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

[Gnoman]

note, however, that a welsh longbow has enough power to pretty much make a mockery of any bronze age armour.

My assumption was that using bronze arrowheads instead of the steel used in the medieval times where the longbow became famous would offset this. The longbow was around in Roman times (and earlier), but I'm aware of no sources from that era making a big deal out of the weapon, which Rome would certainly have encountered when they invaded the British Isles.

As for your second point, I was envisioning much heavier armor, involving a long, heavy scale coat, greaves, a helmet and throat protection, much as Goliath is described as wearing.

EDIT: Didn't see the other reply


I see quite a few problems to consider here:

- if guys under fire are 'armored' then why they really even bother much with shielding themselves from this indirect fire? It's not going to do much against moving targets, falling mostly on surely armored top of the head and shoulders.
Or are only first ranks 'armored'.

The armor isn't perfect. There's going to be gaps in coverage, and enough arrows raining down will probably cause casualties. More importantly, these are fairly inexperienced troops (as mentioned), and their "missile attack" response was designed to counter more dangerous weapons such as sling bullets as much as it was arrows. They simply implemented it automatically when the fire started.


- why would it be necessary to really 'reorganize formation much'?
Something like roman testudo, was, for all we know mostly siege thing. Way simpler operation of standing aside, as often described in sources, to rise the shield comfortably, wouldn't take much time at all.

They're closing to melee range against an enemy that outnumbers them five or six (haven't decided yet) to one, and is overflowing with wrath. They NEED a solid unbroken shield-and-spear wall to break the peasants or they risk being broken up and destroyed, and losses to the second wave of archers will open those potentially fatal gaps. Not to mention that the shock at "those insects" actually hurting them will cause a lot of disarray by itself.

[Spiryt]

n, which Rome would certainly have encountered when they invaded the British Isles.


When Rome was invading the Isles, the Celtic tribes living in there wouldn't be very 'big' on bows, for all we know.

Actual 'english bow' as we know it is much later ~13th century thing.

It would indeed be 'known' as much as the heavy draw selfbow isn't exactly powder, and would be used since the prehistory, but that's it.



As for your second point, I was envisioning much heavier armor, involving a long, heavy scale coat, greaves, a helmet and throat protection, much as Goliath is described as wearing.


The armor isn't perfect. There's going to be gaps in coverage, and enough arrows raining down will probably cause casualties. More importantly, these are fairly inexperienced troops (as mentioned), and their "missile attack" response was designed to counter more dangerous weapons such as sling bullets as much as it was arrows. They simply implemented it automatically when the fire started.


Those 2 don't stack too well - I'm really not sure how much 'gaps in coverage' for arrow traveling at very steep angle can there be in bronze scale particularly with throat protection...



They're closing to melee range against an enemy that outnumbers them five or six (haven't decided yet) to one, and is overflowing with wrath. They NEED a solid unbroken shield-and-spear wall to break the peasants or they risk being broken up and destroyed, and losses to the second wave of archers will open those potentially fatal gaps. Not to mention that the shock at "those insects" actually hurting them will cause a lot of disarray by itself.

But that's again, contradictory - actual specific 'anti arrow' formation would be in fact quite suicidal in melee.

If they really, actually won't to close in in melee, then there's really no point in any time consuming maneuvers.

Just brace the solid lines and advance.

Arrows shot with 'indirect fire' will have laughable levels of accuracy to even greater degree.

For more than 10 seconds it will take them to actually fall down, the soldiers will be already completely somewhere else.

Such fire would really need stationary target to try it.




I think that with such advantage in numbers, of archers in particular, they should just try to utilize it to the max.

So outflank, outmaneuver them as much as terrain and enemy allows, to lose arrows from different angles, limiting defense and ability to engage the shooters.

Like English 'V' shaped battalions of archers in many battles against Scots, for example, shooting the flanks of incoming fighters.

Oh, and in the first place, it would of course be necessary to allow that many archers shoot roughly efficiently at the same time.

[GraaEminense]

Another issue is for several thousand "direct" archers to remain hidden within 100 yards of thousands of soldiers until the "indirect" archers have done their thing. Not impossible, but would require iron discipline and very good terrain. Hidden, covered ditches perhaps.

[Gnoman]

Another issue is for several thousand "direct" archers to remain hidden within 100 yards of thousands of soldiers until the "indirect" archers have done their thing. Not impossible, but would require iron discipline and very good terrain. Hidden, covered ditches perhaps.

They're mixed into the second ranks, behind guys with staffs and pitchforks-turned-into-spears. Without careful observation, they look like more of the same.


@Spiryt

There's no "anti arrow formation". They're marching up to the line, arrows start raining down, and they raise their shields to block them while still marching. All that is needed for them to enter melee combat is to simply lower their shields. The sudden attack of direct arrow fire opens holes in their line, meaning they have to reform before they charge in.

[Spiryt]

There's no "anti arrow formation". They're marching up to the line, arrows start raining down, and they raise their shields to block them while still marching. All that is needed for them to enter melee combat is to simply lower their shields. The sudden attack of direct arrow fire opens holes in their line, meaning they have to reform before they charge in.

Well, then the catch here is that it really just takes a flick of the arm to protect their 'front' again. Certainly less time for some archers to walk forward, draw a bow, aim at least a bit, and then arrow must reach them.

Even if they carry them really high indeed.


[QUOTE=Gnoman;18977901]They're mixed into the second ranks, behind guys with staffs and pitchforks-turned-into-spears. Without careful observation, they look like more of the same.


Well, such maneuver would obviously lead to disruption in their line too, though. And would likely allow rather low 'density' of arrows anyway.

"Indirect fire' guys are shooting somewhere from behind?

Can they guarantee no friendly fire?

[Gnoman]

Well, then the catch here is that it really just takes a flick of the arm to protect their 'front' again. Certainly less time for some archers to walk forward, draw a bow, aim at least a bit, and then arrow must reach them.

Even if they carry them really high indeed.

The way I envision it happening, they wouldn't realize what had happened until the first volley of arrows was in flight, mistaking the movement in the peasant lines for large numbers of men and women breaking in terror at their implacable march. After that they'll reorganize fairly quickly after the initial shock dissipates.



"Indirect fire' guys are shooting somewhere from behind?

Can they guarantee no friendly fire?

Can they guarantee no friendly fire? No. Do they care? No. All they care about is getting some blood on their weapons, and they're far too angry (both over the murdered village and the pent up resentment and hatred of generations of oppression) to care how much it costs them to spill that blood. I designed the setup so that, even with this trick and a few others I'm on firmer ground with, the peasants would be wiped out in the end had The Cavalry not shown up, unlooked for.

[Carl]

the peasants would be wiped out in the end had The Cavalry not shown up, unlooked for.

One of the more basic rules of warfare. "Do what your enemy knows you cannot do, be where your enemy knows you cannot be"

[Roetroc]

Do armoured masks have any intrinsic properties related to their design, compared to full face helms/helmets? Like, will the heaviest armoured mask come out ahead or behind the heaviest full face helm/helmet? Or will a good armoured mask be more expensive than a good full face helm/helmet, due to requiring closer fitting? Was there a reason a culture might favour masks over helms, or vice versa?

A full face mask it more protective but a close fitting helm does cause breathing issues especially if you are fighting on foot. Something to do with the build up with of carbon dioxide triggering some kind of reaction in your body. These are thus only worn when actually going into combat. My German style sallet, for example has a hinged visor and the accompanying bevor is also hinged to allow it to be swung into place. There are historical accounts of people lifting their visors for a better look/breather and being hit in the face by arrows etc.

A spangen helm such as worn by an Viking/AS warrior was open faced (apart from a nasal) which makes it easier to breath, and very importantly, see.

Face masks such as those worn by samurai/bushi also served as a purpose of giving a warlike impression. It has been offered that the bushy moustaches of menpo are meant to give the impression of an older, experienced warrior (ie one good enough to have fought a number of battles and be skilled enough to survive those same battles. Mind you the same moustached mask might be hiding a teenager or a girl.

Or some kind of mechanical armature controlled by a super intelligent bunny.

[Mr. Mask]

Roetroc: Thanks Roetroc. I think there might've been a Japanese war mask that looked like a bunny, come to think of it. Coincidence? Yes, definitely.


Gnoman: Sorry to add more criticism, but I'll do my best to answer.

Bandits: Fighting bandits could be great practice, depending on the bandits. They're often tough people, and you need to learn to be alert against ambushes and the like. If you mean they're known for stringing up petty criminals, that doesn't make such good practice.

Arrow Clout: I think Spiryt is underestimating the effects of indirect fire on troops. If your troops have shields, that means they aren't depending on their armour to stop all threats, like plate armour, that the shield is a big part of their armour. The arrows aren't falling down at a uniform angle, everyone is aiming a little different, bows are a bit random in their loosing, and stuff like wind and other factors will lead to them coming from different placements and angles. This means you're not worrying about the arrow that strikes your helmet at the correct angle for it to bounce off, you're worried about the one that happens to be aimed just right to stab into your mouth and jaw. And even the one that glances off your helmet may be disorientating and unpleasant, with heavy arrows. It's the kind of thing that makes inexperienced soldiers hit the dirt and look for cover, or at least slow and disorganize their movements, while experienced ones will respond appropriately with little loss in cohesion or the like.

Surprise direct fire: Being shot at from a formation isn't a big surprise. The troops will already be eyeing the enemy line nervously as they close in. At fifty yards, a few arrows may hit before the infantry realize, but they'll get their shields down soon after that. The couple of front ranks will need to keep their shields down, but the rest can keep them raised against volley fire and high direct shots.

Army and Village Size: Is the army surrounding the village? If so, there are a few tactics you can try, like harrying one line more tan the others, so they don't close in as a unified whole. This may also effect the details of the hero's surprise attack. I was thinking an army against one village sounded like a lot, though. To have many thousands of peasants, the rebels would be an alliance of many villages, and possibly some towns, so there will need to be a reason they choose that location as a last stand--like they were defeated and chased into it, rather than going there intentionally. If they did pick it intentionally, it will probably have great terrain advantages, and be made into a fortress, have some sort of strategic placement in the kingdom, and will be stocked with food to last (or it may just be poorly thought out on the peasants' part). The food to last mightn't be true, they mightn't have expected their HQ to be so quickly discovered.

Village Fighting: Note that if the fighting is in a village, the defenders will probably be making use of the buildings as cover and the like. And the attackers will be trying to set fire to stuff. If the defenders prepared that spot, it'll look more like a makeshift fortress than a village, and it'll be hard to keep formation at all while climbing over thing and whatnot.

[Brother Oni]

A full face mask it more protective but a close fitting helm does cause breathing issues especially if you are fighting on foot. Something to do with the build up with of carbon dioxide triggering some kind of reaction in your body.

The trigger for inspiration (the intake of breath) is based off the acidity of blood, which is affected by the dissolved carbon dioxide content. The more carbon dioxide you have in your blood stream, the faster your breathing.


Roetroc: Thanks Roetroc. I think there might've been a Japanese war mask that looked like a bunny, come to think of it. Coincidence? Yes, definitely.

Well a bunny to us, not to the Japanese.

Bear in mind that where we see a face in the moon, they see a rabbit pounding mochi.

[snowblizz]

they see a rabbit pounding mochi.
I am soooo hoping that that is supposed to be "dirty".

[Roetroc]

Mr Mask: Well I don't know about actual bunnies but there were (Edo period?) armours that were made to look like bird faces (you looked out of the open mouth). One type of tengu had bird heads and tengu were known to be fantastic swordsman.

CO2: What Oni said.

[Mr. Mask]

Oni: On the subject, what is your favourite example of Japanese war masks?


Snow: It's rice.


Roetroc: I always preferred the bird tengu masks to the red long-nosed tengu masks.

[Carl]

@Snow: Just because Japan has a certain, ahem, reputation these days doesn't mean they've always been like that:tongue:.

[Gnoman]

Army and Village Size: Is the army surrounding the village? If so, there are a few tactics you can try, like harrying one line more tan the others, so they don't close in as a unified whole. This may also effect the details of the hero's surprise attack. I was thinking an army against one village sounded like a lot, though. To have many thousands of peasants, the rebels would be an alliance of many villages, and possibly some towns, so there will need to be a reason they choose that location as a last stand--like they were defeated and chased into it, rather than going there intentionally. If they did pick it intentionally, it will probably have great terrain advantages, and be made into a fortress, have some sort of strategic placement in the kingdom, and will be stocked with food to last (or it may just be poorly thought out on the peasants' part). The food to last mightn't be true, they mightn't have expected their HQ to be so quickly discovered.

Village Fighting: Note that if the fighting is in a village, the defenders will probably be making use of the buildings as cover and the like. And the attackers will be trying to set fire to stuff. If the defenders prepared that spot, it'll look more like a makeshift fortress than a village, and it'll be hard to keep formation at all while climbing over thing and whatnot.

There's no village any more. The buildings were razed, the fields were salted, and every man, woman, and child that was there at the time was impaled in a field, all because an ambitious major-equivalent found out that a pair of travellers that recently passed through were linked with a "bandit" group (actually a guerilla force that that had started raiding supply caravans in the area to feed a large population of refugees in the woods, which became The Cavalry that swoops in at the end of the battle) that had embarrased him. This was enough of an outrage -as a capstone to generations of lesser abuses- that every town, village, and farm in the general region rose in rebellion, and gathered at that field, as it was the focal point of their anger.

[Brother Oni]

I am soooo hoping that that is supposed to be "dirty".

Mochi pounding (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KnJXv01HPpU). It's a snack/sweet made from rice.

I suppose it could be made dirty in the same way that anything can be made dirty with enough innuendo and eyebrow waggling. :smalltongue:


Oni: On the subject, what is your favourite example of Japanese war masks?

I like the half face mempo as the kabuto adds to the effect, making the extra coverage of the somen somewhat superfluous. If you want good examples, there's nothing wrong with the famous classics:

http://www.katana-samurai-sword.com/images/Takeda%20Shingen%20Kabuto%20and%20Mempo%20Hanwei%2 02.jpg
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e6/Uesugi_Kenshin%27s_armor.jpg
http://www.oriental-weaponry.co.uk/acatalog/HW2083Close-oda-nobunaga-helmet.jpg

I'm not a big fan of this one, but he was a well respected daimyo and my son was given a model set of this armour for his Boy's Day:
http://www.katana-samurai-sword.com/images/Date%20Masamune%20Helmet,AH2088,01.jpg

Now masks in general, unsurprisingly I like the oni based ones. :smalltongue:
Some of these have been adapted to mempo (look for the ones with big teeth), but I can't find a decent picture of one with a kabuto.

https://nohmask21.com/image2jpg/daikijin01f.jpg

https://nohmask21.com/hannya3/samuraihannya4.jpg

To be honest though, the winner of the creepiest mask award goes to the female Noh masks in my opinion:

https://nohmask21.com/onnakei/oumionna1.jpg


@Snow: Just because Japan has a certain, ahem, reputation these days doesn't mean they've always been like that:tongue:.

Looking back at the various erotic woodblock printings (shunga) from the Edo period, the Japanese have been like that for a while. Even tentacles got involved at an early period - look up "The Dream of the Fisherman's Wife".

I blame Mr Mask for me knowing this as he asked about Japanese art a while ago and I stumbled upon them in my research. :smalltongue:

[Galloglaich]

There's no village any more. The buildings were razed, the fields were salted, and every man, woman, and child that was there at the time was impaled in a field, all because an ambitious major-equivalent found out that a pair of travellers that recently passed through were linked with a "bandit" group (actually a guerilla force that that had started raiding supply caravans in the area to feed a large population of refugees in the woods, which became The Cavalry that swoops in at the end of the battle) that had embarrased him. This was enough of an outrage -as a capstone to generations of lesser abuses- that every town, village, and farm in the general region rose in rebellion, and gathered at that field, as it was the focal point of their anger.

Few points...

First, I don't think your battle description is so crazy, this is what the Romans faced against both the Huns and the Parthians - shooting descending area shots to get the shields up and then direct shots to hit them in their exposed bodies.

Second, this sounds like a really large army, depending on what era you are talking about. 10,000 was a national army of an entire kingdom in some cases. 30,000 people is big army by medieval standards, and the size of a pretty large city in most of the pre-industrial era, (certainly during Medieval times at any rate), though back in the Classical period you did have some much larger cities and bigger armies.

G

[Kiero]

Few points...

First, I don't think your battle description is so crazy, this is what the Romans faced against both the Huns and the Parthians - shooting descending area shots to get the shields up and then direct shots to hit them in their exposed bodies.

Second, this sounds like a really large army, depending on what era you are talking about. 10,000 was a national army of an entire kingdom in some cases. 30,000 people is big army by medieval standards, and the size of a pretty large city in most of the pre-industrial era, (certainly during Medieval times at any rate), though back in the Classical period you did have some much larger cities and bigger armies.

G

Most of the analysis, for example of Carrhae, suggests it wasn't the arrows that did much harm. They were greatly fatiguing and demoralising, but an armoured legionary holding up their shield wasn't in much danger from arrows. What they were in danger of was being exhausted by staying on station, in the hot sun and arid air, for an entire day. The horse archers wore them out, then the cataphracts finished them.

On size, 25,000 was a regular-sized army for the Hellenistic and Roman powers. 50,000 wasn't unheard of, though Roman generals considered it an unwieldy size (and difficult to supply).

[Gnoman]

Few points...

First, I don't think your battle description is so crazy, this is what the Romans faced against both the Huns and the Parthians - shooting descending area shots to get the shields up and then direct shots to hit them in their exposed bodies.

Second, this sounds like a really large army, depending on what era you are talking about. 10,000 was a national army of an entire kingdom in some cases. 30,000 people is big army by medieval standards, and the size of a pretty large city in most of the pre-industrial era, (certainly during Medieval times at any rate), though back in the Classical period you did have some much larger cities and bigger armies.

G

At this stage in the world's history, I felt that classical sources were the better inspiration. It's not that far off of the standing army of Rome at the time of the Second Punic War, and much smaller than the post-Marian standing army under Agustus, so I don't think it's too outlandish for a sector army of a continent (technically global, but most of the land outside the main Eurasia-sized continent isn't important)-spanning empire. Smashing it gives the victors between six months and a year before another army can be assembled to send against them, so it's intended to be a massive chunk of manpower.

[Mr. Mask]

Gnoman: Fair enough. It seems like the scenario works out well enough.



Looking back at the various erotic woodblock printings (shunga) from the Edo period, the Japanese have been like that for a while. Even tentacles got involved at an early period - look up "The Dream of the Fisherman's Wife".

I blame Mr Mask for me knowing this as he asked about Japanese art a while ago and I stumbled upon them in my research. :smalltongue: Shudo also comes to mind.

My apologies for causing you such grievous calamity. orz


Good examples of masks, by the way.

[Brother Oni]

My apologies for causing you such grievous calamity. orz


I'm not sure my wife believed me when I said it was for research purposes. :smalltongue:

[Mr. Mask]

It keeps getting worse and worse :smallbiggrin:! Sorry for the trouble, thanks for helping me with that. If that game project makes headway, I may need to ask for help again.



Anyone know much about acoustic weapons? Ultrasound, subsonic, etc.. I was wondering how possible it'd be to get them into rifle form. I was also wondering about their effectiveness underwater.

I heard there was some success with sonic shock weapons in testing, with the problem that they tended to result in friendly fire. And that while they might be more effective underwater, this problem would get worse.

[Galloglaich]

Most of the analysis, for example of Carrhae, suggests it wasn't the arrows that did much harm. They were greatly fatiguing and demoralising, but an armoured legionary holding up their shield wasn't in much danger from arrows. What they were in danger of was being exhausted by staying on station, in the hot sun and arid air, for an entire day. The horse archers wore them out, then the cataphracts finished them.

I think this is a gross oversimplification but I was not referring only to Carrhae. This was a fairly common tactic used with success against the Romans not only by the Parthians, but also by the Huns, and later the proto-Turks and many others.



On size, 25,000 was a regular-sized army for the Hellenistic and Roman powers. 50,000 wasn't unheard of, though Roman generals considered it an unwieldy size (and difficult to supply).

Yes, it wasn't that unusual for a medieval army either, but over a single village? That is a pretty big army in any era.

G

[Mr. Mask]

Anyone think there's a future in explosive bullets, particularly in smaller calibres? A discussion board reckoned that hollow point rounds were cheaper and more effective.

[cobaltstarfire]

Anyone think there's a future in explosive bullets, particularly in smaller calibres? A discussion board reckoned that hollow point rounds were cheaper and more effective.

There are conventions against using hollow point bullets in warfare, so I imagine that if explosive bullets become a thing conventions will become quickly made to ban those in warfare as well.

Dunno about other uses, police use hallow point, so maybe they'd use explosive ones too if they became a thing. (I have no idea if they are doable at all)

[Mike_G]

Anyone think there's a future in explosive bullets, particularly in smaller calibres? A discussion board reckoned that hollow point rounds were cheaper and more effective.

They've been tried in the past, but never
widely adopted.,

Here is a video of 7.62 explosive incendiary ammo.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6SG0XoAWY70

In general, military shooting would favor penetration, to inflict casualties through cover or armor, rather than simple stopping power, which is more of a factor for police. Police seldom fight guys in body armor, or who are hunkered down behind cover, and they tend to have close range confrontations where stopping power is more important, and over penetrating can endanger civilians behind your target.

A normal sized round can't really hold much explosive, so it will be a small explosion, and it won't penetrate nearly as well as a solid round, so it's not a good trade off, militarily speaking.

For example, if I'm taking fire from a window, I can put a nice spread of 5.56 mm M16/M4 rounds through the cinder block or wooden wall below it and get the guy without having to hit the tiny target of his head. And explosive 5.56 or even 7.62 round will probably just ruin the paint job.

[rs2excelsior]

They've been tried in the past, but never
widely adopted.,

Here is a video of 7.62 explosive incendiary ammo.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6SG0XoAWY70

In general, military shooting would favor penetration, to inflict casualties through cover or armor, rather than simple stopping power, which is more of a factor for police. Police seldom fight guys in body armor, or who are hunkered down behind cover, and they tend to have close range confrontations where stopping power is more important, and over penetrating can endanger civilians behind your target.

A normal sized round can't really hold much explosive, so it will be a small explosion, and it won't penetrate nearly as well as a solid round, so it's not a good trade off, militarily speaking.

For example, if I'm taking fire from a window, I can put a nice spread of 5.56 mm M16/M4 rounds through the cinder block or wooden wall below it and get the guy without having to hit the tiny target of his head. And explosive 5.56 or even 7.62 round will probably just ruin the paint job.

This. Although it does get me thinking about how to get the best of both worlds, so to speak...

I seem to remember something about rounds that could be set to a time-delayed impact fuse, so that it could still punch through a wall and explode inside a room full of enemies, for example. I can't remember exactly what weapon that was designed for--I think it was for one of the 20mm or 30mm autocannons, but I don't know. If anyone else knows what I'm talking about, feel free to correct me. And I question the feasibility of miniaturizing that kind of mechanism to the size of a rifle round, especially with the trend toward smaller rifle rounds.

Speaking of miniaturization... how feasible would it be to make a shaped-charge rifle round, as a light anti-armor or anti-hard cover ammunition? It seems fairly unlikely to me, to be honest, but I don't know what the limiting factors in making that kind of thing smaller are.

One thing to keep in mind with all of this--it all dramatically increases the expense of the average infantryman's ammo, the danger of transporting it, the likelihood for something to malfunction (potentially spectacularly, in the case of exploding bullets), etc. Bullets as they stand are fairly idiot-proof; if the rounds require some kind of input before firing to adjust their performance, or if the infantryman is carrying a whole array of different types of ammo, the chance that he'll fail to use it correctly in the middle of a firefight must be factored in. Not saying any of this prevents any specialty ammo from being used; just something to keep in mind.

Personally, I see firearms of the future improving not in the bullets, but in the propellant--either some other kind of chemical propellant with a higher energy density, or electric systems like railguns. The bullet itself hasn't changed much in more than a century, and I don't think any drastic changes are likely in the future.

[Carl]

Also do bear in mind that as certain 50 calibre and above rounds in actual use prove it is possible to built a multi-effects round with combined APHEI capabilities. How effective they'd be at this scale is debatable, but it's doable.

[Mr. Mask]

These were the problems I was concerned about. I'm designing a futuristic setting, and was wondering if explosives would be a thing. The idea is there has been an advance in chemical explosives and propellant, as well as materials, such that gyrojet/rocket bullets are possible, and that bullets can carry a more significant charge (or the same charge as before with it taking up less mass).

With a substantial improvement in explosives, do you think explosive bullets become viable? I have yet to find numbers on what kind of charge a bullet needs to effectively increase its damage. I was thinking if you could decrease the necessary charge, you could bring armour penetration back to usable levels. Or you could get a much more powerful explosion so that hollowpoints don't win out on pure damage.

[Roetroc]

Well if you are talking micro rockets/bolt guns style I guess you could run with a tiny field generator in each bullet that is producing a small magnetic jar for containing a few grams of antimatter. The generator stops functioning on impact. Boom.

I'd be sure to check the use by dates on those bullets you had stored away.

[goto124]

I'd be sure to check the use by dates on those bullets you had stored away.

...I want to make a condom joke.

[Carl]

@Mr Mask. A Lot. Though it also depends on what size of ammo and mass is allowable. If all your troopers are stomping around in power armour and can afford to carry enough ammo to make an automatic shotgun a practical assault rifle replacement you can do it with modern tech. We've allready got explosive fin stabilised shells with a fair range.

If you want something small enough to be man portable then about a 10 to 1 ratio with modern explosives, or about a 50 to 1 with TNT. This makes the bullet you fire roughly equivalent to a round 3 times it's actual diameter for explosive purposes if you go with a long rod design. An exampe of this is David Webers Pulsars fro his honour Harrington series. A 50mm cannon there is equivalent to a 155 howie of modern times, (this specific comparison is given in text though the protagonists gear may be better still as this was a third rate military's gear being discussed).

In that setting pistols are 2-3mm, rifles 3-4mm single man portable MMG's are three barrelled rifle calibre Gatling, and tripod mounted MG's are 4-5mm, again 3 barrelled Gatling design, (the three barrelled Gatling are called tri-barrels for short). The 5mm will wipe out roughly 50 people per 1 second burst if fired into a large densely packed crowd of armoured civilians. And pulsar rounds in general if they hit you in the hand, you'll be lucky if you only lose the arm. Illigieal crowd killers do esist that are basically a modern hand grenade per round able to wipe entire groups of civilians away, but because armour takes the form of advanced skinsuits they're banned since they'd have no effect on actual military personnel.

Heavier paired 10mm tri-barrels, (this is roughly equivalent to the A-10's gun per tri-barrel) are used on pinnaces which are the equivalent of something like a black hawk used in combat drops, these also carry a 2 cm laser and some fairly hefty external ordnance loads, (snowflake clusters or solid bombs normally. (The latter are smart cluster bombs who's individual submunitions are snowflake sized but have the power of modern ones). And their assault shuttles, roughly the equivalent of somthing like an Mi-24 "Hind" carry twin 30mm tri-barrels, (this is basically the equivalent of an entire battery of light howitzers in each gun), and upto 40 tons of external ordnance.

If you want to read up on the setting i can link you to the publishers own free e-book download of the first dozen or so books.

[Mr. Mask]

Carl: If you recommend it, I would like the link to the books. I probably won't be able to get to them for a while (finishing up an unrelated novel), but they may be very useful references for my next work.

For the size of the bullets, power armour is a possibility. I was wondering if you could get explosive bullets to a level where they could help smaller calibre bullets. I could potentially go with large gyrojet bullets with large explosive charges instead.

I guess TNT isn't used in explosive bullets because it makes the ammo too dangerous. If so, I could have a fictional TNT-like explosive that is more stable. A 1/50th loss of bullet doesn't sound like it'd impact armour penetration.


Roetroc: That's a pretty interesting idea. I'll have to look into that.



New question: I wanted to calculate the recoil and muzzle-velocity of a fictional weapon. Is there any simple or good way to do this? It seems like a complex subject to tackle, with details like bullet weight, powder charge, weapon weight and balance, gas operated systems to reduce recoil, and the fact bullet KE and recoil KE aren't the same.

[Carl]

Sure. Just to clarify something. When i say 10 to 1 and 50 to 1 ratio i mean 10 and 50 times more powerful than modern/tnt explosives by volume. Also do bear in mind the books are primarily about space based adventures. Ground based fights turn up on a fairly regular basis, (usually at least once a book), but they're still around 10% of the total page space. Still well worth the read though IMO.

Linky (http://baencd.thefifthimperium.com/01-HonorverseCD/Baen01-HonorverseCD.zip) is here.

I recommend using tvtropes here (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Literature/HonorHarrington) to get the right read order.

[Milodiah]

New question: I wanted to calculate the recoil and muzzle-velocity of a fictional weapon. Is there any simple or good way to do this? It seems like a complex subject to tackle, with details like bullet weight, powder charge, weapon weight and balance, gas operated systems to reduce recoil, and the fact bullet KE and recoil KE aren't the same.

Simplest way, I find, is to just compare it to modern existing things. First, what's its mode of operation? A bolt-action weapon has a different amount of recoil than an equivalent piston-driven semi-automatic of the same weight and chamber, because physics. Then, figure up the type of bullet you're using, as long as you're not too far in the future and using stuff like ETC rounds you should be able to find a real counterpart pretty easily. The weight of the weapon itself is a fairly simple factor in the estimation, less weight = more recoil. Recoil reduction, if there's an existing or at least theoretical counterpart for it, and there probably is, you might be able to track down a rough percentile estimate of its effectiveness, then just toss that in as a general fraction.

Really, the recoil should be somewhat intuitive if you've ever operated a fair share of weapons, and the muzzle-velocity is...about 80% munition, really? As long as there's not some big factor about the weapon like an outrageous barrel length or sound suppression going on, it'll be more or less comparable to any other weapon in the same general class with the same chambering.

[Yora]

When the Great Helm was the common type of helm during the times of the crusades, was it actually common to wear it while fighting with swords and axes? It greatly improves your chances to not get fatally hit by an arrow in the face, but the visibility seems only marginally better than in later helms which had a movable visor to quickly switch between open and closed helm.

[Galloglaich]

When the Great Helm was the common type of helm during the times of the crusades, was it actually common to wear it while fighting with swords and axes? It greatly improves your chances to not get fatally hit by an arrow in the face, but the visibility seems only marginally better than in later helms which had a movable visor to quickly switch between open and closed helm.

Typically those were worn with a skull cap (cervellierre or bascinet) underneath, and the great helm was usually only used during the lance charge (to protect the face from lance strikes). You might wear it when under a lot of arrow shots too maybe.

Most of the time fighting with hand to hand weapons, sword axe etc., you would have an open face so you can see and breathe.

You can find some reliefs and sculptures where guys have their bascinet on and the great helm is hanging from a strap on their back.

Eventually they improved the bascinet (etc.) and added a retractable visor, or went the other route like the sallet with a bevor, where you can kind of lift it up (open) and then pull it down if you need to.

G

[Spiryt]

I don't think there's really way to know, from obvious reasons.

We can only guess, for what it's worth people today are hacking away with great helmets on their head without any extraordinary problems.

[Mr. Mask]

Carl: Hmm, that might be a bit more of an advance than would be suitable. I may have to limit explosive bullets to larger calibres.

Thank you for the link.


Milodiah: Essentially, I was trying to work out the equivalent to a Warhammer Bolter gun. A gun that uses powder charges to shoot gyrojet bullets. The problem being, gyrojet bullets are large and heavy. When a 13mm round is fired, it is the same weight as an unfired .44 automag cartridge. It's possible with advanced propellants you might be able to reduce their mass, or with explosives you might be able to change them from a directed KE weapon to an explosive delivery device (more like a conventional rocket)

Some data I found on the bullets while researching, for those who are interested: I was trying to work out if a bolter-style weapon could be made useful in reality, just before. The problem I'm encountering on that is little information about gyrojet ballistics (the rate the bullet slows down after running out of propellant, namely).

The 13mm gyrojet pistol round is about the same weight as a .44 calibre automag round, before the latter is fired. It achieves roughly the same KE at maximum velocity (9 metres, I think), but I don't know its muzzle-velocity nor the rate it slows down. The .44 automag bullet has trouble with slowing down after firing due to its weight.

Also, the 13mm round is actually heavier, in that it is 14 grams before and after firing. Unlike a powder bullet, it doesn't spend its charge and leave its casing when fired. I heard an estimate that the .44 automag cartridge is about half its weight in powder and casing (interestingly, the gyrojet bullet that was half its weight in propellant seemed the most KE efficient, of the data I could find). So, that means you need to propel twice the weight if you want to launch it with powder. And it ought to slow down even faster once the propellant is spent.

[Carl]

@Mr Mask: Yeah the Honourverse Pulsars are pretty extreme a standard 4mm rifle round is basically a 50 cal HEI round with pentaration equivelent to a sabot round and the 50 cal HEI round is described by the military as comparable in a number of respects to 20mm ammo.


As far as Bolters go. They have MAJOR recoil so they're adding MAJOR velocity from the firing charge. As such the benefits of a rocket motor for them are more in sustaining velocity, where a lower thrust is quite viable, as such they might allow a bolter to achive much greater long range velocities at the expense of a lower muzzle velocity. Or very extreme muzzle velocities at the expense of long range velocity.

I actually sat down and mathed out the basic physics end parameters of an API operation 20mm automatic a while back, precise weight of bolt required escapes me but i believe it was around 12KG's, (so a lead or even DU cored bolt would be ideal, i had a few other idea's for handling that). RoF was 480rmp and projectile mass was 80 grams at a muzzle velocity of 500M/s, Only flaw aside from the probable mid 20KG weapon weight was the 40lb cocking force, would require some kind of levering in the cocking system. No reason those couldn't have rocket assist to push velocities higher or sustain 500m/s over longer ranges. Oh yeah API means experienced recoil would be near zero. Carrying it around would be hard.

[Gnoman]

Also, the 13mm round is actually heavier, in that it is 14 grams before and after firing. Unlike a powder bullet, it doesn't spend its charge and leave its casing when fired. I heard an estimate that the .44 automag cartridge is about half its weight in powder and casing (interestingly, the gyrojet bullet that was half its weight in propellant seemed the most KE efficient, of the data I could find).

In the event that it helps, handloading guides for the .44 Automag cartridge suggest a powder weight of around 10% of the bullet weight, and the cartridge is a cut-down 30.06.

[Mr Beer]

Well if you are talking micro rockets/bolt guns style I guess you could run with a tiny field generator in each bullet that is producing a small magnetic jar for containing a few grams of antimatter. The generator stops functioning on impact. Boom.

I'd be sure to check the use by dates on those bullets you had stored away.

1 gram of antimatter = roughly 43 kilotons of TNT according to Wikipedia

That's probably overkill for anything like a bullet. You'd surely want to make sure the field only fails after the projectile fires a minimum distance or some similar precaution in place. Would be quite embarrassing to shoot at the enemy and accidentally obliterate half your division because you hit a tree 500 yards away.

[Gnoman]

You'd surely want to make sure the field only fails after the projectile fires a minimum distance or some similar precaution in place. Would be quite embarrassing to shoot at the enemy and accidentally obliterate half your division because you hit a tree 500 yards away.

Incidentally, this was a problem with a real weapon, the man-portable Davey Crockett nuclear rifle (as seen in Metal Gear Solid 3). While legend has it that the blast radius was shorter than the range, the real problem was that the projectile was so inaccurate that (in tests) it often impacted far closer to the launch team than was intended. Surprisingly, the weapon remained in service for ten years.

[Brother Oni]

Milodiah: Essentially, I was trying to work out the equivalent to a Warhammer Bolter gun. A gun that uses powder charges to shoot gyrojet bullets. The problem being, gyrojet bullets are large and heavy. When a 13mm round is fired, it is the same weight as an unfired .44 automag cartridge. It's possible with advanced propellants you might be able to reduce their mass, or with explosives you might be able to change them from a directed KE weapon to an explosive delivery device (more like a conventional rocket)

Some data I found on the bullets while researching, for those who are interested: I was trying to work out if a bolter-style weapon could be made useful in reality, just before. The problem I'm encountering on that is little information about gyrojet ballistics (the rate the bullet slows down after running out of propellant, namely).

The 13mm gyrojet pistol round is about the same weight as a .44 calibre automag round, before the latter is fired. It achieves roughly the same KE at maximum velocity (9 metres, I think), but I don't know its muzzle-velocity nor the rate it slows down. The .44 automag bullet has trouble with slowing down after firing due to its weight.

Also, the 13mm round is actually heavier, in that it is 14 grams before and after firing. Unlike a powder bullet, it doesn't spend its charge and leave its casing when fired. I heard an estimate that the .44 automag cartridge is about half its weight in powder and casing (interestingly, the gyrojet bullet that was half its weight in propellant seemed the most KE efficient, of the data I could find). So, that means you need to propel twice the weight if you want to launch it with powder. And it ought to slow down even faster once the propellant is spent.

A real life version of the bolter could be possible for a sniper weapon when combined with the current work on self guided munitions (DARPA's EXACTO (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EXACTO)).
The problem is, the muzzle flash and the smoke trail of the round is likely to give away your position, so it could theoretically be used as an infantry version of artillery - fire indirectly from behind cover then guide the round onto target.

As for how quickly the gyrojet slows down in flight after the propellant is expended, at that point, wouldn't it be exactly equivalent to a normal round that's just been fired? Therefore it's just a matter of aerodynamics based on air resistance and bullet profile from that point, for which you could borrow data from an exisiting round with a similar bullet profile, just move the firing spot several hundred metres down range and tag on the extra weight of the casing.

[Mr. Mask]

Carl: Funny you mention that. I was also researching recoilless firearms before. If you could manage to make some high calibre recoilless firearms, it becomes more challenging for gyrojets to seem worthwhile weapons. They could potentially have some advantages (they're researching them as longer-ranged torpedo guns, for example).

I guess what I'm trying to work out with API systems and recoilless firearms, is the details of why they aren't being developed. The Remington 742 is just about recoilless, but has some bad maintenance problems, and fails to fire under cold conditions. Too many moving parts and putting too much stress on those parts seems to be the long and short of the issue. An improvement in materials could lead to recoilless firearms being more widely utilized.


Gnoman: That is very helpful, thank you! I found one site that had ammo listings of it ranging from anything from 5 to 30 grains of powder. Of course, that seemed to be an extreme listing of ammo, beyond what would normally be used. Sadly, I am having amazingly little luck finding out how much the casing of the bullet weighs.

I did find something that implies the case might be fairly heavy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caseless_ammunition
"Lack of a case also reduces the weight of the cartridge substantially, especially in small bore rifles. For example, the caseless ammunition designed by Austrian inventor Hubert Usel for the Voere VEC-91 weighs about one third as much as regular ammunition for the same caliber."


Oni: An interesting thing I discovered with my research, is that the propellants used in the smaller gyrojet bullets (13mm) don't produce much smoke or noise. I'm not sure how it is for scaled up versions.

For some reason, it's weirdly hard to find out how much bullet casings weigh, otherwise I could compare an example. If I assume a bullet being one third of the whole cartridge is common, I can work something out. I'll look into that (it does paint current gyrojet tech as pretty useless, however).

[Roetroc]

1 gram of antimatter = roughly 43 kilotons of TNT according to Wikipedia

That's probably overkill for anything like a bullet. You'd surely want to make sure the field only fails after the projectile fires a minimum distance or some similar precaution in place. Would be quite embarrassing to shoot at the enemy and accidentally obliterate half your division because you hit a tree 500 yards away.

I'd say that qualifies as pretty explosive.

“Going too far is half the pleasure of not getting anywhere.”

[Mr. Mask]

Going with the one third estimate, you'd be going with a powder charge and recoil like this cartridge: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.577_Nitro_Express

That bullet normally should have a KE of about 6,500 joules. If you used the gyrojet bullet with the same powder charge, you get the same recoil, but only 1,100 joules (that's not factoring in the propellant's weight or increase to velocity). Now, the propellant with no other aid will normally accelerate the bullet to 700 metres a second, with about 1,700 joules of energy. Even if you added the two velocities together, you'd only get 5,600 joules of energy out of it, with more expensive ammo, that may suffer accuracy issues.

On that last part, I heard that trace ammo has accuracy issues. While gyrojet bullets can impart a lot of spin, so can tracer rounds fired out of rifles.


Unless the one third estimate is highly off, gyrojet bullets fired with powder are an inefficient and suboptimal means compared to standard firearms. So you'd either use them solely for their guided rocket-like qualities, or would use a gyrojet gun with no powder charge for some specific purpose (underwater torpedo guns, or used as some kind of mid to long range silent weapon).

Of course, if the propellent available advanced notably, in such a way that it was unsuitable to conventional firearms (either because it's slow-burning or because recoilless firearms don't work), then it might become a more considerable option.

[Carl]

@Mr Mask. Most recoilless systems bar API are really complicated as you noted. API is HEAVY. I'd need to set-up a spreadsheet in excel to re-work the exact specifics of my weapon but the bolt was absolutely in the double digit KG range. The round though could easily be classified as a form of 10 gauge magnum round. Whilst i don't think anyone's built an actual round of that type, lt alone a semi-auto or automatic shotgun to fire it i can guarantee the bolt would almost certainly be sub 1KG in non-API weapons. Basically they're really bloody heavy.


On that last part, I heard that trace ammo has accuracy issues. While gyrojet bullets can impart a lot of spin, so can tracer rounds fired out of rifles.

It's not that they'e less accurate, it's that the gas streaming off them gives the bullet a slightly different rate of slowdown.

Also cna you give the full specs on the round your trying to calculate there, (i.e. the starting round size, mass, e.t.c. before and after adding on gyrojet)

p.s i've got this link (http://www.pmulcahy.com/ammunition/). it's for a hyper realistic game and having hecked what values i can i can confirm all entries are actually accurate to IRL, so if you've got the bullet and powder weights for the standard ammo of the type you can work out case weights.

[Mr. Mask]

Can't work out any way to scale down an API system much. So it'd only be an option for infantry if you had some very nice power armour, I figure.


Those numbers might be from Twilight 2,000. I didn't notice any weights given for powder, casings, or bullets individually, sadly.

I managed to find a site with some powder weights, but sadly no bullet or casing weights: http://www.handloads.com/loaddata/default.asp?Caliber=44%20Magnum&Weight=All&type=Handgun&Order=Powder&Source=


For the specifications of the round, it was some kind of high velocity round for the 13mm gyrojet pistol, with sadly little details. I think it was meant to reach full velocity at nine metres, that being 700 metres a second. The round was 14.2 grams in weight, 7.1 grams being propellent which is spent at something like nine metres. Sadly, I couldn't find more specific data, so I don't know things like muzzle velocity.


Interesting point about the tracer rounds. If that's the case, then gyrojet bullets shouldn't be inherently inaccurate. The gyrojet pistol did have some bad ammo problems including failing to fire and inaccuracy, but that was mainly due to poor manufacture (though proper manufacture will be more expensive than ordinary bullets).

[Carl]

Those numbers might be from Twilight 2,000. I didn't notice any weights given for powder, casings, or bullets individually, sadly.

Nope they aren't there./ But the bullet weights are on wikipedia and you allready have the powder weights from your own website. So you can calculate the case weight with those 3 figures.


For the specifications of the round, it was some kind of high velocity round for the 13mm gyrojet pistol, with sadly little details. I think it was meant to reach full velocity at nine metres, that being 700 metres a second. The round was 14.2 grams in weight, 7.1 grams being propellent which is spent at something like nine metres. Sadly, I couldn't find more specific data, so I don't know things like muzzle velocity.

Cheers. Also muzzle velocity for non-cartridge boosted gyro-jets was near zero, plenty of sources claim you could stop the bullet exiting the barrel safely by putting your finger on the end of the barrel.

For performance comparison it's peak velocity is such that it's comparable in mass and velocity to 7.62x39mm which is ak-47 ammo and the complete round weight is 4 grams lighter. though with a light alloy case the 7.62 might actually be lighter. Don't know the powder weight so can't back work it. Though of course the greater bullet diameter probably means faster slowdown, but how much that would matter at infantry combat ranges is debatable.


Done some more math, if you where to build a similar calibre but longer, (and consequently heavier), design possibly with some use of high density tungsten to keep length down you could scale it till it had the same complete round weight as 50 cal ammo and it would have a bullet weight at burnout around 50% higher than 50 call but be slightly slower. Energy is about 90% of 50 cal, but momentum is almosty 20% higher so it would probably hit harder. he biggest weakness is likely to be a serious lack of space for fillings so anything but solid shot will suffer in comparison. A light alloy gyrojet construction could give you the volume but the length would probably end up noticably greater. Also gyrojets of that length could have weight distribution issues. All solvable IMO, but arkward.

[Mr. Mask]

Are the bullet weights there? I thought the weights listed on wikipedia were just the full cartridge weights?

Yeah, I've heard reports of how the bullets will bounce off of people at close range. Virtually zero is a good enough estimate I guess. For a separate round, at two metres, it had a mere 80 joules of energy. It was more reasonable at 9 metres, with that round.


AK-47s get something around 2,000 joules, with the .762 cartridge. That isn't too far from the high velocity round's 1,700j. There was a 20mm gyro round that got 2,500j, though it had a different propellent weight ratio. That seems pretty impressive for a pistol cartridge, except in actuality it is growing closer to a rifle cartridge in weight. The fact it is of little use at close range generally disables its usefulness as a pistol as well.

It might work out OK as a rifle. It is quiet, which is an advantage. The ammo is probably more expensive. There were claims of greater accuracy with gyrojet ammo, but I'm sceptical. Rifles already can spin the bullet pretty well. The fact it can't perform with lethal force at close ranges can be quite an issue for an assault rifle, namely in urban settings, so it would be restricted to sniper rifles and battle rifles intended to engage at mid to long range--though the lack of recoil on the rocket bullets could allow for long-range burst fire from an assault-rifle.


OK, so the design you suggest has the weight of a .50 cal cartridge, about the same kinetic energy, but no recoil? The profile and weight you describe might allow it to have a longer effective range than a standard .50 cal round, as well. There are still the issues of close fighting, but being able to fire .50 cal rounds from an infantry rifle is pretty appealing, without the recoil. If you have range for the bullet to wind up, that is some serious stopping and penetrating power (particularly with the momentum you suggested). The ammo will still be expensive, and it will be heavy, which soldiers will find a pain--but the ammo will be pretty sweet for it.

Have I understood the design you described correctly?

[Carl]

@Mr Mask:

Yes they do, look on the right and go down just below the specifications it's there, i can do a screenshot if you really need it ;). Bear in mind though for the 50 cal equivalent you'd be looking at a burn out range of 90 meter's without modern propellent upgrades. So it would be quite nice in a sniper round, but not so much an assault rifle. Though as noted the potential for modern propellent and bullet designs and/or combined cartridge/jet combo's could give some excellent performance enhancements. Interestingly the 13mm gyro jet rounds are not dissimilar in size to 7.62x39 ammo's complete dimensions, (a couple of mm wider but 6 shorter), so the 20mm might be large in diameter, but the length probably isn't very extreme.

And yes you've understood me correctly.

[Mr. Mask]

Whoops. Not thinking, if I thought a .50 cal cartridge was quite so light as that. That changes my earlier calculations, as well.

The 13mm hv round could be compared to this round: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.44_Magnum

You'd get about 550j without propellent from a .44 magnum charge. With propellent you'd get... Too tired to calculate that, I got a ridiculously large figure when I tried (over 4K joules).

[Maquise]

I have another question about swords:

I have seen sort of "half-rapiers" where the bottom half, the Strong of the blade, was a lot thicker, about the same shape as a side sword, in order to effectively parry heavier blades. But I have forgotten what they are called.

[Yora]

Maybe a broadsword?

--

I just saw this gif from Hot Shots, and the aircraft in the background seems awfully small.
http://33.media.tumblr.com/94fcaddd8999238c966f572792c5e3a9/tumblr_mrmnbttYtw1sfwimpo1_400.gif
Is that real or a 1:2 scale modell?

[Carl]

@Yora: That's an A-6 so absolutely a reduced scale model.

@Mr Mask, i get 4.2K J's and very high momentum, butt hat's subject to some factors of the rocket motor, certainly doable though, but the burnout range would increase to 19m

And yeah using 50 cal equivalent as rifle ammo would work, but only with power armour or the like. Having done some research you could probably add as much as a 100 M/s to the round velocity without undue recoil assuming an adequate muzzle brake was added, though finding grenade launchers, (about the only thing with rounds over 100 grams), with rounds in the right mass range is tough. 100m/s may not sound like much, but at close range with that kind of mass it's gonna really hurt things.

[Mr Beer]

Incidentally, this was a problem with a real weapon, the man-portable Davey Crockett nuclear rifle (as seen in Metal Gear Solid 3). While legend has it that the blast radius was shorter than the range, the real problem was that the projectile was so inaccurate that (in tests) it often impacted far closer to the launch team than was intended. Surprisingly, the weapon remained in service for ten years.

Cool, I had heard of this weapon but didn't know it was so inaccurate.

[Yora]

@Yora: That's an A-6 so absolutely a reduced scale model.
Those things are really big. That would make this more like 1:3 scale or even smaller.

[Gnoman]

Maybe a broadsword?

--

I just saw this gif from Hot Shots, and the aircraft in the background seems awfully small.
http://33.media.tumblr.com/94fcaddd8999238c966f572792c5e3a9/tumblr_mrmnbttYtw1sfwimpo1_400.gif
Is that real or a 1:2 scale modell?

An actual A-6 allows room for an average person to walk under the wings, and possibly the fuselage (I've never actually seen an A-6, so I'm basing this on spec sheets and similar aircraft that I have seen, so something something grain of salt) with minimal crouching. That maintenance tech in the back should be standing, not kneeling, to work on whatever bit of the aircraft that is. Similarly, those bombs that make up the main gag are far too small, as even a Mk 81 250 lb bomb (the smallest "modern" bomb design in US service, which hasn't been used since the early stages of the Vietnam war because it was too small) is almost two meters long.

[Carl]

Hmmm, actually i think i got it wrong, the a-6 has twin exhausts along the side of the fuselage, i was mostly looking at the nose/cockpit. Not sure what it is now, but i'd say it probably still is a model.

Been over the entire list of us carrier based jets and found nothing as it has a high mounted wing with twin intakes, but single exhaust non-bubbled canopy and a rounded nose with no nose intake. best guess is it's a really bad cut size a 6 model.

EDIT2: Okay did a search on the movie. It's a folland gnat t1, an aircraft never actually used on US carriers. Picture on the wiki (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/45/Folland_Fo.141_Gnat_F.1_XK739_Le_Bourget_29.05.57_ edited-2.jpg) with people in it, may actually be the actual aircraft.

[Mr. Mask]

Carl: That's... frighteningly effective. At that rate, rocket bullets do seem like they'd enhance the killing power of guns if given time to accelerate. If you could scale it down a little, you could shoot it with a 7.62 NATO charge, and get another frightening KE of something like 5,000j, while still having a usable KE at close range. Of course, the 7.62 NATO is a heavy round with kick, so you wouldn't be making much use of the low recoil nature of the rockets.

But yeah, the faster it gets the further it'll get before it burns out, which makes it increasingly less effective as a close to mid-range weapon. Would work pretty well as a long range sniper round, it seems. And for such roles as AA guns or AT guns, shells and such.

[Maquise]

Maybe a broadsword?


Wasn't a broadsword; I mean they had rapier/side sword style hilts, wider, fullered blades that suddenly transitioned to rapier blades.

[Mike_G]

Wasn't a broadsword; I mean they had rapier/side sword style hilts, wider, fullered blades that suddenly transitioned to rapier blades.

Do you mean the colichemarde blade

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

The forte was wider for parrying, then it dramatically narrowed to a smallsword blade.

[Yora]

EDIT2: Okay did a search on the movie. It's a folland gnat t1, an aircraft never actually used on US carriers. Picture on the wiki (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/45/Folland_Fo.141_Gnat_F.1_XK739_Le_Bourget_29.05.57_ edited-2.jpg) with people in it, may actually be the actual aircraft.

Also a trainer that had been retired over a decade earlier.
"Just spray paint it black, slap Navy markings on it, and film it from behind. Then it will look almost look like a fighter aircraft." Which for a comedy movie is really good enough.

Also, this is driving me crazy: What's that pole sticking out from the nose of an A-6? I wasn't able to find any mention of it looking on the internet.

[Lilapop]

You can see those on other aircraft as well. They are either used to put reading instruments (air speed, altitude via air pressure, etc) outside of the airstream around the hull, or for mid-air refueling operations:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/df/KA-6_F-14_DN-ST-87-10386.jpg/1920px-KA-6_F-14_DN-ST-87-10386.jpg
Looking at the A-6's general silhouette, I imagine they didn't bother making it retractable because the type is focussed on robustness and reliability over speed.

[Mr. Mask]

Sorry for having another gyrojet related question. Anyone know how well a gyrojet dart could function underwater?

I know that the 13mm gyrojet pistol worked underwater, but I'm not sure how effective it was for disabling a target compared to dart rifles. A dart rifle gets something like 30 yards of effective range. There are some experiments with developing a torpedo gun that fires gyrojet darts, but I'm not sure how effective the results are (I'll see if I can track anything down).

The general reckoning I got was the large shape of the gyrojet bullet's casing and its relatively little weight would cause a lot of water-drag.

[Storm_Of_Snow]

Yora, assuming you mean the large one in Lilapop's picture, that's almost certainly a mid-air refuelling probe.

Air speed/pressure pitots are much, much smaller and don't jut out from the fuselage as much.

[No brains]

Here's an anatomy question: I see a lot of pictures of four-armed humanoids holding two-handed weapons with two arms on the same side of their body. My question: wouldn't this be less effective than using two opposite arms? With two opposite arms, more muscle groups are used, such as ones in the chest and back. Also wouldn't there be an advantage to using symmetrical muscles for better control of the weapon?

[Mr. Mask]

Theoretically, to arms on the same side of the body means a stronger muscle group there. You can lever the weapon (an important part of using a second hand), and you have a somewhat better range of motion if you don't need to use the other side. That being said for the practice, I think your points are correct that using hands from two sides of your body has advantages that may precede those I mentioned.

That's my crack at it, I may be incorrect.

[Mr. Mask]

Oh, by the way. Something I forgot to mention earlier: http://www.cnet.com/news/boeing-patents-star-wars-style-force-fields/

It's going to be the future soon.

[Gnoman]

Yora, assuming you mean the large one in Lilapop's picture, that's almost certainly a mid-air refuelling probe.

Air speed/pressure pitots are much, much smaller and don't jut out from the fuselage as much.

This is correct.

[Brother Oni]

Here's an anatomy question: I see a lot of pictures of four-armed humanoids holding two-handed weapons with two arms on the same side of their body. My question: wouldn't this be less effective than using two opposite arms? With two opposite arms, more muscle groups are used, such as ones in the chest and back. Also wouldn't there be an advantage to using symmetrical muscles for better control of the weapon?

While it's stronger, I would think each pair of arms would obstruct the free movement of the other pair, especially when holding both weapons out in front.

In comparison two weapons held side by side are less likely to interfere with each other.

That said, there's no reason for a four armed creature to use paired weapons:

http://www.aidedd.org/dnd_monstres/images/thrikreen.jpg

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ZxWJXh62h9E/UOQRL8hnetI/AAAAAAAAAzo/wXuk_ipjfpU/s1600/Bo%27Bika.jpg


The second image in particular suggests that there's limited ways to hold a two handed weapon with opposite arms and still use a shield effectively - about the only way I can think of, is a side on stance, long spear in opposite arms and a shield and one handed weapon in the other set of arms.

[Jay R]

Here's an anatomy question: I see a lot of pictures of four-armed humanoids holding two-handed weapons with two arms on the same side of their body. My question: wouldn't this be less effective than using two opposite arms? With two opposite arms, more muscle groups are used, such as ones in the chest and back. Also wouldn't there be an advantage to using symmetrical muscles for better control of the weapon?

A. Not one person anywhere has any real data on this. All answers you receive will be speculation.

B. I know how to use a two-handed weapon with a right and left arm. I suspect without proof that a sword held with a left and right hand has advantages over one held in two right hands. But a sword in two right hands, or two left hands, still gets many of the advantages. The hand in front controls it, and the hand in back provides power. But it's not directly in front of the body. And that's what allows two swords to work well.

C. I imagine that a sword in two right hands, or two left hands, has advantages that we do not know, and cannot know. I also suspect that the combination of a sword in two left hands, plus a sword in two right hands, has some advantages over a sword in the top left and right hands and a sword in the bottom left and right hands, because those swords are oriented up and down, and would get in each others way.

But, per point A, I'm guessing.

[Telok]

B. I know how to use a two-handed weapon with a right and left arm...
C. I imagine that a sword in two right hands, or two left hands, has advantages that we do not know, and cannot know.

I know of one possible advantage. Ever fenced right handed against a left hander? If you haven't been lucky enough to have a lefty in your club then you tend to have a harder time against them while they have an easier time against you.

I can see (assuming a workable fighting style) a 4-arms having a similar edge over a 2-arms. They'd even be able to dodge the problem where lefty fencers have issues against other lefties, they could have some people use the 2-arms style to teach/learn specific 4-arm counters.

As for power and large weapons... I got nothin.

[warty goblin]

I always kinda thought that if a person had four arms, they could get a lot of mileage out of the creative switching of hands on one or two large weapons, rather than trying to coordinate four shorter ones. Maybe start with a pair of longsword sorts of weapons, one in the upper arms, one in the lower, allowing for attacks to high and low lines at the same time. For enhanced parrying, switch to a double left/double right handed grip, and for maximal power hold one sword in upper right/lower left, with the other perhaps in a high guard on the upper left, threatening a follow-up attack, or low right to thrust to the chest.

Integrating a shield is only somewhat more difficult; although it would require a shield designed to allow for easy changes of hands; say a domed round shield formed over two rods meeting at right angles in the center. Augment with two single-handed weapons, or a single two-handed weapon, which accounts for three hands. The idea now is to switch the shield around rapidly to close whatever lines are left most vulnerable by the weapon(s) in the other two hands. The empty fourth hand allows this to be done easily, or stabilize the shield in a two-handed grip. So if our four-handed beast is using a two-handed weapon with the right hands, the shield can guard the left, while a switch to both upper hands lets the shield protect low on either side by a simple exchange across the torso.

[Jay R]

"I know something you don't know."
"And what is that?"
"I am not lower-left-handed"

[goto124]

For 2-handed people, we have left-handed and right-handed.

But what about 4-handed people? Is it lower-right-handed, or just right-handed, where the person is equally good with both lower and upper right hands?

[Spiryt]

I don't think this 'x - handed' question is really easily answerable without some impressive anatomical gymnastics.

People swing weapons using their arms in certain ways which, at least hopefully, suit their anatomy.

Taking a step(s), rotating hips, turning shoulders, flailing arms.

4 armed creature would obviously need some very different musculature, hell knows how would it bend and turn, if musculature of upper arm wouldn't work antagonistically to lower one etc.

In any case, vast majority of average humans have enough trouble with rather simple coordination of their feet and hands while striking.

Actually using two more arms, actively to do some 'tricks' etc. would require quite impressive brain power, one dedicated purely to movements, too.

Gigantic cerebellum, I guess, with the rest of the brain capable of mostly 'I serve Sore-Roman'?

[Kiero]

In any case, vast majority of average humans have enough trouble with rather simple coordination of their feet and hands while striking.

That's because the vast majority of humans make no effort to cross-train their non-dominant side, and generally don't drill anything enough either.

[Spiryt]

That's because the vast majority of humans make no effort to cross-train their non-dominant side, and generally don't drill anything enough either.

Not exactly sure what you mean:

But by 'majority of people' I meant, solid portion of, for example, MMA fighters in big promotions, who cross train and drill whole time, because it's their job.

It just is not natural to humans at all.

Though again, if those theoretical creatures will have 4 arms, they may just as well have different brains.

Some more gibbon cat like, ridiculously efficient as far as movement goes, at expense of something else, I guess.

[Mr Beer]

Actually using two more arms, actively to do some 'tricks' etc. would require quite impressive brain power, one dedicated purely to movements, too.

Gigantic cerebellum, I guess, with the rest of the brain capable of mostly 'I serve Sore-Roman'?

I agree the question is not answerable, because we don't know what the accompanying musculature would look like or how exactly it would work.

I disagree that 4 armed human would require an obviously larger brain. Many species have 6 or more limbs and do not require unusually large brains to operate them.

[Spiryt]

I disagree that 4 armed human would require an obviously larger brain. Many species have 6 or more limbs and do not require unusually large brains to operate them.

Those species are completely inhuman, and thus incomparable.

The closest analogy is probably an Octopus.

Which does in fact has very large brain compared to it's size, and it's arms actually have some independent nerve clusters to coordinate it's movements.

And walking around on your legs in completely subconscious manner is not the same as wielding the sword purposely, that's the point.

[Kiero]

Not exactly sure what you mean:

But by 'majority of people' I meant, solid portion of, for example, MMA fighters in big promotions, who cross train and drill whole time, because it's their job.

It just is not natural to humans at all.

Then they don't train hard enough. Sorry, but using both hands and legs equally is not difficult if you do it all the time. I've seen plenty of people in 20-odd years of martial arts who would much rather advance quicker focusing on their dominant side, rather than also train their non-dominant. Futhermore, if there's money involved, getting good with your dominant side is more important than ensuring your non-dominant is also capable.

Nothing is natural if you don't practise it, using your non-dominant side is no different in this regard. I've always trained both sides, which means when I get a lefty/southpaw, I just switch. Which annoys them no end, because they're used to that natural advantage they have against right-handers.

[Spiryt]

Then they don't train hard enough. Sorry, but using both hands and legs equally is not difficult if you do it all the time. I've seen plenty of people in 20-odd years of martial arts who would much rather advance quicker focusing on their dominant side, rather than also train their non-dominant. Futhermore, if there's money involved, getting good with your dominant side is more important than ensuring your non-dominant is also capable.

Nothing is natural if you don't practise it, using your non-dominant side is no different in this regard. I've always trained both sides, which means when I get a lefty/southpaw, I just switch. Which annoys them no end, because they're used to that natural advantage they have against right-handers.

Yeah, it's probably not that difficult to be roughly equal with both sides of body if you put attention into it, but it's entirely not what I'm talking about.

I'm talking about coordinating movement of all parts of the body in optimal way, to move in desirable way, have a good angle, punch hard, without losing balance etc.

And it's again, rarely natural to people, and in actual stressful situation even best people will make some sloppy details in technique.


That's why I'm simply saying that involving additional 2 limbs, necessary muscle and nerve etc. would be huge challenge to motor system that we know of.

The same thing as old 'spin your leg clockwise, and draw 6 in the air with your right hand trick, but like dozen times more severe.

[No brains]

Thanks for all the points on the four-armed question!

Another question that isn't very real-world:

Could a severed hand grab as hard as it could while attached to an arm, assuming it could somehow get the impulses to tell it to do so? Isn't there some muscular interplay between the hand and the forearm?

[fusilier]

Thanks for all the points on the four-armed question!

Another question that isn't very real-world:

Could a severed hand grab as hard as it could while attached to an arm, assuming it could somehow get the impulses to tell it to do so? Isn't there some muscular interplay between the hand and the forearm?

While I'm not an expert on anatomy, I'm pretty sure that the muscles that control the hand (and grip) are in the arms, not the hand itself. I don't know if rigor mortis could cause a severed hand to maintain a "death grip" . . .

[Storm Bringer]

Thanks for all the points on the four-armed question!

Another question that isn't very real-world:

Could a severed hand grab as hard as it could while attached to an arm, assuming it could somehow get the impulses to tell it to do so? Isn't there some muscular interplay between the hand and the forearm?

a hand oouldn't, as all the muscle is in the forearm (all that's in the hand is the tendons linking to the finger bones.)

a armed severed at the elbow might be able to, assuming the muscles were still anchored to the forearm bones (as the need something to pull on)

[Storm_Of_Snow]

Something like arthritis might make it difficult to reopen the fingers - but the person probably wouldn't have enough movement in their joints to grasp the thing in the first place. :smallfrown:

The only other thing I can think of is some chemical that's caused the skin on the inside of the hand or the flexor tendons to contract.

[Brother Oni]

The only other thing I can think of is some chemical that's caused the skin on the inside of the hand or the flexor tendons to contract.

Except that tendons don't contract the same way as muscles (think of them like a puppet's strings), so you still need the forearm:

http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/medart/gallery/student/eweissbrod_04.jpg

If you notice, there's no muscles in the fingers at all and the rest of the muscles in the hand control flexing and the thumb position.

[Mr Beer]

Those species are completely inhuman, and thus incomparable.

The closest analogy is probably an Octopus.

Which does in fact has very large brain compared to it's size, and it's arms actually have some independent nerve clusters to coordinate it's movements.

And walking around on your legs in completely subconscious manner is not the same as wielding the sword purposely, that's the point.

Well, if you decide to choose the smartest possible creature with more than 4 limbs as your example, yeah it probably will have a big brain for its size. Because of all that intelligence. I remain unconvinced that adding two additional arms to a human requires a massively larger brain.

[Mike_G]

Thanks for all the points on the four-armed question!

Another question that isn't very real-world:

Could a severed hand grab as hard as it could while attached to an arm, assuming it could somehow get the impulses to tell it to do so? Isn't there some muscular interplay between the hand and the forearm?

It's almost all forearm muscles.

Put your hand on your forearm and make a fist with the other hand. You can feel all the muscular contraction in the forearm.

A hand severed at the wrist would have no strength.

[Storm_Of_Snow]

Except that tendons don't contract the same way as muscles (think of them like a puppet's strings), so you still need the forearm:

http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/medart/gallery/student/eweissbrod_04.jpg

If you notice, there's no muscles in the fingers at all and the rest of the muscles in the hand control flexing and the thumb position.
I know that - but there may be some chemical that would cause the tendons themselves to shrivel up or otherwise shorten in length.

Sudden thought - can't high temperatures (like fires) cause the similar effects?

[Brother Oni]

Well, if you decide to choose the smartest possible creature with more than 4 limbs as your example, yeah it probably will have a big brain for its size. Because of all that intelligence. I remain unconvinced that adding two additional arms to a human requires a massively larger brain.

While I agree that an additional pair of arms wouldn't require a larger brain, it would require a more developed muscular control system, so a greater percentage of the brain would be taken up with the cerebellum and its associated functions.

Monkeys with prehensile tails that effectively function as an extra limb would probably be the closest animal species to us with more than 4 limbs and is a better map than the octopus (a tentacle has many more points of articulation than a comparable mammalian limb, thus it needs the semi independent nerve clusters for that additonal level of control).


I know that - but there may be some chemical that would cause the tendons themselves to shrivel up or otherwise shorten in length.

Sudden thought - can't high temperatures (like fires) cause the similar effects?

Ah, I understand what you mean now - you're talking about an irreversible chemical/physical change in the tendon, causing a permanent contraction.

Off the top of my head, it does sound correct - let me do some research and I'll get back to you.

[Spiryt]

Well, if you decide to choose the smartest possible creature with more than 4 limbs as your example, yeah it probably will have a big brain for its size. Because of all that intelligence. I remain unconvinced that adding two additional arms to a human requires a massively larger brain.

I actually decided to choose the creature that indeed has arms that can do 'humanlike' stuff... Weapons would probably be out, but not so far away.

Not sure what else can come close to having both multiple manipulating arms, and ability to use them at wide range of improvised stuff.


If you don't want to call it 'larger brain' then fine. Can't say I'm qualified brain surgeon, so not sure if it would have to be handled with size.

In any case though, additional arm would require some massive increase in amount of 'brain power' required to control it. Kinetic, manipulations, etc. If by 'larger', 'different', and at expense of what other functions is harder SF indeed.


Octopuses apparently have some actual 'brain subdivisions' as mentioned.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2001/09/0907_octoarm.html

Octopuses also seem, for all their impressive brain/nerve system, to have very poor proprioception, which would be rather necessary thing for any effective 'humanlike' fighting.

With swords, grappling etc.

[Milodiah]

So, sci-fi question here, specifically Mongoose Traveller.

I'm putting together a moderate security facility on a planet with a corrosive atmosphere (it's roughly tech level 13 for any of those who play Traveller). It's a smuggler base of operations, but it's cover is as a medical research facility, so they (I) want to avoid machine-gun nests and the like in favor of more concealed and discrete security. I'm looking for levels of physical security that fall in the area between "chain-link fence" and "full-on impact-resistant atmospheric dome" in a sci-fi setting...

Note that unlike practically every other setting, Traveller is very limiting on the concept of force or energy shields, so no classic Star Wars style shimmering energy barriers.

So far I've got either a wall or fence of indeterminate material, with four guard towers that are environmentally sealed (so the poor saps don't have to stand up there in protective suits for hours) mounted with hidden 360-degree ring-mount remote guns. There's also a foot patrol around the perimeter, various perimeter sensors for detecting approaching tresspassers (seismic, thermal, etc) with the caveat that the atmosphere plays hell with most directed-light beams so the cliché laser tripwires are a no-go. It also has a disguised missile/railgun battery that can pop open and engage atmospheric craft if need be (again, no laser weaponry).

So, it's the future, and your job is to build protection for a facility that wants to be as secure as possible without looking like a military base. What would you guys consider?

[Storm Bringer]

So, sci-fi question here, specifically Mongoose Traveller.

I'm putting together a moderate security facility on a planet with a corrosive atmosphere (it's roughly tech level 13 for any of those who play Traveller). It's a smuggler base of operations, but it's cover is as a medical research facility, so they (I) want to avoid machine-gun nests and the like in favor of more concealed and discrete security. I'm looking for levels of physical security that fall in the area between "chain-link fence" and "full-on impact-resistant atmospheric dome" in a sci-fi setting...

Note that unlike practically every other setting, Traveller is very limiting on the concept of force or energy shields, so no classic Star Wars style shimmering energy barriers.

So far I've got either a wall or fence of indeterminate material, with four guard towers that are environmentally sealed (so the poor saps don't have to stand up there in protective suits for hours) mounted with hidden 360-degree ring-mount remote guns. There's also a foot patrol around the perimeter, various perimeter sensors for detecting approaching tresspassers (seismic, thermal, etc) with the caveat that the atmosphere plays hell with most directed-light beams so the cliché laser tripwires are a no-go. It also has a disguised missile/railgun battery that can pop open and engage atmospheric craft if need be (again, no laser weaponry).

So, it's the future, and your job is to build protection for a facility that wants to be as secure as possible without looking like a military base. What would you guys consider?


1) are you familiar with the Citizens of the Imperium (http://www.travellerrpg.com/CotI/Discuss/index.php)forum? its a traveller dedicated forum. might be worth asking there as well.

2) if you want high grade, discrete firepower, meson guns are your friend. bury one deep under the centre of the complex, and you have something that leaves no trail form firer to point of detonation. the target just.... explodes.

3) a corrosive atmosphere is nasty enough to justify buildings that would qualify as reinforced bunkers on more earth like worlds. your base would likey be able to take hits from starship grade weaponry.


4) taking point 3 into account, I'd move as much of the base underground as practical. this has the double benefit of increasing security by reducing the perimeter, and reducing the chance of a leaky seal killing half the stations crew. just have a hanger entrance, a comms dish, and a single tower on the surface, and bury the rest.

5) since the station has a legit cover, sick a comms sat in orbit. load that "comms" sat with as much passive sensors as you can, and have it act like a spy sat looking down on the site.

[Kiero]

Yeah, it's probably not that difficult to be roughly equal with both sides of body if you put attention into it, but it's entirely not what I'm talking about.

I'm talking about coordinating movement of all parts of the body in optimal way, to move in desirable way, have a good angle, punch hard, without losing balance etc.

And it's again, rarely natural to people, and in actual stressful situation even best people will make some sloppy details in technique.

That's what drilling movements is for. In a pressure situation, most people can only perform what's in muscle memory. The way techniques get into muscle memory is repetition.

[Lilapop]

I know that - but there may be some chemical that would cause the tendons themselves to shrivel up or otherwise shorten in length.

Sudden thought - can't high temperatures (like fires) cause the similar effects?
It doesn't really matter if its the tendon or the muscle that contracts - you need the entirey thing to be properly attached at both ends. So if you cut off a hand at the wrist and then one of the tendons working with the forearm muscles contracts, it will just retract into its carpal tunnel, creating a hole on the cut surface.

[Yora]

I got a Wild West question: Would there be any point in trying to escape from bandits on horses with a stagecoach?
Seems to me like you almost certainly would be slower and your horses exhausted sooner, and all you achieve is to make the bandits angry unless you get yourself killed by crashing. There is no way to lose them in the open prairy and they most probably will pick a spot very far away from any town.

[Spiryt]

That's what drilling movements is for. In a pressure situation, most people can only perform what's in muscle memory. The way techniques get into muscle memory is repetition.

Of course, but I still not sure what it has to do with my arguments to be fair.

Using muscle memory in practice shows how limited it is - as in people who are theoretically very good still very often don't move very optimally.

Not to mention that in actual use one actually always have to modify techniques, be it angle or timing.

So adding two arms alone would be huge challenge to muscle memory. Never mind actually memorizing and executing something like ' left low arm right, left upper arm left'etc.

[Brother Oni]

Sudden thought - can't high temperatures (like fires) cause the similar effects?

I did some digging: thermal injuries can cause uneven contraction between the flexor and extensor muscles, which can causes a characteristic pugilistic or boxing pose: link (http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=Q7Pb2wXV2woC&pg=PA30&lpg=PA30&dq=pugilistic&source=bl&ots=-1FqYCKLmy&sig=3F_iU5w9dql4Dh0l9_2i72wLy9M&hl=en&sa=X&ei=OWYpUOKWB4T40gG4XQ&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=pugilistic&f=false).

Shrinking of the tendon also causes the same effect, but both cases require the tendon to be attached at both ends, else the contraction won't happen.

I can think of a couple chemicals that would cause contraction/reduction of organic tissue either through dehydration or a thermal reaction (link (http://io9.com/5934164/do-bodies-sit-up-during-cremation)), or would otherwise cause muscle spasms.


I got a Wild West question: Would there be any point in trying to escape from bandits on horses with a stagecoach?
Seems to me like you almost certainly would be slower and your horses exhausted sooner, and all you achieve is to make the bandits angry unless you get yourself killed by crashing. There is no way to lose them in the open prairy and they most probably will pick a spot very far away from any town.

Given the alternative of letting the bandits capture the coach and then throwing yourself and their passengers at their mercy or make a run for it and either escape or go down fighting, I would choose the latter option.

This is what the shotgun position on a stagecoach is for - a driver's mate that helps defend the coach during a possible attack: link (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coach_gun).
Looking at the typical weapon in more detail, it's quite a large bore shotgun (10" or 12" and often short barrelled or sawn off), firing buckshot, which would make it a very effective weapon against a rider and horse.

[Gnoman]

I got a Wild West question: Would there be any point in trying to escape from bandits on horses with a stagecoach?
Seems to me like you almost certainly would be slower and your horses exhausted sooner, and all you achieve is to make the bandits angry unless you get yourself killed by crashing. There is no way to lose them in the open prairy and they most probably will pick a spot very far away from any town.

The prairie is a dangerous place for horses moving at high speeds, and merely running -particularly along a fairly established route- gives a very real chance of your attacker's horse stepping in a gopher hole (shattering the bone), getting tangled in grass, or any of a host of other hazards. The horses pulling the coach face the same dangers, but less so because the coach will probably be moving along a route that is known to be safe, while the bandits are going to be trying to out flank and surround it.

As a second issue, the sturdy draft animals that a coach would probably be using would have quite a it more endurance than the sort of horse you usually picture bandits riding, which would have been sprinters instead of marathoners. If the coach could keep away long enough, you'd have an excellent chance of escape.

Finally, if you're in a stagecoach travelling through bandit territory, you're either armed, or stupid. Between the stagecoach's shotgun man and whatever the passengers would be carrying, a running firefight wouldn't particularly favor either side, but the bandits need to win, and the coach just needs to not lose. There's a very real difference, even if it seems subtle.

[Telok]

So, sci-fi question here, specifically Mongoose Traveller....

I haven't played the Mongoose version but as I recall TL13 is well within the range to access artificial gravity. Storm Bringer did a pretty good job on outer defense, for interior defense and security you can just use a surveillance system and gravity control. Alternate the gravity between the ceiling and floor every second, turn long corridors into multi-story falls or climbs, of just crank one sector up to 50 m/s^2 and let the intruders suffocate.

Given how nasty such a defense system is I'd also suggest an RFID style ID badge that prevents the plate directly under the wearer from killing them during an alert.

[cobaltstarfire]

As a second issue, the sturdy draft animals that a coach would probably be using would have quite a it more endurance than the sort of horse you usually picture bandits riding, which would have been sprinters instead of marathoners. If the coach could keep away long enough, you'd have an excellent chance of escape.


To add onto that, stage coaches often had many animals pulling them. They may be collectively pulling a lot of weight, but individually they're pulling much less.

[Storm_Of_Snow]

3) a corrosive atmosphere is nasty enough to justify buildings that would qualify as reinforced bunkers on more earth like worlds. your base would likey be able to take hits from starship grade weaponry.

Agreed - you're probably looking at fairly thick ceramic coatings for everything to resist a corrosive atmosphere - under which could be practically anything. And to be honest, a corrosive atmosphere will dissuade a lot of people from wanting to land and have a look anyway.



4) taking point 3 into account, I'd move as much of the base underground as practical. this has the double benefit of increasing security by reducing the perimeter, and reducing the chance of a leaky seal killing half the stations crew. just have a hanger entrance, a comms dish, and a single tower on the surface, and bury the rest.

Agreed again. The inside of the hanger bay would have to be protected as well, and be able to be flushed of the external atmosphere so that maintenance crews could get access to any part of a craft in order to effect repairs And you're almost certainly looking at specially adapted craft to get through the atmosphere, so any orbital facility might also be a transfer station.

If it's supposed to be a medical research facility (which would attract corporate espionage from biomedical companies, who'd be trying to sneak in via legitimate means or socially engineer any employees to leak things to them), then you could have areas set up to look like they could be used as quarantine facilities (and a corrosive atmosphere will help reinforce that).

Telok's idea for using gravity generators for internal defence are pretty good (you could potentially hold a person in place with 4 gravity generators at the points of a tetrahedron - hold them in mid air at about 2G and any jetpacks or grapnels they have probably won't be enough to get them free, especially if the generators can move to track them), but you can also add in atmospheric control - not just dropping the pressure, but also increasing it massively so that the target can't expand their chest enough to get air into their lungs.

You can also use the facilities lights to disorientate, maybe even blind (either temporarily or permanently), and if the person happens to be sensitive to strobing lights causing a seizure, potentially kill them.


It doesn't really matter if its the tendon or the muscle that contracts - you need the entirey thing to be properly attached at both ends. So if you cut off a hand at the wrist and then one of the tendons working with the forearm muscles contracts, it will just retract into its carpal tunnel, creating a hole on the cut surface.
Good point, well made. Oh well, it was worth a try. :smallsmile:

I guess if the tendons snag or become attached to something, it could still do it, but there's probably low odds of that happening.


I did some digging: thermal injuries can cause uneven contraction between the flexor and extensor muscles, which can causes a characteristic pugilistic or boxing pose: link (http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=Q7Pb2wXV2woC&pg=PA30&lpg=PA30&dq=pugilistic&source=bl&ots=-1FqYCKLmy&sig=3F_iU5w9dql4Dh0l9_2i72wLy9M&hl=en&sa=X&ei=OWYpUOKWB4T40gG4XQ&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=pugilistic&f=false).

Shrinking of the tendon also causes the same effect, but both cases require the tendon to be attached at both ends, else the contraction won't happen.

I can think of a couple chemicals that would cause contraction/reduction of organic tissue either through dehydration or a thermal reaction (link (http://io9.com/5934164/do-bodies-sit-up-during-cremation)), or would otherwise cause muscle spasms.

Thanks.

[Kiero]

What were commonly worn armours, by infantry and cavalry (and I guess artillerymen) in the early 17th century? By which I mean 1600-1650 or thereabouts, primarily in the European theatres of conflict.

Ones I'm aware of:

Buff coat - actually something that was supposed to be worn under armour (like a jerkin or gambeson), but could be worn on its own as lighter armour/protective clothing
Cuirass - standard armour of the day, usually worn over a buff coat and comprising back and breast plates. More common for cavalry (being richer and not having to walk wearing it).
Mail - a holdover from an earlier period, but still around (happy to be corrected if not the case).
Plate - gradually reducing in this period, I think full leg armour went first, but still about for those who could afford it.


Helmets were still common, but shields have mostly disappeared, right?

Is there anything else?

[Roetroc]

Stormbringer: What about using the idea that it is a correction facility? I understand that a lot of prisons in the US are privately run and you would certainly have an excuse to have guard towers (even if the prisoners may not exactly be wandering around in an open yard in your corrosive atmosphere). If you wanted to leak the idea that it was something other than what it would seem, the PC's might notice that the guards are looking out rather than in...

[Thiel]

So, sci-fi question here, specifically Mongoose Traveller.
What kind of threat do you need to protect yourself against and what's the budget? Aside fro the loss of the base and its personnel, what's the ramification if its found out by the authorities?
At some point it becomes more economical to just accept the risk of loosing the place.

[Milodiah]

I should have added that yes, except for a few facilities such as a warehouse and some animal cages (yep, animal cages...the local fauna is kinda terrifying), the base is almost entirely underground. We've gotta keep it medical research because, well...the PCs have already heard the cover story :smalltongue:

The gravity generators are interesting, but that's something I'd see much more of on a ship that already has an elaborate network of grav plating...I've actually houseruled it that while it's not exactly a standard feature, an average shipboard one can be electronically adjusted to exert anywhere between 0 and 3 Gs of force without straining the hardware.

Meson guns may not exactly be economical for this base, considering that they're just smugglers and not the Imperial Army.

Main threat is rival smuggler outfits trying to steal or destroy their stock, as well as the occasional inspector (as backwateracid as this place is, word still got out that there's smuggling somewhere on the planet. Minor issue is the odd curious wanderer from a nearby religious group, which forms over 90% of the planet's population, but they tend to keep to themselves and are a relatively peaceful bunch. Also, this is a pretty major stockpile, probably as much of their business as they're really willing to keep in one place at one given time, so losing it would either set them back by over half or flat-out ruin them...they're not going to roll over and surrender it.

[Thiel]

Seems to me like the best option is to be as inconspicuous as possible then. What's the least amount of defences you'd need to keep the local wildlife at bay?
The problem with heavily defended criminal bases is that no matter how well defended they are, if the local government decides to bring the thunder then they'll always be outgunned.
Even if they manage to fight their way to a standstill they've got nowhere to retreat to and have no option but to endure a siege, which is going to be detrimental to their business to say the least.

[Milodiah]

They outgun the local government. The local government is the two guys who run the Class E starport (i.e. a flat patch of dirt). The religious folks don't bother these guys, either.

The Imperium has practically ignored this planet, and they're taking advantage of that.

[Telok]

Ok, I suggested the grav plate thing because they're common (a class B starport surplus store ought to have used plates in bulk), easy to use, and very subtle.

That said, the best bet for a defense could be social stigma. The place has constant traffic because of the "patients" and "medical supplies" which is good, but you don't want too many people to actually come looking for treatment. So they choose (you make up) a very rare, highly contagious, airborne disease with some social stigma attached. Actually a quasi-telepathic disease would work wonders, major stigma for having it. Then have the "clinic" part actually be a treatment and research facility. Then you make sure to let out the occasional press release or local advisory message about how successful you are at reducing the number of containment breaches or accidental infections, "Down to only eight this year! Next years goal is to get to less than six!" This way the healthy people who do come will want to stay in the 'clean' areas and you can mark the smuggling areas with biohazard and contamination signs in addition to having very well sealed and locked doors there.

[Thiel]

They outgun the local government. The local government is the two guys who run the Class E starport (i.e. a flat patch of dirt). The religious folks don't bother these guys, either.

The Imperium has practically ignored this planet, and they're taking advantage of that.

Why set up on that planet at all then? Why not set up on a station in space? The only reason I can see for setting up on a planet is to make use of its infrastructure. If the planet has basically no infrastructure then why go there at all?

[Milodiah]

In the Traveller setting, it is nearly trivial to go from a planet surface to orbit to another star system; the nice thing here is that, while a space station is painfully obvious to any long-range scanning vessels that come through because stealth in space is nearly impossible, the planetary base is hidden AND disguised. Plus, there IS enough traffic through the system, just not enough on the planet.

[Thrawn4]

I am sure these have come up before quite often, and I apologize in advance, but

is there a good reason to use just a single-handed medieval sword without combining it with a shield or a parry dagger?

What advantage does a rider have against someone without a horse in melee? It always seems to me that a foot soldier could just attack the horse from an angle that is not easily accessible for the rider (e. g. from the head), so that the rider would go down with his horse.

[Gnoman]

is there a good reason to use just a single-handed medieval sword without combining it with a shield or a parry dagger?

In pure combat effectiveness, no, unless you're wearing quite heavy armor, at which point the shield merely becomes useless bulk. For something you're carrying around "just in case", ditching the extra encumberance has some advantages,




What advantage does a rider have against someone without a horse in melee?
He has the advantage of height, better mobility (allowing him to break off more easily), and the horse itself is a weapon.

[Milodiah]

The only real thing you can do with an empty hand in a swordfight is grappling. Grappling has its advantages, but at the same time I'd take a shield over nothing ninety-nine times out of one hundred. If you're referring to fencing, the empty hand is used to counterbalance lunges and such so that you can extend your body and thus reach further without screwing your center of mass, but that's modern fencing...such techniques didn't appear as often in medieval/Renaissance manuals of arms, which often advocated the parrying dagger.

However, an untrained person attempting to use a sword and a knife at the same time is probably not using both the their full effectiveness...it's actually fairly difficult to attack with two weapons of drastically different characteristics.

[Spiryt]

is there a good reason to use just a single-handed medieval sword without combining it with a shield or a parry dagger?



Free access to all to all 'options' I guess - two handed chop, even with strictly one handed sword, and grappling, most importantly - without the need to drop or replace anything.



What advantage does a rider have against someone without a horse in melee? It always seems to me that a foot soldier could just attack the horse from an angle that is not easily accessible for the rider (e. g. from the head), so that the rider would go down with his horse.

That's certainly possible in ideal circumstances.

But if rider know what's going on, there's good chance of just being trampled instead.

Even a small horse if powerful beast, so in most 1v1 cases, it would really come down to 'you have 1 strike, just one'. Even if guy is actually mentally capable of trying to stand still and trade.

Human just has no real chance to remain standing and ready to strike when horse collides with him.


Buff coat - actually something that was supposed to be worn under armour (like a jerkin or gambeson), but could be worn on its own as lighter armour/protective clothing

From what I recall, they were actually worn all alone in most cases.

Sadly, it doesn't seems easy to find how much they weighted, but they certainly were very thick, bulky, stitched leather at least.

Expensive, too.

http://www.freha.pl/index.php?act=attach&type=post&id=17635

[Galloglaich]

I am sure these have come up before quite often, and I apologize in advance, but

is there a good reason to use just a single-handed medieval sword without combining it with a shield or a parry dagger?

Generally it's better to have a shield or a dagger. But they did used to use the off-hand for grabbing the blade and grappling quite a bit. Depending on the type of fencing when using medieval or Renaissance manuals you actually hold your off-hand at the ready on your chest, and then grab the enemies blade or hand after a bind. Like you see in Talhoffer here:

http://www.encasedinsteel.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Cod.icon_.394a_113v-300x211.jpg

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/1b/De_Fechtbuch_Talhoffer_223.jpg/400px-De_Fechtbuch_Talhoffer_223.jpg


This is also very common with rapier manuals, in fact men used to wear mail-lined gloves to make it safer to grab blades.

On the other had some other manuals, particularly military saber, they tell you to hold your hand behind your back so it doesn't get hacked off. The hand floating around is easy to be hit.



What advantage does a rider have against someone without a horse in melee? It always seems to me that a foot soldier could just attack the horse from an angle that is not easily accessible for the rider (e. g. from the head), so that the rider would go down with his horse.

The main advantage really is being able to attack when you want to and go away when you want to. Try playing Mount and Blade a bit it's simplistic, but it's pretty good at conveying this idea.

In addition you have height, momentum, you get less tired especially when moving around a lot, (you can also go away and rest a bit to catch your breath if you are fighting infantry, and then come back when you feel more ready). You can 'blind side' people. You can carry more gear.

Lots of things, in short.

G

[JustSomeGuy]

4 arms, 2 weapons:

Holding a bar/handle/whatever in both hands allows for whay is called a mixed grip, whereby one hand is pronated and the other is supinated - this helps prevent the object 'rolling' out of your hands by rotating down your fingers (because whichever way would unroll one hand would roll into the other). I'm no swordfighting expert, but keeping a firm (and minutely controllable) grip on your weapon seems beneficial, especially if there's the chance you can land blows awkwardly and off centre to the weapon's linear centre of mass (i assume this is pretty likely in many situations, fighting being a dance with two songs and no music). I really doubt our 4 armed warrior would get much mileage out of the hook grip so this might be an issue.

Opposingly, what with movement and power beginning at our hips and torso, and being transmitted through the shoulder girdle and arm, if there were two arms for it to go through perhaps we would lose less force/power along the way and convert more angular acceleration (hips) into linear speed and force (hands). Maybe.

Along similar lines of thought; if we areincreasimg upper body mass so, a corresppnding increase in torso and lower body mass to counter-swing might help?

[Kiero]

From what I recall, they were actually worn all alone in most cases.

Sadly, it doesn't seems easy to find how much they weighted, but they certainly were very thick, bulky, stitched leather at least.

Expensive, too.

http://www.freha.pl/index.php?act=attach&type=post&id=17635

I'm not so sure about that; while they certainly were worn alone, I've seen plenty of paintings of prominent men with them under a back-and-breast cuirass.

[snowblizz]

I'm not so sure about that; while they certainly were worn alone, I've seen plenty of paintings of prominent men with them under a back-and-breast cuirass.

The buffcoat seems to have been a good compromise between protection and mobility, with the downside that it was very expensive to make. Although I guess for a country like Sweden, which used it a lot in the 1600-1700 having your country filled with great rawmaterial (ie elk) probably helped keep cost down. I always wonder if not having elk is why it doesn't seem to be much used in England.

With the removal of the other metal parts of the armour you can then concentrate the weight saved into the breastplate making it much thicker and resistant to heavier fire. I'd say comparing it to a modern military vest isn't totally off. And then when you want to further upgrade protection you add the extra armour plates, or in 17/18th century terms, don the cuirass as well.

[Roetroc]

Buff coats were popular in the UK but primarily for cavalry and they were frequently worn with armour. Images and documents from the English Civil Wars abound with them. I seem to recall that they were regarded as reasonably proof against pistols and long range muskets.

I also recall a story (possibly apocryphal) about a commander in a battle during the 30 Years War who at the end of a battle took off his breast plate and a number of spent musket balls fell out having been stopped by his buffcoat.

There were (at the beginning of the ECW a number of mounted soldiers wore a cuirass that covered the thighs and also the arms. They also wore a gauntlet on their reins hand but kept the other free of armour so they could use pistols and swords. Some infantry (especially the Trayned Bands of London) had breastplates with tassets at the beginning of the ECW. Armour for infantry pretty much disappeared by the end of your chosen time period.

The Irish were using targes (small round shields with arm straps) during this period.

[Kiero]

Actually, gauntlets didn't impede the use of swords (knights had been managing just fine for centuries), but they did make reloading a pistol clumsy.

Heavy armour for infantry certainly disappeared, but it wasn't uncommon for buff coats to be worn by richer infantrymen. That at least gave some protection from edged weapons. Though by the end of the 17th century, we're heading into mass mobilisation again, and armour it too expensive to outfit thousands of men at a time, especially when it gives little meaningful protection from shot and artillery.

The Scots were still using the claymore, dirk and buckler combination as well.

[Roetroc]

You don't wear a gauntlet with a basket hilted sword.

[Kiero]

You don't wear a gauntlet with a basket hilted sword.

True; though you don't need a basket hilt if you're wearing a gauntlet.

[Roetroc]

But then you struggle with your pistol.

Also it was fashionable for swords of the era to have baskets of many types.

There was even one chap who went onto the field with a hilt more appropriate for a rapier but having replaced the blade with a more warlike backsword.

[Kiero]

But then you struggle with your pistol.

Also it was fashionable for swords of the era to have baskets of many types.

There was even one chap who went onto the field with a hilt more appropriate for a rapier but having replaced the blade with a more warlike backsword.

Oh indeed, but the point I'm making is that it was the pistol that was the cause of the change away from gauntlets (and thus the adoption of basket hilts), not the sword. The sword simply adapted to whatever the chosen method of protecting the hand was; the driver was that in a heavy gauntlet you couldn't reload a pistol.

[Beleriphon]

The main advantage really is being able to attack when you want to and go away when you want to. Try playing Mount and Blade a bit it's simplistic, but it's pretty good at conveying this idea.

I have to agree here. While not the best thing ever, Mout & Blade does an excellent job at conveying the ideas of why mounted combat is 1) incredibly useful in some circumstances and 2) incredibly dangerous when encounter large numbers of armed men when all alone. My poor, poor riding horses....

[Mathis]

I have to agree here. While not the best thing ever, Mout & Blade does an excellent job at conveying the ideas of why mounted combat is 1) incredibly useful in some circumstances and 2) incredibly dangerous when encounter large numbers of armed men when all alone. My poor, poor riding horses....


This is simply not true. As someone with 500+ hours in Mount & Blade I have to tell you that it pretty much is the best thing ever. For the Khanate!

[Beleriphon]

This is simply not true. As someone with 500+ hours in Mount & Blade I have to tell you that it pretty much is the best thing ever. For the Khanate!

Well, the game is totally awesome (cannot wait for Warband 2 to get released BTW), the game isn't exactly the best representation of everything it does, but it does an above average job at everything it does. For example the archery isn't the best archery in a game, but it is damn good, especially the horse back archery. Good grief, I hate Khanate horse archers, I hate them so damn much. :smallfurious:

I think my point was more that the game isn't completely accurate to the way things actually worked in mounted combat, being a game and all, but it does an exceptional job at making you feel like a totally awesome mounted warrior, or foot solider, or merchant general, or engineer medic.

[Roetroc]

Oh indeed, but the point I'm making is that it was the pistol that was the cause of the change away from gauntlets (and thus the adoption of basket hilts), not the sword. The sword simply adapted to whatever the chosen method of protecting the hand was; the driver was that in a heavy gauntlet you couldn't reload a pistol.

I was just highlighting that the single gauntlet was on the non-weapon hand.

[Wardog]

I got a Wild West question: Would there be any point in trying to escape from bandits on horses with a stagecoach?
Seems to me like you almost certainly would be slower and your horses exhausted sooner,

That might depend on how many horses you have, and what kind.

Theoretically at least, with enough horses, the ratio of weight pulled / horse could be less than for the bandits. (Whether that was true in practice I don't know).




Anyway, I have a question:

How well armoured can an archer while still being effective as an archer?

Lots of games impose some sort of accuracy penalties on archers if they wear armour - is this realistic, or could you have an effective archer wearing (e.g.) full plate?

[Hexalan]

I'd think that it's not that it's impossible for an archer to wear armor - only that any sort of additional equipment, either from weight alone, or by hampering the movement of certain parts of the body like any kind of armor would do, would hamper the archer's ability to efficiently shoot. Rate of fire, accuracy, draw strength, etc. would be reduced, and an archer isn't really supposed to be a front-line fighter anyway, and shouldn't need extraneous armor, as opposed to trying to maximize shooting.

[Lilapop]

Anyway, I have a question:

How well armoured can an archer while still being effective as an archer?

Lots of games impose some sort of accuracy penalties on archers if they wear armour - is this realistic, or could you have an effective archer wearing (e.g.) full plate?
Three different body parts come to mind. Firstly, you have to turn you head to the side AND will probably still have you eyes not straight forward relative to you head. This limits your choices in both neck and face protection. Secondly, medieval military bows tend to range over 100 lbs of draw weight, which requires a pretty much full-body effort. Armor that restricts leg and hip movement shouldn't be a problem, but rigid torso armor with small arm openings might be.
Thirdly, at least with modern sport recurves you have to twist your elbow out. If you've never seen that: When you stretch out your arm, the inside of the elbow is usually almost horizontal. That bulge pointing to the right is in the way of the bowstring, so the elbow has to be twisted about 90° clockwise without majorly affecting shoulder and wrist position. Now, the big full-body movement and shooting from the ear instead of the chin (so the string starts about an inch further to the right) might reduce this problem, but big poleyns could swing this around again.

There are other details, they should be pretty obvious though.

[Spiryt]

Archery is really very static and not particularly acrobatic action compared to actually fighting with melee weapons.

Helmet and gauntlets/gloves could be pretty much only issue.

If you can fight with spear or sword, you can shoot even more easily.

Penalties in various games are likely result of some weird, derp-grade assumptions of archery=dexterity, melee=strength, or whatever. Such as in D&D.

[Storm Bringer]

Anyway, I have a question:

How well armoured can an archer while still being effective as an archer?

Lots of games impose some sort of accuracy penalties on archers if they wear armour - is this realistic, or could you have an effective archer wearing (e.g.) full plate?

to my knowledge, he can wear as much armour as he can desires and can afford.

historically, English archers tended to wear lighter armour than the knights and men at arms, but that was partly because they were form poorer, lower class backgrounds and couldn't afford top class armour.

[Kiero]

Anyway, I have a question:

How well armoured can an archer while still being effective as an archer?

Lots of games impose some sort of accuracy penalties on archers if they wear armour - is this realistic, or could you have an effective archer wearing (e.g.) full plate?

Depends; are they on foot or on horseback? If the latter, as much as they like/can afford - look at Scythian and Sauromatae nobles for some very heavily armoured horse archers (full suits of leather-backed scale).

If on foot, they have to lug that armour all around the place (either on their person, or on a mule/servant), and it may impede their ability to get away if they need to hustle. Archers aren't usually line infantry and mobility is a big deal.


Penalties in various games are likely result of some weird, derp-grade assumptions of archery=dexterity, melee=strength, or whatever. Such as in D&D.

It's worse than that, Dexterity in things like D&D conflates hand-eye co-ordination with full-body agility. Armour (barring heavy gauntlets) has little impact on the former, and some impact on the latter, depending on how well crafted it is.

[Galloglaich]

I agree with Spiryt on this one. In the 15th Century, the top level (highest paid) archers, crossbowmen and gunners in German and Czech militias seem to have had the same kind of armor as lancers (heavy cavalry), i.e. plate harness. These were the mounted archers (etc), from the limited numbers I have seen these guys were about 10% of a given force. The top level of the infantry archers, marksmen (etc.) had plate armor or brigandine except for the lower legs. There are some lists of costs for these troops, both in terms of pay and the cost of equipment. IIRC the gear for a lancers was about 20 marks and for the crossbowman it was 11 marks, but the difference was the cost of the horse (and some horse gear), lancer obviously getting a nicer horse.

Regarding hand protection for cavalry, several military manuals and fightbooks mention cutting the reigns of a horseman as a primary tactic, so presumably that would make your reign-hand maybe a bit more vulnerable.

G

[Roetroc]

There are numerous manuscript images of archers in varying amounts of armour from little to none to full harness (barring gauntlets) and everything in between. http://manuscriptminiatures.com/4333/16112/ from the 14th century.

[Storm_Of_Snow]

Regarding hand protection for cavalry, several military manuals and fightbooks mention cutting the reigns of a horseman as a primary tactic, so presumably that would make your reign-hand maybe a bit more vulnerable.

G
Probably makes the horse's head and neck more vulnerable than the riders hands. :smallwink:

[Kiero]

Probably makes the horse's head and neck more vulnerable than the riders hands. :smallwink:

Depends on whether the attacker is willing to risk the more difficult task of taking out rider, rather than mount. Especially if they want the horse, which is a not unusual motivation.

[Milodiah]

One reason why (historically) archers were less inclined to wear heavy armor is that if said archers are needing to deal with angry swordsmen on a regular basis, something has gone terribly wrong. Granted, the assumption that all archers behave like English longbowmen, standing behind the fight and acting as artillery, has been proven wrong, but the fact still remains that archers try not to be on the frontlines, because they don't need to be and being on the frontlines is usually detrimental to one's health.

You'll see quite a few archers and crossbowmen, especially crossbowmen, using a pavise to protect them from the enemy's projectiles. Such protection is essentially just mobile cover, with most of the advantages of actual armor (i.e. not getting shot) with few of the disadvantages (i.e. it being heavy on your body all the time).

In all honesty, there's not much difficulty in operating a bow relative to operating the more complex melee weaponry like flails or specialized swords. Also, full plate armor isn't nearly as restrictive as it's now portrayed in the media; you can do push-ups, jumping jacks, etc. The one thing you'll notice is that heavy armor usually seems to slow down movement (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xyztjyKml3I) somewhat, making it seem to be in slow-motion. Granted, being able to go through the motions fast is a good thing for an archer to do, since rate of fire boils down to "how fast you can move your arms", but there aren't really any individual motions in the process of drawing and firing a bow that are prevented by well-made, reasonable armor. I'd probably go light on the arms, especially at the elbow, but none of the rest really even interferes with it.

EDIT: Yes, yes, I know the link is a horrendous representation of an armored fight...love the idiots slapping each other's armor with the cutting edge of a longsword. But the videos I usually link for the purposes of "this is what moving in armor is like" seem to be missing...

[Brother Oni]

EDIT: Yes, yes, I know the link is a horrendous representation of an armored fight...love the idiots slapping each other's armor with the cutting edge of a longsword. But the videos I usually link for the purposes of "this is what moving in armor is like" seem to be missing...

Have you seen this one? (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvCvOC2VwDc)

There's also this one (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NjKbi7YUNaI) which shows some of the differences between battle armour and jousting armour, including a really nice view of a locking gauntlet at ~23:00 (you may want to skip forward to 22:20). It is however somewhat dated (it came out in 1924) and doesn't reflect current knowledge.

[fusilier]

One reason why (historically) archers were less inclined to wear heavy armor is that if said archers are needing to deal with angry swordsmen on a regular basis, something has gone terribly wrong. Granted, the assumption that all archers behave like English longbowmen, standing behind the fight and acting as artillery, has been proven wrong, but the fact still remains that archers try not to be on the frontlines, because they don't need to be and being on the frontlines is usually detrimental to one's health.

I'm not certain how medieval infantry were deployed, there is some evidence that they were mixed together (at least at sometimes in some places). So while archers wouldn't be in the front rank they could be in the third rank -- apparently to directly support the other soldiers in hand-to-hand combat. This website about the Battle of Piombino in 1448 (in Italian) describes a formation where the missile troops are in the third+ ranks. The picture also depicts it:
http://stemmieimprese.it/2012/09/17/la-battaglia-di-piombino-1448/

And it's very similar to the description of the infantry of Hungarian Black Army of the same era (well armored pikemen, shield bearers, crossbowmen). The formations were obviously flexible, but that was the way they were supposed to form when engaging in hand-to-hand.

[Shamash]

Why is the "Morning star" named Morning star?

[Spiryt]

Why is the "Morning star" named Morning star?

Because the ball with nails pointing away from it resembles morning star, or at least it's traditional graphic depiction in particular.

http://britishlibrary.typepad.co.uk/.a/6a00d8341c464853ef01901de3b06a970b-500wi

Now, it's hard to tell if it's original etymology or someone's later impression, of course.

Someone would need to have some proper German etymological dictionary, or at least English one.

[comicshorse]

This may be more a forensics question but I'll give it a go
In a game I'm running the P.C.s are going to be investigating a assassination where the killer used a PB silent pistol
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PB_(pistol)

This is a clue to the P.C.s as the killer was issued with this in her time in the KGB.
However would forensics be able to tell which type of pistol fired the shot or could they only tell it was a 9mm ?

[Brother Oni]

Because the ball with nails pointing away from it resembles morning star, or at least it's traditional graphic depiction in particular.

http://britishlibrary.typepad.co.uk/.a/6a00d8341c464853ef01901de3b06a970b-500wi

Now, it's hard to tell if it's original etymology or someone's later impression, of course.

Someone would need to have some proper German etymological dictionary, or at least English one.

To clarify Spiryt's comments, 'morning star' refers exclusively to the ball with spikes, thus you can end up with flails and maces both being referred to as a 'morning star'.


http://www.thespecialistsltd.com/files/Morning_Star_Mace.jpg

http://www.thespecialistsltd.com/files/Morning_Star_Flail2.jpg


This may be more a forensics question but I'll give it a go
In a game I'm running the P.C.s are going to be investigating a assassination where the killer used a PB silent pistol
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PB_(pistol)

This is a clue to the P.C.s as the killer was issued with this in her time in the KGB.
However would forensics be able to tell which type of pistol fired the shot or could they only tell it was a 9mm ?

It depends on how intact the the bullet is, as there are minute differences between the two, which would probably be destroyed on impact: 9x18mm Makarov (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9%C3%9718mm_Makarov), 9x19 Parabellum (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9%C3%9719mm_Parabellum).

If the case could be recovered though (ie the killer didn't manage to pick it up after shooting), you could tell it was Warsaw Pact ammunition since it is intentionally not compatible with NATO weapons and shooting isn't as destructive on that component.

I don't know enough about the specifics of the PB pistol to tell whether there are any other distinguishing marks (eg the number and angles of the rifling marks), which could help narrow it down, but you may want to fluff it a bit for the sake of moving the game forwards.

[Milodiah]

There's a chance they could note it was a subsonic round, due to its ballistic profile, which implies rather heavily it is a suppressed weapon firing it; after all, firing a subsonic round from a regular gun doesn't do all that much because there's still the gunshot, but firing it from a suppressed weapon definitely helps the whole "quieter" thing suppressors are obviously trying to go for.

What kind of gun would be a stretch, they would be able to definitely conclude it is a 9x18mm Makarov round, possibly conclude a subsonic one (game-mechanics wise, that would be a critical success in my opinion). Note that discovering it is 9x18mm Makarov is certainly enough to raise the possibility that the killer is a Russian or at least Warsaw Pact, given that's an uncommon round in the US.


If you were to put a bit of artificial stupidity onto the shoulders of the assassin (or just a rushed job, where there was not time to clean up) the shell casing would have a chance of telling them. From what I know of the PB pistol, it has a different bolt configuration than the standard Makarov PM, which likely means a different extractor, which likely means a different impression on the rear of the ejected casing.

[comicshorse]

It depends on how intact the the bullet is, as there are minute differences between the two, which would probably be destroyed on impact: 9x18mm Makarov (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9%C3%9718mm_Makarov), 9x19 Parabellum (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9%C3%9719mm_Parabellum).


At least one bullet should be intact as the killer will have fired it straight into the targets eye. I assume that would preserve the bullet


If the case could be recovered though (ie the killer didn't manage to pick it up after shooting), you could tell it was Warsaw Pact ammunition since it is intentionally not compatible with NATO weapons and shooting isn't as destructive on that component.

I'll consider that but the killer is generally to competent to really make that kind of mistake


Posted by Milodiah

There's a chance they could note it was a subsonic round, due to its ballistic profile, which implies rather heavily it is a suppressed weapon firing it;


I'll bear that in mind as well

Thanks to you both

[Spiryt]

Bullet going trough the eye and brain will likely slam very hard into back of the skull, which may be quite a bit damaging.

Depends heavily on the material of bullet, and what will it hit after leaving the body.

Seems that one variant of 9x18mm Makarov is of very low energy for bullet, ~155J, so I guess it could possibly just stay within the brain relatively undamaged? /speculation.

[Gnoman]

It would be very easy to determine that it was a small, fairly low powered round - even a full-strength Makarov round is enough weaker than a 9x19 Parabellum round to cause noticeably distinct wound tracks. From there, bullet mass (which can be estimated without all the fragments) would probably help to determine that it wasn't a .38 special or .380ACP, the rounds most ballistically similar to a 9x18 Makarov, if the bullet wasn't intact enough to be measured (if it were intact enough to measure, the Makarov round is impossible to mistake for any other kind of bullet, it's significantly wider and shorter than other rounds in the 9mm range). Past that, the odds of determining that it was a PB rather than a PM are highly unlikely - the actions of the two weapons are nearly identical, so the only clue would be that it was a silenced weapon, which can't be determined forensically - you'd need earwitness accounts for that.

What era and region is this in? 9x18 Makarov is becoming more popular on the civilian market nowadays, but in the Cold War era it was quite a rare caliber - this might well be a clue in and of itself. If you're setting this in one of the countries that prohibit ex-military or Eastern-bloc calibers for civilian ownership, or prohibit handguns completely, that's also a clue.

[comicshorse]

[QUOTE=Gnoman;19080483

What era and region is this in? 9x18 Makarov is becoming more popular on the civilian market nowadays, but in the Cold War era it was quite a rare caliber - this might well be a clue in and of itself. If you're setting this in one of the countries that prohibit ex-military or Eastern-bloc calibers for civilian ownership, or prohibit handguns completely, that's also a clue.[/QUOTE]

The game is set in modern day LA but the killer is carrying the gun she was issued in the KGB because she has a sentimental attachment to it and the 'good old days' it represents.
I know the KGB was dissolved in 1991 but its a Changeling game and the killer missed the fall of the Soviet Union in Arcadia which is why she's now working freelance in LA

[Galloglaich]

To clarify Spiryt's comments, 'morning star' refers exclusively to the ball with spikes, thus you can end up with flails and maces both being referred to as a 'morning star'.


http://www.thespecialistsltd.com/files/Morning_Star_Mace.jpg

http://www.thespecialistsltd.com/files/Morning_Star_Flail2.jpg



Though those weapons you linked are kind of iconic in their association with medieval war, I think historically both the flail and mace were much more common in infantry configurations. This is a real morgenstern, usually a kind of two-handed mace about 4-6 feet long, made of wood augmented by spikes and iron rings, and usually a front-stabbing spike.

http://rest-arts.com/images/morgenstern.jpg

wikipedia has some pretty good examples of other typical configurations

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c9/Boeheim_Morgenstern_01.jpg

Flails, similarly, came from (or were modeled after) agricultural flails and most often consisted of a long (4-6 foot) pole connected to a shorter 'threshing' pole (6" - 2') by just a couple of chain links, not the really long chain that you so often see on History Channel or Game of Thrones or something (which are pretty risky to use because you can hit yourself easily).

Again wikipedia has a pretty good illustration of the typical configuration (surprisingly) though the real ones are scarier.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7a/Cep_bojowy_0211.jpg

The business-end looked like this

http://www.manningimperial.com/gallery/498main.jpg

http://www.husitskamesta.net/data/photobank/fotobanka/tabor/hussitenwaffen_1/extra/2008-12-05-14-46-22-940.jpg

These weapons were around forever but rose to prominence as the Czech national weapon (along with the hand-gun and the war-wagon) which led to numerous victories throughout the 15th Century. They were devastating , proving useful in dispatching armored horsemen as well as their horses.

You do also see the more 'cliche' types of flails, but these were just another among the knights (or soldiers) panoply whereas the Czech / German style flegel was of some strategic importance since it seemed to play a role in the Czech victories in the Hussite Wars and in several other wars later in the Century.

You do also see odd hybrid weapons like these, meteor hammer etc. (but still usually mounted on a long pole)

http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=50830&stc=1

G

[Spiryt]

I would be careful with talking about 'typical' here, sadly those obviously aren't well preserving weapons.

Those weapons from Czech castles may very well be repros, there's plenty of them.

Impossible to judge with certainty without some serious expertise of course, but AFAIR wood on most of them seemed way to pretty to be ancient. The fact that they're hanged just like that is suspicious too.

This one from France seems to be behind the glass, which is more convincing.

http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morgenstern_(arme)


Those drawings in Wiki are from some late 19th century German book, I think. Found one from 1890 at least, sadly it doesn't seem that the sources it lists are available on the list.



These weapons were around forever but rose to prominence as the Czech national weapon

Do you have any traces of them before late 14th century?

Would be interesting, it seems that 13th century ones from manuscript seem to be more similar to spiked maces, like first one from the German book.

'Morgenstern' and flails, particularly two handed shapes seem to be later.

[Gnoman]

The game is set in modern day LA but the killer is carrying the gun she was issued it in the KGB because she has a sentimental attachment to it and the 'good old days' it represents.
I know the KGB was dissolved in 1991 but its a Changeling game and the killer missed the fall of the Soviet Union in Arcadia which is why she's know working freelance in LA

That's going to muddy the waters quite a bit. 9mm Makarov still isn't a popular round, but it (and handguns that fire it) aren't hard to get at all - a killing with a Makarov round would be somewhat unusual, but not unusual enough for it to be a clue in and of itself.

You might want to consider an alternative, such as the PSM (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PSM_pistol), which would also be a logical choice for a KGB officer, but uses a much more exotic round, giving your PCs more to go on.

[Galloglaich]

I would be careful with talking about 'typical' here, sadly those obviously aren't well preserving weapons.

Those weapons from Czech castles may very well be repros, there's plenty of them.

Impossible to judge with certainty without some serious expertise of course, but AFAIR wood on most of them seemed way to pretty to be ancient. The fact that they're hanged just like that is suspicious too.

This one from France seems to be behind the glass, which is more convincing.

I don't mean to sound rude or arrogant, but I do have some expertise on this and I know a lot about it because I spent 5 years studying the Hussite Wars and subsequent wars in Bohemia and that weapon was a key tool in their arsenal. It also shows up in fencing manuals and I've done some research on that as well. Many of the weapons in castles (or for that matter, museums) are reproductions, or at the very least repaired and remade with questionable skill. But the images I posted - which were just what I could quickly google, as I was on my lunch break at work) are representative of what these weapons actually look like. Both the flails and the morgensterns.

The Swiss city of Bern actually liquidated a bunch of morgensterns (and a bunch of pikes) from their old arsenal about 4 years ago, I have photos of dozens of them (mostly 17th Century but some older). There are also quite a few authentic weapons of this type all over Czech and Slovakia, and I have photos of some of those too. The Prague national museum has dozens of antique flails and other Hussite weapons in their basement and I have some photos of those too. Not necessarily for posting online. For years I've also trolled the catalogues and online sites of the major auction houses (who usually have better stuff than the museums, sadly) and collected scores of images from them. The thing is these weapons seem to be pretty consistent all over Europe, especially Central and Northern Europe but also in Spain and France, Italy and other places. They seem to be almost as ubiquitous as swords or spears.

Incidentally you can also see a few of these on Myarmoury on their antique weapons gallery. Examples here (http://www.myarmoury.com/albums/displayimage.php?album=13&pos=30), here (http://www.myarmoury.com/albums/displayimage.php?album=13&pos=31), here (http://www.myarmoury.com/albums/displayimage.php?album=13&pos=50), here (http://www.myarmoury.com/albums/displayimage.php?album=13&pos=118),




Do you have any traces of them before late 14th century?

Would be interesting, it seems that 13th century ones from manuscript seem to be more similar to spiked maces, like first one from the German book.

'Morgenstern' and flails, particularly two handed shapes seem to be later.

Yes they do show up in miniatures in some 13th Century MSS (along with the similar godendag used in Flanders), it would take me a while to dig up and collect the images though.. I couldn't google them it was hard enough to find the 15th Century ones. But here are some of the agriculturual type:



https://findwyerspodcast.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/wheat-thresher.jpg

https://historyonthefox.files.wordpress.com/2013/08/threshing-with-flail-ancient-cropped.jpg?w=506

The agricultural flail was used for threshing going back to prehistoric times (usually just two pieces of wood linked together with some leather or animal hide). This one is early 14th Century I think.

This one is from 1270 AD, and these flails would not be very hard to 'militarize' as they seem to have iron links

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/81/Battage_%C3%A0_Fl%C3%A9au.jpg

Anyway, I suspect we have to agree to disagree on this issue. I think these are the typical form of that weapon.

G

[Galloglaich]

This one is from the Maciejowski bible, circa 1250 AD. (Folio 16, Recto plate 108.) I see two weapons that fall into the ballpark of a two-handed mace or morgenstern.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/21/Maciejowski_Folio_16_Recto_plate_108.jpg

Looks like another long-handled one here (no match for the jawbone of an Ass)

http://manuscriptminiatures.com/media/cache/manuscriptminiatures.com/original/118-18_large.jpg

and another one here (far left)

http://athenaia.lu/uploads/morgan_bible_10r-959737817.jpg

Here are some agricultural flails from the Maciejowski bible. Strongly made ones with iron links.
http://www.medievaltymes.com/courtyard/images/maciejowski/leaf12/otm12vc&ddetail2.gif
http://www.medievaltymes.com/courtyard/images/maciejowski/leaf18/otm18rc&d.gif

Czech women used these in the Hussite wars, apparently some were experts with the flail

http://www.medievaltymes.com/courtyard/images/maciejowski/leaf18/otm18ra.gif



and since you also said 'late' 14th Century, you are maybe forgetting about the Battle of Golden Spurs in 1302. Their main weapon was another kind of two-handed mace called a godendag but they also used morgenstern in that battle. Probably flails too.



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

G

[snowblizz]

I know the KGB was dissolved in 1991

Yea... ummm... see, some would say they didn't do much more than change the name...
In cases like this it is very uncommon to start from scratch with something new. The old organisation tends to puddle along with some reorganisation at the top. The president himself is ex-KGB.

For funsies Belarus *still* has a KGB.

[rs2excelsior]

What advantage would a flail have over a mace, if any? It seems to me that a spiked metal head on a solid handle would be more effective at transmitting force, and cheaper and easier to make to boot. I can maybe see the end of the flail gaining some extra velocity, but the force transmitted would still be limited by the momentum of the head (as opposed to momentum of the head and the wielder's arm strength combined).

[GraaEminense]

The main advantage would be that it's harder to defend against. If you place an object (say, a shield) in the way of most weapons, it stops them from hitting you (barring extremely powerful blows and a whole lot of other possibilities, of course). How do you do that if the thing can wrap over your defense to hit you in the face? Not impossible of course, but much more difficult.

[BayardSPSR]

I can maybe see the end of the flail gaining some extra velocity, but the force transmitted would still be limited by the momentum of the head (as opposed to momentum of the head and the wielder's arm strength combined).

It's this. The momentum of the head could, indeed, exceed the wielder's arm+stick. Think of whips - when you crack a whip, the crack you hear is literally a sonic boom. That's how fast a flexible thing can move.

[Brother Oni]

Though those weapons you linked are kind of iconic in their association with medieval war, I think historically both the flail and mace were much more common in infantry configurations. This is a real morgenstern, usually a kind of two-handed mace about 4-6 feet long, made of wood augmented by spikes and iron rings, and usually a front-stabbing spike.


I'm not disputing your knowledge, but from my preliminary digging, it seemed to indicate that the Germans often used the term 'morgenstern' for both the flail and fixed head types as far back at the 14th Century. There was some attempt to differentiate the two with 'morgenstern' for the fixed head and 'kettenmorgenstern' for the chain and spiked ball variant, but I don't know how much traction that gained.

The source I read also suggested there was some type of subtle difference between the morgenstern and morning stars from other countries, but I'm not sure exactly what it is.


You do also see odd hybrid weapons like these, meteor hammer etc. (but still usually mounted on a long pole)

I wasn't aware there was a western variant of the meteor hammer (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meteor_hammer), or did you mean there was a type of flail named that?

[Spiryt]

This one is from the Maciejowski bible, circa 1250 AD. (Folio 16, Recto plate 108.) I see two weapons that fall into the ballpark of a two-handed mace or morgenstern.

I was specifically thinking about two handed 'morningstars' and flails though.

Two handed maces seem to be around, due to sheer 'primal' aspect of such weapon, and literally sources, we can only assume that could be used a lot indeed. Even if sadly we don't have much sources from obvious reasons.





It's this. The momentum of the head could, indeed, exceed the wielder's arm+stick. Think of whips - when you crack a whip, the crack you hear is literally a sonic boom. That's how fast a flexible thing can move.

End of the whip weights literally grains, so it's not very good comparison.

And yes, end of the flail head can attain huge velocity, but it's momentum is strictly limited indeed, since it's flying 'alone' without support of the rest of the weapon and a wielder.

When impact force drives striking part away, it's held in places, and driven forward by parts below that are not impacting. In flail there's no such thing obviously.


I don't think there are any real numbers to compare impacts, sadly. We need to wait and have trust in science.:smallwink:

War flail, at least two handed one was likely offering the same advantage as agricultural one - ability to trash something hard, repeatedly, without transferring shock to users hands.

Probably ability to deal strong strike with limited room to swing. Likely useful on famous wagons of Hussites, for example.

[Raunchel]

While reading about the morningstars, flails and maces another question occured to me. In several musea I saw ornate Ottoman maces, and I was wondering if they were meant as real weapons, or just as status symbols, and their owners wouldn't bring them into battle.

[Brother Oni]

While reading about the morningstars, flails and maces another question occured to me. In several musea I saw ornate Ottoman maces, and I was wondering if they were meant as real weapons, or just as status symbols, and their owners wouldn't bring them into battle.

The more ornate ones were status symbols and objects of power.

For example, the UK Houses of Parliament have two ceremonial maces (carried by Black Rod (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Rod) and the Serjeant of Arms (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serjeant_at_Arms_of_the_British_House_of_Commons)) , which represent the authority of the Queen. There's a whole ritual about this as well: link (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cub19x2VX_I).

Ceremonial and weapon maces are also very common in Indian mythology.

Odo of Bayeux (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odo,_Earl_of_Kent) is depicted wielding a 'club' in the Bayeux Tapestry and it's specifically mentioned that he was inspiring the morale of men rather than actually fighting (incidentally this is also the root of the 'clergymen cannot shed blood' supposition), although he did plenty of face stabbing with other weapons at other times. There was a one handed mace at the time which very much resembled an aspergillum (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aspergillum) (holy water sprinkler), which further reinforced the myth.

[Galloglaich]

I'm not disputing your knowledge, but from my preliminary digging, it seemed to indicate that the Germans often used the term 'morgenstern' for both the flail and fixed head types as far back at the 14th Century. There was some attempt to differentiate the two with 'morgenstern' for the fixed head and 'kettenmorgenstern' for the chain and spiked ball variant, but I don't know how much traction that gained.

"In period" weapon terminology is extremely variable and often vague and imprecise, more and more so the further back in time you go. This is because of the nature of the medieval period, there was no standardization by definition. One literary source is very precise, and uses terms of art, another is super generic and uses catch-all or civilian terms, or literary euphemisms. A halberd for example might be referred to as an axe, a 'roncha' (partisan) or a bill, or even some biblical term like a 'rhomphia' when it's clearly what we would call a halberd today. Archaic and imprecise terms from antiquity were particularly popular. Crossbows were often referred to in medieval manuscripts by the Latin term 'ballista' and crossbowmen as ballistarii.

Most of the strict terminology for any kind of medieval weapon that we use today is at least partly modern. Including for swords and so on. But we try to base that on the terms which can most closely be associated with the specific type.

In this case there are records using the specific term 'morgenstern' clearly to refer to a two-handed club with spikes going back to the 13th Century. They sometimes stipulated the size or condition that was required for militia musters (among other types of weapons). For example they might say a good spear of 3 ells or a good mogernstern with iron bands of 2 ells or something like that. I'd have to go through a lot of records to find specific references. If remember specifically there are also weapon / arsenal inspection records which mention this.



The source I read also suggested there was some type of subtle difference between the morgenstern and morning stars from other countries, but I'm not sure exactly what it is.

There were numerous regional variations, but that specific type, big two-handed wooden club with spikes coming out of the sides and a central spike sticking out like a spear-point, was found all over Europe. Iberia, Germany, Italy, Poland, Scandinavia.

The flail, specifically two handed flail doesn't show up very prominently in records (and I've never seen it mentioned in town archives) until the Czechs made it famous in the 1420's, but it clearly existed long before that. It just didn't matter that much and wasn't (I don't think) a very strategic or standard weapon. As soon as anyone encountered the Hussite armies though they usually bought some or had some made, for example the city council of Krakow ordered 150 of them (and a bunch of handguns) after an encounter with a Hussite raiding band in the 1430's.



I wasn't aware there was a western variant of the meteor hammer (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meteor_hammer), or did you mean there was a type of flail named that?

I don't know of any specific medieval term for them but I mean the type with a small weight (sometimes a hammer head) on a long to very long chain. I'm using that term generically. But it's a sub-type of flails you see show up quite a bit for example in the auction-house catalogues.



What advantage would a flail have over a mace, if any? It seems to me that a spiked metal head on a solid handle would be more effective at transmitting force, and cheaper and easier to make to boot. I can maybe see the end of the flail gaining some extra velocity, but the force transmitted would still be limited by the momentum of the head (as opposed to momentum of the head and the wielder's arm strength combined).

From playing around with them, flails have a greatly enhanced striking velocity over a regular pole or pole-mace, can be made to strike very hard with little effort, and in the hands of a skilled thresher can be used to strike many times over and over, dozens of times per minute. This is one of the main advantages of the two-handed flail in particular because you can do it quite safely (without risk of hitting yourself). The Hussites systematically recruited peasants who were expert threshers to wield flails in battle - including women. You don't have to swing the whole pole around to strike again and again, just rotate it a little, and voila, knocked some more teeth out.

The bottom line is that from the well documented reactions of the neighbors of the Czechs, including in Austria, Brandenburg, Bavaria, Silesia, Lusatia, Poland, Hungary, and upper Saxony, they noticed immediately that flails were capable by whatever means of killing armored soldiers. So most of them bought or made some of their own. Same thing for the newer types of firearms and war-wagons (with mixed success).


I was specifically thinking about two handed 'morningstars' and flails though.

Two handed maces seem to be around, due to sheer 'primal' aspect of such weapon, and literally sources, we can only assume that could be used a lot indeed. Even if sadly we don't have much sources from obvious reasons.

Sorry mate, but I think you are putting a waaaaay too fine a point on it. Like most medieval artists before the 14th century, the artist of the Maciejowski bible clearly had some cartoon-like stylistic conventions for all kinds of gear that he drew, and he seems to have drawn morgensterns with knobs instead of spikes, but that is simply an artistic style. We just don't have as much military artwork from that period as we do from later medieval periods (and far less of it scanned and online) and the art itself tended to be more formulaic.

But if you have the technology to put knobs on a two handed mace, what would stop you from putting spikes instead? As for the round 'ball' shape of the mace itself, that was only a subset of the actual later-era morgensterns (I think a minority of them) which by the way, were still being used into the 17th Century. But most were cylinder shaped like the ones I linked upthread.


G

[Spiryt]

Sorry mate, but I think you are putting a waaaaay too fine a point on it. Like most medieval artists before the 14th century, the artist of the Maciejowski bible clearly had some cartoon-like stylistic conventions for all kinds of gear that he drew, and he seems to have drawn morgensterns with knobs instead of spikes, but that is simply an artistic style. We just don't have as much military artwork from that period as we do from later medieval periods (and far less of it scanned and online) and the art itself tended to be more formulaic.


Hard to tell from those pictures indeed, but I think it maybe possible that those may be those famous 'traditional' maces/club which way of making seems to be preserved in almost every European folklore - putting small stones/pieces of metal or whatever and waiting till tree grows hard knots around it.

Or just knobs put manually in.

It's indeed possible that Maciejowski bible followed some local convention of depicting such weapons, all those manuscripts were.

It's of course also possible that they were just simply making those clubs with knobs indeed.

[Galloglaich]

Hard to tell from those pictures indeed, but I think it maybe possible that those may be those famous 'traditional' maces/club which way of making seems to be preserved in almost every European folklore - putting small stones/pieces of metal or whatever and waiting till tree grows hard knots around it.

Or just knobs put manually in.

It's indeed possible that Maciejowski bible followed some local convention of depicting such weapons, all those manuscripts were.

It's of course also possible that they were just simply making those clubs with knobs indeed.

Ok fine but how do you explain the African guy with the wootz steel sword and the gold helmet? ;)

http://media.tumblr.com/e1aa8ccadf720e0e3ec4cd3a4cedc042/tumblr_inline_mys9i97cfF1rpr1t4.png

G

[BayardSPSR]

Ok fine but how do you explain the African guy with the wootz steel sword and the gold helmet? ;)

Tokenism? There were some people of color in medieval Europe - at least, enough to model for art.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a7/Saint_Maurice_Magdeburg.jpg

(Saint Maurice, from a 13th century statue in Magdeburg Cathedral.)

[Galloglaich]

Tokenism? There were some people of color in medieval Europe - at least, enough to model for art.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a7/Saint_Maurice_Magdeburg.jpg

(Saint Maurice, from a 13th century statue in Magdeburg Cathedral.)

Yeah I know I was kidding. I don't think it's necessarily tokenism either. Certainly interesting.

G

[kardar233]

Would it be possible to make a sword of sintered telluric iron (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telluric_iron)? I'm trying to define what "cold iron" means in my world, and the best criteria I can come up with is that it's made from naturally-occurring iron deposits and that the iron in question has never been heated to any significant degree. My worry is that that might cause cold iron weaponry to be nearly impossible, or for the materials required to be unsuitable for combat.

[snowblizz]

Been musing on castle and citygates a bit lately. And it seems often they are depicted as opening inward, at least in media. Bang a bit on them with a battering ram and they swing inwards. That seems very defensively inefficient. Wouldn't it as a minimum make sense to hinge them opening outwards? How much would that inconvenience the defenders?

Secondly, the toothpick they bar the door with. Because it is never enough is it. Why not back the doors with a beam support system that would take any stress and transfer it into the ground. An a-frame type thing dug into the ground a bit? Well, depending on how much you can get at the ground anyway (rockstrata, your nice cobblestone surface etc). But anything that helps transfer energy away from splitting that poor poor toothpick would be nice, yes?

On the other hand, are the gates really that vulnerable at that? As the "weak" spot they'd usually be flanked by the most massive guardtowers, sometimes a small keep almost, which should kinda make it one of the stronger points, as I've come to understand on some accounts.
So really is the risk that someone batters down your gate really that great outside antiquity?, I mean more powerful siege engines in the medieaval period would make impact on walls...

Depending on your circumstances of course you need access. Ie a citygate that allows you to take in ox-carts would also be suited to get battered by a ram, and vise versa, make it impossible to get at the gates with a ram and you have severely limited the amount of traffic you can handle through your gates?

[Storm_Of_Snow]

If the gates open outwards, then if the defenders can somehow hook them, they're trying to make the gates move the way they're designed to, and all the forces the defender is trying to put on them to keep them closed are in tension rather than compression. And if they open inwards, you can protect the outside aspect of the hinges with stone, wheras if they open outwards, the hinges have to be exposed (so the gates can swing open) and are thus vulnerable.

A bar across the gates is something that can be put in place in a hurry - as you pointed out, most of the time, the gates are needed to get people, supplies and other things through the walls, and the more defenses you add to the gates, the harder it is to get in and out. If you've got the time and money, then you can put supporting baulks of wood behind it to strengthen your defences, or whatever you like - depending on the availability of magic or technology (for example, imagine trying to break through the gates when the entire space behind them has been filled with a massive stone block, either magically created (wall of stone, polymorph object etc), or raised from below by hydraulics).

As for gatehouses, remember that the attacker will be doing all they can to try and kill, or at the very least suppress, the defenders in them so that the breaching forces have a chance to break through. That's why castle builders constructed murderholes etc inside the gateway - a layered defence.

[Brother Oni]

Would it be possible to make a sword of sintered telluric iron (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telluric_iron)? I'm trying to define what "cold iron" means in my world, and the best criteria I can come up with is that it's made from naturally-occurring iron deposits and that the iron in question has never been heated to any significant degree. My worry is that that might cause cold iron weaponry to be nearly impossible, or for the materials required to be unsuitable for combat.

Doing some reading, you need type 2 telluric iron (type 1 is too hard and brittle because of the high impurity and carbon content), which can be cold forged.

However it's only found in small grains and the largest item I can find made of cold forged telluric iron are Inuit knives and ulus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulu), suggesting that the iron is unsuitable for making into anything larger than that.

This would rule out swords, but spears, arrows and possibly small axes can be made from it. It would suffer all the issues of being an iron weapon though, so it's fairly soft, not very durable, but can be reworked comparatively easily while cold.

[Kiero]

Does anyone know what kind of an axe 17th century Swedish (and thus everyone who imitated them) dragoons used? I'm guessing it was a woodsman's axe, or some other type of tool-axe, rather than a weapon-axe. Given they were expected to carry out entrenching, wreck fortifications and all sorts of other tasks too menial for genuine cavalry of the day to do. They were called "labourers on horseback" after all, and paid a lot less than true cavalry.

[GraaEminense]

From what I remember from museum visits and what I can gain from basic Googling, they'd probably have a "pioneer's axe" of some sort -mostly a tool axe, but more useful as a weapon than your basic wood axe. Something along these lines:

http://www.probusauktioner.se/auktion/bilder/Auktion%2015%20den%208%20november/avg_2/0000407.gif

http://www.probusauktioner.se/auktion/bilder/Auktion%2015%20den%208%20november/small/0000410.gif

Can't find an actual picture of a 17th C dragoon's axe though.

[Ninjadeadbeard]

Originally posted this over here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=19107096&postcount=130). Was told someone might be able to help me out here though.

Been trying to do research on 17th Century Europe, specifically Spain and specifically-specifically during the Thirty-Years War for a setting I want to make. But no one seems to want to help me with it. Can anyone recommend me some good history books to read up on the subject? I'm mostly looking for broad topics, like the wars of the period and how society worked.

[Kiero]

Originally posted this over here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=19107096&postcount=130). Was told someone might be able to help me out here though.

Been trying to do research on 17th Century Europe, specifically Spain and specifically-specifically during the Thirty-Years War for a setting I want to make. But no one seems to want to help me with it. Can anyone recommend me some good history books to read up on the subject? I'm mostly looking for broad topics, like the wars of the period and how society worked.

Before you get to books, Wikipedia is a good place to start familiarising yourself with the period, movements and personalities. Starting with the Reconquista (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reconquista), leading through discovery of the New World and creation of the Spanish Empire (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_Empire). This period is often referred to as Habsburg Spain (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habsburg_Spain), after the dynasty in charge, which coincided with the Spanish Golden Age (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_Golden_Age). You also can't really talk about Spain in this period without talking about Catholicism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_Church), the European wars of religion (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_wars_of_religion) and the Inquisition (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_Inquisition), which was hated in Spain's various dominions.

That should give you a good start, with many leaping-off points and a few references too.

[Storm_Of_Snow]

Osprey Publishing have a few books on the 30 Years War that might be worth a look.

[snowblizz]

Osprey Publishing have a few books on the 30 Years War that might be worth a look.

Emphasis on *few*. I find the 30YW period really underserved in the Osprey line. They fairly recently expanded the line quite heavily (relatively speaking) by adding some 3-4 books to the line-up (nearly doubling the number dealing with the subject).

From Osprey:
The Thirty Years' War 1618–1648 (Essential Histories)
The Spanish Tercios 1536–1704 (Men at Arms)
Pike and Shot Tactics 1590–1660 (Elite)

should provide some insight into the Spanish way of waging war and some inroads into how society supported that endeavour.

[Kiero]

should provide some insight into the Spanish way of waging war and some inroads into how society supported that endeavour.

"Support" in the most general terms, given how frequently they failed to pay or feed their armies, preferring to let them plunder the native populations they were stationed with.

[Mr. Mask]

Originally posted this over here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=19107096&postcount=130). Was told someone might be able to help me out here though.

Been trying to do research on 17th Century Europe, specifically Spain and specifically-specifically during the Thirty-Years War for a setting I want to make. But no one seems to want to help me with it. Can anyone recommend me some good history books to read up on the subject? I'm mostly looking for broad topics, like the wars of the period and how society worked. One of my favourite films is set in 17th century Spain. Alatriste. It didn't have much to do with the 30 years war, but I recommend it for familiarizing yourself with the period.

[snowblizz]

"Support" in the most general terms, given how frequently they failed to pay or feed their armies, preferring to let them plunder the native populations they were stationed with.
Yes, well, that is actually one of the points made there. I thought I wrote "support" apparently not, but it was implied. But yes, the inability to support armies in the Low-countries was basically how it turned out.


One of my favourite films is set in 17th century Spain. Alatriste. It didn't have much to do with the 30 years war, but I recommend it for familiarizing yourself with the period.

Oh yeah, I've seen parts of that and I really would like to suggest that one too. Most of it should be fairly applicable for the period and it explicitly deals with what was the main Spanish issues in the period, as they weren't exactly mucking about in Germany in an explicit official capacity.

[Ninjadeadbeard]

Alatriste.

Actually it was Juego de la Capitan Alatriste RPG that got me interested in the period. But there's no English translation, so I gotta make do.

[Galloglaich]

Actually it was Juego de la Capitan Alatriste RPG that got me interested in the period. But there's no English translation, so I gotta make do.

One of the fascinating things about the Spanish Empire in this period is that it covered such a huge swath of territory, from all over the Americas to the Pacific territories like the Philippines. In the Philippines, as I've pointed out a few times before in earlier incarnations of this thread, they routinely clashed with Ronin samurai, Chinese Wako pirates, berserk Moro tribesmen and other interesting characters, as well as all their usual European rivals like the Dutch, English, French, Portuguese etc. etc..

G

[BayardSPSR]

One of the fascinating things about the Spanish Empire in this period is that it covered such a huge swath of territory, from all over the Americas to the Pacific territories like the Philippines. In the Philippines, as I've pointed out a few times before in earlier incarnations of this thread, they routinely clashed with Ronin samurai, Chinese Wako pirates, berserk Moro tribesmen and other interesting characters, as well as all their usual European rivals like the Dutch, English, French, Portuguese etc. etc..

G

The servants of great empires do tend to get killed in a lot of interesting places.

[goto124]

New plot hook.

[Brother Oni]

The servants of great empires do tend to get killed in a lot of interesting places.

As the saying goes, "Join the army, travel to faraway lands, meet interesting people and kill them".

[Milodiah]

I ran a WWI-era Call of Cthulhu game (U-Boot Heraus, by Scott Glancy) at a con a few weeks ago. One character was a Seebataillon officer who'd served literally everywhere from Namibia to Nanking, then the Western Front, then got bounced onto a U-boat in the Mediterranean when he volunteered to replace the late gun-crew commander who had been in the hospital bed next to him. Then he got to fight Deep Ones, the Worms that Walk, and an upwelling of Tulzscha himself.

Managed to finish the scenario with two more SAN points than he started. It really was just jolly good fun for him, apparently...meeting all sorts of new people and/or monsters from beyond the nightmares of men, and then killing them.

[Mr. Mask]

That character just broke Cthulhu.... He sounds like a Lovecraftian horror in his own right.

[Galloglaich]

That character just broke Cthulhu.... He sounds like a Lovecraftian horror in his own right.

To be paid by Jurgen Prochnau in the inevitable film...

http://blog.timesunion.com/movies/files/2015/01/jurgen.jpg

G

[Mr. Mask]

G: Excuse me while I block images for this page.... :smallbiggrin:


Out of curiosity, anyway to estimate how soldiers would react to cosmic horrors? There are cases where soldiers were tricked into thinking they were fighting cosmic horrors, painting dragons on ox in the night and attaching firebrands to their horns, so you think you're under attack by weird, horned dragons. Or you encounter see an elephant for the first time in your life, on a battlefield. It seems like soldiers handle it fairly well, possibly because stress response is typically for fall back on your training.

It also makes me wonder how soldiers react when their weapons don't appear to do anything, or really aren't accomplishing anything (say, they're shooting at a ghost).

[BayardSPSR]

G: Excuse me while I block images for this page.... :smallbiggrin:


Out of curiosity, anyway to estimate how soldiers would react to cosmic horrors? There are cases where soldiers were tricked into thinking they were fighting cosmic horrors, painting dragons on ox in the night and attaching firebrands to their horns, so you think you're under attack by weird, horned dragons. Or you encounter see an elephant for the first time in your life, on a battlefield. It seems like soldiers handle it fairly well, possibly because stress response is typically for fall back on your training.

It also makes me wonder how soldiers react when their weapons don't appear to do anything, or really aren't accomplishing anything (say, they're shooting at a ghost).

Combatants encountering something totally unknown on the battlefield consistently either run for it or get screwed over by having too many friendly soldiers run for it. That goes for gunpowder, elephants, dogs, tanks, aircraft, even unexpected tactics. Morale is an easy thing to break - especially on pre-modern battlefields where it's possible to see everyone else running away.

[Raunchel]

If a cosmic horror showed up on a battlefield, I think that most soldiers would do exactly the same as most people. Run away or try to hide. It's a cosmic horror for a reason, and trying to fight it is not an exactly sane solution.

Incidentally, I also have another question. How long would it have taken an experienced armourer to produce a set of plate armour?

[Kiero]

Incidentally, I also have another question. How long would it have taken an experienced armourer to produce a set of plate armour?

You mean an experienced armourer, his journeymen and apprentices - an armourer wouldn't work alone.

[Raunchel]

You mean an experienced armourer, his journeymen and apprentices - an armourer wouldn't work alone.

Yes, I meant an experienced armourer, and his whole workshop.

[Carl]

So got a mixture of old school siege questions and some tangentially related architectural questions.

1. Amusing no Gunpowder what kind of weight and impact velocity could siege weaponry achieve at the top end? I know this is somewhat ofset by some of what i'm going to say in the architectural section but i figure projectile weight would be fairly heavily constrained by loading rate limits still.

2. Assuming you know the length of the curtain wall being sieged and assuming manpower isn't a limiting factor is their any way to know how many siege engines could be deployed per X length of wall?


Note on questions 3 and 4: Rather than repeat myself on these two I'm going to add a major caveat to them. namely this is for a very high magic setting, as such many of the constructional issues we'd have with assembling monster designs go away entirely, never mind what classical construction techniques would have imposed in the way of limitations. They could assemble something like the great Pyramid in a couple of months at the worst including quarry, and somewhere under the week at best. Hell if they wanted they could build it as one single quarried block shaped and hollowed out as needed at the quarry sight then transported and placed into the foundations all in one piece. What this means is their limits would be the material's and the same techniques severely reduces material shortages, they may even be able to fuse separate sections of stone. As such whatever stone would be best for the purpose could be used virtually without exception. I'm thinking granite here but stone architecture isn't my thing.

3. Accounting for the above and bearing in mind quite advanced but unreinforced concrete plus stone are their main building materials if you want to build a curtain wall or other fortified wall whats the realistic limit in terms of height for a given width and is their any upper limit on eitheir assuming unlimited materials and building ability?

4. Pretty much the same but for a tower and/or keep + central tower combination.

[DavidSh]

I'm not a civil engineer, but I can look things up.

Actual unreinforced masonry towers include a medieval tower in Bologna, Italy, of 97.2 meters height; the Washington Monument (from the 1800s) of 169 meters height; and the Anaconda Smelter Stack (a chimney from the early 1900s, in Montana) of 178.3 meters height.

The tallest masonry defensive wall I can find is the Kremlin wall, with parts up to 18 meters.

Also, current building codes limit unreinforced masonry or concrete walls to a height of 20 times their thickness. That's a very rough guideline, because their concerns are different from yours. They don't have to worry about defense from catapults, or being undermined by sappers.

[Carl]

Thanks. I'm thinking stone block or even solid carved stone construction rather than masonry, but still very useful figures. That 20 to 1 value is especially useful, i was thinking in values more like 2 or 3 to 1. So i could probably really cut back a lot without serious issue, at least at the scales I'm thinking of. Though surprise mage attacks rather than catapults are the real danger here, the really powerful gold wizards are quite capable of achieving effects equivalent to a good sized heavy bomber drop in a single quick burst. Whites are a whole other ball game but few of them are skilled at that kind of raw devastation style offensive magic. The few that are, you either have an equally powerful mage, or a conclave of lesser mages throw up a ward or you put them up against a dragon, not that you'd want to do the latter.

[Gnoman]

So got a mixture of old school siege questions and some tangentially related architectural questions.

1. Amusing no Gunpowder what kind of weight and impact velocity could siege weaponry achieve at the top end? I know this is somewhat ofset by some of what i'm going to say in the architectural section but i figure projectile weight would be fairly heavily constrained by loading rate limits still.


I can't speak to velocity, but there are reliable reports of trebuchets that could fire 1500 kilogram stones in 1188. This is the heaviest that I can find, weights of 350-800 kg seem to have been much more common.

[Mendicant]

Yes, I meant an experienced armourer, and his whole workshop.

Nobody is quite sure (http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/aams/hd_aams.htm#time_b). That said, I've seen estimates that range from a couple weeks to a few months, and the differences probably have a lot to do with what you've already got in stock and how many assistants you have. From the link above, a really ornate piece of barding took a full year, so that's probably the outer edge. We know that a sudden rule change forced Henry VIII's armorers to scratch a project and make a new suit in less than three months (http://www.royalarmouries.org/assets-uploaded/documents/TRichardson_Web.pdf), but they only made a few pieces brand-new. The rest of it was pieced together from other suits.

Based off of those (very limited) data points, I'd guess a master armorer with a well-stocked, well-staffed workshop could probably make a new, high-quality suit of plate in 3 to 6 months. Maybe a bit less if you want something functional but not all that pretty.

[Spiryt]

Easiest way of getting some actual data from period would probably be searching for Meisterschtuck, or Masterwork laws for armorers - so work armorer had to perform to became a master in his trade.

They usually were given rather precise direction as far as characteristics and time limit goes.

Of course, those master pieces would probably be somehow higher quality and ornate, as well as made without much help since they were trials for one person.

But it would still be useful.

Apparently in Kraków ~1423, bowmaker had 15 weeks to make 'good' crossbow, and additional 17 for correction in case of failure. So quite hefty time.:smalleek:

[Roxxy]

How were World War 2 era aircraft kill to death ratios calculated? I was comparing the F4U Corsair to the F6F Hellcat, the first being 11/1 and the second being 19/1. Which brought up the question of whether all combat losses are figured into the death ratio, or just air to air losses? I am leaning towards the second, because the first would skew results, given that the Corsair probably had a lot more losses to ground fire than the Hellcat, but I'm not sure.

This also begs the question of how good a fighter the Corsair was. I always thought it was pretty good, but it was fighting inexperienced pilots in obsolescent aircraft most of the time. If, say, an experienced Corsair pilot and an experienced Hellcat pilot get into it, does one plane provide a distinct advantage? As much as I love the Corsair, it was a fighter/bomber, not a dedicated fighter, and Hellcats were, IIRC, a good bit smaller. What about a Corsair against a high quality ground based fighter like a Mustang or Spitfire?

Also, I see the F4F Wildcat saw action in North Africa. How did it measure up against BF 109s and FW 190s?

[Carl]

Thanks Gnoman, wasn't expecting them to be that heavy, did your info include any data on practical RoF for a weapon firing something so massive? Resetting them would have required immense amounts of force even with the lever advantage of the throwing arm to pull on. By my maths for even a typical velocity, (finally found something, seems to be around 60m/s for old school and about 80m/s for advanced modern designs), design would need over a 100 horses to achieve a rate of fire of a rock a minute. I ean there are a couple of ways i can think of to make it easier but it's still tricky to do fast.

Anyone know what the typical leverage ratio of a trebetuchat, (sorry spell-checker won't correct it), would be, having real issues finding any kind of hard info on them.

[Gnoman]

Thanks Gnoman, wasn't expecting them to be that heavy, did your info include any data on practical RoF for a weapon firing something so massive? Resetting them would have required immense amounts of force even with the lever advantage of the throwing arm to pull on. By my maths for even a typical velocity, (finally found something, seems to be around 60m/s for old school and about 80m/s for advanced modern designs), design would need over a 100 horses to achieve a rate of fire of a rock a minute. I ean there are a couple of ways i can think of to make it easier but it's still tricky to do fast.

Anyone know what the typical leverage ratio of a trebuchet, (sorry spell-checker won't correct it), would be, having real issues finding any kind of hard info on them.

As for that. my only answer is in the few I've built, which are of limited utility in such discussions. It is, however, significantly easier than you would think, given that the counterweight used to fire the thing (trebuchets are purely gravity powered) only has to weigh a fraction of the projectile, and I can envision plenty of ways to solve the problem of getting it back into firing position with relative ease. Which of these might have been used, I can't say -nobody's built one of that size for nearly a thousand years. In any case, the greatest obstacle to rate of fire would be loading the projectile itself into place.

[Carl]

Erm wait seriously? Everything I've dug up on them suggests that the counterweight to projectile ideal ratio is somewhere around 133:1 with the historical Warwolf's ratio of a 40,000Lb counterweight to a 300lb projectile. Interestingly i've found an existing web based calculator now and it's surprising just how high a velocity (http://virtualtrebuchet.com/#simulator_%24id=003&LengthArmShort=17.5&LengthArmLong=52.5&LengthSling=50&LengthWeight=7&HeightOfPivot=38&MassWeight=200000&MassProjectile=1500&MassArm=30000&ReleaseAngle=45&uniformArm=true&ProjectileDiameter=0.66&InertiaArm=12250000.00&PivotToArmCG=17.50&InertiaWeight=30625000&CalculateDrag=true&WindSpeed=0&projectile=custom&customProjectile=true&units=metric&advancedMode=true&playSpeed=1&customPlaySpeed=0.15&length=m&mass=kg&angle=deg&velocity=m%2Fs&inertia=kg%C2%B7m%C2%B2&time=s&=&distance=177.53338851845484) can be achieved, though I'm sure fricative and air resistance losses aren't being accounted for and i'm having to make educated guesses at some of the numbers. Though whilst doing some more research on counterweight weights i did find a study on ideal arm length (http://tuhsphysics.ttsd.k12.or.us/Research/IB07/CarpTorb/index.htm), not a perfect one but pretty close with a 3:1 ratio seeming close to ideal, assuming scaling doesn't alter it.

Strange but Google searches on the counterweight weights to try and confirm that earlier seen 133:1 figure have actually turned up more useful info on these things than everything else i tried searching for. So thanks for the nudge :p.

[snowblizz]

Gotta say ROF seems difficult to nail down. In an Osprey book they note ROF was surprisingly fast and mentions that in Lisbon 1147 2 engines shot 5000 stones at a rate of 1 stone every 15 second. I doubt that was the most massive ones but still. I continues that at Kenilworth in 1266 catapults on both sides were shooting so vigorously that stones were colliding mid-flight! Frustratingly enough there's no more detail than this. Ok, another Osprey book mentioned the same 1147 Lisbon siege, teams of 100 men operated the machines in shifts (so they'd be man-pulled and not counterweight ones) and cuts down (well maybe up?) the rate to 1 every 7 second!
The smaller man-powered machines would be commonly employ on walls and towers to target enemy machine though.

Unfortunately not a lot about speed of firing.

[Mr. Mask]

Something I was wondering about. In war games, it's common to have the army that has a lot of cavalry but are lacking in infantry or what have you. In the past, there was a lot of this going around across the globe. But in the present, do we have much dissimilarity in the military forces of the world?

WW2 had some diversity via the equipment. Russian forces seem to be going with a different armament strategy than NATO, having a lots of cheaper equipment and seemingly less aircraft. You also get groups who are too poor to afford large scale armies, that prefer small skirmishes and guerilla warfare. Any other diversities you've noticed in recent times?

[Brother Oni]

Gotta say ROF seems difficult to nail down. In an Osprey book they note ROF was surprisingly fast and mentions that in Lisbon 1147 2 engines shot 5000 stones at a rate of 1 stone every 15 second. I doubt that was the most massive ones but still. I continues that at Kenilworth in 1266 catapults on both sides were shooting so vigorously that stones were colliding mid-flight! Frustratingly enough there's no more detail than this. Ok, another Osprey book mentioned the same 1147 Lisbon siege, teams of 100 men operated the machines in shifts (so they'd be man-pulled and not counterweight ones) and cuts down (well maybe up?) the rate to 1 every 7 second!
The smaller man-powered machines would be commonly employ on walls and towers to target enemy machine though.

Unfortunately not a lot about speed of firing.

Apparently the trebuchet at Warwick Castle (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ApwIGvUjZoE) takes ~15 minutes to load with 4 people in the hamster wheels. Using more men and/or beasts of burden (or a tractor (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9faom6z5dZ0)) would make it quicker.

The trebuchet is apparently a demonstration machine though and is intended only to throw a comparatively light load (up to 150 kilos) a short distance of ~300m with a 2/3 full ballast: link (http://www.archive.archaeology.org/online/interviews/vemming/). It can still apparently reach up to 600m with a 15 kilo bullet though (not tested as there's a housing estate in the way).

[fusilier]

How were World War 2 era aircraft kill to death ratios calculated? I was comparing the F4U Corsair to the F6F Hellcat, the first being 11/1 and the second being 19/1. Which brought up the question of whether all combat losses are figured into the death ratio, or just air to air losses? I am leaning towards the second, because the first would skew results, given that the Corsair probably had a lot more losses to ground fire than the Hellcat, but I'm not sure.

This also begs the question of how good a fighter the Corsair was. I always thought it was pretty good, but it was fighting inexperienced pilots in obsolescent aircraft most of the time. If, say, an experienced Corsair pilot and an experienced Hellcat pilot get into it, does one plane provide a distinct advantage? As much as I love the Corsair, it was a fighter/bomber, not a dedicated fighter, and Hellcats were, IIRC, a good bit smaller. What about a Corsair against a high quality ground based fighter like a Mustang or Spitfire?

Also, I see the F4F Wildcat saw action in North Africa. How did it measure up against BF 109s and FW 190s?

As for the first part it's difficult to say. I don't put much faith in kill ratios, partly because there's usually a considerable amount of bias in them (as they usually reflect only one side's version of events). As you've noticed there's other factors that could affect the ratio as well. It's probably best to find pilots that flew both and get their opinions.

As for the F4F Wildcat, it's probably better to say it saw action in the Mediterranean, as a fleet fighter. I was able to dig up this website which mentions it's role in Europe briefly --
http://www.historyofwar.org/articles/weapons_F4F_combatUK.html

The only combat with Messerschmitts that it reports happened in 1945 near Norway! So it sounds like they tried to keep them out of the way of enemy fighters in Europe/Mediterranean. It would be interesting to see if there were any other combats with Italian or German fighters though.

EDIT---
http://www.ww2f.com/topic/42392-f6f-and-f4f-vs-me109-and-fw-190/
Scroll down and you'll see a very detailed account of the use of f4f, f6f, and f4u in the Mediterranean. Not much fighter v fighter combat, but there was some.

[Gnoman]

As for the first part it's difficult to say. I don't put much faith in kill ratios, partly because there's usually a considerable amount of bias in them (as they usually reflect only one side's version of events). As you've noticed there's other factors that could affect the ratio as well. It's probably best to find pilots that flew both and get their opinions.


This is false. Not only were kill-to-loss records based primarily on intelligence (not claims by the crews, those were too incomplete and contradictory even when the pilots or tankers were being completely honest) such as radio reports, recon photos, and human intelligence during the war, they were revised afterward once the complete records of both sides were available. That's one of the reason that, for example, the F4F Wildcat was considered a badly outclassed deathtrap during the war, and a fine fighter afterward.

[Milodiah]

While not as prevalent as they are today (i.e. universal), gun cameras were a thing in WWII. Every clip you see in those documentaries of the tracer fire zig-zagging towards the enemy fighter was recorded at the time for almost this exact purpose, confirming kills and evaluating engagements.

[BayardSPSR]

Something I was wondering about. In war games, it's common to have the army that has a lot of cavalry but are lacking in infantry or what have you. In the past, there was a lot of this going around across the globe. But in the present, do we have much dissimilarity in the military forces of the world?

WW2 had some diversity via the equipment. Russian forces seem to be going with a different armament strategy than NATO, having a lots of cheaper equipment and seemingly less aircraft. You also get groups who are too poor to afford large scale armies, that prefer small skirmishes and guerrilla warfare. Any other diversities you've noticed in recent times?

Yes! This is actually a thing if you look closely and in the right places (especially if you look at a country's entire military, as opposed to branch-by-branch).

The US military has an enormous emphasis on networked air power, and between Vietnam and Afghanistan has probably conducted more air-assault (helicopter-borne infantry) operations than every other country put together, ever. The US also makes more use of guided weapons that any other country, with the possible exception of countries being supplied ammunition by the US (NATO, Israel, etc). The US and NATO also see very frequent use of airstrikes in support of small tactical units (down to the platoon level, if not the squad level). The main strength of the US Navy is carrier battle groups - aircraft carriers supported by other ships - which few other countries are able to operate even one of (meaning that they're unlikely to rely on them in wartime, as they wouldn't be able to replace a lost carrier).

Russia has historically relied on heavier forces and artillery - to the point of using its "airborne" forces as mechanized infantry, in cooperation with tanks, more often than actually conducting airborne operations (with the exception of in Afghanistan). Russia also makes extensive use of thermobaric weapons. North Korea, Hamas, and Hezbollah all rely on extensive tunnel networks and rockets (with North Korea being able to back those up with substantial, if not necessarily effective, conventional forces).

The source of personnel also varies. The US, China, and many other countries rely entirely on professional soldiers. Israel and South Korea rely mostly on conscription and the ability to call up trained reserves to back up their technological advantages over their neighbors.

Russia has an interesting system with a small number of professional soldiers that have... lately... been seeing a lot of action, with a large number of conscripts filling in the gaps in less technically- and intellectually-demanding positions. Russia also does have some very high-end stuff, but is still mostly relying on updated Cold War equipment. Russian fighter aircraft tend to focus on maneuverability and carrying a large number of different kinds of missiles, but tend to have engine trouble (a problem China also has).

Every country has at least a subtly different approach to their military, based on their geography, their allies' influence, and the wars they expect to fight in future.

[Mr. Mask]

Thanks Bayard! I always have found those details and differences to be interesting, particularly when those systems come into conflict.

[Milodiah]

On the topic of aircraft, NATO and the Warsaw Pact had distinctly different strategies that are still visible today. NATO shoots for, and slightly presupposes, possessing some degree of air supremacy over the forward edge of battle, while the Warsaw Pact somewhat accepted that any serious attempt they'd make to dispute it would be costly for them, if not doomed. So they decided "If we can't have it, nobody can." Heavily-applied air defense setups at nearly every level of organization, down to individual companies and even platoons in some cases. Not to imply the Soviet Air Force would have been doomed, but it'd have the longer odds over the frontlines.

Another point would be in the navies; you'll notice that the US went for big surface groups, with plenty of carriers (more carriers than everyone else combined at some points), while the Soviets went more for submarine warfare and strategic bombers on anti-ship duty; of course, the US has a more than competent sub fleet, and the USSR did in fact have a decent surface navy, but the paradigms are still obvious.

[fusilier]

This is false. Not only were kill-to-loss records based primarily on intelligence (not claims by the crews, those were too incomplete and contradictory even when the pilots or tankers were being completely honest) such as radio reports, recon photos, and human intelligence during the war, they were revised afterward once the complete records of both sides were available. That's one of the reason that, for example, the F4F Wildcat was considered a badly outclassed deathtrap during the war, and a fine fighter afterward.

I would be interested to actually see those intelligence reports. Most of the information that I've seen reported doesn't bother to confirm such claims, and instead relies upon the war time claims. I know in some cases, even after the war, they couldn't get complete records. That's why I think people should generally be cautious about such claims.

EDIT ---
For example, the wikipedia page on the Hellcat says:
"an overall kill-to-loss ratio of 19:1 based on claimed but not confirmed kills"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grumman_F6F_Hellcat#Operational_history

[fusilier]

Whenever I need to remember how different the claims could vary from the reality, I take a look a this page, about the Italian air force's involvement in the Battle of Britain and subsequent Blitz.
http://surfcity.kund.dalnet.se/falco_bob.htm

On November 11, 1940 a large group of CR.42's got into a fight with two squadrons of Hurricanes. In the battle the British claims on the Italian fighters amounted to:

5 destroyed, 4 probably destroyed, and 3 damaged.
The Italians likewise claimed nine British fighters. In reality only two British fighters were lightly damaged, and only two* Italian fighters were shot down -- this despite the fact that the British reports were so detailed, and the 5 destroyed were considered "confirmed" (somebody else saw the plane go down). It's absolutely amazing. It didn't always happen, sometimes the reports appear to match both sources exactly. Other times, they can't be confirmed at all.

-----------------
* A third Italian fighter made an emergency landing on the beach, but it had lost oil pressure before the battle commenced and wasn't involved in any fighting. The British actually repaired the airplane and flew it for evaluation purposes.

[Mr Beer]

Whenever I need to remember how different the claims could vary from the reality, I take a look a this page, about the Italian air force's involvement in the Battle of Britain and subsequent Blitz.

To add to this, every WWII history book I've read that goes into any fine detail has numerous instances of post-battle kill assessments that vastly differ from reality. This seems to apply across the board, from dogfights to aerial assaults on ground installations, to submarine warfare, to ground battles. I think every nation's armed forces were subject to this kind of inaccurate kill count.

[Milodiah]

You'd think that aircraft kills would be the easiest to confirm...soldiers can be unconscious but alive, submarines are anyone's guess unless you truly hear it fall apart on the sonar, but...

"Is it in the air?"

No: You broke it.

Yes: You didn't break it.

[Carl]

@Bother Oni: Thanks, looks like they have quite a few things interfering in the speed factor though, i can think of a few way's of speeding things up allready.

@Mr Mask: as others have re-iterated there are a lot of differences in many, many area's between various forces. An interesting one is the focus on grenade launchers and high portability 50 cal MG's china has, (Russian has a similar ting going on). TBH i personally think Russia has a LOT more good idea's than the west, but fortunately for everyone is too poor and in some cases too low tech to really take advantage of what they have.


Going back to my question. Does anyone have any idea what the typical density of siege engines to curtain wall length would look like?

[BayardSPSR]

@Mr Mask: as others have re-iterated there are a lot of differences in many, many area's between various forces. An interesting one is the focus on grenade launchers and high portability 50 cal MG's china has, (Russian has a similar ting going on). TBH i personally think Russia has a LOT more good idea's than the west, but fortunately for everyone is too poor and in some cases too low tech to really take advantage of what they have.

Personally, I find the French squad-level mini-mortar fascinating, but I haven't been able to find any data on how effective that squad organization has been so far.

[Gnoman]

You'd think that aircraft kills would be the easiest to confirm...soldiers can be unconscious but alive, submarines are anyone's guess unless you truly hear it fall apart on the sonar, but...

"Is it in the air?"

No: You broke it.

Yes: You didn't break it.


Let's give a hypothetical example. Imagine that you're leading an F4F Wildcat squadron in the Pacific Theatre. When your planes meet up with a squadron of Zero fighters, you catch one with a burst and see oil pouring out of the engine - a certain kill over water. Your wingman sees one out of control and on fire. the trailers see an aircraft in a flat spin, and someone catches one moving slowly and shoots it until it explodes. You return to base and report four confirmed kills. How many fighters did the IJN lose? Two - one lost oil pressure on the first pass, and was easy meat for someone else to finish off, and one lost control and went into a spin before catching on fire. Every pilot's reporting just what he saw, and the individual reports from what each man saw in half a second are different enough that they look like four different aircraft instead of just two.


I would be interested to actually see those intelligence reports. Most of the information that I've seen reported doesn't bother to confirm such claims, and instead relies upon the war time claims. I know in some cases, even after the war, they couldn't get complete records. That's why I think people should generally be cautious about such claims.

EDIT ---
For example, the wikipedia page on the Hellcat says:
"an overall kill-to-loss ratio of 19:1 based on claimed but not confirmed kills"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grumman_F6F_Hellcat#Operational_history

Wikipedia's generally a poor source for this kind of thing. The pages not only tend to be drawn mostly from pop-history books but often antiquated ones, and any significant effort to correct or update them tend to be reverted quickly, particularly since digging out an old field manual to correct the notion that WWII US Tanks were forbidden by doctrine to engage armor or digging an old TOE chart and finding out that there weren't any US tanks within a hundred miles of where an SS Tiger unit claimed to have killed dozens of them is considered "original research" and is verboten.

More and more modern history books are taking this -along with the significantly different methods of reporting losses- into account, but you'll have to seek them out -they don't make it onto Wikipedia, and tend to be drowned out in discussion by people who "know" that the Sherman tank was a flaming deathtrap or that the Zero fighter could fly rings around anything.


On the topic of aircraft, NATO and the Warsaw Pact had distinctly different strategies that are still visible today. NATO shoots for, and slightly presupposes, possessing some degree of air supremacy over the forward edge of battle, while the Warsaw Pact somewhat accepted that any serious attempt they'd make to dispute it would be costly for them, if not doomed. So they decided "If we can't have it, nobody can." Heavily-applied air defense setups at nearly every level of organization, down to individual companies and even platoons in some cases. Not to imply the Soviet Air Force would have been doomed, but it'd have the longer odds over the frontlines.

Another point would be in the navies; you'll notice that the US went for big surface groups, with plenty of carriers (more carriers than everyone else combined at some points), while the Soviets went more for submarine warfare and strategic bombers on anti-ship duty; of course, the US has a more than competent sub fleet, and the USSR did in fact have a decent surface navy, but the paradigms are still obvious.

Both of these (and this is not intended as a correction or argument, but an explanation of -why- forces might differ) derive from the Cold War strategic situation. On land, the USSR had a huge numerical advantage over NATO forces in Europe (this is why the "neutron bomb" was invented - hard radiation penetrates tank armor fairly well while the direct effects of a nuclear blast do not (unless the tank is within the fireball), so a radiation based attack will take out more tank crews than a regular nuke), and first line tanks tended to be roughly comparable to NATO tanks until the last decade or so of the Cold War, so the force multiplication effect of tactical firepower wasn't as essential - a neutral sky fit them fine.

Meanwhile the NATO armies, faced with a serious deficit in numbers even had their assumptions of individual unit superiority (based on "monkey models" provided by a couple of defectors or captured from Soviet-backed combatants in the Middle East and elsewhere) held true (this is an excellent example of the way misinformation is very difficult to eradicate - even today most media and pop-hist books portray the T-72 as mostly junk even within its own era) needed every edge they could get - and were aided by a lucky bit of very bad intelligence - early reports of an invincible "super fighter" -the MIG-25- with an incredible top speed, unbeatable ceiling, unbelievable maneuverability, and weaponry beyond anything yet seen led the US to design -at ruinous expense- a fighter that could beat every one of the dreaded MIG-25's capabilities - the F-15 Eagle. By the time that a MIG-25 was provided by a defector and turned out to be a very fast but fairly mediocre interceptor with practically no fuel range (it was intended to intercept the cancelled "Valkyrie" supersonic bomber, so it traded everything for pure speed) and awful mobility; the F-15 was already entering service with front-line units.

At sea the situation was grossly similar. The richest, most powerful, and best supplied individual NATO power -the US- was separated from Europe by a vast ocean, meaning that every tank, aircraft, bullet, or bean used by US forces (and, for that matter, much of that used by the other powers - there's a reason most of the guns fire the same bullets) in the event of a non-nuclear or limited-nuclear WWIII had to be put in a freighter and make a long and perilous sea journey before it could get into the fight. That meant that NATO had to have absolute dominance of the Sea Lanes Of Control (SLOC), which required a massive surface fleet (submarines can't escort merchantmen very well) and the power projection ability of carriers to defend against bombers and strike against land bases. The main purpose of submarines in the US fleet was to carry nuclear missiles, kill Soviet subs so they can't sink the merchantmen, and to hunt down and kill Soviet SSBNs. This, incidentally, why the US never operated an SSGN fleet until the Ohio-class SSBNs were refitted - the main use of such in the Cold War was to sink convoys.

Meanwhile, the Soviets didn't have the slightest use for the SLOC, as nobody was going to be shipping war materiel to them anyway, so the only thing that mattered was that NATO couldn't use them - so they built massive numbers of bombers, attack subs, and cruise missile subs to ensure that NATO could not.

[Mr. Mask]

@Milodiah: Makes me wonder how it effects armies when they're forced to fight outside their normal paradigm.



@Mr Mask: as others have re-iterated there are a lot of differences in many, many area's between various forces. An interesting one is the focus on grenade launchers and high portability 50 cal MG's china has, (Russian has a similar ting going on). TBH i personally think Russia has a LOT more good idea's than the west, but fortunately for everyone is too poor and in some cases too low tech to really take advantage of what they have. I agree. I think Russian gear does pretty well, and might be superior in the long run because it is cheaper but more durable. As an example, night vision. NATO seems to like their NV, and the Russian army seems to prefer flares. Problem being, flares are cheaper, and they ruin night vision. And while Russia is lack economically, historically, hasn't that sometimes been almost a boon for warring empires?


Going back to my question. Does anyone have any idea what the typical density of siege engines to curtain wall length would look like? Wouldn't this depend on your goals? If you were wanting a single break in the wall or gate for your troops to stream in, or if you wanted several breaks at different points in the wall, or if you want to fling corpses into the castle.

I wish I could help with what is typical. Sorry I couldn't answer this question.

[BayardSPSR]

I agree. I think Russian gear does pretty well, and might be superior in the long run because it is cheaper but more durable. As an example, night vision. NATO seems to like their NV, and the Russian army seems to prefer flares. Problem being, flares are cheaper, and they ruin night vision. And while Russia is lack economically, historically, hasn't that sometimes been almost a boon for warring empires?

The Russian arms industry has been trying for the last 20 years to get the Russian army to buy expensive new things. The army always ends up insisting that T-72s and AK-74s are perfectly fine, thank you very much. The result is that there actually is quite a lot of high-end Russian equipment - but never very much relative to the size of the Russian military.

For instance, T-62s showed up in Georgia in 2008, while the T-90s were nowhere to be seen...

[Storm_Of_Snow]

Another point would be in the navies; you'll notice that the US went for big surface groups, with plenty of carriers (more carriers than everyone else combined at some points), while the Soviets went more for submarine warfare and strategic bombers on anti-ship duty; of course, the US has a more than competent sub fleet, and the USSR did in fact have a decent surface navy, but the paradigms are still obvious.
The US does have two very long coastlines, while the USSR was limited to the Baltic, the Black Sea and the western Pacific. That's part of the reason why they invaded Afghanistan - to push down towards the Indian Ocean and get a warm water port.

Plus, as Gnoman says, the Soviet Union had no real need for a surface fleet to protect supply convoys.



Meanwhile the NATO armies, faced with a serious deficit in numbers even had their assumptions of individual unit superiority (based on "monkey models" provided by a couple of defectors or captured from Soviet-backed combatants in the Middle East and elsewhere) held true (this is an excellent example of the way misinformation is very difficult to eradicate - even today most media and pop-hist books portray the T-72 as mostly junk even within its own era)

The T-72 was designed because the T-64, despite being a great tank, was so expensive they couldn't afford to deploy it to their own armoured divisions, let alone sell it to all the Warsaw Pact nations.

It matches up very well against things from it's own era like the Chieftain, but is basically outclassed by anything later - although the IIRC, the gun will still put a round through an Abrahms.

[snowblizz]

Apparently the trebuchet at Warwick Castle (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ApwIGvUjZoE) takes ~15 minutes to load with 4 people in the hamster wheels. Using more men and/or beasts of burden (or a tractor (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9faom6z5dZ0)) would make it quicker.

The trebuchet is apparently a demonstration machine though and is intended only to throw a comparatively light load (up to 150 kilos) a short distance of ~300m with a 2/3 full ballast: link (http://www.archive.archaeology.org/online/interviews/vemming/). It can still apparently reach up to 600m with a 15 kilo bullet though (not tested as there's a housing estate in the way).

I bet I could shave that down to 10 minutes with a good whip. 5 if I can substitute the fat american and english tourists with some period knights working in shifts.
:smallamused::smallamused::smallamused:

[snowblizz]

Going back to my question. Does anyone have any idea what the typical density of siege engines to curtain wall length would look like?

Attacker or defender? Again I think "typical" is something the period didn't do very well. For the defender at least they need to put the machines on towers, and in fact, the number of towers started to increase as a response to this need.

The siege of Acre claims to have had 300 machines (of various sizes) at Kenilworth 1266 there were nine.

[Carl]

Attacker or defender? Again I think "typical" is something the period didn't do very well. For the defender at least they need to put the machines on towers, and in fact, the number of towers started to increase as a response to this need.

The siege of Acre claims to have had 300 machines (of various sizes) at Kenilworth 1266 there were nine.

Attacker. Very much Attacker

Assuming that 300 figure is accurate what length of curtain wall where they deployed against?


Wouldn't this depend on your goals? If you were wanting a single break in the wall or gate for your troops to stream in, or if you wanted several breaks at different points in the wall, or if you want to fling corpses into the castle.

I wish I could help with what is typical. Sorry I couldn't answer this question.

Sorry guess i should have explained. Since it's a high magic setting pretty much any target will be protected both by a very capable curtain wall and a powerful magical ward, (basically a giant city shield if you prefer the sci-fi term). The problem is the magic does have a very loose but present form of conservation of energy. So if I want to have it used for something else i need to work out some approximate equivalences.

The problem is the very nature of it as a high magic setting and the sheer raw area a high level White Wizard can protect make any kind of oldschool siege a poor comparison, they'd be orders of magnitude too small.

[Galloglaich]

Thanks. I'm thinking stone block or even solid carved stone construction rather than masonry, but still very useful figures. That 20 to 1 value is especially useful, i was thinking in values more like 2 or 3 to 1. So i could probably really cut back a lot without serious issue, at least at the scales I'm thinking of. Though surprise mage attacks rather than catapults are the real danger here, the really powerful gold wizards are quite capable of achieving effects equivalent to a good sized heavy bomber drop in a single quick burst. Whites are a whole other ball game but few of them are skilled at that kind of raw devastation style offensive magic. The few that are, you either have an equally powerful mage, or a conclave of lesser mages throw up a ward or you put them up against a dragon, not that you'd want to do the latter.

Sorry I'm a little late to the thread, but with skilled masons you can do a lot better than 96 meters. The Strasbourg Cathedral, finished in 1460, is 142 meters high.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/7e/Strasbourg_Cathedral_Exterior_-_Diliff.jpg/250px-Strasbourg_Cathedral_Exterior_-_Diliff.jpg

By the era of plate armor, it was made not in individual workshops but by networks of contractors and subcontractors, it might be some work from 20 or 30 different workshops, each specializing in different things, making iron, making steel, doing heat-treatments, making helmets, making gauntlets, making mail, making breastplates, etc. etc.

I don't know the exact time to make a single set of harness ('suit' of armor) but I know that Milan once produced sufficient armor for 3600 mercenaries in 4 weeks, back around 1510. So at this point, (at the peak of the armor industry) they could make armor very quickly. Later on when there were much fewer workshops and a much less sophisticated industry, I'm sure it took rather vastly longer. If one workshop was making an entire harness I suspect it could take a year or more.

G

[Galloglaich]

As for the Wildcat, Hellcat, and Corsair

I don't know of many encounters with Royal Navy Wildcats and Me 109's (other than the 4 mentioned in Norway), but I think that is more of an operational / strategic issue than anything else. I certainly don't think they were trying to 'keep the Wildcats away' from German fighters. The Wildcat replaced a pretty ridiculous aircraft in the Gloster Gladiator and the Fairey Fulmar, both almost useless against a real fighter, but it was used in the same contexts. Wildcats, or 'Martlets' as the British called them, were used for escorting long range merchant convoys and aircraft carriers far out to sea. They mostly contended with long range bombers. The Me 109 excellent fighter that it was, had a very short operational range. They could barely make it over the English channel to fight for a few minutes at a time over England. The FW 190 was a little better but not much. So if the Royal Navy was going to be hit by German fighters it would likely be when operating very close to shore, but most of the time these convoys were avoiding enemy strongpoints. Most encounters with fighters would probably be Me 110 and various Italian fighters, especially early Macchi MC.200 and Fiat G.50 all of which the Wildcat should be able to more than hold it's own with.

I think the F4F / FM2 could have held it's own against an early Me 109 (109E for example) though it would have no real advantages I can think of except probably turning radius, and against a later Me 109 (F or G or later) or against Fw 190, I think it would have had trouble simple because it was so slow. The Wildcat has a low top speed it tends to keep it's speed up pretty well even when constantly turning, so it can be surprisingly tenacious in a dogfight. That is part of what gave it a fighting chance against the Zero. Because of it's strong structure Wildcats can also make very high G. turns, basically to the limits of what the pilots can stand. But with a top speed of around 300 to maybe 320 mph in the best case, it would be kind of a sitting duck for any fighter that could do 370 mph or better.

To put it in context for those familiar with RAF aircraft, you could compare the Wildcat in it's niche with a Hawker Hurricane. Wildcat was actually a little better armed and more solidly built, but had similar performance. The biggest difference is the very long range of the Wildcat.


Incidentally the Hellcat was also used by the Royal Navy, and did see action, though I haven't seen many details. Wiki says 52 kills in 1944 and 1945.

The Hellcat is similar to the Wildcat in that it was sort of 'pretty good' at everything without being terrific at anything. Considering the huge engine it had a relatively low top speed (mainly due to the boxy, non aerodynamic structure), but it had good turn maneuverability, good rate of climb, good dive speed, and easy flight controls, kept it's energy up quite well, and like all the Grumman aircraft it was very tough. The radial engines on both the Wildcat and the Hellcat, combined with armor, self sealing tanks, redundant control cables and very strong structure made them extremely durable, though against late war German and Japanese fighters with multiple 20mm cannon I'm not sure that would have mattered.

The Hellcat was literally designed to defeat the zero, and it was a superb zero-eater-upper. However I think the Hellcat started to get outclassed by the later war Axis fighters with very high top speeds (over 400 mph) which could 'boom and zoom' it (like the Ki-84), and also some hypermaneuverable but faster and better armed fighters like the N1K1. These fighters allegedly did well against Hellcats. But that said, I think the Hellcat was fast enough, and also vastly more maneuverable and tough, that it could have more than held it's own with most versions of the Me 109 and probably Fw 190 as well.


The Corsair was more of a boom and zoom fighter from the get-go. Very fast especially for it's huge size, good acceleration, quick and quirky on the controls (much harder to fly for less skilled pilots). It was less of a generalist than the Hellcat, fast roll rate but not really a turner, and definitely better at high altitude than low (though they used them at low altitude anyway) relied on momentum a lot, ok climb rate for example but superb zoom climb, and excellent dive speed. It was not designed as a fighter bomber, it was just used that way later in it's service life because there weren't any enemy fighters to deal with (and also in the Korean War because they just didn't have a lot of other suitable aircraft, until the A-1 Skyraider, made for that close-air-support job, was available in sufficient numbers). In many ways it was similar in it's role, if not physically, to the German FW-190 series, especially the high altitude FW-190D, though the Corsair was in that role much earlier. The Corsair was definitely more effective in terms of kill to death ratios than Hellcats but it got it's kills as hit and run attacks, as an energy fighter. You could argue that the Hellcat was actually better for Combat Air Patrol (protecting the aircraft carriers) because it could both boom and zoom and turn and burn.

The wiki quotes a US pilot on using Corsairs vs. zeros:

I learned quickly that altitude was paramount. Whoever had altitude dictated the terms of the battle, and there was nothing a Zero pilot could do to change that — we had him. The F4U could outperform a Zero in every aspect except slow speed manoeuvrability and slow speed rate of climb. Therefore you avoided getting slow when combating a Zero. It took time but eventually we developed tactics and deployed them very effectively... There were times, however, that I tangled with a Zero at slow speed, one on one. In these instances I considered myself fortunate to survive a battle. Of my 21 victories, 17 were against Zeros, and I lost five aircraft in combat. I was shot down three times and I crashed one that ploughed into the line back at base and wiped out another F4U

I think the Corsair was better suited to deal with late war fighters than the Hellcat, while the Hellcat was maybe a little better against mid war turn and burn fighters since it could turn pretty well and keep up it's E a little better. You didn't want to get caught low and slow in a Corsair against zeros, but the Corsair pilots were pretty good at avoiding that. The Corsair was fast enough, particularly with nitrous or m/w boost, that it could keep up in the hot rod race between fast late war fighters very well. It's main disadvantage against late war fighters was lack of cannon, though they did put in 20mm cannons on some USN Corsairs and in the Royal Navy ones. I think Corsair's are a good match for German fighters, but you don't have the kind of advantage in speed that you had against the zero or Ki-43 (which basically allowed Corsairs to disengage whenever they didn't like the odds) so it would be a more risky encounter.

The Royal navy used corsairs but from what I read almost all the action they saw was in the Pacific.

The ultra souped -up, ridiculously fast F4U-4 (2300 hp) and F2G (3000 hp) model of the Corsair probably would have been a pretty good match against some of the late late war German super-planes, even the Jets maybe, but I don't think it ever faced any.



G

[Mr. Mask]

Carl: I'm afraid I have trouble understanding the question. The length of the curtain wall shouldn't effect the number of siege weapons. You could just have one that beats on the gate for a month until it collapses, then all your troops stream in. Or you could have two contingents of any numbers of sieges weapons that make openings in opposite sides of the castle.

I'm afraid I don't understand how the magic effects the question. If there is a magical defence, presumably it needs to be overcome through greater force, by subverting the defence, or by using a magicallly assisted assault, I'd assume.



The Russian arms industry has been trying for the last 20 years to get the Russian army to buy expensive new things. The army always ends up insisting that T-72s and AK-74s are perfectly fine, thank you very much. The result is that there actually is quite a lot of high-end Russian equipment - but never very much relative to the size of the Russian military.

For instance, T-62s showed up in Georgia in 2008, while the T-90s were nowhere to be seen... Do T-72s and AK-74s do badly compared to NATO's equipment? I had thought they were of comparable effectiveness, while being cheaper to produce and in greater stock.

[Mike_G]

Do T-72s and AK-74s do badly compared to NATO's equipment? I had thought they were of comparable effectiveness, while being cheaper to produce and in greater stock.

The T-72 is greatly outclassed by the M1 Abrams. We destroyed an awful lot of them in Iraq during both the 1991 Gulf War and the 2003 invasion. It's fine against the M-60, but I don't think anybody is still using the M-60. If there was big, scary land war in Europe, the T-72 loss rate against the current best NATO has to offer would be catastrophic.

The AK-74 is fine as an assault rifle. Nobody has really improved on the basic assault rifle since the 1970s. The US military is still using the M 4 which is basically the carbine version of the M-16, they just make a lot more use of advanced optics. The wide use of scopes has improved accuracy a lot, but the weapon isn't much different than it ever was.

[Storm Bringer]

Do T-72s and AK-74s do badly compared to NATO's equipment? I had thought they were of comparable effectiveness, while being cheaper to produce and in greater stock.


that question is a real can of worms, depending of the specifics.

in general, Russian tanks and aircraft were "worse" than the contemporary nato equipment. but the difference in quality small enough that other factors would have decided the matter (things like crew quality tactical handling, etc).

American tank crews used state of the art M1 Abrams to steamroll though 30 year old export t-72s in the 1991 gulf war. However, they felt they could have done almost as well In the Iraqi t-72s, because what let them win so easily was superior crew quality, better tactical handling by leaders, and such.

but, bear in mind, most of the current Russian tank park is pre-1990 stock that hasn;t had anything like the same amount of upgrades NATO has been able to afford. they have very little which is actually contemporary to current western equipment.

[Milodiah]

There's always the issue of the Iraqi T-72s being sub-monkey-models. While the East Germans, Syrians, and other groups the Com-Block liked got only slightly cheaped-out "monkey" models, the Iraqis were not a favored client, so they got what was termed by them the "Lion of Babylon" (apparently thinking that cool names added to the armor value)...essentially a team of engineers got brought back to the tank they just cheapened, and were told "No, really, cut out EVERYTHING extra, we mean it this time."

Also the Iraqis were even less trained than Soviet tankers, although the notion that Soviet troops were undertrained isn't entirely true. Sure, their frontline infantry and most crewmen were two-year conscripts who spent a quarter of their service in training and another quarter winding down, but they still put effort into the people for whom training was important, like artillery, air crews, tankers, etc.

The real issue with the Soviets is that they had lots of heavy industry, but not much technological industry. A NATO radio set or avionics suite of the same size, cost, etc. compared to a Soviet one is usually better. But the commies still definitely had the ability to crank out good, solid chunks of metal that could do what they needed, be they tanks, guns, etc.

Also, when it comes to small arms, (disclaimer: Kalashnikov fanboy speaking I believe that they mostly had better ideas than NATO, because in the general sense I say reliability trumps accuracy in an actual combat situation. Also, they put more heavy weapons in their infantry than NATO, stuff like automatic grenade launchers, more light anti-tank capabilities (nearly 20% of Soviet infantrymen packed RPGs or grenades for them, according to the TOEs I've read), etc.

[Roxxy]

As for the Wildcat, Hellcat, and Corsair

I don't know of many encounters with Royal Navy Wildcats and Me 109's (other than the 4 mentioned in Norway), but I think that is more of an operational / strategic issue than anything else. I certainly don't think they were trying to 'keep the Wildcats away' from German fighters. The Wildcat replaced a pretty ridiculous aircraft in the Gloster Gladiator and the Fairey Fulmar, both almost useless against a real fighter, but it was used in the same contexts. Wildcats, or 'Martlets' as the British called them, were used for escorting long range merchant convoys and aircraft carriers far out to sea. They mostly contended with long range bombers. The Me 109 excellent fighter that it was, had a very short operational range. They could barely make it over the English channel to fight for a few minutes at a time over England. The FW 190 was a little better but not much. So if the Royal Navy was going to be hit by German fighters it would likely be when operating very close to shore, but most of the time these convoys were avoiding enemy strongpoints. Most encounters with fighters would probably be Me 110 and various Italian fighters, especially early Macchi MC.200 and Fiat G.50 all of which the Wildcat should be able to more than hold it's own with.

I think the F4F / FM2 could have held it's own against an early Me 109 (109E for example) though it would have no real advantages I can think of except probably turning radius, and against a later Me 109 (F or G or later) or against Fw 190, I think it would have had trouble simple because it was so slow. The Wildcat has a low top speed it tends to keep it's speed up pretty well even when constantly turning, so it can be surprisingly tenacious in a dogfight. That is part of what gave it a fighting chance against the Zero. Because of it's strong structure Wildcats can also make very high G. turns, basically to the limits of what the pilots can stand. But with a top speed of around 300 to maybe 320 mph in the best case, it would be kind of a sitting duck for any fighter that could do 370 mph or better.

To put it in context for those familiar with RAF aircraft, you could compare the Wildcat in it's niche with a Hawker Hurricane. Wildcat was actually a little better armed and more solidly built, but had similar performance. The biggest difference is the very long range of the Wildcat.


Incidentally the Hellcat was also used by the Royal Navy, and did see action, though I haven't seen many details. Wiki says 52 kills in 1944 and 1945.

The Hellcat is similar to the Wildcat in that it was sort of 'pretty good' at everything without being terrific at anything. Considering the huge engine it had a relatively low top speed (mainly due to the boxy, non aerodynamic structure), but it had good turn maneuverability, good rate of climb, good dive speed, and easy flight controls, kept it's energy up quite well, and like all the Grumman aircraft it was very tough. The radial engines on both the Wildcat and the Hellcat, combined with armor, self sealing tanks, redundant control cables and very strong structure made them extremely durable, though against late war German and Japanese fighters with multiple 20mm cannon I'm not sure that would have mattered.

The Hellcat was literally designed to defeat the zero, and it was a superb zero-eater-upper. However I think the Hellcat started to get outclassed by the later war Axis fighters with very high top speeds (over 400 mph) which could 'boom and zoom' it (like the Ki-84), and also some hypermaneuverable but faster and better armed fighters like the N1K1. These fighters allegedly did well against Hellcats. But that said, I think the Hellcat was fast enough, and also vastly more maneuverable and tough, that it could have more than held it's own with most versions of the Me 109 and probably Fw 190 as well.


The Corsair was more of a boom and zoom fighter from the get-go. Very fast especially for it's huge size, good acceleration, quick and quirky on the controls (much harder to fly for less skilled pilots). It was less of a generalist than the Hellcat, fast roll rate but not really a turner, and definitely better at high altitude than low (though they used them at low altitude anyway) relied on momentum a lot, ok climb rate for example but superb zoom climb, and excellent dive speed. It was not designed as a fighter bomber, it was just used that way later in it's service life because there weren't any enemy fighters to deal with (and also in the Korean War because they just didn't have a lot of other suitable aircraft, until the A-1 Skyraider, made for that close-air-support job, was available in sufficient numbers). In many ways it was similar in it's role, if not physically, to the German FW-190 series, especially the high altitude FW-190D, though the Corsair was in that role much earlier. The Corsair was definitely more effective in terms of kill to death ratios than Hellcats but it got it's kills as hit and run attacks, as an energy fighter. You could argue that the Hellcat was actually better for Combat Air Patrol (protecting the aircraft carriers) because it could both boom and zoom and turn and burn.

The wiki quotes a US pilot on using Corsairs vs. zeros:

I learned quickly that altitude was paramount. Whoever had altitude dictated the terms of the battle, and there was nothing a Zero pilot could do to change that — we had him. The F4U could outperform a Zero in every aspect except slow speed manoeuvrability and slow speed rate of climb. Therefore you avoided getting slow when combating a Zero. It took time but eventually we developed tactics and deployed them very effectively... There were times, however, that I tangled with a Zero at slow speed, one on one. In these instances I considered myself fortunate to survive a battle. Of my 21 victories, 17 were against Zeros, and I lost five aircraft in combat. I was shot down three times and I crashed one that ploughed into the line back at base and wiped out another F4U

I think the Corsair was better suited to deal with late war fighters than the Hellcat, while the Hellcat was maybe a little better against mid war turn and burn fighters since it could turn pretty well and keep up it's E a little better. You didn't want to get caught low and slow in a Corsair against zeros, but the Corsair pilots were pretty good at avoiding that. The Corsair was fast enough, particularly with nitrous or m/w boost, that it could keep up in the hot rod race between fast late war fighters very well. It's main disadvantage against late war fighters was lack of cannon, though they did put in 20mm cannons on some USN Corsairs and in the Royal Navy ones. I think Corsair's are a good match for German fighters, but you don't have the kind of advantage in speed that you had against the zero or Ki-43 (which basically allowed Corsairs to disengage whenever they didn't like the odds) so it would be a more risky encounter.

The Royal navy used corsairs but from what I read almost all the action they saw was in the Pacific.

The ultra souped -up, ridiculously fast F4U-4 (2300 hp) and F2G (3000 hp) model of the Corsair probably would have been a pretty good match against some of the late late war German super-planes, even the Jets maybe, but I don't think it ever faced any.



G


Let's give a hypothetical example. Imagine that you're leading an F4F Wildcat squadron in the Pacific Theatre. When your planes meet up with a squadron of Zero fighters, you catch one with a burst and see oil pouring out of the engine - a certain kill over water. Your wingman sees one out of control and on fire. the trailers see an aircraft in a flat spin, and someone catches one moving slowly and shoots it until it explodes. You return to base and report four confirmed kills. How many fighters did the IJN lose? Two - one lost oil pressure on the first pass, and was easy meat for someone else to finish off, and one lost control and went into a spin before catching on fire. Every pilot's reporting just what he saw, and the individual reports from what each man saw in half a second are different enough that they look like four different aircraft instead of just two.



Wikipedia's generally a poor source for this kind of thing. The pages not only tend to be drawn mostly from pop-history books but often antiquated ones, and any significant effort to correct or update them tend to be reverted quickly, particularly since digging out an old field manual to correct the notion that WWII US Tanks were forbidden by doctrine to engage armor or digging an old TOE chart and finding out that there weren't any US tanks within a hundred miles of where an SS Tiger unit claimed to have killed dozens of them is considered "original research" and is verboten.

More and more modern history books are taking this -along with the significantly different methods of reporting losses- into account, but you'll have to seek them out -they don't make it onto Wikipedia, and tend to be drowned out in discussion by people who "know" that the Sherman tank was a flaming deathtrap or that the Zero fighter could fly rings around anything.



Both of these (and this is not intended as a correction or argument, but an explanation of -why- forces might differ) derive from the Cold War strategic situation. On land, the USSR had a huge numerical advantage over NATO forces in Europe (this is why the "neutron bomb" was invented - hard radiation penetrates tank armor fairly well while the direct effects of a nuclear blast do not (unless the tank is within the fireball), so a radiation based attack will take out more tank crews than a regular nuke), and first line tanks tended to be roughly comparable to NATO tanks until the last decade or so of the Cold War, so the force multiplication effect of tactical firepower wasn't as essential - a neutral sky fit them fine.

Meanwhile the NATO armies, faced with a serious deficit in numbers even had their assumptions of individual unit superiority (based on "monkey models" provided by a couple of defectors or captured from Soviet-backed combatants in the Middle East and elsewhere) held true (this is an excellent example of the way misinformation is very difficult to eradicate - even today most media and pop-hist books portray the T-72 as mostly junk even within its own era) needed every edge they could get - and were aided by a lucky bit of very bad intelligence - early reports of an invincible "super fighter" -the MIG-25- with an incredible top speed, unbeatable ceiling, unbelievable maneuverability, and weaponry beyond anything yet seen led the US to design -at ruinous expense- a fighter that could beat every one of the dreaded MIG-25's capabilities - the F-15 Eagle. By the time that a MIG-25 was provided by a defector and turned out to be a very fast but fairly mediocre interceptor with practically no fuel range (it was intended to intercept the cancelled "Valkyrie" supersonic bomber, so it traded everything for pure speed) and awful mobility; the F-15 was already entering service with front-line units.

At sea the situation was grossly similar. The richest, most powerful, and best supplied individual NATO power -the US- was separated from Europe by a vast ocean, meaning that every tank, aircraft, bullet, or bean used by US forces (and, for that matter, much of that used by the other powers - there's a reason most of the guns fire the same bullets) in the event of a non-nuclear or limited-nuclear WWIII had to be put in a freighter and make a long and perilous sea journey before it could get into the fight. That meant that NATO had to have absolute dominance of the Sea Lanes Of Control (SLOC), which required a massive surface fleet (submarines can't escort merchantmen very well) and the power projection ability of carriers to defend against bombers and strike against land bases. The main purpose of submarines in the US fleet was to carry nuclear missiles, kill Soviet subs so they can't sink the merchantmen, and to hunt down and kill Soviet SSBNs. This, incidentally, why the US never operated an SSGN fleet until the Ohio-class SSBNs were refitted - the main use of such in the Cold War was to sink convoys.

Meanwhile, the Soviets didn't have the slightest use for the SLOC, as nobody was going to be shipping war materiel to them anyway, so the only thing that mattered was that NATO couldn't use them - so they built massive numbers of bombers, attack subs, and cruise missile subs to ensure that NATO could not.Thanks for all the useful information, everybody.

Also, very interesting details on NATO versus USSR air and naval forces. I never really thought about the Soviet situation like that.

[Mike_G]

There's always the issue of the Iraqi T-72s being sub-monkey-models. While the East Germans, Syrians, and other groups the Com-Block liked got only slightly cheaped-out "monkey" models, the Iraqis were not a favored client, so they got what was termed by them the "Lion of Babylon" (apparently thinking that cool names added to the armor value)...essentially a team of engineers got brought back to the tank they just cheapened, and were told "No, really, cut out EVERYTHING extra, we mean it this time."

Also the Iraqis were even less trained than Soviet tankers, although the notion that Soviet troops were undertrained isn't entirely true. Sure, their frontline infantry and most crewmen were two-year conscripts who spent a quarter of their service in training and another quarter winding down, but they still put effort into the people for whom training was important, like artillery, air crews, tankers, etc.


The training issues are relevant, but the fact is that the M1 still had a better gun, better fire control, longer range, and better armor. The T-72 was a generation behind. Yes, there have been improvements, but I would put heavy odd on the M1, or even the latest German Leopard, over the T-72.




Also, when it comes to small arms, (disclaimer: Kalashnikov fanboy speaking I believe that they mostly had better ideas than NATO, because in the general sense I say reliability trumps accuracy in an actual combat situation. Also, they put more heavy weapons in their infantry than NATO, stuff like automatic grenade launchers, more light anti-tank capabilities (nearly 20% of Soviet infantrymen packed RPGs or grenades for them, according to the TOEs I've read), etc.

The Kalashnikov is a good weapon. But the hit results the US got in Falluja with wide use of the Trijcon sight can't be discounted. Take a skillion peasants and give them a rugged weapon. that worked for years for Soviet supplied countries.

But you can accomplish a lot with a lot fewer men with night vision and decent sights. It still costs the same to feed less trained troops, you still need to transport them to battle, the ammo is still heavy to ship to the front. A smaller, better trained force means much less strain on your logistics.

Using the comparison of night vision versus flares, night vision doesn't give away your position. It lets you do reconnaissance, and lets you operate in darkness. Flares take darkness off the table. Great for a battle, but not for scouting infiltrating or ambush.

US forces have plenty of heavy stuff at the platoon level. the Mk 19 automatic grenade launcher is a thing of beauty. The TOW and the SMAW are widespread enough, and if we were fighting armies with more armor, they'd be more prioritized.

Maybe I'm biased from how I was trained, but I'm not in awe of Russian gear.

[Milodiah]

I've seen the Soviet-era night vision gear, it's pretty dated looking. Generally the smallest you're going to get is large-binoculars-sized, not to mention that they consider a squad whose leader has a set as "equipped with night-vision gear".

Except for a fluke during the Yom Kippur War in which the Arab tanks had just gotten IR gear and the Israelis were about to but hadn't yet, NATO is the stronger party during the night by far.

Also, I should add that the T-72 was an example of the Soviet "bifurcated armor" strategy- they developed a "quantity" tank and a "quality" tank each generation. First you had the T-54/55 and (hypothetically) the T-62, then the T-72 and T-64, then the T-90 and the T-80. The former was the "quantity" tank intended to be easy to make, and handed out to most units of the military, while the latter was the advanced tank handed to armored units that had proved their worth. Really, the idea wasn't to make the T-72 a match for an Abrams or Leopard 2. The idea was to make the T-64 or the T-80 a match, which came closer to doing so (the T-64 probably could hold its own but still have the longer odds, but I think the later models of T-80 have like a 49% chance of victory on a one-to-one basis).

[Carl]

Sorry I'm a little late to the thread, but with skilled masons you can do a lot better than 96 meters. The Strasbourg Cathedral, finished in 1460, is 142 meters high.

Thanks to be fair it was more a question on the limits of the materials as the actual construction, quarrying of material's, and masonry finishing of the materials for assembly i largely going to be done by magic, so subject to the materials being able to handle it they would find building, (as an off the cuff extreme example of what we've done), a mile high skyscraper quite a bit easier than us, they don't have to worry about how they're going to brace the structure during construction or move materials up there.


Carl: I'm afraid I have trouble understanding the question. The length of the curtain wall shouldn't effect the number of siege weapons. You could just have one that beats on the gate for a month until it collapses, then all your troops stream in. Or you could have two contingents of any numbers of sieges weapons that make openings in opposite sides of the castle.

I'm afraid I don't understand how the magic effects the question. If there is a magical defence, presumably it needs to be overcome through greater force, by subverting the defence, or by using a magically assisted assault, I'd assume.

Subverting is plausible, but rarely attempted, your average wizard is rather tough to off and most serious defences use many of them distributed about. It does happen but it isn't exactly reliable. Magical assistance in the assaults is normal, as it is in the defence, but mostly in the form of wards to protect the besiegers from return fire. Though if either side gets shots at unprotected targets the same wards can affect friendly projectile passing through them to increase the punch or guide them to targets.

The Wards I'm describing though magical in nature are basically sci-fi shields. If you've seen Stargate Atlantis then you've got a pretty good idea of what such a thing might look like.

Thus it mostly comes down to hitting the shield enough that it fails. Whilst magic can do this various logistical factors make it very hard to concentrate anywhere near enough magical offensive fire-power to do it via purely magical means. This is down to the fact that few Wizards learn to do more than what they're naturally born knowing how to do, (Magic can do nearly anything if the user has enough raw power, but different wizards start with different things known to them, (whilst any magic user can learn to do anything with sufficient amounts of effort, (emphasis on effort), with their magic subject to enough baseline power Wizards start with an instinctive grasp of one or two things. For Whites it tends to be Wards, Healing, Growth and the like, for Golds it tends to be Elemental effects, though not always destructive, they have big presences is Mining, Quarrying, Masonry, Blacksmithing, e.t.c.), and Whites are much more powerful, but rather rarer than Golds.

What that means is even if you've got more magical power present, you haven't always got the means to apply that power offensively. In addition even if you have the means, unless you have the power required to punch out both the ward protecting the besieged position and the curtain wall. That's why I'm asking about the architectural stuff. Whilst Walls when built are usually at least somewhat magically reinforced they're main defence against attack is sheer raw mass. If the wall can be made sufficiently super-massive it radically increases the sheer amount of magical fire-power required to get through the wall.

Does that help?

[BayardSPSR]

Also the Iraqis were even less trained than Soviet tankers, although the notion that Soviet troops were undertrained isn't entirely true. Sure, their frontline infantry and most crewmen were two-year conscripts who spent a quarter of their service in training and another quarter winding down, but they still put effort into the people for whom training was important, like artillery, air crews, tankers, etc.

Also, when it comes to small arms, (disclaimer: Kalashnikov fanboy speaking I believe that they mostly had better ideas than NATO, because in the general sense I say reliability trumps accuracy in an actual combat situation. Also, they put more heavy weapons in their infantry than NATO, stuff like automatic grenade launchers, more light anti-tank capabilities (nearly 20% of Soviet infantrymen packed RPGs or grenades for them, according to the TOEs I've read), etc.

Russian conscripts now serve for a year. Readiness is predictably low, except in the months immediately following major exercises.

I think the biggest small-unit difference is probably that the Russian military seems to use two 7.62mm machine guns at the squad level (in a smaller squad), while in US practice those are crew-served platoon-level weapons. Anti-tank weapons are comparable; a US squad is probably as likely in practice to carry loads of AT4s as a Russian squad is to carry loads of RPG-22s in a similar situation(both are disposable, one-shot anti-tank weapons).


The T-72 is greatly outclassed by the M1 Abrams. We destroyed an awful lot of them in Iraq during both the 1991 Gulf War and the 2003 invasion. It's fine against the M-60, but I don't think anybody is still using the M-60. If there was big, scary land war in Europe, the T-72 loss rate against the current best NATO has to offer would be catastrophic.

The AK-74 is fine as an assault rifle. Nobody has really improved on the basic assault rifle since the 1970s. The US military is still using the M 4 which is basically the carbine version of the M-16, they just make a lot more use of advanced optics. The wide use of scopes has improved accuracy a lot, but the weapon isn't much different than it ever was.

Taiwan's still using M60s, I think... The newest T-72B3s might be close enough to par with, say, Leopard 2 variants that it wouldn't make too much of a difference on the battlefield - especially since, in most wars, more tanks are destroyed by infantry with anti-tank weapons than by other tanks, and we know from Iraq that new Russian anti-tank missiles are capable of penetrating Abrams frontal armor.

Of course, the T-14's about to come out, but I wouldn't bet on that being procured in large enough numbers to replace most of the T-72 variants.

My impression of most modern assault rifles is that, catastrophic design disasters aside (FAMAS, and apparently now the G36), their mechanically accuracy usually exceeds the ability of their users to shoot them accurately. Wasn't there a study in the '90s that found that advanced optics made more of a difference in practical accuracy than any other alteration to the M16 of the day?

[Brother Oni]

But you can accomplish a lot with a lot fewer men with night vision and decent sights. It still costs the same to feed less trained troops, you still need to transport them to battle, the ammo is still heavy to ship to the front. A smaller, better trained force means much less strain on your logistics.


While I agree in principle, the US military did have a lower tooth to tail ratio in comparison to the Russians, at least in 2010: Page 7 of this report (https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=6&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CEAQFjAF&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.mckinsey.com%2F~%2Fmedia%2FM cKinsey%2Fdotcom%2Fclient_service%2FPublic%2520Sec tor%2FPDFS%2FMcK%2520on%2520Govt%2FFull%2520report s%2FTG_MoG_Issue5_final.ashx&ei=fZE1VeEMg83tBtDWgLgB&usg=AFQjCNEKCj1uNI4lzCAKgAooAVDW4RdGTQ&sig2=1gKjPJjGG7uB6ZjZ5qf5BA&bvm=bv.91071109,d.ZGU).

This would suggest that deploying large number of troops puts less strain on the Russian logistics lines than the equivalent number would for the Americans and if you consider the geography involved, it makes perfect sense, since the American military typically has to deploy over thousand of miles of oceans, while the Russians normally can get away with land routes, so it's not just a simple numbers game.

[Carl]

Maybe I'm biased from how I was trained, but I'm not in awe of Russian gear.

Since i was the guy who kinda kicked this tangent of the question off i'll clarify the comment by saying i think the Russians have a lot of good idea's. this dosen't always translate to good equipment. if you want i can elaborate a little.

[Mr. Mask]

I looked at the Soviet war manuals... unless their tactics have digressed a lot, Russia seems to take the cake. I'd be happy to hear your elaboration on the subject, Carl.


Carl: I'm still unsure of how the magic is handled, but I have some ideas. You could have a large artillery corps, but only fire a few shots at a time, constantly. The mage will be required to keep up a strong shield in case you use your full artillery force, and the constant barrage day and night will force them to maintain the shield. Keep this up for a month, and supposedly the mage's power will start to break down. This theoretically doesn't require a large artillery force, but might be necessary to get the mage to waste energy faster.

[Galloglaich]

My understanding is that the T-72 is very, very outclassed by the later generation of heavy laminate armor tanks, including Leopard II, M1A1, Challenger, Leclerc, etc., as well as the latest Chinese, Japanese and South Korean tanks. This is due to fire control systems, gun size, communications gear, and that superb laminate armor on the more modern tanks.

The T-80 and T-84 were apparently extremely vulnerable due to ammunition and fuel fires (they lost huge numbers in the Chechen wars for example) and have been largely withdrawn from service. From the wiki:

Out of all armored vehicles that entered Grozny, 225 were destroyed in the first month alone, representing 10.23% of all the tanks committed to the campaign.[31] The T-80 performed so poorly that General-Lieutenant A. Galkin, the head of the Armor Directorate, convinced the Minister of Defence after the conflict to never again procure tanks with gas-turbine engines.[32] After that, T-80 MBTs were never again used to capture cities, and, instead, they supported infantry squads from a safe distance. Defenders of the T-80 point out that the T-72 performed just as badly in urban fighting in Grozny as the T-80 and that there were two mitigating factors: after the breakup of the Soviet Union, poor funding meant no training for new Russian tank crews, and the tank force entering the city had no infantry support, which is considered to be suicidal by many major military strategists of armored warfare.

The Ukrainians and Poles developed an improved version which might be a lot better.

The T-64 has a bigger / longer ranged gun than some NATO tanks, and the T-90 also has that big 125mm gun, and appears generally to be pretty good all-around, probably competitive , though they only have a few hundred of them compared to thousands of T-72s.

The Russians do have some superb ATGM's with high-tech warheads, which did some serious damage to Israeli armor in their last incursion into Lebanon, but the same weapons were used against Merkava's in the more recent invasion of the Gaza strip and were effectively neutralized by TROPHY active defense systems.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trophy_%28countermeasure%29

Effectiveness of these rockets against M1A1 and Leopard II have so far been fairly marginal. I think they only ever destroyed a handful of tanks. How well this would do in a big battle is up for debate. Active defense systems like TROPHY are expensive and will probably be slow to deploy, and the Russians do have a LOT of missiles and rockets and are good at making them. Due to the conflict or proxy war in Ukraine they also have hardened units experienced in tank and infantry warfare (as opposed to counter-insurgency operations).

I think generally in spite of the marked inferiority of the T-72 however the Russians probably do still have some advantage because they have so many tanks, and NATO has so few. The Netherlands sold all of their tanks, as far as I can tell, (many were purchased by Finland which is one of the few European countries to take defense seriously). Germany seems to only have 300 Leopard II's and is still doing budget cuts. The US has shipped some M1A1 to Europe recently, and activated some of the mothballed ones which were prepositioned there, but still has a pretty marginal tank force in terms of size. meanwhile Russians seem to have maybe tens of thousands of tanks.


One of the major deciding factors of our one-sided tank victories in Iraq was total air-superiority. This is I think where the Russians have their biggest advantage. NATO and western European forces are even more inadequate in terms of fighter aircraft than they are with tanks, and the Russians are much closer to parity in aircraft. Most of the very few US fighters in Europe are 1970's vintage designs (a few score F-16's and F-15's), where as Russian MiG 29, Su-27, Su-30 are pretty good, much more comparable in terms of performance and capability than MiG 23's and MiG 21's that the US-made fighters crushed in the Bakaa valley and so on. What's more, some of the top Russian fighters like the Su 37 (of which they admittedly have very few) appear to be highly competitive with the best European and US types.

The European fighters like the Rafale, the Grippen an the Typhoon seem to be quite good, but they have made very few of them and don't seem to be spending money training fighters (France being somewhat of an exception). The biggest problem for NATO is that the new US F-35 seems to be a dog, hugely expensive with major, probably unsalvagable design flaws (https://medium.com/war-is-boring/fd-how-the-u-s-and-its-allies-got-stuck-with-the-worlds-worst-new-warplane-5c95d45f86a5). Due to it's cost it crushes the already highly stressed budgets of the countries buying it, and it looks like it will be hard-pressed to hold it's own against a Russian air threat, let alone offset a large numerical advantage.

Other than France, the only Western military force which right now has a lot of "ready to go" fighters of decent quality is the US Navy with it's F-18's. But there is another wildcard there in Russian submarines and supersonic cruise missiles.

G

[snowblizz]

Assuming that 300 figure is accurate what length of curtain wall where they deployed against?

That 300 seems to be very much inflated or not, depending on how you count... it could well be a slightly inflated total number on both sides. Found another number in an Osprey book about the siege. Best as I can estimate the curtain wall was around 1km long (and I looked at Google maps for that), no one says it but the wall more or less exists at least the outline so it should be fairly accurate.
Figures of 100 machines being made. They say the best source claims 72 machines. 15 being of the largest type. Another sources lists 52 as smaller human powered ones (but still "wall busting" so to speak). To this is added the smaller anti-personel type. We'd get pretty close to half that 300.

[BayardSPSR]

My understanding is that the T-72 is very, very outclassed by the later generation of heavy laminate armor tanks, including Leopard II, M1A1, Challenger, Leclerc, etc., as well as the latest Chinese, Japanese and South Korean tanks. This is due to fire control systems, gun size, communications gear, and that superb laminate armor on the more modern tanks.

The reactive armor applied to later soviet tanks compensates for some the otherwise-weaker armor. You have to remember that the Abrams is a Cold War design as well, and that the M1 (with a 105mm gun and no DU armor) can't hold a candle to a 21st century M1A2SEP. The same goes for a T-72 and a T-72B3 or T-90 (which is, in practice, an updated T-72 with a bigger number for marketing reasons). They're marginally outclassed.


The T-80 and T-84 were apparently extremely vulnerable due to ammunition and fuel fires (they lost huge numbers in the Chechen wars for example) and have been largely withdrawn from service. From the wiki:

Out of all armored vehicles that entered Grozny, 225 were destroyed in the first month alone, representing 10.23% of all the tanks committed to the campaign.[31] The T-80 performed so poorly that General-Lieutenant A. Galkin, the head of the Armor Directorate, convinced the Minister of Defence after the conflict to never again procure tanks with gas-turbine engines.[32] After that, T-80 MBTs were never again used to capture cities, and, instead, they supported infantry squads from a safe distance. Defenders of the T-80 point out that the T-72 performed just as badly in urban fighting in Grozny as the T-80 and that there were two mitigating factors: after the breakup of the Soviet Union, poor funding meant no training for new Russian tank crews, and the tank force entering the city had no infantry support, which is considered to be suicidal by many major military strategists of armored warfare.

The wiki is slightly misleading. That "225" statistic includes BMPs and BTRs. T-80s and T-72s both share a particular tendency to cook off ammunition when their turret armor is penetrated from the side. If you look at the data on where armor penetrations occurred in Chechnya, you'll find that the T-72 and T-80 were comparable well-protected. The T-80's engine issue is shared by the Abrams, but the US logistics network is actually capable of keeping up with the extreme fuel demand. Maybe this makes me one of the wiki's "defenders of the T-80," but I suspect the decision to exclusively procure T-72s had more to do with the fact that the T-80 factories ended up in Ukraine when the Soviet Union broke up.

Russian losses in Chechnya One are better explained by disastrous Russian tactical failures in that war than by any particular equipment failure.


The T-64 has a bigger / longer ranged gun than some NATO tanks, and the T-90 also has that big 125mm gun, and appears generally to be pretty good all-around, probably competitive , though they only have a few hundred of them compared to thousands of T-72s.

The T-64, T-72, T-90, and upcoming T-14 all use a 125mm gun...


The European fighters like the Rafale, the Grippen an the Typhoon seem to be quite good, but they have made very few of them and don't seem to be spending money training fighters (France being somewhat of an exception). The biggest problem for NATO is that the new US F-35 seems to be a dog, hugely expensive with major, probably unsalvagable design flaws (https://medium.com/war-is-boring/fd-how-the-u-s-and-its-allies-got-stuck-with-the-worlds-worst-new-warplane-5c95d45f86a5). Due to it's cost it crushes the already highly stressed budgets of the countries buying it, and it looks like it will be hard-pressed to hold it's own against a Russian air threat, let alone offset a large numerical advantage.

I'll try to stay as far clear as I can of an F-35 debate, except to say that the debate has been propelled by extensive marketing by Lockheed-Martin (F-35 manufacturer) and Boeing (which really wanted their F/A-18 to be bought instead), and while the F-35 is exceptionally good at doing what it was designed to do, that doesn't necessarily mean it was designed to do the right thing.

[Carl]

Carl: I'm still unsure of how the magic is handled, but I have some ideas. You could have a large artillery corps, but only fire a few shots at a time, constantly. The mage will be required to keep up a strong shield in case you use your full artillery force, and the constant barrage day and night will force them to maintain the shield. Keep this up for a month, and supposedly the mage's power will start to break down. This theoretically doesn't require a large artillery force, but might be necessary to get the mage to waste energy faster.

Feel free to ask any questions you think are relevant.

As i said earlier there's a degree of conservation of energy going on, though it could be thought of more as conservation of mana than literal physics energy. If the shield isn't being pounded on it doesn't take much to keep it up and the weaker the pounding the less effort it takes. That's kind of why i'm trying to work out things like siege engine per shot energies and siege engine densities so i can figure out in real world energy what that equates to. That gives me a baseline for the limits of what a single mage can do in effort terms and something to cross reference with anything else they attempt.

EDI: @ Snowblizz: thank you that's very useful.



I looked at the Soviet war manuals... unless their tactics have digressed a lot, Russia seems to take the cake. I'd be happy to hear your elaboration on the subject, Carl.

I can't speak for the manual's but i was meaning more in the technology concepts.

To work through some examples of the Russians having some good idea's that haven't really been exploited fully.:

1. I'll start on tanks and make some comments on allready in service systems as a starting point. The first and single most innovative feature they have is the Autoloaders on their tanks. But due to various factor's, (primarily crew positioning), they've been forced to use a system who's end RoF is less than ideal. They've effectively killed the benefit via other design choices made in the construction of their tanks. But if they where ever to sort that out the sheer advantages in RoF of an autloader, particularly with full calibre rounds, would be enormous in large scale fighting. Another feature the Russians currently use but haven't really taken full advantage of is their gun fired missile systems. heir biggest limitation currently is that IMO they haven't taken full advantage of their available capabilities. Specifically a gun of the calibre and barrel length of modern MBT guns is quite able, (subject to the gun being designed for it), to fire full calibre rounds at rather high muzzle velocities, it effectively serves as a booster stage which greatly expands the available range bands and interception velocities possible with a missile of the size fired. Potentially there is the capability for such a weapon to serve as a mid range SAM system. In of itself that isn't very revolutionary. But what it gives you in terms of logistics, force flexibility, and how it's mere existence must affect hostile airpower employment is hard to overstate the benefits contained within. Equally they have a very impressive range of MBT gun fired ATGM's, but they lack the sighting systems to take advantage of the range and several aspects of the missile fail to provide powerful secondary capabilities that could significantly enhance it's force multiplier effect. Most notable is the lack of directional attack capability, even if said capability can be dealt with via modifications of the target vehicles it's mere presence and the compromises inherent in dealing with it on existing AFV's would be of huge benefit. At the same time it would obviously be beneficial for the rounds to have an acquire after launch and even fire and forget capability. Something that to my understanding is also missing. the ability to provide long range ATGM support to forward units or to fire on a hostile AFV whilst remaining entirely concealed are impossible to overstate. The Russians also routinely deploy active countermeasures systems for ATGM guidance on their tanks, whilst these are currently restricted in both arc and frequency range, (lasers only), this seems to be a minturisation limitation more than anything else. Their benefits, particularly against air-superiority however are profound as even at very low effectiveness rates they greatly affect enemy planning and R&D, factors that are an advantage in their own right. The single biggest thing the Russians have done however was to begin developing and fielding active interception systems for AT munitions. Only Israel is anywhere near in sight of them on that front currently and as i understand it the current Israeli system is rather bulkier than the Russian systems. They haven't got up-to multiple intercept or especially multiple simultaneous intercept capabilities. But the system with sufficient development has the potential to overnight invalidate shoulder fired ATGM's and main tank gun munitions, (including Russia's own), in the Anti-Tank role. That's a game changer on a level bigger than any other development in AFV warfare since it's very inception a century ago. The final thing the Russians do well, and without a downside anywhere is their actual existance of a high explosive fragmentation round for the main gun, unlike at least the US and UK they have a means to engage infantry with somthing nastier than the MG's beyond canister shot range.

2. Now to move onto a bit more of a maybe will maybe won't item in the Russian tank collection. Whilst i haven't explicitly kept up with it so i'm not sure if this project is what's created the new Russian MBT i know the original info i read was talking about a number of major design departures that would have addressed a number of existing issues on Russian designs and brought further advantages. The first major change was moving the crew from inside the turret to the forward hull instead. Whilst i don't see the crew survivability aspect as that big of a deal in a major conflict it's still a nice morale booster, and that's of considerable value all on it's own. More importantly comparative to older Russian layouts which placed the crew inside the turret and on top of the ammo it should allow the turret roof to be lowered subject to hull limitations, and the removal of equipment under the seating that it was supposed to achieve would probably help keep the vehicle hull height from ballooning much if at all. At the end of the day the smaller the turret, and indeed whole tank, can be the better the armour can be. Whilst the reposition will come with some negatives in volume for sure the potential savings on the turret are considerable, particularly if it allows much steeper angling of the armour. Just as importantly it frees up a lot of room for a more capable autoloader should Russia choose to peruse one. Th other advantage is that the turret can now achieve far higher tracking rates without risking injury or even simple disorientation for the crew, a not inconsiderable advantage, though more-so if the gun or secondary armament is able to engage low flying aircraft, (with or without guided munitions), an allready theoretical but unrealised capability with unguided rounds for all modern MBT operators. The biggest single change however is the move over to turbo electric propulsion. This is huge as fuel takes up space and turbo electric in addition to traction and acceleration advantages under a wide variety of circumstances is generally vastly more fuel efficient. By reducing the fuel required for a given operating endurances you can decrease the size of the tank and so again provide increases in the armour of the tank simply by reducing the area to be covered. In addition the system despite the extra bulk of the generator removes the bulk and vulnerabilities associated with conventional transmission. Indeed it's quite possible their would be both weight and volume savings there, particularly accounting for the lower horsepower and thus smaller engine required.

3. Now i'll jump to the Navy with an example there. The Kirov class Battlecruisers. Their actually in their own way one of the best concepts for the surface to surface combat role anyone's come up with to date. Given the quality of modern interceptor capabilities the key component to success in an engagement with hostile surface forces is overwhelming the enemies defences, and whilst a number of factors can complicate the concept this always comes back to some degree to packing in more and more surface to surface missiles in a single engagement. Carrier for all the lovely things they do utterly suck at this. A Nimitz class running a full load of 100 aircraft can load those up with missiles equivalent to 4 VLS cell rounds apiece, (note there is no VLS version of the harpoon, however the existence in the past of a SSM Tomahawk proves a VLS launched SSM in the harpoon capability range is 100% doable). Even if you throw on the aircraft's simultaneous air to air missiles you only need another cell per aircraft, (approximately, it get awkward because air to air weapons engagement ranges vary a lot). For a 100,000 tons you can bring along 10 US cruisers which between them have some 1220 VLS cells, more than double the number needed to match the air group's load-out. Such a force can literally carry an equivalent number of SSM's, enough interceptors to cold stop that many SSM's, and still have a significant percentage of it's VLS cells free to load with whatever it pleases. However many aspects of a ship are subject to economies of scale, that is volume and weight of components decreases at a less than linear rate with displacement. As such in very general terms a larger single ship can devote more of it's mass and volume. Where the Kirov falls short is in the generally overly large and heavy missiles it's saddled with, (the lack of flexibility of a multi-purpose VLS doesn't help but is less critical, even if it's still a major deficiency), some of this is just poor soviet tech, their long range naval SAM system has around half the maximum range of an Standard missile on the same mass factor for example. Some of it is the inherent design of soviet SSM as being longer ranged, faster, and packing a bigger warhead than western equivalents. This represents the only real area of doctrine on the Kirov's i feel the soviets are wrong on. It's final deficit is a lack of development on the Russians part of any VTOL capable AWACS for it. Whilst recent developments are pushing the AWACS increasingly towards the less useful end of the spectrum, it was when the ship was built, and will probably continue to be for a while to come a vital capability. It's the one major Surface to Surface thing carriers do really well, but as the UK has proven you can do it without a fixed wing capability.

Hope that elaborates on a few points for you...

[Gnoman]

1. I'll start on tanks and make some comments on allready in service systems as a starting point. The first and single most innovative feature they have is the Autoloaders on their tanks. But due to various factor's, (primarily crew positioning), they've been forced to use a system who's end RoF is less than ideal. They've effectively killed the benefit via other design choices made in the construction of their tanks. But if they where ever to sort that out the sheer advantages in RoF of an autloader, particularly with full calibre rounds, would be enormous in large scale fighting.

The advantage to rate of fire isn't nearly as great as you seem to think it is. Only very large cannon benefit from an autoloader at all in this respect, and nobody's gone much beyond 120mm for tank guns since WWII. Shells in this size class can be handled adequately well by a man, and having one extra crewman is a huge benefit - tank crews are already near their lower limit for a lot of the critical maintenance tasks performed by the crew, and the smaller crews are an oft-cited reason why Soviet designs have proven quite a bit less reliable.



Another feature the Russians currently use but haven't really taken full advantage of is their gun fired missile systems. heir biggest limitation currently is that IMO they haven't taken full advantage of their available capabilities. Specifically a gun of the calibre and barrel length of modern MBT guns is quite able, (subject to the gun being designed for it), to fire full calibre rounds at rather high muzzle velocities, it effectively serves as a booster stage which greatly expands the available range bands and interception velocities possible with a missile of the size fired. Potentially there is the capability for such a weapon to serve as a mid range SAM system. In of itself that isn't very revolutionary. But what it gives you in terms of logistics, force flexibility, and how it's mere existence must affect hostile airpower employment is hard to overstate the benefits contained within. Equally they have a very impressive range of MBT gun fired ATGM's, but they lack the sighting systems to take advantage of the range and several aspects of the missile fail to provide powerful secondary capabilities that could significantly enhance it's force multiplier effect. Most notable is the lack of directional attack capability, even if said capability can be dealt with via modifications of the target vehicles it's mere presence and the compromises inherent in dealing with it on existing AFV's would be of huge benefit. At the same time it would obviously be beneficial for the rounds to have an acquire after launch and even fire and forget capability. Something that to my understanding is also missing. the ability to provide long range ATGM support to forward units or to fire on a hostile AFV whilst remaining entirely concealed are impossible to overstate.

ATGM are far more visible, have significantly greater limits, and are far less able to penetrate armor (HEAT warheads are quite easy to defend against) than a main-gun round. The one virtue of them is that they are far more compact than a proper gun of the same anti-vehicle capability and thus can arm infantry or vehicles that simply cannot mount a heavy gun. This is why the US only fielded one gun-launcher (the howitzer on the M155 Sheridan, which used missiles to counteract the lack of antivehicle capability provided by the very inaccurate gun) before discarding the entire concept as fatally flawed.



The Russians also routinely deploy active countermeasures systems for ATGM guidance on their tanks, whilst these are currently restricted in both arc and frequency range, (lasers only), this seems to be a minturisation limitation more than anything else. Their benefits, particularly against air-superiority however are profound as even at very low effectiveness rates they greatly affect enemy planning and R&D, factors that are an advantage in their own right. The single biggest thing the Russians have done however was to begin developing and fielding active interception systems for AT munitions. Only Israel is anywhere near in sight of them on that front currently and as i understand it the current Israeli system is rather bulkier than the Russian systems. They haven't got up-to multiple intercept or especially multiple simultaneous intercept capabilities. But the system with sufficient development has the potential to overnight invalidate shoulder fired ATGM's and main tank gun munitions, (including Russia's own), in the Anti-Tank role. That's a game changer on a level bigger than any other development in AFV warfare since it's very inception a century ago.

All major powers are experimenting with such systems, not just Russia and Israel.



The final thing the Russians do well, and without a downside anywhere is their actual existance of a high explosive fragmentation round for the main gun, unlike at least the US and UK they have a means to engage infantry with somthing nastier than the MG's beyond canister shot range.



This is purely a doctrinal issue - dual purpose HEAT rounds are fairly effective in the HE role without sacrificing a weapon that's much better against light armor and fortifications, while IFVs such as the M2 Bradley are far more effective in an anti-infantry role.



2. Now to move onto a bit more of a maybe will maybe won't item in the Russian tank collection. Whilst i haven't explicitly kept up with it so i'm not sure if this project is what's created the new Russian MBT i know the original info i read was talking about a number of major design departures that would have addressed a number of existing issues on Russian designs and brought further advantages. The first major change was moving the crew from inside the turret to the forward hull instead. Whilst i don't see the crew survivability aspect as that big of a deal in a major conflict it's still a nice morale booster, and that's of considerable value all on it's own.


Crew survivability is the MOST important factor in a major conflict - skilled veterans are the main reason that Germany did so well during BARBAROSSA and Japan did so well against the US in the early stages of the Pacific war. Getting the crew out alive means you have a skilled crew that can go into another tank.

[/quote]
More importantly comparative to older Russian layouts which placed the crew inside the turret and on top of the ammo it should allow the turret roof to be lowered subject to hull limitations, and the removal of equipment under the seating that it was supposed to achieve would probably help keep the vehicle hull height from ballooning much if at all. At the end of the day the smaller the turret, and indeed whole tank, can be the better the armour can be. Whilst the reposition will come with some negatives in volume for sure the potential savings on the turret are considerable, particularly if it allows much steeper angling of the armour. Just as importantly it frees up a lot of room for a more capable autoloader should Russia choose to peruse one. Th other advantage is that the turret can now achieve far higher tracking rates without risking injury or even simple disorientation for the crew, a not inconsiderable advantage, though more-so if the gun or secondary armament is able to engage low flying aircraft, (with or without guided munitions), an allready theoretical but unrealised capability with unguided rounds for all modern MBT operators.
[/quote]

Making tanks still lower isn't much of an advantage - a short tank is much less able to take advantage of terrain and is thus -somewhat paradoxically- more likely to be exposed in combat, while a higher rotation speed would be of little -if any- use, as turrets already move very quickly.



The biggest single change however is the move over to turbo electric propulsion. This is huge as fuel takes up space and turbo electric in addition to traction and acceleration advantages under a wide variety of circumstances is generally vastly more fuel efficient. By reducing the fuel required for a given operating endurances you can decrease the size of the tank and so again provide increases in the armour of the tank simply by reducing the area to be covered. In addition the system despite the extra bulk of the generator removes the bulk and vulnerabilities associated with conventional transmission. Indeed it's quite possible their would be both weight and volume savings there, particularly accounting for the lower horsepower and thus smaller engine required.


Forgive my skepticism, but I am unable to find a single source claiming that such a system is in use or even proposed for any armored vehicle, or any vehicle smaller than a locomotive.




A Nimitz class running a full load of 100 aircraft can load those up with missiles equivalent to 4 VLS cell rounds apiece, (note there is no VLS version of the harpoon, however the existence in the past of a SSM Tomahawk proves a VLS launched SSM in the harpoon capability range is 100% doable). Even if you throw on the aircraft's simultaneous air to air missiles you only need another cell per aircraft, (approximately, it get awkward because air to air weapons engagement ranges vary a lot). For a 100,000 tons you can bring along 10 US cruisers which between them have some 1220 VLS cells, more than double the number needed to match the air group's load-out. Such a force can literally carry an equivalent number of SSM's, enough interceptors to cold stop that many SSM's, and still have a significant percentage of it's VLS cells free to load with whatever it pleases.


Here's the fatal flaw in such an analysis. An F/A-18 Hornet can carry 4 Harpoon missiles each, as well as 4 AMRAAM or Sidewinder air-to-air missiles. In raw missile capacity, you could replace this with 8 VLS cells (4 ASM, 4 SAM), but there's a big problem with doing that. The combat radius of a Hornet is 740 kilometers, while the Harpoon has a range in excess of 180 kilometers, for a total range of around 900 km. The best anti-shipping Soviet/Russian ASM has a range of only 300km. In other words, a carrier can hit a ship from three times as far away as a surface ship could (longer if you compare only to NATO weapons), meaning that you can strike, fly back, rearm and repeat as necessary before the other side gets a shot off. As for swamping defenses, a full strike from a Nimitz would be 90 Hornets, for a total of 360 missiles - twice as many strike missiles as a Kirov carries SAMs.

[Carl]

Bullet pointing for replies:

1. Sorry but as the difference between naval 5" guns with manual and autoloading capabilities shows there IS a huge difference in RoF at this calibre, over 50%. Now i don't expect a tank gun to match a naval system but their unquestionably IS the potential to build an autoloader that's going to out load a human, especially since the bar to beat is actually lower than manually loaded naval guns. The maintenance point is a fair cop though, limits of my knowledge there, i assumed it was similar to aircraft with much of the work being carried out by dedicated mechanics.

2. I'm not really sure what your trying to say on ATGM because nothing your saying makes sense. Unless your assuming someone without basic sensor systems any main gun shot will be instantly visible unless it happens from behind cover, and potentially even then), there's no concealment disadvantage to an ATGM. Likewise directional attack capabilities have shown time and again they will defeat armour. HEAT may be easier to stop but if your attacking the weakest armour that is a lot less relevant and unless your going to weaken the strong area's, (making them in turn more vulnerable to all kinds of attack), your not going to be able to up armour every weak angle.

In practise is suspect the solution would be to more evenly distribute the armour. But the mere fact of doing so gives the nation that doesn't have to worry about that an advantage, even if they have to begin relying once again on APFSDS for their primary heavy armour killer.

3. Experimenting yes. Have actually used and have real world data, no. And again so far as i understand it the Russian system is much more compact than the Israeli. The Russians have and still are well ahead of the bell curve right now development wise because they have a lot of actual experience with such systems and have shown a willingness to actually employ them. But vital to producing an effective output.

4. Ahh i wasn't aware that HEAT ammo had serious shrapnel capability, (given it carries so much less HE than a proper HE shell and has no dedicated fragmentation features that I've heard about).

5. Sorry but i find it doubtful for a variety of reasons that vs a modern opponent in a major conflict, (emphasis of those two points), most of the crews that bail out will subsequently survive. There's a big gap between exiting the vehicle and actually getting to safety.

6. Making them lower, not essentially. Making them smaller, (within the limits of ground pressure which is a factor of acceptable track width to vehicle width ratios)? Yes 100%. And making them shorter achieves this.

7. Hahaha. You do realise a number of hybrid cars are in essence turbo electric in most operating modes? As for the tank. It was a proposed development project only, like i said i've not heard if it went anywhere. I'll see if i can find anthing on it again but it was a one off article i randomly stumbled onto.

8. The surface launched equivalent to the ASRAAM would i believe be the evolved sea sparrow and similar systems which fit 4 to a VLS cells so 5 not 8.

Also 740km range means nothing if you can't deliver enough misses, and that was my whole point with the demonstration. A surface action group of the same tonnage of the carrier can cold stop the entire fire-power of a carrier strike with, (unless we assume very low kill rates), considerable quantities of VLS cells to spare. 740km range is useless if you can't kill the target. And carriers cannot defeat an equivalent tonnage surface group if it has the AWACS to detect the missiles incoming beyond a certain point, and the UK has proven that a VTOL deisgn that will fit onto a ship much smaller than a full carrier can do this. ideally a dedicated and more capable platform is ideal, but eithier way you don;t need the carrier for the AWACS.