Henry V's men any day of the week.

Would some body armor have helped the Brits against Zulu weapons? Yes. But the offensive power of a breech loading rifle is far beyond anything an infantryman carried before that time.

I do think a French infantry column from Napoleon's time would have been very vulnerable to a barrage from longbows, instead of the slower, shorter ranged volleys of the smooth bore, muzzle loading flintlock. The Hundred Years War army had no good substitute for 19th Century artillery, though.

spineyrequiem

2014-08-16, 09:01 AM

Let's say that I have (effectively) unlimited industrial resources at a modern-ish tech level and want to produce the cheapest/fastest to make assault rifle as possible. Accuracy and range aren't particular concerns (say a 200m effective range), but it needs to be passably reliable if cleaned properly, and light enough to be carried and wielded easily. What sort of design choices should be made? Currently I've got

All parts which can be made from stamped steel
Assembly entirely by pinning and welding
Hammer-forged barrel
Fairly loose tolerances
Delayed blowback or direct impingement gas system (which I'm told can be cheaper), or if both are impractical a large, long-stroke gas piston
Large curve on the magazine
Wooden furniture (cheap wood, very basic design)
Simple open sights

But I can't think of anything else. My current design is a sort of hybrid of the AK, the Sten and a couple of Volkssturmgewehr designs (Gustloff and Grossfuss)

Palegreenpants

2014-08-16, 09:05 AM

Galloglaich

2014-08-16, 10:49 AM

A while back somebody was asking about multiple weapons... I found a nice example, check out this Swiss pikeman

http://www.e-codices.unifr.ch/manuscripts/e-codices/film/bbb-Mss-hh-I0016/bbb-Mss-hh-I0016_214.jpg

he's got a pike (bending quite cinematically as he impales a knight) but he's also carrying a formidable longsword as a sidearm, and a really big baselard, looks like around 2 feet long. This is a well armed dude. You can see why he needs the longsword as his pike is probably going to be stuck in his victim or broken. The knight himself incidentally seems to have dropped a crossbow (or it could have been someone elses). Some people in these battles in the same codex only have baslard or a saber or falchion to fight with, they are at a disadvantage against a guy with a big longsword. The longsword, conversely, gives you at least a fighting chance against a halberd or a pike. But it takes a lot of training to get competent with and it's a really big thing to carry around on your hip all day.

G

Mr. Mask

2014-08-16, 10:58 AM

Bliz: All the buffcoats I know of were worn beneath plate armour, or even by themselves. Do you know of cases they were worn over armour?

and you can't stick a bayonet on the bow You should try some of the side-arms archers had. Some were very fine weapons.

With repeating breech-loaders, bows are at the end of their ability to compete with guns. Indirect fire still has some minor uses, they're quiet firing makes them good for stealth, and arrows leave very nasty wounds.

Spiney: Sounds like the AKM, AK47, or one of the other variants. They're still cheap and popular in many places today, can fire even when soaked with guts and mud, are effective past the range you mention, and are fine guns.

Unfortunately, I can't think of a better example for you beyond what you mentioned.

Green Pants: It could be done, but it's not necessarily a great strategy. If we're talking about full harness, even the weak points tend to be covered with mail so that your weapon would have difficulty penetrating, and those weak points are nearly impossible to score. A less fully armoured opponent might have some weak points a skilled fencer can score (particularly if they're quicker and more skilled than their opponent). Largely it comes to wrestling if one person is well armoured, which allows you to snap their necks or stick a dagger through their visor.

Zadhadras

2014-08-16, 11:04 AM

I think that's too much of a stretch.

While I think longbows would be better against unarmored men on formation than a Brown Bess muzzle loader, so maybe an upgrade at Waterloo,

No. There is a reason why Arquebuses supplanted bows, even in bow using cultures like Korea and Japan. The arquebus (and musket) are far deadlier.

Spiryt

2014-08-16, 11:12 AM

Now, pardon me if this has already been asked, but I am wondering: how would a rapier or smallsword fair against plate armor? Now, I know that these light weapons wouldn't be able to pierce the plate, but would a fencer with fine enough point-control be able to stab the joints of a knight (and disable him?)

It's likely one of those things that are in theory possible, but most people would rather not try in practice.

Of course, amining at joints and other bare spots would be in general the way to combat full plate, but rapier would likely be very lousy thing for it.

Any roughly competent and aware plate wearer would likely be able to catch the rapier point completely and absolutely safely.

Smallsword may be somehow handier, funnily enough, because it's so quick and not as useless if anybody closes the distance.

But in general there's likely reason why rapiers etc. were great at being strictly civilian weapons.

Mr. Mask

2014-08-16, 11:31 AM

No. There is a reason why Arquebuses supplanted bows, even in bow using cultures like Korea and Japan. The arquebus (and musket) are far deadlier. That's a vague argument. A claymore is more deadly than a musket, but that doesn't mean everyone should have been using great swords.

Carl

2014-08-16, 12:35 PM

No. There is a reason why Arquebuses supplanted bows, even in bow using cultures like Korea and Japan. The arquebus (and musket) are far deadlier.

And the reason one supplemented the other isn't that one was better than the other as a weapon. Early muskets absolutely where pants compared to the longbow, or even a standard bow, of the era. Against any opponents that didn't have complete protection vs arrow fire they where going to be vastly more effective because they could inflict death and disabling injuries from far beyond the effective range of an early musket, they could also fire at a much higher rate of fire than the early muskets. The problem was it took a very short time period, (days i believe) to train a musketeer, but a lifetime to train a longbowman.

Now later muskets or later armor i'm less clear on, TV and movies show abysmal effective ranges for the weapons and virtually non-existent armor, but i'm not sure exactly how accurate that is.

Spiryt

2014-08-16, 01:08 PM

far beyond the effective range of an early musket, they could also fire at a much higher rate of fire than the early muskets.

Muskets of any kind had far greater effective range than any bow. Effective range understood as the distance at which projectile can fly at and deal serious damage of course.

Without a doubt hitting anything at higher ranges was problematic at best with early, or even not so early firearms, but so was it with bows.

Early muskets absolutely where pants compared to the longbow,

That's common meme, but frankly if it was true, the bows wouldn't give ground to crossbows and guns rather easily.

The problem was it took a very short time period, (days i believe) to train a musketeer, but a lifetime to train a longbowman.

From the very beginning of serious gun employment, they were used by professional, well paid and sought for soldiers, who certainly were developing a lot of skills in use of their weapons.

In short, things weren't in any way 'black and white'.

S@tanicoaldo

2014-08-16, 01:17 PM

What is the main difference of this types of swords: Rapiers, sabre, Cutlass and foil?

Also, which one is faster? Which one would be more expensive in a medieval setting?

Knaight

2014-08-16, 02:05 PM

What is the main difference of this types of swords: Rapiers, sabre, Cutlass and foil?

Also, which one is faster? Which one would be more expensive in a medieval setting?

I'll partially cover this - rapiers and foils are pretty distinct, but sabre is a pretty broad category that covers a lot of ground. With that said:

Rapiers were a civilian dueling weapon. They were characterized mostly by being very long, they were generally on the heavier end for swords, though the balance point was way back and they did move pretty quickly, and they frequently had very elaborate hand guards. Rapier fighting was generally conducted such that you would often try to block and stab in the same motion, and just about any rapier was a thrusting weapon first and foremost, though small slashes were possible and had some use. They generally weren't employed in proper battlefields, though they did show up in some pretty large street brawls that were nothing like a duel. They also were only present during the tail end of the medieval period.

The foil is a modern sport fencing weapon. It's light, whippy, and completely impractical for actual battlefield use. However, it is derived from the smallsword, which is another civilian dueling weapon. They were shorter, lighter, and generally faster than the rapier, and fighting with them often involved more discrete parrying and thrusts, where one generally parried then thrust rather than parrying while thrusting. Again, it didn't really see battlefield use, and there were occasional demonstrations as to why that was (mercenaries with armor, shields, and battlefield weapons were brought to bear against civilian street mobs more than once, and those were generally some very one sided fights). The sport sabre is in a similar boat - it's pretty impractical, it's based on dueling, though the weapon it's based on was a battlefield weapon.

As for the sabre - I mentioned it being a very large category. Pretty much any notably curved sword fits in it.

warty goblin

2014-08-16, 02:11 PM

What is the main difference of this types of swords: Rapiers, sabre, Cutlass and foil?

Also, which one is faster? Which one would be more expensive in a medieval setting?

Rapiers are generally very long bladed single handed swords with complex hand guards and straight, rigid blades, intended mostly for thrusting attacks in a civilian context.

Sabers are often, but not necessarily, curved blades often used by horsemen. The blades, particularly of straight sabers, can be used to thrust effectively, but they maintain a broad and flat enough profile to cut effectively. My understanding is that even the straight bladed sabers are generally single edged, with perhaps a short false edge. What we generally think of as a saber appears in western Europe, I believe, rather later than the rapier. The rapier also evolved out of assorted European medieval swords, while the saber is a European version of Indian and Turkish weapons.

A cutlass is basically a short, heavy saber for fighting on board ship. I don't think it's at all medieval in provenance.

A foil is a sort of sport version of a smallsword, which is the smaller descendant of the rapier. Also not a medieval 'weapon.'

Spiryt

2014-08-16, 02:21 PM

What is the main difference of this types of swords: Rapiers, sabre, Cutlass and foil?

Also, which one is faster? Which one would be more expensive in a medieval setting?

Well, that's hell of a question, in general, google gives decent starting info. :smallbiggrin:

In general

- foil is training smallsword, quickly turned weapon on it's own
- and smallsword is basically very short, light, nimble, minimalistic rapier

- Cutlass would be a general name for broad, short sabre or large, general purpose knife used by mariners, in particular.

Of course, there cold be very well no difference between particular sabre and a 'cutlass' for example.

Those:

Sabre (http://wallacelive.wallacecollection.org/eMuseumPlus?service=ExternalInterface&module=collection&objectId=61210&viewType=detailView)

Cutlass (http://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/78859.html)

Would likely be very similar weapons, differed by place and time, so have would be called cutlass/hanger while other Säbel/saber.

As for being 'faster' - well, in general, probably foil - very light and it's way of attack would be rapid thrust.

On the other hand, rapier would employ very rapid thrust as well, but would have far greater range, making 'road' from point to target much shorter many times.

This is example why grouping weapons based on 'quickness' isn't as easy as in games.

As far as cost in medieval setting goes, it's rather hard to say, since something like rapier, and especially foil wasn't existing in any known real 'medieval setting'.

But I imagine good rapier would generally be mos expensive.

while the saber is a European version of Indian and Turkish weapons.

Western European sabers would generally evolve from Hungarian, Balkan, Polish forms, as well as general one edged medieval form.

Turkish ones would likely have very indirect influence, though likely significant one, particularly with Mediterranean trade.

But Indian influence would be rather minimal at best.

What we generally think of as a saber appears in western Europe, I believe, rather later than the rapier.

Not necessarily, as seen by the Wallace collection example.

Trough height of popularity would have been later indeed.

snowblizz

2014-08-16, 02:22 PM

Bliz: All the buffcoats I know of were worn beneath plate armour, or even by themselves. Do you know of cases they were worn over armour?

My bad! It didn't click that surcoat is the one over armour, I should really know that by now. I thought the other way around for some reason when reading it.

I doubt there is anyone who'd have been wearing it over the armour. You want to put the toughest armour on the outside really.

Carl

2014-08-16, 02:46 PM

Knaight

2014-08-16, 03:04 PM

Mr. Mask

2014-08-16, 03:10 PM

Bow Training and Musket Training: By the time muskets were taking over, military organization was becoming very centralized. I expect they would have professional drilled soldiers regardless of the kind of weapon used. A few weeks of drill isn't really enough to produce quality bowmen.

Blizz: Not entirely so. It was thoroughly popular in the crusades to wear a cloth surcoat over your mail, to protect it from being heated by the sun, but also to have a surprising effect against arrows. There were some tests they showed a cloth surcoat could make an unreasonable difference to arrows, as compared to mail without the surcoat (as far as I remember, wearing the surcoat beneath your armour didn't produce this effect).

Bow Effective Range: In the case of heavy armour, muskets are only effective at close ranges. Bows have lesser effect at close ranges.

When the targets are unarmoured, large bows can inflict grievous injury at over 300 yards distance through indirect fire (small bows with lighter arrows have lesser effects, though are still dangerous).

Storm Bringer

2014-08-16, 03:21 PM

Blizz: Not entirely so. It was thoroughly popular in the crusades to wear a cloth surcoat over your mail, to protect it from being heated by the sun, but also to have a surprising effect against arrows. There were some tests they showed a cloth surcoat could make an unreasonable difference to arrows, as compared to mail without the surcoat (as far as I remember, wearing the surcoat beneath your armour didn't produce this effect).

I seem to remember an account of a crusader army marching in contact with a muslim army which was skirmishing at long range with them, trying to provoke a sally they could isolate and destory.

the writer reported mail armoured infantry marching while under arrow fire, and being almost completely unaffected, dispite multiple hits on most of the crusaders sticking out of their armour and surcoats. I think the only reason he did use the word "pincushion" to describe them was they did not exist when he wrote.:smallbiggrin:

Spiryt

2014-08-16, 03:23 PM

@Spiryt: Care to elaborate on a few points?

First and foremost i often hear ranges of a 100 meters or less spoken of in talk of early muskets for effective range, (beyond that even massed fire was too inaccurate to be effective), whilst a quick wiki check shows the the mandated minimum practice distance in England for a longbow was 200m and the maximum recorded practice distance was 315m, with some speculation they may have reached 400m. I've also heard a lot of talk, (possibly inaccurate of course), that speaks of longbows being heavily employed in area barrage indirect fire attacks where individual accuracy is less important because so many arrows are coming down that against packed formations you where going to get a fair number of hits.

Indeed, since muskets, in particular, were rather slow firing, they were usually used at very close distances, to use that one salvo to the best effect.

That, however cannot be mistaken with 'inability to inflict death and disabling injuries from far beyond'.

Flight arrows from longbows could reach well beyond 300 meters, 400 is really pushing it.

Practical combat use would likely be somehow under 300 meters.

Musket balls at that distance would still pack vastly more 'punch' that any arrow ever. So they were surely effective - even though they might have been rarely used at that distance.

We lack sources, though there are plenty of rather early mentions of somehow 'sniping' uses.

Arrows would be just as 'ineffective' beyond close distance - or rather more - way slower, have to travel in arc, catch every gust of wind, are visible etc.

They were likely employed on those distance anyway, because with sheer output one of them might have done some damage.

Also you completely mis-represented my comment, feel free to correct me but i don't believe most professional soldiers trained from boyhood through to old age constantly with their weaponry as English longbowmen did. I never said that professional soldiers didn't use them, (it would be odd if they didn't), but rather that you didn't need a soldier trained from childhood up, and that if you wanted you could get a very basic competence with them in an incredibly short time period.

Training from 'childhood' is not really that fundamental, today you have plenty of people who can shoot well from 150 pound bows, and they weren't obviously trained from childhood.

Someone seriously and smartly trained from childhood will obviously likely be on another level as far as conditioning and sheer muscle and neural memory go.

But somebody not trained like that can be pretty good still.

Childhood trained firearm specialists appeared pretty quickly too, particularly in foresters cultures.

Military use of such people would be fascinating to study, I guess.

I expect they would have professional drilled soldiers regardless of the kind of weapon used. A few weeks of drill isn't really enough to produce quality bowmen.

Drill isn't really enough to produce quality gunners either.

The goal of a drill, particularly in it's first 'hardcore' Prussian attempts was to produce very obedient, mechanical soldier who would keep formation, and do what the rests are doing, with decent efficiency.

With something relatively 'mechanical' like musket i gave decent effect - you cannot really drill, force etc. someone to take pike and effectively charge someone, exchange blows, and so on. He will rather run away anyway.

But you can drill him too shoot the musket and be deadly even if he doesn't really want to.

But that covers rather different period and social situation.

Mike_G

2014-08-16, 03:43 PM

Muskets of any kind had far greater effective range than any bow. Effective range understood as the distance at which projectile can fly at and deal serious damage of course.

Without a doubt hitting anything at higher ranges was problematic at best with early, or even not so early firearms, but so was it with bows.

That's common meme, but frankly if it was true, the bows wouldn't give ground to crossbows and guns rather easily.

From the very beginning of serious gun employment, they were used by professional, well paid and sought for soldiers, who certainly were developing a lot of skills in use of their weapons.

In short, things weren't in any way 'black and white'.

No, it's not black and white, but we can look at some evidence and numbers and make reasonable assessments.

Bows were used at long range, firing indirectly. And while they would have a hard time piercing armor, they would still do a lot of damage to a Napoleonic infantry column, who had no armor.

Muskets were never to my knowledge, used to provide barrages at 200 yards. The ball would go that far, but not accurately, and it's much harder to see your hits and adjust fire than with arrows. Typical musketry range was under 100 yards.

The fire rate of muzzle loaders is absolutely lower than bows. So an infantry column crossing 300 yards to engage bowmen would suffer quite a lot of arrows falling on them, where the same column would only take one or possible two volleys of musket fire.

There are lot of reasons the musket replaced the bow. Higher rate of fire wasn't one of them. Nor, really, was range. I think easier training and better performance versus armor are two very good reasons.

It really does take a lot longer to train a good archer. An archer has to develop his muscles, develop a feel for how to elevate to hit at different range, lots of subtle things he needs to do to be really good, and that kind of training takes years and good, strong, healthy men.

Musket drill is just drill. Close order infantry drill can make decent musketeers who can load, level and fire and present bayonets in a comparatively short time. And if they are hungry and cold and retreating from Moscow, the bullets still fly just as fast.

The armies of the Hundred Years War were small. You can train a small group of professional archers, but the armies of the Napoleonic Wars were huge. The English at Agincourt had about 6,000 archers. At Waterloo, Wellington commanded ten times that many English and allies, plus 50,000 Prussians. I doubt England could ever have mustered 100,000 longbowmen.

The breech loading rifle can beat the bow on rate of fire, it can win on range and accuracy, since it has real sights and is a rifle, and it can be sued effectively with the bayonet fixed, unlike muzzle loaders. You can point the weapon at the enemy, fire and reload while keeping a sharp, steel point between you and him. Something bowmen or musketeers couldn't do.

So I do think the longbow may have been able to compete with a Brown Bess, if you could find enough trained archers, but Henry V's Band of Brothers would be shot flat by the troops fro Rourke's Drift.

snowblizz

2014-08-16, 03:52 PM

Spiryt

2014-08-16, 04:01 PM

Blizz: Not entirely so. It was thoroughly popular in the crusades to wear a cloth surcoat over your mail, to protect it from being heated by the sun, but also to have a surprising effect against arrows. There were some tests they showed a cloth surcoat could make an unreasonable difference to arrows, as compared to mail without the surcoat (as far as I remember, wearing the surcoat beneath your armour didn't produce this effect).

Any further info on those tests?

I thing these mentions are about writings by Bahā'al-Dīn, mentioning thick felt used in tha role, which isn't really the same as surcoat.

'Normal' piece of clothing no matter how rugged wouldn't really make much difference, it would have to be layered, felted etc.

Dunno if anyone had done any serious experiments. :smallfrown:

Galloglaich

2014-08-16, 04:30 PM

Pretty much all sabers are derivations of the Chinese dao (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dao_(sword)), which itself comes in various forms, three prominent versions of which (by no means all the variants) are the Yan mao dao (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yan mao dao) "goose-quill saber" which is designed to be able to thrust and fence as well as cut, the Liu ye dao (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liuyedao) "willow leaf saber", and the Niuweidao (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niuweidao) "ox tail saber", as well as the more simplistic Pian Dao (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piandao). Most of these variants were developed in the Ming Dynasty though various forms of the Dao go back to the early Iron Age at least.

http://www.crossna.com/forum/files/m79-1_127.jpg
Yanmaodao

http://sevenstarstrading.com/site/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/3510.jpg
Liuyedao

http://sevenstarstrading.com/site/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/2326.jpg
Niuweidao

Most dao are fairly simple in overall design, being relatively small sabers with a minimal hand protection designed primarily for slashing or draw-cutting from horseback. Originally these were military weapons and they remained popular with the military as the strait-bladed jian became more of a civilian weapon for the upper level bureaucrats and nobles. Some were made with very sophisticated blades sometimes featuring exotic elements like 'rolling pearls'. You can see some of the most sophisticated dao here (http://thomaschen.freewebspace.com/photo2.html) on Thomas Chens page on Chinese swords, as well as a lot of history on dao of all kinds.

http://iseenostranger.com/sites/all/themes/canvas/images/VME_001_talwar1.png
Talwar

http://files.thecobbs.com/a19_lot94_0-530.jpg
Shamshir

http://pirates.missiledine.com/images/swords/arabsaif.jpg
Saif

http://www.oriental-arms.com/photos/items/03/001103/ph-0.jpg
Kilij

The dao was adopted by the various tribes of steppe nomads in the 6th Century and the Mongols spread it throughout Eurasia and South Asia in the 13th, in a basic form sometimes called the 'Turko-Mongol Saber'. The distinct Indian, Turkish, Persian, and Arab variants (Talwar (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talwar), Kilij (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kilij), Shamshir (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shamshir), and Saif) all appeared in the 14th-15th Centuries. Before that Muslim armies were mostly using strait swords.

http://www.swordforum.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=115149&d=1358255242
Szabla

http://www.bookwormdreams.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/shashka.jpg
Shashka
Europeans developed their own variants of the Turko-Mongol version of the Chinese dao, the most important being the Hungarian / Polish szabla (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Szabla) which is similar to and the ancestor of most western cavalry sabers and ceremonial sabers still used (or at least carried in formal dress) by militaries today, and the Ukranian shashka (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shashka) which is notable for having no grip to speak of.

There was also another type of curved saber-like weapon indigenous to Central Europe called the dussack, which has a slightly different lineage. There is also an ancient lineage of big, strait bladed single-edged knives found throughout the Scandinavian, Slavic, and German speaking areas, and in the British Isles, starting with the Sax and then leading to the baurenwehr (http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=de&u=http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bauernwehr&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dhauswehr%26biw%3D1680%26bih%3D905) ('peasants knife') and the hauswehr (house knife), the rugger (a hunting knife kind of like a modern bowie knife) and so on. These are linked to the later messer and falchion family of weapons.

Sabers in general have the following traits: they don't appear in or around Europe, except in the hands of Steppe nomads, until the late medieval or what most people call the Renaissance period. They are (with a few exceptions) cavalry weapons first and foremost, designed for the ride-by-cut. Most true sabers are directly linked to cavalry.

Numerous variations of that were made for infantry, usually either shorter and broader-bladed, and simpler to use like the pian dao.

The cutlass was the European version of this same idea, as was the Norwegian version of the dussack (http://www.hroarr.com/the-dussack/).

For infantry use we also see two-handed 'saber-like' weapons like the kriegsmesser, schweizersäbel in Europe and the miao dao, no dachi, and various others found in East Asia.

Sabers are usually associated with cavalry and therefore somewhat elite weapons, cutlasses are the opposite, issued to untrained recruits and conscripts. Europan made cutlasses often had elaborate hand protection.

Rapiers tend to be associated with rich civilians, though there are also military versions of cut-thrust swords and even true rapiers, which tended to become popular military sidearms even with people who didn't know how to use them in the late 16th and 17th Centuries.

Messers and other larger 'infantry sabers' (though they were strait bladed so not really sabers) were associated with skilled and semi-skilled commoners, who often fought as mercenaries or militia.

There are also backswords and other basket-hilt swords (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basket-hilted_sword) which were used by both cavalry and infantry, by trained and untrained soldiers in different distinct versions.

By the time any of these weapons were being made swords were relatively cheap, rarely costing more than a days wage for people in the top 80% of wealth in society in the late medieval period. As the 16th Century moved into the 17th and then the 18th, fewer people were in what we would call today the middle and working classes so maybe that number goes down to 40% or 20% in some places (i.e. the number of very poor people who couldn't afford even proper clothing was increasing dramatically). So those folks couldn't afford swords of any kind.

This was also true in East and Central Asia in many periods though I'm not an expert on that region.

G

Galloglaich

2014-08-16, 04:35 PM

Any further info on those tests?

I thing these mentions are about writings by Bahā'al-Dīn, mentioning thick felt used in tha role, which isn't really the same as surcoat, among others.

'Normal' piece of clothing no matter how rugged wouldn't really make much difference, it would have to be layered, felted etc.

Dunno if anyone had done any serious experiments. :smallfrown:

Yeah I remember the same tests, or similar ones, which were posted to myarmoury by a guy named James Barker back in 2007, the photos are down now though.

This was his original post:

Chuck and I have tested our jacks against period arrows loosed from an 80 pound bow. We tried broadheads, swallowtail, needle bodkins, and regular bodkin points. Chucks jack is 25 layers of linen and mine is 15 layers with maille under it.

We used hay bails as a rest and loosed from 20 and 15 yards.

Only the bodkin points would go in the others bounced off the jacks. The bodkin point did not penatrate Chuck's jack and it tip barely came tough mine, maybe 1mm, and did no damage to the maille under it.

Images of the bodkins sticking in the jacks and the tiny holes it made on the outside:

(images are now longer available)

I also loosed a few arrows on a 16g breastplate that is unfinished at a demo last year; it had no backing just siting on a little hill. The breast plate swayed a little when hit and got dings but a dead center hit shattered my arrow and bent the arrow head. This was at about 30 yards with an 80 pound bow.

No way for me to verify the authenticity of the tests but the photos did look pretty convincing, but we have no idea what they really did.

It is common in art of 13th-14th Century soldiers and knights to show them with gambesons (not just surcoats) on over their armor.

G

Yora

2014-08-16, 04:41 PM

There's also yatagans, which feature an inward curving edge.

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-n1PmjnYpK_s/TuihPyfQ60I/AAAAAAAABRY/LYGjswVtOZc/s1600/yatagan.jpg

Galloglaich

2014-08-16, 06:07 PM

There's also yatagans, which feature an inward curving edge.

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-n1PmjnYpK_s/TuihPyfQ60I/AAAAAAAABRY/LYGjswVtOZc/s1600/yatagan.jpg

yeah but inward-curving I think puts it in a completely different family from a saber - i.e. the kopis / falcata / kurkri family. It's a very different idea and the latter were mostly infantry weapons.

The advantage of a saber is that when you are riding by on a horse, if you are going fast you basically almost double the impact of a cut - if you are riding full speed at another rider coming toward you at full speed (for a combined speed of 60 - 80 miles an hour or more), you triple or quadruple the impact of a cut. This makes it very hard to hold on to the sword (imagine trying to hit something stationary from the window of a car going 50 miles an hour, let alone 80). It also means that your cut has a greatly enhanced effect. (imagine being hit by a blade going 80 miles an hour)

So you make a sword which is optimized for the draw-cut, really you can just hold it out and it will cut the target as you ride by (if it's a soft target). A draw-cut is much less jarring to your hand. This is also why saber hilts are so often canted in some way.

It turns out that curved swords of this type were also good on the ground in a duel for various reasons, but that's another story.

Here is a nice intro to the basics of saber use. You can see a great example of a ride-by cut at 1:07

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDFPiF3xXCQ

A yataghan by contrast can only safely be used when stopped - the impact is going to be pretty jarring especially if it doesn't go clean through your target, which you can't count on especially as you might hit armor somewhere.

Inward curving blades cause devastating wounds and kill I think quickly, probably more quickly than other types a greater percentage of the time. But I think they were mostly used by infantry.

G

Mr. Mask

2014-08-16, 07:12 PM

Mike: Good post. I second all the points you made.

Blizz: That's why I was curious about the results of a thick leather surcoat over plate.

Spirit: Japan had some thin surcoats, for dress and not for armour. I figured Europe's surcoats could be described as thick felt.

G: Thanks for finding that test, G. I think there might have been another one I was thinking of as well... will have a look.

Anyone know a good study on how combat loads effect movement?

jaydubs

2014-08-16, 07:25 PM

Two-handed agricultural flail, two-section staff, and similar implements. How effective were they in practice? Did they see much use outside of farmers who just happened to have such tools on hand?

Also, here's a surprisingly soothing video I found with a guy threshing with a flail, with someone singing about farming. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5kXm4sa0p4

Knaight

2014-08-16, 08:03 PM

Two-handed agricultural flail, two-section staff, and similar implements. How effective were they in practice? Did they see much use outside of farmers who just happened to have such tools on hand?

Generally speaking, actual weapons are used to fight whenever possible, not farm equipment.

jaydubs

2014-08-16, 08:09 PM

I've seen some some old depictions of them, where there were spikes and such attached to the heads. But I don't know if this was a convenient retrofit of something already on hand, or if they were built specifically to be used as weapons.

It's entirely possible they turned out to be effective enough to warrant being built. I don't know, that's why I'm asking.

Mr. Mask

2014-08-16, 08:19 PM

Incanur

2014-08-16, 09:57 PM

The idea of rapiers being strictly civilian weapons merits complication. For one, it depends on what kind of rapier (http://www.salvatorfabris.org/WhatIsTheRapier2.shtml) you mean. Many Italian "rapier" masters, especially earlier ones, taught a sword suitable for both cut and thrust with a roughly 36-inch blade: basically the iconic 16th-century single-handed sword wielded by countless soldiers and civilians alike. However, even assuming a circa-1600 long English rapier, it's not clear that the weapon wouldn't serve in battle. Sir John Smythe's complaint about such long rapiers in battle in fact constitutes evidence that folks did take them to field. Likewise, Joseph Swetnam considered the long rapier - presumably his four-foot rapier! - fit for the wars. It doesn't appear to have been a common opinion - most 16th/17th-century authors I know of recommended a sword with a roughly 36-inch blade good at both cut and thrust - but at least some folks apparently went to battle with long rapiers. Drawing the damn thing quickly strikes me as the biggest problem - once unsheathed it could do good work in various battlefield situations.

As far as longbows go, Smythe claimed many archers could reach 400+ yards with their flights, but he didn't consider this a useful combat distance. I do think it's key to point out how relatively slow and weak arrows were when contemplating bow versus gun. Bows aren't particularly accurate against moving targets beyond 60-80 yards. Long-range volleys could be quite effective, but most arrows from such volleys simply hit the ground or only inflicted minor wounds.

On the other hand, regardless of what happened in Europe, the bow and gun coexisted as military weapons in Asia throughout the 17th century and even into the 19th in century in China. The evidence suggests Chinese and Manchu archers in particular could compete with gunners - including European gunners - on the 17th-century battlefield. While skill likely mattered the most, composite bows do outperform the English yew bow in efficiency. Short and light composites can shoot light arrows much faster, while longer composites (i.e. the Manchu bow) hit much harder.

Also, Native American bows remained dangerous weapons against even U.S. soldiers through the 19th century. While surely inferior to repeating guns overall and probably inferior to Asian composites, Native American bows nonetheless killed and incapacitated U.S. soldiers.

Galloglaich

2014-08-16, 11:21 PM

Military flails were pretty popular. I don't have any statistics for when and how much they were used, I'm afraid. You do get to see a number of them in illustrations.

Knaight is likely correct in the farm equipment versions being rarely used. Though when people had to make do and lacked weapons, they were probably considered reasonable substitutes (many places ,everyone was required to be armed, so that didn't necessarily happen often).

That's basically correct, I think, but what they would do to 'militarize' them is simply replace the rope with an iron chain, and bolt some iron rings and / or spikes to the business end. The same people who were experienced threshers (some of whom could apparently do 120 beats a minute) would be recruited to use them (including women sometimes).

Apparently they were very effective, they were one of the characteristic weapons of the Czech Hussite heretics who probably killed thousands of knights with them. The flail (both military and simpler agricultural type) does also appear in some of the fight-books, (famously in Paulus Hector Mair as well as some others).

Jaydubs that is a really neat video, I even like the song quite a bit. Something moving about it.

G

jaydubs

2014-08-17, 01:15 AM

Thanks guys. I was able to find a few flail technique videos on youtube (their interpretations of what look like old manuals).

Searching for Hussite flail and Bohemian flail also led me to an article (http://connection.ebscohost.com/c/articles/24415975/bohemian-flail) I'm eager to look at concerning them, though it's behind a wall. Just need to find my old library card to take a look though, so no biggie.

Galloglaich

2014-08-17, 09:12 AM

Zadhadras

2014-08-17, 10:00 AM

And the reason one supplemented the other isn't that one was better than the other as a weapon. Early muskets absolutely where pants compared to the longbow, or even a standard bow, of the era. Against any opponents that didn't have complete protection vs arrow fire they where going to be vastly more effective because they could inflict death and disabling injuries from far beyond the effective range of an early musket, they could also fire at a much higher rate of fire than the early muskets. The problem was it took a very short time period, (days i believe) to train a musketeer, but a lifetime to train a longbowman.

Now later muskets or later armor i'm less clear on, TV and movies show abysmal effective ranges for the weapons and virtually non-existent armor, but i'm not sure exactly how accurate that is.

Muskets are a later development from the arquebus.

Bows aren't machine guns. The effective engagement range of most bows in battle is 50 yards.

Arquebuses hit much, much harder than arrows, have a similar effective range and a similar effective accuracy. There is a reason why the Koreans, a bow based army immediately began to raise units of arquebusiers after the first battles with the Japanese pike and shot armies during the imjin war. There is a reason why the samurai, trained from boyhood switched from bows to arquebuses. Its not just because one can train masses of gunners. There is a reason why mercenary armies of europe, which were hardly mass conscript forces switched from crossbows to arquebuses. there is a reason why the archer armies of the manchu highly valued their korean arquebus regiments and why the janissaries, trained from boyhood, went form being archer/infantry to being handgunners.

Zadhadras

2014-08-17, 10:14 AM

No, it's not black and white, but we can look at some evidence and numbers and make reasonable assessments.

Muskets were never to my knowledge, used to provide barrages at 200 yards. The ball would go that far, but not accurately, and it's much harder to see your hits and adjust fire than with arrows. Typical musketry range was under 100 yards.

The fire rate of muzzle loaders is absolutely lower than bows. So an infantry column crossing 300 yards to engage bowmen would suffer quite a lot of arrows falling on them, where the same column would only take one or possible two volleys of musket fire.

There are lot of reasons the musket replaced the bow. Higher rate of fire wasn't one of them. Nor, really, was range. I think easier training and better performance versus armor are two very good reasons.

It really does take a lot longer to train a good archer. An archer has to develop his muscles, develop a feel for how to elevate to hit at different range, lots of subtle things he needs to do to be really good, and that kind of training takes years and good, strong, healthy men.

Musket drill is just drill. Close order infantry drill can make decent musketeers who can load, level and fire and present bayonets in a comparatively short time. And if they are hungry and cold and retreating from Moscow, the bullets still fly just as fast.

The armies of the Hundred Years War were small. You can train a small group of professional archers, but the armies of the Napoleonic Wars were huge. The English at Agincourt had about 6,000 archers. At Waterloo, Wellington commanded ten times that many English and allies, plus 50,000 Prussians. I doubt England could ever have mustered 100,000 longbowmen.

The breech loading rifle can beat the bow on rate of fire, it can win on range and accuracy, since it has real sights and is a rifle, and it can be sued effectively with the bayonet fixed, unlike muzzle loaders. You can point the weapon at the enemy, fire and reload while keeping a sharp, steel point between you and him. Something bowmen or musketeers couldn't do.

So I do think the longbow may have been able to compete with a Brown Bess, if you could find enough trained archers, but Henry V's Band of Brothers would be shot flat by the troops fro Rourke's Drift.

The problem is, the effective battlefield range of bows is about 50 yards. This is consistent in many cultures, and is even referred to in turkish manuals on bowmen. Bows aren't machine guns or rifles.

During the imjin wars the Japanese were perfectly able to advance against Korean arrows storms and defeat the korean armies in open battles. They would close quickly, soak up the casualties, give a few shattering volleys, then charge. The Koreans commented that they could only give 2 volleys of arrows before the japanese closed into range, and few of those arrows would hit. The koreans were excellent bowmen and their bows was very powerful.

No brains

2014-08-17, 10:39 AM

Uh-oh. It's that time again! Time to play "What's That Weapon?"

http://www.treehugger.com/gadgets/transformers-put-halberd-your-hiking-pole.html

Can anyone find the right name for this blogger's '21st century' shank?

S@tanicoaldo

2014-08-17, 11:00 AM

Is there some kind of rapier or sword that focus on fast movement but it is capable of not only doing trusting attacks but also slash attacks and that is not too big?

Milodiah

2014-08-17, 11:14 AM

Is there some kind of rapier or sword that focus on fast movement but it is capable of not only doing trusting attacks but also slash attacks and that is not too big?

To be fair, a good amount of rapiers *had* cutting edges of some form or other. It's important to remember that rapier =/= fencing foil, they were a bit heftier than what we see nowadays.

jaydubs

2014-08-17, 12:06 PM

Having done some sport fencing, what kind of real sword would those techniques work best with? Small sword?

Spiryt

2014-08-17, 12:21 PM

Is there some kind of rapier or sword that focus on fast movement but it is capable of not only doing trusting attacks but also slash attacks and that is not too big?

Pretty much every sword ever tended to 'focus on fast movement' - so this is pretty vague statement to be honest. :smallwink:

And yeah, most rapiers could slash adequately, even though some spit-roast like, pure stabbing ones were popular too.

Knaight

2014-08-17, 12:26 PM

Is there some kind of rapier or sword that focus on fast movement but it is capable of not only doing trusting attacks but also slash attacks and that is not too big?

Just about any sword focuses on fast movement to some extent - you need speed, and even things that look cumbersome to the lay observer (e.g. most two handed swords) often move very quickly in practice. With that said, the side sword comes to mind here - it was contemporary with the rapier, slashes just fine, and has a lower width from edge to edge than the typical arming sword, though it's wider from flat to flat.

Galloglaich

2014-08-17, 01:36 PM

The problem is, the effective battlefield range of bows is about 50 yards. This is consistent in many cultures, and is even referred to in turkish manuals on bowmen. Bows aren't machine guns or rifles.

That is dead wrong, what you are thinking of is the hunting range or the range for shooting an individual target. But that is not the main way bows were used on the battlefield, they were typically used (in all cultures) to shoot en-masse into an area with plunging shots. The effective range for this was from 200 to around 300 meters or more, depending on the bow and the particular unit. This was routinely done in naval combat, from horse archer squadrons, and infantry archers using longbows.

During the imjin wars the Japanese were perfectly able to advance against Korean arrows storms and defeat the korean armies in open battles. They would close quickly, soak up the casualties, give a few shattering volleys, then charge. The Koreans commented that they could only give 2 volleys of arrows before the japanese closed into range, and few of those arrows would hit. The koreans were excellent bowmen and their bows was very powerful.

That is an interesting anecdote, but it doesn't entirely match the European historical record, bows remained in use in parallel with guns for centuries. The Ottomans were still using them effectively, particularly in naval combat, right up to the era of the imjin wars. The English too, were using longbows well into the 16th Century, the extraordinary bows found in the wreck of the Mary Rose (1545) being a good example.

G

Galloglaich

2014-08-17, 01:39 PM

Just about any sword focuses on fast movement to some extent - you need speed, and even things that look cumbersome to the lay observer (e.g. most two handed swords) often move very quickly in practice. With that said, the side sword comes to mind here - it was contemporary with the rapier, slashes just fine, and has a lower width from edge to edge than the typical arming sword, though it's wider from flat to flat.

Agreed across the board, the slow ponderous sword is an RPG / gamer / pop culture myth, and a depressingly persistent one. The sidesword also occured to me, there were also a lot of military cut-thrust swords which were similar to sideswords in many respect but a bit more tough in design and make, which also kind of fit this idea, as do a lot of the lighter hand-and-half longswords, and some of the estocs like the Polihs Kanzer, which is something like a military version of a smallsword.

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

And as incannur said, rapiers did actually get some battlefield use, and some rapiers were made a little stronger for that purpose.

G

Knaight

2014-08-17, 01:55 PM

Agreed across the board, the slow ponderous sword is an RPG / gamer / pop culture myth, and a depressingly persistent one. The sidesword also occured to me, there were also a lot of military cut-thrust swords which were similar to sideswords in many respect but a bit more tough in design and make, which also kind of fit this idea, as do a lot of the lighter hand-and-half longswords, and some of the estocs like the Polihs Kanzer, which is something like a military version of a smallsword.
It looks like it's getting shed decently - at least within video games, swords tend to be the fastest weapon, and they often have pretty decent speed (even if the presented techniques are often pretty dubious). Sadly, I can't say the same thing about axes and spears, even fairly light, short spears in use in two hands, which have absolutely no business being slow and ponderous.

Galloglaich

2014-08-17, 01:58 PM

It looks like it's getting shed decently - at least within video games, swords tend to be the fastest weapon, and they often have pretty decent speed (even if the presented techniques are often pretty dubious). Sadly, I can't say the same thing about axes and spears, even fairly light, short spears in use in two hands, which have absolutely no business being slow and ponderous.

Spears are one of the most underrated weapons in games of all kinds.

Most games I've seen still show especially swords held in two hands as being very slow but doing a lot of damage. The reality is a small falchion might actually do more damage (i.e. cut better) than a lot of longswords, but the latter have the reach speed and versatility that gives you an edge in a fight. Not that falchions are slow either.

G

Knaight

2014-08-17, 02:13 PM

Spears are one of the most underrated weapons in games of all kinds.

Considering that spears have a tendency to not even show up, often even in games which claim to be fairly realistic, I'd agree with that. I'd also agree with the two handed sword caveat - those are still often portrayed as pretty slow, as well as often being portrayed as so heavy they can only be used by people who look like Schwarzenegger. Still, as regards one handed swords in particular, I'm generally seeing representations of them as a fast weapon, and the whole "club with edges" nonsense is fading.

Carl

2014-08-17, 03:05 PM

Brother Oni

2014-08-17, 04:50 PM

Much of the game depictions of swords comes from a tendency to greatly overestimate their mass. A Roman Gladius for example only weigh's about as much as one of these (http://www.wineboxwarehouse.com.au/core/media/media.nl?id=200550&c=92155&h=21396f1efe1b00aa6673) filled to the top of the cap with water. And Kids like to hit each other over the head with these to not inconsiderable effect all the time.

A large chunk of this is due to families donating overly heavy ceremonial or display weapons to museums, who mistook them for actual fighting weapons. Thankfully finds of actual combat weapons are reversing this trend, even if popular culture hasn't caught up.

As for the effectiveness of hitting someone with a plastic bottle filled with liquid, I know there was a local news story in Hong Kong quite a few years back where a frustrated mother disciplined her ~10 year old child by hitting him over the head with a half full plastic cooking oil bottle (~5L volume I think).
Unfortunately the shifting liquid made the blow much heavier than she intended and caused a delayed bleed in the boy's brain. A few hours later, he was rushed to hospital by his frantic mother, unconscious and unresponsive, where he later died.

Edit: There was a game, Bushido Blade (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bushido_Blade_%28video_game%29) for the PS1, which tried to have accurately modelled weapons in the game, among other more realistic mechanics. Unfortunately the PAL version ran much more slowly than the NTSC versions, which led me to believe the weights given in the game were far too light.

fusilier

2014-08-17, 04:52 PM

Is there some kind of rapier or sword that focus on fast movement but it is capable of not only doing trusting attacks but also slash attacks and that is not too big?

Do a search for "cut-and-thrust" sword. It's kind of a generic term but it should bring up some good results.

Carl

2014-08-17, 04:53 PM

:smalleek: of course perfectly plausible. Though the bottle i the link is a 600ml, (0.6L, or just slightly over 1 pint), bottle.

fusilier

2014-08-17, 04:58 PM

Muskets and bows-

I would have to track down the source again, but I think there are references to shipboard North African sharpshooters (may have been Ottoman) in the late 1500s using both bows and muskets. The musket was used for long range, and the bow for rapid fire close range work.

EDIT -- I.e. an individual was armed with both bow and musket.

Incanur

2014-08-17, 04:59 PM

But that is not the main way bows were used on the battlefield, they were typically used (in all cultures) to shoot en-masse into an area with plunging shots.

I don't know about this. For example, the Burgundian Bertrandon de la Broquière traveled to Ottoman lands in 1432-1433 in order to gain information about the Ottomans that would enable a crusade against them. He wrote that Ottoman "archers don't shoot from as far away as ours" and "can't shoot as far or as strongly as ours." (Here (http://books.google.com/books?id=A9YWAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA300&lpg=PA300&dq=de+la+Broqui%C3%A8re+%2B+ottoman+archery&source=bl&ots=5Hj3WArQN1&sig=oMp-r91NNYF-Ev78Jj_d4zWppM8&hl=en&sa=X&ei=5BLxU4mzGM6eyATtioCIAw&ved=0CDMQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=de%20la%20Broqui%C3%A8re%20%2B%20ottoman%20arche ry&f=false) is an older translation.) As Turkish composite bows in fact can and did shoot much farther than English-style yew bows, either de la Broquière was just being an idiot or he never saw Ottoman archers shooting at extreme range because they more often shot at shorter distance. English archers certainly shot at 200+ yards as you describe - Sir John Smythe apparently thought 240 yards maximum effective range. But that was only one way to use the bow. As another example, Manchu mounted archery by most accounts focused on close-range shooting. And then you have Miyamoto Musashi's claim that the bow was unsatisfactory for shooting at enemies beyond 40 yards!

That is an interesting anecdote, but it doesn't entirely match the European historical record, bows remained in use in parallel with guns for centuries. The Ottomans were still using them effectively, particularly in naval combat, right up to the era of the imjin wars. The English too, were using longbows well into the 16th Century, the extraordinary bows found in the wreck of the Mary Rose (1545) being a good example.

The Japanese used bows as well as matchlocks in the Imjin Wars, though their matchlocks stole the spotlight. And while the Koreans indeed had good bows, the Japanese troops typically had higher morale and more experience, particularly in the early stages of the conflict. The Japanese additionally had quality armor, so it's hardly surprising and fully consistent with 16th-century European warfare that arquebuses mattered so much. It's fascinating how similar European and Japanese warfare became in the second half of the 16th century: pike and shot dominated.

But again, bows remain potent in China throughout the 17th century and possible into the 19th.

Mr Beer

2014-08-17, 05:35 PM

Much of the game depictions of swords comes from a tendency to greatly overestimate their mass.

Yep. I'm sure we've all handled swords and been initially surprised at how light they are.

EDIT

Super heavy fantasy weapons are a pet peeve of mine, I remember reading a D&D novel as a child (this is a long time ago) and reading about undead horseman wielding one handed battleaxes "so heavy a normal man couldn't lift them" - note these things weren't particularly OTT , I guess about ST:16 in AD&D terms.

Anyway even at the age of 10 or whatever I was thinking "well I'm sure a normal man can lift a hundred pounds off the ground and I'm sure axes don't weigh more than 5lbs, so that seems unlikely".

Knaight

2014-08-17, 05:47 PM

Super heavy fantasy weapons are a pet peeve of mine, I remember reading a D&D novel as a child (this is a long time ago) and reading about undead horseman wielding one handed battleaxes "so heavy a normal man couldn't lift them" - note these things weren't particularly OTT , I guess about ST:16 in AD&D terms.

That's a pretty routine depiction in a lot of places (the super strong person uses a weapon so heavy that typical person can't lift it), particularly in mythology. It just seems like it should obviously have stayed there, and it not doing so is a pet peeve of mine. Lets say someone does have a hammer so heavy a normal person couldn't even lift it - it's going to be useless as a weapon. They get one swing, and if it's dodged anyone fighting them with basically any other melee weapon can easily get in there and kill them.

AgentPaper

2014-08-17, 05:55 PM

That's a pretty routine depiction in a lot of places (the super strong person uses a weapon so heavy that typical person can't lift it), particularly in mythology. It just seems like it should obviously have stayed there, and it not doing so is a pet peeve of mine. Lets say someone does have a hammer so heavy a normal person couldn't even lift it - it's going to be useless as a weapon. They get one swing, and if it's dodged anyone fighting them with basically any other melee weapon can easily get in there and kill them.

I think I remember this being a discussion before. Yes, a normal sword used by a normal person weighing 50 lbs is absurd, but if you really did have the strength of ten men, why wouldn't you use a sword that was, if not ten times heavier than normal, at least a few times larger and heavier? Your blows would have more weight behind them allowing them to do more damage, especially against armor, and it could be significantly longer, giving you a great reach advantage as well. As long as you could still swing it around just as fast as a normal person can swing their normal sword, having a sword that's heavier than what a normal person can lift makes perfect sense.

Carl

2014-08-17, 05:59 PM

Yep. I'm sure we've all handled swords and been initially surprised at how light they are.

EDIT

Super heavy fantasy weapons are a pet peeve of mine, I remember reading a D&D novel as a child (this is a long time ago) and reading about undead horseman wielding one handed battleaxes "so heavy a normal man couldn't lift them" - note these things weren't particularly OTT , I guess about ST:16 in AD&D terms.

Anyway even at the age of 10 or whatever I was thinking "well I'm sure a normal man can lift a hundred pounds off the ground and I'm sure axes don't weigh more than 5lbs, so that seems unlikely".

I've never actually handled an authentic weapon, a couple of replica's of dubious authenticity, but that's it. But i know my physics so i can ushually figure out an equivalency in terms of a common item.

Also the idea of a 100Lb battleaxe isn't totally out there, square cube law means that mass increases a lot faster than dimensions. Assuming Steel or Iron composition a simple design of two half circles for the cutting ends, joined by a rectangular piece for head width and a thickness of 3 inches, (i.e. cartoon thick), i can make a 100Lb head with a total width of 42cm and a height of 20cm.

Image with an approximation in front of a, (to scale), 2ft wide by 6ft high slab representing a person:

http://s28.postimg.org/8j5xvpx1l/battleaxe.jpg (http://postimg.org/image/8j5xvpx1l/)

Knaight

2014-08-17, 06:05 PM

Mr Beer

2014-08-17, 06:07 PM

I think I remember this being a discussion before. Yes, a normal sword used by a normal person weighing 50 lbs is absurd, but if you really did have the strength of ten men, why wouldn't you use a sword that was, if not ten times heavier than normal, at least a few times larger and heavier? Your blows would have more weight behind them allowing them to do more damage, especially against armor, and it could be significantly longer, giving you a great reach advantage as well. As long as you could still swing it around just as fast as a normal person can swing their normal sword, having a sword that's heavier than what a normal person can lift makes perfect sense.

Yep, however these things were stronger than normal humans but not 20x as strong. So it was silly in context.

I've never actually handled an authentic weapon, a couple of replica's of dubious authenticity, but that's it. But i know my physics so i can ushually figure out an equivalency in terms of a common item.

Also the idea of a 100Lb battleaxe isn't totally out there, square cube law means that mass increases a lot faster than dimensions. Assuming Steel or Iron composition a simple design of two half circles for the cutting ends, joined by a rectangular piece for head width and a thickness of 3 inches, (i.e. cartoon thick), i can make a 100Lb head with a total width of 42cm and a height of 20cm.

It's out there for anything that doesn't have significantly super human strength.

I think a good estimate for max human strength is 4x human normal. So if a one-handed battle axe weighs say 4lbs, maybe the strongest guy in Europe can use a 16lbs axe (but maybe not) in one hand. They aren't going to use a 100lbs axe though, even though they could probably pick it up in one hand and swing it clumsily and slowly a few times.

Carl

2014-08-17, 06:15 PM

It's out there for anything that doesn't have significantly super human strength.

I meant it wouldn't be unreasonably large, which is what i thought you where saying originally ;).

Brother Oni

2014-08-17, 06:31 PM

That's a pretty routine depiction in a lot of places (the super strong person uses a weapon so heavy that typical person can't lift it), particularly in mythology. It just seems like it should obviously have stayed there, and it not doing so is a pet peeve of mine. Lets say someone does have a hammer so heavy a normal person couldn't even lift it - it's going to be useless as a weapon. They get one swing, and if it's dodged anyone fighting them with basically any other melee weapon can easily get in there and kill them.

Depends on the depiction. Dian Wei of Three Kingdoms fame was famed for being able to wield two very heavy ji (halberds) from horseback (each weighed 40 jin or ~10kg), so I presume it was more he held onto them and let the speed of the horse do all the work in a sort of ride-by-slashing.
This was noted by a number of generals and at the Battle of Wancheng, they ambushed Dian Wei while he was dismounted, although contemporary accounts and Romance of the Three Kingdoms both mention that he put up a spirited defence with his ji even on foot.

At the absurd mythology level, the Monkey King's Gold Tipped Staff weighed 13,500 catties (a bit less than 8 tonnes) and a notable part of his story has him looking for a suitable weapon, since everything he tried felt too light and flimsy for him.

As mentioned before on earlier incarnations of this thread, the optimal choice for an inhumanly strong person would be to throw rocks (or other projectiles) at things.

Mr Beer

2014-08-17, 06:48 PM

I meant it wouldn't be unreasonably large, which is what i thought you where saying originally ;).

Oh OK, I understand. Well yeah that is true, weapon axes I've seen have small metal heads and wooden shafts. It would be easy to make an 80cm handle of thick iron and a massive double bladed head on it that would weigh 100lbs. You could then taunt 40K fans by inviting them to strike an attacking pose with it, in the manner of their favourite Space Marine. So it's not like it would be completely useless.

Mr Beer

2014-08-17, 06:51 PM

As mentioned before on earlier incarnations of this thread, the optimal choice for an inhumanly strong person would be to throw rocks (or other projectiles) at things.

I was inspired by the video of a guy trick-shooting arrows extremely rapidly into a chainmail target, I think someone estimated they were using a 30lbs pull. So a super strength person who trained for it could presumably rapid fire arrows in the same way but with more force than the strongest real life longbow.

Carl

2014-08-17, 07:07 PM

High Weight Javelins might be even worse, hard to say though as i couldn't dig up any reliable velocity/mass figures for war javelins.

Mr. Mask

2014-08-17, 07:22 PM

I think a good estimate for max human strength is 4x human normal. So if a one-handed battle axe weighs say 4lbs, maybe the strongest guy in Europe can use a 16lbs axe (but maybe not) in one hand. Funnily enough, Arnold Schwarzenegger used a sword about that heavy in the Conan movie. Though I think he used it with two hands.

They aren't going to use a 100lbs axe though, even though they could probably pick it up in one hand and swing it clumsily and slowly a few times. I've known some body builders to train with a 40 pound sledge in one hand, smacking truck tires, but 100 pounds would be a bit much for the biggest of them.

I was inspired by the video of a guy trick-shooting arrows extremely rapidly into a chainmail target, I think someone estimated they were using a 30lbs pull. So a super strength person who trained for it could presumably rapid fire arrows in the same way but with more force than the strongest real life longbow. Yeah, that would be a good idea. It should also get around the problem of a super strong guy not being super heavy, where throwing stuff as hard as they could might catapult them backwards.

Mr Beer

2014-08-17, 07:29 PM

High Weight Javelins might be even worse, hard to say though as i couldn't dig up any reliable velocity/mass figures for war javelins.

Ooh, they could fling whaling harpoons at massed attackers, brutal!

Funnily enough, Arnold Schwarzenegger used a sword about that heavy in the Conan movie. Though I think he used it with two hands.

I did not know that, interesting.

I've known some body builders to train with a 40 pound sledge in one hand, smacking truck tires, but 100 pounds would be a bit much for the biggest of them.

While bodybuilders are strong by definition, I was thinking of world class strongmen who would be the best athletes for this feat of strength. Those guys can hoist 400lbs overhead for reps, I am confident that they could get a one-handed swing or two of a 100lbs hammer or similar weapon, though not in any way that would be combat useful.

Yeah, that would be a good idea. It should also get around the problem of a super strong guy not being super heavy, where throwing stuff as hard as they could might catapult them backwards.

No whaling harpoons then :(

Mr. Mask

2014-08-17, 07:41 PM

While bodybuilders are strong by definition, I was thinking of world class strongmen who would be the best athletes for this feat of strength. Those guys can hoist 400lbs overhead for reps, I am confident that they could get a one-handed swing or two of a 100lbs hammer or similar weapon, though not in any way that would be combat useful. They might be able to wield the poleaxe from Heck (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RX2Pu-j8x-0), or make do with a mere 50 pound sledgehammer to carry into battle.

No whaling harpoons then :( Heheh. Well, they could simply not throw as hard as they could, or accept the fact they'll put their face in the dirt after a good, hard throw. If they brace themself well on the ground, they can get a good deal of strength in the throw despite their lack of weight.

Mr Beer

2014-08-17, 07:44 PM

They might be able to wield the poleaxe from Heck (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RX2Pu-j8x-0), or make do with a mere 50 pound sledgehammer to carry into battle.

I think a 50lbs sledge would be too heavy for combat, even two handed and even wielded by world class strongmen.

Heheh. Well, they could simply not throw as hard as they could, or accept the fact they'll put their face in the dirt after a good, hard throw. If they brace themself well on the ground, they can get a good deal of strength in the throw despite their lack of weight.

See now I'm imagining a vertical platform with braces that they stand against while hurling absurdly large metal spears at the opposing army.

AgentPaper

2014-08-17, 07:51 PM

Mr. Mask

2014-08-17, 08:01 PM

50lb sledge: After seeing some strongmen work with a 40 pounder in one hand, I'm not decided on that issue (of course, able to use in battle and optimal/not stupid to use in battle are very different things).

Spear-Throwing Platform: Yeah, you could rig something like that. Would give you a free shot while the enemy rolls about laughing.

Heavy Armour: I considered heavy armour, but armour tends to make balancing a little awkward (makes you feel top-heavy). You could just weight up the legs since that isn't the problem it would normally be, to balance it out (though if you walk into a swamp, you will be sunk). Making your guy invincible to anything short of artillery is still a great idea, regardless, and is likely to help with weight problems even if there are balance issues, so it's a good idea.

Mr Beer

2014-08-17, 08:18 PM

If you're absurdly strong but not appropriately heavy, the obvious answer is to just make yourself heavy. Kit yourself out in plate armor, as thick as you can make it without restricting mobility too much, then go to town with your oversized claymore. If someone in normal (but high quality) full-plate is nigh-invulnerable, then someone with twice as much or more protection should basically be an unstoppable force on the battlefield. Maybe not winning wars on his own, but the perfect leader to spearhead a charge.

Yep and this trend is extremely noticeable in GURPS if you have an unusually strong character in a fantasy setting. It makes sense to load them with a full suit of chainmail underneath the heaviest possible plate mail. If you have actual superhuman ST but not durability it makes sense to go heavier again.

Steel plate is something like 1.5mm, correct? So if it scales up in one dimension, presumably a 10x human strength person could have 15mm plate. Or even if a plate wearer is over human normal to start with, let's say 10mm plate. I guess that would stop just about any personal weapon in a pseudo-mediaeval setting.

Incanur

2014-08-17, 09:09 PM

Steel plate is something like 1.5mm, correct? So if it scales up in one dimension, presumably a 10x human strength person could have 15mm plate. Or even if a plate wearer is over human normal to start with, let's say 10mm plate. I guess that would stop just about any personal weapon in a pseudo-mediaeval setting.

Thicker plates of circa-1500 armors were often a bit more than 1.5mm, while thinner ones could be less. 3mm of hardened steel already grants near invulnerability to non-gunpowder weapon wielded by humans, so 10mm should be more than enough. Loading armor onto superstrong warriors makes sense, though the sheer thickness would become a problem at some point and the extra weight might well still slow them down. For example, a 10x thickness full harness would weigh 500+lbs. It's harder to accelerate 700lbs than 200lbs (assuming a 200lb person)..

Carl

2014-08-17, 09:11 PM

Bear in mind overbalancing is more a factor of traction limit's, so long as you don't do something stupid with a blow you can resist any attempt to pull you over via the same strength, so as long as the force isn't trying to lift you off the ground, (reducing mass), it becomes a factor of how much force you can transfer to the ground. Friction based traction is only slightly dependent on area, but mechanical traction is often very dependent on it, so broad heft plate boots that increase your foot area 3 or 4 times with suitable spikes or whatever could really positively effect things. And the added weight would be just a bonus, though likely not too restrictive either.

Knaight

2014-08-17, 09:11 PM

Depends on the depiction. Dian Wei of Three Kingdoms fame was famed for being able to wield two very heavy ji (halberds) from horseback (each weighed 40 jin or ~10kg), so I presume it was more he held onto them and let the speed of the horse do all the work in a sort of ride-by-slashing.

Chinese literature is notorious for that particular exaggeration. Dian Wei probably was ridiculously strong, but I'd take the specific weights with a grain of salt.

Carl

2014-08-17, 09:28 PM

Okay got a question of my own. How reasonable would a short hafted spear with a spear head long enough and broad enough be for use as a slashing weapon as well as stabbing, counter armor effectiveness notwithstanding, (armor isn't really a factor tbh for the purpose/setting).

Incanur

2014-08-17, 09:32 PM

Chinese polearms did get up to 72kg (http://mandarinmansion.com/articles/jiangnan-qing-military-examination-results%20medium.pdf) (159lbs), but only for examinations rather than combat. (Only 132lbs according to this video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XqnulYO5890).)

Galloglaich

2014-08-17, 09:36 PM

Chinese literature is notorious for that particular exaggeration. Dian Wei probably was ridiculously strong, but I'd take the specific weights with a grain of salt.

yep.

Regarding bows, point blank range was always preferred if you could get away with it because it helps especially with armor-piercing, and if you need to target a specific individual the range Musashi was referring to is about the limit with a self bow (crossbows can do quite a bit better than that) but the point is that the maximum effective battlefield range is A LOT more than 50 meters let alone 50 feet. The Mongols and the Turks both went into enormous detail about this in their documents and chronicles, (the Mongols actually used two separate bows one for long and one for short range) the British actually trained for it by shooting at clouts, which the English Warbow society still does (incidentally their records, which are online show maximum ranges well over 300 meters). Anyway, I don't really care... look it up for yourself if you want to know the reality of it.

Regarding hand weapons of more than 10 pounds... the VAST majority, as in more than 95%, of hand weapons meant to be used in one hand in all cultures all around the world going back thousands of years to the Neolthic weigh less than 4 pounds, most average between 2 and 3 pounds. Axes, maces, hammers, swords, they all weighed around the same. It's remarkably consistent. Two-handed weapons rarely weigh much more than that either unless they are over 5 feet long, and even then it's unusual. A 100 pound weapon, or even a 40 pound weapon, is just stupid. As in, you are lucky if you can even speak properly and remember to breathe stupid.

The reason is really simple. You may want to hit somebody with a 40 pound hammer and look forward to how cool it will be or how neat is seems in a comic book, but in real life the other guy can just cut off your hand or stab you in the face before you even get close enough to HULK SMASH. It would only work if you were killing children or something, or if you were made of adamantium like in the comic books. Real fighting by trained killers is fast. Really fast. It's like the difference between fighting in the old 60's batman show vs. MMA.

There IS a big difference between 'could carry it into battle' and 'is it stupid' because in the real world, stupid ideas on the battlefield got weeded out pretty fast and ended up in the grave with their owners.

And now for something completely different: another controversial subject. German warship with multiple large (apparently bronze) cannon sticking out 'broad-side', from the Bern Chronicle, circa 1480, probably depicting an earlier event though I can't read the text, with real big bow and stern guns as well.

I would say that is a Cog, some of the others look like that weird ship with the name I can't remember any more that the mentioned in the Hamburg Chronicle.

http://www.e-codices.unifr.ch/manuscripts/e-codices/film/bbb-Mss-hh-I0016/bbb-Mss-hh-I0016_586.jpg

The gun on the bow of the big ship has a range / elevation device such as you see on the land-based cannon from this era.

The smaller ships also seem to have bow-cannons and cannon sticking out amidships.

G

Mr Beer

2014-08-17, 09:59 PM

Thicker plates of circa-1500 armors were often a bit more than 1.5mm, while thinner ones could be less. 3mm of hardened steel already grants near invulnerability to non-gunpowder weapon wielded by humans, so 10mm should be more than enough. Loading armor onto superstrong warriors makes sense, though the sheer thickness would become a problem at some point and the extra weight might well still slow them down. For example, a 10x thickness full harness would weigh 500+lbs. It's harder to accelerate 700lbs than 200lbs (assuming a 200lb person)..

I think under certain battlefield conditions, a person of capable of donning a 500lbs suit of platemail and running in it might profitably forgo any weapons in favour of sprinting violently through the opposition.

Incanur

2014-08-17, 10:47 PM

Regarding bows, point blank range was always preferred if you could get away with it because it helps especially with armor-piercing, and if you need to target a specific individual the range Musashi was referring to is about the limit with a self bow (crossbows can do quite a bit better than that) but the point is that the maximum effective battlefield range is A LOT more than 50 meters let alone 50 feet.

It's unclear whether Musashi was talking about accuracy against individual targets, armor penetration, or something else. Obviously the effective range of historical bows exceeded 200 yards. I'm only trying to suggest that shower shooting at long range wasn't always the best tactic. Various history books and websites still blithely claim that horse archers engaged at 300-500 yards and so on. While that's certainly possible, shooting at such range requires considerable skill. It's possible to miss entire formations at 200+ yards. (See this thread (http://www.fioredeiliberi.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=20161). Also Marbot's description (http://books.google.com/books?id=RL1fAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA634&lpg=PA634&dq=cupids+%2B+marbot&source=bl&ots=4rjcPJ9abu&sig=pEjlwZcZl2N_14DKg-vwe5pQsFQ&hl=en&sa=X&ei=on7xU5H6N9CBygSn8ILgAw&ved=0CCoQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=arrow&f=false) for early 19th-century horse archers. ) Even under the best circumstances most arrows shot at long range aren't going to accomplish much. At times archers were better off shooting a closer range. Even Fourquevaux noted the tactic of shooting from as close range as possible with crossbows and bows as a way to inflict more casualties against armored foes.

Carl

2014-08-17, 10:54 PM

A lot would come down to the amount of armor, as Harold Saxon shows you find a chink and you can kill or disable someone no problem, and older armor was generally less protective where it did cover from what i know and what's been said here, and rarely prior to a certain point where entire armies equipped with armor of sufficient coverage and/or protection, (Again based on what i allready know and what was said here), so arrow effective range likely decreased over time.

EDIT: Also the thick dense showers of arrows, might well have had a suppression effect and effect on morale, the troops didn't have to suffer massive losses, just believe they could.

fusilier

2014-08-18, 02:08 AM

And now for something completely different: another controversial subject. German warship with multiple large (apparently bronze) cannon sticking out 'broad-side', from the Bern Chronicle, circa 1480, probably depicting an earlier event though I can't read the text, with real big bow and stern guns as well.

I would say that is a Cog, some of the others look like that weird ship with the name I can't remember any more that the mentioned in the Hamburg Chronicle.

The gun on the bow of the big ship has a range / elevation device such as you see on the land-based cannon from this era.

The smaller ships also seem to have bow-cannons and cannon sticking out amidships.

G

The guns do appear to be larger than swivel guns, but still aren't terribly big if they are in scale with the people on board the ships. Six pounders at most, although most look even smaller. The bow guns do look a bit bigger (especially on the one oared vessel), although relying upon an image where there are obvious issues of scale doesn't really help. Heavy cannons were occasionally experimented with on ships during the 15th century, but until the development of a naval carriage capable of handling the recoil (circa 1500) they were rare.

Is there any more information about this scene? It looks like a depiction of riverine action?

Brother Oni

2014-08-18, 09:40 AM

English archers certainly shot at 200+ yards as you describe - Sir John Smythe apparently thought 240 yards maximum effective range.

Just to support this statement, there was a Royal Proclamation in 1542 where the minimum target distance for anybody over the age of 24 was 220 yards. I'm not sure whether it was an actual Act though (the reference I have is Tudor Royal Proclamations, volume I. P.313. Westminster, 31 August, 34 Henry VIII).

I was inspired by the video of a guy trick-shooting arrows extremely rapidly into a chainmail target, I think someone estimated they were using a 30lbs pull. So a super strength person who trained for it could presumably rapid fire arrows in the same way but with more force than the strongest real life longbow.

Might be easier to use a crossbow - being able to hand span a 1,200lb draw siege bow would most certainly be intimidating, let alone doing it at the rate of a typical hand spanned crossbow (~4 shots per minute).

High Weight Javelins might be even worse, hard to say though as i couldn't dig up any reliable velocity/mass figures for war javelins.

A Roman pilum had a length of ~2m and a total weight of between 2-5kg depending on the era. Velocity I'm not sure on, but modern replicas have an effective range of 15-20m with a maximum of 33m.

Chinese literature is notorious for that particular exaggeration. Dian Wei probably was ridiculously strong, but I'd take the specific weights with a grain of salt.

Oh most certainly, but at least we have an absolute upper maximum.

Galloglaich

2014-08-18, 10:33 AM

The guns do appear to be larger than swivel guns, but still aren't terribly big if they are in scale with the people on board the ships. Six pounders at most, although most look even smaller. The bow guns do look a bit bigger (especially on the one oared vessel), although relying upon an image where there are obvious issues of scale doesn't really help. Heavy cannons were occasionally experimented with on ships during the 15th century, but until the development of a naval carriage capable of handling the recoil (circa 1500) they were rare.

Is there any more information about this scene? It looks like a depiction of riverine action?

I don't know, the ship is carrying a Hapsburg / Holy Roman Empire flag. The chronicle is from Bern but they sometimes depict events from all over Europe (and beyond). It might be a riverine scene or an estuary or the coast. It might be possible to identify the town based on the churches, large buildings and towers within, but I don't recognize it. I may look at the Nuremberg chronicle to see if it matches one in there. I have some friends who could probably read it for me, but that depends if they get interested in it or not.

The guns ion the big ship actually look about the same diameter in bow, sides and stern. On the smaller rowed ship it looks like the gun in the bow is much biger than the gun in the side. I'm not sure what you mean about gun carriages but they had wheeled carriages for guns as early as the turn of the 14th / 15th Centuries, you see them in books like the bellifortis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bellifortis) on the so-called Czech houfnice. Bellifortis has strange art but guns on wheeled carriages appear in multiple 15th Century art in great and realistic detail as you probably know.

http://www.medievalwarfare.info/photos/rouen.jpg

The guns don't look too small to do damage to me, there are a lot of other images in the same chronicle of smaller river boats with what are clearly relatively small guns (30-50mm caliber), but these look bigger. I think those are big enough to sink a ship with a few volleys, I don't think you need a massive bombard to sink a ship. Admittedly, I don't really know and couldn't say what the cut off in caliber would really be, I think it would depend on the power of the gun as well as the caliber - but I think if you can punch a hole through a hull you can sink a ship, and I know guns of medium caliber can pierce an inch or two of wooden planks. You can also of course sink a ship by setting fire to it.

I think a gun like this 75mm falcon (similar to a 'feldschlange') can punch a hole through the hull of a 14th or 15th century ship, especially one of those smaller ones.

http://www.merlinprints.com/large/Arty04.jpg

G

Galloglaich

2014-08-18, 11:37 AM

Asked my friend Jürg, who is smarter than me, and he figured out pretty quickly:

I cheated. I looked up the Index, and it says "Sigismund's Fleet outside Venice".

Now that I know that, it does say "Venedig" in the first line.

So that would be the Venice Lagoon and a German sea-going fleet, possibly from just across the Adriatic. Emperor Sigismund was also King of Hungary which at that time included Croatia. Apparently he went to war with Venice in 1403.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sigismund,_Holy_Roman_Emperor#King_of_Hungary

Incidentally, this is apparently yet another example of European vs. European Crusades, as Sigismund apparently led an army of 50,000 'Crusaders' to attack Croatia around this time, according to the wiki.

G

Galloglaich

2014-08-18, 12:12 PM

fusilier

2014-08-18, 12:26 PM

fusilier

2014-08-18, 12:35 PM

bombards and heavy mortars used at the Siege of Calais in 1347

http://books.google.com/books?ei=P8cqU_aaHJOthQfckYFQ&id=JPRBAAAAYAAJ&dq=%22The+first+Employment+of%22&q=siege+of+calis#v=onepage&q=calais&f=false

G

A reference from 1894. Ok, why should anybody believe that's any more valid than the numerous other claims to that time period that have been debunked?

EDIT--
"The chronicles mention the English using artillery against the town, firing small stones a few ounces in weight."

From:
http://www.historyworld.net/wrldhis/plaintexthistories.asp?historyid=ac13

Nothing about shipboard artillery. Probably the artillery was transported to France by ship, but was used on land.

Galloglaich

2014-08-18, 02:35 PM

In that case the oared ships are probably supposed to be galleys, which by the 1480s the larger ones were certainly carrying bombards on their bows.

However, the picture is clearly fanciful -- the illustrator had obviously not seen Venice (which wasn't walled), and the ships are highly stylized. While the elevation method was in use in that time (circa 1480) on land carriages, it's use on ships I have not seen attested to at that time.

Well you are looking at an image of it in 1483, though I can understand why you would resist the evidence of your own eyes in this case.

The Chronicle is not fanciful so much as stylized. All the towns, and people, are portrayed more or less the same stylized manner, the only difference being key landmarks and the flags, badges and banners people wear, as well as a few cosmetic details. That isn't to say they didn't know one from another, the Nuremberg Chronicle had a more detailed depiction (http://www.italianrenaissance.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Nuremberg_chronicles_Venice1.png) of Venice not long after, Venice is just being portrayed like all the other cities in the Chronicle.

However, the Berner Chronik is known for it's highly accurate and detailed depiction of weapons, armor, and siege techniques which correspond with numerous other period sources. It's certainly seems bizarre to me to suggest that they would make up armaments on ships that had never been actually used, but again, I understand why you would suggest it. I'm crazy for quoting a 19th century book but when I show you a painting from the 1480's you tell me it's 'not attested'. Give me a break.

G

Galloglaich

2014-08-18, 02:41 PM

That method of elevation on land gun carriages was widespread in the Hussite Wars of the 1420's

G

fusilier

2014-08-18, 02:52 PM

That method of elevation on land gun carriages was widespread in the Hussite Wars of the 1420's

G

Hmmm. I hadn't seen that method of elevation on guns until the late 15th century. Have any sources?

EDIT -- I'll have to do some searching, but I seem to recall similar elevation devices used on light bombards, I think going back to the early 15th century. For heavy cannon, a similar style of elevation was used on gun carriages on the late 15th/early 16th centuries. But I haven't seen a medium or large sized bombard using an elevation like that prior to the introduction of the burgundian carriage.

fusilier

2014-08-18, 02:57 PM

However, the Berner Chronik is known for it's highly accurate and detailed depiction of weapons, armor, and siege techniques which correspond with numerous other period sources.

Ok, so it's stylized but it's also "highly accurate"?

As for "corresponding with numerous other period sources" -- I just provided a link to a contemporary source that shows very different ships, which don't appear to be so "sytlized".

fusilier

2014-08-18, 03:14 PM

It's certainly seems bizarre to me to suggest that they would make up armaments on ships that had never been actually used, but again, I understand why you would suggest it. I'm crazy for quoting a 19th century book but when I show you a painting from the 1480's you tell me it's 'not attested'. Give me a break.

I've not seen it attested to on any other ship from that time period.

You're crazy for quoting a 19th century book, because you've apparently lost track of the thesis, which put in overly simplified terms is --

If you consult the primary source, it doesn't state that cannons were *used* at sea. (In most cases during the 14th century, or the accounts disagree, etc.).

So far your sources are an 1894 book, and a very stylized but somehow highly accurate illustration from the 1480s . . . it's not terribly convincing.

Unless, perhaps, we are unwilling to challenge the assumption that ships routinely carried heavy ordnance as far back as the 1300s. And treat every reference that confirms the assumption as true and not requiring any scrutiny.

Galloglaich

2014-08-18, 03:45 PM

I've not seen it attested to on any other ship from that time period.

You're crazy for quoting a 19th century book, because you've apparently lost track of the thesis, which put in overly simplified terms is --

If you consult the primary source, it doesn't state that cannons were *used* at sea. (In most cases during the 14th century, or the accounts disagree, etc.).

So far your sources are an 1894 book, a 1914 book (which does not list any Hamburg Chronicle as one of its sources), and a very stylized but somehow highly accurate illustration from the 1480s . . . it's not terribly convincing.

Not to you anyway amigo ;)

I haven't lost track of the thesis, in fact I wasn't even thinking about the debate at all, just as the first time I ran across the passage about the naval battle with Stortebecker, I was going through an old Chronicle for another (real) research project, and noticed they had this ship which didn't fit YOUR thesis (that it all starts in the 16th Century) so I posted it, knowing full well that you would try to claim that it wasn't what it clearly is.

He does list his source. The guy whose work Wilson King cited who transcribed and translated the Chronicles of all three cities was Johann Martin Lappenburg, a member of the Hamburg Senate and actually the official guardian of records for Hamburg, who published the only modern transcription of their chronicle. Wilson King, the author of the 1914 summary of the Chronicles of three Hanse cities (https://archive.org/details/chroniclesofthre00king) merely listed the sources for the Bremen Chronicles and then said he used the equivalent, and I quote "For Lubeck and Hamburg I used the same ancient Chronicles as for Bremen".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Martin_Lappenberg

In this case Lappenberg, who authored the Bremen Saga published the Hamburgische Chroniken in niedersächsischer Sprache which I also found, here:

https://archive.org/details/hamburgischechr00chrogoog

You decided that a keyword search of the low-German text didn't bring up any evidence that would satisfy you. But like me, you don't 'sprache'(or read) niedersächsischer . That is the source though.

Meanwhile the other source he mentioned (http://books.google.com/books?id=X0dLAQAAIAAJ&dq=Beneke%20Hamburgische%20Geschichten%20und%20Sag en&pg=PA110#v=onepage&q=kanone&f=false) described the infamous 20 foot long feldschlange which was captured in the battle from Stortebebeckers ship, which you further claimed was wrong (with no specific evidence to back yourself up).

As for the Houfnice, somebody else saved me the thankless effort of doing a summary:

http://getasword.com/blog/1270-hussite-guns-and-ranged-weapons/

G

fusilier

2014-08-18, 03:56 PM

He does list his source. The guy whose work Wilson King cited who transcribed and translated the Chronicles of all three cities was Johann Martin Lappenburg, a member of the Hamburg Senate and actually the official guardian of records for Hamburg, who published the only modern transcription of their chronicle. Wilson King, the author of the 1914 summary of the Chronicles of three Hanse cities (https://archive.org/details/chroniclesofthre00king) merely listed the sources for the Bremen Chronicles and then said he used the equivalent, and I quote "For Lubeck and Hamburg I used the same ancient Chronicles as for Bremen".

He used the Bremen Chronicles, for the Lubeck and Hamburg portions of his book. Not the Hamburg chronicle -- seeing as he takes the trouble to list plenty of his sources, your interpretation (that he just kind of "yadda yadda yadda'd" the rest of his sources) seems unlikely.

Furthermore you haven't demonstrated that any primary source agrees with his narrative.

Galloglaich

2014-08-18, 04:16 PM

He used the Bremen Chronicles, for the Lubeck and Hamburg portions of his book. Not the Hamburg chronicle -- seeing as he takes the trouble to list plenty of his sources, your interpretation (that he just kind of "yadda yadda yadda'd" the rest of his sources) seems unlikely.

What is unlikely, though you wouldn't know this since you haven't read the book, is that he could do that even if he had wanted to.

The book is divided into three roughly equal sections, the Bremen Chronicle which is a distinct section of the book like the other two, doesn't actually mention much about the other two cities, except in cases when Bremen was involved with them militarily either as an ally or an enemy (both of which did happen). The chronicle goes through each year just like every town chronicle does. Each city has a totally different entry for each year anywhere from a couple of paragraphs to two or three pages per year. If he was using the Bremen Chronicle as a source for say Lübeck the Lübeck section would be mostly blank. You can easily verify this by looking at the actual original Chronicle itself which covers the same stuff as King does in his book.

All three chronicles have a completely different point of view and perspective, and focus on very different things. Bremen for example was contending with their Archbishop, Hamburg was more worried about the King of Denmark and the Dukes of Schleswig - Holstein. Hamburg and Lübeck were part of the Hanseatic League from it's inception, Bremen was kept out of the league and was off on her own until quite late in it's history. It's a totally different story. Again, if you had read the book all this would be extremely obvious.

Furthermore you haven't demonstrated that any primary source agrees with his narrative.

No, but I don't need to, I have King to count on for that, among other sources. When I develop a means to translate the chronicle directly, or find someone else who has, I'll do that, but in the mean time King is a good source.

G

fusilier

2014-08-18, 04:22 PM

What is unlikely, though you wouldn't know this since you haven't read the book, is that the Bremen Chronicle which is a distinct section of the book like the other two doesn't actually mention much about the other two cities, except in cases when Bremen was involved with them militarily either as an ally or an enemy (both of which did happen) . . .

Let's get some things straightened out because we clearly have very differing views of what this book is:

1. The book is not a straightforward translation of particular chronicles. It is a modern(-ish) narrative that draws from many sources, including published chronicles and other history books. The author dutifully lists these sources at the beginning.

2. The author organized the work by City, and entitled each section the "Chronicle of X" -- but he at no points claim to have been giving a direct translation of a particular chronicle or chronicles.

3. The author does not, at any point, reference hamburg chronicles as one of his sources.

While, I'm sure you have read the entire work, I've read enough of it to note that the style is not like a historical chronicle, and that the author is upfront about the sources he used.

Galloglaich

2014-08-18, 04:44 PM

Let's get some things straightened out because we clearly have very differing views of what this book is:

1. The book is not a straightforward translation of particular chronicles. It is a modern(-ish) narrative that draws from many sources, including published chronicles and other history books. The author dutifully lists these sources at the beginning.

Incorrect, he explains this very carefully in the beginning. For the early parts he uses Adam of Bremen, for the middle parts he uses the town chronicles, for the later parts (17th Century on out) he uses a variety of what were to him modern (i.e. 18th and 19th Century) sources.

2. The author organized the work by City, and entitled each section the "Chronicle of X" -- but he at no points claim to have been giving a direct translation of a particular chronicle or chronicles.

Wrong again. These are directly from the chronicles.

3. The author does not, at any point, reference hamburg chronicles as one of his sources.

While, I'm sure you have read the entire work, I've read enough of it to note that the style is not like a historical chronicle, and that the author is upfront about the sources he used.

I very seriously doubt you have ever read an historical chronicle, except for whatever you may have read of Kings book in an attempt to win this argument. It is written as a chronicle, and many of the sections are the same from the original sources word for word. These read almost exactly the same style as the Augsburg Town Chronicles for example.

G

fusilier

2014-08-18, 06:01 PM

Incorrect,

. . .

Wrong again. These are directly from the chronicles.

. . .

Woah. This might be difficult.

I could find no modern reviews of Wilson King's work, but all the ones form 1914/15 praised King's writing style and engaging narrative. They seem to have no allusions as to who wrote the narrative.

The Chronicles of Three Free Cities. is not a collection of primary accounts --

The history of the Free Cities has been treated of and written about by very many German authors, and I have read and made use of many of their books, but I have made no original research.
. . .
It will be plain to any one reading the following pages that I have aimed at writing simple chronicles, and not an ambitious history.

In his own words, Wilson King, has written these "chronicles" -- he hasn't translated, he hasn't presented, he hasn't provided, organized, or edited -- these are his own narratives, and he also admits to not having done the original research, and specifically says he's made use of many books.

For the earlier history I have drawn chiefly
on the chronicles of Adam von Bremen

Chiefly not exclusively. Wilson is making it very clear that he's compiled information and written it up in his own narrative.

This is very basic -- if you can't evaluate sources appropriately, it will severely weaken any argument that relies upon those sources.

I do not claim to be an expert, but I have had some training in how to evaluate sources, and I know that this wouldn't fly as a primary source. You can call me wrong all you want ( and I'm fairly confident that you will continue to do so) but this isn't what you think it is.

Galloglaich

2014-08-18, 06:58 PM

Woah. this isn't what you think it is.

You say that very confidently. And yet, you haven't read the book, haven't read Adam of Bremen, haven't read any town chronicles (to base your assessment of the style on) aren't familiar with the era, aren't familiar with the region, and have no familiarity with its history.

I do know how to evaluate a source, if I was writing a formal academic paper (which I have done) I'd have to translate the original manuscripts. But then I'd have a published article which might make it worth that kind of effort. For an argument on the internet, which is wrestling in quicksand, its really not. For a gaming forum, Wilson Kings book is a very good source, about a lot more than that one naval battle, precisely because it is derived directly from the town chronicles. Town chronicles provide excellent insight into the medieval period.

You are entitled to your opinion Fusilier, I wont push forever in the quicksand. But I'll continue to post more and more sources on this as I have done. You can expend energy trying to bury them. Eventually it will sink in, or you will ;).

G

fusilier

2014-08-18, 08:01 PM

For a gaming forum, Wilson Kings book is a very good source, about a lot more than that one naval battle, precisely because it is derived directly from the town chronicles. Town chronicles provide excellent insight into the medieval period.

There's a logical disconnect here -- you keep claiming that it's derived directly from the town chronicles. But how do you get to that conclusion? It "sounds" like a period chronicle?

Is that a sufficiently strong argument for you?

Likewise, I don't see any explanation of what all those other sources were used for in Wilson's book.

But I'll continue to post more and more sources on this as I have done. You can expend energy trying to bury them. Eventually it will sink in, or you will ;).

You line them up and I'll knock 'em down! :-)

Mr. Mask

2014-08-18, 09:10 PM

Well, you two are confusing. Overall, I won't feel like I'm doing historical injustice if I have some cannon appear on ships around 1480.

On my earlier question of the effects of load on soldiers, I found a couple of bits I thought you might be interested: http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a284389.pdf
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/report/call/call_01-15_ch11.htm

Haven't read through them just yet. They might be poor studies for all I know.

Thinking about the Unsullied in A Song of Ice and Fire, I've been wondering about unusual military units.

I doubt there were ever eunuch soldiers raised en masse (the lack of testosterone is a problem, and if you need professional soldiers than them raising kids is usually convenient). Still, you have gotten some interesting military organizations with sometimes bizarre practices. People are often surprised by how wide spread pedophiliac relationships were with some warrior cultures.

Got any favourites that come to mind, when it comes to unusual military groups/practices?

fusilier

2014-08-18, 09:19 PM

Well, you two are confusing. Overall, I won't feel like I'm doing historical injustice if I have some cannon appear on ships around 1480.

You shouldn't feel like you are doing a historical injustice. By 1480 cannons are well documented on board ships. If, however, those cannons were powerful enough to sink other ships, that's where it gets contentious.

fusilier

2014-08-18, 09:32 PM

I doubt there were ever eunuch soldiers raised en masse (the lack of testosterone is a problem, and if you need professional soldiers than them raising kids is usually convenient). Still, you have gotten some interesting military organizations with sometimes bizarre practices. People are often surprised by how wide spread pedophiliac relationships were with some warrior cultures.

Got any favourites that come to mind, when it comes to unusual military groups/practices?

Well the Mamluks come to mind, but I suspect they were (at least partly) the inspiration for unsullied.

Galloglaich

2014-08-18, 10:00 PM

There's a logical disconnect here -- you keep claiming that it's derived directly from the town chronicles. But how do you get to that conclusion? It "sounds" like a period chronicle?

Is that a sufficiently strong argument for you?

Likewise, I don't see any explanation of what all those other sources were used for in Wilson's book.

It's simple, I was able to parse what the guy said in the introduction where he explained how he sourced the book, and I read the book.

You line them up and I'll knock 'em down! :-)

You'll try lad. I know you'll try.

G

fusilier

2014-08-18, 10:16 PM

I was able to parse what the guy said in the introduction where he explained how he sourced the book, and I read the book.

You and I clearly have different definitions of "parse" -- or at the very least your parser is more "creative."
:-)

You'll try lad. I know you'll try.

And you keep it up too "sonny boy." I really do think that some day you'll find some evidence that stands up to some scrutiny.

Galloglaich

2014-08-18, 10:39 PM

You and I clearly have different definitions of "parse"

I have no doubt.

or at the very least your parser is more "creative."

Yes, my 'creativity' involves finding primary sources and posting them to the forum for people to use, your 'creativity' chiefly by inventing spurious reasons why a 15th Century document doesn't mean what it says, doesn't show what it shows, and isn't what it clearly is. On a period and a place you admit you know nothing about.

"The guns do appear to be larger than swivel guns, but still aren't terribly big"

Yeah sure right kid.

G

Galloglaich

2014-08-18, 10:44 PM

Hmmm. I hadn't seen that method of elevation on guns until the late 15th century. Have any sources?

EDIT -- I'll have to do some searching, but I seem to recall similar elevation devices used on light bombards, I think going back to the early 15th century. For heavy cannon, a similar style of elevation was used on gun carriages on the late 15th/early 16th centuries. But I haven't seen a medium or large sized bombard using an elevation like that prior to the introduction of the burgundian carriage.

Oops! Realized you blew it huh?

G

fusilier

2014-08-18, 10:47 PM

Oops! Realized you blew it huh?
G

Actually that edit was done before your post was made, and I happened to remember that I had seen something like that before on "light" bombards.

fusilier

2014-08-18, 10:52 PM

Yes, my 'creativity' involves finding primary sources and posting them to the forum for people to use, your 'creativity' chiefly by inventing spurious reasons why a 15th Century document doesn't mean what it says, doesn't show what it shows, and isn't what it clearly is. On a period and a place you admit you know nothing about.

Your creativity involves ignoring all the evidence to the contrary (the many other books that Wilson says he used). Parsing a particular line in a way that's plausible, but clearly open to other interpretations. Then declaring that you "know" it to be correct, and anybody who disagrees with you is implied to be an ignorant "kid."

I have no doubt that Wilson King's book is a "good" book, from the parts I've read it certainly seems good, and the reviews said as much. But being a "good" read doesn't make it true.

Martin Greywolf

2014-08-19, 03:08 AM

Well, I'm not getting involved in the match between fusillier and Galloglaich - though, Galloglaichs' arguments seem better supported, but WTF, Wikipedia? What 50 000 crusaders were involved with Sigismund in Croatia? Yes, he was kinda miffed about the whole kidnap your wife and murder your mother-in-law thing, followed by finding a new king to depose him (just to inconvinience him, at that point, really), but crusaders? And 50 000, at that?

Though he did have a bone to pick with Venice, their interest in the balkans clashed, and Venetian council authorized assassination attempts (via really expensive poison) on him at least twice.

Got any favourites that come to mind, when it comes to unusual military groups/practices?

Well, Sacred Band of Thebes comes to mind. Then there is, of course, pederasty and shudo. And lately, I've heard that zulus have this thing where young males can't marry until they've killed their first man, giving them one hell of a motivation, though this may be not that accurate, or only applicable when they are at war. Or maybe they substitute some dangerous wild animal for that.

Mr. Mask

2014-08-19, 05:34 AM

This is getting bitter. I might have mistaken the trail of things, but the general idea of that illustration being evidence of guns on a ship in the time period of that illustration seems reasonable.

Well the Mamluks come to mind, but I suspect they were (at least partly) the inspiration for unsullied. The Mamluks certainly came to mind when the unsullied appeared. Of course, their organizations could hardly be more different.

Martin: Sacred Band is an interesting one that came to mind. And between them and the Mamluks I'm reminded of the Ghulam. And on the topic of warrior slaves, I'm reminded of the ministerales (serf-knights).

To mention a dissimilar force, the Mino sprang to mind (the Dahomey Amazons, a mostly-female regiment).

Brother Oni

2014-08-19, 07:11 AM

Well, I'm not getting involved in the match between fusillier and Galloglaich...

It's what the rest of us do. :smalltongue:

Not mentioning the hot button topics (condottieri and cannon on ships are two, I forget the others) helps immensely.

Mr. Mask

2014-08-19, 08:59 AM

Oni reminded me of the Sohei. They're an interesting lot, warrior monks of Japan. Have a lot of retired samurai and nobles in their order, and were immensely feared and respected for their power and harsh methods (and for religious reasons).

fusilier

2014-08-19, 09:09 AM

This is getting bitter. I might have mistaken the trail of things, but the general idea of that illustration being evidence of guns on a ship in the time period of that illustration seems reasonable.

It did go off in a rather different direction. Guns on a ship in that time period are certainly reasonable. The question was how to interpret the size of the cannons in that illustration -- given the stylized representation of the ship the cannons look pretty big compared to the ship, but fairly small compared to the people.

By way of contrast, this is one of the most detailed illustrations of a Carrack from 1468 by a Flemish artist:
http://www.stradbrokeislandgalleon.com/Carrack_1468.jpg

The fact that it is warship is apparent by the impressive grappling hook proudly displayed on the forecastle. You have to look closely, but it is armed with cannons (swivel guns) on the sides of the sterncastle. EDIT-- you might have to open the image in a separate window if the forum is scaling it down -- EDIT There is also a swivel gun on the mizzen mast's fighting top. The detail is pretty impressive, including hoists to carry stones up to the fighting tops.

Other images from the 15th century show a similar arrangement of artillery, see the cityscapes by Bernhard von Breydenbach in his Peregrinatio in Terram Sanctam, 1486. Especially his Corfu illustration, which has a carrack displayed prominently in the center:

http://historic-cities.huji.ac.il/greece/corfu/maps/breydenbach_1486_corfu.html

Galloglaich

2014-08-19, 09:36 AM

Mr. Mask

2014-08-19, 09:54 AM

Fusilier: Ah, I misunderstood. Thank you for explaining it to me.

Afraid the image in the spoiler tab didn't load for me.

It's possible there was an isolated case of the kind of guns G describes being put on those ships (naval ships had little regulation, in the 15th century). However I'm not familiar enough with the guns and reasoning of the matter to say.

G: Nothing to worry about. Hard and long debates will naturally get bitter.

snowblizz

2014-08-19, 10:00 AM

Got any favourites that come to mind, when it comes to unusual military groups/practices?

Well, no one mentioned the Janissaries yet. Children slaved from non-muslims, often taken as a tax/tribute.

Edit: I also had issue with getting the image to load, even when I took the correct url. I can get the base page, but I don't know where there is that particular image.

fusilier

2014-08-19, 10:14 AM

Fusilier: Ah, I misunderstood. Thank you for explaining it to me.

Afraid the image in the spoiler tab didn't load for me.

Hmmm, does the direct link work?
http://www.angelfire.com/ga4/guilmartin.com/images/Ship_small.jpg

It's possible there was an isolated case of the kind of guns G describes being put on those ships (naval ships had little regulation, in the 15th century). However I'm not familiar enough with the guns and reasoning of the matter to say.

There was experimentation during the period, so I'm not saying it isn't possible, but without a few more examples it appears atypical.

Galloglaich

2014-08-19, 10:20 AM

Well, no one mentioned the Janissaries yet. Children slaved from non-muslims, often taken as a tax/tribute.

Edit: I also had issue with getting the image to load, even when I took the correct url. I can get the base page, but I don't know where there is that particular image.

The Egyptian Mamluks were similar (slave children raised to be soldiers) and they were tough enough to defeat the Mongols.

G

fusilier

2014-08-19, 10:22 AM

Hmmm, does the direct link work?
http://www.angelfire.com/ga4/guilmartin.com/images/Ship_small.jpg

Alrighty . . .

How about this:
http://www.stradbrokeislandgalleon.com/Carrack_1468.jpg

http://www.stradbrokeislandgalleon.com/Carrack_1468.jpg

Storm Bringer

2014-08-19, 01:11 PM

Well, Sacred Band of Thebes comes to mind. Then there is, of course, pederasty and shudo. And lately, I've heard that zulus have this thing where young males can't marry until they've killed their first man, giving them one hell of a motivation, though this may be not that accurate, or only applicable when they are at war. Or maybe they substitute some dangerous wild animal for that.

I believe the traditional phrasing was that they had to have "washed their spears in blood", which is nice and poetical. But I also believe that this was a requirement at the Impi (regiment) level, not a personal level I.E. Once the warrior had been in a battle with his regiment, he was eligible for marriage, even if he personally had not killed anyone.

the two regiments involved in the attack on Rorke's Drift, were, IIRC, unbloodied regiments that had missed the fighting at Isandlwana. they really wanted to get their battle honour and marriage rights, which is what led them to disobey a standing order form the Zulu king to avoid entrenched positions (mianly because of exactly what happened at the Drift. what happened at Isandlwana was brought about, mainly, by stunning overconfidence and arrogance by the british).

so, while the "no Marriage before Battle" set up does make troops eager for war, it can make the troops too eager to fight. plus, it adds additional pressures on the leadership, form both the troops, and because they need to create a war to enable the next generation to be created (*ahem ahem*)

snowblizz

2014-08-19, 01:11 PM

The Egyptian Mamluks were similar (slave children raised to be soldiers) and they were tough enough to defeat the Mongols.

G

Yeah... is there any big difference really? Mamluks were of slave-soldiers of "Turkish" ethnic origins IIRC, for Khalifate/Sultanate (I can't keep those straight) in Egypt. Janissaries are a bit later as well I think, and Ottoman.

Lilapop

2014-08-19, 01:18 PM

Been on vacation, couldn't reply. Went kayaking, D&D double weapons confirmed stupid.

fusilier: All but the direct angelfire link in this post of yours (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=17967584#post17967584) work for me. Redirects to http://www.angelfire.lycos.com/doc/images/rloadblock.jpg.

Storm Bringer

2014-08-19, 01:55 PM

Yeah... is there any big difference really? Mamluks were of slave-soldiers of "Turkish" ethnic origins IIRC, for Khalifate/Sultanate (I can't keep those straight) in Egypt. Janissaries are a bit later as well I think, and Ottoman.

as far as I know, the major difference was the Janissaries were recruited form the Christian peoples of the Balkans, then force converted to islam.

oh, and they remained the power behind the throne, not the actual rulers like the mamluks became.

fusilier

2014-08-19, 02:29 PM

Mr. Mask

2014-08-19, 05:44 PM

Picture works for me now, too.

Galloglaich

2014-08-19, 07:16 PM

On to Vol 2 of the Bern chronicle, here are some pretty neat cannon with wheeled carriages and wooden mantlets

http://www.e-codices.unifr.ch/manuscripts/e-codices/film/bbb-Mss-hh-I0002/bbb-Mss-hh-I0002_020.jpg

And a warboat with cannon (probably a riverboat or lake boat)

http://www.e-codices.unifr.ch/manuscripts/e-codices/film/bbb-Mss-hh-I0002/bbb-Mss-hh-I0002_022.jpg

Two serpentines or culverins with the ubiquitous aiming mechanism being towed into position

http://www.e-codices.unifr.ch/manuscripts/e-codices/film/bbb-Mss-hh-I0002/bbb-Mss-hh-I0002_041.jpg

G

fusilier

2014-08-19, 07:32 PM

Those gun shields are pretty cool.

Coidzor

2014-08-19, 07:53 PM

Are there swords which were made starting with steel, rather than making iron into steel in the individual sword/small batches, before the Industrial Revolution? Or were they always made starting with iron and then making it into steel as part of the forging process?

Would it save time/effort for the smithing of the actual sword if one started with a form of steel or would it basically take just as much time to get the steel exactly where one wanted it in terms of carbon content, even if one started with the desired alloy for the end result?

Brought on by this (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=17970782&postcount=23).

Also, belated thanks to everyone who helped answer my armored kilt question. :smallsmile:

Galloglaich

2014-08-19, 09:50 PM

Field guns in action

http://www.e-codices.unifr.ch/manuscripts/e-codices/film/bbb-Mss-hh-I0002/bbb-Mss-hh-I0002_222.jpg

It's interesting how the powder usually seems to be in pre-measured pouches neatly stacked in a box. pretty modern looking.

Check out this badass gun-barge

http://www.e-codices.unifr.ch/manuscripts/e-codices/film/bbb-Mss-hh-I0002/bbb-Mss-hh-I0002_242.jpg

But this is definitely the weirdest one so far... amphibious war-wagon? I honestly have no idea.

http://www.e-codices.unifr.ch/manuscripts/e-codices/film/bbb-Mss-hh-I0002/bbb-Mss-hh-I0002_258.jpg

Serpentines with gun-shields in action

http://www.e-codices.unifr.ch/manuscripts/e-codices/film/bbb-Mss-hh-I0002/bbb-Mss-hh-I0002_289.jpg

Some really bad-ass shields with faces painted on them (you see a lot of these in Czech paintings)

http://www.e-codices.unifr.ch/manuscripts/e-codices/film/bbb-Mss-hh-I0003/bbb-Mss-hh-I0003_070.jpg

G

Incanur

2014-08-19, 10:48 PM

What are those apparently all-metal axes in in the last image? I don't know that I've ever seen axes of quite at shape. Are they some form of hurlbat?

Regarding steel and swords, yes, smiths made swords from steel. See Alan Williams's The Sword and the Crucible for more info. For 15th-century Europe, Williams argues that bloomery steel contained less slag than bloomery iron, so a sword made entirely from bloomery steel would be tougher than one with an iron core instead.

Brother Oni

2014-08-20, 02:32 AM

Those gun shields are pretty cool.

They also carried through to much later periods, the German Pak 44 and the US 57mm M1 from WW2 both have a gun shield, although the Pak 44's shield was so thin, it didn't really protect the crew from small arms fire, much to the complaints of its operators.

The latest anti tank gun I can find is the Cold War era Russian T12, which still has the shield, although it may be more to protect the crew from the blowback rather than from small arms fire when you get to this calibre.

http://www.wehrmacht-history.com/images/heer/anti-tank-artillery/12.8-cm-pak-44-1.jpg
http://svsm.org/albums/57mm_m1_rrvwm/dsc00707.jpg
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ef/100-%D0%BC%D0%BC_%D0%BF%D1%80%D0%BE%D1%82%D0%B8%D0%B2% D0%BE%D1%82%D0%B0%D0%BD%D0%BA%D0%BE%D0%B2%D0%B0%D1 %8F_%D0%BF%D1%83%D1%88%D0%BA%D0%B0_%D0%A2-12_%D0%A0%D0%B0%D0%BF%D0%B8%D1%80%D0%B0_(2).jpg

fusilier

2014-08-20, 03:00 AM

They also carried through to much later periods, the German Pak 44 and the US 57mm M1 from WW2 both have a gun shield, although the Pak 44's shield was so thin, it didn't really protect the crew from small arms fire, much to the complaints of its operators.

The latest anti tank gun I can find is the Cold War era Russian T12, which still has the shield, although it may be more to protect the crew from the blowback rather than from small arms fire when you get to this calibre.

http://www.wehrmacht-history.com/images/heer/anti-tank-artillery/12.8-cm-pak-44-1.jpg
http://svsm.org/albums/57mm_m1_rrvwm/dsc00707.jpg
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ef/100-%D0%BC%D0%BC_%D0%BF%D1%80%D0%BE%D1%82%D0%B8%D0%B2% D0%BE%D1%82%D0%B0%D0%BD%D0%BA%D0%BE%D0%B2%D0%B0%D1 %8F_%D0%BF%D1%83%D1%88%D0%BA%D0%B0_%D0%A2-12_%D0%A0%D0%B0%D0%BF%D0%B8%D1%80%D0%B0_(2).jpg

I think it was the French 75mm gun of 1897 that reintroduced shields on field cannons. It was the first rapid fire cannon with a modern recoil mechanism, and was a revolutionary design. However, they were still thinking in terms of direct fire and a shield was useful in protecting the crew from small arms fire. On some WW1 era howitzers I've heard that the main purpose of the shield was to protect the crew from a shell accidentally exploding shortly after leaving the muzzle.

Cool photos, the Russian T12 is pretty impressive.

Galloglaich

2014-08-20, 07:43 AM

With that done, have at, and enjoy yourselves!

It's interesting to see integral gun-shields in the 15th Century isn't it?

G

Mr. Mask

2014-08-20, 12:36 PM

Good weight for super soldiers?

I was curious about what weight was optimal in the scenario where you can pick and choose. Average soldier weight is about 170lbs, 180 for the USMC and SEALs. Of course, there are exceptions. I've known SEALs who were almost 250lbs, and I don't think they performed worse (though I can't verify they performed better).

One thing I can say in favour of weight after reading that study on combat load, is the amount you can carry does seem to be determined by your weight. The heavier you are, the lighter your combat load will seem. Strength and size is also useful for a lot of stuff, as you'll all know.

However, I have heard stuff in contrast to the idea of super soldiers looking like Schwarzenegger in his prime. Bigger people need to eat more, though that concern is probably minor so long as your logistics are working. Muscles require maintenance or they start to deteriorate. Being too hefty can sap your endurance. Being big has some problems in hiding and finding adequate cover, but these are very minor side-effects. If someone is so big they start to have trouble fitting in your vehicles, fortifications, or certain buildings, then you start to have a serious problem.

So, there are three strategies. One is to be as big and strong as you can to the limits of its usefulness. The other is to have small but fit soldiers like the gurkhas. The last is to work out a balance inbetween, or to have both types of soldiers for different jobs (certainly, if you could genetically engineer smaller guys to be your tank crews and pilots so you can have smaller crew compartments, it'd be a wise idea--though you could consider just having AIs or brains in a jar do it).

Carl

2014-08-20, 01:04 PM

The short anwser is. Whatever fits their loadout.

At the end of the day being big and burly is only an advantage if the size and extra carrying capacity are actually useful in some way, otherwise it's not much use.

Fortunately that's not hard to figure as a fair advantage, being able to carry and use weapons that are too heavy for a single man is quite a big advantage in practice. Particularly if it scales to a sufficient degree. That said for many reasons the rise in capacity is below linear, that is doubling the size won't quite double the carrying capacity.

Milodiah

2014-08-20, 01:38 PM

I can confirm that most gear-load calculations occur in terms of fractions of body weight for most people doing that type of thing. About a third of your body weight is the "reasonable" load, but of course reasonable means "if it's convenient to keep it that light".

Yora

2014-08-20, 05:34 PM

But this is definitely the weirdest one so far... amphibious war-wagon? I honestly have no idea.

http://www.e-codices.unifr.ch/manuscripts/e-codices/film/bbb-Mss-hh-I0002/bbb-Mss-hh-I0002_258.jpg
Appears to be German and in a relatively simple style of script, but I'm afraid I can't read it.

Galloglaich

2014-08-20, 05:58 PM

Appears to be German and in a relatively simple style of script, but I'm afraid I can't read it.

It's from the Bern Chronicle, 15th Century, Swiss. Probably similar to Swabian I think?

G

fusilier

2014-08-20, 06:27 PM

Appears to be German and in a relatively simple style of script, but I'm afraid I can't read it.

Could it simply be using a cart to ford a river? Fording a river might be dangerous on foot (especially when armored), and perhaps the cart was a safe expedient.

Galloglaich

2014-08-20, 09:51 PM

Could it simply be using a cart to ford a river? Fording a river might be dangerous on foot (especially when armored), and perhaps the cart was a safe expedient.

I think that one with the cart is definitely just an army fording a river (or an estuarine creek/bayou) but it's still pretty neat. But anyway I think he was talking about the one with the floating gun-fort / gun-barge.

G

Galloglaich

2014-08-20, 10:46 PM

I think that one with the cart is definitely just an army fording a river (or an estuarine creek/bayou) but it's still pretty neat. But anyway I think he was talking about the one with the floating gun-fort / gun-barge.

G

Check it out: Swiss War-Wagons

http://www.e-codices.unifr.ch/manuscripts/e-codices/film/bbb-Mss-hh-I0003/bbb-Mss-hh-I0003_347.jpg

G

Mr. Mask

2014-08-20, 10:57 PM

Was doing some research into persons with giantism. Despite claims they lack physicality, there are several that displayed immense strength, one lifting up a 900 pound horse as a circus trick. The biggest soldier of recent history is Väinö Myllyrinne, who was in the Finnish army during the Winter War at 7' 02". He was noted for his strength, and worked as a wrestler and circus strongman after the war.

Makes me wonder what makes the difference between the giants with great strength and those who become weakened.

Mr Beer

2014-08-20, 11:20 PM

Would be interested to know exactly how he lifted a 900lbs horse and how reliable the claim is. Depending on exactly how it was done, top contemporary strongmen could manage the feat but it would be well beyond the ability of almost anyone else.

Mr. Mask

2014-08-20, 11:56 PM

Mr Beer

2014-08-21, 12:11 AM

He was reported to lift horses by crouching down and lifting them up on his shoulders. The heaviest was said to be 900 pounds. The fellow was Edouard Beaupré, and was 8' 03" by time of death, 6' 00" at age 9. Not sure how big he was when he lifted that horse, but he was 8' 02" two years before he died, and weighed 400 pounds.

I'd say that's feasible, it sounds comparable to a sort of half-squat, complicated by the fact that horses are annoyingly unbalanced and restive when compared to barbells.

Galloglaich

2014-08-21, 09:29 AM

I'm just depressed that nobody noticed or appreciated that I found an actual historical anecdote about a battlefield wizard affecting the course of a battle.

G

snowblizz

2014-08-21, 10:09 AM

I'm just depressed that nobody noticed or appreciated that I found an actual historical anecdote about a battlefield wizard affecting the course of a battle.

G

I'm gonna say it's because there's is no such thing, regardless whether people at the time believed it or not and it therefore worked.

Now find indisputable evidence for heavy shipboard artillery before the 1500s (1400s?) and we'll be suitably impressed. :smalltongue::smalltongue::smalltongue:

Hexalan

2014-08-21, 10:10 AM

Good job, G! It's really great that you have an actual anecdote from history about how the course of battle was effected by a wizard on the battlefield! I really appreciate it!

Galloglaich

2014-08-21, 10:24 AM

I'm gonna say it's because there's is no such thing, regardless whether people at the time believed it or not and it therefore worked.

It may seem unlikely to us, but the fact that it's documented and that the people then did believe it, makes it pretty interesting, especially as these were two of the most effective armies in history (Timurid and Mughal) and they both documented the "wizardry". To me it puts it into a gray area of history and mythology (like a lot of Viking legends for example, or the Oddessey) which is ideal for gamers and genre fiction. It's things like this that got Robert E Howard and HP Lovecraft going ...

I think the Mongol Rain Stones and some of their other black magic (like gunpowder weapons, chemical and biological weapons) are plenty scary in the right context and subjects ripe for exploitation. If I have the time I'll try to find some of Jan Dlugosz quotes on some of that stuff, it will make the hair stand up on your head.

Now find indisputable evidence for heavy shipboard artillery before the 1500s (1400s?) and we'll be suitably impressed. :smalltongue::smalltongue::smalltongue:

Are you kidding? I already did several times.

The challenge is finding something, anything, sky is up, earth revolves around the sun, sugar is sweet... anything that somebody else on the internet can't deny. THAT would be an accomplishment.

(I know you are kidding ;) )

G

Galloglaich

2014-08-21, 10:26 AM

Good job, G! It's really great that you have an actual anecdote from history about how the course of battle was effected by a wizard on the battlefield! I really appreciate it!

Thank you Hexalan, you are too kind.

:)

G

Brother Oni

2014-08-21, 11:53 AM

I'm just depressed that nobody noticed or appreciated that I found an actual historical anecdote about a battlefield wizard affecting the course of a battle.

I noticed, just that I didn't want to steal your thunder, plus I expect everybody's a bit sick of hearing about yet another Three Kingdoms anecdote from me (there's at least two instances of wizards using magic to affect a battle - The Yellow Turban rebellion and before the battle of Chibi).

Mr. Mask

2014-08-21, 01:45 PM

G: I also very much liked the mention of historical wizards. I guess the idea wasn't unusual enough to me or I couldn't find anything to add to your post, so I was quiet.

Galloglaich

2014-08-21, 04:36 PM

I noticed, just that I didn't want to steal your thunder, plus I expect everybody's a bit sick of hearing about yet another Three Kingdoms anecdote from me (there's at least two instances of wizards using magic to affect a battle - The Yellow Turban rebellion and before the battle of Chibi).

Please elaborate, I'm interested in the subject and I think it's cool campaign fodder.

I've read rumors of some other really interesting 'black magic' uses by the Mongols against the Chinese, and most interesting to me, against the Genoese financed, joint Lithuanian / Teutonic Knight / Mongol 'crusade' into Russia in the 14th Century, but haven't been able to find any details.

I'd love to hear about the Yellow Turban rebellion and the battle of Chibi, the former sounds like something from Clark Ashton Smith or Lovecraft. Was the hideous plateau of Leng involved?

G

Mr. Mask

2014-08-22, 03:09 AM

How heavy would a silk flak vest be, around WW1? I know they had some silk bulletproof vests about, but I'm not sure about flak vests.

Lilapop

2014-08-22, 05:13 AM

It's from the Bern Chronicle, 15th Century, Swiss. Probably similar to Swabian I think?

G

I'm starting to get a feeling for the script. Its appears to be standard issue medieval german, though a few letters refuse to make sense. Got any more context on that picture in particular? Names of river, town and army could be helpful.

Das die #end mit gan[ß|tz]er macht durch die r[u|ii]ß zugent #nd ##ach erstachent
Smells like "So they can get pulled through the river in all their might (= in full armor)". That interpretation might just be triggered by the ideas tossed around here earlier though.

Mr. Mask: As someone who usually stops listening after ~1600, what exactly is a flak vest? I guess its not meant to withstand a direct hit from an 88 millimeter caliber projectile...

snowblizz

2014-08-22, 06:19 AM

Mr. Mask: As someone who usually stops listening after ~1600, what exactly is a flak vest? I guess its not meant to withstand a direct hit from an 88 millimeter caliber projectile...
Flak vest means AFAIK "shrapnel vest". It's not built/meant to stop bullets but the other small metal scrap flying around. Curious as to the name myself actually, now that I think about it.

Brother Oni

2014-08-22, 08:01 AM

Please elaborate, I'm interested in the subject and I think it's cool campaign fodder.

I've read rumors of some other really interesting 'black magic' uses by the Mongols against the Chinese, and most interesting to me, against the Genoese financed, joint Lithuanian / Teutonic Knight / Mongol 'crusade' into Russia in the 14th Century, but haven't been able to find any details.

I'd love to hear about the Yellow Turban rebellion and the battle of Chibi, the former sounds like something from Clark Ashton Smith or Lovecraft. Was the hideous plateau of Leng involved?

Thank you. :smallbiggrin:

I know there's some details I'm missing, so I'll pad in the descriptions later tonight when I'm at my books.

Off the top of my head, it should be more accurately called the 'Yellow Headscarf Rebellion' as all the rebels (a mixture of bandits and unhappy citizentry) wore a strip of yellow fabric around their head to help identify friend from foe.
Nothing to do with the Cthulhu mythos alas, although the idea does sound entertaining, if only to see what general sneakiness Zhuge Liang would come up with to counter a shoggoth. :smallbiggrin:

During the Yellow Turban Rebellion, a group of wizards raised 'walls of air' to stop the Imperial troops and it wasn't until these wizards were killed that these walls faded. Chinese magic tends to be more on the ritual side, involving animal sacrifice and use of blood.

The other one was before the Battle of Chibi, better known as Red Cliffs. The Wei Kingdom had amassed a massive army to invade the south, with only the Yellow River in the way. In a multi-part plan, the Shu and Wu leaders sent over a double agent to convince the Wei leader, Cao Cao, to chain all his boats together for stabilisation (the Northern soldiers suffered terribly from seasickness as they were generally landlubbers), then plotted to use a fire attack to ignite all the chained together boats as they sailed across the river.

The success of this plan depended entirely on the wind blowing the right direction and the Shu chief strategist, Zhuge Liang, spent a number of days conducting a ritual to make this happen. Cao Cao invaded and part way through the voyage, the wind shifted (much to the relief of the dubious Wu leadership) and the fire attack suceeded.

Flak vest means AFAIK "shrapnel vest". It's not built/meant to stop bullets but the other small metal scrap flying around. Curious as to the name myself actually, now that I think about it.

Proper flak jackets were initially intended for RAF aircrews in WW2 as protection against German anti aircraft artillery shells, flak being a shorthand of Fliegerabwehrkanone (anti-aircraft gun). AAA shells are typically HE with an emphasis on fragmentation, since aircraft hulls generally aren't that sturdy so don't need much to punch through (comparatively - knocking a B17 out was very tough, but the crew wasn't as durable).

Since hitting a moving target that far away is difficult, flak shells are intended for burst effect, so near misses can put shrapnel through the aircraft, even if the aircraft is otherwise untouched.

To help the targeting, flak shells have a built in altitude meter - the crews set the altitude that they want the shells to go off then fire it in the general direction of the aircraft.
Due to the organisational issues with that many aircraft in such a close proximity, bomber wings tend to fly very close together and to aid in the targeting of the bombs, they have to fly level. This makes them fairly easy targets if their altitude has been dialled in correctly by the AAA crews, which is normally helped by a German spotter plane sitting at the extreme edge of the bomber wing's range or by intercepting fighters.

Lilapop

2014-08-22, 08:43 AM

Mr. Mask

2014-08-22, 08:53 AM

Someone was saying that divergent tactics aren't plausible in the modern day, that the way things have become is there is one strategy with some slight variations. There are some exceptions of forces using guerilla warfare, but this is not out of choice but of lack of conventional war capabilities.

Would any of you agree with this? I feel it might be a bit too much of a thing to say.

Mathis

2014-08-22, 09:21 AM

Should this thread be renamed Got a Real-World Weapons, Armour or Warfare Question? already? I swear two thirds of anything asked here has mostly nothing to do with neither weapons or armour.

Mr. Mask

2014-08-22, 09:29 AM

Or, we could shorten it to, "Got a Real-World Combat Question?"

Galloglaich

2014-08-22, 12:34 PM

Or, we could shorten it to, "Got a Real-World Combat Question?"

I think it's about real world weapons and armor it just also includes their contexts. To me this is because it's hard to really understand what a sword or a mortar is if you don't know anything about how they were used, and inevitably that gets a little complicated. Is a submarine stronger or weaker than a battleship? Well it depends on the time, the place, the circumstances... hard to give an answer without discussing naval warfare a bit in different eras.

Similar seemingly simple questions like 'does plate armor protect against most attacks' are actually quite complex to answer truthfully. If you want short answers it's much more of an interpretation. I think here we try to give the sources for others to learn about a given subject they (or others) asked about rather than regurgitate or create clichés, and we try to give reasonable summaries of a few sentences or paragraphs to help convey a sense of the apparent reality as it is currently understood (and there is where we get in trouble with each other sometimes).

Some things are just difficult to summarize without distortion.

G

Storm Bringer

2014-08-23, 05:40 AM

What I'm missing is the relative difference in power between small arms fire and shell fragments. While the latter may have more energy imparted upon them or more mass, don't they lose more from... lets call it tumbling, so they end up comparably dangerous?
To cut it short, I couldn't say from just the terms if a flak vest is stronger or weaker than a bullet vest.

generally, vests designed to stop shrapnel and such are weaker than vests designed to stop bullets, as bullets normaly have a lot of kenetic energy and are better at penetrating. thus, a flak vest is "weaker" than a bullet proof vest.

however, be warned that a lot of people tend to call any sort of modern body armour "flak vests" as those were the first type to reappear as general issue to armies. Also, the "soft" Kevlar vest worn by cops are proof against pistol fire and shell fragments, but a assault rifle round would sail straight though the vest, the wearer, and the back of the vest, since it has far more KE than pistol rounds. to only thing that stops rifle rounds are heavy, thick plates, which used to be steel but nowdays are some sort of ceramic tile. even if they stop the round, the impact can leave some serious bruises.

edit:

here (http://co-ironwill.blogspot.de/2012/02/bullet-proof-vests.html) are some pictures of a body armour company CEO showing off his wares. as you can see, it's not pretty, even if he's still able to walk away.

Incanur

2014-08-23, 02:54 PM

Contemplating bow and gun speed of shooting has got me wondering how fast historical infantry advanced on the battlefield.

In the late 16th century, Sir John Smythe claimed a good archer could shoot four or five arrows for each bullet an arquebusier fired, assuming the latter started charging his piece at the same time the archer took an arrow to shoot. Humprhey Barwick disputed this, claiming that a arquebusier could load multiple bullets, though curiously - and perhaps telling - he jumped to a musket when laying out this tactic in detail. For a great encounter where "armies cannot marche but easilye, for that the numbers are great," Barwick recommended firing a bullet at 480 yards, another 400 yards, two simultaneously at 240 yards, three simultaneously at 160 yards, and finally six simultaneously at 80 yards. Barwick goes on to question how many arrows archers could shoot between 160 yards and the joining of battle, writing that within this distance "the battailes dooth come on with great speede, or else not at all."

"Easily" can mean deliberately, gradually, or without hurry in 16th-century English - as well as the meanings we're more familiar with today - so I'm not clear what Barwick meant by that. However, he was clear that soldiers closed distance at considerable speed once within 160 yards. Even a rather slow marching step will cover 80 yards in about a minute, while a double step might cover 150+. I would expect 16th-century soldiers to march at least a double step when under fire, but I don't really know. But in any case it's interesting that Barwick's described tactic indicates a loading time of no more than minute unless we assume a ridiculous slow marching speed. The reloading between 160 yards and 80 yards - when Barwick wrote that battles join at great speed - suggests a reloading time of 30 seconds or less.

Other 16th-century evidence, from Blaise de Monluc on the Ceresole 1544, indicates that infantry could indeed advance very fast right before contact, possibly even at run. He instructed his pikers to run headlong into the enemy formation as the Swiss do and wrote that the opposing German pikers closed distanced at great speed, in fact creating holes in their lines because some units or sections advanced faster than others. Going back to antiquity, hoplites supposedly trained to run in full kit (maybe minus the cuirass) and did so against enemy archery as at Marathon.

What other evidence is there for how fast infantry advanced on the battlefield?

P.S. We know from contemporary archers who draw warbows that shooting at least 6-8 arrows in a minute is possible with even the heaviest bows (170+lbs).

fusilier

2014-08-23, 05:02 PM

Contemplating bow and gun speed of shooting has got me wondering how fast historical infantry advanced on the battlefield.

. . .

What other evidence is there for how fast infantry advanced on the battlefield?

I do have a copy of a 1595 Spanish drill manual, but it hasn't been translated yet. If I have some time I'll look for a section that covers how fast infantry should move.

If we work backwards from later manuals it doesn't seem likely that they moved very fast under fire -- assuming they were staying formed. In the first half of the 19th century 90 paces a minute was pretty standard for a common step (with a pace of about 27 inches). Although a Mexican manual from 1830 states 76 paces a minute with an even shorter step (which is almost a funeral pace). The quickstep was 110-120 paces a minute, but until the middle of the century that step wasn't the standard. The double quickstep was even faster, but was more like a slow jog (it's about as fast as a quick walking pace). It was usually something practiced only by light infantry until the middle of the 19th century when all infantry started to get light infantry training.

Here's a link to the 1595 manual if you're interested in taking a look at it yourself:

http://books.google.es/books?id=7kUsAQAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=eguiluz&hl=es&sa=X&ei=gqeFT_qbJ-nA0QXrm8DHBw&ved=0CEQQ6AEwAw#v

Unfortunately, even if it does mention marching speeds, it might be in a relative fashion (e.g. "at a moderate pace").

During the late 16th century, pikemen advancing with their pikes leveled moved slowly, due to the interesting pace that was used, which seems to have been an attempt to maintain formation. Basically, they advanced the left foot, then brought the right foot up behind it -- the feet never crossed, always leading with the left foot. It's not painfully slow, but it's not fast either.

Mr. Mask

2014-08-23, 05:05 PM

Incanur: Was going to mention Marathon, but you already have. There is modern evidence of soldiers running quite speedily despite their kit, but they don't keep close order. Largely, it's just a matter of having the endurance to move quickly despite your kit (and the balance, in the case of heavy kit) and not be exhausted, and the discipline to keep order when moving at that speed. Afraid I can't think of any other good evidences at this time.

I wonder how Barwick intended to shoot two or three bullets at once, unless he meant by extra guns left until that time before firing. That may also speak of separate men who reload the guns while the others keep shooting.

fusilier

2014-08-23, 05:15 PM

I wonder how Barwick intended to shoot two or three bullets at once, unless he meant by extra guns left until that time before firing. That may also speak of separate men who reload the guns while the others keep shooting.

A smoothbore musket or arquebus is basically a shotgun -- you can load it with buckshot if you wish, but there's evidence that they simply loaded the gun with multiple balls.

Mr. Mask

2014-08-23, 05:33 PM

Oh right, buckshot/buck and ball. That makes sense of the sentence.

Incanur

2014-08-23, 05:50 PM

During the late 16th century, pikemen advancing with their pikes leveled moved slowly, due to the interesting pace that was used, which seems to have been an attempt to maintain formation. Basically, they advanced the left foot, then brought the right foot up behind it -- the feet never crossed, always leading with the left foot. It's not painfully slow, but it's not fast either.

What the source for this? That's a common way to move when dueling with swords and whatnot as well in the 16th century. I can move pretty quick using such steps over short distances. It makes sense for pikers to move that way with pikes leveled, but I'm not sure how slow it was. Sir John Smythe envisioned the first five ranks of a formation advancing in rapid succession with each piker giving a single powerful thrust, and Monluc's account as mentioned makes it seem like pikers - at least in that one encounter - clashed at considerable speed.

Thanks for the manual link! I read Spanish, so that's great.

I wonder how Barwick intended to shoot two or three bullets at once, unless he meant by extra guns left until that time before firing.

That's all for one musket. You just load multiple bullets - and less powder, according to Barwick - before firing.

Carl

2014-08-23, 06:09 PM

That's all for one musket. You just load multiple bullets - and less powder, according to Barwick - before firing.

This was done with Naval Cannon all the time, though tripl;e loading was considered very dangerous and rarely done. Depending on the source I've seen HMS Victory at Trafalger was supposed to be double or triple loaded, which when you consider one of her bow guns was a 60lbr cannonade is a LOT of shot.

fusilier

2014-08-23, 07:19 PM

What the source for this? That's a common way to move when dueling with swords and whatnot as well in the 16th century. I can move pretty quick using such steps over short distances. It makes sense for pikers to move that way with pikes leveled, but I'm not sure how slow it was. Sir John Smythe envisioned the first five ranks of a formation advancing in rapid succession with each piker giving a single powerful thrust, and Monluc's account as mentioned makes it seem like pikers - at least in that one encounter - clashed at considerable speed.

I've been drilled in it. Although I'm sure we could be faster if we practiced more. ;-) It's definitely not a headlong rush. Unfortunately, I can't find my copy of the Captain's Companion which should have a source, but I will track one down. You might want to ask some of the ECW reenactor groups. The drill seems to have been pretty similar. Unfortunately, the most detailed thing I could find from one of their websites was that the speed is set by the drum. :-/

I certainly get the feeling that they clashed at higher speeds in earlier accounts. From pictures of how they held the pike, the drill certainly evolved. And while it may seem weird that they would go *slower* in later drill, it may have been the result of an emphasis on maintaining formation.

Thanks for the manual link! I read Spanish, so that's great.

Let me know what you find out -- I passed it off to a spanish speaker but he didn't have the energy or time to attempt a translation. However, he did give me a rough translation on the chapter that deals with spacing, which was useful.

Brother Oni

2014-08-24, 05:49 PM

Filling in the details from my earlier post, Liu Bei's detachment faced off against Zhang Bao, a Yellow Turban officer, where upon he summoned a seething black mist which resembled warriors which defeated them that day. When they arrived back at camp, on the advice of Zhu Jun, they slaughtered a pig, dog and a goat, then mixed the animals' entrails, blood and excrement together and the following day, dumped the concoction over the mist, which caused the apparitions to dissolve away like 'paper men'.

Chinese magic tends to have a lot of these shamanistic practices as I mentioned earlier, so entrails, blood and other bodily fluids tend to feature heavily.

The wind summoning ritual is described in not much detail:

"If the chief commander wants a southeast wind, erect a platform on the Southern Screen Hills, call it the Altar of the Seven Stars (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Dipper). It should be nine spans high, three tiered, surrounded by one hundred and twenty flag bearers. On the platform I will work certain charms to borrow three days and three nights of southeast wind to assist you in your operations."

...

"On the twentieth day of the eleventh month, the first day of the cycle, we will supplicate the wind. By the twenty-second day, third of the cycle, the winds will have died away."

I'm guessing span means chi, so 1 Han chi of 0.2310 m = 2.079m. The alternative would be 1 Han bu of 1.386m = 12.474m tall, which is a lot of work, but not impossible given the number of soldiers involved on the allied side (50,000).

The Han New Year started the new moon prior to the winter solstice, so according to my calculations (winter solstice 207 was the 22nd December, making the New Moon the 6th December, so 20 days plus eleven 28 day months) it would be the 30th September 208 to 2nd October 208 (modern calendar), assuming no leap months (I don't fully understand chinese astrology and when they insert leap months is an arcane art to me).

The Altar has lots of detail though:

It was a structure of some two hundred and forty spans all around, with three three-span tiers. On the lowest tier were twenty-eight flags representing the twenty-eight zodiacal mansions (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_constellations#The_Twenty-Eight_Mansions). Along the eastern face were seven blue-green flags for the eastern mansion - Horn, Neck, Root, Room, Heart, Tail, Basket - arrayed in the shape of the Sky-Blue Dragon (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azure_Dragon). Along the northern face were seven black flags for the northern mansions - Southern Dipper, Ox, Girl, Void, Rooftop, Swelling, Wall - laid out in the form of the Dark Tortoise (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Tortoise). On the western side flew seven white flags for the western mansions - Straddling Legs, Bonds, Stomach, Bridge, Net, Turtle, Triaster - in the menacing crouch of the White Tiger (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Tiger_%28Chinese_astronomy%29). On the southern side flew seven red flags for the southern mansions - Well, Ghost, Willow, Star, Drawn Bow, Wings, Axle - making the outline of the Vermillion Bird (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vermilion_Bird).

The second tier was encompassed by sixty-four yellow flags, one for each set of oracular lines in the Book of Changes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Ching), divided into in [sic] eight groups of eight.

On the top tier stood four men, hair tightly bound and heads capped, wearing black robes of thin silk, wide sashes emblematic of the phoenix, vermillion shoes, and squared kilts. At front left, one man held up a long pole fledged at the tip with chicken feathers to catch any sign of the wind. At front right, another held up a long pole with the banner of the Seven Stars fastened to the the top to show the direction of the wind. At the left rear, a man stood respectfully holding a prized sword; at the right rear, a man held a cresset.

On the outside, the platform was surrounded by twenty-four men holding, severally, emblemed flags, ceremonial canopies, large halberds, long dagger axes, ritual gold battle-axes, white yak-tail banners, vermillion pennants, and black standards.

---

Kongming1 instructed the guards: "No one here is to leave his position without authorization. The men are forbidden to engage in conversation or to make any irregular remarks or react as if anything were out of the ordinary. Whoever disobeys will be executed." The men acknowledged the order.

Having surveyed all stations, Kongming ascended with deliberate steps, lit incense, and poured water into a vessel. Staring into the heavens he uttered a silent incantation, after which he descended and entered his tent for a brief respite, allowing the soldiers to eat in shifts. That day Kongming ascended and descended three times, but of a southwest wind no sign was seen.

1: The author is very much a Shu supporter, thus refers to the major Shu personages by their courtesy names (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Courtesy_name); Kongming is Zhuge Liang's.

This is all from the Romance, so there's bound to be some exaggeration if not pure fiction, but I can't find a reference to this in the Record.

Incidentally, later on in the chapter, it mentions the fireboats used: packed with reeds and kindling soaked in fish oil and covered with an inflammable compound of sulphur and saltpeter, all wrapped in black oilcloth.

Incanur

2014-08-24, 07:54 PM

When I've had a spare minute, I've been going through that 1595 manual by Martín de Eguiluz that fusilier posted last page. So far what I've seen generally matches English manuals of the same period, which isn't surprising as the English authors often had direct experience with the Spanish way of war. It notably provides further evidence of a rarely remembered from of dual wielding: sword and arquebus! Raimond de Forquevaux and Sir John Smythe also mentioned this technique, as did Blaise de Monluc but with the crossbow instead of the arquebus. Soldiers held the arquebus in the middle in their left hands and used it as makeshift shield.

Galloglaich

2014-08-24, 10:45 PM

fusilier

2014-08-24, 11:19 PM

Galloglaich

2014-08-24, 11:48 PM

Ok this is the coolest one so far I think. War wagons (which is one of the things I've been looking for) and a BEAR. Hhahahahaha! WTF!

http://www.e-codices.unifr.ch/manuscripts/e-codices/film/bbb-Mss-hh-I0003/bbb-Mss-hh-I0003_846.jpg

And here is yet another pretty formidable cannon-armed warship with three forward pointing guns and what looks like protective planks covering them. The guns on the side appear to have those elevation apparatus. This is from the Spizer Chronik, which was completed in 1484. It includes events up to about 1450. it may be a river boat, the flags are French (I think) and Holy Roman Empire (German). Those may be the monarch's depicted.

http://www.e-codices.unifr.ch/manuscripts/e-codices/film/bbb-Mss-hh-I0016/bbb-Mss-hh-I0016_047.jpg

G

Incanur

2014-08-25, 01:32 AM

It's on the second page 69 - I guess? seems like there are two pages per page number - in Martín de Eguiluz's text.

Tambien se repara con el arcabuz, que jamas le ha de dexar de la mano izquierda, que es grande ayuda para reparar y rebatir.

It's referring to "nuestra arcabuzeria" - the Spanish arquebusiers - and roughly translates to the following: "Also they parry with the arquebus, that never has to leave from the left land, which is a great help for parrying and warding." The same passage discusses skirmishing and how some enemy arquebusiers didn't carry swords while the Spanish did. It notes how the Spanish arquebusiers had the advantage of helmets and longer swords even against those opposing arquebusiers that did wear swords.

As for other evidence for parrying with the arquebus in the left hand:

And here it is to be noted that harquebuzes of a yard long the Cannons at the most, well ranforced backward, & of a conuenient thinnesse forward, and the bullets of a conuenient Caliuer or heigth not too great, are a great deale more maniable, and therefore better for soldiors to vse in the field, then such heauie harquebuzes as we in these daies do miscall Caliuers, that are of great bullets, and the Cannons long and heauie with deformed stockes: which said harquebuzes ranforced of conuenient heueth & lightnes will wound or kill as well 50. or 60. paces off (which is distance enough) as any such heauie mistearmed Caliuers· & therewithall they do not so soone wearie the soldiors in handling and vsing them in seruices of the fielde as such foresaid heauie peeces do, besides that they haue this commoditie that when in skirmish soldiors do grow very neere together, and so sometimes pelle melle that they haue no more leisure to recharge their peeces but that they are forced to betake themselues to their swordes: they may then I say take their peeces being of such conuenient heueth & lightnesse, in the midst with their left hands and drawing their swordes may beare a blow either at the head or legges, or beat by any thrust of sword, halbard, or pique, either with the vpper or lower part of their harquebuze, and may therewithall at that instant enter and run in with the points of their swordes to the mischiefe or endangering of their enemies, which cannot be performed with our such heauie mistearmed Caliuers, which most commonlie vpon such accidents through the too much heueth of them are throwne awaie by the souldiors that vse them.

I thought the technique was in Fourquevaux's manual as well, but I can't find it, so I believe I'm mistaken - which makes finding another source even better! But there is one more (http://archive.org/stream/blaisedemonluc00montiala/blaisedemonluc00montiala_djvu.txt):

I had now nothing left me but my six Harquebusiers, my Cross-bows having already spent all their Arrows, nevertheless to shew that their hearts were not down I caus'd them to hold their Swords ready drawn in the one hand, and their Bows in the other to serve instead of a Buckler.

Mr. Mask

2014-08-25, 03:55 AM

G: Was... was there actually a BEAR in that battle...?

Brother Oni

2014-08-25, 05:08 AM

Ok this is the coolest one so far I think. War wagons (which is one of the things I've been looking for) and a BEAR. Hhahahahaha! WTF!
http://www.e-codices.unifr.ch/manuscripts/e-codices/film/bbb-Mss-hh-I0003/bbb-Mss-hh-I0003_846.jpg

They weren't Poles by any chance? :smalltongue:

Well the Teutons used war hounds successfully against the Ancient Romans in the Battle of Versella in 101 BC (and being Romans, they subsequently adopted the tactic and ran away with it with adding body armour and spiked/bladed collars), so I see no reason why bears couldn't be pointed in the right direction and left to get on with it.

Given that the majority of captive bears would probably have been used in bear baiting or other blood sports, they're likely to have been extremely aggressive enough to take part in warfare.

Galloglaich

2014-08-25, 07:19 AM

They weren't Poles by any chance? :smalltongue:

Well the Teutons used war hounds successfully against the Ancient Romans in the Battle of Versella in 101 BC (and being Romans, they subsequently adopted the tactic and ran away with it with adding body armour and spiked/bladed collars), so I see no reason why bears couldn't be pointed in the right direction and left to get on with it.

Given that the majority of captive bears would probably have been used in bear baiting or other blood sports, they're likely to have been extremely aggressive enough to take part in warfare.

Yeah, I'm really not sure what to make of if. Captive bears were fairly common then. That was from the Bern Chronicle and Bern in particular did used to keep bears as sort of mascots of the city, (actually still does... (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B%C3%A4rengraben) ) but I never heard of bears being used as war-animals, I can see them being willing to fight but hard to imagine you could control them in a fight. It might be symbolic, there is in one of the other volumes (I forget which one) a painting of a bunch of bears wearing swords and carrying musical instruments, obviously representing the Bern militia forces.

But who knows, maybe they did use them? After going through something like 1300 pages of 3 volumes of chronicles the litany of brutality in the war scenes certainly starts to add up, and the wounded bear biting that guy definitely ads to the sense of carnage, viciousness and panic in that scene ... which I think depicts the Burgundian wars as the banners behind the wagonberg look French or Burgundian to me. I don't know the heraldry well enough to say for sure though. I may try to get one of my buddies to read it.

G

snowblizz

2014-08-25, 08:58 AM

the Burgundian wars as the banners behind the wagonberg look French or Burgundian to me.
G
Definitely Burgundian. They match the heraldry as depicted in Osprey MAA 144 Mediaeval Burgundy.

Galloglaich

2014-08-25, 10:36 AM

Definitely Burgundian. They match the heraldry as depicted in Osprey MAA 144 Mediaeval Burgundy.

So I guess my question is, I've seen a trained bear ride a bike in a circus, could you train a bear to fight in combat? And deal with the noise of cannon and gunfire? Distinguish friend from foe?

The wiki on the Bern bear pit mentions that they captured a live bear in some battle in Italy in the 16th century. I know about war-dogs, but I never heard of anyone using a bear used in combat.

Other than horses and camels and other draft animals, and dogs and elephants, and occasionally birds and cats with incendiary devices strapped to them, and dolphins and sea-lions in modern times... has anyone hear of using other types of animals in warfare? Anyone heard of using a bear specifically?

G

Mr. Mask

2014-08-25, 11:27 AM

Galloglaich

2014-08-25, 12:43 PM

The Romans sometimes used flaming pigs, particularly to frighten elephants. The US military tried exploding bats at one point. Russia tried suicide bomb dogs (it backfired).

Some of the larger birds are pretty dangerous, able to hunt wolves or even larger prey. I think there was some case of people using them to attack people (though I'm not sure this was done in war). You'd think someone might have tried bringing their pet big cats to war or on a hunt or something, but a case doesn't spring to mind. I think bee or wasp/hornet nests were sometimes used?

Hadn't heard of the incendiary cats. Depressing information.

There is an account by Usamah Ibn Munqidh where a guy assassinated several people by bringing a leopard in a sack into the room they were in and releasing it (presumably just before a quick exit and slamming of the door) apparently the leopard killed several people, I think one guy saved himself by going out on the ledge of a window but I don't remember the details precisely.

And of course people have made similar use of snakes and scorpions and other venomous animals.

Not a battlefield use of course though.

G

Incanur

2014-08-25, 02:14 PM

There is an account by Usamah Ibn Munqidh where a guy assassinated several people by bringing a leopard in a sack into the room they were in and releasing it (presumably just before a quick exit and slamming of the door) apparently the leopard killed several people, I think one guy saved himself by going out on the ledge of a window but I don't remember the details precisely.

That would be an interesting account to read. Leopards have killed numerous people according to various sources, but it's typically via surprise. In recent there have been at least one (http://www.news24.com/Africa/News/Man-rips-leopards-tongue-out-20050622) or two (http://www.badassoftheweek.com/akeley.html) cases of unarmed human fending off leopards (specifically killing them by shoving a hand down the throat, oddly enough). I wouldn't have expected the technique you describe to work particularly well, but obviously it depends on the humans and the leopard. Generally armed humans aware of big cats tend to win encounters, as with Sasha Siemel's jaguar hunts with the spear. However, I was amazed to learn that tigers apparently nearly depopulated regions of China at times - including in some cases military outposts. Big cats can be extremely stealthy, sometimes killing one person out of two sitting side by side without the other noticing until it's too late (or maybe even until after the the big cat as dragged its prey away). Big cats and crocodiles strike me as the most dangerous of predators.

I don't think tigers or bears would be remotely effective on medieval or Renaissance battlefield even if you could get them to fight. Now, if you give the bears weapons, then you might be talking. :smallwink:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2d/Schilling%2C_Spiezer_Chronik%2C_Bern_im_Laupenkrie g.jpg

It's from a chronicle so it must have happened!

P.S. How comfortable is carrying a baselard between the legs? It seems like it might be awkward with a blade of any significant length.

Brother Oni

2014-08-25, 02:57 PM

Other than horses and camels and other draft animals, and dogs and elephants, and occasionally birds and cats with incendiary devices strapped to them, and dolphins and sea-lions in modern times... has anyone hear of using other types of animals in warfare? Anyone heard of using a bear specifically?

The closest I've heard is Private Wojtek (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wojtek_%28bear%29), which I've mentioned before in this thread, although he was only helped carry artillery shells during the Battle of Monte Cassino (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Monte_Cassino).

Given that he could apparently distinguish between Polish and English, not to mention the soldiers he used to serve with when he was put into the zoo, I'm fairly sure that if he saw a 'pack mate' under attack he'd help. This would suggest that a bear raised and trained properly from a cub could be trained to attack the enemy by his handler.

There's an entire wiki article on animals in combat (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_animal), some serious (animal borne IEDs or animal carcasses to hide IEDs), some not so serious (using live turkeys to airdrop fragile supplies during the Spanish Civil War) to stuff only the British could think up (dead rats stuffed with explosives, dreamt up by the SOE during WW2 - the intention was that a German boiler stoker would dispose of something unpleasant like that by chucking it into the furnace, where the small explosion would be enough to puncture something in the high pressure boiler, causing an explosion, to the chicken warmed nuclear landmines of Blue Peacock (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Peacock)).

The only specific mention I can find of bears is use as test subjects in a supersonic ejection tests: link (https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=-KLnqorLgDM).

I don't think tigers or bears would be remotely effective on medieval or Renaissance battlefield even if you could get them to fight. Now, if you give the bears weapons, then you might be talking. :smallwink:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2d/Schilling%2C_Spiezer_Chronik%2C_Bern_im_Laupenkrie g.jpg

It's from a chronicle so it must have happened!

You know that's the Berne militia plate that Galloglaich mentioned earlier. :smallbiggrin:

P.S. How comfortable is carrying a baselard between the legs? It seems like it might be awkward with a blade of any significant length.

I've just remember what forum I'm on and inserting a puerile joke here wouldn't be helpful. :smalltongue: