Got a Real-World Weapon, Armor or Tactics Question? Mk. XVI

[Carl]

@Gnoman: Actually a hammer weighs a lot more than a sword in a swinging motion because when your swinging it your moving it in an arc and that means it's radial mass not linear mass that matters, and that is summed up as r^2 x linear mass. Because all the mass of a hammer is at the end of the shaft r is much larger for a hammer than a sword, (r is average radius of the mass btw).

Glancing of armour is a factor of angling really, and it applies equally to hammers as it does swords. But since hammers have greater energy and it's likely a corner or edge that hits the armor, you've got more chance of the corner or edge digging in and once it's even slightly in then it won't glance off.

@Knaight: I said the opposite. An arrow has a lot more air resistance. Unfortunately in arcing fire terminal velocity is key and that's determined by the velocity at which drag = mass x gravity. Since sling bullets are lighter they'll need less drag force to hit terminal velocity so their drag has to be a lot less than an arrow. However distance shooting is also a factor of where the high point of the arc occurs. To get the same range as a sling stone an arrow needs a similar high point, but with more drag force on it, it's going to shed more momentum per second. The higher mass gives it more momentum to work with, but if my hay memory on this is accurate this still works out at a higher required launch velocity for the arrow.

A slinshot is only going to travel faster at impact if the drag to mass ratio is better than an arrow with the same launch velocity. (drag is heavily dependent on cross sectional area so longer shafted arrows will have a better ratio, which means it improves with arrow mass, the same is true of slingshot, but if general shape remains consistent, not to the same degree)

Also do you have a source that slingshot can penetrate flesh, i'd expect broken bones and serious bruising sure, but i'd be stunned if they could actually penetrate flesh, (break the skin yes, penetrate into the target no). As for how much damage an arrow will do, pretty much any non-glancing hit will still disable the arm and the deep cut is more likely to become infected, and slingshot is as vulnerable to that as anything else, they'e not huge or heavy and their shape is conductive to glancing blows. If you need it putting into perspective, common chicken eggs are around twice as heavy, (European large size), and even a typical Napoleonic musket ball is heavier, (by about 15%).

If we where talking really big heavy shot, i'd be with you, because there's a lot of momentum there, but when your talking something that's only 88% the weight of the lightest estimate of the mary rose arrows (500 grains was what i turned up or 32g), it gets a lot harder to see them doing massive damage on anything but a clean strike. In those circumstance they have more than enough raw mass and momentum to do plenty of damage, but there's an upper limit on what they can do to armor or on glancing blows.

[Carl]

This is not the right thread for this question, but...

I want an assault rifle in my game that was designed 2021. Got any ideas? I was thinking about airburst weapons, but this weapon has to be used in drive-by shootings. I know that an assault rifle is not the best choice either, but humor me and suggest an assault rifle.

My players are knowledgeable of weapons of all types, so I'm under pressure here...

Where in the world is this taking place, that would vastly change what might be commonly available. But i'd say either an AK-47, AK-74, M-16, M-14, or the Chinese rifle, (designation escapes me atm), depending on locale. Basically a common military rifle with exact model depending on the where.

[Mr. Mask]

De Medicina goes into how to remove an embedded sling stone. There are a few accounts of sling stones embedding themselves deeply, so that the swelling covers up the wounds and hides them (which makes the surgery more awkward and painful, resulting in a few medical tools dedicated to this operation).


PSI: Leaves the question of the material strength needed to withhold the necessary amount of psi (stuff is lighter underwater, so you can simply build bulkier, thicker tanks to an extent). That'll effect when they can start developing air-pressure based tech.


On the subject of staff slings, anyone know much about the pros and cons of them compared to other slings?

[Incanur]

Supposedly it's in part the spin that allows lead sling bullets to penetrate flesh - at least according to some folks on slinging.org. Also note that slingers could use *much* heavier projectiles, 200g and above. If we believe Froissart's account of Spanish slingers at Nájera 1367, which claims that stonse broke bascinets and knocked warriors in to the ground, then the slingers in question were almost certainly using heavy stones. Currently slinging world records records suggest energies and momentums higher than any arrow from a hand-drawn bow.

Honestly the super-light lead sling bullets confuse me. I can only assume that were intended mainly to harass unarmored troops and perhaps kill such troops at close range. But some lead sling bullets were heavier than 30ish grams. I recalled reading that at least one was 150+g.

[Carl]

@Incaur: Sure heavier slingshot would have been insanely powerful. Whilst the rate of increase of drag for arrows weight increases should be lower than for slingshots, your still talking a steady improvement in terminal velocity for both and given enough then i could see slingshot penetrating flesh.

The problem is that whilst i'm not disputing the claim heavy shot existed, the average shot is very light, and it's from that, that we get the high range numbers from what i can make out. Which brings us back to bows being better because they have useful range.

The spinning comment is interesting, it would certainly reduce glancing potential, but given their ovid shapes i'm not sure how it actively helps flesh penetration.

[Honest Tiefling]

Is that average shot for all sling projectiles, or all sling projectiles used by specialists? I know the sling was considered useful enough to have several mercenary groups using them. But in a lot of cases, it was a part of siege warfare because well, you had rocks lying around.

Through I have to ask, which is harder to learn, bow or sling? I thought it was the former, but maybe I am confusing normal bows with larger, heavier ones like the english long bow.

[Spiryt]

It seems that sling is pretty much all skill and quite minute precision, which is why it might have been slowly but steadily pushed out by bows.

There's nothing indicating that that 28g would be in any way 'average' required for large distances.

In fact from all I've seen due to my limited interest, it seems that general kinetic energy and distance of sling shots in hands of strong/skilled user is in fact rather impressive.

At least compared to bows.

http://slinging.org/index.php?page=sling-ranges

http://www.biblestudysite.com/arch.htm

Ancient sources are full of description of slings wielded to devastating effect. And outranging bows, in many cases.

Penetration of flesh was considered normal occurrence it seems, as Roman legions apparently tended to have medical tools for bullet extractions.

It seems that slings were indeed formidable weapon, though likely even more erratic than bows, form the very nature of stone release.

[TheThan]

This is not the right thread for this question, but...

I want an assault rifle in my game that was designed 2021. Got any ideas? I was thinking about airburst weapons, but this weapon has to be used in drive-by shootings. I know that an assault rifle is not the best choice either, but humor me and suggest an assault rifle.

My players are knowledgeable of weapons of all types, so I'm under pressure here...

Right now, assault rifles are very efficient. They have a high rate of fire, are relatively easy to build and maintain, comparatively cheap to buy and are very effective at putting deadly holes in soft fleshy things.

In order to design a gun that is better than say the current generation of assault rifles, you need to make it better, it needs to be more effective, easier to maintain, and cheap to produce. People have tried (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XM29_OICW) to come up with a better design than the current generation of assault rifle platforms, but they really haven’t met with great success. Since you specifically set this gun in 2021, which isn’t that far away, you could easily rock with any of the current generation of assault rifles and get away with it.

A quick wikipedia search comes up with a lot of options (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_assault_rifles), I know there are civilian versions of the more popular rifles out there (the AR-15 platform, and the AK-47 platform, these are semi-automatic not select fire or fully automatic weapons (that means you can't hold the trigger down and "spray-an-pray", you have to pull the trigger every time you want the gun to fire).

[Carl]

Is that average shot for all sling projectiles, or all sling projectiles used by specialists?

The wiki doesn't say, i'm guessing it's the average of all projectiles found.

@Spiryt: I'd assume whatever the average projectile size was, that's the one that gets the long ranges attributed to it in historical texts. That said intrestifn table, thanks for finding it, might try graphing weight vs range see if there's any pattern to it.

[TheThan]

More on assault rifles:

The AR-15 and AK-47 platforms seem to be endlessly modifiable, with all sorts of aftermarket parts to add on, all meant to enhance performance (your mileage may vary there).

The most common modification of the AR platform is the addition of a “rail” system. This allows for easy attachment and removal of other aftermarket parts; such as various sorts of sights and other gizmos. In fact this modification is so common that you can usually find a rifle for sale with this rail system already installed and it is very uncommon to find one without one.
The second most common is the addition of an adjustable tubular rifle stock, which allows you shrink the size of the rifle down fairly small, and set it to be more comfortable for you to shoot from the shoulder; this also lightens the weight of the rifle as the stock is fairly skelitonized.

[speculation]
In a drive by shooting you’re probably not worried too much about accuracy or being able to shoot it comfortably. So these expensive attachments aren’t necessary, but people being people might put them on to show off. Additionally someone would probably want something they don’t mind throwing away. That means they bought it really cheap (so more likely to be a piece of junk) or they stole it.

[Incanur]

The problem is that whilst i'm not disputing the claim heavy shot existed, the average shot is very light, and it's from that, that we get the high range numbers from what i can make out. Which brings us back to bows being better because they have useful range.

Well, Melvin Gaylor slung a 212.6g stone 349.6m in 1970. I don't think any bow is going to send such a heavy arrow that far - expect maybe that 240ishlb Manchu supposedly used to win a contest in the 18th century. It's noteworthy that medieval slingers and the Amerindian slingers that impressed the Spanish didn't use light lead shot.

I tend to think that bows and crossbows proved superior to slings in medieval Europe because they were more accurate and because you're better off on balance trying to pierce the thinner bits of armor or hit an unarmored spot than trying to bludgeon the person inside. Also because arrows are simply more dangerous than stones or bullets on average. With that said, slings apparently remained potent through the 14th century and even into the 16th in Europe. English archers defeated Spanish slingers at Nájera 1367, but the latter performed well enough to earn that honorable mention.

[Thiel]

This is not the right thread for this question, but...

I want an assault rifle in my game that was designed 2021. Got any ideas? I was thinking about airburst weapons, but this weapon has to be used in drive-by shootings. I know that an assault rifle is not the best choice either, but humor me and suggest an assault rifle.

My players are knowledgeable of weapons of all types, so I'm under pressure here...

Like the others have said any current assault rifle will do the trick.
If it has to be a newly designed rifles we can make some guesses based on current trends.
First of all it's probably going to be at least partly built from composites and it's likely to fire a 6-7mm bullet like the 6.5mm Grendel. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/6.5mm_Grendel)
Since it's going to be fired from a car you'd want a fairly short weapon so either a carbine or (preferably) a bullpup.
How specific does the weapon need to be?

[Roxxy]

It seems that sling is pretty much all skill and quite minute precision, which is why it might have been slowly but steadily pushed out by bows.

There's nothing indicating that that 28g would be in any way 'average' required for large distances.

In fact from all I've seen due to my limited interest, it seems that general kinetic energy and distance of sling shots in hands of strong/skilled user is in fact rather impressive.

At least compared to bows.

http://slinging.org/index.php?page=sling-ranges

http://www.biblestudysite.com/arch.htm

Ancient sources are full of description of slings wielded to devastating effect. And outranging bows, in many cases.

Penetration of flesh was considered normal occurrence it seems, as Roman legions apparently tended to have medical tools for bullet extractions.

It seems that slings were indeed formidable weapon, though likely even more erratic than bows, form the very nature of stone release.
Another thing to remember is that a trained slinger breaks the sound barrier upon release. That's not something to scoff at.

[Carl]

Where are you getting that from roxxy. the longest slings discussed would have a spin circumstance of about 6 meter's, that still requires you spin it upto about 3600rpm to get it supersonic. And that ain't happening period.

@Incaur: then how do you explain the fact that the heavy bullets are rare and the light one's are common? The data on heavy bullets being hurled far is nice, (though sling construction, shot construction, and especially the type of athlete all need to be remembered, i think i will go a graphing), but it doesn't change the fact that the vast majority of slingshot available to the slinger for actual use isn't that heavy.

As to what a bow can do, that's going to depend a lot on arrow construction and especially bow construction. On a pure physics level it's quite doable, as little as an average 20Lb's over a 30 inch draw will get a launch velocity of 60MPH, but that's very dependent on the bow's ability to apply that much force and i suspect many bows weren't able to do that.

[AgentPaper]

Where are you getting that from roxxy. the longest slings discussed would have a spin circumstance of about 6 meter's, that still requires you spin it upto about 3600rpm to get it supersonic. And that ain't happening period.

It probably involves some trick of releasing it just right to amplify the speed just before it leaves the sling. Perhaps something like how a trebuchet works to throw a rock faster than the arm itself moves due to how the cloth sling whips around the end of it.

[Carl]

@Agent Paper: Gonna have to think on that see if i can figure out a formuale to approximate, i'd still be stunned if it could give supersonic velocities though.

Also graphs:

One for stone, one for lead & clay. Lead first, stone second.

http://s13.postimg.org/ua9nbx5eb/Lead_slingshot_graph.jpg (http://postimg.org/image/ua9nbx5eb/)

http://s13.postimg.org/yypn73ukz/Stone_Slingshot.jpg (http://postimg.org/image/yypn73ukz/)

The stone with a couple of exception displays a clear trend of lighter is better. The lead is just schitzo. Sling length in both cases appears to be in line with the weight, with lead seeing a very strong correlation.

Many datapoints have had to be omitted due to lack of one or more data entire's, if anyone can find the missing data feel free to post it.

[Telwar]

Right now, assault rifles are very efficient. They have a high rate of fire, are relatively easy to build and maintain, comparatively cheap to buy and are very effective at putting deadly holes in soft fleshy things.

In order to design a gun that is better than say the current generation of assault rifles, you need to make it better, it needs to be more effective, easier to maintain, and cheap to produce. People have tried (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XM29_OICW) to come up with a better design than the current generation of assault rifle platforms, but they really haven’t met with great success. Since you specifically set this gun in 2021, which isn’t that far away, you could easily rock with any of the current generation of assault rifles and get away with it.

A quick wikipedia search comes up with a lot of options (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_assault_rifles), I know there are civilian versions of the more popular rifles out there (the AR-15 platform, and the AK-47 platform, these are semi-automatic not select fire or fully automatic weapons (that means you can't hold the trigger down and "spray-an-pray", you have to pull the trigger every time you want the gun to fire).

I'd stick with "a cheap Nepalese or Venezuelan knock-off of the (most recent AK, whichever that is)", given that most drive-bys are done by folks who don't necessarily have the funds for the latest brand-name gear. Nobody's going to stick their railed-out AR-type with active muzzle control and smartlink out the window and spray and pray unless they're dumb. Which is entirely possible, of course!

[Roxxy]

Where are you getting that from roxxy. the longest slings discussed would have a spin circumstance of about 6 meter's, that still requires you spin it upto about 3600rpm to get it supersonic. And that ain't happening period.You can hear it loud and clear. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4VwbJ8f7bE) It's not much harder than getting a whip to crack.

Here's another one. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XEuVnZq2BMA)

[Brother Oni]

You can hear it loud and clear. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4VwbJ8f7bE) It's not much harder than getting a whip to crack.

Here's another one. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XEuVnZq2BMA)

While the parts of the sling are going supersonic, I don't think the sling bullet is going anywhere near the speed of sound, which is where Carl got the 3600rpm requirement from.

According to this page (http://www.academia.edu/434639/New_Data_on_the_Use_of_the_Sling_as_a_Warlike_Weap on_in_Thrace_4th-1st_century_BC_), sling bullets cap out at about 39m/s.

Some nice history there mentions Rhodian slingers achieving at least double the Persian archers' range of 5 pletra (154m), allowing the slingers to harass and kill them without fear of counterattack.

[Carl]

A very small part of a whip a long way from the handle goes supersonic not the whole thing. Given how a sling works it should see exactly the same sort of thing once you've let go of one half of it. But that's the sling itself flexing after release just like a whip. It dosen't mean the circular motion of the sling ever exceeds the speed of sound.

[Roxxy]

While the parts of the sling are going supersonic, I don't think the sling bullet is going anywhere near the speed of sound, which is where Carl got the 3600rpm requirement from.

According to this page (http://www.academia.edu/434639/New_Data_on_the_Use_of_the_Sling_as_a_Warlike_Weap on_in_Thrace_4th-1st_century_BC_), sling bullets cap out at about 39m/s.

Some nice history there mentions Rhodian slingers achieving at least double the Persian archers' range of 5 pletra (154m), allowing the slingers to harass and kill them without fear of counterattack.I wasn't saying the stone went supersonic, I was pointing out how fast the sling is moving at the point of release.

[Incanur]

The low average of presumed sling stone and lead bullet likely reflects harassment as primary purpose and/or unarmored foes as primary targets. Even back in antiquity, Diodoros wrote (http://slinging.org/forum/YaBB.pl?num=1297820958) that Balearic slingers slung stones weighing one mina and broke their foes' armor and shields. One mina is somewhere in the range of 350-450g. That might be an exaggeration, but the notion that slinger used heavier stones against armor simply makes physical sense. Heavier projectiles hit harder. Also note that 250+g sling stones were found at Lachish (http://archaeology.tau.ac.il/?page_id=2045).

Also, sling stones/bullets definitely can go faster than 39 m/s! People throw baseballs 44+ m/s. Those 20-30g sling bullets would have had to have been going quite fast to accomplish much of anything. I don't understand why the acnients apparently didn't make many heavier lead bullets, since they apparently used heavier stones to great effect at times, but perhaps it just wasn't worth the effort and expense. 200+g bullets would take a lot of lead.

[Carl]

Just had a thought on that Incaur, don't know why. maybe it was a case of lead shot that heavy would just be prohibitive to carry about so whatever was lying around was used. Still given lead shot out-ranges stones anyway and given the curve in that graph for stones my gut says the light shot probably was the long range stuff because i just can't see, (for a given individual and dependent on sling design), a lower drag lead round begin out-ranged by a much higher drag stone design.

Thinking about it the fact that where seeing a correlation between weight and sling length that could have been a big factor in why bows took over, the ideal sling for heavy and light weights is different and as a result classical slingers where stuck using designs that where a compromise.

Certainly though i've never disputed heavy shot would have been super effective, i just wasn't clear how common it was, if heavy shot was mostly stone though....

Actually stone would probably be better at energy transfer if it's non-brittle, that could be a factor too.

[Mr. Mask]

Extra History released the last episode of their series on the seminal tragedy, how WW1 came to be. It was pretty moving, I don't think I've felt such a sense of place from a history series before.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-wSL4WqUws&list=UUCODtTcd5M1JavPCOr_Uydg

Anyone notice any mistakes?

[Galloglaich]

I think the shape of sling stones was really important for them to fly right and have any accuracy. Accuracy was the main issue with slings, the most sought-after slingers, typically recruited from Sardania and the Spanish Islands off the coast of Catalonia (among a few other places) were raised hunting rabbits with slings and were very good shots with them. You can shoot a sling stone a very long way with a little practice but accurate shooting takes a lot of experience.

I think they actually in some cases made 'stones' out of clay, though I assume the weight would make those sub-optimal (like clay bullets used by the Confederacy in the US Civil War)

Slings may not have disappeared for a really long time. In the autobiography of Benvenutto Cellini he mentions a fight that he and his brother got into, his brother defeated a guy in a duel and the fellows friends and family who were watching 'all had their slings' and proceeded to stone him into unconsciousness. That was the 1530's or thereabouts.

I also think it's important to keep in mind, slinging may have been a harassing weapon but harassment was of vital importance in pre-industrial warfare. In the Classical period look at the critical role of the Peltast (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peltast), and later the Roman Velites. Heavy troops were formidable so long as their morale and unit cohesion remained intact but morale was a slippery thing and one of the best ways to undermine it was constant pressure (or 'friction' as Bismark called it) and light forces, infantry or cavalry, played this crucial role in most armies.



G

[Incanur]

Balearic slingers supposedly carried three slings for different ranges and possible different projectile weights.

Also note that at least a few lead bullets did weigh as much as 136.8g (http://books.google.com/books?id=z1kbyWNJIt0C&pg=PA24&lpg=PA24&dq=balearic+slinger+%2B+three+slings&source=bl&ots=xNpYq3igt3&sig=uBaX4ol4Phf5XW0ns5Xk_6w553k&hl=en&sa=X&ei=cT45VJaVIdD_yQT3uYDwCg&ved=0CD8Q6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=grams&f=false). And at least certain sets of bullets average 47+g. There are numerous surviving bullets that weigh over 100g. The book lists one bullet that weighs 234.88g, but it might be a forgery.

On the whole slings were obviously an important if low-status weapon ancient battlefields, and in some cases slingers apparently defeated archers. And slingers continued to be fielded in large numbers into the 14th century in Europe if not longer. (I believe a 15th-century version of Vegetius's text contains his instruction that soldiers should practice with the sling.) At the same time I suspect bows and crossbow displaced slings for good reason. As mentioned previously, it's simply easier to kill somebody with an arrow than with a slung stone or bullet. I suspect the odds of achieving death via blood loss from a sling bullet become vanishing low if the target is wearing any sort of textile armor or even a heavy coat. Sharp steel arrowheads shot from strong bows, on the other hand, can easily cut through many fabric defenses and penetrate deeply. Improving metallurgy may have been one factor that favored bows and crossbows over slings. For example, in recent tests of linen armor, a modern hunting broadhead performed significantly better than reconstruction bronze and iron arrowheads. I don't know that a hardened English type-16 point would do as well as the modern broadhead, but I'm sure it would have done better than any of the replica ancient points. Not all later medieval arrows were hardened, of course, but their existence enhanced bow effectiveness.

[Gnoman]

Not mistakes so much as omissions. The video heavily glossed over the Franco-Prussian war as a major cause of WWI, as the possession by a united Germany of Alsace and Lorraine was a huge motivation for France to take back their territory. It also ignores British fear of the threat Germany' High Seas Fleet posed to a colonial empire that relied on control of the seas. They seem to be going for the "Great Big Accident" theory of how the war came about, when the more likely theory is that the systems of alliances that "caused" the war were actually the opening moves, undertaken because war was coming.

[Mr. Mask]

Yeah, I see your points. Economics tend to be a critical factor in historical events, and some of the details of how WW1 started the way it did might only account for the inevitable starting sooner. They were still a bunch of expansionist empires, working off debt economies, running out of places to expand to while living in close proximity.

The second episodes goes into the interesting case of the assassination of Ferdinand: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kyCmh9G1fpo

[Storm Bringer]

a minor mistake of using the current black-red-yellow flag of Germany, not the black-red-white flag used at the time.

also, I find the whole "Europe was at peace between 1815-1914" to be rather anglo-centric, and wrong to boot. Prussia fought major wars with Austria and France, who were pretty much the two largest land powers of that time, the French fought the Austrians during the creation of Italy, the Balkan states fought each other and the Ottomans as the latter retreated, you have the Crimean War, ect.

Their was plenty of fighting and dying being done in the "Long Peace"

also, it's important to remember that their had been a whole series of "crisis" in the years leading up to the war, when one power or the other did something to rock the boat, but these were defused by diplomacy. To he honest, if the assassination of Franz Ferdinand hadn't started the war, something else would have. the whole situation was on too much of a knife edge, a Mexican standoff, and with the brutal maths of mobilisation timetables and the dire consequences of being caught before mobilisation, it only a matter of time before one side started to panic and set the ball rolling,

[Mr. Mask]

Well, you two seem to sum it up pretty well. I'm not sure if Extra History's staff doesn't see it that way, or if they just wanted to focus on how the war happened rather than how the situation was pushing it to happen.

They do go into details like the problem of mobilization, how it caused a chain reaction of armament. And while there wasn't a true peace, you might say it was still pretty peaceful by certain European standards; certainly by the standards of WW1's scale and casualties.

[Gnoman]

I guess that the fundamental issue is that the "great accident" theory presents the war as a mistake, where there is quite a bit of evidence to suggest that the Great Powers wanted one. They got m=uch more than they could handle, but France's desire to retake her lost provinces or Britain's desire to sink the German navy meant that war was inevitable.

[AgentPaper]

I guess that the fundamental issue is that the "great accident" theory presents the war as a mistake, where there is quite a bit of evidence to suggest that the Great Powers wanted one. They got m=uch more than they could handle, but France's desire to retake her lost provinces or Britain's desire to sink the German navy meant that war was inevitable.

That all might have made war more likely, but I don't think it was really inevitable. Certainly there could have been another incident along the lines of the assassination that ended up causing it, but it's also very possible that there wouldn't have been one, at least not for a long longer, until after the conditions that made trench warfare a thing had passed, making world war 1 look more like world war 2.

I think it's fair to say that the assassination was at the very least the direct cause of the war, though obviously not the only factor.

[Yora]

Based on my school knowledge and some additional reading, I don't think World War 1 could have been delayed more than a year or maybe two. In 1914, everyone was already waiting for the right moment to declare war about something. It's not so much that nobody was able to stop the process once it started, but that nobody was really that interested in reaching a peaceful compromise.
All the military thinking in the war points towards the people in charge still having a 19th century mindset, where a little invasion or occupation here and there was a rather ordinary tool of diplomacy. And the reason the trench war came to be and lasted so long was because nobody had been anticipating it. Nobody wanted the trenches of the Western Front, but nobody had been expecting it. I they had known it would turn out to be this massive war like the world has never seen before, they probably would have worked much harder on containing the situation in 1914.
But they had been expecting a short "normal" war, as we can see by how completely unprepared everyone was for the situation on the western front.

However, since it's a great deal school knowledge and it comes from the German post-world war 2 school system, there is of course a significant bias. The whole founding myth of postwar Germany is based on the idea of national leaders who are all just itching for some sweet invasions with no regards for losses, and publics that happily cheer on that stupidity in their own lack of social maturity.

[Carl]

@Yora: as i pointed out earlier, steam powered tracked vehicles where allready in civil use, even a few years would have made the development of the tank quicker and easier, not the the degree the war time did, but we'd have sen them hit the battlefields much earlier in the war with inevitable consequences. The trench warfare was as bad as it was and went on as long as it did specifically because the balance between firepower, protection, and mobility had been hilariously slanted towards firepower by the introduction of practical machine guns. Until some tech factor could correct that and provide mobility or protection that was effective in the face of machine guns trench warfare was, if not inevitable, then certainly going to play a major part.

Also your schools need to get their heads out of the sand.

Today a countries importance on the world stage is not tied exclusively to how much territory you control or how big your army is, both are factor's, but there are other ways to be relevant on the world stage. Back then if you wanted to be big news you had to won and be able to maintain a colonial empire. Thus when political leaders did their jobs and tried to secure national interest via upping their world stage presence they did so in the context of conquest and colonialism.

Certainly the politico's where as prone to corruption and lust for personal power then as now. But in the end no one was doing anything who's general aim, (i.e. increased world stage presence), wasn't and still isn't part and parcel of their job. I can deplore the factors of the times that made bloody conquest the only real way, but not the decision to pursue it given the reasons. It took the social changes after the war, and the same with WW2 to really take that paradigm and break it, and i'd say nukes forcing a diplomatic emphasis and interconnected economics played as big a part as anything else. They created an environment in which attitudes to conquest could turn without fatally crippling a nations national security for being so naive.

[Admiral Squish]

Hey, there, weapon and armor thread. It's been a while, but I have another question relating to my crossroads setting (for reference, it's pathfinder rules, and the setting is centered on the year 1750, with only slightly different technology).

Specifically, armor penetration.
In researching some native weaponry and materials, find a lot of reports of native weapons that were able to penetrate European armor. However, further research into these claims leads me to the realization that the issue of armor penetration is a bit more complex than a simple binary, that some weapons and armor could puncture certain types of armor, but not others. In an effort to express this, I've come up with this idea for a weapon trait. The idea it would be an inherent quality of a weapon, much like 'brace' or 'reach' or 'trip', so you wouldn't buy this as an enchantment.

Penetration:
A penetration weapon more easily overcomes the protections of its targets, either by actually penetrating the armor or hide, or by damaging the target through their protections. When making an attack with a penetration weapon, the attack ignores certain kinds of armor and natural armor, effectively reducing the target's armor class against attacks with the weapon. There are three levels of penetration, Light, Medium, and Heavy, which indicate the kinds of armor and the toughness of natural armor they can ignore. The details of each are given below. Ranged weapons with the penetration trait only apply the trait against targets within one range increment.



Light
Medium
Heavy


Armor
Light Armor
Light or Medium Armor
Light, Medium, or Heavy Armor


Natural Armor
+3 or lower
+6 or lower
+9 or lower



Material Notes: Adamantine weapons gain the Penetration (light) quality. If the weapon already possess the penetration quality, its value increases by one step, from light to medium, or from medium to heavy.
Adamantine armor is treated as one level heavier for the purposes of penetration weapons. Heavy adamantine armor cannot be ignored by penetration weapons.

What I need YOU for, oh mighty thread of armor and weapons, is to help me figure out, firstly, if I'm close to the goal with the above trait (I'm still considering a few alternative methods of expressing it), and secondly, what kinds of weapons could penetrate what kinds of armor. It's surprisingly difficult to find reliable information on such things.
I know firearms are all gonna have penetration (heavy), which is basically what they get normally anyway. But I'm sorta lost when it comes to other varieties of weapons, and how much penetration they should have. Atlatls, crossbows, long- and short- bows... I found a couple places that mention horn-and-sinew bows that could shoot through a buffalo (which seems unlikely, but SO COOL). I'm also thinking that weapon materials should factor into how penetration works, though I'm not exactly sure where to draw the line. Also, what about different kinds of ammunition?
And I'm also somewhat torn on the issue of melee weapons. I know war hammers and maces and the like were all originally designed to damage the wearer through their armor. Would that count as penetration, and how much? I think it would probably be a bit much to say all bunt metal weapons have penetration (heavy), but then, that would be the point of having them...

[Broken Crown]

And the reason the trench war came to be and lasted so long was because nobody had been anticipating it.

Ironically, the Great Powers were fully aware of what trench warfare was like, having observed it during the siege of Port Arthur in the Russo-Japanese war of 1904-05. Unfortunately, they drew entirely the wrong conclusion from what they saw: that the trench lines could be broken if you were willing to expend enough soldiers, munitions and supplies. (The fact that Japan was nearly bankrupted by the effort was dismissed as a result of Japan being a "poor and backward" country.)

What the Great Powers overlooked was the fact that Port Arthur was a siege: The Russian defenders had nowhere to go. On the Western Front, if you managed to break the enemy's front lines (through the expenditure of masses of soldiers, munitions, and supplies), the enemy could simply withdraw a few hundred meters, and you'd have to do it all over again.

Probably someone should have anticipated this, but when you have only one data point, it's hard to draw the right conclusions. (H.G. Wells saw it coming, but he wasn't a general. He also, quite sensibly, concluded that trench warfare would inevitably lead to a ceasefire when it became clear that attacking was a pointless waste of life and resources; we all know how that turned out.)

[Mr. Mask]

Trench warfare: The powers weren't really planning for trench warfare the way it happened. Extra History went into one part of this, the idea that if they deployed first they would win without a fight, politically. But the other problem is that both sides kept making similar moves. The rush toward the sea involved Germany and France regularly butting heads in an attempt to outflank one and other unsuccessfully, neither side having the foresight to go a bit further in their outflanking or to lay an ambush for the other side when they made their advance. So, what they ended up with was battlelines from one end of the country to the other, trench warfare to an utter extreme with no room to manoeuvre.


Squish: One problem I see with the system is its all or nothing nature. If your enemy has heavy armour, then it doesn't matter if you have a battleaxe, a stick, or a sword--actually, it will matter, in that the sword will perform better (dealing more damage, being easier to use). Without a constant bonus to armour, certain weapons aren't as viable.

As for which weapons, there is quite a bit of variety within a given weapon. You can get axes that look more like hammers, you can get hammers that start to narrow down to pick-like heads, you get different types of ammo, weights, and handle lengths designed for armour penetration. Certain weapon designs have more potential for AP than others, so it can be simplified in which designs are capable of the most AP (give a lot of emphasis on AP).

[Carl]

Another factor on the western front besides maneuvering room was the climate, in many parts of the world trench warfare would not have turned the ground in between into a bog. That would have greatly eased many aspects of the situation, in particular you wouldn't have needed tracks as much to get around so a tank like vehicle may well have arrived much sooner.

[Storm Bringer]

another important element of the stalemate was that pretty much everyone underestimated the ability of modern nation-states to absorb casualties at keep fighting.

The French and German armies both lost hundreds of thousands of men in the opening months. the french had more dead and wounded in the opening month of the war than they had during the whole of the Franco-Prussian war of 1870, but they still kept fighting, and even winning.

Even the Austrians and the Russains, the two weakest Great Powers, were able to suffer losses that would have crippled a 19th century power and remain effective.

everyone point of view was still rooted in the 19th century, and they didn't realise just how resilient a 20th century nation can be, until after it all kicked off.

[Brother Oni]

Hey, there, weapon and armor thread. It's been a while, but I have another question relating to my crossroads setting (for reference, it's pathfinder rules, and the setting is centered on the year 1750, with only slightly different technology).

A comment, if it's set in the 1750s, then the leading European nations didn't typically have armour for their line infantry and only cavalry would have it. Is armour for everybody a deliberate change for your setting?



... what kinds of weapons could penetrate what kinds of armor. It's surprisingly difficult to find reliable information on such things.


The reason for little information is because it's a very complex question, which relies on the metallurgy, design and condition of the armour, the weapon, and impact angle/velocity. There's plenty of studies and books, The Knight and the Blast Furnace (http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Knight-Blast-Furnace-Metallurgy/dp/9004124985) being a famous one, which attempts to answer some of the questions.

I'm not familiar with Pathfinder, so I can't comment on the rules aspect.


Atlatls, crossbows, long- and short- bows... I found a couple places that mention horn-and-sinew bows that could shoot through a buffalo (which seems unlikely, but SO COOL).

Depends on the shot placement. If the arrow doesn't hit any bones, it could theoretically pass straight through.



I'm also thinking that weapon materials should factor into how penetration works, though I'm not exactly sure where to draw the line. Also, what about different kinds of ammunition?

If it's 1750s, then it's pretty much all steel of some type. Ammunition types are also limited, since it's pretty much lead balls of varying size all the way.
Off the top of my head at the individual soldier level, you're pretty much limited to musket balls and grapeshot (smaller balls fired out of a wide bore barrel for a spread effect). There are other specialised types I can think of (heated shot, chain shot, etc), which are limited for naval purposes or are just upscaled for cannons (eg canister shot).

If we're heading back into medieval technology, then arrows are roughly separated into two types - bodkin (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/67/Bodkin1.jpg) (armour piercing) and broadhead (http://i917.photobucket.com/albums/ad18/ceebs27/IMG_20120111_193238.jpg) (soft targets). There are a lots of other specialised designs (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a9/Cr%C3%A9cy-en-Ponthieu_24-09-2008_12-11-33.JPG), but for sanity's sake, I think those two types will be sufficient.
This isn't including native technology though - the Aztecs used obsidian arrowheads as they hadn't discovered the same level of metallurgy and these were very effective on unarmoured targets since they were very sharp and tended to fragment on impact.



And I'm also somewhat torn on the issue of melee weapons. I know war hammers and maces and the like were all originally designed to damage the wearer through their armor.

If you mean that they inflict damage through blunt force trauma being transmitted through armour, I think you're a bit mistaken on how maces and warhammers work. Have a look at the following:

http://www.medievalcollectibles.com/images/Product/large/600684.png

http://img1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20120704191730/dnd4/images/9/99/Mace_IMG_3823.jpg

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-J2j2z4RYVos/UOOUwpnlFII/AAAAAAAALfw/VuPEbi3oU9A/s1600/mace%2Bmorningstar.jpg

The design of these weapons all force the impact into a single small point, to enable it to punch through armour - in the case of the warhammer, it's the 'beak' on the other end of the head.

Edit: I think I'm being too bogged down in the details. You could simply put each weapon into a generic class and assign attributes for that class, rather than specialising for each individual design.

[Yora]

Also your schools need to get their heads out of the sand.
All history is filtered to support the narrative the historian wants to be the truth. History is made by the victor, and in this special case, Germany embraced the role as the bad guy.

[Brother Oni]

All history is filtered to support the narrative the historian wants to be the truth. History is made by the victor, and in this special case, Germany embraced the role as the bad guy.

This is in direct contrast to Japan who would rather forget about their past and do the cultural/social equivalent of burying it in the attic.

This frequently causes problems with their neighbours.

[Mr. Mask]

That reminds me. You all read about how Japan is remilitarizing? Changed the constitution, and now have one of the largest military budgets in the world. It's an interesting bit of history unfolding.

[Yora]

I believe Germany really is a special case. I am not aware of any other country ever accepting the blame for war crimes and genocide and then making a real effort to radically reform its society.
The Soviets and the Japanese come in as close seconds, but the Soviets didn't lose and for some reasons the Americans didn't think it worth going through the trouble with the Japanese.

Germany also used to be very anti-militaristic, but that also changed in the 90s. Still trying to get some arrangements that German soliders don't have to shot at anyone, if possible, but completely fine with supporting allied soldiers to do the shoting instead.

[Thiel]

@Yora: as i pointed out earlier, steam powered tracked vehicles where allready in civil use, even a few years would have made the development of the tank quicker and easier, not the the degree the war time did, but we'd have sen them hit the battlefields much earlier in the war with inevitable consequences. The trench warfare was as bad as it was and went on as long as it did specifically because the balance between firepower, protection, and mobility had been hilariously slanted towards firepower by the introduction of practical machine guns. Until some tech factor could correct that and provide mobility or protection that was effective in the face of machine guns trench warfare was, if not inevitable, then certainly going to play a major part.


I'm not convinced you could speed up tank development all that much. It took 12 months from the establishment of the Landship Committee to the first massed use of Mk 1 tanks at the Battle of Flers-Courcelette on 15 September 1916. The actual development of the Mk 1 took seven months from first prototype to full production.
In order to get tanks earlier you need to establish a need for it earlier and figure out that a tank can fill that need.
Only after the frontline bogged down in late 1914 did it become clear that something else was needed.

[AgentPaper]

I'm not convinced you could speed up tank development all that much. It took 12 months from the establishment of the Landship Committee to the first massed use of Mk 1 tanks at the Battle of Flers-Courcelette on 15 September 1916. The actual development of the Mk 1 took seven months from first prototype to full production.
In order to get tanks earlier you need to establish a need for it earlier and figure out that a tank can fill that need.
Only after the frontline bogged down in late 1914 did it become clear that something else was needed.

I agree that simple advancing tech wouldn't necessarily have led to faster tanks, but it makes it more likely for there to be smaller engagements that show that trench warfare was going to be a thing.

Really though, what might have prevented trench warfare was simply a higher degree of mechanization through mass production of trucks, both for supplies and for carrying soldiers. You don't need to expect trench warfare to know that loading up a company of soldiers in trucks would give you a huge advantage in mobility. And once you start using trucks, it's easy to move from there to lightly armored vehicles to get your troops to the front lines more safely or even to fight out of (armored cars as a start), and from there you need something to take out enemy vehicles, so maybe put some heavier machine guns on it, and now your enemies have those too so you need to up your armor, heavy vehicle with wheels is getting stuck in the mud, so let's start using more wheels or tracks to keep it moving...

I doubt we would have seen tanks developed as quickly as we did when WW1 actually happened, but any kind of arms race could easily lead there not too long after, and even if it didn't get to actual tanks, higher mechanization would be fairly likely to prevent trench warfare, at least to the extent that we saw.

[Brother Oni]

That reminds me. You all read about how Japan is remilitarizing? Changed the constitution, and now have one of the largest military budgets in the world. It's an interesting bit of history unfolding.

They technically haven't changed their Constitution, they're just reading Article 9 in a different way: link (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_9_of_the_Japanese_Constitution).

Completely re-writing it to allow full militarisation is not a good idea in my opinion, since it will lead to their butting heads (more so than currently) against both the Russians and the Chinese, who are permanent members of the UN Security Council, have significant militaries of their own, and are nuclear powers. Never overly taunt the guy with the bigger stick than you.

This is aside from the North Korea wild card and the Republic of China getting any funny ideas.

[Zizka]

Extra History released the last episode of their series on the seminal tragedy, how WW1 came to be. It was pretty moving, I don't think I've felt such a sense of place from a history series before. Anyone notice any mistakes?

Not mistakes so much as omissions (which is inevitable, as the video is short and the origins of WW1 are still hotly contested); notably Fritz Fisher's hypothesis and the questions about Imperial Russian involvement in the Serbian terrorism that provided the catalyst for the war.


On the Western Front, if you managed to break the enemy's front lines (through the expenditure of masses of soldiers, munitions, and supplies), the enemy could simply withdraw a few hundred meters, and you'd have to do it all over again...H.G. Wells saw it coming, but he wasn't a general. He also, quite sensibly, concluded that trench warfare would inevitably lead to a ceasefire when it became clear that attacking was a pointless waste of life and resources.

...except that attacking did indeed win, eventually. Your first point is correct: terrain was irrelevant. The crux of winning the First World War was learning how to destroy enough of the enemy at such speed that their resources couldn't replace them before they broke (which was finally achieved in 1918).

Incidentally, a ceasefire was pretty much impossible for economic reasons: WW1 was so expensive to fight that it was literally a question of victory or bankruptcy; victory meant the chance to extract reparations, which is what many of the war loans were predicated on.


Really though, what might have prevented trench warfare was simply a higher degree of mechanization through mass production of trucks, both for supplies and for carrying soldiers. You don't need to expect trench warfare to know that loading up a company of soldiers in trucks would give you a huge advantage in mobility. And once you start using trucks, it's easy to move from there to lightly armored vehicles to get your troops to the front lines more safely or even to fight out of (armored cars as a start), and from there you need something to take out enemy vehicles, so maybe put some heavier machine guns on it, and now your enemies have those too so you need to up your armor, heavy vehicle with wheels is getting stuck in the mud, so let's start using more wheels or tracks to keep it moving...

Everyone in WW1 used armoured cars...by 1914. Similarly with vehicle transport: remember the taxis of the Marne or the British buses in 1914? Trucks were so ubiquitous that the French defense of Verdun (1916) was built on a continuous stream of trucks carrying supplies, with something like 5 seconds between each truck. Tanks were available by 1916 and improved throughout until by 1918 there were crude APCs and mobile artillery as well as anti-tank weapons.

The problem with WW1 was not mobility vs. firepower but rather the difficulties involved in patriotic, industrialised nations fighting each other to the death. The Western Front made it harder because of the geographically constricted battlespace but even in Eastern Europe, where there was far more mobility, the same problems remained.

[Mr. Mask]

They technically haven't changed their Constitution, they're just reading Article 9 in a different way: link (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_9_of_the_Japanese_Constitution). Fair point.


Never overly taunt the guy with the bigger stick than you. I think Japan failed that one when they started annexing Chinese islands. Now they're trying to get a bigger stick.



Staff Slings: Anyone know much about staff-slings? I was wondering how they compared to the more common slings.

[Raum]

They technically haven't changed their Constitution, they're just reading Article 9 in a different way: link (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_9_of_the_Japanese_Constitution).

Completely re-writing it to allow full militarisation is not a good idea in my opinion, since it will lead to their butting heads (more so than currently) against both the Russians and the Chinese, who are permanent members of the UN Security Council, have significant militaries of their own, and are nuclear powers. Never overly taunt the guy with the bigger stick than you.

This is aside from the North Korea wild card and the Republic of China getting any funny ideas.This seems an oddly one-sided point of view. China lost control of the islands over a century ago. They're throwing their weight around now for a variety of reasons but China is initiating the conflict. Ironically enough, they may well drive Japan to rearming.


I think Japan failed that one when they started annexing Chinese islands. Now they're trying to get a bigger stick.You mean in 1895? The Japanese annexed them from China in 1895. Previously, China (and Japan as well as others) used the Senkaku Islands as navigation markers but they've never been inhabited.

[Broken Crown]

...except that attacking did indeed win, eventually. Your first point is correct: terrain was irrelevant. The crux of winning the First World War was learning how to destroy enough of the enemy at such speed that their resources couldn't replace them before they broke (which was finally achieved in 1918).

Exactly my point. Attacking worked once the tactics and logistics were developed that could make attacking effective. None of that existed in 1914-1916.


Incidentally, a ceasefire was pretty much impossible for economic reasons: WW1 was so expensive to fight that it was literally a question of victory or bankruptcy; victory meant the chance to extract reparations, which is what many of the war loans were predicated on.

A ceasefire isn't the same thing as ending the war: Wells didn't suggest that the belligerents would make peace, only that they would stop attacking each other until they figured out an effective way to do it. (Wells didn't bring it up, but they'd save a lot of money this way, too.) The short story in question is "The Land Ironclads," written in 1903; I don't think war loans were on anyone's mind at the time.

[AgentPaper]

Everyone in WW1 used armoured cars...by 1914. Similarly with vehicle transport: remember the taxis of the Marne or the British buses in 1914? Trucks were so ubiquitous that the French defense of Verdun (1916) was built on a continuous stream of trucks carrying supplies, with something like 5 seconds between each truck. Tanks were available by 1916 and improved throughout until by 1918 there were crude APCs and mobile artillery as well as anti-tank weapons.

Yes, but those were the exception, not the norm, were they not? Even at the start of WW2 Germany was still using horses for most of it's supply lines, and they certainly didn't have the vehicles to move whole armies around.

I'm not saying that it's a matter of having vs not having trucks, but rather how many they had, could support, and could produce, which certainly rose during and after the war. It's not like military technology would have just stopped if WW1 never happened, it just would have developed more slowly, and in different ways. Perhaps we would have ended up with trench warfare anyways, but it isn't a certainty.


The problem with WW1 was not mobility vs. firepower but rather the difficulties involved in patriotic, industrialised nations fighting each other to the death. The Western Front made it harder because of the geographically constricted battlespace but even in Eastern Europe, where there was far more mobility, the same problems remained.

This happened in WW2 as well, though, and that didn't devolve into trench warfare, because of new technologies and the new tactics that were developed to use them.

[snowblizz]

How WW1 started and potential optionals is something I've been thinking about recently in the context of a potential alternate-universe kinda thing similar to "A Very British Civil War" but in a Scandinavian/Baltic context. "A Very Baltic Civil War" as I unashamedly call the (very limited) wip.

The annoying (sort of) thing is that the situation doesn't actually require any modifications per se, and in fact what actually happened was key to ensuring there was a breakdown in the nations of the region. But I really want the Royal Navy (and the French) to be able to show up and that means Germany and Britain cannot be at war.

So I feel I am stuck figuring out a reasonable way to create a more limited version of the war. WW1 was probably not inevitable, but the odds were certainly stacked towards conflict. Even so there were forces working towards peace. Ironically the German Emperor could have been one of those (his ministers on the other hand were hawks and mostly in control) he was cousin to two other main belligerents and had enjoyed good Russian relations, though he was somewhat estranged from his English family. While unlikely, it was entirely possible to avoid conflict, at least in the sort run, and it could potentially have been more limited.

Essentially, the archduke is not killed, wounded maybe, the assassins caught and fingers pointed so tensions are already lower. Austria makes demands and so forth. Russia starts to mobilize. Germany does as well, but weighing to the East not West (and are not a direct threat to France). They do not declare war. France and Britain lack a casus belli for long enough to enable diplomats to somewhat diffuse the situation among these key players.
A Eastern/Balkan war breaks out but the Western powers are kept out, barely, avoiding a World War, at least at this stage. Russia becomes the main aggressor instead of Germany (the personal contact between Emperor and Tsar avoid hostilities, been toying with Russia attacking but being repulsed). Germany becomes a shadow-member of the Central Powers, a power-broker of sorts, keeping France and Britain out in exchange for not overtly joining. But they also use their influence to convince the Ottoman Empire to join Austria. Many Germans "volunteer" for the Germanic cause in the East, one corporal named Adolf for example...
More whacky expansions would include an ill-advised attack in Asia against Japanese interests creating a further drain on the Russian Empire. Eventually leading to a fragmentation of the Imperial Russian state due to the stresses of war and it's toll on a society already fragmenting.

Another "problem" is that picking an earlier period than inter-war means one loses out on a bunch of lovely stuff developed during ww1.

[Carl]

I think in the miss my point got missed.

The main reason tanks where developed was because the conditions on the western front required an all new self propelled vehicle to be able to achieve the required mission objective in the conditions that prevailed. If the environment had remained passable for existing stuff you might well have seen ad hoc conversions of trucks and the like that into something that could have performed a similar if less efficient role.

Also wider deployment of powered vehicles within the military absolutely would have had an effect. To my knowledge at the outbreak of war no one had even seriously considered, (within the military), the idea of vehicles in a direct offensive combat role. They where part of the logistics train and recon only. And a large part of this is down the the fact that they just weren't endemic enough to the military of the time, particularly the military the people making the decisions had risen through the ranks in. Even a little more time with them integrated would have drastically increased how much they where viewed as potential offensive platforms for actual attacks in force.

All you really need to prevent trench warfare in a pre-anti-tank gun time-frame is enough armour to fend of an MG, an MG of your own, enough mobility to get around the battlefield at a semi decent pace, in a single platform that is numerous enough to be used in a primary offensive form, with the right doctrinal thinking to actually employ them in a breakthrough fashion against enemy infantry formations and you have everything you need to make trench warfare difficult or impossible.

The problem was that this was lacking at the outset of war to varying degrees on each point, and no mans land quickly turned impassable for any existing unit forcing all new design and construction which radically added to the time-span required to respond appropriately.

[Storm Bringer]

you don't need the Archduke alive, you just need the Kaiser Wilhelm to not to issue the "blank cheque" blanket support for Austria, but some more moderate statement of support. Austria then decides to try and invade Serbia anyway, knowing that such an action will draw in Russia, and hoping to try and drag Germany into the war kicking a screaming. Germany stays officially neutral, but pours arms, money and advisors into the Austrian army sort of like how the americans were aiding the allies in both world wars for years before their official involvement. this support beefs it up the Austrian army enough to let it survive the Russian onslaught long enough for whatever plans you have.

as for developing a tank without WW1, I can see a path, though obviously very slow:

all armies had limited numbers of armoured cars in 1914. these proved very effective in WW1, and given time, I'm sure the peacetime numbers would have grown, and by extension, the chance that a armoured car might run into a hostile armoured car, which the 1914 ear armoured car with only a machine gun would be ill equipped to deal with.

Once this was recognised as a risk they might face on the battlefield, development of anti-vehicle weapons would naturally follow, and so would mounting them on the armour cars, just as historically happened. Now, I would think these AFVs would stay wheeled unless they were exposed to field conditions bad enough to highlight their relatively poor cross country performance. North West Frontier of India, maybe? or a late WW1. either way, they'd eventually acquire tracks once the need and the advantages were perceived. but were talking about a development cycle spread over at least 2 decades here, with the pace of advance being slowed by the peacetime requirements.

[rs2excelsior]

How WW1 started and potential optionals is something I've been thinking about recently in the context of a potential alternate-universe kinda thing similar to "A Very British Civil War" but in a Scandinavian/Baltic context. "A Very Baltic Civil War" as I unashamedly call the (very limited) wip.

The annoying (sort of) thing is that the situation doesn't actually require any modifications per se, and in fact what actually happened was key to ensuring there was a breakdown in the nations of the region. But I really want the Royal Navy (and the French) to be able to show up and that means Germany and Britain cannot be at war.

...

Essentially, the archduke is not killed, wounded maybe, the assassins caught and fingers pointed so tensions are already lower. Austria makes demands and so forth. Russia starts to mobilize. Germany does as well, but weighing to the East not West (and are not a direct threat to France). They do not declare war. France and Britain lack a casus belli for long enough to enable diplomats to somewhat diffuse the situation among these key players.
A Eastern/Balkan war breaks out but the Western powers are kept out, barely, avoiding a World War, at least at this stage.

You don't really need to keep the Archduke alive. And France and Russia had an agreement that should one be attacked, the other would mobilize as well. I'll admit, I'm not as clear on the exact politics at the start of WWI, but I believe England was about the last to join the conflict, mostly because Belgium's neutrality was violated. So let France get into the war, but put a few more anti-war politicians into England and have the German high command modify the Schlieffen (sp?) plan to avoid Belgium (possibly for fear of inciting England to war). Maybe have a British Expeditionary Force get destroyed so soundly in August 1914 that the British government stays out of the rest of the war. Bam, Royal Navy is free to meddle in Scandinavia.

For that matter, why couldn't a RN squadron show up even if England was entangled fully into WWI?

Also, regarding tanks in WWI; they were impressive and could be tactically decisive, but they lacked enough reliability, resilience, mobility, and quantity to make a real strategic impact. The final break from trench warfare in the Hundred Days was more due to German exhaustion and attrition from their March offensives than the tanks. Armored and aerial warfare matured a lot between the wars; even more so during WWII. It was, I believe, a general increase in infantry support for both the offense and defense (armor, armored transport, air support, more reactive artillery, increased prevalence of light machine guns as opposed to the nearly-immobile water-cooled WWI machine guns, etc.) rather than pure development of the tank that allowed WWII to avoid trench warfare on a general scale.

[Raum]

There are lots of "ifs" which may have stopped WWI:
- If Austria Hungary had declared war immediately other nations would probably have viewed it as earned punishment.
- If Germany hadn't given Austria a blank check.
- If Serbia had accepted Austria's demands (though they came as close to accepting them as any nation could).
- If Russia hadn't mobilized. (It's not like Austria alone was a major threat.)
- If Russia had been willing to stay with partial mobilization as Germany requested...instead they declared full mobilization.
- If Germany had been willing or able to plan a defensive war...but they feared being caught between France and Russia.

There are certainly other items which could be added to the list - perhaps starting with "If autocrats didn't run most of Europe's major nations..." and "If an entrenched class system didn't keep diplomats, military planners, and government planners in mostly separate silos..." In spite of all the "ifs" war was about as close to inevitable as it can be.

[Zizka]

A ceasefire isn't the same thing as ending the war: Wells didn't suggest that the belligerents would make peace, only that they would stop attacking each other until they figured out an effective way to do it. (Wells didn't bring it up, but they'd save a lot of money this way, too.) The short story in question is "The Land Ironclads," written in 1903; I don't think war loans were on anyone's mind at the time.

Such a ceasefire would have been completely impractical, not least because of the damage to morale. Also, people really were thinking about war loans quite seriously. The financial system nearly collapsed in 1914 and even very early on all sides started racking up enormous debts which could only be paid off by extracting reparations. There was even a pyramid structure with the smaller Entente countries being funded by Russia and France, who in turn were funded by Britain, which in turn relied on loans from America (and the same thing with the Central Powers, with Germany as the bankroller).


Yes, but those were the exception, not the norm, were they not? Even at the start of WW2 Germany was still using horses for most of it's supply lines, and they certainly didn't have the vehicles to move whole armies around. I'm not saying that it's a matter of having vs not having trucks, but rather how many they had, could support, and could produce, which certainly rose during and after the war. It's not like military technology would have just stopped if WW1 never happened, it just would have developed more slowly, and in different ways. Perhaps we would have ended up with trench warfare anyways, but it isn't a certainty. This happened in WW2 as well, though, and that didn't devolve into trench warfare, because of new technologies and the new tactics that were developed to use them.

Exceptions? Well, everyone had them, even if not in the numbers or of the sophistication they wanted. The problem was that whilst tanks could produce low-level tactical effects, they couldn't change the strategic problems (see: Cambrai). Trucks were great and used a lot but didn't supersede railways. Armoured cars were also widely used but were obviously of limited utility in the trenches, hence why a Royal Naval Armoured Car Squadron ended up in Russia (where, post-revolution, they ended up driving across the whole country to Korea!). Of course, older methods were still in use...but then the German Army was still highly reliant on horses at the end of WWII.

The real problem wasn't technology or even tactics but that there was a disconnect between strategy and tactics: even when battles were won the war continued. It would take years of attrition, the development of an operational level of warfare and the creation of armies capable of fighting in such a fashion to win the war.


All you really need to prevent trench warfare in a pre-anti-tank gun time-frame is enough armour to fend of an MG, an MG of your own, enough mobility to get around the battlefield at a semi decent pace, in a single platform that is numerous enough to be used in a primary offensive form, with the right doctrinal thinking to actually employ them in a breakthrough fashion against enemy infantry formations and you have everything you need to make trench warfare difficult or impossible.

*cough* Artillery *cough*

The big killer in WWI and the reason why everyone used trenches had little to do with MGs and everything to do with artillery. In 1914 people had vehicles like this:

http://i675.photobucket.com/albums/vv117/RickLawlerphotos/Rolls%20Royce/003.jpg

The problem is, all the enemy need is one field gun (and there were lots) and goodbye armoured car.

There simply was no technological panacea to the Western Front. Lots were tried, all failed.

[Mr. Mask]

Raum: Well, Japan can't really be driven to rearm. The treaty with the US forbids them to raise much of an army.

The latest controversy to do with the islands was in 2012, I think. The Japanese government decided that since Japanese businesses own the islands privately, they should be able to annex them as part of Japan.

[Raum]

Raum: Well, Japan can't really be driven to rearm. The treaty with the US forbids them to raise much of an army.Treaties aren't permanent. More importantly, there are situations where the US would encourage such a move.


The latest controversy to do with the islands was in 2012, I think. The Japanese government decided that since Japanese businesses own the islands privately, they should be able to annex them as part of Japan.Check your history. Pre-1895 the Senkaku Islands were nominally part of China and used for little more than navigation aids. Japan annexed them in 1895 and a businessman started a fish processing business on the islands around 1900 which lasted ~40 years. The US occupied them in 1945 and Japan officially surrendered administrative control to the US after the war. The US returned them to Japan in the late 60s or early 70s (don't have an exact date handy). In 2012 the "Japanese government then reached a deal to buy three of the islands from the owner..." (BBC (http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-pacific-11341139)) in an attempt to prevent more provocative uses.

I'm intentionally avoiding the rhetoric bandied about today and simply listing verifiable history. The Senkakus haven't been Chinese territory since 1895.

[Carl]

@Zizka: And the later tanks of 1917 where just as vulnerable to field guns, yet they worked just fine. Your argument doesn't hold water with the facts. (and before you say anything, i'm perfectly aware of why the field guns didn't do as much mayhem to the tanks of the era, which only goes to emphasis my point further down actually)

I'd also point out that the armored car you linked fits exactly my point's, it wasn't produced until months after the war began, and was produced in strictly limited numbers, (120 total).

Trench warfare worked for one simple reason. There was no way to effectively destroy or suppress the enemy MG positions while the infantry advanced on them. Everything else about trench warfare, from the trenches themselves to the barbed wire, and so on was engineered to reinforce that simple fact as heavily as possible.



Thats not to say that tanks where a magic bullet, like everything else they needed to be used appropriately and in proper combination with everything else with the right doctrine, and issues with this plagued tank employment for the rest of the war, reliability was a genuine and serious issue, but just as serious was a need to discover a doctrine to properly employ them and figure out exactly what kinds of support they needed where and how to provide that.

And tank Doctrine wasn't the only area of weakness. Indeed numerous equipment employment doctrine issues existed for many types of equipment. And quite a lot of what they had was found to have serious defect's, (infamous dud shell issues as well as a lack of appreciation of a need of HE shells pre war) Communications where a particular problem throughout the war and heavily contributed to the complete disaster that was the Somme, (British forces actually broke the front German line, but couldn't get word back to HQ, and thus additional forces to their location to hold or exploit their gains before the Germans successfully responded).


Which is where my points going, if they'd actually employed armored cars for a considerable period before the war they'd have had much more time to get a head start on the doctrine. But armored cars where too new, and thus too few in number, for anyone to have considered the possibilities too carefully and realized how they might be employed in combination with artillery and infantry to stymy excessive defensive positions by providing the necessary covering fire and interlocking support capabilities vs various battlefield threats amongst the three elements. Which is also the reason field guns failed to render tanks ineffective when the appeared. The doctrine for dealing with them was developed in the face of the threat.

[rs2excelsior]

- If Germany had been willing or able to plan a defensive war...but they feared being caught between France and Russia.

I recently read an interesting book that analyzed the conduct of wars fought by Prussia, and later Germany, from the early 1700s to 1945. The jist of it was that, since Prussia was a small country in terms of population but usually had high-quality, well-led troops, and was usually surrounded by its enemies, Prussia tended to rely on lighting campaigns of maneuver that sought to quickly defeat its enemies and bring a war to a swift conclusion. If a war got bogged down into an attritional war of position, Prussia would lose in the long term, but the caliber of its troops meant that even when outnumbered a Prussian army could more often than not seize the initiative in a war of maneuver and come out victorious. When German unification occurred in 1871, most of the same conditions applied to Germany, so they kept the same general philosophy. Which is why, rather than plan for a defensive war that Germany would lose in the long term, they decided on a lighting offensive against both France and Russia simultaneously, designed to knock them both out of the war before they could bring their full force to bear. Obviously it didn't work out, and Germany was pulled into the war of position it didn't want--which it subsequently lost.

[Admiral Squish]

Regarding the penetration quality:
Well, I'm also considering two alternative methods of expressing it. One being penetration weapons come with a value, and ignore armor/natural armor bonuses below that value. (I.E, a +4 penetration weapon would ignore a chain shirt and some decent hide, but would not apply against scale mail) The second is that each penetration weapon has a a value, allowing them to ignore a total value of armor/ natural armor up to that point (I.E, a 4 would reduce the target's armor and natural armor by a total of 4, regardless of what the target is wearing or is protected by)

Regarding armor in the time frame:
While armor would be largely out of use in most military engagements, due to the prevalence of firearms, there is still a market for it, particularly among adventurers, since most monsters wouldn't be using guns. It would also continue to protect against most arrows and spears and such, in more primitive regions.

Regarding hammers:
Wikipedia seemed to indicate the main purposed of the blunt weapons was to dent armor, particularly helmets, to damage the wearer. It seems to say those with points were designed to be used against regions where the armor was thinner, in chain-covered sections like legs or arms.

[Gnoman]

You don't really need to keep the Archduke alive. And France and Russia had an agreement that should one be attacked, the other would mobilize as well. I'll admit, I'm not as clear on the exact politics at the start of WWI, but I believe England was about the last to join the conflict, mostly because Belgium's neutrality was violated. So let France get into the war, but put a few more anti-war politicians into England and have the German high command modify the Schlieffen (sp?) plan to avoid Belgium (possibly for fear of inciting England to war). Maybe have a British Expeditionary Force get destroyed so soundly in August 1914 that the British government stays out of the rest of the war. Bam, Royal Navy is free to meddle in Scandinavia.

For that matter, why couldn't a RN squadron show up even if England was entangled fully into WWI?

Also, regarding tanks in WWI; they were impressive and could be tactically decisive, but they lacked enough reliability, resilience, mobility, and quantity to make a real strategic impact. The final break from trench warfare in the Hundred Days was more due to German exhaustion and attrition from their March offensives than the tanks. Armored and aerial warfare matured a lot between the wars; even more so during WWII. It was, I believe, a general increase in infantry support for both the offense and defense (armor, armored transport, air support, more reactive artillery, increased prevalence of light machine guns as opposed to the nearly-immobile water-cooled WWI machine guns, etc.) rather than pure development of the tank that allowed WWII to avoid trench warfare on a general scale.

An often-forgotten contribution to the late-war Allied gains was the French introduction of what they called "infiltration" tactics. For most of the war, an attack was presaged by several days bombardment by literally thousands of guns on broad sections of trench line, followed by a mass assault along the entire sector. These attacks often failed, and always suffered apallingly high casualties, but nothing that was tried (including gas attacks, bigger and better guns, general issues of grenades and lighter machine guns to support the assault) fundamentally changed the situation. Eventually, after systematically studying conditions at the front, a new doctrine was evolved that involved sending parties to cut the wire in a very narrow area under cover of night, with the infantry launching a narrow, concentrated attack with only a very brief "hurricane" bombardment preceeding them. The proposal met with heavy opposition, as the generals reviewing it expected an attack without proper artillery preparation and with such a concentrated force to be little short of mass suicide. When it was tried, it was a resounding success. What nobody realized until systematic analysis was carried out late in the war is that the days-long barrages not only inflicted relatively little damage (most soldiers killed by artillery were hit by the first few rounds. After that, everyone was either in solid cover or dead; while machine guns, concrete fortifications, and barbed wire turned out to be nearly impervious to anything except a direct hit, which was fairly rare even when shells were raining down in an area for days. Meanwhile, when they ceased fire to ensure they wouldn't hit their own men, that was a clear "we're attacking now, man your battlestations" indicator), but made the attacks far harder by turning hard, dried ground into loose-packed, dangerous muck, along with softening the trench edges enough to make attackers slip and tanks to fail to cross. A hurricane attack fired after the attack began caught the enemy largely out in the "open" in their firing steps and gun positions, inflicting fearsome casualties, while the concentrated infantry attack went in with enough force to overwhelm the survivors.

An improved version of these tactics, incorporating advanced armor and aircraft, was used to spearhead the invasions of Poland and France a generation later.

[Broken Crown]

Such a ceasefire would have been completely impractical, not least because of the damage to morale.

And yet, such ceasefires actually happened (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_truce) in the early stages of the trench warfare stalemate.

As for damage to morale, a few days, weeks, or months of not being shot at is going to be far better for morale than, say, Verdun or the Somme.


Also, people really were thinking about war loans quite seriously. The financial system nearly collapsed in 1914 and even very early on all sides started racking up enormous debts which could only be paid off by extracting reparations.

In 1914, war loans were being sought by all the belligerents. You may have overlooked the fact that in my previous post I was referring to 1903, which is odd, since you quoted it.

[Brother Oni]

This seems an oddly one-sided point of view. China lost control of the islands over a century ago. They're throwing their weight around now for a variety of reasons but China is initiating the conflict. Ironically enough, they may well drive Japan to rearming.


Surprisingly I'm not talking about the islands as their ownership is a massive can of worms as you've pointed out. I'm talking about things like the Yasukuni Shrine (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controversies_surrounding_Yasukuni_Shrine).

Edit: I can't really get into this in more detail without breaking board rules (more so than I am now anyway).


Raum: Well, Japan can't really be driven to rearm. The treaty with the US forbids them to raise much of an army.

Actually, Japan isn't allowed to have a military at all. It's only through doing the legal and political equivalent of half closing their eyes and looking at the text sideways that they're permitted to have a Self Defence Force and the current re-interpretation extends that self defence to their allies, which is a major issue at the moment.

There's also the issue of the quality of their SDF. Unlike in the West where the military is typically regarded as not the soft option, in Japan, joining the military is regarded as the choice of people who couldn't do better (people from second rate universities and the like) or couldn't hack it in civilian life. As a result, there are significant differences in how they try and entice people to join the SDF: as an example, take a look at these recruitment ads for the US Navy (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6fzK6EYWEo8), Royal Navy (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iEjX9r4M1Ms) and the JMSDF (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZjAXJaFydwM).

All right, to be be fair, here's a more serious JMSDF one (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eji0g3AM9do), but the fact that they even used the first one (or this one (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdH3UhYD_AI)) shows a major difference in attitude.
From informal comments from people who have been on joint operations with JSDF personnel, they're competent but untested.

[Mr. Mask]

Raum: The treaty limits their army, "for as long as the sun rises in the east." Perhaps you are correct in your optimism that the US will decide to axe that treaty.

I'm not sure what in the article contradicts what I said. Japan is trying to annex the islands. You can say they were trying to keep the islands out of the hands of Ishihara Shinataro due to his extreme nature (an attempt, "to prevent more provocative uses").


Admiral Squish: The first idea for a system has the problem I spoke of, that weapons' AP qualities are all or nothing. You might find the second one better for that reason, but that's for you to decide.


Gnoman: With days of bombardment, you'd expect the enemy would have time to move in reinforcements and prepare the trenches behind that line as well. Good summary of the tactics.


Oni: Mm, they're currently trying to raise that not much of an army based off the criteria you describe.

Japan is attempting to counteract the problem of a soft military, but their results will be hard to judge (who will admit that their army is soft?). I haven't checked if they've bettered the financial state of soldiers, or if they're simply putting more military ads on TV. That said, I agree with your assessment.

Normally, you'd expect such a tight military cap to encourage the country to only recruit the best it has.

[Brother Oni]

Normally, you'd expect such a tight military cap to encourage the country to only recruit the best it has.

Which is exactly what Germany did after WW1 - because their size of their forces were hard capped in numbers, they made sure that each recruit was the best they could be.

However if people don't want to join the military because they think they can do better, there's no way of forcing them short of conscription or other national service.

[Zizka]

@Zizka: And the later tanks of 1917 where just as vulnerable to field guns, yet they worked just fine.

The tanks of 1917 worked, just as the armoured cars of 1914 worked, but neither of them did or could produce a breakthrough, even in numbers and with the right doctrine (see: Cambrai). The problems with trench warfare were much bigger than the lack of some sort of proto-Blitzkrieg.


I'd also point out that the armored car you linked fits exactly my point's, it wasn't produced until months after the war began, and was produced in strictly limited numbers, (120 total).

Alright, what about the Minerva then? That did see extensive service in 1914.

http://pix.avaxnews.com/avaxnews/e8/48/000048e8_medium.jpeg


Trench warfare worked for one simple reason. There was no way to effectively destroy or suppress the enemy MG positions while the infantry advanced on them. Everything else about trench warfare, from the trenches themselves to the barbed wire, and so on was engineered to reinforce that simple fact as heavily as possible.

Yes there were: artillery and light infantry tactics. By 1916 for the French and 1917 for the British it was quite possible to suppress or destroy enemy positions with an artillery-infantry combination.

The problem was that even a successful breakthrough was almost impossible to exploit (because of interior lines of communication) and even then was of limited utility (as the Germans found out in their March offensive). The final solution arrived at by Foch was a continuous series of mini-battles which exhausted the German reserves and pushed their army to breaking point.

So, the solution was fast attrition.


But armored cars where too new, and thus too few in number, for anyone to have considered the possibilities too carefully and realized how they might be employed in combination with artillery and infantry to stymy excessive defensive positions by providing the necessary covering fire and interlocking support capabilities vs various battlefield threats amongst the three elements. Which is also the reason field guns failed to render tanks ineffective when the appeared.

For me this is where the counter-factual gets so hypothetical that it's impossible to prove anything. For your counter-factual to work we need:
- Many more armoured cars.
- Which were of greater sophistication.
- Which were provided with suitable doctrine (which worked in combat).
- Which had the industrial-military base to replace destroyed cars and crews (at the same standards).

My suspicion is that even had armoured cars been around longer and developed better then they would still have suffered the same high casualty rates and tactical shocks (training vs. reality) as all the other arms did in 1914. Which would have resulted with the same exhausted retreat to the trenches in 1914 as armoured cars were destroyed faster that they could be replaced. Also, whilst they might have helped tactically they still wouldn't have solved the strategic problems.

Of course, I can't prove this...but then neither of us can.


And yet, such ceasefires actually happened in the early stages of the trench warfare stalemate.

Small, localised and spontaneous ceasefires broke out in 1914...never to be repeated. There's a huge difference between those and a national (or alliance) level ceasefire. As the war went on such ceasefires became more and more impossible as everyone ran into debt and the war began to take over national life.


As for damage to morale, a few days, weeks, or months of not being shot at is going to be far better for morale than, say, Verdun or the Somme.

Sure, for some frontline troops. But what's would a ceasefire do to the national war effort? Almost all the nations involved developed (delicate) wartime political coalitions and militarised private enterprise. You couldn't just turn the war on and off. It's quite hard to rally the nation around defending La Belle France, recovering Alsace-Lorraine and driving the Germans off (rather valuable) territory only to announce a ceasefire of convenience whilst you work out how to beat the other guy better.

After all, there were negotiations during the war...it's just that nobody agreed: the Germans refused to leave France and Belgium, which guaranteed France and Britain would maintain hostilities.


In 1914, war loans were being sought by all the belligerents. You may have overlooked the fact that in my previous post I was referring to 1903, which is odd, since you quoted it.

You're quite right, I got this completely backwards. What can I say, looking after a 2 year old is exhausting!

[Mr. Mask]

Oni: Point being that they haven't done much to change that feeling, "I can do better than the military." Could at least give them a decent salary and pension.

[Yora]

Which is exactly what Germany did after WW1 - because their size of their forces were hard capped in numbers, they made sure that each recruit was the best they could be.

However if people don't want to join the military because they think they can do better, there's no way of forcing them short of conscription or other national service.

There's a quote going around that in 1919 some french General supposedly said that this arrangement was no peace settlement, but a 20 year ceasefire.
Giving a country with a strong military and engineering tradition number-based caps on their military after humiliating them really wasn't the smartest idea.

Conventional wisdom appears to be that in World War 2 the German army had the best troops and equipment. Even the enemies that defeated them appear to admit that they won primarily because of their endless stream of reinforcements and supplies. (Though the Americans did have the best airplanes and the Soviets the best tanks at the end of the War.)
Was that a development that really took off under the Nazi government, or had the German army a similar reputation in World War 1 as well? (I believe the British saw the German navy as a major threat.)

[Storm Bringer]

There's a quote going around that in 1919 some french General supposedly said that this arrangement was no peace settlement, but a 20 year ceasefire.
Giving a country with a strong military and engineering tradition number-based caps on their military after humiliating them really wasn't the smartest idea.


that was Marshall Foch, the supreme allied commander in 1918.



Small, localised and spontaneous ceasefires broke out in 1914...never to be repeated. There's a huge difference between those and a national (or alliance) level ceasefire. As the war went on such ceasefires became more and more impossible as everyone ran into debt and the war began to take over national life.

on the contrary, local ceasefires continued thought-out the war, mostly on a informal, "we won't shoot if you don't shoot" basis. Despite considerable official effort to stop this sort of thing, the troops in the trenches tended to create these little understandings as a method of coping with the daily grind. for example, the germans would not shell the British trenches during british breakfast time, and the birts would return the favour when the germans had breakfast.

[Zizka]

on the contrary, local ceasefires continued thought-out the war, mostly on a informal, "we won't shoot if you don't shoot" basis. Despite considerable official effort to stop this sort of thing, the troops in the trenches tended to create these little understandings as a method of coping with the daily grind. for example, the germans would not shell the British trenches during british breakfast time, and the birts would return the favour when the germans had breakfast.

It's true that there were arrangements made between opposing forces - although I wouldn't classify them as ceasefires - but even these decreased as the war went on, with the military authorities making efforts to stamp them out through centralisation.

For instance, the British Army allowed each battalion to choose their own policy on night raiding until the end of 1915. This allowed units who wanted a policy of "live and let live" to avoid them and thereby keep the peace (or their version of it). From 1916 onwards though, each battalion was given a quota of night raids which had to be carried out, thereby disrupting local arrangements.

Tony Ashworth provides an good description of this in his interesting book "Trench Warfare: The Live and Let Live System".

[Brother Oni]

Oni: Point being that they haven't done much to change that feeling, "I can do better than the military." Could at least give them a decent salary and pension.

It's hard to pay them sufficiently when military spending is hardcapped to such a low amount of the GDP. Complicating matters is that because Japan isn't allowed a military, SDF personnel aren't military personnel, they're special civil servants, ie government employees, thus have their own pay scales where senior NCOs with long service can be paid more than newly promoted colonels.

This doesn't fix the lack of social prestige being in the military have though. When I started going out with Japanese girlfriend back in uni, I was considering going into the British Army and friends of my family were all quite surprised and impressed - my girlfriend's father was distinctly unimpressed and I believe he asked something along the lines of 'has he thought about doing something afterwards?' to her.



Giving a country with a strong military and engineering tradition number-based caps on their military after humiliating them really wasn't the smartest idea.

Nothing like teutonic efficiency in action. :smalltongue:



Conventional wisdom appears to be that in World War 2 the German army had the best troops and equipment. Even the enemies that defeated them appear to admit that they won primarily because of their endless stream of reinforcements and supplies. (Though the Americans did have the best airplanes and the Soviets the best tanks at the end of the War.)

I'd debate the best aircraft - if more Me-262 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messerschmitt_Me_262)s had been made and put into the air, resulting in Allied air superiority being successfully challenged during the months after D-Day, things could have been very different.

Like most German hardware from that time though, reliability was sacrificed for performance, which wasn't helped by sabotage by the enforced labor from occupied territories.

Similarly, the Russian T-34 had hit the optimal sweetspot of reliability and performance so they're the best overall, but in a toe to toe slugging match against Tigers which were developed to counter the T-34, you'd want something with a bigger gun, like an IS.




Was that a development that really took off under the Nazi government, or had the German army a similar reputation in World War 1 as well? (I believe the British saw the German navy as a major threat.)

I believe most nations were on a level pegging (my WW1 history is a bit spotty so if anybody knows better, please say), at least judging from what happened during the Battle of Peking in 1900.
The dreadnought race (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-German_naval_arms_race) was primarily between the Germans and British, with the British building more since the Germans were, especially with the British 'two power standard' policy where naval dominance would be achieved by having battleships equal in number to the next two nations' navies combined.

[Mr. Mask]

I'm aware of the public perception of the military, but they could at least have made it more economic (which can improve attitudes towards the positions). I figured they must have capped military spending, but when I read they were breaking into the top ten nations for military spending, I figured they must have been getting around it. Of course, they might still be capped on personnel wages, making the major expenditure somewhere else.

Ditto on your points about German tech.

[Yora]

I think an important point to consider is that until recently, both Japan and Germany were not really interested in having a strong military. Power Projection is a concept that has been virtually abolished completely from these countries foreign policies. The entire point of them having armed forces at all is to defend against invasions. And in both cases there has been a strong perception in the public that it's better to not provoke the Soviets and Chinese by keeping a low military profile.
And in addition, both countries were vital bases for the American forces, so they didn't really need to deter potential enemies with a strong army. The american army would do that for them.

I'm not familiar with the public view of the military in Japan, but in Germany we don't really regard soldiers as contributing to society. Unless you're an officer, working for as a soldier gets very low recognition. You'd probably get a lot more recognition as a civilian employee working in military administration.

I'd debate the best aircraft - if more Me-262 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messerschmitt_Me_262)s had been made and put into the air, resulting in Allied air superiority being successfully challenged during the months after D-Day, things could have been very different.

Like most German hardware from that time though, reliability was sacrificed for performance, which wasn't helped by sabotage by the enforced labor from occupied territories.

Similarly, the Russian T-34 had hit the optimal sweetspot of reliability and performance so they're the best overall, but in a toe to toe slugging match against Tigers which were developed to counter the T-34, you'd want something with a bigger gun, like an IS.
Wrong choice of word on my side, perhaps. While an individual Tiger II and M262 was amazing, they had the big flaw of being not enough in numbers. While a designer might pride himself at creating the most efficient piece of equipment, the "best" equipment for the military is the one that gets the right balance between quality and quantity. And I would say the Germans shot themselves in the foot in the long run by way over-emphazising quality over quantity. It worked brilliantly for them them during fast surprise invasions, but just couldn't do the job in a war of attrition.


The dreadnought race (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-German_naval_arms_race) was primarily between the Germans and British, with the British building more since the Germans were, especially with the British 'two power standard' policy where naval dominance would be achieved by having battleships equal in number to the next two nations' navies combined.
An important difference there would be that Britain needed control of all the seas except the Pacific to maintain their huge overseas empire. Germany only needed to control the North Sea and the North Atlantic to completely mess up Britains game. While the British Navy was obviously way larger and stronger, the British could not afford to use all their ships to fight the German Navy.

[Mr. Mask]

To be fair, some of the production difficulties were due to bombing and other issues.

[Gnoman]

Wrong choice of word on my side, perhaps. While an individual Tiger II and M262 was amazing, they had the big flaw of being not enough in numbers.

Neither the Tiger II or the Me-262 were all that good. Like virtually all late-war German tanks, the Tiger II was pretty badly designed, very overweight, required far too much logistic support, guzzled priceless fuel, and was extremely unreliable mechanically. While it wasn't the widowmaker that the Tiger I was (despite the reputation, a Tiger I fought at a significant disadvantage against US Shermans or Soviet T-34s, let alone the Soviet Stalin series) it was still a colossal waste of resources that could have been put into much larger numbers of the outdated-but-more effective Panzer IVs or into tank destroyers/assault guns such as the Stug or the JgPz.38 "Hetzer" that were not only vastly cheaper to build, but were much better suited for Germany's strategic situation.

The Me-262, by contrast, WAS an excellent plane, but could never be a decisive weapon, because it wasn't actually much better than the Allied equipment in service. Allied piston-engined fighters such as later-model American P-51s and P-38s were easily capable of taking on a Swallow and winning (not theoretical in the P-51s case, many of the 262s lost in combat were shot down by -51s), while British jet fighters were rolling off the production lines (and, in fact, entered service right around the same time) and would have shrunk the 262s already narrow margin of superiority even further if they had decided to ship them off (in actuality, no need at the front was perceived, and the jet squadrons were retained to intercept incoming cruise missiles.)

[rs2excelsior]

An often-forgotten contribution to the late-war Allied gains was the French introduction of what they called "infiltration" tactics. ... Eventually, after systematically studying conditions at the front, a new doctrine was evolved that involved sending parties to cut the wire in a very narrow area under cover of night, with the infantry launching a narrow, concentrated attack with only a very brief "hurricane" bombardment preceeding them.

These tactics were being developed by all of the powers on the Western front more or less simultaneously. While it's true that the British first-day attacks on the Somme were carried out by lines advancing at the walk, by a week or so into the offensive you see smaller units moving forward more independently and taking advantage of terrain. The Germans were quite famous for their infiltration attacks--slipping groups of soldiers through weak points in the enemy defensive line in order to surround it. That tactic worked mainly because of the weaknesses of Allied defensive doctrine--it the Allies had tried it against the more thorough German defensive systems, it would have failed.

But yeah, I agree with you on that. Most people don't realize the tactical innovations made during WWI that laid the groundwork for WWII.


Conventional wisdom appears to be that in World War 2 the German army had the best troops and equipment. Even the enemies that defeated them appear to admit that they won primarily because of their endless stream of reinforcements and supplies. (Though the Americans did have the best airplanes and the Soviets the best tanks at the end of the War.)
Was that a development that really took off under the Nazi government, or had the German army a similar reputation in World War 1 as well? (I believe the British saw the German navy as a major threat.)

To an extent. The German army had always had a reputation for an excellent officer corps. Their General Staff program selected the best of their officers and trained them extensively, before assigning them as Chiefs of Staff to field commands. Getting a General Staff appointment was a fast-track to promotion and command of combat units. So German officers were generally more motivated and willing to take initiative than their Allied counterparts, and the overall training meant the officers were all familiar with the army's doctrine, meaning they could act as expected without higher orders (this is a simpler overview and my memory is a bit fuzzy on the details, so if I'm wrong here someone please correct me). British command structure, by contrast, emphasized acting exactly in accordance with higher orders and stifled the personal initiative of lower-level commanders, with the result that British forces were much less capable of adapting to a situation and quickly taking advantage of developments at the front. That advantage in leadership is where a lot of the German army's reputation for superiority comes from.

The same situation survived at least into the first part of WWII. During the interwar years, an officer candidate of one of the western allies would be given a tactical problem, then dismissed for the day. The candidates would think about it, go through possible solutions, and come back the next day with their answers. The instructor would discuss the "correct" response, why that one was correct, and then let the candidates work through that. The emphasis was on finding the "right" response to a given situation. Meanwhile, German officer candidates were being given a tactical problem, and they were expected to have a workable solution in two minutes. The instructor would briefly hear the answers, then choose one student as a group leader and have the candidates carry out the plan. So German junior officers were expected to come up with an acceptable solution and act on it as quickly as possible, which translated to an officer corps better able to deal with unexpected situations in a timely fashion. As US General George Patton said, "A good plan, violently executed now, is better than a perfect plan next week."


(despite the reputation, a Tiger I fought at a significant disadvantage against US Shermans or Soviet T-34s, let alone the Soviet Stalin series)

I wouldn't say a Tiger fought at a disadvantage against either of those vehicles, especially early-model Shermans. The Tiger wouldn't have the crushing advantage that its reputation says it should have, but in a one-on-one engagement I'd give the advantage to the Tiger. An early-model Sherman's gun couldn't penetrate a Tiger's armor at close range*, but the Tiger's could knock out a Sherman from fairly far away. Even with later-model Shermans, the range at which the Sherman could kill the Tiger was shorter than the range where the Tiger could kill the Sherman. And the Tiger's 88mm main gun outclasses the T-34's 76mm. Yes, the T-34 had sloped frontal armor, but the long 88s and longer 75s on the Tigers and Panthers respectively could still penetrate its armor pretty reliably. Either the T-34 or the Sherman would outmaneuver the Tiger, but killing it would be an iffy proposition.

The Panther was pretty superior to the Tiger in all respects, though--its sloped armor and high-velocity 75mm gun were generally more effective than the Tiger, and it was more maneuverable to boot.


The Me-262, by contrast, WAS an excellent plane, but could never be a decisive weapon, because it wasn't actually much better than the Allied equipment in service. Allied piston-engined fighters such as later-model American P-51s and P-38s were easily capable of taking on a Swallow and winning (not theoretical in the P-51s case, many of the 262s lost in combat were shot down by -51s), while British jet fighters were rolling off the production lines (and, in fact, entered service right around the same time) and would have shrunk the 262s already narrow margin of superiority even further if they had decided to ship them off (in actuality, no need at the front was perceived, and the jet squadrons were retained to intercept incoming cruise missiles.)

If the ME-262 had been used as an interceptor like it'd been designed, it would have been much more effective. But Hitler insisted on using it as a fighter-bomber. Loaded down with bombs, it was still about as fast as Allied fighters--which meant those fighters could catch them and shoot them down. And by that point, Germany really couldn't contest Allied control of the skies, at least not in any long-term, general sense. Germany would have done better using the 262 to hit bomber formations coming over Germany.

Interesting point about the British jet fighters--I don't think I've heard of those before.

*I heard a WWII Sherman tanker talk about running across a Tiger just across a hedgerow. The Tiger didn't realize the Sherman was there, so the Sherman got off the first shot at literally point-blank range--which bounced off. The Sherman fired as quickly as it could, until the Tiger fired. The first shot from the 88 destroyed the Sherman.

[snowblizz]

You don't really need to keep the Archduke alive. And France and Russia had an agreement that should one be attacked, the other would mobilize as well. I'll admit, I'm not as clear on the exact politics at the start of WWI, but I believe England was about the last to join the conflict, mostly because Belgium's neutrality was violated. So let France get into the war, but put a few more anti-war politicians into England and have the German high command modify the Schlieffen (sp?) plan to avoid Belgium (possibly for fear of inciting England to war). Maybe have a British Expeditionary Force get destroyed so soundly in August 1914 that the British government stays out of the rest of the war. Bam, Royal Navy is free to meddle in Scandinavia.
I know the Archduke can die, I just like the idea of him living as it's so often viewed as the cause of the war. It's a great book-end to show that history took another turn.

Germany had a couple of mobilization plans, had they employed the Aufmarsch 1/2 Ost instead of West they'd have not been invading France.

Germany was the "aggressor" in reality declaring war and invading neutral Belgium forcing the hand of Britain and France.

For that matter, why couldn't a RN squadron show up even if England was entangled fully into WWI?
Basically it would be mostly impossible to force a passage through the straits of Denmark against minelaying and a German High Sea fleet operating almost in homewaters.
If nothing else that's a risk the RN probably wouldn't take, treaty obligations or no, in a real ww1 situation.


. Germany stays officially neutral, but pours arms, money and advisors into the Austrian army sort of like how the americans were aiding the allies in both world wars for years before their official involvement. this support beefs it up the Austrian army enough to let it survive the Russian onslaught long enough for whatever plans you have.?
Principally this was exactly how I envisioned it. The Austrians would thus be able to hold a line in Carpathians or some such and a limited for of trenching would likely occur showing a glimpse of what could happen to other theatres further encouraging France & Britain to stay the eff out and only shadow support Russia, as Germany would be doing for Austria and the Ottomans. That should be enough of a drain to topple Russia (and creating the new states around the Baltic, covertly supported by the Germans and Japanese, which they actually did in the 1905 war) introduce enough trade disruption to destabilize Sweden to trigger a civil war that was fairly close at the surface in the later parts of WW1.


It seems handgrenades were not directly a product of WW1, but the modern mortar seems to largely have been, as well as machinepistols? Eg the Tommy gun was intended as trench weapon, but came around too late.

[Brother Oni]

While it wasn't the widowmaker that the Tiger I was (despite the reputation, a Tiger I fought at a significant disadvantage against US Shermans or Soviet T-34s, let alone the Soviet Stalin series) it was still a colossal waste of resources that could have been put into much larger numbers of the outdated-but-more effective Panzer IVs or into tank destroyers/assault guns such as the Stug or the JgPz.38 "Hetzer" that were not only vastly cheaper to build, but were much better suited for Germany's strategic situation.

While I'm not disputing that the resources could have been spent more effectively elsewhere, I question your assessment that a Tiger was at a disadvantage versus a Sherman. As rs2excelsior pointed out, the early war Shermans were fairly ineffectual against a Tiger (I've heard a similar story from a British tanker in a Sherman where a point blank range direct hit merely bounced straight up off the Tiger's turret) - are you sure you're not confusing it with the Sherman Firefly (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherman_Firefly), which was effective against Tigers and Panthers.



An important difference there would be that Britain needed control of all the seas except the Pacific to maintain their huge overseas empire. Germany only needed to control the North Sea and the North Atlantic to completely mess up Britains game. While the British Navy was obviously way larger and stronger, the British could not afford to use all their ships to fight the German Navy.

Well the German overseas holdings weren't as extensive as the British, so they had that going for them.



Interesting point about the British jet fighters--I don't think I've heard of those before.


Agreed, thanks for that Gnoman.

For those others reading along, the British fielded the Gloster Meteor (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gloster_Meteor), initially to defend against V1 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V-1_flying_bomb)s (a jet powered predecessor of the cruise missile), then in ground operations later on.

[rs2excelsior]

Germany had a couple of mobilization plans, had they employed the Aufmarsch 1/2 Ost instead of West they'd have not been invading France.

Germany was the "aggressor" in reality declaring war and invading neutral Belgium forcing the hand of Britain and France.

I don't dispute that, but unless I'm terribly mistaken Russia and France had a mutual defense pact or some such. So had things come to war between Russia and Germany (regardless of whether Russia was technically the aggressor, I'd wager), Russia would call on France to intervene and France would either get embroiled in the war or break its treaty obligations (at least as far as Russia was concerned). So you still probably get a Western Front, although possibly one without British participation if Belgium isn't invaded.

That being said, if Germany doesn't mobilize at all, France has no reason to get involved. So this would work as a war primarily between Austria and Russia.


Basically it would be mostly impossible to force a passage through the straits of Denmark against minelaying and a German High Sea fleet operating almost in homewaters.
If nothing else that's a risk the RN probably wouldn't take, treaty obligations or no, in a real ww1 situation.

Valid point, I hadn't thought of that.



It seems handgrenades were not directly a product of WW1, but the modern mortar seems to largely have been, as well as machinepistols? Eg the Tommy gun was intended as trench weapon, but came around too late.

Submachineguns and flamethrowers (in the modern sense, disregarding some ancient accounts) really got going in WWI, as did the mortar in its modern incarnation, although only the last of the three saw extremely widespread use. Hand grenades were definitely around before WWI, but that was the first time they were extensively used. Previous grenades had been basically black powder bombs of limited utility (the Grenadiers of the 18th and 19th centuries rarely actually used the grenades they were named for, especially toward the end of the period). Grenades (or bombs, as they were commonly called in WWI) were actually used more in clearing out enemy trenches than rifles were.


For those others reading along, the British fielded the Gloster Meteor (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gloster_Meteor), initially to defend against V1 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V-1_flying_bomb)s (a jet powered predecessor of the cruise missile), then in ground operations later on.

Huh, I've definitely head of the Meteor, but only in a post-war context. I didn't realize it had been used during WWII.

[GraaEminense]

Principally this was exactly how I envisioned it. The Austrians would thus be able to hold a line in Carpathians or some such and a limited for of trenching would likely occur showing a glimpse of what could happen to other theatres further encouraging France & Britain to stay the eff out and only shadow support Russia, as Germany would be doing for Austria and the Ottomans. That should be enough of a drain to topple Russia (and creating the new states around the Baltic, covertly supported by the Germans and Japanese, which they actually did in the 1905 war) introduce enough trade disruption to destabilize Sweden to trigger a civil war that was fairly close at the surface in the later parts of WW1.

The last sentence reads as if a Swedish civil war almost happened in the early 20th century. If that is the case, I'd love some pointers to source material because that would be news to me. And really, Sweden?

[Admiral Squish]

Armor Penetration
So, I think I'm gonna go with the armor-reduction route, but I still have some questions that you guys can help me with.

I'm still trying to find some information about different kinds of penetrating weapons, and how much they penetrate. Sources seem to say a stiletto could slip through chain and padding to deliver some serious damage, but what about a regular dagger? What's the difference in penetration between a heavy mace, a morningstar, and a flail? Do spears penetrate armor, or would they just sorta 'overcome' it via strength? The only quarterstaff v. armor stuff I can find relates to plate, which doesn't really tell me how it would interact with lighter armors. Axes don't seem to qualify in my head, but I could be wrong.

Regarding ranged weapons, I know longbows and crossbows can punch through armor, but it's hard to figure out how they compare each other. And what kind of value would a firearm have, or would they just be unchanged and treated as touch attacks, regardless of armor and natural armor?

[Knaight]

I wasn't saying the stone went supersonic, I was pointing out how fast the sling is moving at the point of release.

It's probably more useful to look at the speed of the pouch, and that's not the part going anywhere near the speed of sound. The 39 m/s figure given before is off - that gets a whopping 155 meters maximum range with no air resistance and a perfect 45 degree shot, and there are even a few modern slingers at about the 400 meter mark; they are likely worse than the better historical slingers. 70 meters per second at the higher end seems more likely, with air resistance and a not 45 degree shot that gets closer to the upper ranges.

[Mr. Mask]

Squish: Well, to give you an idea of armour penetration based off designs...


Pick/Spike
Hammer
Mace
Axe
Blade

As mentioned, some axes can be designed so that they're better against armour than some hammers and clubs are, etc.. You get stuff like bladed maces which aren't that great for AP. Also, there are some secondary factors.

Heavier weapon = +AP. Longer handle = +AP.

So, a big two handed weapon should naturally have more AP. Same for heavier draw-weight bows, or bows with heavier ammo, generally speaking. For this reason, even though a stiletto knife has a good "spike" design, it doesn't have anything near the same AP potential of a huge poleaxe.

As for stilettos being good for mail and padding, I'm not sure if there's truth to that. If the mail was very light, you could probably hammer through it with a pointy knife, and same for cloth. But, there are plenty of heavier cloth or mail designs you wouldn't want to tackle with a knife (not by trying to stab straight through it).

Morning stars have some pretty amazing force behind them. Otherwise, their heads tend to be the same as other maces. General wooden flails can have similarly devastating force behind them, but a large round stick isn't as effective as a shaped metal head.

Not sure what you mean by overcoming armour through strength via spear. Spears can defeat armour, depending on the spear's head design and the armour, and the weight of the spear. Big pikes with acute heads were pretty decent against armour.

Concussive force is difficult to armour against. Of course, that's not to say it hasn't been managed successfully. A couple of historians tried going at each other with maces while in plate armour. Eventuallly, after a lot of hard strikes, one took a knee, then got knocked out by a strike to the head. Taking a knight out with a quarter staff wouldn't be easy, but certainly possible.

Axes are pretty decent against armour, depending on the design. Good compromise between AP and cutting people in two. It's swords that have very little AP.


Firearms certainly don't ignore armour entirely. Cannon can destroy any armour a man can wear, just like catapults and ballistae. Large hand guns at close range defeat even the best armour--but that's at close range with a serious gun. A pistol, for example, can't be relied on to penetrate good armour even at point-blank, even with today's pistols (ignore exploding rounds or depleted uranium).
Crossbows do better than bows for armour penetration on the high end, but how exactly they compare varies depending on which bow and crossbow and what ammo.

The range you hit your target at changes the effectiveness of your weapon's AP by a lot, with ranged weapons. Especially with firearms.


Hope this reply is cohesive enough to be helpful. Might write a better one later.

[Brother Oni]

It's probably more useful to look at the speed of the pouch, and that's not the part going anywhere near the speed of sound. The 39 m/s figure given before is off - that gets a whopping 155 meters maximum range with no air resistance and a perfect 45 degree shot, and there are even a few modern slingers at about the 400 meter mark; they are likely worse than the better historical slingers. 70 meters per second at the higher end seems more likely, with air resistance and a not 45 degree shot that gets closer to the upper ranges.

The speed did seem a bit low, but I couldn't find any better sources.


Firearms certainly don't ignore armour entirely. Cannon can destroy any armour a man can wear, just like catapults and ballistae.

As amply demonstrated by the unfortunate Monsieur Faveau: http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-FpfJB8kbHgs/T_ZRQmkG6TI/AAAAAAAADj4/It4ij4cy4_s/s1600/IMG_6259.jpg Note the exit hole in the back plate.



Large hand guns at close range defeat even the best armour--but that's at close range with a serious gun. A pistol, for example, can't be relied on to penetrate good armour even at point-blank, even with today's pistols (ignore exploding rounds or depleted uranium).


I disagree. Metal insert trauma plates for tactical vests typically range from between 0.25" to 0.5" thick or 6.4mm - 12.8mm. Heavy gothic plate is at most 3mm thick on critical areas (eg crest of the helmet, centre of the breastplate) and usually drops down to 1.5 - 2mm on other areas.

Without looking up more detailed information, I would think a modern 9mm or larger calibre ball round would punch neat holes through plate harness at close range, but would be less effective the further out the target is.

[Storm_Of_Snow]

While I'm not disputing that the resources could have been spent more effectively elsewhere, I question your assessment that a Tiger was at a disadvantage versus a Sherman. As rs2excelsior pointed out, the early war Shermans were fairly ineffectual against a Tiger (I've heard a similar story from a British tanker in a Sherman where a point blank range direct hit merely bounced straight up off the Tiger's turret) - are you sure you're not confusing it with the Sherman Firefly (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherman_Firefly), which was effective against Tigers and Panthers.

The biggest issue with Tigers and Panthers was their reliability.

A 75mm Sherman against a Tiger is pretty much dead - they could penetrate the rear armour at medium range, but the front is out of the question. The 76mm Sherman could just about penetrate the front armour at close range.

IIRC, they reckoned you needed 6 Shermans to take out a Tiger, 5 to distract it by getting killed while the other one gets around behind it.

The 17pdr Firefly gun was a lot more successful - to the point where German tankers counted Firefly kills higher than other tanks.

As for the Swallow, while it was too little too late, that would have been a great fighter had Hitler not insisted it be modified to be able to carry bombs as well.

The 163 was a deathtrap on the other hand, especially after allied pilots worked out that it needed to glide back to base, and was extremely vulnerable when it did so, but also including the plane possibly getting hit by it's own take off wheels when they were jettisoned, having to belly land, with the chance of sparks setting off the fuel, and the fact that the pilot was sat between the fuel tanks, which were a hydrazine/methanol mix and hydrogen peroxide.

[D2R]

I disagree. Metal insert trauma plates for tactical vests typically range from between 0.25" to 0.5" thick or 6.4mm - 12.8mm. Heavy gothic plate is at most 3mm thick on critical areas (eg crest of the helmet, centre of the breastplate) and usually drops down to 1.5 - 2mm on other areas.

Without looking up more detailed information, I would think a modern 9mm or larger calibre ball round would punch neat holes through plate harness at close range, but would be less effective the further out the target is.

Gothic armor was not designed with widespread use of firearms in mind. The first type of armor to be specifically designed as bulletproof seems to be the Maximillian plate. Later armor was much thicker and gave some actual protection against bullets.

I have the results of Napoleonic wars period tests at hand, they state that [this is followed by my rough translation of the original text, I also converted numbers into Metric system]



...ordinary iron [low-carbon steel in modern terminology, something like ANSI 1020] cuirass is .15" (3.81 mm) thick and weights 14 to 15 pounds; heavy steel sappenpanzer [breastplate only] is .25" (6.35 mm) thick and weights 15 to 18 pounds...

...ordinary iron cuirass is penetrated at any distance under 160 meters with military musket, under 40 meters with pistol; forged steel cuirass is penetrated at any distance under 115 meters with musket, and could not be penetrated with pistol even at 20 meters; heavy compound (layer of steel over layer of iron) sappenpanzer could not be penetrated with musket or pistol, but musket balls fired from 20 meters or less made large dents.


So, it seems, Mr. Mask was right - quality armor offered solid protection against pistol bullets and at least some protection against long guns; and the best armor was almost impenetrable for hand-held firearms (but extremely heavy and unwieldy). All that said, bulletproof armor was unfortunate enough to be introduced in a very wrong time - during the transition towards lighter, more mobile unarmored infantry. And cavalry cuirasses were designed primarily to protect against blades, not bullets. Financial restrictions also played a big role - bulletproof steel armor was much more expensive than ordinary iron. May be the only kind of bulletproof armor in widespread use was the sappenpanzer = sapper's breastplate.

An interesting design is mentioned in this text, by the way - a two-layer breastplate: the outer layer of hard, heat-treated steel offered good protection against blades, and the inner layer of soft iron ensured bulletproof qualities thanks to its ability to deform and thus absorb the energy of the bullet.

The above-mentioned cuirasses are also said to protect completely against light cavalry sabers, small-swords, bayonets and light (Cossack) pikes; they didn't provide reliable protection against heavy pikes and heavy cavalry broadswords.

[D2R]

The biggest issue with Tigers and Panthers was their reliability.

Actually the biggest issues seem to be - complexity and cost, which prevented them from being produced in numbers sufficient for the needs of the front.

Unreliability is only a consequence of complexity and novelty of the design, as well as lack of resources (like alloying additives for quality armor and shafts/gears/...).

[snowblizz]

The last sentence reads as if a Swedish civil war almost happened in the early 20th century. If that is the case, I'd love some pointers to source material because that would be news to me. And really, Sweden?

It could have yes. Like many places there were severe social unrest in the years leading up to WW1 primarily from the socialist movements in Sweden who demanded universal suffrage. These were magnified due to food-shortages during WW1 and inspired by the Russian revolution. The whole mellow Swede thing is a fairly recent. They were preparing to put down the Norwegian "rebels" in 1905 too, but eventually decided not to commit to that. The Amalthea bombingin 1908 is another example of the violence bubbling under the surface.

There was an incident at Seskarö were military was deployed against hungry workers which fuelled dissatisfaction. Eventually the rationing leading to demonstrations in Stockholm in 1917 (and widely across the country). A bunch of stuff about it here: http://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunger-_och_milit%C3%A4rdemonstrationerna_1917
There were "conservative" militias forming in the capitol, similar to the "White Guard" in Finland.

Of course now I don't exactly remember if it was in a tv documentary or the popular history magazine "Populär Historia" I saw it, but I remember the phrase. What was said was, slightly paraphrased, "Sweden was close to revolution, military was commanded out to quell demonstrations, but someone at the scene took the very Swedish outlook to, chill for a bit and think the whole through before opening fire". I hadn't really heard about it before either. It was that whole "Swedish thing of being a bit more moderate" that stuck in my mind so I sort of remember it well.

The demonstrations culminated on 5 June in Stockholm with police and military forcibly breaking up demonstrations with sabres and horses.

Still in the 30s there were such an incident as military shooting (Ådalen incident) striking civilians which even today shapes laws regarding use of military in civilian situations, such as demonstrations.

[D2R]

So, a big two handed weapon should naturally have more AP. Same for heavier draw-weight bows, or bows with heavier ammo, generally speaking. For this reason, even though a stiletto knife has a good "spike" design, it doesn't have anything near the same AP potential of a huge poleaxe.


A notion should be made that armored fighters, unless being armed with weapon such as poleaxe or halberd, mostly tried to find a weak spot in the opponent's armor, rather than to pierce its plates outright. Well, kinda like that:

http://media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/af/4d/30/af4d3006a3843bdbe5444379e0884a32.jpg

Or that:

http://talhoffer.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/phm1.jpg

Anyway - the idea was to disable the opponent first, and to finish him off lying on the ground. As I understand it, specialized armor-piercing weapons like pick, stiletto etc. were used mostly for coup de grace, against an already disabled opponent.

Of course, that is dueling, not real fight; a heavy weapon like mace may give you an edge in the middle of a massive close-quarter fight, when you cannot concentrate on a single opponent. However, in such a fight the priority is to disable the opponent (rather than kill), and move to the next one - you don't have to penetrate his armor in a vital (= well protected) point to achieve that.

One-handed sword could not penetrate well-made plate armor, it's tip made notches in it but didn't cause much harm to the wearer.

Axes were very diverse, but armor-piercing ones were mostly cavalry weapon, just as war hammers (not POLE-hammers).

And concerning bows and crossbows, as far as I know penetrating power depends mostly on a) shape and material of the arrowhead (bone vs. iron vs. steel vs. quality heat treated steel, broad-head vs. bodkin); b) angle of collision with armor - there were a lot of ricochets. While draw weight is also an important factor, it is not determining.

[Broken Crown]

While we're on the subject of Tigers and Panthers, does anyone here know why the Panther (designed in 1942 and entering production in 1943) was designated the Panzerkampfwagen V, while the Tiger (designed and entering production a year earlier, in 1941 and 1942, respectively) was designated the Panzerkampfwagen VI?

Were they classified by weight, rather than chronologically? That would still suggest that it was already known as early as October 1941 that a new, intermediate tank design would be forthcoming in the near future, since the Tiger had received the Panzer VI designation by then.

[Storm Bringer]

While we're on the subject of Tigers and Panthers, does anyone here know why the Panther (designed in 1942 and entering production in 1943) was designated the Panzerkampfwagen V, while the Tiger (designed and entering production a year earlier, in 1941 and 1942, respectively) was designated the Panzerkampfwagen VI?

Were they classified by weight, rather than chronologically? That would still suggest that it was already known as early as October 1941 that a new, intermediate tank design would be forthcoming in the near future, since the Tiger had received the Panzer VI designation by then.

it is quite likely the Germans knew they wanted a new medium tank in 41, and gave it the PzKpfw V designation, even though they were not going to go into detailed planning for another year and were going to put a new tank in the field before then. armies work like that sometimes.

[Yora]

The inventory number was SdKfZ171 for the Pather and SdKfz182 for the Tiger.

Apparently the Panther got stuck a bit in development hell since 1937. While the development of the Tiger started later, it went into production much quicker. At that time, the designation Panzer V was already assigned to the Panther project.

[Brother Oni]

Taking a knight out with a quarter staff wouldn't be easy, but certainly possible.

I missed this comment from earlier - in my opinion, the best way would be to trip or entangle the knight with the staff, then pin and batter them while they're on the ground, or pull a stilletto or rondel dagger to finish them off.


Gothic armor was not designed with widespread use of firearms in mind. The first type of armor to be specifically designed as bulletproof seems to be the Maximillian plate. Later armor was much thicker and gave some actual protection against bullets.

Outside of the west, there's also the tameshi gusoku (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proofing_(armour)) ('bullet tested armour') that samurai imported in during the 16th Century Sengoku civil war.

However, I'm not querying Mr Mask's statement that plate was proof against gunpowder weapons of its time (these armours were indeed sold as being 'pistol proof'), but against modern firearms.
Some further reading on this site (http://www.myarmoury.com/talk/viewtopic.php?t=8023) indicates that these later armours were a bit thicker (there's an Italian Bascinet which was 4.57mm thick on the top front, although thinner around the sides and back), although still not quite to the minimum thickness of a modern trauma plate insert for tactical vests.

Out of curiosity, do you know what real life armour type is modelled by the D&D plate armour? I was under the impression that it was gothic plate since it seems stuck in the High Medieval period, rather than the Late Middle Ages/early Modern period where gunpowder weapons have now significantly affected armour development.



I have the results of Napoleonic wars period tests at hand, they state that [this is followed by my rough translation of the original text, I also converted numbers into Metric system]

Thank you for that. That compound bi-layered sappenpanzer breastplate definitely sounds interesting and would probably be proof against pretty much any modern pistol round (the fragmentation may still be an issue though).

I'll do some more research on the performance of modern pistols with regards to steel plate penetration (I may have to rope Carl in on this :smalltongue:).

[Spiryt]

It should be pointed out that 'Gothic' or 'Maximilian' armor isn't some type or quality of armor whatsoever.

Those are mostly modern terms that describe overall trends in shape, composition and general 'aesthetics' of plate suits worn at the time, depicted in art and so on.

A bit of fashion trends, I guess.

Sources are full of examples of armor resisting bullets as well as getting penetrated, it certainly was very worthwhile against guns even if mostly not 'proof' at all.

As far as 'modern bullets' go, it's hard to tell, but most of them aren't very heavy hitting so to say.

Here some guys shoot at plain 1.4mm steel helmet:

http://www.kryminalistyka.fr.pl/praktyka_helm.php

From extremely short distances, already damaged helmet is still able to stop quite a few pistol bullets, at least slower (bigger) ones.

[Lilapop]

Out of curiosity, do you know what real life armour type is modelled by the D&D plate armour? I was under the impression that it was gothic plate since it seems stuck in the High Medieval period, rather than the Late Middle Ages/early Modern period where gunpowder weapons have now significantly affected armour development.
Doesn't have to be gothic, its not that specific. The general period is probably correct though. The PHB mentions leather boots, but those are probably to be worn under "shaped and fitted metal plates riveted and interlocked to cover the entire body". It also supposedly includes padding and a system of "buckles and straps" (= arming doublet with points), but no chainmaille whatsoever - might be a hint at the completely closed suits of the 16th century, but I'd rather bet at Wizards being unaware of the concept of maille voiders.

[Yora]

I don't think any piece of D&D equipment is actually based on any specific piece of real world armor. Wouldn't be surprised if it's based on third or fourth hand description from people who have seen actual weapons and armor, but didn't understand how they work and what the parts are for.

[Mr. Mask]

D2R: Just Mask is fine. Thank you for the sources (going to look into sapper armour).

There's an episode of Ancient Discoveries, "Ancient Tank Tech," which has an example of triplex plate armour.

The point about broadswords of cavalry being effective sounds interesting. They might mean a pretty large sword, which would make sense.

Also, true about the point of aiming for weak points in the armour with knives and the like. That might need to be separate from the AP value, depending on how armour and the combat works. G had a system where you can make a bypass roll to try and avoid the opponent's armour.


Oni: Yeah, I agree with your points on quarter staffs. Make the armour a minor point by taking it to wrestling from an advantageous position. If applicable, clock them on the skull once or more to apply disorientation.

I don't think trauma plates meant to stop rifle rounds should be used for comparison. In tests on WW helmets, about 1mm thickness, 9mm pistols need a good, close and square hit to penetrate. Spiryt has a good post on this point. Based off experience from shooting at stuff with black powder and modern weapons, my main hope against a knight in thick, hardened steel, with a 9mm pistol, would be to knock him off his feet.

Old firearms tend to be underestimated. Despite their many issues, they have large calibre bullets and go off with a real bang.


Spiryt: Good find. I've seen similar test results.

[Galloglaich]

A few comments

Panther and Tiger

The Tiger I (Pz VI) at 54 tons was designated as a heavy tank and only made and deployed in quite small numbers (under 1400 built in the whole war), whereas in spite of being almost as big (44 tons), the Panther (6,000 built) was designated as a 'medium tank' and was used in that role, as a replacement for the Pz IV. Panthers were used in mixed formations with Pz IV's, whereas Tigers were used in special heavy tank companies.

On paper the Panther looks like a better tank, it's faster and more maneuverable and has sloped armor. But the Panther lacked the thick side-armor of the Tiger, and in practice, while an extremely good tank in many respects, was a lot easier to destroy. This includes by M4 Shermans which were not nearly as helpless as they are sometimes portrayed. There were two major, large-scale (close to division scale) engagements between Shermans and Panthers in 1944 where the Shermans, mostly the M4 75mm armed ones, came out on top, one in Lorraine near the Rhine and one in Bocage country during a German counter-attack after the Normandy landings. The Germans had as much of a problem with the bocage during offensive operations as the Americans did. During the latter half of the Ardennes offensive and it's followup, the 76mm armed Shermans, often also up-armored in the field (systematically so by Patton's 3rd Army) and supported by heavily armored Sherman E2 "jumbo" variants, were able to sweep aside Wermacht and SS tank units largely equipped with Panthers. Of course, Panthers also inflicted devastating losses on US and British armored formations, especially when used poorly as you saw in Operation Goodwood or Market Garden.

But an English study during WW II found that in 80% of the cases, whichever tank formation spotted the other first usually won.

That said the Panther was a superior tank, and each type of tank had it's advantages, Shermans which were quick, had gyrostabilizers (when the crew knew how to use them) had a very high rate of fire and carried a lot of ammunition, were effective at close range and in broken up (wooded, urban, very hilly, or in fog) conditions, whereas at long range and in the open spaces the Panther, with it's extremely accurate and hard-hitting long gun, was devastating. Shermans with the 76mm gun were pretty dangerous to almost any German tank except the super-heavies, (because it's hard to avoid side-shots except in ideal circumstances) and both the Firefly and the M-36 could kill just about anything. The other major factor were the TD's, the M-10 was the early 76mm (3 inch) gun armed weapon, with enhanced situational awareness (along with acutely enhanced vulnerability) due to the open top. Given the issue of see first = kill the risk of the open top makes more sense. The hyper mobile M-18 and the M-36 Jackson (90mm) even more so than the M-10. The other big advantage of the US tanks in general was mechanical reliability - if you start a battle with 50 Shermans (or M-10's etc.) on one side and 50 Panthers on the other, by the time they deploy to the actual tactical combat area, you have 48 Shermans still running, and only 18 Panthers, with the rest broken down somewhere back by the trains. That was a big problem for the Germans especially with their newer tanks and AFV's.

The Tiger was scary on the battlefield, it was definitely NOT at a tactical disadvantage against T-34's or Shermans, quite to the contrary. A small force of Tigers would be dispatched to stop enemy breakthroughs or as a spearhead for German ones. Just a few Tigers could make a huge difference, they apparently contributed to the rout of the Americans at Kasserine Pass as just one example, and prevented numerous catastrophies for the Germans on the Russian Front. If you read about the careers of some of the German Tiger Aces you can get an idea how dangerous this tank was. There was a reason all allied armies were afraid of it. The main advantage of the Tiger, aside from being a good all-around tank, (accurate, well equipped with antipersonnel kit, and a wonderfully effective gun both in AP and HE role) was that the armor was very thick all around the tank, on the sides and even the back. For a 75mm gun armed Sherman, or a short 76mm armed T-34, it was very very hard to kill a Tiger I. Running into a Schwer Panzer company of Tigers was like running into a Regiment of regular tanks. The main disadvantage of the Tiger was it's expense and complexity (thus time) in manufacturing, which is why it was made in such limited numbers, mechanical reliability (a problem, but not insurmountable) and it's weight of 54 tons. That was too much for a lot of bridges and roads in the 1940's, particularly in Russia, and despite the good wide tracks on the Tiger I, which made it better in soggy terrain than a Sherman, it would often get bogged down. Once stuck on the battlefield it was typically doomed and often had to be abandoned.


On The Sherman, T-34, JS-2 and King Tiger

The early T-34/76 was not really better than a Sherman, certainly not on a tactical level. A lot of people aren't aware of this but the Russians actually liked the Sherman and used it to equip elite Guards regiments. The Sherman had better armor, a better gun, much more ammunition, more machine guns, more space, better mechanical reliability, more and better radios, and (I think) longer range. The T-34 was cheap, fast, pretty good in terms of armor, and probably most important, had better floatation. But it was very vulnerable to most late war German tanks and probably inferior to the later models of the Pz IV, whereas the Sherman was arguably closer to parity. But until they changed the tracks on the Shermans in 1944, Shermans were pretty bad on muddy terrain, which for the Russians on the Steppe was a big problem. So their use operationally was limited. But when the conditions were dry / firm ground etc., they were considered elite tanks. Based on what we saw in the Korean war, the M4/76 and the T-34/85 were roughly equivalent.

The really scary early Soviet tank, from the German point of view, was the predecessor of the JS series, the KV-1. They had a lot of the problems the Tiger did with production cost, weight, mechanical issues etc., but in a fight a KV-1 was dangerous and could be a major game changer, as the German tanks of that time (mostly Pz III's and some low-velocity gunned Pz IV) couldn't handle it.

The JS-2 looks great on paper, and it is a terrifying tank on a WW II battlefield, the gun is shatteringly powerful and the armor is thick, but had some problems. Main issue was the bulky two-stage ammunition, which had to be loaded in two pieces into the gun. This meant a much slower rate of fire and much less ammo in each tank. Ammunition was a big problem for a lot of Soviet AFV's. If you have a round to shoot it's great but when you only carry 20 rounds and the other guy has 60 rounds, that can be a big nightmare.

The King Tiger was a better tank, at least in theory, than the JS-2, but it was never really properly 'finished' in terms of all the parts and subsystems being fully tested and debugged, and the weight was even more than the Tiger I. They broke down in huge numbers. But it was scary when it was working - the spearheads in the Battle of the Bulge included a lot of King Tigers and they broke the back of many US divisions before running out of gas. Only in a few places like Bastogne were the US able to resist, largely due to massed, concentrated heavy artillery fire from all the destroyed divisions that had already been smashed by the German armies.

Medieval and Early-Modern body armor and guns

The peak of armor was actually much earlier than when they were making that combined iron / steel composite stuff in the 17th Century. By then the armor industry had really declined to a tiny fraction of what it once was. As you can see if you look at that link Spiryt posted, even a medium tempered steel helmet can defeat most modern pistol ammunition. A really good 'Gothic', 'Maximillian', or Milanese harness from around 1480-1520 was probably very good protection against most modern pistols, and certainly most firearms of the day except for heavy muskets (which are huge, really light cannons similar to a modern .50 cal sniper rifle in some respects) and various types of cannons - small cannons were ubiquitous on late medieval and early-modern battlefields. Modern rifles are another matter of course.


G

[Broken Crown]

Thanks for the answers, everyone!


The inventory number was SdKfZ171 for the Pather and SdKfz182 for the Tiger.

Apparently the Panther got stuck a bit in development hell since 1937. While the development of the Tiger started later, it went into production much quicker. At that time, the designation Panzer V was already assigned to the Panther project.

This is what I was looking for. Thanks!

[Mr. Mask]

Good post, G.


No one know anything about staff-slings?

[Storm Bringer]

just to add my 2 cents, A book I own (Osprey Duel 13: Panther vs Sherman, 1944) (http://www.ospreypublishing.com/store/Panther-vs-Sherman_9781846032929) claims that, based on the kills/loss ratios recorded during the Battle of the Bulge, the actual field performance of the panther was roughly equal to the performance of the up-gunned 76mm Sherman.

[Galloglaich]

Good post, G.


No one know anything about staff-slings?

I saw a painting recently, from the 16th Century, of some Landsknechts drinking in a tavern, with a bunch of armor and weapons on the wall behind them, one of which was a staff-sling. But I can't remember where I saw it.


I have a question for everybody here. In past incarnations of this thread, during various discussions, many of us including myself have posted some well-sourced statistics on prices of weapons, armor, and every day objects and services from the medieval and Early Modern periods. I was wondering if you folks could post your best links and (sourced) statistics on prices, wages and other economic hard numbers, specifically from the 14th-16th Centuries. I already have a lot for later eras and for the earlier medieval period, I'm really interested in that zone specifically. Any help would be appreciated.

G

[Broken Crown]

just to add my 2 cents, A book I own (Osprey Duel 13: Panther vs Sherman, 1944) (http://www.ospreypublishing.com/store/Panther-vs-Sherman_9781846032929) claims that, based on the kills/loss ratios recorded during the Battle of the Bulge, the actual field performance of the panther was roughly equal to the performance of the up-gunned 76mm Sherman.

Do you know if that includes losses due to mechanical breakdowns, or was it strictly comparing combat kills only?

[Admiral Squish]

Oh, yes, this is all extremely helpful!

I suppose the point to keep in mind is that D&D (well, PF, technically in this case) armor is handled sort of like cover. The more of you the armor covers, and the more solid that cover is, the higher the armor bonus. The penetration quality is intended to describe weapons that make it so an attack functions more like a touch attack. If a bodkin point arrow can blast right through chain, then the 'cover' provided by the armor doesn't really apply, and chain's not going to do you much good against the bone-crushing force of a hammer.
So, while some weapons can bust through armor with sufficient strength and/or accurate placement of the blow, that's more a function of the wielder's attack roll being higher than the weapon being a penetration weapon. So, while the mercy knife was used to finish off armored foes, the blade was mostly used by carefully placing it at a weak point, avoiding the cover, and thus would not be a penetration weapon.

Taking into account all the stuff about different weapon designs, here's what I have so far for a list of penetration weapons and their values. I hadn't really looked that close into polearms since spears seem like they do more 'overcoming' than 'penetrating' and most of the polearms I can think of are either spear-pointed or bladed, or a combination thereof, but I'll give them another once-over. I'm also planning to add a material bit that modifies penetration by the material. So, a wooden or stone mace would get a -1 or -2 to penetration compared to a steel one. Also, I'm gonna have to do something with ammunition.
Simple Weapons
Weapon NamePenetration
Light
DaggerPenetration 1
Mace, LightPenetration 2
StilettoPenetration 3
One-handed
Mace, heavyPenetration 3
MorningstarPenetration 4
Ranged, One Handed
SlingPenetration 3
Ranged, Two-Handed
Crossbow, HeavyPenetration 6
Crossbow, LightPenetration 4

Martial Weapons
Weapon NamePenetration
Light
Hammer, LightPenetration 2
Pick, LightPenetration 3
StarknifePenetration 2
One-handed
FlailPenetration 3
Pick, HeavyPenetration 5
WarhammerPenetration 4
Two-Handed
Earth BreakerPenetration 6
Flail, HeavyPenetration 5
PickaxePenetration 7
Ranged, One Handed
AtlatlPenetration 3
Ranged, Two-Handed
LongbowPenetration 4
Longbow, CompositePenetration 4*
ShortbowPenetration 3
Shortbow, CompositePenetration 3*
*composite bows add their strength modifier to penetration value.

Now that's a lot of helpful stuff about firearms! I still haven't gotten into them in detail.
Hmm... Seems there are a lot of variables to take into account with armor and black powder. The range, the armor, the strength of the powder, shot placement, whether the target is rigidly anchored or just hanging free...
Maybe 'bullet-tested' could be an armor option, like an 'agile' breastplate. Like, the aforementioned sappenpanzer would probably be treated as a bullet-tested breastplate. I'm not sure how it would work, though. Maybe say it takes 2 points of penetration to reduce the armor bonus of such armor by 1. Or it could just be immune to penetration...

I do think that pistols and muskets should have relatively high armor penetration. A pistol's got a range increment of 20 and a musket's got a range increment of 40, so we're looking for penetration within that range. Maybe 5-6 for a pistol, 8 to 10 for a musket?

[Storm Bringer]

Do you know if that includes losses due to mechanical breakdowns, or was it strictly comparing combat kills only?


that is strictly losses of panthers to 76mm shermans, and 76mm shermans to panthers, with no other causes being considered.

The book talks about things like the poorer mechanical reliability of the panther, but as its title suggests, it's focused on the "duel" between those two tanks.

[Mike_G]

By 1944, the Germans disadvantages in supplying combat units probably hurt them more than anything else. Fewer heavy tanks had to move around more to meet enemy threats, burn more fuel, put more wear and tear on parts that were hard to replace. You don't need a tank that can kill a Tiger if you can attack in so many places that the Tiger runs out of fuel or breaks down trying to counter those attacks.

The US came into the war fresh, with a huge manufacturing base located far beyond the reach of enemy bombers. We had enough supplies to keep our armies moving, and transport to get those supplies through. When we gained control over the air, we could make moving troops and supplies even tougher for the Germans.

Attrition was a big deal for the Germans as well. Yes, they started with a well trained and efficient officer corps, but they lost a lot of those men by the time the Allies were on the march in Europe. Germany lost more than ten times as many men as the US did in the war. Much of that loss was on the Russian front, but it was still a drain on the military. You can't lose five million soldiers and not weaken the talent pool a little.

The US began with very green troops and lost a few early battles in North Africa badly, but we were able to replace those losses with m ore troops who could learn from the veterans and performed well as the war went on.

[Mr. Mask]

G: Matthew might be the best person to ask for prices/wages. I did a little searching, and managed to find a few of the posts that came up relating to prices/wages. Fusilier and Oni have also had good pricing knowledge in the past.



20 pounds = 4,800 silver coins. The daily pay of a labourer or soldier in the thirteenth century was somewhere between 1 and 2 silver coins, so let's call it a year's wages for 10 labourers or something like £200,000 in today's money, maybe £500,000 if you were feeling the labourers were overpaid. Still a lot.

Not sure if this'll be helpful, but here's a good thorough post you wrote on the subject of money: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?327994-Got-a-Real-World-Weapon-or-Armor-Question-Mk-XIV/page13&p=17009212#post17009212

Rhynn mentions a book that apparently has some good price information, Lisa J Steele's Fief: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?327994-Got-a-Real-World-Weapon-or-Armor-Question-Mk-XIV&p=17005491&highlight=wages%2C+prices#post17005491

Fusilier talks about galley prices a bit: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?327994-Got-a-Real-World-Weapon-or-Armor-Question-Mk-XIV&p=16995140&highlight=wages%2C+prices#post16995140


Will let you know if I find anything else. Have a bit of a headache, so I'll do a more thorough search later.


Mike: Good post. That brings to light the issues that come up with German tanks (they weren't shoddily constructed, after all).

[Mr. Mask]

Admiral Squish:

Hmm, it's a little hard to use real data to work into the DnD AC system. Also, stuff like AC versus BAB complicates how you might adjust the numbers. Generally speaking, I guess you'd work it so that if a weapon was known to usually defeat armour, it has an AP value almost equal to that armour (so, muskets would have values about equal to munition plate, but short ranges with penalties past those ranges). Of course, that also brings into question how you handle stuff like daggers, which can subvert armour entirely if used correctly, but are lousy if you have to try to stab armour through.

What I suggested mightn't work, as it doesn't take BAB into account. Though, if you had players' AC raise at the same rate as their BAB bonus, then that'd solve that concern (mostly).

With the list you present, longbows (particularly composite) might be a little high, and morning star might be a little low (depends on exactly the kind of morning star, but those things are very destructive). Atlatl would probably have a pretty high penetration, maybe 6 or even 7 (again, depends on specifics). If it was using obsidian ammo, then only cannon would have higher penetration. It's a little hard to judge without the armour values next to it (I guess it's DnD's armour values?), but I think that's a good crack at it. Nice work.

Your points about the sapper's armour brings up an interesting dilemma with the system. Theoretically the AC value should be raised because it's better armour, but then it would be weirdly invulnerable without the usual tricks to bypassing it. Making it two for one with AP might be a good idea, or just saying, "halves AP".
An alternative system would be to have your AP values divide the enemy's AC, so a musket might cut AC values in 4 or somesuch (full plate of 10 becoming 2 or 3). Probably too clunky with such small AC values.

Your thoughts on pistols and muskets are pretty reasonable. At 20 feet, a blackpowder pistol has a nasty sting to it (especially if concussive force counts).

Hope this reply was helpful to you.

[Spiryt]

If a bodkin point arrow can blast right through chain, then the 'cover' provided by the armor doesn't really apply, and chain's not going to do you much good against the bone-crushing force of a hammer.


Nothing I've seen indicated that bodkins really 'blast' trough any mail like it was once assumed.

Plenty of tests where mail stops the bodkin pretty damn dead.

And in experiments were bodkin breaks trough mail, other arrows do it pretty well too.

So while lack of good mail tests leaves us with low amount of data, it doesn't seem that bodkin was really particularly 'armor piercing'.




Simple Weapons
Weapon NamePenetration
Light
DaggerPenetration 1
Mace, LightPenetration 2
StilettoPenetration 3
One-handed
Mace, heavyPenetration 3
MorningstarPenetration 4
Ranged, One Handed
SlingPenetration 3
Ranged, Two-Handed
Crossbow, HeavyPenetration 6
Crossbow, LightPenetration 4

Martial Weapons
Weapon NamePenetration
Light
Hammer, LightPenetration 2
Pick, LightPenetration 3
StarknifePenetration 2
One-handed
FlailPenetration 3
Pick, HeavyPenetration 5
WarhammerPenetration 4
Two-Handed
Earth BreakerPenetration 6
Flail, HeavyPenetration 5
PickaxePenetration 7
Ranged, One Handed
AtlatlPenetration 3
Ranged, Two-Handed
LongbowPenetration 4
Longbow, CompositePenetration 4*
ShortbowPenetration 3
Shortbow, CompositePenetration 3*
*composite bows add their strength modifier to penetration value.




You may as well drop that colossal weirdness that WotC had written with 'Composite' bows.

Composite, is as name implies, something, in this instance bow, made out of several components.

In most cases of bows, it means wood, horn and sinew.

It doesn't have anything to do with 'strength modifier'.

Just call it draw weight, or whatever.


Atlatl would probably have a pretty high penetration, maybe 6 or even 7 (again, depends on specifics). If it was using obsidian ammo, then only cannon would have higher penetration

It's hard to tell much about atlatls, due to very low amount of data, but it doesn't seem to me that they should really have 'bigger AP' than common javelin.

Atlatl darts by their nature were rather light and bending shafts, to allow proper release with atlatl.

Obsidian heads would theoretically allow great penetration against soft targets, but against anything metallic, especially solid surface, chipping or straight breakage would likely occur.

[Broken Crown]

that is strictly losses of panthers to 76mm shermans, and 76mm shermans to panthers, with no other causes being considered.

The book talks about things like the poorer mechanical reliability of the panther, but as its title suggests, it's focused on the "duel" between those two tanks.

That sounds about right, then. Another book I'd read rated the Sherman Firefly as equal or a little superior to the Panther, but didn't provide any justification.

[Gnoman]

A 75mm Sherman against a Tiger is pretty much dead - they could penetrate the rear armour at medium range, but the front is out of the question. The 76mm Sherman could just about penetrate the front armour at close range.

IIRC, they reckoned you needed 6 Shermans to take out a Tiger, 5 to distract it by getting killed while the other one gets around behind it.

The 17pdr Firefly gun was a lot more successful - to the point where German tankers counted Firefly kills higher than other tanks.


All three of these are myths. Even a 75mm Sherman could handle a Tiger I's armor at close range, particularly from the side, while the abysmal visibility provided to a Tiger's crew virtually guaranteed that the M4 would be able to outflank it. Meanwhile, the 76mm gun could penetrate even the front at standard battlefield ranges (once they fixed the defective shells, anyway). Note that the 76mm gun on the upgraded M4 was the exact same gun used on the M18 Hellcat tank destroyer, which handled Tigers and Panthers just fine.


The old chestnut of "5 Shermans to a Tiger" has no basis in fact. In actuality, the loss ratio was about 1.25:1. In favor of the M4. (In other words, it took 5 Tigers to take out 4 Shermans).

Meanwhile, the Firefly wasn't the improvement that legend has dubbed it to be. The 17-lb gun was so inaccurate with the sabot rounds (which were the only ammunition that had significantly better performance than the 76mm) that it had to be ~50 meters closer to a target to reliably hit it, by which point the 76 could penetrate just as well. Meanwhile, there is absolutely zero evidence to support Germans specially targeting the Firefly, as the loss rates in mixed units show no higher losses for that tank type.

Where the myths came from? A large part was German propaganda during the war. Time and time again they praised tank "aces" for destroying three or four times more tanks than they actually did. In at least one famous case, a Tiger crew claimed to have destroyed more of a certain vehicle type than had even been shipped to the front. Modern pseudo-historians took those claims at face value without actually digging into the actual loss rates. The second major part of it was a difference in loss recording. The Germans marked a vehicle lost only if they could not recover and reuse it. Thus, a given tank could be hit and knocked out, towed back and rebuilt, knocked out agian, rebuilt into an assault gun, knocked out a third time, repaired again, and knocked out for a fourth and final time when the Allied lines rolled over the wreck. In this example (not at all unusual on either side), the Germans would have recorded 1 vehicle loss. The Allies would have recorded this as 4, calling it a loss every time the tank was knocked out.

Finally, and probably the biggest reason, is that there was very little visual difference between a lot of German tanks. A Panzer IV was almost identical in appearance to a Tiger I, and the prevalence of the propaganda made a lot of late-war crews default to "Tiger" when spotting a tank. When you add in the natural tendency of soldiers to stack the odds in their favor, a lot of times you'd see Shermans swarming a lone tiger not because they HAD to, but because they could.

[Storm Bringer]

intresting, I'd not heard that before.

I've heard about the difference in loss counting before, in the context of casualty rates, in which the germans did not report up minor casualties who would be fit for duty within a week, whereas the allies generally did, which had the effect of making allied losses seem higher, when the loss rates were actually closer than the official figures suggested.

[Mr. Mask]

Spiryt: Well, the Roman javelins I've seen had an amount of flesh to them. That being said, I agree that a heavy javelin would have more AP for less range (a bit unsure with the lighter combat javelins).

I found one test using stone headed atlatl darts, against a breastplate of unknown quality: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hjV7lYP6hRw
When you consider those are stone, you can imagine the results being quite a bit worse if you replaced those with obsidian (which was reported to slice through steel). Some steel atlatl heads might also have had impressive results (the discussion about sling stones and arrows comes to mind).

[Galloglaich]

I think we have to be careful of swinging the pendulum too far in the other direction...


All three of these are myths. Even a 75mm Sherman could handle a Tiger I's armor at close range, particularly from the side,

I think only at very close range. Even the 76mm had trouble penetrating the side armor of a Tiger I at medium to long range. M4 with 75mm gun was pretty out-matched by a Tiger.



while the abysmal visibility provided to a Tiger's crew virtually guaranteed that the M4 would be able to outflank it.

I'd like to see some evidence of that.



Meanwhile, the 76mm gun could penetrate even the front at standard battlefield ranges (once they fixed the defective shells, anyway).

Definitely not the case with standard AP ammunition. If you are talking about with the use of HVAP ammunition, that was barely available by the end of 1945, some tank units had sufficient for 1 or 2 HVAP rounds per tank, others had none. Most were actually given to the TD battalions initially. HVAP ammunition also had the same kind of accuracy problems that you described for the Firefly.



Note that the 76mm gun on the upgraded M4 was the exact same gun used on the M18 Hellcat tank destroyer, which handled Tigers and Panthers just fine.

The M18 did pretty well against Panthers on a couple of famous occasions, on other occasions it was slaughtered. I think at best you could say it held it's own against the Panther, especially from an ambush position. I don't know of any cases of M18's destroying Tiger's in any numbers.



The old chestnut of "5 Shermans to a Tiger" has no basis in fact. In actuality, the loss ratio was about 1.25:1. In favor of the M4. (In other words, it took 5 Tigers to take out 4 Shermans).

I'd like to see what this is based on. There were only 1,300 Tigers produced, most (more than 3/4) of which fought most of their battles on the Russian Front, and the US lost 20,000 tanks in WW II, mostly in Europe, and specifically the US alone lost 4,295 Shermans in the ETO (according to this book (http://www.amazon.com/dp/0811704246/?tag=googhydr-20&hvadid=33819794875&hvpos=1t1&hvexid=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=18425826559785471606&hvpone=26.86&hvptwo=&hvqmt=b&hvdev=c&ref=pd_sl_5vmgtldolr_b) which has all the losses and other stats for each US Armor Division and independent tank battalion, on page 343) so the numbers are definitely lopsided in favor of the Germans. And that doesn't even count British, Candian, Free French etc. losses. Most US tanks knocked out in Europe were destroyed by 75mm AT guns and StuGG III's, other AT guns and panzerfausts. But I think if you really plunge into the numbers you'll see that most of the Tiger I's in action accounted pretty well for themselves, at least until their units started collapsing and being enveloped. At lot of German AFV's were destroyed by artillery.


Where the myths came from? .

There are myths on both sides of this, and without a doubt there is a lot of German - hype in wargamer circles, but the engagements involving Tigers, as there were so relatively few of them, are pretty well documented, and from what I've read the 5-1 ratio isn't far off. In some cases it was more like 20-1. But what also happened is that later in the war the conditions for the German forces declined to the point that they were facing engagements where all the odds were against them.

It's important to try to strike a balance. There was a lot of post-war resonance of German propaganda and this lingered especially in wargaming circles. Sherman tanks and US armored forces in general had some advantages and weren't as hapless as sometimes made out. But it would be absurd to pretend the Germans didn't have an extremely effective military, man for man and tank for tank, even as we take note of their weaknesses. The US war machine was organized for maximum industrial efficiency, the Sherman was shaped and sized to fit in box cars and liberty ships, to have modular parts designed for quick repair and support. Field expedient improvements and the M4A3E2 model showed us that it could have been up-armored without a major decline in mobility, and this probably would have saved a lot of lives, but they didn't see the need to disrupt supply chains and manufacturing processes until quite late, largely because US commanders were not really asking for a better tank until well into 1944, largely because they hadn't encountered large numbers of Tigers or Panthers since they were mostly being deployed in the far bigger emergency from the Germans point of view, the Russian Front. Also early deployments of the Tiger and Panther in Sicily and Italy (Anzio) respectively were bungled by the Germans so didn't have much impact - even very good weapons can do poorly in the wrong conditions.

When the Tiger and the Panther debuted in some numbers during and after the Normandy invasion, they did cause a shock and a slaughter of Allied forces, which is what made the reverberation we are still feeling today in discussions like this.

In terms of the whole quality vs. quantity debate, on the one hand, 5 medium tanks vs. 1 heavy tank, you only have the one heavy tank to support, maintain, fuel, and train crews for. So there is an economic argument for the quality side.

But on the quantity side, if you have 5 medium tanks and the other side has 1 heavy, you have 5 tanks you can use. In many battles in WW II one side had a small number of tanks to support them and the other side had none. A lot of WW II was fought by infantry that lacked armored, mechanized or even mobile forces. Germans in particular were frequently relying on horse-drawn carriages to pull around their artillery and AT guns. So if you are in the battle and you've committed 3 of your tanks to try to cope with their 1 heavy, and you have 2 more to use in other areas against their infantry, if you use them wisely you have a big advantage.

As Stalin said, quantity has a quality all it's own.

G

[Gnoman]

In terms of the whole quality vs. quantity debate, on the one hand, 5 medium tanks vs. 1 heavy tank, you only have the one heavy tank to support, maintain, fuel, and train crews for. So there is an economic argument for the quality side.


That's a false logic. Even good heavy tanks such as the Russian IS series required so much more logistical support due to vastly higher fuel useage, more frequent breakdowns (due to the higher weight putting more stress on components), and more expensive and difficult to handle ammunition (due to much bigger shells) that the only actual saving was in crewmen, which all sides had plenty of during most of the war (late war was another story, due to Germany's lower population and the fact that German armor (unlike Allied armor) was hardened to the maximum possible degree, making it harder to penetrate at the cost of turning any penetration (or non-penetration, in the case of large explosive hits) causing massive amounts of spalling and shrapnel, turning the vehicle into a deathtrap (American designers had the option of hardening the steel just as much, but decided that it was better to lose more tanks if by doing so you could enable more crew to survive.)

Regarding visibility, the gunner on a Tiger had no optics other than his gunsight, meaning that the only thing he could see was what he was already aiming at, while the commander's vision system was only average. This meant that, not only was the gunner completely dependent on the commander for finding targets, even after the commander spotted an enemy, it took much longer for a Tiger's gunner to sight on it than was the case for an Allied tank (which generally provided a wide angle sight and a periscope that not only made it easier to find targets on his own (allowing the tank to look in two directions at once) but when the commander designated one, they could find it much easier.)

The Tiger I had 60mm side armor, nonsloped, with 80mm on the side superstructure and turret. The M3 L/40 on the 75mm Sherman had a listed penetration of 100mm. Even allowing for the harder German armor, that still penetrates. I can't find penetration-by-range data for this gun, but generally listed pens are at least 100 yards. The M1 76mm could penetrate a 100mm steel plate at 500 yards with standard APC ammunition, enough to penetrate the frontal armor (however, the harder German steel made this less likely), and 90mm at 1,000 yards; while the HVAP round could handle 123mm at 1000 yards. Beyond 1000 yards, the targeting (especially rangefinding) systems of the time didn't really allow for accurate fire from any gun, meaning that a 76mm Sherman with HVAP could kill a Tiger at the same range the Tiger could kill it. Meanwhile, when the Army was conducting gunnery tests, their results tables have huge blank spots for the British 17-pounder's performance because they couldn't hit the stationary test target with it. (British gunners brought in for a follow-up test were able to hit the same target at the same range two out of five times, while either country's gunners could hit with the 75 and 76 pretty much every time). This inaccuracy rendered the penetration advantage of the 17lb gun irrelevant.

Regarding High Velocity Armor Piercing, the only reason that it wasn't in general supply was that it was a specialty round, like cannister. The odds of the average tank encountering a German tank weren't that high (to the point where many commanders tried to send their 76mm tanks back in favor of the 105mm howitzer version, which was much better at taking out bunkers, fire support for the infantry, or taking out towed AT guns). Most of the HVAP shells issued were never fired, and most of those that were fired were used because the tank was out of plain AP or they misidentified the target. The higher quantities issued to the TDs was because those were intended to seek out armor instead of simply engaging it if they happened to run into it.

[Galloglaich]

That's a false logic. Even good heavy tanks such as the Russian IS series required so much more logistical support due to vastly higher fuel useage, more frequent breakdowns (due to the higher weight putting more stress on components), and more expensive and difficult to handle ammunition (due to much bigger shells) that the only actual saving was in crewmen,

No that's not true - they didn't use the same fuel as 5 tanks. maybe 2 or even 3 but not 5. Also they only had the one engine, one gun, one set of tracks etc.


(American designers had the option of hardening the steel just as much, but decided that it was better to lose more tanks if by doing so you could enable more crew to survive.)

I don't think the American designers were so sophisticated - they had some very serious design flaws directly related to crew survival in the early Shermans specifically. The ready rack for the ammunition was stored in the front of the turret and they had actually hollowed out the armor to make it fit (making the armor thinner at exactly that spot) and main ammunition storage in the superstructure was unprotected. German tank and AT gun crews quickly figured out where to aim to cause an explosive 'brew-up'. The US reacted by bolting extra plates onto the vulnerable spots, which was only a marginal help, and then switched to wet storage in subsequent designs (which helped a lot) but it was slow going replacing the older tanks, many of which were still in the field in 1945. Some variants of the Sherman also used gasoline (instead of diesel) engines which made them more susceptible to fires as well. Early Shermans definitely had a much bigger problem with this than Tigers did (you can look at crew survival ratios).


Regarding visibility, the gunner on a Tiger did not in fact have trouble in the field acquiring or destroying targets.



The Tiger I had 60mm side armor, nonsloped, with 80mm on the side superstructure and turret. The M3 L/40 on the 75mm Sherman had a listed penetration of 100mm. Even allowing for the harder German armor, that still penetrates.

Actually most of the side armor visible to another tank on the Tiger is 80mm, not 60mm. And the 100 mm maximum penetration (at very close range) assumes a dead on target hit, i.e. an exact 90 degree angle to the target. That almost never happens. So in effect, in hitting the target at an angle (usually both horizontally and vertically) it is the same effect as sloped armor. So when you hit that 80mm of armor it's effectively 100mm or 120mm or more, and there is no effect. The Tiger was basically invulnerable to the short 75mm on a Sherman, which is why you can count on one hand the number of times a 75mm Sherman (or a 76mm T-34) knocked out a Tiger.

https://worldoftanks.com/dcont/fb/imagesforarticles/chieftains_hatch/stratguide/armorangles.jpg



I can't find penetration-by-range data for this gun, but generally listed pens are at least 100 yards.

which is extremely close range in a tank fight, basically that is point-blank range. Even there it's unlikely due to what I explained above.


Beyond 1000 yards, the targeting (especially rangefinding) systems of the time didn't really allow for accurate fire from any gun,

actually that's not true either. The 88mm gun on a Tiger was derived from the Flak 18 gun which was designed to shoot at aircraft up to 10,000 meters up. German optics were one of their biggest advantages over US, UK, and Soviet tanks. Early US tanks were actually using German optical gear in the beginning of WW II which was obviously cut off. In the North African campaigns UK / Commonwealth and later US tanks were still suffering from severe problems with their optics and sighting systems through 1943.

Meanwhile wikipedia lists a 43% hit probability in combat for the Pak 43 at 2,000 meters, which was the AT gun version of the Flak 18. It still shows a 13% hit probability at 4,000 meters.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/8.8_cm_Pak_43#Ammunition_and_penetration



meaning that a 76mm Sherman with HVAP could kill a Tiger at the same range the Tiger could kill it. definitely not true. The HVAP ammo basically put the Sherman in the same effective power as the gun on a Pz IV, but the Tiger had more than twice the effective range, and much better penetration. And as we already noted, HVAP was rare and didn't show up until close to 1945. Most Sherman crews didn't even have any and if they did, only a couple of rounds. Most engagements between US armor and German armor were with much lower performing AP ammo on the American side

The Germans too had their special ammo by the way, and they issued more of it. Their APCR (basically sabot) ammo for the Tiger penetrated 110 mm at 2,000 meters, enough to kill a Sherman even at a slightly odd angle (Sherman has 60-76mm armor at the thickest point)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/8.8_cm_KwK_36#Pzgr._40_.28APCR.29



Regarding High Velocity Armor Piercing, the only reason that it wasn't in general supply was that it was a specialty round, like cannister. The odds of the average tank encountering a German tank weren't that high (to the point where many commanders tried to send their 76mm tanks back in favor of the 105mm howitzer version, which was much better at taking out bunkers, fire support for the infantry, or taking out towed AT guns). Most of the HVAP shells issued were never fired, and most of those that were fired were used because the tank was out of plain AP or they misidentified the target. The higher quantities issued to the TDs was because those were intended to seek out armor instead of simply engaging it if they happened to run into it.

Actually the US had a lot of canister rounds, which were quite effective and useful, particularly for the 37mm armed weapons.

HVAP was in short supply due to planning, development and manufacturing issues mainly. Basically the need hadn't been foreseen until it was a little too late. Same for the development of the 90mm gun.

G

[Gnoman]

I don't think the American designers were so sophisticated - they had some very serious design flaws directly related to crew survival in the early Shermans specifically. The ready rack for the ammunition was stored in the front of the turret and they had actually hollowed out the armor to make it fit (making the armor thinner at exactly that spot) and main ammunition storage in the superstructure was unprotected. German tank and AT gun crews quickly figured out where to aim to cause an explosive 'brew-up'. The US reacted by bolting extra plates onto the vulnerable spots, which was only a marginal help, and then switched to wet storage in subsequent designs (which helped a lot) but it was slow going replacing the older tanks, many of which were still in the field in 1945. Some variants of the Sherman also used gasoline (instead of diesel) engines which made them more susceptible to fires as well. Early Shermans definitely had a much bigger problem with this than Tigers did (you can look at crew survival ratios).


This long-standing story has largely been discredited, Shermans had the lowest crew casualty rates of any tank in the entire war, losing only 1 crewman for every vehicle knocked out. This INCLUDES the early British-operated models that were prone to ammunition fires because way more ammunition was crammed into them than the tank was supposed to carry, meaning that many knocked out tanks had 100% crew survivablilty. Apart from that, the ONLY source to the safety flaws of the Sherman was a widely-copied book written after the war by a supply officer that not only never saw combat (the only contact he had with damaged vehicles were the wrecked-beyond-repair examples that were pulled back to rear areas for cannibalizing anything useful before being scrapped, not representative of all units that had to be pulled back for repairs, let alone all vehicles hit in combat), but repeatedly proved that he didn't know what he was talking about (to those who had some idea. He constantly got details like armor thickness, manufacturing methods, and suspension type completely wrong, but those details aren't glaringly obvious until you've put a bit of study into it.) Skewing his "data" considerably is that Germany instituted a "shoot it until it burns policy" very early in the war, meaning that they would continue to put shots even into clearly abandoned tanks in order to ensure their complete destruction. This resulted in many, many tanks that would have been easily repairable from the hit that disabled them. (Even worse, the unit to which this dubiously-reliable officer was attatched seems to have suffered extremely high losses relative to other tank units, losing at least double the tanks the next highest unit did, and in fact lost 1 out of every 5 US tanks lost during the entire war, despite being only 1 out of 15 tank divisions. It was a very hard fighting unit that threw itself into the heaviest combat for a long time, and destroyed at least fifteen hundred enemy vehicles. It's like calling the Bismark a bad design because she was sunk in her second battle, when fighting nearly the entire British fleet that was in the area.)


In any case, this is quite off-topic, and I'm not going to debate this any more.

[Mr. Mask]

I don't see the discussion as off-topic at all, but it's probably best that the debate cease as you have suggested.

[Carl]

Updated my EFGT thread with a post, however since there's several pertinent questions to this thread in here i'm gonna copy it over here as well. Link to the thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?360030-EFGT-Organisation-and-Equipment&p=18259599#post18259599) if you want to post replies there instead of here.

Quotege time:


Actually i'm more interested in what people make of the Platoon and Company sized formations, specifically because of the combined arms element there. The rest of the formations are there to lay out the structure, not really to represent the actual capabilities of those structures as they're missing their logistics and armor elements. Hopefully the bolding gets people to read that part :smallbiggrin:...

...Sorry for the double post, been looking over that link and it's created some thoughts and new questions for you all to look over and think on and answer and other cool stuff.

I'm still working through a LOT of that stuff, it's hard to follow at times because there's so many acronym's, and the units aren't broken down too well in their specifics so it's hard to see what kind of manpower and equipment they have at the individual personnel level to achieve their goals and how this is split up amongst individual squads, (or whatever the unit equivalent is). I also took forever to realize the top half of the table is just a separate listing of every unit type that might appear in the subsequent division breakdowns as apposed to assets attached to every division in addition to the listed division specific stuff.

However i have noticed some interesting point's.

1. There's a lot more signals's and other "Command and Control" assets than i honestly expected. Unless in this case the term company refers to a formation with a much smaller personnel total than i'm thinking, (A rifle company has 108 rifleman, plus mortar team, antiarmor team, and hq section personnel, exact total personnel is not given though, will probably try digging for that). Could someone clarify what they do, is it just fire support request stuff? Or does the division commander really need that many people to break down whats happening for him.

Guess i need to discuss how i see the C&C networks working in those two cases for my setup. Give me time to make more observations and i'll drop it in at the bottom.

2. There's a lot more attached armor and suchlike than i thought their'd be outside of the mechanized and armored brigade's, same for helicopters in the non-airborne unit's and i didn't expected the mechanized to have so many MBT's attached. Then again until i saw this i wasn't expecting so many different division types. What i'd read about the divisional level was that it was supposed to have capabilities in all area's, being a non-specialized formation. This clearly isn't true in at least the US army.


This kind of brings me round to the one Infantry formation equipment list contained in there. Specifically that of a light infantry battalion, which also includes a total personnel count figure of 567 personnel. That info combined gives the following info:

US army light infantry battalion:

15 HMG’s, Ratio: 37.8 men per weapon

14 40mm Grenade machineguns, Ratio: 40.5 men per weapon

72 5.56mm LMG’s, Ratio: 7.88 men per weapon

18 Mortar’s, Ratio: 31.5 men per weapon

18 Shoulder Fired AT Guided Missiles, Ratio: 31.5 men per weapon

20 Vehicle Mounted AT Guided Missiles, Ratio: 28.35 men per weapon

38 Total AT Guided Missiles, Ratio: 14.92 men per weapon

The closest comparison in personnel in my organisational setup is the Company at 488 personnel with the following list:

1 Company has:

30 LMG’s, Ratio: 16.26 men per weapon

10 SAR’s, Ratio: 48.8 men per weapon

Total Man Portable MG’s, (SAR +LMG): 40, Ratio: 12.2 men per weapon

20 60mm Grenade Launchers, Ratio: 24.4 men per weapon

56 LWGM’s, Ratio: 8.71 men per weapon

4 90mm Mortar’s, Ratio: 122 men per weapon

7 MMG’s, Ratio: 69.7 men per weapon

2 HMG’s, Ratio: 244 men per weapon

Total Crew Served MG’s, (MMG + HMG): 9, 7 MMG’s, Ratio: 54.22 men per weapon

1 10 Gauge Crew Served Automatic, Ratio: 488 men per weapon


These numbers make for some interesting comparisons and notes.

The first surprise was the total lack of any M240's in the US infantry list, i'm guessing this is part of the whole "Light Infantry" thing though, and that in a standard infantry units they'd replace some of the M249's.

The other big surprise was just how many crew served weapons, particularly Grenade Machingun's there are to basic infantry, i was under the impression such slow to relocate weapons where generally disfavored for mobility reasons, and i'm honestly surprised at how many grenade machineguns there are, i was under the impression those where a primarily defensive system unsuited due to short range for aggressive advances that would require them to advance under fire to get into a position they could be setup in. Any comments on these observations would be welcome btw.

There is a notable lack of Mortars on my side in that comparison, however it's worth noting that the breakdown for the US Light Army Battalion is 6 60mm mortar's, 6 81mm mortar's, and 6 66mm mortar's, (the last of which i can find no info on anywhere). Whilst the 60mm grenade launchers used by the EFGT are almost certainly no match for a proper 60mm mortar design in their mortar mode, their greater numbers would certainly tend to compensate. There's still fewer 90mm than 81mm but it's still not as bad as initial numbers suggest.

The real problem however is very obvious. There's a vastly lower ratio of man portable machine guns to infantry in the overall unit. There's actually more total single man portable support weapons in the company than their is in the US battalion, (72 for the US, 88 for the EFGT Company), despite the smaller manpower count.

The problem is that 16 of those are anti-material rifles, and another 12 are Medium Marksmen rifles. So there's only 60 non-sniper class weapons in that classification, and a third of those are grenade launchers. Certainly those launchers offer a degree of high portability sustained explosive fragmentation fire at the platoon level that the US Light Infantry Battalion cannot match, and it was a very deliberate gearing choice on my part to work in a lot more of that kind of capability at the low levels of organisation. Again it's those damm Fallen the cultists like to use, they really distort EFGT doctrine on all levels. It actually makes Cultist infantry a somewhat more effective force man for man because they aren't limited in some ways by that need. Though the SOAS do create their ow distortion given the cultists are primarily on the defensive and the SOAS are the beach-head force for planetary assault's, (they more or less have to be, short of Alice herself leaving Earth they're the only force that can do it with any real hope of success).

One question i would like to raise that i should have thought of earlier is this: How practical is it to mix something like an LMG and an MMG (M249 and M240 in US service for equivalents), in the same firing unit? Would the differing ranges make dual same type more effective even if it hurt total sustained action capability from an ammo supply PoV?

On the other hand as expected the average AT guided missiles per man are much better ratio wise, which given my related comments on how many missiles it takes to kill an AFV is a kind of necessary point.

On a related note i found it interesting just how much anti-tank light armor support was directly attached. I hadn't really intended to attach those kinds of assets directly to Companies as part of their formal organisation, but the more i think about this the more i can see an argument for it, and the Armored Car concept is the most fleshed out of the AFV's, the rest are much more dependent on where the MBT ends up in armament terms than the armored car.


Okay C&C stuff:

I did say i'd touch on the C&C stuff.

First i want to address the first and by far the most obvious use, and the one entertainment certainly emphasizes the most, fire support requests.

This is virtually all handled by the target designator and rangefinding unit every soldier has. Whilst some types of fire support can only be called in by higher ranking individual's, the common stuff like laying missiles on AFV and Infantry units as well as designating target's for direct fire support from AFV's. There are feature's to make it virtually impossible for captured units to be misused on friendlies but whilst some of this is touched upon below it's by no means exhaustive i'm sure, (it's something I've given only a limited amount of detailed thought on TBH).

The basics of the system is that the range finding unit has it's own positional locator system, (including a crude if passable Internal Positioning System), and can between rangefinding and internal gyro's determine the position of whatever you aim the designator at. This saves it to one of several memory slots, (first empty), at this point by re-selecting that memory you can add one or more extra designations of the target to provide vector and velocity data on a moving target. In addition you can add threat data by selecting the type of target your designating and specifying what kind of nearby support it has, (a simple support level is assigned, you don't have to be ultra specific though the system provides for that as well as a matter of completeness for recon setups). For the sake of making computing calculations simpler, standard procedure is to attach support data for all nearby enemy assets to each report even if your also uploading data on some of those supporting assets as well.

Note that despite the above it's mostly just buttons and status light's, not some multi-function display monster.

Once you've done that you can upload the whole thing as a recon report or a fire support request, (a simple safety switch does exist in case you don;t want to broadcast your presence and there is the option to append a notation of that being on to the upload). At which point it will be broadcast and sent via the comms network, (more on that in a second), to a nearby available missile carrier class vehicle, (there are several grades based on different chassis with different methods of employment e.t.c.), which type of carrier will depend on the appended support data value. The missile carrier will then look at that, look at the other reports on local units and get a general feel for how much data processing the fire mission will take, if there's a lot of reports in that area that might be relevant, and that number exceeds what it can handle, it will kick it back into the comm net with a marker appended to it where the computers will kick it over to the nearest capable unit that's free. At which point it will collate those reports, ping friendly comms to check there's no friendlies too close, and then calculate the fire mission requirements and out of available assets determine a fire plan and then transmit that to necessary units with appended launch times for appropriate simultaneous arrival.

If a friendly unit is too close it will check see if those units have uploaded an appropriate marker to the system indicating they're in serious danger and need fire support regardless of local danger, (the range-finding unit has such a feature), of they haven't it puts a hold on the fire mission and kicks a notification to the affected unit, which they can use to send an override back to the coms net.

AFV's are capable of similar things but their on-board systems make it easier as they can automate several aspect's, just requiring the commander of the vehicle to confirm the data, (this is in fact one of his bigger jobs), by reviewing the sensor system snapshot used t make the ID.

At the same time the actual com net is made up of the coms systems of local AFV's with each unit being it's own node in a very large very redundant network. This is a somewhat direct consequence of the fact that in addition to direct-fire fire-support missions light tanks and MBT's are also supposed to provide other nearby forces with area CIWS fire-support utilizing their main gun systems. Whilst missile carriers provide heavy indirect fire support capability. Both thus have considerable comm requirements to allow them to coordinate with each other, and other AFV's to acquire targeting data and determine who's handling what targets with what weaponry, (it's not too different really to what a modern naval force at sea needs to coordinate defensive fire amongst multiple warships). As a result building in the capabilities needed to handle things like data uploads from rangefinder and designator units as well as voice comms isn't that much extra work.

In the same vein at some command level, (i'm thinking Platoon or Company Level, not sure which), the commander will have a little device, (i'm thinking something roughly IPad sized, though more durable obviously), which lets him simply upload basic status reports to the comms net via selecting various options for his units or groups thereof. I emphasis the "simple reports" aspect, i'm talking information about weather the units are advancing, retreating, holding their ground, and how heavily engaged they are, if they need resupply, med evac, or outright withdrawal due to losses. Local Commanders cna also send out a request to unit's either on an individual basis or an area basis to update their reports. It can't, (and isn't intended to), replace voice comms for a lot of situations, but it does mean a lot of basic info goes straight to the computers where it's fed directly to the Tac Com Commander which reduces his or her C&C control loop and delay factor on getting data. Voice comms are thus employed to provide more detailed reports when needed or to reporting situations beyond the common basics and such like.

This all ultimately feeds to the local Tac Com commander or commander's, (depending on the size of the operation, though more than a handful is very rare), plotting tables. Usually a single master table with an area of responsibility overview is used with auxiliary tables being used to pull up more detailed views. This effectively allows the Commander to use the computer supplied and filtered data to see where his units are, how they're doing, and get an approximate count on enemy forces near each part thereof, thus allowing him to effectively see many aspects of the battle without a human other than him and his line units being in the C&C loop. He does of course have a staff as noted, partly this is because outside of very small area's of responsibility he probably needs assistants to help him deal with detail points without losing sight of the bigger picture, and because he will need and also spontaneously receive more detailed reports on occasion, so he does need a comms staff to handle that, but i never envisaged him needing large numbers of dedicated comms vehicles or staff to handle large volumes of reports from field units as much of that is explicitly handled by and fed into the computers which then present their data directly to the Commander and his assistants.

A similar thing would apply with things like units needing resupply, med-evac, engineer's support, e.t.c., most of the common tasks will be achieved by the requiring unit generating a computer report request that gets routed directly to an appropriate authority who then handles the situation without comm staff getting too much involved.

Think i've covered everything i was gonna.

[Gnoman]

Was there a question in there somewhere?

[Brother Oni]

I have a question for everybody here. In past incarnations of this thread, during various discussions, many of us including myself have posted some well-sourced statistics on prices of weapons, armor, and every day objects and services from the medieval and Early Modern periods. I was wondering if you folks could post your best links and (sourced) statistics on prices, wages and other economic hard numbers, specifically from the 14th-16th Centuries. I already have a lot for later eras and for the earlier medieval period, I'm really interested in that zone specifically. Any help would be appreciated.


Just for Europe I assume? I'll see what I can do tonight.


There are myths on both sides of this, and without a doubt there is a lot of German - hype in wargamer circles, but the engagements involving Tigers, as there were so relatively few of them, are pretty well documented, and from what I've read the 5-1 ratio isn't far off. In some cases it was more like 20-1. But what also happened is that later in the war the conditions for the German forces declined to the point that they were facing engagements where all the odds were against them.

I remember a quote from a captured German tank commander saying that a Tiger was worth 10 Shermans - the problem was, the Allies had 11.

[Carl]

@Gnoman: Several TBH, i just left all the random musings in for the context they provide, let me pick out the important lines for you though.



...1. There's a lot more signals's and other "Command and Control" assets than i honestly expected. Unless in this case the term company refers to a formation with a much smaller personnel total than i'm thinking, (A rifle company has 108 rifleman, plus mortar team, antiarmor team, and hq section personnel, exact total personnel is not given though, will probably try digging for that). Could someone clarify what they do, is it just fire support request stuff? Or does the division commander really need that many people to break down whats happening for him...

...The first surprise was the total lack of any M240's in the US infantry list, i'm guessing this is part of the whole "Light Infantry" thing though, and that in a standard infantry units they'd replace some of the M249's.

The other big surprise was just how many crew served weapons, particularly Grenade Machingun's there are to basic infantry, i was under the impression such slow to relocate weapons where generally disfavored for mobility reasons, and i'm honestly surprised at how many grenade machineguns there are, i was under the impression those where a primarily defensive system unsuited due to short range for aggressive advances that would require them to advance under fire to get into a position they could be setup in. Any comments on these observations would be welcome btw...

One question i would like to raise that i should have thought of earlier is this: How practical is it to mix something like an LMG and an MMG (M249 and M240 in US service for equivalents), in the same firing unit? Would the differing ranges make dual same type more effective even if it hurt total sustained action capability from an ammo supply PoV?..



Also anyone that has relevant knowledge should feel free to look over the bare bones bits of the C&C system i outlined for flaws et al.

[Galloglaich]

This long-standing story has largely been discredited, Shermans had the lowest crew casualty rates of any tank in the entire war, losing only 1 crewman for every vehicle knocked out.

I'm not sure which story you mean exactly. The vulnerability of the ammunition in the Sherman was a well established issue that certainly has never been discredited.

http://the.shadock.free.fr/sherman_minutia/manufacturer/m4a1mlw/Grizzly_32.JPG

The two squares you see on the side armor on this tank, like the one you see where the number 1 is, are both applique armor which was added to deal with that vulnerability.

http://the.shadock.free.fr/sherman_minutia/turret_types/turret_applique.JPG

This is the piece they put on the turret to cover the hollowed out part for the ammunition storage.

According to the wiki (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M4_Sherman#Armor) on the Sherman:

"A U.S. Army study in 1945 concluded that only 10–15 percent of wet-stowage Shermans burned when penetrated, compared to 60–80 percent of the older dry-stowage Shermans"

Another important thing in that wiki:

Patton ordered extra armor plates salvaged from knocked-out American and German tanks welded to the front hulls of tanks of his command. Approximately 36 of these up-armored M4s were supplied to each of the armored divisions of the Third Army in the spring of 1945

This was pretty key. 36 is a lot of tanks when the Division has about 100-170 tanks.

However as I already mentioned, the improved tanks with wet storage and extra armor were still outnumbered by the earlier types even as late as 1945, and many of the older tanks remained highly vulnerable to 'brew ups'

I'm aware of the book by the supply sergeant, this is the book (http://www.amazon.com/Death-Traps-Survival-American-Division/dp/0891418148), he also appeared on several cable documentaries. He was a guy whose job was to refit knocked out tanks (including hosing out the dead bodies) but this was by no means the beginning of the controversy about the M4, that actually started in the US press during early US operations in Tunisia and etc., and especially after the Normandy and during the Battle of the Bulge.

As I alluded to before, there has been a lot of unrealistic Sherman bashing, but the pendulum can swing too far the other way. If you are perceiving me as a Sherman basher then you are pretty far on one side of the fence.

The 1 out of 5 crew surviving was not unusual - US rates for all AFV's (including light tanks and armored cars) was 1 dead and 1 wounded. But this was the same for the Russians and the Germans too. That statistic was for the whole war though, and it includes crews bailing out when a track is knocked out etc. The rate was obviously much higher when there was a 'brew-up' - that is why it was such an issue.



In any case, this is quite off-topic, and I'm not going to debate this any more.

Fair enough, I'll leave it here.

G

[Mr. Mask]

G: Question about war wagons. Why is it that certain parts of Europe seem to use them more than others? Some armies didn't seem to have a lot of wagons present with them. Was this a strategic choice?

[Admiral Squish]

Armor Penetration:
Yeah, it's not easy to make it work with the system, but it's one of those things that's important to the setting.

Longbows:
Well, I have seen a few things, there was one particular video where they shot a watermelon draped in mail with a bodkin point. The draw weight was approximately half that of a standard medieval longbow, and the arrow pierced the first layer, the watermelon, the mail on the other side, and kept going deep enough to almost have the feathers entirely disappear into the melon. I don't know exactly how that would interact with padding and real flesh, or if the armor was any good, or if other arrowheads would have done the same, but it seems at least decent evidence that it would do a pretty good job. Said bow also made the bodkin point punch through a breastplate-like piece of armor, though it didn't put the arrowhead all the way through.
As to composite longbows, I will admit, it's a weird system the rules have in place, but I don't really know if I want to change it that much, we're already making a whole lot of changes to the system as-is, and if we make too many more dramatic changes we'll end up having only vaguely reminiscent of PF.

Atlatls:
I can't believe obsidian would pierce steel. It's a very, very sharp edge, and it's a very useful material, but it's brittle when compared to metal or even other stone. I could imagine some sort of magically-hardened obsidian that would be able to behave as you describe, but not natural obsidian. Anyways, for the purposes of this chart, I'm assuming that the weapons are all of steel manufacture, but I'll add a section on how different materials affect the penetration value.
Atlatls do have some serious power, as evidenced by that atlatl v. breastplate video, and I could probably bump that up a notch or two.

Firearms:
Alright, so, I'm gonna say 6 for a pistol, and 10 for a musket, since the ranges are pretty short.

[Spiryt]

Armor Penetration:

Longbows:
Well, I have seen a few things, there was one particular video where they shot a watermelon draped in mail with a bodkin point. The draw weight was approximately half that of a standard medieval longbow, and the arrow pierced the first layer, the watermelon, the mail on the other side, and kept going deep enough to almost have the feathers entirely disappear into the melon. I don't know exactly how that would interact with padding and real flesh, or if the armor was any good, or if other arrowheads would have done the same, but it seems at least decent evidence that it would do a pretty good job. Said bow also made the bodkin point punch through a breastplate-like piece of armor, though it didn't put the arrowhead all the way through.


Such videos or 'tests' are often worthless, and sometimes cheap Discovery Science at best.

For my standard response, there's actually decent one.

At least as far as accurate materials go:

http://www.cotasdemalla.es/ma1.htm

Click > Test Cotas



As to composite longbows, I will admit, it's a weird system the rules have in place, but I don't really know if I want to change it that much, we're already making a whole lot of changes to the system as-is, and if we make too many more dramatic changes we'll end up having only vaguely reminiscent of PF.


My suggestion was just renaming it, to be honest, since it just sounds dumb. :smallbiggrin:

As far as actual mechanic go, I would probably give AP starting with relatively heavy bows, say at +2 Str modifier. It will keep really heavy bows in check and will make overall 'sense'.


G: Question about war wagons. Why is it that certain parts of Europe seem to use them more than others? Some armies didn't seem to have a lot of wagons present with them. Was this a strategic choice?

Wagons of any kind are pain to drag around, especially with worse/no roads, bad weather etc.

Army has to likely be logistically sound so to say, to operate well with large amount of wagons, nevermind war wagons.

Plenty of armies purposely ditched everything soldiers couldn't carry by themselves for specific purposes.

Army that actually tried to successfully catch and destroy marauding Tatars, for example.

[Mr. Mask]

Squish: "I don't know exactly how that would interact with padding and real flesh, or if the armor was any good, or if other arrowheads would have done the same[...]"
This would be the problem. Quality of metal, thickness or rings, pattern, quality of metal in the arrowhead, draw weight of the bow, luck, all these make a difference. We've seen tests where bodkin arrows performed worse than other heads, and there are a lot of shoddy tests out there. Most likely, bodkin owes more to metal quality than design for its armour piercing reputation, bodkin having something to do with knives in old English.

Atlatls: Is obsidian a very useful material? I recall them making some obsidian scalpels for a specific purpose.
If you don't plan to use obsidian in the setting, it doesn't matter. If you do, you'll want to look up some of the accounts from the Spanish who followed Cortés against the Aztecs.

Firearms: That might work.


Spiryt: Yeah, that's along the lines I've been thinking. An army willing to drag a lot of wagons around with it, it'd seem like there was some other, related reason they were slowing themselves down with wagons. Artillery, for example.

[Knaight]

Atlatls: Is obsidian a very useful material? I recall them making some obsidian scalpels for a specific purpose.

Obsidian can be sharpened to an absurd degree, which is really useful for scalpels. However, it's comparatively brittle, doesn't actually hold an edge that well, etc. It's not a great weapon material for most things, and would have a huge issue with metal armor. However there are niches where it can be pretty useful, most notably arrowheads for use against less armored targets. Holding an edge is way less important for arrowheads than most things, the extra sharpness is really useful against things that aren't metal, etc.

[rs2excelsior]

Obsidian can be sharpened to an absurd degree, which is really useful for scalpels. However, it's comparatively brittle, doesn't actually hold an edge that well, etc. It's not a great weapon material for most things, and would have a huge issue with metal armor. However there are niches where it can be pretty useful, most notably arrowheads for use against less armored targets. Holding an edge is way less important for arrowheads than most things, the extra sharpness is really useful against things that aren't metal, etc.

If I remember correctly, the Aztecs had swords that were basically narrow wooden clubs with obsidian chips along the edges. The sharp obsidian would cut well, but it would also break off easily. The swords were designed so that between battles the owner could replace the pieces of obsidian that had broken.

Which gives the extra benefit of leaving bits of obsidian in the wounds that you create in your enemies.

[Gnoman]

..1. There's a lot more signals's and other "Command and Control" assets than i honestly expected. Unless in this case the term company refers to a formation with a much smaller personnel total than i'm thinking, (A rifle company has 108 rifleman, plus mortar team, antiarmor team, and hq section personnel, exact total personnel is not given though, will probably try digging for that). Could someone clarify what they do, is it just fire support request stuff? Or does the division commander really need that many people to break down whats happening for him...

Command and control is the difference between an army and a mob. If every subunit can immediately report enemy positions instantly, the commander will know exactly what he's facing instead of having to rely on guesswork (often based on the intensity of firing noise) or courier reports at great delay. If every subunit can receive orders, he can use that knowledge to cut an enemy force into tiny pieces and annihilate it with much lower losses.


...The first surprise was the total lack of any M240's in the US infantry list, i'm guessing this is part of the whole "Light Infantry" thing though, and that in a standard infantry units they'd replace some of the M249's.

Do you have a designation for the listed heavy machine gun? Given that the M240 weighs 3 times as much as the 249, they probably decided to go with larger numbers of LMGs for general use and bring up the HMGs when greater firepower is needed. The fact that the 249 uses the same round as the standard issue rifle undoubtedly simplifies ammunition supply, easing logistic requirements.


The other big surprise was just how many crew served weapons, particularly Grenade Machingun's there are to basic infantry, i was under the impression such slow to relocate weapons where generally disfavored for mobility reasons, and i'm honestly surprised at how many grenade machineguns there are, i was under the impression those where a primarily defensive system unsuited due to short range for aggressive advances that would require them to advance under fire to get into a position they could be setup in. Any comments on these observations would be welcome btw...

Raw firepower is generally more important than mere numbers, as was proven time and time again during the Pacific War, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War. Packing as many crew served weapons into a unit as possible is thus a huge force multiplier. Regarding automatic grenade launchers in particular, the Mk. 19 has roughly the same effective range band as a M2 HMG (75m to 2000m) for similar weight, and is devastatingly powerful against lightly fortified buildings, trenches, foxholes, and lightly armored vehicles, making it an ideal weapon both for an assault on an entrenched position (which you NEVER attack without pulling back and deploying heavy weapons unless you quite literally have no choice) and defending said positions once you've taken them. Also, foot infantry is much less of an offensive force than it was in the past. Taking territory is more prominently the role of Abrams and Bradleys, supported by mechanized infantry, artillery, and air support. The foot soldiers are primarily used to hold territory once it has been taken, patrolling or to conduct strictly localized offensive operation. Their equipment mix reflects that.


One question i would like to raise that i should have thought of earlier is this: How practical is it to mix something like an LMG and an MMG (M249 and M240 in US service for equivalents), in the same firing unit? Would the differing ranges make dual same type more effective even if it hurt total sustained action capability from an ammo supply PoV?..

The difficulty with multiple weapon types isn't "sustained action capability" (soldiers generally carry as much ammo for all their weapons as they physically can, and it lasts a surprisingly long time in combat with properly trained troops) so much as it is the logistic train required to keep those bullets coming to the front. Adding even one type complicates things enormously, so there really has to be a significant need for a weapon to add it to the mix, and something as ammo hungry as a machine gun (as opposed to adding something like a 7.62mm rifle to back up the normal 5.56mm ones) is going to put extra strain on that pipeline. The 240 only has about 100 meters of extra effective range and 150 rounds per minute over the 249, and the extra penetration characteristics of the round aren't needed that often. When they are needed, the targets probably going to be taking heavy fire from much bigger weapons as well, including 40mm grenades, mortar shells, and probably .50 caliber heavy machine gun rounds. Mixing the two guns is probably not the best idea.

[Brother Oni]

Here some guys shoot at plain 1.4mm steel helmet:

http://www.kryminalistyka.fr.pl/praktyka_helm.php


Excellent post, thanks Spiryt. Could I confirm that the only pistol than penetrated was the Cz.50? I'm a bit surprised that the M1911 didn't go through.

Further research indicates that indeed even quite thin steel would stop pistol rounds, so I stand corrected.



I don't think trauma plates meant to stop rifle rounds should be used for comparison. In tests on WW helmets, about 1mm thickness, 9mm pistols need a good, close and square hit to penetrate. Spiryt has a good post on this point. Based off experience from shooting at stuff with black powder and modern weapons, my main hope against a knight in thick, hardened steel, with a 9mm pistol, would be to knock him off his feet.

A fair point. Wouldn't a better choice be to shoot at the visor or joints in the hope of sneaking a round through, as there's very little momentum with modern ammunition (Mythbusters have performed numerous tests where even a .50 Barrett was barely able to knock their target off its feet).



I have a question for everybody here. In past incarnations of this thread, during various discussions, many of us including myself have posted some well-sourced statistics on prices of weapons, armor, and every day objects and services from the medieval and Early Modern periods. I was wondering if you folks could post your best links and (sourced) statistics on prices, wages and other economic hard numbers, specifically from the 14th-16th Centuries. I already have a lot for later eras and for the earlier medieval period, I'm really interested in that zone specifically. Any help would be appreciated.

Looking things up, there are a number of medieval statutes/assizes and other Royal Acts/Acts of Parliament that are well documented.

Wikipedia has a surprisingly complete list, with some choice links on particular Acts:
Acts of Parliament 1235-1485 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Acts_of_the_Parliament_of_England_to_1483)
Acts of Parliament 1485-1601 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Acts_of_the_Parliament_of_England,_1485%E2 %80%931601)
List of English Statutes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_English_statutes) - these were royal laws before the development of Parliament.

Some that I think you might find interesting:
Assize of Arms 1181 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assize_of_Arms_of_1181) - it's been mentioned before but lists what weapons and armour that people of various wealth levels are required to have. Of note is the concept of a knight's fee (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knight%27s_fee), which isn't too far removed from the Japanese koku concept (a volume of rice sufficient to feed a man for 1 year). The 10 marks mentioned is 13s 4d.
Assize of Bread and Ale 1267 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assize_of_Bread_and_Ale): regulation on the price of bread and ale

There's a UK government website (http://www.legislation.gov.uk/), which has some old Acts stored on it (with original text as well), but a brief scan of them shows nothing of any real interest - it looks like all the interesting stuff is in the Parliamentary Archives, but they only have a catalogue function online (you'd have to go visit them to look at the actual text).

Mr Mask's earlier reference to Spiryt's post has found this old link I dug up, with sources at the bottom: 14th-16th Century English goods, services and wages (http://www.luminarium.org/medlit/medprice.htm).


If I remember correctly, the Aztecs had swords that were basically narrow wooden clubs with obsidian chips along the edges. The sharp obsidian would cut well, but it would also break off easily. The swords were designed so that between battles the owner could replace the pieces of obsidian that had broken.

The Macuahuitl (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macuahuitl), which sounds terrifying. Deadliest Warrior (I'm sorry) did a demonstration of it against ballistic gel I believe (I can't see the video from my location to confirm).


Which gives the extra benefit of leaving bits of obsidian in the wounds that you create in your enemies.

As Knaight mentioned, the Aztecs used them for arrowheads, which was surprisingly effectively against the conquistador's metal armour, which was nowhere near full plate harness. Even if it struck metal, the head tended to shatter, sending shards of glass everywhere, resulting in potentially nasty wounds.

[Spiryt]

Excellent post, thanks Spiryt. Could I confirm that the only pistol than penetrated was the Cz.50? I'm a bit surprised that the M1911 didn't go through.

Further research indicates that indeed even quite thin steel would stop pistol rounds, so I stand corrected.

.

Nope, number 4 is also a pistol, and it sent the bullet trough both sides of helmet.

It was Polish variant of this, apparently (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TT_pistol).

Of course, this test was hardly 'scientifically' sound. No data about support, nothing inside helmet, multiple shots at different angles etc.

But results are not that suprising really.

Colt 1911 bullet has large energy, since it's large caliber and large pistol - but the fact that it's large, wide and slow bullet causes it to bend the metal instead of penetrating it.

It's hell of a bent to, apparently.

[Galloglaich]

G: Question about war wagons. Why is it that certain parts of Europe seem to use them more than others? Some armies didn't seem to have a lot of wagons present with them. Was this a strategic choice?

I'm still trying to figure out exactly where - and when- war wagons were used in Europe. It doesn't seem to have been studied, I think it's just starting to dawn on military historians that they saw significant use outside of Bohemia.

My current somewhat tenuous theory is that they were relatively common in most of Central and Northern Europe from the mid 14th Century through the 16th, as well as Eastern Europe from the 15th to the 17th or maybe even later.

So far I've found substantial evidence of their use in Czech (obviously) and Slovakia, Poland, Austria, Hungary, Livonia (what's now called "The Baltic States"), Prussia (today northern Poland), Bavaria, Swabia, Silessia, the Rhineland, Burgundy and Sweden all by the mid 15th Century. I was surprised to learn fairly recently that the Swiss also used them. Then there is considerable evidence of their use by Ukrainian Cossacks in the later 15th Century, and probably due to their successes with the technology, by the Muscovites and later the Turks. The Czechs, Cossacks, Swedes and certain regions of Germany seem to be the main users.

There is some evidence for their early use in Northern Italy but that seems to have maybe faded out by the 15th Century when only the Carroccio and supply wagons remained... or where they still there? That is a big question mark. In Italy warfare of many nations contributed to a rather unique range of military techniques, which was in some ways the most sophisticated in Europe, but in others tended to be simplified and streamlined (the way the Swiss mercenaries fought for example compared to Swiss militia at home defending their own lands or fighting enemies in Germany or the Rhineland.)

I also have not yet found much evidence of their use in Northern Germany which seems a bit odd, maybe due to swamps.


I haven't found much evidence yet of their use West of the Rhine, or in Spain or in the British Isles, but I wouldn't rule it out.


The reason certain weapons systems are found in some places and not others can be complex and multifaceted, but given the complexity of the political landscape grand strategy is rarely the main cause. War wagons seem to be linked to areas which had heavy infantry, obviously, and I would guess the development of guns and cannon played a role in their use. They seem to be associated with regions that had had strong iron manufacturing industries.

Beyond that, I'm really not sure. It's a way to deal with cavalry, but so are pikes. The use of the wagons seems problematic in marshland, hills, or forests but some of the areas where they seemed to be used the most had exactly that kind of terrain. It will take a lot more research to determine precisely to what extent, and with what degree of success, they were used in various places. There also seem to be some regional variations in what kinds of war-wagons were used, the Czech, Cossack and German types all have certain distinct characteristics.

The reasons for all of the above probably boil down to the lessons learned on the battlefields and the makeup of fighters, terrain, and economics. If I could really figure that all out I'd probably write a book on it :)

G

[Thiel]

The difficulty with multiple weapon types isn't "sustained action capability" (soldiers generally carry as much ammo for all their weapons as they physically can, and it lasts a surprisingly long time in combat with properly trained troops) so much as it is the logistic train required to keep those bullets coming to the front. Adding even one type complicates things enormously, so there really has to be a significant need for a weapon to add it to the mix, and something as ammo hungry as a machine gun (as opposed to adding something like a 7.62mm rifle to back up the normal 5.56mm ones) is going to put extra strain on that pipeline.

I realise it's the accepted wisdom but I've always found that claim somewhat dubious. During WWII a British rifle section used as many as 7 different cartridges. .380" Revolver, 9mm Para, .45ACP, .303 Ball, .303 AP, .303 Tracer and .303 Grenade launching cartidge. Not to mention the .303 Incendiary used by anti aircraft sections or the 7.92x57mm used in the BESA machine gun. Or the high grade .303 used by snipers.
And yet they managed to supply their troops just fine.

[Galloglaich]

Looking things up, there are a number of medieval statutes/assizes and other Royal Acts/Acts of Parliament that are well documented.
.

Thanks Brother Oni, these are great. Do you have any sources for Continental Europe? Those seem to be much harder to find than for England and they are often quite different.

G

[Mike_G]

I realise it's the accepted wisdom but I've always found that claim somewhat dubious. During WWII a British rifle section used as many as 7 different cartridges. .380" Revolver, 9mm Para, .45ACP, .303 Ball, .303 AP, .303 Tracer and .303 Grenade launching cartidge. Not to mention the .303 Incendiary used by anti aircraft sections or the 7.92x57mm used in the BESA machine gun. Or the high grade .303 used by snipers.
And yet they managed to supply their troops just fine.

Yes, but.

Most of these are minor issues. The .38 revolver ammo was very seldom used. A few officers carried revolvers, and a few troops like heavy weapons crews or drivers carried them as a backup weapon, but they weren't any use except in very close combat, so the resupply of .38 ammo would have been low priority. Most platoon or company officers would have carried a rifle or carbine for actual fighting.

.45 caliber ammo for SMGs was common, but, again, only used for close quarters fighting.

The various .303 ammo can all be fired through the Lee Enfield, and the Bren that together would have been 90% of the firepower of the section. The AP and incendiary ammo would be specialized and not a big part of the ammo load. You could use the .303 ball in any of the squad's major weapons.

Being able to share ammo between rifles and LMGs is a great thing for the supply chain. having a 5.56 rifle and a 7.62 LMG means you can't redistribute ammo.

[Storm Bringer]

I think it's also important to note that the FN Minimi/M249 is fed by disintegrating link belts, which, in my opinion, are not a workable source of rounds for an assault rifle. the quickest way to get the rounds out of the belt to load them into a magazine would be to load the belt into the Minimi and repeatedly cycle the action manually to strip each round out of the belt, then eject it, pick up the ejected round, clean it and load it into a magazine. Needless to say, I would not want to try and do this in the field, especially as it means taking a working LMG, with ammo, out to the fight.


You can slap a STANAG mag on the Minimi, but it'd last about 20 seconds of controlled burst fire, if your really careful, and about 5 if you just hold the trigger down. and I have never seen a method of creating linked ammo belts in the field (if one exists, I stand corrected, but I have still never seen or heard about it)

So, for all intents and purposes, the 5.56 MG's ammo is as incompatible with the 5.56 rifle's ammo as a 7.62 MG's ammo. you're still having to provide a extra sort of ammo only used by one weapon the squad, though 5.56 link is lighter than 7.62 link, so the grunts have a little less weight to hump around.

[Yora]

Are the belts assembled in the same factory where the cartridges are filled? Even then, you'd still have economy of scale working in your favor when you use weapons that use the same cartridges.

A great benefit of stadardized ammunition may not be so much for the soldiers currently in a firefight, but it should help a lot when it comes to sharing around supplied between units, especially when they are from different branches or nations.

[Honest Tiefling]

Odd question perhaps, but for a classical/medieval era army, would having a significantly taller army help at all? Let's say, a difference between 4 to 6 inches for male troops.

[Mr Beer]

Odd question perhaps, but for a classical/medieval era army, would having a significantly taller army help at all? Let's say, a difference between 4 to 6 inches for male troops.

Taller = more strength and reach, which are advantages in melee combat although not overwhelmingly so. The height might have a psychologically deleterious effect on enemy morale as well. No-one likes to be charged by giants.

[Broken Crown]

I'm still trying to figure out exactly where - and when- war wagons were used in Europe. It doesn't seem to have been studied, I think it's just starting to dawn on military historians that they saw significant use outside of Bohemia....

I haven't found much evidence yet of their use West of the Rhine, or in Spain or in the British Isles, but I wouldn't rule it out.

I've got a book somewhere that contains a brief reference to war wagons in Henry VIII's army, but it didn't provide much detail. There's probably a source in the index; I'll see if I can find it.

Here's (http://weaponsandwarfare.com/?p=25538) another brief reference to Henry VIII's war wagons.

[Brother Oni]

Thanks Brother Oni, these are great. Do you have any sources for Continental Europe? Those seem to be much harder to find than for England and they are often quite different.

I'll have a look but such sources are likely to be found in their native language and I don't parley vous francy very well und mein Deutch ist nicht sehr gut. :smalltongue:

[Galloglaich]

I've got a book somewhere that contains a brief reference to war wagons in Henry VIII's army, but it didn't provide much detail. There's probably a source in the index; I'll see if I can find it.

Here's (http://weaponsandwarfare.com/?p=25538) another brief reference to Henry VIII's war wagons.

Thanks... wow very interesting stuff in that link, including not just English 16th Century war wagons but their use in Italy by the Spanish, and mention of Scythes a couple of times which is also something which comes up in the Slavic areas (Poland, Bohemia and Hungary) and was also mentioned by the Swiss chronicle.

I wish he listed his sources for all that stuff. If you find the name of the book please let me know.

Seems more and more to me that the War Wagon was one of the major secrets of late medieval and Early Modern warfare, kind of hiding in plain sight. Like the European martial arts.

G

[Mr. Mask]

Knaight: It is used for specific scalpels in micro biology or somesuch, but general scalpels manage with metal for the fact they hold an edge better and are less brittle, as you say.

Obsidian wasn't ineffective against metal armour. If the Spanish had come with bronze breastplates instead of steel the effects would have been noticeable (or, based off some of the accounts, it mightn't have made a difference).


RS2: The macuahuitl, the only stone sword to have seen combat (other than stone knives). http://www.mexicolore.co.uk/images-5/561_07_2.jpg


Oni: Well, I was aware that shots to the torso had little effect on cops' balance (with bodyarmour). Rapid fire to the legs or head at point-blank seems like it'd produce some result (give them a ringing in their ears, maybe). If you have time to aim, going for a weaker part of the armour is definitely an option. Will look up that experiment, thanks for mentioning it.


G: Someone pointed out to me that anyone who brought wagons with them would be ready to weaponize them, if they were expecting trouble. So, I guess the key question is why those peoples brought so many wagons with the army (as opposed to most of them going back and forth in the supply train, or something like that). Wagons tend to slow you down. It might be due to artillery/cannon, forcing the army to slow so that they might as well bring some wagons? Certain areas being too cumbersome for wagons seems a reasonable argument for their lack of use.

[Carl]

@Gnoman:

Think you misunderstood a couple of my point's, partly my fault, sorry.

1. What i meant is that in the Table of Organisation i was linked to the division sized formations all seemed to have a company sized formation composed of radio trucks and presumably operators. Assuming the company designation accurately describes it's total size that's something like one individual in the comms section to every couple of squads of line troops. I was/am honestly curious if they really need that many, and if they do what it is they actually do that requires so many dedicated radio operators and the like.

2. Not sure what your asking on the "designation for listed heavy machine gun" part, could you clarify.

What i was commenting on was that the listed equipment list for an american light infantry battalion there wasn't one single 7.62mm weapon, it was all crew served 50 cals or 5.56mm M249's. There wasn't a single M240 anywhere in their equipment list.

3. Okay a few different point's to cover;

a) my comment of surprise was based on reading a number of article on how various crew served weapon development projects in the west have been cancelled, usually with a lack of increase in portability being cited as a key reason for terminating development. In the same vein i saw a lot of commentary on such weaponry being moved to entirely AFV based mountings in an effort to increase portability. This was a particular point with the grenade machinegun's, i didn't think they could be used offensively due to ammo weight issues reducing practical carry capacity rather heavily as well as my range comments.

Basically i didn't expect to see such stuff in the infantry in large quantities, i expected most of them to be on AFV maintained at the division level as separate formation's, but attached in practice to various infantry formations as required.

b) talking of the grenade machingun range, that's my fault, whilst i was aware the 40mm man portable launchers used different ammo i hadn't realized the performance gap was so large. I was thinking they'd have to get well inside LMG and MMG ranges to use it effectively.

c) Hmm, okay that info on the Bradley's and the Abram's as the primary assault formations is something i haven't heard mentioned before, but certainly represents a significant difference from the EFGT. An EFGT, (or Cultist for that matter), infantry formation that is allowed to meet a hostile armored assault head on without the distraction of dealing with enemy infantry will tear the armored force's face off for being so dumb. Basic infantry can call down accurate and effective missile attacks within 15 to 20 seconds of the target AFV being detected by the infantry. And the infantry certainly have the advantage in doing so in general.

That's not to say armour is ineffective. Mechanization for transport and logistics reasons is still much too powerful to abandon but it's much more of a theater level rather than battlefield level thing. Light tanks and MBT's are also very useful in how they can create a CIWS umbrella over the infantry's heads whilst remaining out of sight of the enemy, and with the benefit of the distraction, suppression, and recon provided by friendly infantry they can be a very effective direct fire-support asset to an infantry push, though you'll still suffer a painful loss rate. They're also naturally very good at exploiting breakthroughs where the enemy forces have collapsed in the area of an offensive allowing them to enter the enemies rear area's and hunt down aforementioned missile launching assets. They just aren't going to be able to lead an assault on the enemy forces under normal circumstances.

4. Hmmm, the logistics aspects aren't a huge concern, medium calibers are use in enough AFV mount applications that it isn't exactly a real issue to ship the stuff out in quantity. The major points are the differences in effective range and the differences in amount of ammo a single unit can carry. Doesn't sound like those would be huge issues though. Also thanks to fallen the mid calibers have a hugely important pat to play in the infantry on infantry warfare as traditional rifle caliber's have very low effectiveness against them even if they're unarmored, (which is rare but does happen in some cases).

Also my reading indicated that various western armies have tried phasing out 7.62mm in infantry units for a while and have persistently found it to be unworkable because the 7.62's extra range, penetrative qualities, and so on and so forth where too valuable to give up, (hence why the range was a serious consideration), even in a modern combat environment.

@Storm Brigner: is that 20 second figure for going after single targets or general suppression fire of an enemy unit? As that's the main purpose i see them being used in. The machine guns suppress the enemy so the grenade launcher units can move in and blast them out with fragmentation explosive's, either in direct fire or using the min-mortar option the launchers are capable of. It would be nice to get an idea of how much ammo you need to effectively do that for am given time period.

[Incanur]

Note that the Ottomans also made effective use of wagons in the field via the laager, wagons connected with ropes or chains to hinder cavalry and protect gunners. Kenneth Warren Chase emphasizes this in his book Firearms. The Mughals used similar tactics well into the 17th century. And the Chinese in 16th century, etc. To extent even ancient chariots resemble later war wagons, though they weren't necessarily used in the same fashion.

[Storm Bringer]

is that 20 second figure for going after single targets or general suppression fire of an enemy unit? As that's the main purpose i see them being used in.


I mean the sort of fire being shownhere (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YETWAL4hSqM), a few rounds at a time, intended as suppressive or harassing fire on a enemy position.




What i meant is that in the Table of Organisation i was linked to the division sized formations all seemed to have a company sized formation composed of radio trucks and presumably operators. Assuming the company designation accurately describes it's total size that's something like one individual in the comms section to every couple of squads of line troops. I was/am honestly curious if they really need that many, and if they do what it is they actually do that requires so many dedicated radio operators and the like.


oh, absolutely, for several reasons.

first off, personal and squad comms systems don't mass massive ranges, and will need a booster/reboardcasting station if they need to talk 30 or 40 miles back to the stationary major HQ.

second, the signals company provides other types of comms than Combat Net Radio, such as satellite links for data comms out of theatre to the home nation, or to high capacity trunk links between 2 HQ locations.

Third, the signals personnel have men enough for 24 hr manning and monitoring which generally means 2 to 3 people per "role" (one to do the job, one to be sleeping and one to cover assorted admin tasks). Also, in mobile warfare, the HQ needs to move with its troops with the minimum of disruption, so their is be two complete HQ set ups, which the officers move between, and the one not in use then packs up, moves to a new location and sets up again to receive the HQ officers.

fourth, the signals company normally provides admin support to the HQ, which means that do all the dogsbody work around the HQ like access control, tech support, perimeter defence and such. Plus, setting up a mobile HQ is a manpower intensive task, as it basically involves building a office space for 50-100 users in a field or old warehouse, and doing it quickly.

did I mention I was in the Royal Corps of Signals?:smallbiggrin::smallbiggrin::smallbiggrin:

[Carl]

Huge thanks for the response's stormbringer really helps.

1. I'm honestly surprised, i assumed keeping a fire team or squads heads down would take a lot longer bursts more closely spaced than that, Hollywood probably has a fair part to play there, but cheers for the link.

2. Again lots of helpful info, i honestly hadn't considered he round the clock manning aspect, (dumb i know but thanks for pointing it out), or the idea that a lot of the support assets for establishing the HQ would be part of the signal's unit. Same with the admin stuff. I was thinking more or less in the context of some radio truck's, the people to man the radio's, and, (assuming they don't cross role it to the operators), the drivers.

If all the manpower and equipment for that is part of the signal's unit i guess it does kind of make sense it's so dammed large. Though i admit i hadn't realized a division sized formation needed such a large HQ that it would need anything more than specialized trucks to cart all it's functions around, (besides the obvious tents for overnight sleeping in). I'd assumed something that large was more reserved for large nodal places that where going to be fairly permanent.

I had given consideration to the more strategic elements of the comm system, but i hadn't realized it would be so manpower intensive.

I actually gave a basic description of my envisaged C&C net earlier, (i'll re-post it in spoilers for you below), any chance you could comment on it?

Okay C&C stuff:

I did say i'd touch on the C&C stuff.

First i want to address the first and by far the most obvious use, and the one entertainment certainly emphasizes the most, fire support requests.

This is virtually all handled by the target designator and rangefinding unit every soldier has. Whilst some types of fire support can only be called in by higher ranking individual's, the common stuff like laying missiles on AFV and Infantry units as well as designating target's for direct fire support from AFV's. There are feature's to make it virtually impossible for captured units to be misused on friendlies but whilst some of this is touched upon below it's by no means exhaustive i'm sure, (it's something I've given only a limited amount of detailed thought on TBH).

The basics of the system is that the range finding unit has it's own positional locator system, (including a crude if passable Internal Positioning System), and can between rangefinding and internal gyro's determine the position of whatever you aim the designator at. This saves it to one of several memory slots, (first empty), at this point by re-selecting that memory you can add one or more extra designations of the target to provide vector and velocity data on a moving target. In addition you can add threat data by selecting the type of target your designating and specifying what kind of nearby support it has, (a simple support level is assigned, you don't have to be ultra specific though the system provides for that as well as a matter of completeness for recon setups). For the sake of making computing calculations simpler, standard procedure is to attach support data for all nearby enemy assets to each report even if your also uploading data on some of those supporting assets as well.

Note that despite the above it's mostly just buttons and status light's, not some multi-function display monster.

Once you've done that you can upload the whole thing as a recon report or a fire support request, (a simple safety switch does exist in case you don;t want to broadcast your presence and there is the option to append a notation of that being on to the upload). At which point it will be broadcast and sent via the comms network, (more on that in a second), to a nearby available missile carrier class vehicle, (there are several grades based on different chassis with different methods of employment e.t.c.), which type of carrier will depend on the appended support data value. The missile carrier will then look at that, look at the other reports on local units and get a general feel for how much data processing the fire mission will take, if there's a lot of reports in that area that might be relevant, and that number exceeds what it can handle, it will kick it back into the comm net with a marker appended to it where the computers will kick it over to the nearest capable unit that's free. At which point it will collate those reports, ping friendly comms to check there's no friendlies too close, and then calculate the fire mission requirements and out of available assets determine a fire plan and then transmit that to necessary units with appended launch times for appropriate simultaneous arrival.

If a friendly unit is too close it will check see if those units have uploaded an appropriate marker to the system indicating they're in serious danger and need fire support regardless of local danger, (the range-finding unit has such a feature), of they haven't it puts a hold on the fire mission and kicks a notification to the affected unit, which they can use to send an override back to the coms net.

AFV's are capable of similar things but their on-board systems make it easier as they can automate several aspect's, just requiring the commander of the vehicle to confirm the data, (this is in fact one of his bigger jobs), by reviewing the sensor system snapshot used t make the ID.

At the same time the actual com net is made up of the coms systems of local AFV's with each unit being it's own node in a very large very redundant network. This is a somewhat direct consequence of the fact that in addition to direct-fire fire-support missions light tanks and MBT's are also supposed to provide other nearby forces with area CIWS fire-support utilizing their main gun systems. Whilst missile carriers provide heavy indirect fire support capability. Both thus have considerable comm requirements to allow them to coordinate with each other, and other AFV's to acquire targeting data and determine who's handling what targets with what weaponry, (it's not too different really to what a modern naval force at sea needs to coordinate defensive fire amongst multiple warships). As a result building in the capabilities needed to handle things like data uploads from rangefinder and designator units as well as voice comms isn't that much extra work.

In the same vein at some command level, (i'm thinking Platoon or Company Level, not sure which), the commander will have a little device, (i'm thinking something roughly IPad sized, though more durable obviously), which lets him simply upload basic status reports to the comms net via selecting various options for his units or groups thereof. I emphasis the "simple reports" aspect, i'm talking information about weather the units are advancing, retreating, holding their ground, and how heavily engaged they are, if they need resupply, med evac, or outright withdrawal due to losses. Local Commanders cna also send out a request to unit's either on an individual basis or an area basis to update their reports. It can't, (and isn't intended to), replace voice comms for a lot of situations, but it does mean a lot of basic info goes straight to the computers where it's fed directly to the Tac Com Commander which reduces his or her C&C control loop and delay factor on getting data. Voice comms are thus employed to provide more detailed reports when needed or to reporting situations beyond the common basics and such like.

This all ultimately feeds to the local Tac Com commander or commander's, (depending on the size of the operation, though more than a handful is very rare), plotting tables. Usually a single master table with an area of responsibility overview is used with auxiliary tables being used to pull up more detailed views. This effectively allows the Commander to use the computer supplied and filtered data to see where his units are, how they're doing, and get an approximate count on enemy forces near each part thereof, thus allowing him to effectively see many aspects of the battle without a human other than him and his line units being in the C&C loop. He does of course have a staff as noted, partly this is because outside of very small area's of responsibility he probably needs assistants to help him deal with detail points without losing sight of the bigger picture, and because he will need and also spontaneously receive more detailed reports on occasion, so he does need a comms staff to handle that, but i never envisaged him needing large numbers of dedicated comms vehicles or staff to handle large volumes of reports from field units as much of that is explicitly handled by and fed into the computers which then present their data directly to the Commander and his assistants.

A similar thing would apply with things like units needing resupply, med-evac, engineer's support, e.t.c., most of the common tasks will be achieved by the requiring unit generating a computer report request that gets routed directly to an appropriate authority who then handles the situation without comm staff getting too much involved.

[D2R]

However, I'm not querying Mr Mask's statement that plate was proof against gunpowder weapons of its time (these armours were indeed sold as being 'pistol proof'), but against modern firearms.
Some further reading on this site (http://www.myarmoury.com/talk/viewtopic.php?t=8023) indicates that these later armours were a bit thicker (there's an Italian Bascinet which was 4.57mm thick on the top front, although thinner around the sides and back), although still not quite to the minimum thickness of a modern trauma plate insert for tactical vests.

I missed your point somewhat, than. But, actually, modern pistols with lead bullets (no steel core) seem to be even less powerful than old pistols that fired heavy balls at low speeds. Makarov pistol has difficulties penetrating a winter cotton-fiber padded jacket (which is largely analogous to medieval textile armour like the gambeson / padded jack) even at close distance, and MP40 is said to do just the same at 150+ meters. While a heavy ball fired form a XVII-XIX century pistol wouldn't penetrate it either, it is heavy enough to cause lethal concussion trauma. .45 Colt seems to be more than enough for that, though, but for the same reason it has few penetrating power against metal armour. Of course, steel core pistol ammo or any intermediate/rifle round would penetrate any historical armour with ease, from any angle.



Of course, this test was hardly 'scientifically' sound. No data about support, nothing inside helmet, multiple shots at different angles etc.


It's not all that difficult to find the results of contemporary penetration tests. Any modern weapon was tested against standard military helmet.





Out of curiosity, do you know what real life armour type is modelled by the D&D plate armour? I was under the impression that it was gothic plate since it seems stuck in the High Medieval period, rather than the Late Middle Ages/early Modern period where gunpowder weapons have now significantly affected armour development.


Oh, I think they just didn't go into such depths of weaponology. Lack of widespread firearms surely would've led to armour more like the High Medieval pieces, with thin yet hard and flexible heat treated plates, which is more mobile and altogether more comfortable to wear. However, there are so many anachronisms in D&D that it is very difficult to tell...

[Brother Oni]

Huge thanks for the response's stormbringer really helps.

Bear in mind that as a scaley, his responses may be a bit biased towards how hard the comms guys work. :smallwink:



1. I'm honestly surprised, i assumed keeping a fire team or squads heads down would take a lot longer bursts more closely spaced than that, Hollywood probably has a fair part to play there, but cheers for the link.


Indeed. Unlike on film, most people are unwilling to die, so the ocassional burst is more than enough to keep people's heads down since you don't know whether they're only aware of your general location or someone is specifically just waiting for the next time you stick your head out of cover.

[GraaEminense]

It could have yes. Like many places there were severe social unrest in the years leading up to WW1 primarily from the socialist movements in Sweden who demanded universal suffrage. These were magnified due to food-shortages during WW1 and inspired by the Russian revolution. The whole mellow Swede thing is a fairly recent. They were preparing to put down the Norwegian "rebels" in 1905 too, but eventually decided not to commit to that. The Amalthea bombingin 1908 is another example of the violence bubbling under the surface.

There was an incident at Seskarö were military was deployed against hungry workers which fuelled dissatisfaction. Eventually the rationing leading to demonstrations in Stockholm in 1917 (and widely across the country). A bunch of stuff about it here: http://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunger-_och_milit%C3%A4rdemonstrationerna_1917
There were "conservative" militias forming in the capitol, similar to the "White Guard" in Finland.

Of course now I don't exactly remember if it was in a tv documentary or the popular history magazine "Populär Historia" I saw it, but I remember the phrase. What was said was, slightly paraphrased, "Sweden was close to revolution, military was commanded out to quell demonstrations, but someone at the scene took the very Swedish outlook to, chill for a bit and think the whole through before opening fire". I hadn't really heard about it before either. It was that whole "Swedish thing of being a bit more moderate" that stuck in my mind so I sort of remember it well.

The demonstrations culminated on 5 June in Stockholm with police and military forcibly breaking up demonstrations with sabres and horses.

Still in the 30s there were such an incident as military shooting (Ådalen incident) striking civilians which even today shapes laws regarding use of military in civilian situations, such as demonstrations.
Thanks for the heads-up. Reading time, I guess: I knew Sweden went through a fair bit of unrest in the early 20th century, as did many countries, and while I still have my doubts that the country was all that close to an actual revolution at least I have something to work with. TO THE LIBRARY!

[Lilapop]

I'll have a look but such sources are likely to be found in their native language and I don't parley vous francy very well und mein Deutch ist nicht sehr gut. :smalltongue:
Its not like you had two Germans frequently reading this thread and replying to it. Of course not. I mean, who would pay for that?

[Carl]

Indeed. Unlike on film, most people are unwilling to die, so the occasional burst is more than enough to keep people's heads down since you don't know whether they're only aware of your general location or someone is specifically just waiting for the next time you stick your head out of cover.

Well to be fair it was also based somewhat on what you can hear in various news reports from war zone's, even fairly localized (in terms of the area the reports coming from), firefights seem to have a constant crackle of back and forth, i assumed that this was a result of neither side quite being able to fully suppress the other most of the time, and that more sustained bursts (say 1-1.5 seconds worth every 2-3 seconds), would be needed to allow sufficient suppression for a until to be rendered completely unable to fire back effectively, thus allowing other units to advance on their position.

p.s. the point about old pistol bullets vs new comes back to my little spiel on momentum when i first stuck my head in these threads. It matters a lot, and the slower heavier rounds of yesteryear have a lot of it, especially compared to most modern rounds.

[Storm Bringer]

Huge thanks for the response's stormbringer really helps.

1. I'm honestly surprised, i assumed keeping a fire team or squads heads down would take a lot longer bursts more closely spaced than that, Hollywood probably has a fair part to play there, but cheers for the link.


well, think about it this way: assuming you can roughly get the rhythm the gunner is shooting on, what could you really do in that 3-4 second gap between salvos? you wouldn't have time to get up and run anywhere, so your pinned. You won't be able to take an aimed shot at something 300-400m away in that time, either, so your pretty well suppressed as well. sure, you can crawl about, but your not going to be moving very far. so, that seemingly low rate of fire is more than enough to allow the attacker to manoeuvre a section into a flanking position and then storm the place.




2. Again lots of helpful info, i honestly hadn't considered he round the clock manning aspect, (dumb i know but thanks for pointing it out), or the idea that a lot of the support assets for establishing the HQ would be part of the signal's unit. Same with the admin stuff. I was thinking more or less in the context of some radio truck's, the people to man the radio's, and, (assuming they don't cross role it to the operators), the drivers.

If all the manpower and equipment for that is part of the signal's unit i guess it does kind of make sense it's so dammed large. Though i admit i hadn't realized a division sized formation needed such a large HQ that it would need anything more than specialized trucks to cart all it's functions around, (besides the obvious tents for overnight sleeping in). I'd assumed something that large was more reserved for large nodal places that where going to be fairly permanent.



bear in mind that a div HQ needs to operate on a lot on different comms nets. it's going to have a command net for the offciers to plan on, a link to corps or theatre command to receive orders on, a fire support net to control the guns and air support, it's going to have a engineering net to talk about bridging and mine clearance, a logistics net to control the movment of supplies, a signals net to control all the other nets........each network is going to need it's own radio and antenna, so you end up needing a lot of radios.

Its not that it always needs that many people to operate the equipment (not any more, at least), its just that it takes that many to set it up quickly. Two people can get a satellite link working in a 2-3 hours, or 5 people can get it done in one hour. for most of the div support role, all you really need is warm bodies for unskilled labour, and since any HQ is going to have a signals element attached it, it makes a certain amount of sense to use those warm bodies.

A HQ unit is intended to be self sufficient, in the sense that it's got all the equipment it needs to set up anywhere their is enough space to fit it. while parts of it can be sited in a static location well behind the front, a div or Bde HQ is supposed to be mobile enough to keep up with the advancing troops. hence why it has two complete set ups, that it can alternate between. now, throwing up a HQ quickly is manpower intensive, you just need a lot of people to do things like put up tents, install lighting, lay out tables, site worksations and run cabling. you need generators, fuel dumps, a secure perimeter.....the list goes on and on.


Its important to note that army HQs tend to be somewhat redundant, in the sense that you might have, say, a battle space manager at each brigade HQ, plus one at the Division HQ. In all honesty, you could cut it down to just the div guy, and he'd still have a reasonable workload. but, if he goes injured, or a brigade is deployed away form it's parent div, then you need that redundancy. Its one of the reasons army HQs always seem bloated by civvie standards, because the military needs a level of redundancy that civvies just cannot afford.

I have more to say, just running out of time.

ps. Oni, what capbadge are you?

[Brother Oni]

Its not like you had two Germans frequently reading this thread and replying to it. Of course not. I mean, who would pay for that?

If you're willing and able to help out Galloglaich with his question, then please feel free to join in.

Since you're not able to read over my shoulder (it would be very creepy if you were), then I have to use my own abilities and Google Translate to fumble along as best I can.


ps. Oni, what capbadge are you?

I've mentioned before that I failed the medical (I would probably have been RTR if I had made it in), so I'm only a bloody civvie.

If I've offended you with my earlier comment, then I offer my full and unreserved apology as it was only meant as a light hearted joke.

[Mr. Mask]

Incanur: That fits with anyone who has wagons makes use of them in battle.


Undersea Technology: On the subject of undersea technology before, it seems I underestimated the range of spear guns. Some can do serious harm up to 50 feet, these days. And their powering mechanism... rubber bands.

[Storm Bringer]

I've mentioned before that I failed the medical (I would probably have been RTR if I had made it in), so I'm only a bloody civvie.

If I've offended you with my earlier comment, then I offer my full and unreserved apology as it was only meant as a light hearted joke.


that's right, I remember I'd asked but I'd forgot the answer. And if you think a comment like that would offend a squaddie, your defiantly a civvie. that bearly even registers on the banter scale.:smallbiggrin::smallbiggrin: it's all good, I know I'm a REMF. I just come back with "no comms, no bombs":smallbiggrin::smallbiggrin:

[Brother Oni]

that's right, I remember I'd asked but I'd forgot the answer. And if you think a comment like that would offend a squaddie, your defiantly a civvie. that bearly even registers on the banter scale.:smallbiggrin::smallbiggrin: it's all good, I know I'm a REMF. I just come back with "no comms, no bombs":smallbiggrin::smallbiggrin:

Yeah, I'm never sure on how far to take something, especially over the internet. :smallbiggrin:

I've got a cousin who was in the RTC way back and he's still in touch with his mates via facebook. Some of the stuff they post up on his wall would give the politically correct people a heart attack - he just takes it with a laugh and gives back as good as he takes. :smalltongue:

[Gnoman]

@Gnoman:

2. Not sure what your asking on the "designation for listed heavy machine gun" part, could you clarify.

What i was commenting on was that the listed equipment list for an american light infantry battalion there wasn't one single 7.62mm weapon, it was all crew served 50 cals or 5.56mm M249's. There wasn't a single M240 anywhere in their equipment list.


You answered my question, actually. With all the changes in recent years, I wasn't sure if "Heavy Machine Gun" referred to the old workhorse M2 .50 or was something like a minigun.


c) Hmm, okay that info on the Bradley's and the Abram's as the primary assault formations is something i haven't heard mentioned before, but certainly represents a significant difference from the EFGT. An EFGT, (or Cultist for that matter), infantry formation that is allowed to meet a hostile armored assault head on without the distraction of dealing with enemy infantry will tear the armored force's face off for being so dumb. Basic infantry can call down accurate and effective missile attacks within 15 to 20 seconds of the target AFV being detected by the infantry. And the infantry certainly have the advantage in doing so in general.

That's not to say armour is ineffective. Mechanization for transport and logistics reasons is still much too powerful to abandon but it's much more of a theater level rather than battlefield level thing. Light tanks and MBT's are also very useful in how they can create a CIWS umbrella over the infantry's heads whilst remaining out of sight of the enemy, and with the benefit of the distraction, suppression, and recon provided by friendly infantry they can be a very effective direct fire-support asset to an infantry push, though you'll still suffer a painful loss rate. They're also naturally very good at exploiting breakthroughs where the enemy forces have collapsed in the area of an offensive allowing them to enter the enemies rear area's and hunt down aforementioned missile launching assets. They just aren't going to be able to lead an assault on the enemy forces under normal circumstances.


Modern armor is extremely resistant to the HEAT warheads that all anti-tank missiles use even before you add in things like reactive armor or tiny lasers that detonate the inbound warhead (this actually exists, at least in experimental form), to the point where a modern first-line MBT can not be killed by a frontal hit from any missile that can be made man-portable. This is why the latest models of TOW and Javelin missiles are programmed to attack from above where the armor is much thinner, and the only thing that allows aerial attacks to be a real threat is that same thin top armor. More importantly, an armored formation never HAS to engage a fortified position. They simply use their mobility to go around and outflank the position, and the only real way to stop tanks is other tanks.

[Carl]

Again many thanks storm bringer, looking forward to some more when you have time as all this is very interesting in it's own right besides being handy for my stuff.

Guess i should have been a bit more clear. What i meant with my last post is that i hadn't realized a division HQ would need to do things like setup workstation's, power line's, generators, or tables. I'd assumed that it would be as simple as rolling a few trucks into the area you want, dispersing the protection force around the perimeter, jacking all the trucks up on their jacks, unfolding all the antennae and other paraphernalia on the top of the truck's, and firing up the on-board APU's and your ready to go.

Basically from what your saying division HQ's sound a lot more like what i imagined much larger HQ's to be in terms of pre-setup time and unpack from truck's required resources.


Anyway i'll let you finish what you where going to say :p.

[Admiral Squish]

Thanks to all the help from this thread, I finished and posted the Penetration (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?377745-Penetration-Weapon-Trait-Crossroads) weapon trait over in homebrew! I'd love to hear expert commentary.

[Carl]

@Gnoman:

1. fair enough, glad i answered it :p.




Modern armor is extremely resistant to the HEAT warheads that all anti-tank missiles use even before you add in things like reactive armor or tiny lasers that detonate the inbound warhead (this actually exists, at least in experimental form), to the point where a modern first-line MBT can not be killed by a frontal hit from any missile that can be made man-portable. This is why the latest models of TOW and Javelin missiles are programmed to attack from above where the armor is much thinner, and the only thing that allows aerial attacks to be a real threat is that same thin top armor. More importantly, an armored formation never HAS to engage a fortified position. They simply use their mobility to go around and outflank the position, and the only real way to stop tanks is other tanks.

This was why i made the post so big, so that you had the context for stuff like that comment.

The setting explicitly has very heavy CIWS and even starship derived energy shielding on AFV's, killing them requires really, really large amounts of missiles. HEAT warhead's are also if anything even worse relative to armour. But their anti-armour doctrine is explicitly designed to deal with this. They have a very high ratio of missile launchers to infantry and make equally heavy use of various grades of missile carriers which are VLS cell equipped AFV's. Those cells are big enough to carry the huge diameter missiles needed to kill even an MBT, or they can carry a pack of 9 of the lighter infantry portable stuff.

The infantry portable missiles are used to absorb the defensive fire and deplete the energy shielding, whilst the heavy kill missiles will be mixed in on the tail end to pick up the kill.

I haven't totally pinned down the armaments and defenses of anything other than the armored cars at this point but using the preliminary working figures it currently takes an average of 122 missile's, (6 of them heavy kill missiles), usually split into 3 salvos spaced a few seconds apart, (to avoid mutual fratricide when some are inevitably intercepted), to kill an EFGT MBT. An IFV that fills a Bradley type role is a lot lighter at 32, (2 of them heavy kill missiles), which can usually be brought in, in a single salvo. Just using the battalion level vehicle mounted missile VLS cells, (totally ignoring the smaller missile carrier's and infantry portable launchers at the company level), they can kill 80 MBT's in 10 seconds flat. If you throw in extra heavy kill missiles from somewhere else, (but no other lighter missiles), that climbs to over a hundred in 13 seconds. If you bring in all the VLS systems and infantry launchers in a battalion with no higher level assets thrown in your talking over a 140 kills possible with considerable spare light missile capacity, (this is deliberate both for engaging armored cars which don't need the heavy missile's, and for allowing thicker covering densities since the above values don't include supporting CIWS capabilities of anything's main guns).

The EFGT is very well equipped for punching out MBT's and the like. It has to be or every fight would stalemate as both sides wiped out each others infantry without effort then found themselves utterly unable to kill the enemies own AFV's.

[Storm Bringer]

Again many thanks storm bringer, looking forward to some more when you have time as all this is very interesting in it's own right besides being handy for my stuff.

Guess i should have been a bit more clear. What i meant with my last post is that i hadn't realized a division HQ would need to do things like setup workstation's, power line's, generators, or tables. I'd assumed that it would be as simple as rolling a few trucks into the area you want, dispersing the protection force around the perimeter, jacking all the trucks up on their jacks, unfolding all the antennae and other paraphernalia on the top of the truck's, and firing up the on-board APU's and your ready to go.

Basically from what your saying division HQ's sound a lot more like what i imagined much larger HQ's to be in terms of pre-setup time and unpack from truck's required resources.


Anyway i'll let you finish what you where going to say :p.

you could, in theory, staff the HQ with enough vehicles to let everyone work out of the back on one, but most people prefer not to, if only because its rather cramped, Plus, it would mean needing a LOT more vehicles compared to using a tented complex or siting the HQ in building of opportunity. Like, maybe 10 times as many vehicles.

Also, you'd still be running cables to join up the trucks, because doing it wirelessly would be both hideously unsecure, and slower to boot. At the end of the day, its mainly a real estate question. look how much space you have around your PC. now times that by 100, and add in space for meeting rooms, big map tables, a bag drop, and so on. you're looking at a lot of space. Most of the time, if we can, we take over a old office building or a warehouse, which saves bags of time and is not so bloody obvious to satellite recon ("a massive tent complex in a field, surrounded by antenna? Karl, call john on the air taskings desk, we got a juicy target for him").

Theirs other elements, like its easier to use three or four big generators than 50 smaller ones, and it's easier to keep those 4 big genes filled with fuel, burn less than many smaller ones, and it's quieter too (genes a are loud, man. working near one is like being next to F1 car being revved)

Plus, my comparison of a Div HQ to a office applies in more ways than one. officers need to have meetings, conferences, briefings, and so on. they need to stand around The Big Map and argue about strategy.

I think you might have been labouring under the misapprehension that a div HQ was much smaller than it is. if it was just the general, the chief of staff, and a few critical staff officers, then you could do it out of a few comms vehicles. but, due to my aforementioned redundancy and such, a full div level HQ is about 75-100 officers.

One thing they spend most of their time doing is sorting information and distilling it down to something manageable and actionable. it's certainly possible today to let the general see every logistic support request made by his 15,000 strong division, but what he really needs to know is "do my troops have what they need?". If the answer is "yes" then he can move on to the next thing, if its "no", then he can dig deeper and find out what he needs to be pestering Corps for.

Modern information systems can allow a immense amount of information to flow into a HQ, but then someone has to sort it, work out whats important and then pass that on to whoever needs to know it.


a Bde HQ is smaller but it's still in the 50 odd range, but I think they are much more what your thinking of, since they need to keep in comms range of their foreword elements. then again, I've not worked at a brigade signal squadron, so I'm less certain about it.

Corps HQs tend to be set up once and then not move, barring serious changes to the front line. Army level (if we ever need one of those, which is highly unlikely barring a major increase in the size of the British army) would be set up in a city a LONG way form the front, and actually would not be that much bigger than a div HQ, being mostly concerned with "Big picture" stuff, co-ordination between the corps, and liaison with partner nations and such.



anyway, about your fire support set up. I will admit I;ve not followed your link, so I don't know what the general tech level of your setting is, but I;m guessing "near future":

how big is this rangefinder unit that every solider is carrying? Modern ones are not small (http://media.defenceindustrydaily.com/images/ELEC_LLDR_lg.jpg).

Your set up seems like it would work a dream against a lower tech enemy, but in a fight against a equal tech opponent it looks horribly vulnerable to jamming and spoofing. what's to stop a opponent flooding the airwaves with static and Bob marley (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSs1HgM0Wos)*? Also, theirs a lot of back and forth automated comms traffic flying around, which means that pretty much every radio is one big light bulb to enemy EW teams. you might as well ware these uniforms (http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y269/Zen00/Random/Far%20Side%20Madness/Gary_Larson_bad_new_uniforms.jpg)


Also, you mention that AFVs have CIWS as standard. would they not also have ECM? fares, decoys, strobe jammers, etc. that would degrade missle effectiveness quite a bit, not to mention modern composite armour, as Gnoman says, is very effective against HEAT attacks, with things like ERA (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reactive_armour#Explosive_reactive_armour), Chobham armour (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chobham_armour), and such mean the missile is not as dangerous as it used to be.


reading into your spoiler, you seem to think that signals troops do all the talking on the nets, but that's not the case. signals sets up the net, plugs the laptops into the net, then hands it over to the staff user, who does all the actual work. we provide the link, we don't do the talking expect on our own control net. As I mentioned before, a lot of staff officer work is basically condensing the raw data into something the commander can quickly understand and act upon.


edit: started this before you posted that explanation of the anti-armour doctrine. I must say, that's a LOT of missles.


However, if only a few heavy missiles can really hurt my tank, then guess what will be taken out as a priority over other threats? Using lighter missles to draw fire only works if I can't tell the difference between them and the AT types. otherwise, I can just concentrate my efforts on the AT missles first, and damm the infantry.

Also, you mentioned starships? why not just use the Rods form God? orbital KE strikes can pretty much kill anything, and are pretty unstoppable.

* yes, British EW units have been known to do that.

[Galloglaich]

Incanur: That fits with anyone who has wagons makes use of them in battle.

I'm not so sure about this. The war-wagons I've seen depicted were purpose built certainly by the 15th Century and were quite different from the ordinary farm or supply wagons. The latter are typically built very lightly of wicker for example, with different types of chassis and wheels and everything. The war wagons used new specifically military designs for the axles and wheel shafts and so on. Larger wheels to allow the heavier cart to move more effectively but also stand up to abuse. Wooden and possibly iron 'armor' for crew protection. And the integration of guns, scythes, spears, cannon, volley-guns etc.

http://talhoffer.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/vigevano.jpg

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/70/Hausbuch_Wolfegg_52v_Kampfwagen.jpg/800px-Hausbuch_Wolfegg_52v_Kampfwagen.jpg

Like the military flegel / flail or the mangual as opposed to the agricultural flail it was originally based on, or the cranequin-spanned field grade military crossbow as opposed to the simple hunting lockbow it was originally based on - they superficially look similar


http://collections.glasgowmuseums.com/media/E_1939_65_te_1&[2]_01_S.jpg

http://www.atarn.org/chinese/yn_xbow/ynxbow.jpg

... but in actual fact are hugely different in terms of complexity and subtle alignment of design with function over the course of centuries.



With regard to plate armor, someone was talking about DnD plate armor being tempered steel armor from the high medieval period, that didn't exist. Tempered steel armor came about in the late medieval period. Basically in history there was no period when you had plate armor but you didn't have guns. It's one of the fundamental problems with DnD and most RPG's in terms of linking them to real world.

G

[Mr. Mask]

G: I worded that badly. What I meant was, if you're going to have your army hang around with the wagons, you might as well develop some escort war wagons to go with them.

Some of those war wagons look like mobile towers. They're incredible.

[Galloglaich]

Modern armor is extremely resistant to the HEAT warheads that all anti-tank missiles use even before you add in things like reactive armor or tiny lasers that detonate the inbound warhead (this actually exists, at least in experimental form),

Modern tandem warhead weapons seem to have been able to defeat the new laminate armor, but the point defense systems you allude to are already in use on the battlefield, the Israeli Trophy system performed extremely well during their last invasion of Gaza, especially compared to their previous invasion of Lebanon against Hezbulah, when they lost several Merkava tanks.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trophy_(countermeasure)

Trophy not only shoots down the rockets but it guides the gunner to the launch site- enabling destruction of many of the launchers for some high tech Russian made rockets.

G

[Gnoman]

@Gnoman:

1. fair enough, glad i answered it :p.





This was why i made the post so big, so that you had the context for stuff like that comment.

The setting explicitly has very heavy CIWS and even starship derived energy shielding on AFV's, killing them requires really, really large amounts of missiles. HEAT warhead's are also if anything even worse relative to armour. But their anti-armour doctrine is explicitly designed to deal with this. They have a very high ratio of missile launchers to infantry and make equally heavy use of various grades of missile carriers which are VLS cell equipped AFV's. Those cells are big enough to carry the huge diameter missiles needed to kill even an MBT, or they can carry a pack of 9 of the lighter infantry portable stuff.

The infantry portable missiles are used to absorb the defensive fire and deplete the energy shielding, whilst the heavy kill missiles will be mixed in on the tail end to pick up the kill.

I haven't totally pinned down the armaments and defenses of anything other than the armored cars at this point but using the preliminary working figures it currently takes an average of 122 missile's, (6 of them heavy kill missiles), usually split into 3 salvos spaced a few seconds apart, (to avoid mutual fratricide when some are inevitably intercepted), to kill an EFGT MBT. An IFV that fills a Bradley type role is a lot lighter at 32, (2 of them heavy kill missiles), which can usually be brought in, in a single salvo. Just using the battalion level vehicle mounted missile VLS cells, (totally ignoring the smaller missile carrier's and infantry portable launchers at the company level), they can kill 80 MBT's in 10 seconds flat. If you throw in extra heavy kill missiles from somewhere else, (but no other lighter missiles), that climbs to over a hundred in 13 seconds. If you bring in all the VLS systems and infantry launchers in a battalion with no higher level assets thrown in your talking over a 140 kills possible with considerable spare light missile capacity, (this is deliberate both for engaging armored cars which don't need the heavy missile's, and for allowing thicker covering densities since the above values don't include supporting CIWS capabilities of anything's main guns).

The EFGT is very well equipped for punching out MBT's and the like. It has to be or every fight would stalemate as both sides wiped out each others infantry without effort then found themselves utterly unable to kill the enemies own AFV's.

Here's the thing. That sort of firepower would be what you would expect from an entire modern battle fleet, including carrier aircraft. Shooting their magazines dry. Making that sort of force ground-portable is nearly impossible, for the same reasons that there's no 16" SPGs running around. That ignores the fact that, if there's enough of a size difference that one missile can be carried and fired by a man, and one requires a vehicle then there's no possible way any form of active defenses would NOT be able to selectively kill the heavy hitters and ignore the little ones completely, or that any form of guidance can be fairly easily spoofed given the right tech. This means that you need to multiply your missile count by several times in order to generate an actual kill, and the cost of that many missiles would bankrupt any RW nation, not to mention the ludicrously large supply train that you would need to bring all those missiles to the front.

EDIT: Tandem-warhead weapons are excellent at defeating spaced armor or explosive reactive armor. They're no more effective against modern composites than any other warhead.

[PersonMan]

Hey, I have a question this time.

What would the area behind the front of a roughly 12th century war look like? Assuming two countries are fighting and one is pushing the other back into its lands, would the invading force leave militias throughout the countryside, or only have some troops in the cities / fortifications?

[Gnoman]

That would depend heavily on the exact nature of the war, why it was being fought, and how much the peasantry cared. It could be anything from not leaving troops behind at all through heavy patrols along all the major roads to ward off bandits and raiders, all the way to "the land behind the front is an unihabitable wasteland because retreating forces burned and poisoned everyting."

[Galloglaich]

Usually though the most common thing is that the side which is out-matched will hold up in their castles, fortified towns and abbeys and so on, and wait while the invading army burns and devastates the villages and the countryside. If they get the chance they'll make sorties against the invading army and try to catch them while they are dispersed. They also make diplomatic efforts for outside support which can also work - enemies of your enemy may want to take the opportunity to act against them when they are exposed by making offensive operations, or they may just not want to see one of their neighbors getting too powerful at the expense of another.

Medieval armies tended to be small (as in a few hundreds or thousands, maybe a few tens of thousands for a national army) and didn't have huge numbers of forces for policing the countryside, though there were also local militias and so on.

This becomes a game of supplies very quickly, men and (especially) horses need a lot of food and once the countryside is devastated they have to move on unless they are bringing a lot with them. Medieval armies usually live off the land at least to some extent, especially for horse fodder. This is when the tide can sometimes be turned by the defenders. Typically there are also 'fighting seasons' which get disrupted such as by rain and snow, high water in rivers and so forth, so the waiting game may only go on for a few weeks or a couple of months until the invading army retires rather than risk being put into a dangerous situation.

Medieval fortifications often had sufficient supplies for years though and specific sieges could last that long in some cases.

G

[JustSomeGuy]

Not mostly relevant, but more a point of info: the reme workshops deploy normally 2-4 per vehicle, and those are mostly trucks (the tracked recovery vehicle normally has 5-6, but that operates semi outside the workshop anyway). And generators, feps etc. With leads and wires all over the place. So some companies and battalions* do do it that way. But then there is only 1 line from REME to REMF, so maybe they have it even more backwards?


*as best I know now, battalions will generally deploy around a company-strength force anyway

[Spiryt]

Hey, I have a question this time.

What would the area behind the front of a roughly 12th century war look like? Assuming two countries are fighting and one is pushing the other back into its lands, would the invading force leave militias throughout the countryside, or only have some troops in the cities / fortifications?

Usually there wasn't really much reason to leave anyone at countryside.

Save for intelligence, reckon etc. of course, but that's different story.

[Brother Oni]

Here's an interesting Sherman vs Tiger battler that I found, along with a contemporary chart of a Tiger's vulnerable spots: link (http://www.thefewgoodmen.com/thefgmforum/threads/sherman-75mm-v-tiger-action.3696/).

Still reading Citizen Soldiers and I'm curious about historic (ie medieval) buildings proved surprisingly resistant to tank shells. During the American assault of Aachen, the Americans were forced to use a M12 155mm SPG (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M12_Gun_Motor_Carriage) against stubborn buildings which had resisted fire from the other tanks and TDs (as one German commander said shortly after their surrender, "When the Americans start using 155s as sniper weapons, it is time to give up"): link 1 (http://www.oldhickory30th.com/CaptureAachenMcDowell.pdf), link 2 (http://forum.worldoftanks.com/index.php?/topic/276418-us-army-tanks-in-cities-part-2/).

There's an account later on at Fort St. Julien outside the city of Metz which took a massive pounding before giving up:



The assault began at dawn, November 18, in the fog. By noon the 95th had fought its way to the moat. At 1300 the infantry began to dash across the causeway and two Shermans moved forward to spray enemy firing slits with their machine guns. But the GIs ran into an iron door that blocked access to St. Julien's interior. The Shermans fired point-blank at it, but the 75-mm shells just bounced off. A tank destroyer with a 90-mm gun fired six rounds at 50 yards. They had no effect. With the fire from the Shermans keeping the Germans back from the firing slits, a 155-mm howitzer was wheeled into place. The big gun slammed twenty rounds into the door's mounts. Finally the door collapsed inwards with a mighty crash. Infantry moved through the opening, bayonets fixed. They were met by Germans with their hands up.

Would it be fair to say that AP shells tend to over penetrate and with the more solidly built medieval buildings, this just inflicts minimal damage, thus requiring the larger HE shells of a 155 to destroy them effectively? Was that iron door just really, really tough with no other special characteristics (twenty 155mm HE shells? Really?)?

[Telok]

One thing I can say about those fortifications is that we need to remember that cannon did exist when they were built. Another thing is that some of those old cannon were huge. Several hundred pound iron balls and half mile ranges were not unknown.

Our ancestors were not stupid, they built fortifications to withstand months of seiges.

[Galloglaich]

One thing I can say about those fortifications is that we need to remember that cannon did exist when they were built. Another thing is that some of those old cannon were huge. Several hundred pound iron balls and half mile ranges were not unknown.

Our ancestors were not stupid, they built fortifications to withstand months of seiges.

Quoted for truth. Plus the Germans probably reinforced them, especially in fortified places like Metz, as did others in and before previous wars.

G

[Knaight]

Knaight: It is used for specific scalpels in micro biology or somesuch, but general scalpels manage with metal for the fact they hold an edge better and are less brittle, as you say.

Sure, but this has less to do with the quality of obsidian and more with the economics behind it. Steel is easier to manufacture, easier to shape, generally easier to mine for, and lasts longer. Using steel scalpels is substantially cheaper than using obsidian ones, and the use of obsidian ones in specific situations (and they do show up even in surgeries every so often) is a testament to the quality of the material for the job.

[Incanur]

I'm not so sure about this. The war-wagons I've seen depicted were purpose built certainly by the 15th Century and were quite different from the ordinary farm or supply wagons.

Yeah, a lot of those were quite impressive. Ottoman and Mughal appear to have been similar - certainly loaded with guns at least at times.


With regard to plate armor, someone was talking about DnD plate armor being tempered steel armor from the high medieval period, that didn't exist. Tempered steel armor came about in the late medieval period. Basically in history there was no period when you had plate armor but you didn't have guns. It's one of the fundamental problems with DnD and most RPG's in terms of linking them to real world.

Well, handheld gunpowder weren't particularly important for some European militaries until the early 16th century or even later. In England, for example, handheld guns played a negligible role in the War of the Roses. Gregory's chronicle of the second battle of Saint Albans 1461 describes how "worthy men" considered the gunplowder weapons deployed there useless and neglected them in favor of "mallets of lead, bows, swords, glaives, and axes." So there was a brief window in certain European societies where you saw the iconic white harness but handheld firearms were a dubiously effective novelty. Of course in the Germanic lands you already saw gunners mixed at times 50-50 with crossbows in the last quarter of the 15th century, so it varied by region.

In any case, there's no reason D&D or any fantasy setting needs to follow the real world in this regard. I'm personally thoroughly enamored with imagining warfare without gunpowder weapons but otherwise with technology resembling Renaissance Europe.

[Talakeal]

I have a question: Does anyone know what the ability to take a hit is called? There are many stage magicians, martial artists, and mystics who make a career out of being able to be hit without injury, but I can't seem to find any name for this discipline or its applications.



Taller = more strength and reach, which are advantages in melee combat although not overwhelmingly so. The height might have a psychologically deleterious effect on enemy morale as well. No-one likes to be charged by giants.

Is it really not overwhelming? I have seen several posters in previous incarnations of this thread insist that height was by far the most important factor in close combat, and 90% of fights could be boiled down to "The taller man wins".

[D2R]

With regard to plate armor, someone was talking about DnD plate armor being tempered steel armor from the high medieval period, that didn't exist. Tempered steel armor came about in the late medieval period.

There seems to be some terminology disagreement. Personally I always perceived High Medieval period as sometimes between XIII and early XVth centuries, and Late Medieval as XV to XVIIth - up to the end of the English Civil war or the Thirty Years war.

However, as Wikipedia told me, Western historiography usually calls XI-XIIIth centuries High Medieval and finishes the Late Medieval period in 1500. Terminology is often deceiving.

With such corrections of dates, you are absolute, indisputably right because XIII century was still pretty much the age of chain armour, and first real plate armour in Europe was developed in XIVth century. First European mention of case hardening process dates back to the XII century, and we have no evidence of its usage for anything other than weapon and tools at the time.

But I was actually referring to XIVth - early XVth century armour, up to Gothic plate - contrasting it to XVI-XVII century armour designed specifically and primarily to protect against bullets.



Basically in history there was no period when you had plate armor but you didn't have guns. It's one of the fundamental problems with DnD and most RPG's in terms of linking them to real world


That is correct, but note that the development of plate armour in Europe just coincided with that of firearms, not was triggered by it.
And, technically, there are guns in D&D. They are just unpopular.

Also note that non-tempered armour actually is a later development, specifically designed to stop bullets by deformation, but also used because sophisticated decoration techniques were invented which required local heating which destroyed tempering anyway. High quality XIII-XIVth centuries armour was already tempered steel, with hardness up to 40 HRC on the surface (not evenly distributed).

There is an interesting article (http://www.oakeshott.org/metal.html) about the technologies used by Medieval armoursmiths, with a lot of numerical information.

[D2R]

Is it really not overwhelming? I have seen several posters in previous incarnations of this thread insist that height was by far the most important factor in close combat, and 90% of fights could be boiled down to "The taller man wins".

You may look at the wars the Japanese were waging against the continental powers. Continental troops were usually significantly taller, but that doesn't seem to have been a significant advantage. Actually weight seems to be a more important factor in close combat that height.

But of course that depends on just *how* much taller the man is...


In any case, there's no reason D&D or any fantasy setting needs to follow the real world in this regard. I'm personally thoroughly enamored with imagining warfare without gunpowder weapons but otherwise with technology resembling Renaissance Europe.

Oh, and I happen to like quite the opposite: non-European settings with developed firearms, but without plate armour. This model of warfare is much more mobile, without slow moving close order formations and with a lot of maneuvering and ranged shootouts.

[Brother Oni]

One thing I can say about those fortifications is that we need to remember that cannon did exist when they were built. Another thing is that some of those old cannon were huge. Several hundred pound iron balls and half mile ranges were not unknown.

It wasn't just fortifications, but I see your point. A historic building without the advantages of modern building materials and techniques to reduce the sheer mass required to hold itself up would be more resistant to AP shells.
Something designed to take a pounding from cannon for months could easily withstand several minutes from higher powered AP shells (and apparently did!).


I have a question: Does anyone know what the ability to take a hit is called? There are many stage magicians, martial artists, and mystics who make a career out of being able to be hit without injury, but I can't seem to find any name for this discipline or its applications.

'Steeling oneself' is a term that means to prepare yourself to be hit and improving your ability to take a hit is known as conditioning, but I can't think of a specific word to represent the ability to take a hit beyond the more generic 'toughness', 'durability'.

There might be a Chinese term, but I'm blanking on it at the moment.



Is it really not overwhelming? I have seen several posters in previous incarnations of this thread insist that height was by far the most important factor in close combat, and 90% of fights could be boiled down to "The taller man wins".

With regard to "The taller man wins", the missing proviso is "all other things being equal", particularly skill.

Height in and of itself isn't the deciding factor, it's the associated weight and power that comes with being taller - what's more terrifying, 6'2" and 100lb or 6'2" and 200lbs?
That said such an advantage is only for unarmed combat and even then it depends on the conditions of the combat - in a boxing match or other highly regulated environment with numerous safety rules, strength and weight becomes more important (hence weight divisions). On the street, while having muscles is an advantage, it doesn't make your groin, eyes, small joints or other vulnerable spots any tougher.

When weapons are involved, things are evened up significantly - a 5'5" girl with a rapier can stick her blade through your neck just as effectively as the big hulking giant with a zweihander. Strength, weight and height are still valuable advantages however since you can use larger weapons (improved range) and wear heavier armour.

In modern combat, excessive height can potentially be detrimental in a firefight as you're a larger target overall plus when there's incoming artillery fire, you want to be as small as possible.

[Carl]

Many thanks again stormbringer.

TBH i was seeing the signal corps more in the role you where talking about at the end of your last post. Receiving all the reports and noting all the comms chatter and collating that into something the guy in charge can handle and make decisions based on.

I'm also seeing the HQ strictly in terms of the commanding officer, the signal's stuff to support him and the defense assets to secure his location, (plus a chow truck i would assume :p). But maybe that's the inaccurate part.

Basically when i think HQ for a division i'm thinking in terms of something the size, capabilities, and resources of the famous Battle of Britain plotting room, (i'm aware there's a number of rooms to that complex off the commonly shown room, but i'd also assumed modern tech would remove the need for most of that), that turns up in every documentary and film.


Regarding the Fire control stuff.

First this is actually quite a distant future setting, (about 350 years), but various factors surrounding the last big earth war in the early part of this century left both sides separated. Specifically it's a magic-tech setting, (though your not going to find anything magical at the infantry equipment level or the like in the EFGT, and nothing highly magical in any kind of standardized equipment list). The cultists used that to escape earth and go Interstellar via portal. For reasons even they aren't sure off they couldn't come back that way, and the earth based alliance of surviving nation's, (and there where a lot of dead ones at the end of it), never figured out what happened to the cultists. That combined with how the war polarized and united the remaining earth sides and the nature of cultist society lead over the next century or so to the decline and eventual abandonment of formal militarily's, both sides possessed private fire-arms owners and various paramilitary forces. But they where pretty much using light automatics or and large caliber sniper weapons.

Thus by the time they re-encountered each other and the war re-ignited both sides have seen a massive and major advance in material's sciences, manufacturing technologies, (particularly miniaturization), power generation, (fusion plants down to a scale small enough to fit in an AFV and really powerful batteries), and numerous electronic advances. Spaceflight has also greatly increased sensor system acuity and lead to the development of the first energy shields.

Obviously as the war has come back they've developed new weapon techs using these advances, but the infantry and AFV's are still using weaponry heavily rooted in the modern world. Largely because a lot of it just isn't applicable. AFV based fusion plants may give them orders of magnitude more power to work with than a modern AFV, but even if recoil wasn't as issue it's still well short of whats needed for something like a railgun, (Energy shields only absorb a small percentage of the energy they receive, they re-radiate the rest), or a laser cannon or the like. They do use such weapon's, and micro fusion drive missiles in larger scale application's. But AFV's are still rooted in missiles and gun's, and it's very similar for the infantry.

That probably helps explain the tech level for you, and yes you can assume that AFV's have ECM on them.

Regarding the fire support system. It was actually a bit of a reverse development. I worked out a rough idea of the level of defenses you'd have to go through to kill an AFV, then reverse worked my way back to the kind of fire support ability you'd need to be able to call in on very short notice and what would be required to do that effectively as well as the kind of intercommunication to best make use of the massed defensive firepower of entire AFV formations.

For the designaitor, it's basically an underslung item on the rifle, M203 sized with the buttons down the side. Miniaturization again. Also despite what it may have sounded like i don't see every unit transmitting unless there's a reason to. So unless a unit hasn't voice commed a report or up-linked something from their designaitors in a fair while, (where i presume someone would then be demanding a report over the radio IRL). They'd also obviously be able to go comms silent if they wished. In fact an additional point to the desigaitors and the "status board" thing i described above and beyond the speed of integration into the net is to allow such status report's, recon report's, and fire support requests to be transmitted in burst form rather than a long voice com message. Whilst the aforementioned missile points vis a vis the infantry fire support needs will generate more request in that respect i doubt the rest would be used anymore than in IRL, or am i still overestimating the amount of chatter? Obviously the CIWS net will produce a lot fo chatter when the missiles start flying, but at that point's i'd assume they know where you are and the defensive benefits out-weight the negatives at that point i should think.

Regarding the spoofing side of things. I've actually only heard a limited amount about personal comm gear but my limited understanding is that it's vulnerable because it has very limited encryption, data compression, and frequency agility capabilities. Whilst i'm not saying individual soldiers will be walking around with a destroyer's worth of comms capability in their headsets, (and i suspect there's a fairly limited amount that can be done about range regardless because of antennae size limits), they'd certainly be a lot more capable than anything infantry, or likely AFV portable today. And Gnoman's point about needing near carrier battlegroup level comms capabilities for missile salvo and CIWS control isn't lost on me, a typical MBT or the heavier types of missile carrier absolutely do approach the kind of comms abilities you'd see on a small warship and with serious computing power backing it up. Again all the miniaturization has some real edges here. I blame CoD myself:amused:. Naturally their micro laser tech also makes laser comms possible between vehicles when LoS is available, possibly even direct satellite up-link, though that's probably a stretch.

Regarding the missile side of things. Yes you can assume ECM et al are on tanks, though i suspect decoy/chaff/flares/e.t.c. probably aren't too heavy, they prefer the greater active interception capability, (i'll work through the tentative IFV and MBT examples in a moment so you can understand the specifics), over expendable ECM. But various passive ECM does exist. They key thing to remember is these are very high performance missile by modern standard, utilizing a combination of advanced material composites to lighted everything as much as possible, advanced composition propellants to get superior base rocket fuel specific impulse. And this is used in air breathing solid fuel designs, (they do exist btw IRL), which further increases specific impulse and this is all wrapped in a lifting body design to reduce drag to lift ratio. They basically knock the performance clean out of the park having a design powered run in ideal nap of the earth flight mode of 10 miles at mach 5. Reality is they see use mostly from under 8 miles though. Though they ted to try and stay out of direct line of fire so the missiles can boost to speed without being subject to interception. If the specs seem a bit extreme do bear in mind this nice table in the wiki stinger entry (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FIM-92_Stinger) pegs the Starstreak at half the maximum range with 80% the flight speed on a missile 2/3 the weight of a TOW missile, (which is probably the touchstone for a shoulder fired design weight wise). Given all the points i made about area's you can grab performance improvements from i'd expect to be able to meet the above values with a considerable increase in warhead weight, (this is especially true for shouldr fired designs which burn most of their propellant boost which makes any engine efficiency improvements a massive boost in powered endurance). And yes i know starstreak has it's own wiki entry, that table just happens to nicely table it all for you :).

For the lightweight missile your looking at something the size and weight of a modern shoulder fired weapon. The heavy missile is a fair bit bigger, i've pegged approximate dimensions at the 300-350mm along it's widest axis which makes it very similar to the air launched Maverick Missile, albeit with all my noted design improvements the weight is probably modestly lighter even with the need for a boost motor for ground launch.

As noted both missiles are designed for nap of the earth flight and are capable of a fair degree of sophistication in pre-programmed attack routing. The main point is it keeps the missiles hidden for as long as possible. Whilst that complicates the target acquisition aspect, (hence the really rapid control loop on the fire support requests system), for the missile's, it also gives the defenses a really tough time stopping them as they have a couple of seconds to identify and engage the attack, which tightens their primary threat identification time. The thermal bloom from air friction heating also helps offset some of the scale difference between the two missile types, (AFAIK smaller missiles see a bigger signature increase in % terms than larger missiles under those circumstances due to airflow effects), and i do see the heavy kill missiles probably being able to afford very basic ECM capability's. (You could probably swap out a light missiles warhead for an ECM module too, though that isn't necessarily a huge part of the plan). That said identifying and attempting to kill the heavy missiles is a part of CIWS setup's. It's just everything is arranged to give the defender a really hard time from a time constraints PoV, (particularly bearing in mind how much the sensor systems themselves have to be armored against damage).

Talking of the last point, whilst closing velocity and limited acquisition time make reliably hitting things like shield component,s sensor port's, or the CIWS systems fairly hit and miss, if you just let all the light missiles through they will steadily blow that stuff off given enough hits, (and it designed for ease of repair in those circumstances because it's somewhat expected), it's just heavily coffer-dammed internally so it can't blow through and wipe out the whole AFV. You could probably also get a mission kill via mobility if you can get enough light missile hits into the tracks/wheels. Your just not gong to be able to get a hard kill.


Ok quick worked examples as i have to go out in 20 minutes:

IFV:

By default the turret roof possess a single sustained interceptor system, (all standard EFGT sustained systems are rated at 1 kill per 1 second time period, though that also accounts for traversing so some variance will exist, ammo is usually rated at 100 intercepts). In addition there are four 4 shot burst systems, (a burst system can unload it's entire load pretty much in a single second, though distribution means normally only 2 systems can be brought on a single vector and reloading requires getting out of the tank). It's energy shielding is class 3, so rated at 3 lightweight missile hits and because of the paneled design you'll need to knock out 4 panels to open a hole wide enough to have no issues getting a heavy missile through, (again their accuracy is limited so whilst they can get through a single panel if they start their attack run on just the right vector, assuming 4 to knock out guarantees no problems). 50% overkill is assumed.

So the interceptors take down 9 missiles, another 18 are needed to take out the shielding, and then 2 heavy kill missiles and another 3 spare lightweights for covering fire to pick up the kill. With 2 heavy kill missiles in there and the limited CIWS capabilities of an IFV's main gun that's pretty close to a guaranteed kill unless the ECM does very well.

MBT: 10 sustained interceptors on the tank, of which a total of maybe 6 can fire on one vector. 4 burst systems of 16 shots each. Class 10 energy shielding. So 60 missiles to take down the shields, 32 intercepts from the burst system, and another 6 per salvo from the sustained. And as noted total missiles required pushes tings to 3 closely spaced salvos. So call it 18 total from sustained intercepts. Throw on the 6 heavy kill and 12 extra covering missiles and you get your total. In this case there are technically enough sustained interceptors on the MBT to take down every incoming heavy missile, but that requires them to identify and perfectly engage every round with either active interceptors or ECM. And at these numbersthrowing on exra heavies to overwhelm isn;t as hard as it sounds.

Quick info on standard EFGT missile carrier designs. Their light design intended for fire support primarily against IFV grade opponents is a variant of their armored car fitted with 6 VLS cells in 2 rows of 3, (rows are always canted so each row can fire one cell at a time apiece to maximize RoF). Typically two 9 shot light missiles packs and 1 heavy kill per row. Their medium design is an IFV conversion with 4 rows of 5 cells with three 9 shot packs and 2 heavy kill per row. Their heavy missile carrier i their biggest AFV design, and was custom designed for the job and has 6 rows of 10 cells. Haven't really decided the load but probably canted heavily towards heavy kill missiles.

Also bear in mind the light and medium designs just involve pulling the existing troop/cargo/whatever compartment and slotting in a VLS compartment, which is just a case of a crane, some umbilical connections and a lot of securing bolts. It can be field done by the engineers.

Anyway GTG now so sorry if i missed a bunch of stuff :(.

[Yora]

Here's an interesting Sherman vs Tiger battler that I found, along with a contemporary chart of a Tiger's vulnerable spots: link (http://www.thefewgoodmen.com/thefgmforum/threads/sherman-75mm-v-tiger-action.3696/).

Still reading Citizen Soldiers and I'm curious about historic (ie medieval) buildings proved surprisingly resistant to tank shells. During the American assault of Aachen, the Americans were forced to use a M12 155mm SPG (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M12_Gun_Motor_Carriage) against stubborn buildings which had resisted fire from the other tanks and TDs (as one German commander said shortly after their surrender, "When the Americans start using 155s as sniper weapons, it is time to give up"): link 1 (http://www.oldhickory30th.com/CaptureAachenMcDowell.pdf), link 2 (http://forum.worldoftanks.com/index.php?/topic/276418-us-army-tanks-in-cities-part-2/).

There's an account later on at Fort St. Julien outside the city of Metz which took a massive pounding before giving up:



Would it be fair to say that AP shells tend to over penetrate and with the more solidly built medieval buildings, this just inflicts minimal damage, thus requiring the larger HE shells of a 155 to destroy them effectively? Was that iron door just really, really tough with no other special characteristics (twenty 155mm HE shells? Really?)?

Really hard to find pictures online, but I was able to find this: Damaged Marienturm, taken before the city was taken. (http://www.aachen-stadtgeschichte.de/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Aachener-Stadtgeschichte-Marienburg-1944-02.jpg)
No idea what caused this specific damage, but it shows what kind of buildings the reports are probably talking about.
This page (http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stadtmauer_Aachen) has some pictures of other remaining parts of the old city fortifications, which are now in the middle of the city.

[Knaight]

You may look at the wars the Japanese were waging against the continental powers. Continental troops were usually significantly taller, but that doesn't seem to have been a significant advantage. Actually weight seems to be a more important factor in close combat that height.

Rome is another example. The Romans were generally shorter than a lot of the northern European "barbarians" they warred with. Rome still did pretty well in these wars for a good long time.

[Galloglaich]

Well, handheld gunpowder weren't particularly important for some European militaries until the early 16th century or even later. In England, for example, handheld guns played a negligible role in the War of the Roses.

I don't think you actually know that to be the case, it's your opinion.



Gregory's chronicle of the second battle of Saint Albans 1461 describes how "worthy men" considered the gunplowder weapons deployed there useless and neglected them in favor of "mallets of lead, bows, swords, glaives, and axes."

One persons (or one chronicle's) opinion on a particular weapon's value or quality does not equate to their not being in wide use, in fact if the chronicle author says that the weapons deployed there were 'useless' in his opinion, he is in fact noting that they were deployed there. It may be that the firearms used in that battle were ineffective precisely because of the ubiquity of good quality plate armor which had been designed, among other reasons, to defeat it.

Gunpowder weapons, both hand-guns and various forms of light and increasingly heavy cannon, were around on the European battlefield since at least the 1240's when the Mongols introduced them (so already by then a threat to European armies), were being used by European forces from the 1280's, and became widespread in the 14th Century and ubiquitous by the 15th. They are listed, described and recorded in letters, chronicles, and books from that period, and depicted in art portraying sieges in England and France as well as throughout Europe.


http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/80/Siege_orleans.jpg

Even if gunpowder weapons weren't particularly popular among the English themselves, something I don't think there is much evidence for, they were certainly in use by their allies and enemies. The 100 years war was largely won by French artillery, and the primary ally of the English during that war was the Duchy of Burgundy, who thanks to the Flemish cities was arguably the world leader in both guns and cannon in the 14th and 15th Centuries. The English also fought in the Hussite wars and the Baltic Crusades, English ships tangled with pirates and Hanseatic ships which definitely had lots of gunpowder weapons, and in Spain and Italy, among other places, where guns were commonplace. So their armor would need to be designed to deal with gunpowder weapons.

For that matter most of the armor in England, certainly a great deal of that owned by the wealthier nobles, was actually made in Italy and southern Germany where guns were ubiquitous.

I think one of the other issues here is the popularity of different types of weapons among different classes. In many parts of Europe guns were not popular with the nobility. In Germany they eventually embraced them to the extent that pistol armed 'ritter' were maybe more common than lancers in some regions by the time of the 30 Years War if not sooner, but in others the nobles denigrated the weapon. The same thing happened with many weapons, the same kind of statements you quoted were often made about crossbows, which the French nobility in particular resented and looked down upon (often literally riding down their own crossbowmen in battles, sometimes leading to their own defeat) but they still used them and they certainly knew to expect their enemies to do so.




So there was a brief window in certain European societies where you saw the iconic white harness but handheld firearms were a dubiously effective novelty.

I think that is frankly ridiculous, it represents a combination of wishful thinking (more on that in a second) and some old cliché's about medieval war which are a bit persistent.


Of course in the Germanic lands you already saw gunners mixed at times 50-50 with crossbows in the last quarter of the 15th century, so it varied by region.

I don't think it varied as much as you might think, otherwise one group has a huge advantage over others -that is why certain very specific forms of gunpowder weapons (war wagons, houfnice, pistala etc.) spread so rapidly from the Czech areas to the rest of Europe after and during the Hussite wars.



In any case, there's no reason D&D or any fantasy setting needs to follow the real world in this regard. I'm personally thoroughly enamored with imagining warfare without gunpowder weapons but otherwise with technology resembling Renaissance Europe.

There is no reason why you can't make up a fantasy world where you have no guns, but it's a different matter to pretend that guns didn't exist in medieval Europe. I stand by my earlier statement that there was no such thing as plate armor that wasn't made with the threat of guns in mind. I think people will understand medieval arms and armor a lot better when they allow their preference for a fantasy genre without guns to co-exist with the reality that in the historical world, the plate armored knight lived in a firearms saturated environment.


G

[Galloglaich]

With regard to "The taller man wins", the missing proviso is "all other things being equal", particularly skill.

Height in and of itself isn't the deciding factor, it's the associated weight and power that comes with being taller - what's more terrifying, 6'2" and 100lb or 6'2" and 200lbs?
That said such an advantage is only for unarmed combat and even then it depends on the conditions of the combat - in a boxing match or other highly regulated environment with numerous safety rules, strength and weight becomes more important (hence weight divisions). On the street, while having muscles is an advantage, it doesn't make your groin, eyes, small joints or other vulnerable spots any tougher.

When weapons are involved, things are evened up significantly - a 5'5" girl with a rapier can stick her blade through your neck just as effectively as the big hulking giant with a zweihander. Strength, weight and height are still valuable advantages however since you can use larger weapons (improved range) and wear heavier armour.

In modern combat, excessive height can potentially be detrimental in a firefight as you're a larger target overall plus when there's incoming artillery fire, you want to be as small as possible.

In competitive longsword fencing, which is very rough and tumble, there is a kind of dominant physical type starting to emerge which is tall (6' 2" or more lets say), strong and fit, but skill does indeed trump physical size and strength. There is a guy named Nathan Grepares from Houston who is one of the top competition fencers in the US. I think he's won or placed in 10 or 15 tournaments both here and in Europe. He's only abut 5'5" or 5'6", and he routinely beats much larger fencers obviously. I've actually fought him myself and he beat me more times than I beat him. He even does a class on 'David vs. Goliath' fencing techniques.

You can see a pretty good example of him in action here which illustrates the point that skill can definitely trump size in fencing. Nathan is fighting a Swedish guy who is a huge (6' 4") Escrima / stick fighting expert, very strong, aggressive, and fit, but not trained in medieval longsword. Nathan uses superior technique to take the guy apart, you can see Steffan (the Swedish guy) getting more and more frustrated as the match progresses, trying various things and definitely attempting to make use if his reach, but nothing he does works.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-KgCf0tP7SY

G

[D2R]

Galloglaich

You are actually stretching a little bit.

First, what you are saying about artillery is largely irrelevant to the armour discussion we're having here. No one argues than artillery was a big thing as early as in 1400s. However, these early artillery pieces were short-barreled and mounted on wooden beds - first wheeled gun carriages seem to come around only by the early 1500s. Before that, cannons were mostly siege weapon, very immobile, slow-firing and not efficient in open battles. Hundred Years War's battle of Formigny (1450) is usually referred to as the first effective employment of firearms (culverines) in a field battle, and at Castillon they played a decisive role.

Second, concerning hand-held firearms - they also existed, all right, but around 1410 they looked like that

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cc/CodexVindobana_1411.jpg

You can't even properly aim with such a weapon - and that's a sophisticated piece shown here, the majority of firearms in use were even more primitive. First complete suits of plate armour already existed in 1420s, and transitional mail/brigandine/plate armor was used already around 1380. So, there *was* a short period when plate armour was in wide use, and firearms still were not, or at least were largely ineffective against armored warriors, not even because of lack of penetrating power, but mostly due to low accuracy and small numbers of guns deployed on battlefields.

Again, no one is challenging the fact that hand-held firearms and "white harness" existed and developed largely simultaneously. However, it is doubtful that hand-held firearms formed a major factor on the battlefield (excluding siege warfare) until at least mid-XVth century (which is still a bit of a stretch). And armoursmiths had some more time to react to this new reality.

The first type of armour specifically designed to protect primarily against firearm bullets was the Maximilian plate of early XVIth century. It had much larger plates than the preceding Gothic armour, including a one-piece breastplate, which made it much stronger, but significantly more unwieldy - freedom of movement was sacrificed in sake of protection against firearms (which is largely pointless in a fantasy world without firearms, that's why I said that armour in such a world would most likely resemble the pre-Maximilian Gothic plate, which was designed as protection primarily against "white arms" - and was pretty efficient at that; please do not read that as "it wasn't made with the threat of guns in mind", as that is not what I'm saying).

That leads us to a conclusion that efficient armor-piercing firearms were a novelty of late 1400s or early 1500s, what roughly coincides with the introduction of dry-compounded gunpowder and the long-barreled musket (first used en-masse in battle of Pavia, 1525). Earlier firearms were roughly comparable with heavy crossbows in penetration, being superior only against unarmored targets mostly thanks to the stopping power of heavy lead bullets which caused more severe wounds than bolts or arrows.

[Galloglaich]

Galloglaich

You are actually stretching a little bit.

Nope, not in the least, and I'm not going to mince words: you don't have a clue what you are talking about in anything you wrote below.



First, what you are saying about artillery is largely irrelevant to the armour discus we're having here.

http://eb.tbicl.org/vol02/6/images/img688b.jpg

Not the case, you probably don't grasp what medieval artillery actually was. It included calibers which would later become hand-guns, muskets etc. They also included by the late 14th Century, volley guns which were of hand-gun caliber but included numerous barrels, pintle-mounted guns fixed onto war-wagons, rafts, ships, fortifications and so on, and by the early 15th Century breach-loading guns of small to medium caliber (15mm-50mm).

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6c/Breech_loading_swivel_guns_15th_16th_century.jpg

Breech loading swivel guns go back to the 14th Century

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breech-loading_swivel_gun

I think from your descriptions you are thinking of bombards and other very large siege cannons.



No one argues than artillery was a big thing as early as in 1400s. However, these early artillery pieces were short-barreled and mounted on wooden beds - first wheeled gun carriages seem to come around only by the early 1500s.

Actually I recently, in this very thread a few pages back, posted numerous images of sophisticated wheeled artillery pieces, feldschlangs and others, from the Swiss Chronicles written in the 1470's. So that kills your early 1500's theory right there. But they were much older than that...



Before that, cannons were mostly siege weapon, very immobile, slow-firing and not efficient in open battles.

..ah, no, the first well known, widely deployed wheeled artillery used in battle were the Czech Houfnice used in the Hussite wars (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hussite_Wars) starting in the 1420's,

https://swordsandarmor.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/hussite-weapons-houfnice-howitzer.jpg?w=529


Hundred Years War's battle of Formigny (1450) is usually referred to as the first effective employment of firearms (culverines) in a field battle, and at Castillon they played a decisive role.

and we know that they were actually used before the 1420's. They show up in the 1402 Bellifortis (http://www.wikipeetia.org/Belifortis).



Second, concerning hand-held firearms - they also existed, all right, but around 1410 they looked like that

And were used like this, to shattering effect, utterly destroying several consecutive armies of international Crusaders.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/38/Wagenburg.jpg

Just because it looks strange to you and you don't understand how it worked, doesn't mean it didn't in fact work. Hand culverins like that were still being used in Ming dynasty China quite effectively in sieges as late as the 16th Century.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cc/CodexVindobana_1411.jpg

What that images is famous for is that it's the first known depiction of a serpentine, one of the fundamental elements which led to the proper matchlock arquebus in the 15th Century..



You can't even properly aim with such a weapon - and that's a sophisticated piece shown here, the majority of firearms in use were even more primitive. First complete suits of plate armour already existed in 1420s,

See again, the Hussite wars. Just because you don't grasp how they were used, doesn't meant they didn't work. I recommend watching this demonstration of 15th Century firearms a few times in a row.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qkbSTyT1COE



and "white harness" existed and developed largely simultaneously. However, it is doubtful that hand-held firearms formed a major factor on the battlefield (excluding siege warfare) until at least mid-XVth century (which is still a bit of a stretch). And armoursmiths had some more time to react to this new reality....

Sorry but that is gibberish. The new reality had been in use since the late 13th century. They had plenty of time.



Earlier firearms were roughly comparable with heavy crossbows in penetration, being superior only against unarmored targets mostly thanks to the stopping power of heavy lead bullets which caused more severe wounds than bolts or arrows.

How well early firearms stood up to armor and vice versa, is a different debate - good armor worked, and it was developed both with the effects of crossbows and of guns, but they were already using bullets to 'proof' armor in Milan and Augsburg in the 15th Century so it's pretty clear that they (and their customers) knew it was a threat.

G

[Galloglaich]

Some more medieval gun videos

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufQDJHJBkKA

This one gives you a good idea how they were used in the field

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXXVeh96m_M

and here is a test of one of those hand-culverin type guns against a breastplate (not only did he hit the target, it shot a hole through it, albeit at very short range)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdXy0IfsWsE

No idea how thick or well made the breastplate actually was though of course.

EDIT: here's another one just like the one you posted. Note he was able to not only aim but shoot accurately enough to hit a human target.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KW2NRxbRTTA


G

[Incanur]

It may be that the firearms used in that battle were ineffective precisely because of the ubiquity of good quality plate armor which had been designed, among other reasons, to defeat it.

:smallconfused: Read the source in full for yourself, page 283. (http://books.google.com/books?id=dL12K__XzoAC&pg=PA283&lpg=PA283&dq=%22malletts+of+lead,+bows,+swords,+glaives,+and +axes&source=bl&ots=jajFZmn9ZQ&sig=ThCsY0pEOK-MNNb0UYDxkrfmQv4&hl=en&sa=X&ei=dnJBVLeuBsiPyASBg4GYBA&ved=0CCMQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22malletts%20of%20lead%2C%20bows%2C%20swords%2C %20glaives%2C%20and%20axes&f=false) While English nobles and such had plate armor in 1461, many or most of the common soldiers fought in jacks and sallets.


Gunpowder weapons, both hand-guns and various forms of light and increasingly heavy cannon, were around on the European battlefield since at least the 1240's when the Mongols introduced them (so already by then a threat to European armies), were being used by European forces from the 1280's, and became widespread in the 14th Century and ubiquitous by the 15th. They are listed, described and recorded in letters, chronicles, and books from that period, and depicted in art portraying sieges in England and France as well as throughout Europe.

You'll note that I specified handheld firearms. :smallsigh:


So their armor would need to be designed to deal with gunpowder weapons.

I'm skeptical that armor was ever designed to stop artillery. Fourquevaux in his 1548 text emphasized that armor couldn't protect against artillery and that for this reason various soldiers argued against wearing it. He took the other side.


I stand by my earlier statement that there was no such thing as plate armor that wasn't made with the threat of guns in mind.

Dendra panoply? (http://cache.wists.com/thumbnails/f/2a/f2a4bae12865d2707e60bda35fbb33fa-orig) :smallwink:

Of course gunpowder weapons existed in medieval Europe alongside plate armor, but I likewise stand by my statement that handheld gunpowder weapons weren't necessarily that important before 1500 in many regions. The gun didn't even displace the crossbow in French armies until about 25 years later.

While I mention the Dendra panoply mostly in jest, it does neatly support the notion that plate armor could develop in the absence of gunpowder weapons. I'm skeptical that gunpowder weapons were the major impetus for the development of plate armor 1350-1450. I think it was mainly economic and technological changes as well as the desire for better armor in general. As you know, plate does well against swords, lances, arrows, bolts, guns, and more.


Just because it looks strange to you and you don't understand how it worked, doesn't mean it didn't in fact work. Hand culverins like that were still being used in Ming dynasty China quite effectively in sieges as late as the 16th Century.

Yes, but note that Ming gunners of all sorts ended losing to Manchus with bows in the 17th century.

Europe circa 1450 is fascinating in that handheld firearms were apparently about even with, or even inferior to, crossbows. That's pretty cool from a gaming perspective. It makes me think of Darklands (http://www.gog.com/game/darklands).

As an example of combat with early - not fully developed to its iconic state - plate armor and gunpowder artillery but without handheld gunpowder weapons, consider once again the circa-1400 exploits of Pero Niño (http://www.yorku.ca/inpar/gamez_evans.pdf).

[Galloglaich]

:easily confused: Read the source yourself. While English nobles and such had plate armor in 1461, many or most of the common soldiers fought in jacks and sallets.

What that has to do with anything we are discussing I won't try to speculate. But I would be very surprised if infantry wasn't wearing armor in England in 1461, when almost all the peasants already had coat of plates armor in the Wisby graveyard 100 years earlier. I'm not sure what kind of armor they found everyone wearing in the mass grave at Towton but I'm sure if this became an issue it could be found.



You'll note that I specified handheld firearms. :smallsigh:

Everything I said above applies to handguns. I don't think there is any evidence (and you certainly haven't shown any) that handguns were particularly unusual in England compared to the rest of Europe in the 15th Century, that would have put the English way behind the rest of Europe in the continual arms - race of the medieval period. Not that it even matters, since as I pointed out already, English knights didn't do all their fighting in England. To the contrary they were most of the time fighting in France, Flanders and elsewhere on the continent where we know for a fact they would have and did encountered handheld firearms.

However medieval artillery included handgun caliber weapons (i.e. 12-20mm) that were simply mounted in series, as I already noted, and trestle guns, and pintle-mounted weapons of a caliber (and equivalent charge) which would later become muskets. There were also a lot of hand guns (larger hook guns) which were used basically as portable artillery. This kind of light artillery both overlapped with handguns and posed a similar threat in terms of armor protection.



I'm skeptical that armor was ever designed to stop artillery. Fourquevaux in his 1548 text emphasized that armor couldn't protect against artillery and that for this reason various soldiers argued against wearing it. He took the other side.

When it comes to medium and large caliber cannon, I fully agree with Forquevaux, in fact I think cannon are the main reason armor lost favor on the battlefield. However, as I just pointed out, a lot of artillery was not of cannon caliber, and good armor could protect the wearer from the very ubiquitous light artillery which was actually much more common on the battlefield than medium or large caliber cannon.



Of course gunpowder weapons existed in medieval Europe alongside plate armor, but I likewise stand by my statement that handheld gunpowder weapons weren't necessarily that important before 1500 in many regions. The gun didn't even displace the crossbow in French armies until about 25 years later.

The problem with this kind of statement is it's based in oversimplification. We tend to assume crossbows are weak and crude because of clichés going back to Shakespeare and doubled-down on during the Victorian era and by Hollywood, - and therefore if a gun was used alongside crossbows then the gun must be a joke. Yet we know now that military grade crossbows were actually quite powerful, some were more so in many respects than most modern pistols for example. Similarly, early firearms were in many if not most cases little more effective than say, a modern pistol or shotgun shooting slugs. But a shotgun shooting slugs is too much for ("chain") mail armor, hence the need for stronger protection.

We tend to simplify things to the extent that "Well, there was no Ak-47 in 1400, therefore guns were irrelevant". Guns of 1350 or 1400 seem a little ridiculous to us. But that is because we aren't familiar with their use. If you watch those videos I linked you'll quickly notice that even in the hands of hobbyists who barely know how to use them, they are in fact pretty potent and effective. And they were so 'back in the day'. In fact we know that they were major game changers at least by 1420, if not much earlier.

Crossbows yes, were in parity with early firearms and developed along side them for a long time. Crossbows of that era were extremely sophisticated and powerful!

Plate armor developed alongside and partly because of the handgun and early artillery, that doesn't mean that the gun was the only reason for plate armor or that plate armor could protect against a 10 cm serpentine. It did mean that armor makers and warriors of this period were worried about guns, alongside lances, halberds, pikes, crossbows and other threats that were also becoming more dangerous and sophisticated.


G

[Incanur]

What that has to do with anything we are discussing I won't try to speculate. But I would be very surprised if infantry wasn't wearing armor in England in 1461, when almost all the peasants already had coat of plates armor in the Wisby graveyard 100 years earlier. I'm not sure what kind of armor they found everyone wearing in the mass grave at Towton but I'm sure if this became an issue it could be found.

At least one 15th century source describes common English jacks as pure fabric without metal, though certainly some used metal plates and/or mail. But that's not plate armor in the sense we've been talking about. In any case, nobody claims handheld firearms played an important role in the War of the Roses, and we have specific account deriding the effectiveness of gunpowder weapons and other devices.


I don't think there is any evidence (and you certainly haven't shown any) that handguns were particularly unusual in England compared to the rest of Europe in the 15th Century, that would have put the English way behind the rest of Europe in the continual arms - race of the medieval period.

Only if you assume that handheld firearms actually granted advantage over bows and crossbows. Fourquevaux, an experienced commander, thought bows and crossbows fully competitive with handheld firearms nearly a century later in 1548. But it's well-known that the English adopted handheld firearms much more slowly than the Continent. However, as I said, the French didn't adopt handheld firearms in great numbers until around 1525. Monluc described leading a unit of primarily crossbowers, etc.


We tend to assume crossbows are weak and crude because of clichés going back to Shakespeare and doubled-down on during the Victorian era and by Hollywood, - and therefore if a gun was used alongside crossbows then the gun must be a joke.

Speak for yourself. If I ever thought about crossbows in such fashion, it's been an awfully long time.


It did mean that armor makers and warriors of this period were worried about guns, alongside lances, halberds, pikes, crossbows and other threats that were also becoming more dangerous and sophisticated.

I can agree with this, though according to Sydney Anglo, Pedro Monte writing circa 1500 specifically mentioned the lance and the crossbow as the weapons that posed the greatest danger to an armored knight.

[D2R]

Not the case, you probably don't grasp what medieval artillery actually was

Well that's just terminology. However, I agree that I didn't take into account that there we no clear distinction between handguns and artillery in the Medieval. I referred to artillery in the modern sense of the word, which actually changes little.
Anyway, "artillery" is not a contemporary term for either all or any specific kinds of firearms. Wikipedia states that


From the 13th century an artillier referred to a builder of any war equipment, and for the next 250 years the sense of the word "artillery" covered all forms of military weapons


They also included by the late 14th Century

Once again, let's concentrate on the light pieces, used directly against single human targets. Swivel guns and such most likely classify so, but actually they fall into the same category as the Roman Scorpion, or the Medieval Springhald - not yet an artillery piece, but neither a hand-held ranged weapon. Well, I haven't heard of any armour being designed to stop a springhald bolt, that would be likely impossible. So, it's firearm analog is most likely out of our scope, too. Things like multi-barreled volley guns were a curiosity hardly worth mentioning.


ah, no, the first well known, widely deployed wheeled artillery used in battle were the Czech Houfnice used in the Hussite wars starting in the 1420's

Ok, you're right, I'm wrong, let it be. That wasn't the point.


Hand culverins like that were still being used in Ming dynasty China quite effectively in sieges as late as the 16th Century

which is also irrelevant because the Chinise didn't use full plate armour, they stopped at brigandines which were not expected to offer any protection against bullets at all
and, again, that's siege warfare


See again, the Hussite wars. Just because you don't grasp how they were used, doesn't meant they didn't work. I recommend watching this demonstration of 15th Century firearms a few times in a row.

Once again. No one said "they didn't work". What I said was that they were not an efficient weapon against quickly moving armored targets, like heavy cavalry. Still there are many other targets on the battlefield, more easy to hit. And don't forget about horses not trained to ignore gunshots... But that is all irrelevant to plate armour penetration issues and the correlation between evolution of firearms and armour.

I just have no idea what did you want to demonstrate by the video. A lot of fire and smoke, ok. Spooky. However, no man holding anything predating 1450s is at least trying to aim. Well, maybe because aiming in the modern sense of the word wasn't invented yet ? The shooter had to predict the trajectory of the projectile based on the position of the weapon he held, not aim visually. Aiming became possible when the serpentine was moved to the side and a proper butt-stock that could be placed against the shoulder was developed. An that seems to be no earlier than 1420s.


and we know that they were actually used before the 1420's. They show up in the 1402 Bellifortis.

Stretching even more. "Were used" does not equal "were effectively employed in a field battle"
May be it is necessary to cite my source:

Early gunpowder weapons were awkward in open battles. They were first effectively used during the battles of The Hussite Wars (1419-34). Though they were present on many battlefields, beginning in the late fourteenth century, guns' first effective employment [distinctly contributing to the conduct of the battle] in the Hundred Years' War was at Formigny (1450). At Castillon (1453) guns were a major factor in deciding the outcome of the battle.

So, no one states they were *not* *used* before 1450s. They were used, and, consequently, were effective enough. But they "didn't distinctly contribute to the conduct of battles" before the battle of Formigny, as the source states. They were just another kind of ranged weapon to take into account, one of many, not the decisive one.

...well that doesn't prove my point either, as people tend to be feared of anything that can bring their death, not just what is statistically the most efficient on the battlefield, and would try to protect themselves against it as good as they can...

And, on the Bellifortis, that was some sort of early science fiction work, nothing more. With fantastic inventions and poorly made reconstructions of Roman ballistae.


And were used like this, to shattering effect, utterly destroying several consecutive armies of international Crusaders.

firearms alone utterly destroying whole armies, in XIVth century ?
that's where the stretching reaches it's peak

Hussite Wars, just as any war prior to maybe XVIIth century, were fought primarily with cold weapons, which caused ~90% of casualties
there may have been some increase in efficiency of ranged weapons (of all kinds) in the specific circumstances that were present during the Hussite Wars, but that's just an exception
this picture -

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/38/Wagenburg.jpg

- actually shows it very well: two shooters out of there have crossbows. Bet they were the more efficient ones in actual killing.


How well early firearms stood up to armor and vice versa, is a different debate - good armor worked, and it was developed both with the effects of crossbows and of guns,

But that's actually what we are discussing, not some different debate.
The questions was - when evolution of firearms started to be the major factor in the evolution of armour
That is, when firearms gained so much penetrating power that any other type of ranged weapon just would not be taken into account by armoursmiths as obviously less powerful than a firearm of comparable size

I am yet to hear anything that proves me wrong in that the Maximilian plate (and corresponding developments in other parts of Europe) was the first one to make the move towards more protection at cost of sacrificing freedom of movement, which is the trend that is commonly associated with the reaction on the development and mass employment of the more efficient hand-held firearms - as well as the move from thin tempered plates (good enough against cold weapons and low-energy bullets) towards thicker, non-tempered plates (primarily aimed at absorbing the energy of a heavy bullet through deformation) during the XVIth century. As another source says,


The North Italian makers stopped hardening armor regularly fairly suddenly around 1500-1510 ... The changing requirements of armor and the tactics it faced were probably the chief reasons for such a development

- namely, the development of firearms that reliably defeated armours of the preceding designs which were aimed at protection primarily agaist cold weapons. No such move would have been needed if no sudden increase in firearms penetrating ability had happened, rendering old armour designs obsolete on the border between XV and XVI centuries.


but they were already using bullets to 'proof' armor in Milan and Augsburg in the 15th Century so it's pretty clear that they (and their customers) knew it was a threat.


15th century was marked with a very rapid development of firearms, so without more exact dating this notion is of little use
and the whole concept of bullet-testing armour is somewhat dubious: there is a theory that most dents were made by hammer rather than an actual bullet for marketing purposes

again, that does not proof that firearms had decisive influence on the development of armour in this period
just that they existed and were used to test contemporary armour, which supposedly protected good enough against bullets as it was

that is actually pretty much in line with what I'm saying - that only in early 1500s firearms finally reached such a stage of perfection that they started to be the most important factor in further development of armour; not earlier, as before that existing armour designs were good enough, and firearms were seen as just another kind of ranged weapons, taken into account but nothing more


The new reality had been in use since the late 13th century. They had plenty of time.

what, firearms that were vastly superior to any other known ranged weapon so that they could become the major factor in the evolution of armour ?
well that's just plain wrong
crossbows were not rendered outdated until late XVth or even XVIth century, they continued to be used along with firearms for centuries


here's another one just like the one you posted. Note he was able to not only aim but shoot accurately enough to hit a human target.

at 10 meters, shooting from a stand ?
well that's good enough, now imagine you have to hit a moving horseman at 50+ meters (at the least) - and you won't have a second chance

maybe such close ranges were typical for the Hussite Wars, due to extensive use of wagenburgs where the shooter could reload his weapon in relative safety and unpreparedness of the attackers - making even primitive firearms relatively efficient in this particular situation, but that was not the case in a generic XVth century field battle

Please don't bother yourself with posting more links to "experimental archeology" videos - it may be an interesting hobby, but I don't care much for this as a source of any historically valuable data, neither should you.

[Incanur]

which is also irrelevant because the Chinise didn't use full plate armour, they stopped at brigandines which were not expected to offer any protection against bullets at all

According to a Dutch source (http://books.google.com/books?id=OpdMq-YJoeoC&pg=PA420&lpg=PA420&dq=koxinga+%2B+soap+knives&source=bl&ots=TiP5HSsGHO&sig=fF7h5FXwFB4HkNR3zs74baUyTLU&hl=en&sa=X&ei=xaZBVK6yA4KlyASP-oHwCw&ved=0CCYQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=koxinga%20%2B%20soap%20knives&f=false), Chinese armor in 1661-1662 provided considerable protection against bullets - supposedly "complete protection from rifle bullets."

[Gnoman]

Regarding the spoofing side of things. I've actually only heard a limited amount about personal comm gear but my limited understanding is that it's vulnerable because it has very limited encryption, data compression, and frequency agility capabilities. Whilst i'm not saying individual soldiers will be walking around with a destroyer's worth of comms capability in their headsets, (and i suspect there's a fairly limited amount that can be done about range regardless because of antennae size limits), they'd certainly be a lot more capable than anything infantry, or likely AFV portable today. And Gnoman's point about needing near carrier battlegroup level comms capabilities for missile salvo and CIWS control isn't lost on me, a typical MBT or the heavier types of missile carrier absolutely do approach the kind of comms abilities you'd see on a small warship and with serious computing power backing it up. Again all the miniaturization has some real edges here. I blame CoD myself:amused:. Naturally their micro laser tech also makes laser comms possible between vehicles when LoS is available, possibly even direct satellite up-link, though that's probably a stretch.

First, for the purposes of defeating white-noise jamming, data compression, encryption, and frequency hopping are absolutely meaningless. The only ways to defeat jamming are burning through it with raw power, detecting a pattern to it so that you can filter it out, or put a sensor on a missile that detects it and selectively homes in on it and destroys it. In the first two cases, the most important factor is the size of the unit, techs being equal. A tank could quite easily devote far more mass to jamming than any missile or man-portable comm set could ever devote to counter-jamming. HOJ is harder to defeat, but there's a lot of possible ways to separate the jamming signal from the originating vehicle without losing power, and rapid changes in noise patterns could confuse it and send it trying to chase multiple sources at once.

Second, my point about a battle fleet wasn't about comm systems. It was about the number of missiles that could physically be launched. A cruiser carries a mere 96 missiles, while a Ohio-class SSGN-refit carries a massive 124. These missiles aren't THAT much larger than the vehicle mounted size. You're positing upwards of eighty to kill one vehicle. (The situation is far, far worse if you're having a large number of light missiles being man-portable, as that pushes the manpower cost from "absurdly high" to "absolutely insane".



Regarding the missile side of things. Yes you can assume ECM et al are on tanks, though i suspect decoy/chaff/flares/e.t.c. probably aren't too heavy, they prefer the greater active interception capability, (i'll work through the tentative IFV and MBT examples in a moment so you can understand the specifics), over expendable ECM. But various passive ECM does exist. They key thing to remember is these are very high performance missile by modern standard, utilizing a combination of advanced material composites to lighted everything as much as possible, advanced composition propellants to get superior base rocket fuel specific impulse. And this is used in air breathing solid fuel designs, (they do exist btw IRL), which further increases specific impulse and this is all wrapped in a lifting body design to reduce drag to lift ratio. They basically knock the performance clean out of the park having a design powered run in ideal nap of the earth flight mode of 10 miles at mach 5. Reality is they see use mostly from under 8 miles though. Though they ted to try and stay out of direct line of fire so the missiles can boost to speed without being subject to interception. If the specs seem a bit extreme do bear in mind this nice table in the wiki stinger entry (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FIM-92_Stinger) pegs the Starstreak at half the maximum range with 80% the flight speed on a missile 2/3 the weight of a TOW missile, (which is probably the touchstone for a shoulder fired design weight wise). Given all the points i made about area's you can grab performance improvements from i'd expect to be able to meet the above values with a considerable increase in warhead weight, (this is especially true for shouldr fired designs which burn most of their propellant boost which makes any engine efficiency improvements a massive boost in powered endurance). And yes i know starstreak has it's own wiki entry, that table just happens to nicely table it all for you :).

For the lightweight missile your looking at something the size and weight of a modern shoulder fired weapon. The heavy missile is a fair bit bigger, i've pegged approximate dimensions at the 300-350mm along it's widest axis which makes it very similar to the air launched Maverick Missile, albeit with all my noted design improvements the weight is probably modestly lighter even with the need for a boost motor for ground launch.



First, basing any anti-vehicle weapon on the performance envelope of a surface-to-air missile is inherently quite flawed. MANPADs use a very, very light warhead, sometimes with submunitions, because any real damage will probably take out even an armored helicopter. Aircraft are extremely fragile. You could shoot them all day at a tank and do little more than scratch the paint. Take a Stinger or a Starstreak, give it an antitank warhead, adjust the guidance system to reliably track surface targets... and you have a Javelin missile. Which can't hurt MBTs.



As noted both missiles are designed for nap of the earth flight and are capable of a fair degree of sophistication in pre-programmed attack routing. The main point is it keeps the missiles hidden for as long as possible. Whilst that complicates the target acquisition aspect, (hence the really rapid control loop on the fire support requests system), for the missile's, it also gives the defenses a really tough time stopping them as they have a couple of seconds to identify and engage the attack, which tightens their primary threat identification time. The thermal bloom from air friction heating also helps offset some of the scale difference between the two missile types, (AFAIK smaller missiles see a bigger signature increase in % terms than larger missiles under those circumstances due to airflow effects), and i do see the heavy kill missiles probably being able to afford very basic ECM capability's. (You could probably swap out a light missiles warhead for an ECM module too, though that isn't necessarily a huge part of the plan). That said identifying and attempting to kill the heavy missiles is a part of CIWS setup's. It's just everything is arranged to give the defender a really hard time from a time constraints PoV, (particularly bearing in mind how much the sensor systems themselves have to be armored against damage).

Here's your problem. You're positing a mach-5 ground-skimming missile, which is too fast for a point defense system to engage. Modern point defense systems are already designed to handle sea-skimming targets at Mach 3, with fairly high kill rates (or Mach 6+ targets coming in at altitude with far higher intercept chance). This isn't the engagement nightmare you're presenting it as.

More importantly, 10 miles is NOTHING on a battlefield. Conventional tube artillery already has twice that much range, and there's a number of proposed shell designs that would double that.

Let's take a look at the kind of investment such a missile system would involve. I'll use your figures here (which I consider to be low, but we'll go with it.)

You posit 30 light missiles and two heavies to take out an "IFV", and 120 Light and 6 heavy missiles to take out a "MBT"

For OPFOR reference data, we'll use the TOE of a US Army Armored Cavalry Squadron (Battalion), and delete the support units, artillery, etc. To make things fairer for the defense, we'll only use three troops (companies) of that squadron. This is not unreasonable for a the spearpoint of a major assault.

That gives us: 45 IFVs, 75 MBTs

To stop this force, you (by your own figures) would need (and again discounting little details like supply and manufacturing, economic cost, and such)

(45*30)+(75*120)=171,000 light missiles and (2*30)+(6*75)=4,950 heavy missiles.

Let's be charitable and assume they're all vehicle mounted.

For the light missiles, you would need 3166 light launch trucks, 950 medium, or 317 heavy ones to get the number of launch tubes you need (going by the assumption you made that 9 lights fit in the same space as one heavy, which again I find quite questionable). For the heavies, you need 825/248/83. That means, in the absolute best case scenario (all heavy missile carriers), you would need 400 vehicles to stop 120. You would need to repeat this investment every 10 miles along the entire front, unless you want the enemy to simply be able to go around (meanwhile, the oppositon force doesn't need to increase his forces at all no matter how wide the front is. Just take more than three armored companies in as a spearhead and they can punch through your lines at will, for a tiny fraction of the resources you put into your defense.

Now let's extrapolate. Say they threw the entire squadron at you. That's 168 IFVs and 198 MBTs. Stopping that would require (168*30)+(198*120)=628,560 light and (168*2)+(498*6)=79,596 heavy missiles, or 11640/5238/1164 + 13,266/3980/1327 launch vehicles. Again, you'd need that formation placed every 10 miles along the front.

Now we need to look at the nebulous issue of economics. If we assume that the cost ratio is the same as in RL (which is hard to guess. Your armored vehicles are a lot more sophisticated than RL ones, but the sort of missiles you're proposing would require some pretty serious computing power and extremely high end sensors, so I'll call it a wash). Since you described the heavy missile in terms of the AGM-65 "Maverick", and the MBT in terms of an Abrams, I'll use those as cost figures. Latest model Mavericks cost $110,000 each, and a M1A2 is estimated at $8,580,000. That works out to a cost ratio of 78:1. Let's double that ratio to account for the large numbers of no-doubt cheaper missiles you posit using, so it's a ratio of 156:1. Surprisingly, in missiles alone you're actually ahead in economic cost. Until, that is, you add in the cost for all those launch platforms. A US Army M142 MRLS track (a good match in relative functionality to your light missile truck) costs $530,000 each, for a cost ratio to an MBT of 16:1. Using light launchers alone, your missiles require 67 launch trucks per tank, meaning that it costs you around between 4 and 5 times (counting missile cost) as much to kill a tank as it took the other guy to build it. In a fight between equal powers, that equals a lost war.

[Galloglaich]

Well that's just terminology. However, I agree that I didn't take into account that there we no clear distinction between handguns and artillery in the Medieval. I referred to artillery in the modern sense of the word, which actually changes little.
Anyway, "artillery" is not a contemporary term for either all or any specific kinds of firearms. Wikipedia states that

You are going to have to forgive me for taking a rather harsh tone here, you elected to challenge what I said, but you haven't studied this specific issue enough to back it up. It's not a crime - this is not a well understood issue in the English-speaking world. You have to be a kind of a military history nut to have even a basic grasp of it which is barely what I can claim.

That said, you have argued yourself into circles and are still missing the point, and you clearly don't understand several basic facts about medieval armor, weapons, and warfare.

What we were originally discussing here was first, my contention that there was no such thing as an era of plate armor without also guns being on the battlefield, I would actually add to that, without guns being prominent on the battlefield. Second, the idea that plate armor was developed at least partly to counter the threat of firearms, as well as some other rapidly improving and specializing weapons of the high to late medieval periods.



Once again, let's concentrate on the light pieces, used directly against single human targets.

Why? Multi-barrel guns can't be protected against?


Things like multi-barreled volley guns were a curiosity hardly worth mentioning.

Ah, I see... what do you base that on exactly? It contradicts my understanding. Actually they were quite widespread particularly in the 14th Century.


Ok, you're right, I'm wrong, let it be. That wasn't the point. Yes it was the point, you clearly still missed it.



and, again, that's siege warfare

You don't use armor in siege warfare? Why would that rule it out? Actually siege warfare was the primary context for the use of both firearms and crossbows for a long time.



Once again. No one said "they didn't work". What I said was that they were not an efficient weapon against quickly moving armored targets, like heavy cavalry. Still there are many other targets on the battlefield, more easy to hit. And don't forget about horses not trained to ignore gunshots... But that is all irrelevant to plate armour penetration issues and the correlation between evolution of firearms and armour.

I just have no idea what did you want to demonstrate by the video. A lot of fire and smoke, ok. Spooky. However, no man holding anything predating 1450s is at least trying to aim. Well, maybe because aiming in the modern sense of the word wasn't invented yet ? The shooter had to predict the trajectory of the projectile based on the position of the weapon he held, not aim visually. Aiming became possible when the serpentine was moved to the side and a proper butt-stock that could be placed against the shoulder was developed. An that seems to be no earlier than 1420s.

You totally missed the point. First, the Hussite Wars of the 1420's, were not actually the first time firearms were used (mostly of the "zip gun on a stick" variety, incidentally) they were just the first really, really large scale, utterly irrefutable use of the firearm and the cannon, mostly in combination with the war wagon, in the open field specifically to break and wipe out heavy cavalry, repeatedly, and on a massive scale. After the four massive Crusades led by the cream of European chivalry from every nation in Europe (including England, incidentally) were routed by the Hussites, when they were refused a negotiated peace by the Church, they went on deep raids ("beautiful rides") throughout every neighboring country and slaughtered and smashed all opposition.

There were many examples before this, but the Hussite wars were too big to ignore in spite of the fact that they didn't fit various narratives - they were and are considered a key event in both the development of the firearm and the cannon (and many weapons in between).

So YES, firearms were used specifically against armored heavy cavalry, and NO the first important use was NOT in 1450. Your source is wrong.

As for aiming the early type of firearms, you obviously didn't watch the videos I posted. In the last one you can see a serpentine hand-culverin exactly like the one you posted a (very famous) image of, and the guy actually shows a shot group (about 10"). You can watch him aim as he shoots.


...well that doesn't prove my point either, as people tend to be feared of anything that can bring their death, not just what is statistically the most efficient on the battlefield, and would try to protect themselves against it as good as they can...

Stick with that line of thought for a while longer.


And, on the Bellifortis, that was some sort of early science fiction work, nothing more. With fantastic inventions and poorly made reconstructions of Roman ballistae.

You know this how exactly? Where do you get these ideas? Bellifortis was one of the most important military engineering manuals of the era.



I am yet to hear anything that proves me wrong in that the Maximilian plate ... at cost of sacrificing freedom of movement, which is the trend that is commonly associated with the reaction on the development and mass employment of the more efficient hand-held firearms - as well as the move from thin tempered plates (good enough against cold weapons and low-energy bullets) towards thicker, non-tempered plates (primarily aimed at absorbing the energy of a heavy bullet through deformation) during the XVIth century. As another source says,

What the hell are you talking about? Maximilian plate wasn't known for restricting movement. You are confusing all kinds of issues. Milan stopped tempering armor because they began to specialize in making armor with pretty patterns on it. That does not mean that tempered armor went away, quite to the contrary, that niche of the business (the hard core battlefield armor) was taken over by Augsburg, and later Innsbruck. Go find Alan Williams book Knight and the Blast furnace on google books.

The 17th Century stuff you were talking about was actually a primitive stop-gap, not an improvement. Armor in that era had gotten massively heavier AND less efficient. But it was a lot cheaper to make, and didn't require the kind of ultra sophisticated guild systems that you saw in Augsburg or the workshop subcontracting networks that Milan and Brescia had.



Please don't bother yourself with posting more links to "experimental archeology" videos - it may be an interesting hobby, but I don't care much for this as a source of any historically valuable data, neither should you.

Mate, I was trying to let you off the hook easily, so you can actually get a clue as to what you are talking about. Those videos show what the thing is like in the real world, for the hard numbers, like I said go read Alan Williams, read period sources like Piccolomini, read Jan Dlugosz, read the letters of Matthias Corvinus, read the town Chronicles of Prague and Augsburg and Strasbourg.

You are way out of your depth and you are just embarrassing yourself.


G

[Incanur]

While gunpowder weapons indeed played an important role in Hussite tactics, it's worthwhile to remember that by most if not all accounts, relatively few Hussite soldiers used gunpowder weapons. (It's mainly toward the end of the 16th century that you see gunners really taking over Western European armies and outnumbering pikers.) Hussite war wagons appear to have featured more troops with crossbows and various staff weapons than with firearms. Also, weapons and tactics in the Hussite wars, although influential, shouldn't be generalized to the rest of Europe. Certainly defending fortifications - whether wagons or whatever - with guns was a strong tactic that eventually and haltingly won out over aggressive close-combat infantry and cavalry charges, but it took over a century for that to happen. (And of course charges remained important in European warfare after 1600, even if the prevalence of armor notably declined. And in China both heavy and light horse archers who favor the charge continued to operate successfully alongside guns, artillery, and fortifications through the 17th and 18th centuries.)

And I'd again encourage folks to read the exploits (http://www.yorku.ca/inpar/gamez_evans.pdf) of Pero Niño to see that were forms of plate armor that existed in a setting where handheld firearms played little or no military role. Crossbows and cannons, as it were. :smallsmile:

[Carl]

Okay been out and then come back in and had a much needed nap.

Regarding the WW2 stuff someone brought up. AFAIK old style mortar tends to get harder and stronger as it ages, (barring acid rain which is much newer than most realize), so those really old buildings are tough as nails on that point. Likewise remember that there are a LOT of ancient buildings still standing in Rome from the Roman period making them all well over the millennium old, and i'm pretty sure some push over the 2 millennial period. Many of which have not exactly received a lot of careful TLC until recently. I even remember hearing one of the older designs is of a design you could not get insurance to build today specifically because it's a of a design that would be considered structurally unsound.

Basically buildings of yesteryear as a rule are really, really bloody tough.

@Gnoman:

1. My understanding is that you can't transmit through white noise anymore than your opponent can so unless your willing to cripple your own comms, (and there are a lot of reasons not to do that), you have to leave comms channels of your own open. The issue with modern headset comes being that they don't have the computing capability and antennae finesse to find and switch to open channels on the fly. I also brought up things like encryption and burst transmissions in relation to spoofing more than outright jamming, though burst transmission would increase peak energy possibilities, within antennae limitations. That said yeah AFV's dedicated to jamming should have few real issue putting out enough white noise energy for a fair jamming radii. How much would greatly depend on factors i haven't bothered to pencil in for obvious reasons.

2. Actually a missile is a missile is a missile. Whilst your right moving a starstreak over to an anti-tank role would require a large warhead and a slight diameter increase with the attendant performance penalties, your doing that whilst replacing the rocket motor with a vastly more capable one on a lighter lower drag air-frame, (scavenging you some mass back), which would more than offset this, the rocket motor being the main one since what your getting is a solid fueled ramjet. Obviously the weapon in question isn't a literal development of Starstreak, but Starstreak provides a handy touchstone on potential missile performance because using that vastly lower weight, lower engine capability, and lesser airframe it's still able to push out to a significant percentage of the required performance envelope.

3.

A) you misunderstand my point. I'm not saying their impossible to intercept, i'm saying that the AFV's have a very narrow window in which to detect, track and then engage the target's. They're totally able to do it but it vastly compacts the time they have to pick one missile type from another. Modern warships don't deal too well with 2 seconds time spans to do that kind of thing in either. They'll still get a lot of kills with their rolling airframe missiles and phalanx system's, but it's nowhere near the effectiveness they see when they get plenty of warning.

B) Yes the range isn't extreme, so what? A single MBT or Light tanks has the CIWS capabilities on the main gun to stop cold the fire from several tube artillery if it's got the tracking time, (and with that high arc it will have), rocket artillery is more effective, but even that will have a lot of it's rounds stopped. On a 1 to 1 ratio of MBT's to artillery. The whole point of the missiles is just enough range to stay out of LoS and/or main gun range of the MBT's, whilst being fast enough to complicate interceptions and respond in rapid order to fire misison requests.

c) you need to re-do your math. It's 10350 light missiles and 540 heavies. That's a total of 1150 light missile VLS cells and 540 heavies. You can get enough heavies on 68 Medium platform's at standard loadout configs, but you'd need 95 for the light missiles. With a customized loading mix you'd need only 84. But even at the non-customized mix with no support from anything else your getting enough missiles on fewer platforms most of which are lighter, or at worst same. A customized heavy carrier mix would be 29 vehicles. Those are a little heavier than an MBT, but emphasis on "a little".

I've no idea how your getting your figures btw.

D) bear in mind the use of VLS launchers has a huge impact on size required. If we assume a roughly Maverick sized missile for the heavy kill that puts a VLS cell, (bearing in mind lifting body effects on diameter) a 15ish inch square cell, (A yes you could fit a pack of 9 TOW's inside that volume), call it 0.4m for a bit of extra spacing. If we where to rip off an MLRS's system and replace it with a flat back bed with VLS cells on it, (a bad config from damage resistance but that's by and by given the low weight of an MLRS), and using the length of the missiles for the length available we get something similar to a heavy missile carrier, (it would actually be 7 rows of 10 cells, instead of 6 of 10, hmm maybe the heavy carrier wouldn't be as heavy as i though :p). Bearing in mind you need just 29 of these to kick in 75 MBTS and 45 IFV's. Yeah the economics look a lot better, (and yes i'd say the ratio has probably shifted cost wise in the missiles favor as all those extra CIWS weapons really add to the costs, the comp, comm's, and sensors costs for missiles probably haven't changed on a relative basis given the advanced tech base, but squeezing on a load of extra lightweight weapons for CIWS and the sensor grid to support that i gonna inflate the AFV in relative terms).

Anyway work in about an hour so catchya later :).

[Brother Oni]

Galloglaich: I found something that might be useful in answering your questions regarding Continental Europe: link (http://www.iisg.nl/hpw/data.php#europe).

It's an economy site with historical information, some of which is covering your desired periods. It's a bit macro-economics (one file I looked at had nearly 400 years worth of data on the price of bread, grains, silver and beer), but it's all sourced.

There are a number of other links to sites with more specialised information, but wrestling information out their queries looks akin to getting blood out of a stone, and I get enough of that in my day job, sorry. :smalltongue:

[Incanur]

Bertrandon de la Brocquière's Le Voyage d'Outre-Mer is another example of how handheld firearms didn't necessarily play a significant role in early/mid 15th-century warfare. The account (http://books.google.com/books?id=7-BPAAAAcAAJ&pg=PP8&dq=bertrandon+de+la+brocquere&hl=en&sa=X&ei=HXpCVPa3MM63yATdwoLIBw&ved=0CB8Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=archers&f=false) describes de la Brocquière's eastern travels in 1432-1433 but wasn't finished until 1457. In imagining the ideal European force to send against the Ottomans, de la Brocquière didn't mention handheld firearms but included archers and crossbowers from England, France, and Germany in abundance. Handheld firearms certainly existed at this time - after the Hussite Wars and the siege of Orléans (http://www.xenophongroup.com/montjoie/jean-m.htm) - but de la Brocquière didn't consider them important enough to mention for his ideal force. He did mention handheld firearms carried by men in caravan by Damascus. He mentioned cannons at various points in the narrative.

[Yora]

What kind of iron or steel was used in the production of early mail in antiquity. I'm primarily interested in the Gauls, but any information from that period would be helpful.

[Mr. Mask]

Was curious whether people of the past might have been able to make use of weaponized electricity. For that, I'm wondering how many volts they might be able to generate. The mythbusters managed about 1 volt per battery based off the Baghdad design. However, I'm not sure the materials they used were the best the ancient world is capable of, had they invested in the technology (non-specific copper and iron, plain lemon juice or something). Do you think they could have made a stronger one with old materials?

[Spiryt]

What kind of iron or steel was used in the production of early mail in antiquity. I'm primarily interested in the Gauls, but any information from that period would be helpful.

I'm not very well informed here, but I'm pretty sure that usually it's surprisingly hard to tell, sadly.

Even relatively well preserved rings that old are deformed and chemical reaction change the structure a lot.

[Thiel]

Was curious whether people of the past might have been able to make use of weaponized electricity. For that, I'm wondering how many volts they might be able to generate. The mythbusters managed about 1 volt per battery based off the Baghdad design. However, I'm not sure the materials they used were the best the ancient world is capable of, had they invested in the technology (non-specific copper and iron, plain lemon juice or something). Do you think they could have made a stronger one with old materials?

The Baghdad batteries aren't actually batteries, they're for storing paper scrolls in. We've found dozens and dozens with scrolls in them. The only thing that sets the "batteries" apart is that they were empty when they were found.

[Mr Beer]

Was curious whether people of the past might have been able to make use of weaponized electricity. For that, I'm wondering how many volts they might be able to generate. The mythbusters managed about 1 volt per battery based off the Baghdad design. However, I'm not sure the materials they used were the best the ancient world is capable of, had they invested in the technology (non-specific copper and iron, plain lemon juice or something). Do you think they could have made a stronger one with old materials?

I suspect that it would be ridiculously inefficient to use electricity as a weapon using ancient technology and that the least silly weaponised version would be something like a room full of primitive batteries hooked up to a metal door latch or something to electrocute the unwary. Even then you'd likely be better off investing in a hidden deadfall trap.

[Galloglaich]

Bertrandon de la Brocquière's Le Voyage d'Outre-Mer is another example of how handheld firearms didn't necessarily play a significant role in early/mid 15th-century warfare. The account (http://books.google.com/books?id=7-BPAAAAcAAJ&pg=PP8&dq=bertrandon+de+la+brocquere&hl=en&sa=X&ei=HXpCVPa3MM63yATdwoLIBw&ved=0CB8Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=archers&f=false) describes de la Brocquière's eastern travels in 1432-1433 but wasn't finished until 1457. In imagining the ideal European force to send against the Ottomans, de la Brocquière didn't mention handheld firearms but included archers and crossbowers from England, France, and Germany in abundance. Handheld firearms certainly existed at this time - after the Hussite Wars and the siege of Orléans (http://www.xenophongroup.com/montjoie/jean-m.htm) - but de la Brocquière didn't consider them important enough to mention for his ideal force. He did mention handheld firearms carried by men in caravan by Damascus. He mentioned cannons at various points in the narrative.

Yes but that again is someone's opinion, and you can find plenty of others from the same era which do mention firearms as being important - Anneas Silvius Piccolomini (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Pius_II), who travelled all over Europe in the same period as la Brocquière's, and also a strong proponent of war with the Ottomans especially in his role as Pope Pious II, did mention the value and importance of firearms several times in his books and letters, notably in his commentaries on Europe (http://www.amazon.com/Europe-1400-1458-Translated-BrownIntroduced-annotated/dp/081322182X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1413676256&sr=8-1&keywords=Piccolomini+europe) from 1458.

Nor were firearms unusual in Spain or France, Spain was actually the first place that firearms proved to be important on the battlefield in the 13th Century (probably due to interaction with the Arabs, as the Arabs, specifically the Mamelukes, were the first people in the Western Hemisphere to figure out the secret of gunpowder from the Mongols they were fighting) as I mentioned before the Flemish were among the world leaders in firearms development and the primary enemy of France in most of the 100 years war was actually Burgundy which made heavy use of Flemish militia and arms.

Even when a particular culture (say French knights) frowned upon a particular type of weapon like a firearm, the relevance of their armor to that weapon has to take into consideration their enemies, and the French without any doubt whatsoever faced enemies who had firearms a plenty - I already posted numerous images of their fights against the Swiss such as St. Jakob An Der Birs in 1444 where firearms were definitely used.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/31/St._Jakob_Tschachtlan.jpg

I'll post some more links to actual articles and documents later tonight, got to go to a concert.

G

[Incanur]

Mounted crossbowers facing off against gunners behind a wall, huh? I like it. Note though that St. Jakob An Der Birs 1444 involved a massive amount of close-quarters fighting that isn't depicted. The standard narrative goes that Swiss charged across a river to attack the much larger French army with their pikes and then only eventually retreated to the building, where French artillery and perhaps crossbowers/archers did a number on them before the French stormed the building to wipe out the survivors.

[Galloglaich]

Mounted crossbowers facing off against gunners behind a wall, huh? I like it. Note though that St. Jakob An Der Birs 1444 involved a massive amount of close-quarters fighting that isn't depicted. The standard narrative goes that Swiss charged across a river to attack the much larger French army with their pikes and then only eventually retreated to the building, where French artillery and perhaps crossbowers/archers did a number on them before the French stormed the building to wipe out the survivors.

Yes, at enormous cost, the battle is viewed in Switzerland as kind of their version of Thermopolae. The French Dauphin had planned to invade the Swiss Confederation at that point, hoping to exploit the wedge created by the temporary revolt of the city of Zurich. But after that battle they decided maybe it wasn't such a good idea. Piccolomini described the incident as follows:


...Louis, the Dauphin of Vienne, led almost the whole French army into the territory of Basel and struck great fear into the people of that city. The Swiss, in accordance with a treaty of alliance, sent four thousand soldiers drawn from the pick of their young men to reinforce the city. When the dauphin observed them approaching, he positioned himself with his whole army midway between Basel and the Swiss. The Swiss did not shrink from battle, though they had to fight on foot and could see a line of thirty thousand horsemen stood facing them. Both sides fought with all their strength. Finally, the Swiss, les vanquished than exhausted by victory, paid the penalty for taking on too audacious a task. Except for a handful who escaped by flight, they all lay slaughtered on the field of battle. Nevertheless, few of the Swiss died unavenged. Many who had been pierced with lances slipped through the rain of spears to kill an enemy and exact retribution for their wounds.

Some of those wounds though may have been inflicted by bullets.

The Dauphin's army of mostly Armagnac mercenaries , incidentally, then retreated to the Rhineland in the vicinity of Strasbourg where they hoped to rest through the winter and make a little money looting the smaller towns and villages of the Strasbourg bishopric. But after some abuse by the French soliders the city proceeded to start killing them in sorties and raids until they had to leave after a couple of months of bitter fighting.

I found out about all that while researching Johannes Gutenburg of printing press fame, trying to find out if he had seen action in the Strasbourg militia. He was registered for 'half a horse' in their elite Constafler cavalry society in that same year, but he seems to have left right around the time all the trouble started. Probably a wise move as at least two prominent members of that society (both former Burgomeisters) were killed, one by gunfire, according to the chronicle (bringing us back to our original subject).

Getting back to the image, I think this does hold a key to the perception and reputation of firearms in this era. While crossbows had become acceptable and even popular with both wealthy burghers (who sponsored shooting competitions in the cities) and knights, who liked to use them for hunting, this was after generations of bitter contempt and recrimination against crossbows and their wielders both by the Church and the Princes. The difference, I suspect but don't know for sure, is that crossbows by the late 14th Century seem to have been used increasingly on horseback. Maybe it's because of the new goats-foot or cranequin type winders, which allowed you to span one without a foot stirrup (hard to do from the saddle) or maybe for some other reason.

But firearms of the 14th and 15th Centuries were not convenient to use on horseback. You had to mess around with a lit fuse, put powder in the thing and so on... it wasn't really until the arrival of the wheel-lock and later self-sparking types of carbines and pistols that at least some of the gentry started to appreciate firearms. Until that point they were basically the weapon of low-born peasants and burghers who ruined the day of your friends while they were scaling a siege ladder or worse still, heretics who ventured forth from their cursed domain in deadly scythe armed war-wagons.

I used to have little sympathy for the knightly point of view but now having played Mount and Blade a bit I'm starting to appreciate the joy of warfare from horseback. Hard to go back to plodding through the mud after you've had a few proper wheeling cavalry engagements... not to mention it's nice to be able to run away fast when the going isn't going so well.



G

[Incanur]

Crossbows had been used from horseback earlier too, at least in Iberia (13th century here (http://books.google.com/books?id=dvTyDyt-Ru4C&pg=PA141&dq=%22mounted+crossbowman%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=BDxDVLGyEIWWyQScn4HICg&ved=0CEgQ6AEwBw#v=onepage&q=crossbow&f=false)), but they do seem especially popular in both France and the German areas in the 15th century - especially the later 15th century and even into the early 16th century. It's funny because some still express skepticism about the utility of shooting a crossbow from horseback.

P.S. The linked 13th-century text by James I of Aragon has an account of a windlass-drawn crossbow apparently shot by one man penetrating two shielded foes with a single shot!

P.P.S. If folks thinks crossbows are awkward to use on horseback, they should consider the muskets (!) briefly wielded by some cavalry according Sir John Smythe. He describe such mounted musketeers as have rests attached to their breastplates to support the weight of the musket when firing.

[Mr. Mask]

The Baghdad batteries aren't actually batteries, they're for storing paper scrolls in. We've found dozens and dozens with scrolls in them. The only thing that sets the "batteries" apart is that they were empty when they were found. Do you remember where you heard that? The jars were pretty unusual, so I'd be interested to see findings for why they were designed that way for scrolls. It's also pretty cool whenever we find scrolls that didn't rot to dust.


I suspect that it would be ridiculously inefficient to use electricity as a weapon using ancient technology and that the least silly weaponised version would be something like a room full of primitive batteries hooked up to a metal door latch or something to electrocute the unwary. Even then you'd likely be better off investing in a hidden deadfall trap.Discussing it in the science board, someone is reckoning that using transformers could allow you to make a small amount of volts fierce. Someone who ran a garage reckoned they weren't highly complex devices. So, it might be possible to get a working electric fence, or even something a chariot could carry around.

[Matthew]

I have a question today!

So, crossbows. The Second Lateran Council in 1139 in canon 29 banned the use of crossbows and bows or maybe slings (the text is up for interpretation), but apparently Urban II had earlier banned the crossbow at the Latin Synod of 1097. According to Geraldine Heng in Empire of Magic this was canon 7 of the synod, but according to Robert Somerville (Pope Urban II's Council of Piacenza) only one canon survives from that meeting, and it is not canon 7. It does not appear to be in Gratian's Decretum, and I simply cannot seem to find the source for this anywhere, which is mightily surprising! Does anybody know what the primary source is for this?

[Yora]

Though there probably isn't any real information from the early bronze age and earlier, does anyone know something about nonmetal head protection from later periods? It seems conventional wisdom says that head protection is by far the most important piece of armor, so I would imagine that even cultures who don't produce metal helmets did put something on the heads of warriors.
I've occasionally read that turbans do a quite decent job at protecting against blade cuts, even more so if the wearer has wrapped his long hair around his head below it. Supposedly it even happened that Sikh soldiers in World War 1 picket bullets out of their turbans, but I suspect that were extreme cases where the bullet had already lost much of it's velocity.

[Belkarseviltwin]

Well, boar's-tusk helmets from the 17th to 10th century BCE have been found in Greece, but they would hardly have been normal equipment given that you'd need to kill 40 to 50 boars to get enough tusks to make one:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/43/Boar_tusk_helmet_from_Athens.jpg

[Thiel]

Do you remember where you heard that? The jars were pretty unusual, so I'd be interested to see findings for why they were designed that way for scrolls. It's also pretty cool whenever we find scrolls that didn't rot to dust.
I think I read it in one of the previous incarnations of this thread first. The Wikipedia article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baghdad_Battery) theorizes they could be for storing scrolls as well.
They certainly bear a strong resemblance to the pots the dead sea scrolls came in. (http://www.centuryone.com/dssjar.html)


Discussing it in the science board, someone is reckoning that using transformers could allow you to make a small amount of volts fierce. Someone who ran a garage reckoned they weren't highly complex devices. So, it might be possible to get a working electric fence, or even something a chariot could carry around.

When Mythbuster tested the idea they managed to get about 0.4 volts out of their "replicas".
It's worth mentioning that the copper cylinders were electrically isolated on the real ones. They had to change that to get it to work for obvious reasons.

[Yora]

I didn't know you can combine conspiracy theory with archeology and ancient history, but apparently you can! The truth about the Alexander Mosaic. (http://www.realhistoryww.com/world_history/ancient/Misc/Med/Alexander_mosaic/The_Alexander_Mosaic.htm)

It's like the archeological counterpart to creationism.

[Corenair]

I didn't know you can combine conspiracy theory with archeology and ancient history, but apparently you can! The truth about the Alexander Mosaic. (http://www.realhistoryww.com/world_history/ancient/Misc/Med/Alexander_mosaic/The_Alexander_Mosaic.htm)

It's like the archeological counterpart to creationism.

Confirmation bias at its finest. Spectacular.

[Spiryt]

I didn't know you can combine conspiracy theory with archeology and ancient history, but apparently you can! The truth about the Alexander Mosaic. (http://www.realhistoryww.com/world_history/ancient/Misc/Med/Alexander_mosaic/The_Alexander_Mosaic.htm)


Seriously?

Archaeological and ancient alternative/conspiracy theories are bread and butter. :smallbiggrin: Nephilim!


Anyway, I really like some interesting conspiracy, but this looks rather lame, no idea what the dude(s) is even rambling about.

Persians were black, or what?


Most Radical theory of such 'History Shortening' I've seen was some Russian doctor.

Jesus of Nazareth was supposed to actually be one of Byzantic Emperors somewhere around 1000 AD, forgot details. :smallbiggrin:

[Yora]

Related and an actual armor question: I ended up on the site looking for info about Alexanders armor, and pretty much all the results I got are about how that armor is made from linen. But it really looks like metal scales or splints, and we have an iron armor of the same shape from his fathers tomb.
Is there any reason to assume the armor in the mosaic shows linen instead of metal?
https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/_sYdwsZs0hGE/TVgXkIUBCBI/AAAAAAAAIj4/OtyaUw7lUz4/s640/alexander.mosaic.jpg
Always hard to tell on a photo, but most of the pictures I've seen make it look as if the artist did actually use different shades of stones to make the armor look shiny.

[Honest Tiefling]

Because ancient artists were known for being exact in their depictions of foreigners! Anyone who dared to misrepresent anyone of any nation was flogged! Especially when dealing with Pompeii, which was a city known for holding the arts, education and literature above all else! Also, all ancient artists were maters and never faced the trials of the modern art student (Where they try very hard to represent something only to get told it looks like something else completely).

And as we all know, all empires and nations are populated with identical looking people! That is why America has McDonalds to enforce the rotund body shape that will mark us through history to make it easier for future archaeologists.

[Yora]

I take that as a "No" then?

[Honest Tiefling]

I have no idea--I was more replying to that real history thing, given that they seem to assume no ancient artist ever got drunk or lazy.

[Incanur]

We can only make guesses about history, but while some images of ancient Persians show dark skin, there's also the account of a Persian that Greek soldiers mocked because of his pale, untanned skin. (Tanned skin could be the mark of soldier.) Most likely, some soldiers in ancient Persian armies had lighter skin and others darker. (Persians today show a range of skin tones, and many ancient Persian armies included soldiers from various regions.) So that objection to the mosaic is silly.

Also, while Alexander's armor stands out as quite elaborate, we have tons of depictions of similar Greek armor, most notably featuring the tied-down shoulder pieces. See this book (http://www.amazon.com/Reconstructing-Ancient-Linen-Body-Armor/dp/1421408198) for a review of these sources. It also contains some interesting armor tests, though mainly of glued-linen armor that may or may not have actually existed historically. The tested armor performs decently but wouldn't stop an arrow from reasonably powerful bow (say 100lbs) up close with a period arrowhead. Hardened steel arrowheads, such as those employed at least at times by the English in the 14th, 15th, and 16th centuries, would probably make short work of such armor. But the tested glue-linen armor was also quite light, which is a plus. They tested bronze too, and it performed about like wrought iron according to Alan Williams, but the given thickness, size, and weight of the bronze tested don't match up so something funny may be going on.

[Mr Beer]

Discussing it in the science board, someone is reckoning that using transformers could allow you to make a small amount of volts fierce. Someone who ran a garage reckoned they weren't highly complex devices. So, it might be possible to get a working electric fence, or even something a chariot could carry around.

Building working models of lots of high tech devices in an ancient setting would be possible with modern knowledge so I think if you transported an electrical engineer or whatever back a couple of thousand years yeah I would assume that they could construct something that would generate dangerous amounts of electricity. I guess we end up in an argument about what is legitimate 'ancient tech' then though.

[Mr Beer]

When Mythbuster tested the idea they managed to get about 0.4 volts out of their "replicas".
It's worth mentioning that the copper cylinders were electrically isolated on the real ones. They had to change that to get it to work for obvious reasons.

LOL, I remember them setting up a modern device to the metal statues, tricking Adam into touching it and him storming off in a post-electrocution huff.

[Mr. Mask]

Beer: Well, it's not like we have higher IQs than people of the past. Given time, ability and incentive, they'd also work out the stuff that was worked out later.



I think I read it in one of the previous incarnations of this thread first. The Wikipedia article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baghdad_Battery) theorizes they could be for storing scrolls as well.
They certainly bear a strong resemblance to the pots the dead sea scrolls came in. (http://www.centuryone.com/dssjar.html)
It's worth mentioning that the copper cylinders were electrically isolated on the real ones. They had to change that to get it to work for obvious reasons. Well, yes, the jars have a strong resemblance in being jars. The presence of a specific design infers they might have been used as batteries, but that is still just a theory (and as with most archaeology theories, there are problems). Many designs picked up for replication have encountered small or serious problems, but seem to work surprisingly well with minor modifications (implying a lack of replication ability, or missing information).


When Mythbuster tested the idea they managed to get about 0.4 volts out of their "replicas". AA batteries get about 1.6 volts. Car batteries use 12. As mentioned, the mythbuster's experiment used non-specific alloys, and ignored some of the acids possible in ancient cultures, so they aren't definitive of the battery's potential. If you go into the possibilities of the battery being real, more investment could have resulted in a stronger design over time.



It's like the archeological counterpart to creationism. :smallconfused:

[Thiel]

The presence of a specific design infers they might have been used as batteries, but that is still just a theory (and as with most archaeology theories, there are problems).
Specific design elements such as having the anode and cathode isolated from each other.
You could hydrochloric acid as your electrolyte and it still wouldn't generate any current.


Many designs picked up for replication have encountered small or serious problems, but seem to work surprisingly well with minor modifications (implying a lack of replication ability, or missing information).
More importantly they come at it with a knowledge of how a wet-cell works and what you can use it for.
The ancient Mesopotamians knew neither. And besides, what would they use them for? The most common theory is electroplating, but experiments using period electrolytes required several cells to create the thinnest of platings.


AA batteries get about 1.6 volts. Car batteries use 12. As mentioned, the mythbuster's experiment used non-specific alloys, and ignored some of the acids possible in ancient cultures, so they aren't definitive of the battery's potential. If you go into the possibilities of the battery being real, more investment could have resulted in a stronger design over time.
Possibly, but again the actual design as described wouldn't work as a battery without certain key modifications. And even then we've found nothing to indicate that they used electricity for anything.

[Mr. Mask]

Specific design elements such as having the anode and cathode isolated from each other.
[...]
Possibly, but again the actual design as described wouldn't work as a battery without certain key modifications.

Many designs picked up for replication have encountered small or serious problems, but seem to work surprisingly well with minor modifications (implying a lack of replication ability, or missing information).



More importantly they come at it with a knowledge of how a wet-cell works and what you can use it for.
The ancient Mesopotamians knew neither.

And besides, what would they use them for? The most common theory is electroplating, but experiments using period electrolytes required several cells to create the thinnest of platings. And even then we've found nothing to indicate that they used electricity for anything. Well, that's a decent argument against invention in general. I've no idea how people come up with some of the stuff they did come up with.

Plenty of cultures have made stuff no one had a use for, including today. Some of it becomes major technology, and other things remain curiosities.



You could hydrochloric acid as your electrolyte and it still wouldn't generate any current.

AA batteries get about 1.6 volts. Car batteries use 12. As mentioned, the mythbuster's experiment used non-specific alloys, and ignored some of the acids possible in ancient cultures, so they aren't definitive of the battery's potential. If you go into the possibilities of the battery being real, more investment could have resulted in a stronger design over time.

[Mr Beer]

Beer: Well, it's not like we have higher IQs than people of the past. Given time, ability and incentive, they'd also work out the stuff that was worked out later.

Yeah of course, I've never said otherwise.

[Galloglaich]

Yeah of course, I've never said otherwise.

I thought Leyden jars were used for electroplating gold at some point...?

G

[Kiero]

What kind of iron or steel was used in the production of early mail in antiquity. I'm primarily interested in the Gauls, but any information from that period would be helpful.

At best, low grade steel. It doesn't appear until around 300BC, and is usually attributed to Gauls; the Celts more generally were very skilled in metalwork.

[Zizka]

A question for the experts:

We all know about Far Eastern martial arts and in our lifetime we've seen European martial arts re-discovered, but is there much on the martial arts of the Near East? I've heard of training for the cavalry (like the Turkish cavalry games which are still played) and of formation drill (especially for the likes of the Janissaries) but not so much about training for individual combat. Was there anything like the fightbooks, fencing organisations, professional teachers of Europe etc. ?

[Yora]

At best, low grade steel. It doesn't appear until around 300BC, and is usually attributed to Gauls; the Celts more generally were very skilled in metalwork.
So iron mail alongside bronze swords wouldn't be too out of place? Assuming bronze production gradually becomes insufficient to meet metal demands, instead of a sudden collapse of the bronze industry.

[Kiero]

So iron mail alongside bronze swords wouldn't be too out of place? Assuming bronze production gradually becomes insufficient to meet metal demands, instead of a sudden collapse of the bronze industry.

If we're talking real world, for the most part by 300BC, weapons were made out of iron/low grade steel. There'd still be some surviving bronze weapons (possibly the most finely crafted or expensive ones), but by this time the replacement of bronze with iron, for weapons, had already happened.

Armour is a different matter entirely, bronze was still a perfectly good choice for making armour plates out of. It was just less optimal than cheap, widely-available iron/steel for armaments.

[Brother Oni]

I have a question today!

So, crossbows. The Second Lateran Council in 1139 in canon 29 banned the use of crossbows and bows or maybe slings (the text is up for interpretation), but apparently Urban II had earlier banned the crossbow at the Latin Synod of 1097. According to Geraldine Heng in Empire of Magic this was canon 7 of the synod, but according to Robert Somerville (Pope Urban II's Council of Piacenza) only one canon survives from that meeting, and it is not canon 7. It does not appear to be in Gratian's Decretum, and I simply cannot seem to find the source for this anywhere, which is mightily surprising! Does anybody know what the primary source is for this?

I've had a look but I can't find anything aside from what you've already mentioned already sorry.

JSTOR and contacting the Vatican directly may be your best options.


A question for the experts:

We all know about Far Eastern martial arts and in our lifetime we've seen European martial arts re-discovered, but is there much on the martial arts of the Near East? I've heard of training for the cavalry (like the Turkish cavalry games which are still played) and of formation drill (especially for the likes of the Janissaries) but not so much about training for individual combat. Was there anything like the fightbooks, fencing organisations, professional teachers of Europe etc. ?

Stretching Near East a bit, I know of Gatka (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gatka), an Indian martial art practiced by the Sikhs and others in the Punjab region and wiki says there's a fair few more.
Given the history of it, I would expect old texts to be abound and the wiki page of the history of Indian martial arts (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_martial_arts) agrees with me.

Aside from that, I know of a number of Muslim texts on archery, but that's it. I would expect that given the opposition the Crusaders had, there would be indeed schools of combat styles, but it's outside my field of knowledge.

[Mr. Mask]

Warhorses is plate barding have always seemed interesting to me. However, despite some lovely pieces kept in museums, you don't often hear about it in historical cases. Often unarmoured, often lightly armoured, I have trouble bringing to mind a few good cases that involved very heavily armoured cavalry. Anyone able to recall an interesting case?


Kiero, Yora: The Chinese had tempered steel a little earlier, I think. Around 400BC. There might have been some other findings of quality iron from the ancient civilizations, but I can't recall.

[Yora]

It's entirely for fictional purposes. But would it be plausible to have low-quality steel that is good enough for mail armor, arrow heads, and perhaps working knives, but people prefering to use bronze for weapons. From all I've heard and read, steel that is noticably better than bronze arrives fairly late and the main reason that people did use iron weapons was because bronze just wasn't available in sufficient quantities anymore.
But steel appears to be a significantly better material for mail armor than bronze, so I think it's not unfeasable that someone would invent iron mail even while bronze is still readily available for weapons and breastplates.

[Incanur]

As far as plate barding goes, Raimond de Fourquevaux - an experienced commander, as I always note - considered it essential for men-at-arms. He wanted as full plate barding as possible for his ideal men-at-arms. However, he also mentioned that this diverged from common practice. Various later 16th-century sources mention plate barding as well, so it apparently saw limited use even in that period. At that time steel head protection for the horse seems most common, with breast barding less so and neck barding less still. (Fourquevaux wanted everything.) You see plate barding for men-at-arms in various surviving 15th- and 16th-century images. Plate barding saw at least some use as far east as Poland. Based on all these sources, I suspect at least some men-at-arms had significant plate barding in most or all of major heavy-cavalry actions roughly 1450-1550. Verneuil 1424 would be an iconic early example of plate barding in the field. I'm not sure about the primary sources for it, but a common account is that the armor and barding of Lombard cavalry made them extremely resistant to English arrows there, and they charged through English lines successfully even if their side ended up losing the battle.

This is basically what Fourquevaux wanted:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f2/Gendarmes.jpg

[Lilapop]

A question for the experts:

We all know about Far Eastern martial arts and in our lifetime we've seen European martial arts re-discovered, but is there much on the martial arts of the Near East? I've heard of training for the cavalry (like the Turkish cavalry games which are still played) and of formation drill (especially for the likes of the Janissaries) but not so much about training for individual combat. Was there anything like the fightbooks, fencing organisations, professional teachers of Europe etc. ?

There is this guy: http://www.moshtaghkhorasani.com/razmafzar/fields-of-razmafzar/swordsmanship/
His teachings seem to be based on depictions and descriptions of techniques in contemporary epics and chronicles, not dedicated fencing handbooks. However, apparently those same techniques come up in the same way over many centuries, so they might be more than just one writer's imagination. They also have quite a few parallels to European as well as Indian stuff - at least thats the impression im getting.

[Galloglaich]

Galloglaich: I found something that might be useful in answering your questions regarding Continental Europe: link (http://www.iisg.nl/hpw/data.php#europe).

It's an economy site with historical information, some of which is covering your desired periods. It's a bit macro-economics (one file I looked at had nearly 400 years worth of data on the price of bread, grains, silver and beer), but it's all sourced.

There are a number of other links to sites with more specialised information, but wrestling information out their queries looks akin to getting blood out of a stone, and I get enough of that in my day job, sorry. :smalltongue:

Brother Oni, thanks very much, this and the other links you and some other folks posted will help me with what I was hoping to do, much appreciated.


Regarding horse barding, I agree with Incannur on this, we could quibble on the dates (and different regions) but very generally speaking, there seems to be a period of widespread use of plate armored barding on horses for the most elite of the heavy cavalry from some point in the 15th Century to some point in the 16th (you could also say roughly corresponding to the heyday of personal body armor in Europe), it seems to have gone out of favor by the 17th. It wasn't often shown in paintings, for I think artistic reasons, so you don't see it depicted that often in period art. Another famous depiction where you can see it clearly is from the famous painting of the Battle of Orsha between Poland and Moscow in the early 16th Century, which is very interesting for the study of warfare in this period as it also shows distinctive costumes and kit of several other unique troop types of the time, including Hungarian Hussars and Muscovite Druzhina and even some (probably Czech) war wagons if you look closely enough.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Orsha#mediaviewer/File:Krell_Battle_of_Orsha_01.jpg

The Hungarian hussars are particularly distinctive with their top-hats and their strange shields.

The use of heavy barding is really pretty necessary for the type of close fighting by the cavalry that was common in this period (exactly of the very brutal type you see shown in that painting), especially when you had relatively small armies of very highly trained cavalry that are hard to replace (both the horse and the rider). The horse was obviously extremely vulnerable both to other cavalry and infantry when close up, and to gun and bow and other missile shots as well.

In a typical 'lance' cavalry formation, the main rider - the knight or man at arms, would have full body armor and ride an armored horse. He would be attended by some number of lancers, mounted crossbowmen and servants - the specific number varied by region but in Germany 1 knight, 3 lancers, 2 crossbowmen and a valet were typical- who (except for the servant) were armored but did not ride armored horses.

We suspect some kinds of barding were used much earlier than the 15th Century but it's elusive in the records and even more so in the art. Certainly horse coverings were common and some kind of textile protection was common, we also see iron and leather head coverings and chest collars (vital for defense against a lance or spear strike during a charge). Some type of textile armor for horses was probably common, lamellar of various materials (including iron, bronze, leather, and other animal hides) was common in Eastern Europe and Central Asia.

I think later cavalry shifted from mixing it up in close quarters in a sustained manner and returned to a more traditional role of hitting and running, and emphasizing attack against unsuspecting targets. The high speed of the horse allows individuals and groups of cavalry to pick the optimal time and place to attack and to avoid contact until they can find that optimal situation - optimal often means the other guy is looking the other way, running for his life, or is in some other way distracted, and the ideal attack is one lance strike or saber slice and then - away! away!

G

[Kiero]

Warhorses is plate barding have always seemed interesting to me. However, despite some lovely pieces kept in museums, you don't often hear about it in historical cases. Often unarmoured, often lightly armoured, I have trouble bringing to mind a few good cases that involved very heavily armoured cavalry. Anyone able to recall an interesting case?

There's plenty of super-heavy cavalry in the Hellenistic era, Persian/Sarmatian/Parthian/Saka cataphracts, Armenian Kinsmen cavalry and so on. Mostly eastern in origin. Barding was usually leather-backed scale for the most part.


A question for the experts:

We all know about Far Eastern martial arts and in our lifetime we've seen European martial arts re-discovered, but is there much on the martial arts of the Near East? I've heard of training for the cavalry (like the Turkish cavalry games which are still played) and of formation drill (especially for the likes of the Janissaries) but not so much about training for individual combat. Was there anything like the fightbooks, fencing organisations, professional teachers of Europe etc. ?

Pankration (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pankration)was practised in Greek communities in the Near East since the time of the first Olympics (or perhaps before); it was deemed a necessary part of a professional soldier's training. Though I'd be wary of anyone trying to draw a direct line of succession from then to the present day.

[Spiryt]

I read compelling argument for the fact that extensive barding visible in Battle of Orsha painting is indeed likely exaggerated/impossible.

I will try to find the text, but basically many sources repeatedly kept mentioning how gift from Emperor to Polish King or vice versa sometimes involved like, literally, 2 bearded horses, and it still was supposed to be Keiserish gift indeed.

Perhaps some 'first in line' whose chances of getting shot at, or ramming into spear would be very close to 100% would indeed casually wear extensive barding.

They would have to be very rich and have proper logistics behind it likely.


Muscovite Druzhina

In 16th century it would be no longer 'druzhina' as far as I know. It was pretty much term for pre-feudal bands of warriors grouped around some biggest sob around.

[Galloglaich]

I read compelling argument for the fact that extensive barding visible in Battle of Orsha painting is indeed likely exaggerated/impossible.

I will try to find the text, but basically many sources repeatedly kept mentioning how gift from Emperor to Polish King or vice versa sometimes involved like, literally, 2 bearded horses, and it still was supposed to be Keiserish gift indeed.

Perhaps some 'first in line' whose chances of getting shot at, or ramming into spear would be very close to 100% would indeed casually wear extensive barding.

They would have to be very rich and have proper logistics behind it likely.

It may not have been common for all of Poland but I know for a fact it was routinely part of the kit for the 'lead' horse in a lance for Prussia which by that point was at least nominally part of Poland would (probably) have contributed forces to that battle (though I don't know for sure). The cities like Krakow also committed a small number of lances based around a knight / Constafler on an armored horse. That doesn't mean that there were a lot of them, you only see a few dozen in the painting, generally, the number of lances in these battles was quite low, though again I don't know the exact breakdown for the Battle of Orsha. Most cavalry was of a lighter type.


In 16th century it would be no longer 'druzhina' as far as I know. It was pretty much term for pre-feudal bands of warriors grouped around some biggest sob around.

It's a very different animal from the original type of the Kievan Rus but that is still what they were called, elite household troops, administrators and couriers of the various Muscovite princes, armed in distinctive style as you see in that painting. Armored but not as heavily as Latin (including Polish) knights and wielding both lance and bow. According to the (pretty sparse) wiki "The druzhina organization varied with time and survived in one form or another until the 16th century" eventually by the time of Ivan IV certainly, the Streltzi replaced the druzhina in importance.

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

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


Regarding the earlier armored horses and horsemen, yes all that heavy cavalry originates basically in Persia and Central Asia. You can see Persian (Parthian or Sassanid) Cataphracti from the 6th Century who look just like French knights from the 13th Century - except the armor is more lamellar type.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clibanarii#mediaviewer/File:Knight-Iran.JPG

G

[Kiero]

Regarding the earlier armored horses and horsemen, yes all that heavy cavalry originates basically in Persia and Central Asia. You can see Persian (Parthian or Sassanid) Cataphracti from the 6th Century who look just like French knights from the 13th Century - except the armor is more lamellar type.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clibanarii#mediaviewer/File:Knight-Iran.JPG

G

Agree on region, but it goes back much earlier than 6th century AD (to at least 3rd century BC if not earlier). Lamellar or scale are the usual types.

[Spiryt]

It's a very different animal from the original type of the Kievan Rus but that is still what they were called, elite household troops, administrators and couriers of the various Muscovite princes, armed in distinctive style as you see in that painting. Armored but not as heavily as Latin (including Polish) knights and wielding both lance and bow. According to the (pretty sparse) wiki "The druzhina organization varied with time and survived in one form or another until the 16th century" eventually by the time of Ivan IV certainly, the Streltzi replaced the druzhina in importance.



Perhaps the name was still in use a bit, but mostly it would be anachronistic.

Most of those guys pictures would be boyars. Or 'childern boyars/boyar's children" - (Дети боярские)

Boyars would be somehow 'standard' feudal landowners, owning a land and thus serving in army.

"Children" would be names for courtiers of both cars/other high aristocrats and common boyars.

So more dependent people that apparently could receive land for their military services, but only for life. Leaving them to their children would require a lot of politics, and it was very important power game in the Rus of 16th/17th century.

They would likely form majority of forces, though major amount of random vagabonds etc. could be expected to form boyar retinues as well.

[Galloglaich]

Perhaps the name was still in use a bit, but mostly it would be anachronistic.

Most of those guys pictures would be boyars. Or 'childern boyars/boyar's children" - (Дети боярские)

Boyars would be somehow 'standard' feudal landowners, owning a land and thus serving in army.

"Children" would be names for courtiers of both cars/other high aristocrats and common boyars.

So more dependent people that apparently could receive land for their military services, but only for life. Leaving them to their children would require a lot of politics, and it was very important power game in the Rus of 16th/17th century.

They would likely form majority of forces, though major amount of random vagabonds etc. could be expected to form boyar retinues as well.

My understanding was that as Moscow, and the lesser Russian and Ruthenian city-states in her control, became more centralized in the 15th Century, the Druhzina became a sort of warrior / courtier / administrator class (somewhat analogous to ministeriales in the West) who had a higher position socially than most of the Boyars and authority over them as an exponent of the will of the Grand Duke, also expressed by a senior position on the battlefield. This built up tension between the Grand Duke and his Druzhina and the Boyars, until the era of Ivan Grozni in the mid 16th Century when the oprichnina was reorganizd, with the more infantry and gun- oriented Streltzy taking the place of the quasi-feudal Druzhina, and the role shifting from courtier / administrator / warrior to police / administrator / soldier.

On the practical level for Moscow it's an elite of armored horseman with lance / bow / saber shifting to infantry with musket / bardiche / saber.

The other Russian city-states had similar but different organizations, particularly Novgorod, Tver and Pskov.

But having said all that I'm definitely not an expert on Russia, I'm still trying to make sense of it's history during the brutal and wild Mongol period of 1230's-1570's, starting from the military kit and gradually moving inward to the mares nest of politics and economics. Speaking of which, one interesting side note, the fantastic Muscovite victory at the Battle of Molodi (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Molodi) in 1572, which arguably broke the impetus of Mongol invasions into Russia for good (and set the shift in momentum toward the gradual Russian conquest of Central Asia), was won partly by the use of war-wagons (gulyay-gorod) by the Russians.

G

[Galloglaich]

A professor friend just sent me another good website with a lot of data on medieval prices and wages

http://www.economics.utoronto.ca/wwwfiles/archives/munro5/ResearchData.html

G

[Mr. Mask]

Thanks for all the good information on the subject, guys! Thanks for the pictures as well. There are some really amazing paintings from the old world.