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Brother Oni
2015-01-13, 01:39 PM
Real World Weapon, Armour and Tactics Thread XVI

This thread is a resource for getting information about real life weapons, armour and tactics. The concept has always been that the information is for RPG players and DMs so they can use it to make their games better, thus it's here rather than in Friendly Banter.

A few rules for this thread:


This thread is for asking questions about how weapons, armour and tactics really work. As such, it's not going to include game rule statistics. If you have such a question, especially if it stems from an answer or question in this thread, feel free to start a new thread and include a link back to here. If you do ask a rule question here, you'll be asked to move it elsewhere, and then we'll be happy to help out with it.

Any weapon or time period is open for questions. Medieval and ancient warfare questions seem to predominate, but since there are many games set in other periods as well, feel free to ask about any weapon. This includes futuristic ones - but be aware that these will be likely assessed according to their real life feasibility. Thus, phasers, for example, will be talked about in real-world science and physics terms rather than the Star Trek canon. If you want to discuss a fictional weapon from a particular source according to the canonical explanation, please start a new thread for it.

Please try to cite your claims if possible. If you know of a citation for a particular piece of information, please include it. However, everyone should be aware that sometimes even the experts don't agree, so it's quite possible to have two conflicting answers to the same question. This isn't a problem; the asker of the question can examine the information and decide which side to go with. The purpose of the thread is to provide as much information as possible. Debates are fine, but be sure to keep it a friendly debate (even if the experts can't!).

No modern real-world political discussion. As the great Carl von Clausevitz once said, "War is merely the continuation of policy by other means," so politics and war are heavily intertwined. However, politics are a big hot-button issue and one banned on these boards, so avoid political analysis if at all possible (this thread is primarily about military hardware). There's more leeway on this for anything prior to about 1800, but be very careful with all of it, and anything past 1900 is surely not open for analysis (These are arbitrary dates but any dates would be, and these are felt to be reasonable).

No graphic descriptions. War is violent, dirty, and horrific, and anyone discussing it should be keenly aware of that. However, on this board graphic descriptions of violence (or sexuality) are not allowed, so please avoid them.


With that done, have at, and enjoy yourselves!

Thread V (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?80863-Got-a-Real-World-Weapon-or-Armor-Question-Mk-V)
Thread VI (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?124683-Got-a-Real-World-Weapon-or-Armor-Question-Mk-VI)
Thread VII (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?168432-Got-a-Real-World-Weapon-or-Armor-Question-Mk-VII)
Thread VIII (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?192911-Got-a-Real-World-Weapon-or-Armor-Question-Mk-VIII)
Thread IX (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?217159-Got-a-Real-World-Weapon-or-Armor-Question-Mk-IX)
Thread X (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?238042-Got-a-Real-World-Weapons-or-Armour-Question-Mk-X)
Thread XI (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?255453-Got-a-Real-World-Weapons-or-Armour-Question-Mk-XI)
Thread XII (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?282471-Got-a-Real-World-Weapons-or-Armour-Question-Mk-XII&p=15188540#post15188540)
Thread XIII (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?308462-Got-a-Real-World-Weapons-or-Armour-Question-Mk-XIII)
Thread XIV (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?327994-Got-a-Real-World-Weapon-or-Armor-Question-Mk-XIV)
Thread XV (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?347806-Got-a-Real-World-Weapon-or-Armour-Question-Mk-XV)
Thread XVI (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?371623-Got-a-Real-World-Weapon-Armor-or-Tactics-Question-Mk-XVI)

Brother Oni
2015-01-13, 01:45 PM
From the previous thread:



One of the little known stories of the Southeast Pacific, and one which really needs to be told to a wider audience, is how the Dutch East India Company used thousands of Ronin Samurai as muscle during their conquest of Indonesia and Malaysia.

...

This book (compiled of letters from English sailors in the Southeast Pacific in the 16th and 17th Centuries) mentions it a bit but doesn't get into much detail

http://www.amazon.com/Nathaniels-Nutmeg-Incredible-Adventures-Changed/dp/0140292608

that book, incidentally, also describes some violent encounters between English sailors and Ronin Samurai working for / with Wako pirates, and also fights between Ronin (in the service of pirates) vs. Spanish Colonial troops in the Philippines.

I think that whole area and time period really needs to be explored more, it's fascinating.

Thanks for the links, Galloglaich.

I think stories like this are proof that life is weirder than fiction - samurai versus conquistadors is something straight out of an Ultimate Warrior matchup and certainly something I would be initially sceptical about.

Galloglaich
2015-01-13, 04:26 PM
From the previous thread:




Thanks for the links, Galloglaich.

I think stories like this are proof that life is weirder than fiction - samurai versus conquistadors is something straight out of an Ultimate Warrior matchup and certainly something I would be initially sceptical about.

Yes, yes it is. Much stranger. But when I post it!? Nobody should be skeptical! ;)

This guy is one of the Chinese pirates who tangled with the Spanish in the Philippines (and lost), the wiki doesn't mention it but I believe he had Ronin as muscle as well

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limahong#Limahong_In_Para.C3.B1aque_.28Don_Galo.29

There is a whole bunch of really, really crazy, far out stuff that went on in the Philippines, Japan, China, Korea and Indonesia in the 16th-17th Centuries that I don't think has really seen the light of day in the English -speaking world, and especially the gamer world, and it really should.

If I had the time I'd make another Codex module out of all this stuff but pending a lottery win, probably not imminent.

This is another pitched battle with the Chinese Wako pirates which the wiki notes, pitted Rodoleros against armored Samurai. I quote:

The Spanish rodeleros then faced armored Japanese ronin who were wielding katanas. The Wokou also had muskets, which had been provided by the Portuguese. The deck of the sampan became a battlefield, with Spanish pikemen at front, and arquebusiers as well as musketeers at the rear. Eventually the Spanish troops defeated the Wokou, thanks to the improvised parapet and the superior quality of Spanish armor and weaponry.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1582_Cagayan_battles

Don't mess with Conquistadors.

This is really just the tip of the iceburg though. I know of at least 5 major battles like that so far, and I've never even systematically researched the Philippines (yet), I just keep running into it by accident. So much crazy stuff went on. A Spanish Galleon got into a 3 day long pitched battle in Nagasaki Harbor against the forces of some local Daimyo, for example, blowing itself up on the third day in order to prevent capture. There is also a first-hand account of an English ship boarded by Japanese pirates that is in one of those Giles Milton books, I have it transcribed somewhere.

What makes the Philippines particularly crazy and far out is that in addition to the Wako pirates with their Ronin, the Dutch with their Ronin, plus random French, Indonesian and the odd Turk, the locals including the Moro with all their exotic weapons, Berzerker abilities, and martial arts, but the Spanish also had Aztecs and German Landsknechts with them for muscle. So yeah, Deadliest Warrior eat your heart out.

I'm telling you, if people spent a little less time trying to figure out how their Drow assassin can kill more Beholders you'd find some really, really amazing stuff just waiting out there in history, (stuff people like Gary Gygax didn't have access to in their day but you do now because the internet).

G

Galloglaich
2015-01-13, 05:03 PM
This is pretty good at the end of the second wiki:

"Afterwards the Wokou decided to attack by land with a force of soldiers six hundred strong. The Spanish trenches endured that first assault, then another. In response to Spanish pikes being seized by the Wokou soldiers, the Spanish oiled the shafts of their pikes in order to make them difficult to grasp. The thirty remaining Spanish were running low on gun powder after the third attack, which had almost breached the trenches. They left the trenches and attacked, routing the remaining Wokou. The Spanish plundered the Wokou's weapons that were left on the battlefield, which included katanas and armor, and kept them as trophies"

Of course, those Wokou were probably a mix of a few Ronin with a lot of miscellaneous sailors, runaway serfs, fishermen and so forth. Still a pretty hard core story.

G

Yora
2015-01-13, 05:50 PM
The wako were certainly not a minor local nuisance like highwaymen with boats. Even disorganized they were a major force that greatly shook up a good quarter of the world at the time. They might perhaps be more comparable with the central American drug cartels these days.
They were also the main reason that Japan eventually closed all borders. Not allowing any foreigners into the country except at Nagasaki was only part of the measure. Even more importantly Japanese people were no longer permitted to leave unless on an official diplomatic mission by the government. The wako were causing so many international incidents that this seemed to be the more practical alternative. Of course the wako had still other ports they could use as bases, but at least the Japanese government was mostly out of the whole mess.

It certainly was a crazy time: In the mid 16th century the Japanese had already over a century of civil war behind them with a lot more to come, and in the Philippines you suddenly have some strangers from halfway around the world taking over. And in China the Ming dynasty was also slowly starting to fray at the seams. Not exactly what anyone would call a politically stable environment.

Galloglaich
2015-01-13, 06:09 PM
The wako were certainly not a minor local nuisance like highwaymen with boats. Even disorganized they were a major force that greatly shook up a good quarter of the world at the time. They might perhaps be more comparable with the central American drug cartels these days.
They were also the main reason that Japan eventually closed all borders. Not allowing any foreigners into the country except at Nagasaki was only part of the measure. Even more importantly Japanese people were no longer permitted to leave unless on an official diplomatic mission by the government. The wako were causing so many international incidents that this seemed to be the more practical alternative. Of course the wako had still other ports they could use as bases, but at least the Japanese government was mostly out of the whole mess.

Speaking of the Japanese mainland, there is also this much friendlier and equally interesting encounter

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

and see also

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Juan_Bautista_(ship)

G

rs2excelsior
2015-01-13, 10:24 PM
So two quick questions and a mini-rant:

First, did urban (for lack of a better term) combat occur in the Medieval period and if so what did it look like? I'm not talking about the sieges of castles or large walled cities, as that's mostly a waiting game, and I would imagine if the attackers did breach the walls it was mostly over except for the looting and the dying, as the defenders would have met the attackers already if they could win a stand-up fight rather than risk a siege. I'm talking about soldiers taking up defensive positions in an unwalled village or hamlet, or even a cluster of farmhouses, likely as part of a larger field battle, like the British defense of the Hougoumont farm at Waterloo. I can see how soldiers with firearms could make even a small cluster of buildings into a formidable strongpoint, but I'm not sure how well it would translate to soldiers armed with bows, crossbows, and melee weapons, especially the polearms that seemed to predominate Medieval infantry.

Second, just how cohesive was the Holy Roman Empire? I imagine a lot depended on the strength of personality of the Emperor at the time, but were there any general trends? How much could the Emperor compel the princes that made up the Empire, and how often did these princes fight amongst themselves (either with arms or without)?

And the rant. Is anyone else annoyed as much as I am in fantasy (or any other genre, really) when a group displays exceedingly, staggeringly bad tactics--which are then praised as excellent? I was recently reading a short story about a group of soldiers who fought in pairs--each pair armed differently--that made no effort to keep any kind of formation. They would deliberately break their formations upon contact. Which is okay, because their enemies apparently weren't any brighter and did the same. The whole time they were displaying the amazing fighting skills of this group, I could only think just how completely a disciplined, properly supported body of pikemen would massacre these people. And that's not even considering cavalry--if they were charged (which they were), they would have to reform mid-combat, and then they didn't even have polearms (or at least a significant number of them) with which to repel cavalry. And they're supposed to be elite soldiers.

:smallannoyed:

Gnoman
2015-01-13, 11:35 PM
I'm not talking about the sieges of castles or large walled cities, as that's mostly a waiting game, and I would imagine if the attackers did breach the walls it was mostly over except for the looting and the dying, as the defenders would have met the attackers already if they could win a stand-up fight rather than risk a siege.


Not at all true. There are many reasons why a defender would decline to sally, such as having more than adequate supplies (or a port) to outwait an attacker that is little better off in terms of supply, expectations of a relief force coming before the supplies would run out, desire to use the force multiplication of their walls and other static defenses, or simply not having enough men to be confident of victory (not at all the same as not being able to win a stand-up fight.

It was far from rare for attackers to force their way over, under, around, or through a city wall, only for the defenders to smash the incursion (less common if there's an actual breach in the wall, but that wasn't nearly as common as media would have you think, most of the time walls were scaled with ladders, the gates (only) were broken down, or a traitor left a gate open), this just isn't as iconic an image and indecisive clashes of this sort aren't dramatic enough for most depictions.



I can see how soldiers with firearms could make even a small cluster of buildings into a formidable strongpoint, but I'm not sure how well it would translate to soldiers armed with bows, crossbows, and melee weapons, especially the polearms that seemed to predominate Medieval infantry.
Extremely easily, actually. Crossbows and handgonnes would benefit exactly the same way as modern firearms, while the layout of the buildings, pathways, and gaps between the buildings would turn the town into a thousand Thermopylaes for small parties to delay and damage attacking forces, often while other small groups peppered the attackers with missiles from buildings and melee parties slipped through alternate paths to catch an attacker in the flank. Urban combat would have been every bit as much a nightmare in those days as Stalingrad was in 1942.

Incanur
2015-01-14, 01:21 AM
It's a bit later, the 17th-century also has the Koxinga (Zheng Chenggong) - a regional Chinese leader still loyal to the falling Ming dynasty - against the Dutch in Taiwan. A Dutch source (https://books.google.com/books?id=OpdMq-YJoeoC&pg=PA70&lpg=PA70&dq=koxinga+%2B+dutch+%2B+archers&source=bl&ots=TiQ3ELoEEH&sig=7Ah62-BnL1QsAJWoihyKFfsdbqQ&hl=en&sa=X&ei=6AK2VPiQGYm5yQSdz4DgBw&ved=0CC4Q6AEwBA#v=onepage&q&f=false) describes how Koxinga fielded primarily archers, targetiers, and troops wielding swordsticks. Koxinga's soldiers wore iron/steel armor that this source claims gave "complete protection from rifle bullets." The source also claims that Koxinga's archers "very nearly eclipsed the [Dutch] riflemen." Koxinga army had artillery but few handheld firearms. In the end, the defeated the Dutch and drove them out of Taiwan. Koxinga threatened the Spanish the Philippines but died before any attack too place.

Around the same time in China you had Manchu armies of mounted archers supported as needed by gunners and artillery against the against vast Ming forces equipped with various weapons. The Manchus tended to win battles and of course won the overall conflict, significantly because of their archery and skill with close-combat weapons. A Manchu soldier's diary from the later 17th century includes an account of the author charging through gunfire while plying his bow to deadly effect. The account describes how Manchu arrows routed opposing elephants.

All sorts of bizarre and fascinating military encounters happened in 17th-century East Asia. Numerous different types of guns, bows, swords, armor, and polearms saw action in the region at that time.

Galloglaich
2015-01-14, 10:46 AM
So two quick questions and a mini-rant:

First, did urban (for lack of a better term) combat occur in the Medieval period and if so what did it look like?

Yes, of course, thousands of times. Complex, of course. For more specific examples you'd have to narrow down your question a bit.



Second, just how cohesive was the Holy Roman Empire? I imagine a lot depended on the strength of personality of the Emperor at the time, but were there any general trends? How much could the Emperor compel the princes that made up the Empire, and how often did these princes fight amongst themselves (either with arms or without)?

Not very, generally speaking. For most of it's roughly 1000 year history the HRE was what you might call a 'failed state', with some periods of relative coherence.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a0/HRR_1400.png

The Emperor had very limited power, and had to contend with the Princes, especially the Prince Electors (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince-elector), the Church (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince-bishop), the cities (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_imperial_city), heavily armed heretics (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hussites) and unruly peasants (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Growth_of_the_Old_Swiss_Confederacy#The_nucleus) and see also (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arumer_Zwarte_Hoop) and etc.

They were elected by the most powerful princes and had to contend with a sort of parliament or diet (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_Diet_(Holy_Roman_Empire)#History) made up of the princes, towns, and clergy of the Empire.

Every six or seven generations there would be a powerful Holy Roman Emperor: Charlemagne, obviously, Frederick II (13th Century); Charles IV of Prague (14th Century); Maximilian I (late 15th-early 16th Century); and the half-Spanish Charles the V (arguably the most powerful, early to mid 16th Century) but these were more leaders of coalitions of princes than the type of absolute monarchs that we typically think of from other famous Kingdoms. Conversely, every so often there were dangerous interregnums, the worst being a bad one in the late 13th Century (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holy_Roman_Empire#Interregnum) which kind of set the stage for the decentralized nature of the Empire in subsequent years.

However the Emperors were still powerful enough to occasionally launch formidable military campaigns against their neighbors and usually more than strong enough to protect their own lands, for the most part (with certain exceptions (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hussite_Wars#Beautiful_rides_.28Chevauch.C3.A9e.29 )) though they sometimes failed to prevent parts of the Empire from breaking away on their own (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Swiss_Confederacy) and see also (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lombard_League).

But they often could not impose their will over the other factions of the Empire, and typically wasted their energy fighting among the most (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Hohenzollern) powerful (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Luxembourg) families (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Habsburg) of the Empire.

G

Yora
2015-01-14, 10:56 AM
Not at all true. There are many reasons why a defender would decline to sally, such as having more than adequate supplies (or a port) to outwait an attacker that is little better off in terms of supply, expectations of a relief force coming before the supplies would run out, desire to use the force multiplication of their walls and other static defenses, or simply not having enough men to be confident of victory (not at all the same as not being able to win a stand-up fight.
In most wars, the vast amount of casualties were not from combat, but from disease. A siege is a waiting game that can be quite favorably stacked in the defenders favor. If they have supplies to hold out several weeks or a few months and the weather gets bad, sitting in nice warm and dry homes inside the walls is much nicer than standing knee deep in freezing mudd and drizzling outside for weeks. Maintaining a siege is far from easy, and I believe a very considerable number of them failed because the troops simply couldn't keep going anymore.

Thiel
2015-01-14, 12:52 PM
In most wars, the vast amount of casualties were not from combat, but from disease. A siege is a waiting game that can be quite favorably stacked in the defenders favor. If they have supplies to hold out several weeks or a few months and the weather gets bad, sitting in nice warm and dry homes inside the walls is much nicer than standing knee deep in freezing mudd and drizzling outside for weeks. Maintaining a siege is far from easy, and I believe a very considerable number of them failed because the troops simply couldn't keep going anymore.

Not to mention the defenders would have access to well-established sanitation.

Gnoman
2015-01-14, 06:06 PM
In most wars, the vast amount of casualties were not from combat, but from disease. A siege is a waiting game that can be quite favorably stacked in the defenders favor. If they have supplies to hold out several weeks or a few months and the weather gets bad, sitting in nice warm and dry homes inside the walls is much nicer than standing knee deep in freezing mudd and drizzling outside for weeks. Maintaining a siege is far from easy, and I believe a very considerable number of them failed because the troops simply couldn't keep going anymore.

I think you just said the same thing I did.

Calen
2015-01-14, 06:50 PM
And the rant. Is anyone else annoyed as much as I am in fantasy (or any other genre, really) when a group displays exceedingly, staggeringly bad tactics--which are then praised as excellent? I was recently reading a short story about a group of soldiers who fought in pairs--each pair armed differently--that made no effort to keep any kind of formation. They would deliberately break their formations upon contact. Which is okay, because their enemies apparently weren't any brighter and did the same. The whole time they were displaying the amazing fighting skills of this group, I could only think just how completely a disciplined, properly supported body of pikemen would massacre these people. And that's not even considering cavalry--if they were charged (which they were), they would have to reform mid-combat, and then they didn't even have polearms (or at least a significant number of them) with which to repel cavalry. And they're supposed to be elite soldiers.

:smallannoyed:

On one hand yes I get very annoyed at stuff like that. On the other hand there are many cultures that were mob fighters with little to no formational fighting. In a culture like that having people fight in pairs would be an elite strategy.

Brother Oni
2015-01-14, 07:12 PM
Yes, yes it is. Much stranger. But when I post it!? Nobody should be skeptical! ;)

Ah, but you source your posts, so I can verify your information from the horse's mouth, as it were. :smalltongue:


On one hand yes I get very annoyed at stuff like that. On the other hand there are many cultures that were mob fighters with little to no formational fighting. In a culture like that having people fight in pairs would be an elite strategy.

In the case of anime, a lot of that is due to writers only knowing about samurai, who had the habit of going hunting for worthy foes to fight during the middle of a battle, thus enemy formations meeting would effectively break up into a mass duelling. The winner would then take his opponent's head as a trophy, carrying it back to the rear of the battle for safe keeping, disrupting battle lines: link (https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=eyMYelZlKekC&pg=PA155&lpg=PA155&dq=samurai+head+hunting+battle&source=bl&ots=mrywsBdKY9&sig=A-DduVkElQ26eyt_FnrLZMIl3o8&hl=en&sa=X&ei=RQS3VM-mBouBU6zdgdAD&ved=0CFYQ6AEwCQ#v=onepage&q=samurai%20head%20hunting%20battle&f=false).

I would also mention the pre-battle boasting, but the Mongols cured the samurai of that habit.

Galloglaich
2015-01-14, 08:35 PM
Ah, but you source your posts, so I can verify your information from the horse's mouth, as it were. :smalltongue:

You are too kind :)



In the case of anime, a lot of that is due to writers only knowing about samurai, who had the habit of going hunting for worthy foes to fight during the middle of a battle, thus enemy formations meeting would effectively break up into a mass duelling. The winner would then take his opponent's head as a trophy, carrying it back to the rear of the battle for safe keeping, disrupting battle lines: link (https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=eyMYelZlKekC&pg=PA155&lpg=PA155&dq=samurai+head+hunting+battle&source=bl&ots=mrywsBdKY9&sig=A-DduVkElQ26eyt_FnrLZMIl3o8&hl=en&sa=X&ei=RQS3VM-mBouBU6zdgdAD&ved=0CFYQ6AEwCQ#v=onepage&q=samurai%20head%20hunting%20battle&f=false).

I would also mention the pre-battle boasting, but the Mongols cured the samurai of that habit.


You would know better than I, but didn't a lot of that ritualized stuff, including the boasting, poetry, ritualized combat, and many examples of what you can with justification call Chivalry, continue on the battlefield and coexist right alongside organized formation fighting (which I think was pretty ubiquitous, in some form or another, even in very primitive armies, unless you are talking about Neolthic tribes or something) and right along side the most ruthless systematic barbarity?

In fact though we are taught that the Mongol invasion ended this in Japan I'd be surprised (again, you can correct me here) if it really did end, it probably changed but that warrior code with it's peculiarities of honor, the stylistic pose, poetry, and the magnanimous gesture and so on, certainly seems to have existed in Japan still in the 16th Century.

It existed without a doubt in Europe. I've been reading Jan Dlugosz again and while the near constant warfare in Northeastern Europe is very organized and sophisticated, and quite often ruthless and cruel, there are so many examples of Chivalric gestures, formal duels in combats, people being released on their honor, enemies sending food to the wounded and so forth, that I have to believe that it was pretty routine and deeply embedded in the warrior cultures of this region at that time.

There is even a fascinating story about a formal joust during a battle in Silesia between German and French mercenaries in the service of the Teutonic Order and Polish knights fighting for the Polish (/Lithuanian) King, very similar to the much more famous "battle of the 30 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combat_of_the_Thirty)" from the 100 years war. After that the Polish King held a tournament in 1411 or 1412 when the Mongol Khan of the Crimean Horde showed up unexpectedly with a small army of bodyguards as uninvited guests. They were attempting to woo the King of Bosnia to join with them politically against Moravia. Apparently they were making everyone very nervous but they were treated cordially by the Polish King and German, Polish, and Western knights present. They participated in the jousts and so on.

I'm going to transcribe the whole passage and do an article on HROARR about it when I get the time.

G

Incanur
2015-01-14, 10:42 PM
At least a few European soldiers enjoyed battlefield duels even into era of the Maxim gun, though by that time it tended to get them into trouble. But it's amazing how many British soldiers decided to test their skill at close combat in the nineteenth century, when they really didn't need to.

Battlefield duels of various sorts happened frequently in 15th- and 16th-century Europe as far as I can tell. Here's one 15th-century example (http://www.myarmoury.com/talk/viewtopic.php?p=127215). Even officers in pike blocks at times dueled with their opposing counterparts in the 16th century. While seemingly frivolous and irrational, such individual and small-scale combats could have important morale effects.

goto124
2015-01-14, 11:14 PM
Which thread do I go to if I want to ask about non-war things, such as morality and women's underwear?

Speaking of which... what sort of underwear was worn underneath the armor? Feel free to specify time period and country on your own.

rs2excelsior
2015-01-14, 11:34 PM
Thanks again for the responses. As usual, this is the go-to place for getting well-informed information about periods I lack a familiarity with :smallsmile:


Which thread do I go to if I want to ask about non-war things, such as morality and women's underwear?

Speaking of which... what sort of underwear was worn underneath the armor? Feel free to specify time period and country on your own.

So far as I know, there isn't one, so make a thread of your own--either for your specific questions, or as a general forum for non-military historical questions.

As to what was worn under armor... it's my understanding that it usually involved some sort of padding, which both made the armor more comfortable and provided an extra layer of impact protection. But I'll let someone else take the specifics.

Brother Oni
2015-01-15, 03:47 AM
You would know better than I, but didn't a lot of that ritualized stuff, including the boasting, poetry, ritualized combat, and many examples of what you can with justification call Chivalry, continue on the battlefield and coexist right alongside organized formation fighting (which I think was pretty ubiquitous, in some form or another, even in very primitive armies, unless you are talking about Neolthic tribes or something) and right along side the most ruthless systematic barbarity?

It did indeed, but it was mostly done by the samurai and not the ashigaru foot soldiers (who weren't of the samurai caste at that time). Stories of battles where a troop held formation as it engaged the enemy doesn't make for as good a story as a great champion duelling his way through opponent after opponent and taking the spoils back to display for promotions and awards (which was very much like the ancient Greek concept of kleos as I understand it, where renown and merit was judged by how much stuff you stole, what amazing feats you did, etc).

Again you're right in that not all battles broke down into individual glory grabbing, but it was a concern with more headstrong troops.



In fact though we are taught that the Mongol invasion ended this in Japan I'd be surprised (again, you can correct me here) if it really did end, it probably changed but that warrior code with it's peculiarities of honor, the stylistic pose, poetry, and the magnanimous gesture and so on, certainly seems to have existed in Japan still in the 16th Century.

As far as I know, the Mongol invasion only ended the habit of boasting, where samurai would venture beyond their army pre-battle and shout out their deeds and threats in an attempt to intimidate the enemy (the Mongols, not speaking Japanese, just shot the samurai as they came within range). I don't know of any other habits that the Mongols broke.

Again, you're right that there was peculiar habits by the various lords - the various Battles of Kawanakajima (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battles_of_Kawanakajima) had an almost ritual affair between the two leaders, plus Uesugi Kenshin's gift of salt to his rival, Takeda Shingen, due to his belief that battles were won by force of arms rather than by rice and salt.


Which thread do I go to if I want to ask about non-war things, such as morality and women's underwear?

You may also want to look into r/askhistorians on Reddit for similar questions - I believe they have an FAQ for reoccuring topics, women's underwear and feminine hygiene included surprisingly.


As to what was worn under armor... it's my understanding that it usually involved some sort of padding, which both made the armor more comfortable and provided an extra layer of impact protection. But I'll let someone else take the specifics.

Padded jackets made of linen or wool were most common as far as I know. Some of these were quilted and stuffed with whatever they could find (eg scraps of cloth or wool), for example gambesons (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gambeson) were popular during Norman Times in England. Arming caps were common headwear, although as mentioned in the previous thread, some soldiers, such as the greek hoplites, braided their hair to do the same thing.

Some soldiers just wore their normal clothing with auxillary armour under the main armour helping as padding (the Japanese did this).

As always when wearing so many layers, overheating was a major issue - there's a medieval battle in England where the armoured soldiers were collapsing from heat exhaustion in the middle of a snowstorm (the Battle of Towton, I believe).

Mr. Mask
2015-01-15, 12:34 PM
Anyone know what causes a major pirate/bandit hub to form? That is, a major port, city, or the like which supports outlaws, benefiting from their influx of plunder.

More specifically, I'm wondering what situation would cause a criminal state such as this to be unassailable, practically speaking.

Galloglaich
2015-01-15, 02:03 PM
Anyone know what causes a major pirate/bandit hub to form? That is, a major port, city, or the like which supports outlaws, benefiting from their influx of plunder.

More specifically, I'm wondering what situation would cause a criminal state such as this to be unassailable, practically speaking.

It's always a complex combination of many factors, too complex to boil down to a single cause. You can look around the world where examples of this sort of thing have occurred, and try to find some common patterns, but they are pretty situational.

Pirate hub examples I can think of would include Port Royal (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port_Royal#Piracy_in_Port_Royal), Madagascar (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Madagascar#Pirates_and_slave-traders), Wisby (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victual_Brothers) (on Gothland near Sweden) which became a hub for the Victual Brothers pirates in the late medieval period, Rostock and Wismar (https://books.google.com/books?id=i7-HX1Dx_b8C&pg=PA148&lpg=PA148&dq=rostock+piracy&source=bl&ots=civCd_eHQr&sig=diZkOj2ezzBhUT5Gf7AABUJZFXw&hl=en&sa=X&ei=rQu4VI-jAtC0sATv64GgDw&ved=0CDUQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=rostock%20piracy&f=false) in Mecklenburg during the late medieval period (also linked to the Victual brothers as well as some other groups) Grace O'Malley's (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grace_O%27Malley#Career) Irish headquarters in the 16th Century, many specific strongholds associated with the Wako pirates, and of course Puntland with the Somali pirates (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piracy_in_Somalia) today, just to name a few.

I think generally with these you can see certain general trends - you can distinguish for example between free lance pirates vs. privateers. In many cases longer lasting pirate havens are actually associated with the latter, meaning they have the support of one state and focus their depredations against another. English pirates who raid the Spanish out of Port Royal for example, or Wismar making itself into a base of pirates who were preying the Danes. This shifts into a wide gray area since in many periods, naval war was conducted principally through privateers.

"Pure" pirate havens are rarer and tend to be shorter-lived. Wisby became a pirate haven for a while after the Danes sacked it, breaking it's back, and then the Pirates (Victual Brothers etc.) sacked it several times further softening it up, and eventually taking it over. They weren't there long though before the Teutonic Knights and the Hanseatic League took over. Madagascar was a pretty interesting experiment for a while but the very thing that allowed it to be a haven, it's extreme remoteness, contributed to it's downfall (if I remember correctly)

A lot of times those 'in between' zones which were sort of privateers but really pirates were caused by a combination of severe social problems putting a lot of pressure on some of the population which were contributing to the piracy to begin with (very strict social systems in China and Japan with a lot of people falling through the cracks to become Wako pirates) with some remote, and / or well fortified location where the pirates could make their home. In Somalia it started apparently with an informal "coast guard" formed to prevent North Korean and Egyptian trawlers from illegally 'strip mining' all the fish out of their coastline (and Italian and Spanish ships from dumping toxic waste), since the Somali government lacked the resources to patrol the coast there, then eventually they realized they had sufficient capabilities to be pirates.

The same sometimes happened with groups of bandits, like you can see with the Zaporizhian Cossacks. But bandit havens have too many examples to list here.

G

Heartspan
2015-01-15, 03:14 PM
i'm having trouble finding information about a terbutje (if thats how you spell it). from what i gather its a spikey club/sword made from rocks and wood? but what culture is it from, and how durable are they?

Mr. Mask
2015-01-15, 03:15 PM
Thanks G, that was a good run down. To give details of what I'm doing, essentially I'm working out bandit havens in a frontier area during a gold rush. There are a lot of factions after the gold, without the resources for a full scale war (there are reasons for this). Most of the factions trust each other about as far as they can spit, though some of the weaker ones have a tenuous alliance. The area of the gold rush is very new to just about everyone, with just about no local presence (there are reasons for this). Most of the factions are working to get as much gold as they can without more than a skirmish, while simultaneously building up some industry and defences so as to get ahead of the other factions.

So, the idea is that amongst the infighting, the unexplored frontier, and the flux of wealth, bandit and pirate havens form in defensive positions. Most of them probably will try to become privateer havens, siding with one faction or another.

Honest Tiefling
2015-01-15, 03:55 PM
Okay, an odd question. For a campaign, I was thinking of a world where guns are present, but not mass produced. There's a brutal war going on, and one side has them, one does not. The reason they are not mass produced is that they don't want the secrets getting out via factory workers. (Both sides love to steal people from the other side). I know this is a complicated question, but how do I make this believable without making it seem like kooky fantasy gun control?

Galloglaich
2015-01-15, 04:01 PM
Thanks G, that was a good run down. To give details of what I'm doing, essentially I'm working out bandit havens in a frontier area during a gold rush. There are a lot of factions after the gold, without the resources for a full scale war (there are reasons for this). Most of the factions trust each other about as far as they can spit, though some of the weaker ones have a tenuous alliance. The area of the gold rush is very new to just about everyone, with just about no local presence (there are reasons for this). Most of the factions are working to get as much gold as they can without more than a skirmish, while simultaneously building up some industry and defences so as to get ahead of the other factions.

So, the idea is that amongst the infighting, the unexplored frontier, and the flux of wealth, bandit and pirate havens form in defensive positions. Most of them probably will try to become privateer havens, siding with one faction or another.

Sounds like a cool campaign setting. You can probably look at the Wild West, places like Deadwood (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deadwood,_South_Dakota#19th_century) for example. This also happened in Medieval Europe.

This is a really cool painting of the Kutna Hora (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kutn%C3%A1_Hora#History) silver mine from the late medieval period, which kind of conveys the frantic feeling of the silver rush going on at that time

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e8/Silver_mine,_Kutna_Hora.jpg

There were several substantial gold, silver and copper mines found during the late medieval Period in Europe which in some cases led to "Gold Rush" type situations and multi-partied fights for control over the resource. For some reason the higher altitudes of many mountain ranges were not explored until that time. One area with a lot of different dangerous factions contending for control of the mines was Silesia, another was in Transylvania, and another was in Slovakia. I know that in Slovakia Czech heretic mercenaries, German nobles and at least one Hungarian King struggled for control over some gold and silver mines there and some of the towns did essentially become bandit havens for the Czech heretics. Nearby Ottoman and Mongol forces posed a continuous threat as well.

I believe this article covers that whole scenario somewhat:

http://www.academia.edu/4217157/Jiskra_Hussitism_and_Slovakia_in_eds_Eva_Dole%C5%B Ealova_and_Jaroslav_P%C3%A1nek_Confession_and_Nati on_in_the_Era_of_Reformations_Central_Europe_in_Co mparative_Perspective_Prague_2011_pp._77_90

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d1/Ruebezahl1561.jpg

There is another mountain range in Silesia that they started to colonize in the 14th Century, called the "Giant Mountains" because a certain mysterious and evocative giant or troll or faerie called Krakonos (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R%C3%BCbezahl) patrolled there allegedly. I always thought that would make for a good setting.


The one other general comment I would make is that, barring a strongly fortified town with well tested and skillfully made city walls, most bandit havens will be in dangerous difficult to reach areas. Dangerous boggy swamps, deep forests, up high in the inaccessible mountains, in a hidden pass or an island surrounded by treacherous rocks. The famous Cossack sich was down past the rapids on the Dnieper river, and also in a vast zone of difficult kind of swampy terrain which was a seasonal flood plain.

G

Galloglaich
2015-01-15, 04:04 PM
Okay, an odd question. For a campaign, I was thinking of a world where guns are present, but not mass produced. There's a brutal war going on, and one side has them, one does not. The reason they are not mass produced is that they don't want the secrets getting out via factory workers. (Both sides love to steal people from the other side). I know this is a complicated question, but how do I make this believable without making it seem like kooky fantasy gun control?

Unless the side with the guns always wins every encounter between the two factions it sounds like kooky fantasy gun control, because the other side will start collecting and using guns that they capture pretty quickly.

G

Mr Beer
2015-01-15, 04:33 PM
Okay, an odd question. For a campaign, I was thinking of a world where guns are present, but not mass produced. There's a brutal war going on, and one side has them, one does not. The reason they are not mass produced is that they don't want the secrets getting out via factory workers. (Both sides love to steal people from the other side). I know this is a complicated question, but how do I make this believable without making it seem like kooky fantasy gun control?

Sounds silly to me, if I was running a country involved in a 'brutal' war, then I would much rather beef up security on my factory than simply give up the large advantage of many soldiers with guns. Plus if guns exist, the secret is already out there to some extent, mass-producing them does not release the genie from the bottle.

A much simpler idea would be scarcity of a vital component needed for gun manufacture. Or mass production is simply not possible due to the inability to machine standardised components within the required tolerances. Or guns are made by secret craftsmen (with a monopoly on high tech) whose guild is sufficiently powerful as to resist state control.

Component scarcity could be anything from potassium nitrate to steel to the need to bind a particular demon sub-type ritually into the weapon. I would go with demons because I just thought of it and it sounds cool to have powerful demonic weapons with their own agenda, but hey. Lots of options here.

Gnoman
2015-01-15, 05:17 PM
Component scarcity could be anything from potassium nitrate

Only in a world where nobody poops. Saltpetre is a natural byproduct of decaying dung (which is why bat guano is a material component of Fireball). Indeed, all three of the ingredients for black powder are extremely easy to get. If you want to make a firearm component difficult to get, the best thing to do is advance to flintlock technology and make flints hard to get (historically, this was one of the biggest supply problems for rebel troops, along with bayonets), or even come up with a magical equivalent of the percussion-cap that is difficult to duplicate. In either case, while it would be possible to bypass the lack, the advantages of the more modern lock are so great as to be decisive.

Mr Beer
2015-01-15, 05:39 PM
Only in a world where nobody poops.

Well traditionally in fantasy, the whole 'poop' thing is overlooked, except for sewer crawl dungeons of course.

I'm not sure that it's super easy to make gunpowder in industrial quantities at the start of the era, but maybe I'm wrong. I know potassium nitrate was scraped away from under dung piles but I have no idea how easy or efficient the process was. Is it possible that people aren't very good at getting lots of potassium nitrate? If not, I stand corrected.

Anyway, my vote is still demonic weapon bonds but your idea has the advantage of verisimilitude.

GraaEminense
2015-01-15, 06:15 PM
Only in a world where nobody poops. Saltpetre is a natural byproduct of decaying dung (which is why bat guano is a material component of Fireball). Indeed, all three of the ingredients for black powder are extremely easy to get.
It still took a lot of time for black powder to be discovered, and more for it to be widespread. Having the recipe be a jealously guarded secret of a small alchemical guild would make captured guns of limited use and captured black powder a prized resource.

I really like the demon guns, though. Or add some fantasy ingredient to the powder -dragon guano or bound fire elementals or something.

Honest Tiefling
2015-01-15, 06:29 PM
I do too, and it works since the idea is that guns are magically bound so only demons, their followers, or people with demonic blood can use them to prevent the majority of their enemies from trying to use them. Some might might even magically explode if used by the wrong people. They still want to keep black powder a secret, because well, the stuff is useful and dangerous. So yes, guns would be made by a few craftsmen as opposed to being made in a factory.

Odd question I thought I'd never type, exactly how would one stumble upon the process of extracting potassium nitrate from poop?

Gnoman
2015-01-15, 06:47 PM
It still took a lot of time for black powder to be discovered, and more for it to be widespread. Having the recipe be a jealously guarded secret of a small alchemical guild would make captured guns of limited use and captured black powder a prized resource.

For one thing, that's a different concept than the material scarcity that was suggested.

For another, stealing or reverse-engineering the formula didn't actually take that long. Europeans first encountered it in 1241 (possibly earlier, there's a lot of confusion between gunpowder and older incendiary agents in the earliest period), it became common in the Arabic world by 1280, and there is conclusive European recipes from 1300, meaning that at the absolute longest it took Europe a mere 59 years (considering the travel times of the era, this is pretty short) from the first encounter with gunpowder to making it themselves.

Gunpowder not being discovered at all is reasonable, keeping the formula secret once you start using it is not. It's a very simple formula made from very simple ingredients, and it retains enough properties of sulfur and charcoal that saltpetre is the only ingredient that it is possible to keep secret, and it would inevitably get out that you were collecting it on a large scale. The exact proportions would require experimentation, but the proportions needed are so basic that this wouldn't take too long or kill too many alchemists to do so.

Galloglaich
2015-01-15, 10:53 PM
For one thing, that's a different concept than the material scarcity that was suggested.

For another, stealing or reverse-engineering the formula didn't actually take that long. Europeans first encountered it in 1241 (possibly earlier, there's a lot of confusion between gunpowder and older incendiary agents in the earliest period), it became common in the Arabic world by 1280, and there is conclusive European recipes from 1300, meaning that at the absolute longest it took Europe a mere 59 years (considering the travel times of the era, this is pretty short) from the first encounter with gunpowder to making it themselves.

Well, a bit earlier than that I think. The 1300 date is for the Liber Ignium, which has the first 'modern' (ish) gunpowder formula, but earlier versions were published by Roger Bacon in 1267 and Albertus Magnus around 1270. There is also records of gunpowder weapons being used in Spain in 1248 (I think by the Moors)

One of the tricky parts of making gunpowder (which Fusilier and Incannur and I debated in an earlier incarnation of this thread) that was really useful though was in getting the salt of St. Peter processed properly, that is to say as mostly Potassium Nitrate instead of Calcium Nitrate. The latter will burn but is much more vulnerable to being rendered inert by moisture. Liber Ignium contains a recipe for processing the 'nitre' which was the base ingredient. So that could be another way to limit the spread of gunpowder in a fantasy world (at least for a while); keep the secret of the Salt of St. Peter.

Another major technological improvement in black powder or gunpowder was when they figured out how to process it with alcohol (and other fluids) to make so-called corned powder around 1450. Before that black powder had to be mixed in the field because it would separate into it's component materials when shaken. Corned powder was also much more powerful.


The original discovery of the pyrotechnic qualities of the Potassium Nitrate came about some time around the 8th or 9th Century apparently as a result of Chinese Alchemical experiments which were seeking potions of eternal life.

G

goto124
2015-01-15, 11:11 PM
How well did armor protect the neck? Feel free to define time period and country.

Gnoman
2015-01-16, 12:27 AM
Well, a bit earlier than that I think. The 1300 date is for the Liber Ignium, which has the first 'modern' (ish) gunpowder formula, but earlier versions were published by Roger Bacon in 1267 and Albertus Magnus around 1270. There is also records of gunpowder weapons being used in Spain in 1248 (I think by the Moors)


1300's the earliest European example I could find on a quick search that indisputably concerned black powder. A lot of the early Arab sources are somewhat inconclusive because they used the same word for gunpowder as they did for naphtha, and 1300 was early enough to support my point about it being very easy to duplicate the mixture once you heard about it, so I didn't feel the need to look for even earlier examples.

Incanur
2015-01-16, 12:34 AM
As others have noted, gunpowder manufacturing isn't completely trivial and shortages of gunpowder and of saltpeter and/or sulfur happened from time to time well after the widespread use of firearms. Lack of gunpowder and difficulty producing it was an issue in various wars in North America in the 18th century, for example, though that was also in the context of high demand. Anyway, depending on the economics on the populations in question, it's not unreasonable for gunpowder manufacturing to be a problem.

Armor protected the neck rather well in 15th- and 16th-century Western Europe. The gorget was a key piece of defensive equipment. Some 16th-century infantry gorgets weighed as much as a breastplate - 6lbs in Sweden in 1572 (http://www.myarmoury.com/talk/viewtopic.php?t=8023). Such gorgets were likely fairly thick.

goto124
2015-01-16, 12:38 AM
'Look behind you!'
'How?!'
'Just do it!'
'Fine! *cracks neck*

Mr. Mask
2015-01-16, 01:59 AM
G: Hmm, that situation sounds remarkably similar to what I was thinking. They even have a nearby Mongol horde to think about.



Okay, an odd question. For a campaign, I was thinking of a world where guns are present, but not mass produced. There's a brutal war going on, and one side has them, one does not. The reason they are not mass produced is that they don't want the secrets getting out via factory workers. (Both sides love to steal people from the other side). I know this is a complicated question, but how do I make this believable without making it seem like kooky fantasy gun control? Well, depends on the quality of the guns, and the technology of the factions. For example, Native Americans liked guns, but they never really manufactured them in significant numbers (there was a Native American force with their own guns and artillery in the US Civil war).

The other example, is that for a long time crossbows were the equal if not the superior of guns. Most notably, they could be used while it was raining, and they were quiet weapons.

Something similar to what you're suggesting existed for a different reason. There were Gatling guns, repeating rifles, and various other innovations in history that took a while before they were adopted. This was because of expense, and no one was paying for mass manufacture. The Tommy Gun became associated with crime, because only gangsters had the money and reason to buy the things.

Knaight
2015-01-16, 02:31 AM
Only in a world where nobody poops. Saltpetre is a natural byproduct of decaying dung (which is why bat guano is a material component of Fireball). Indeed, all three of the ingredients for black powder are extremely easy to get. If you want to make a firearm component difficult to get, the best thing to do is advance to flintlock technology and make flints hard to get (historically, this was one of the biggest supply problems for rebel troops, along with bayonets), or even come up with a magical equivalent of the percussion-cap that is difficult to duplicate. In either case, while it would be possible to bypass the lack, the advantages of the more modern lock are so great as to be decisive.

This is overstating it a bit. There was a lot of guano harvesting behind munitions in various periods, to the point where it was the central industry of Peru for a while. Shortages still happened. Having absolutely no gunpowder is unlikely, but having access to enough raw materials can be questionable, particularly once artillery starts getting used really heavily. If it weren't for the development of the Haber Process, we'd probably still be seeing major shortages every so often.

Gnoman
2015-01-16, 02:37 AM
The Tommy Gun became associated with crime, because only gangsters had the money and reason to buy the things.

Not true. In actuality, criminal use of the Thompson Submachine Gun was quite rare. It was used at least ten times as often by the FBI, sold moderately well on the civilian market, and all other users were dwarfed by the United States Army, which bought hundreds of thousands of the things. Gatling Guns and repeating rifles were adopted pretty much as soon as they were made practical and reliable. Gatling's early prototypes from the very end of the American Civil War weren't purchased at the time because they were not yet fit for battle due to reliability concerns (orders picked up considerably once those problems were solved), and Spencer carbines were adopted by Union cavalry by the battle of Gettysburg (and are often credited with winning that battle for the Union by allowing Buford's cavalrymen to hold off the Confederate army long enough for Union infantry to arrive on the field). To my knowledge, there has never been a firearms development that languished for more than a few years unless there were genuine practical problems.

The Amerindians provide the clearest possible reason why the proposed scenario is stretching the limits of plausibility, as a genuine Stone Age society was able to keep themselves supplied with firearms when fighting someone else that had them, even during times when they couldn't buy them from anyone and nobody was giving them away.



Edit:


This is overstating it a bit. There was a lot of guano harvesting behind munitions in various periods, to the point where it was the central industry of Peru for a while. Shortages still happened. Having absolutely no gunpowder is unlikely, but having access to enough raw materials can be questionable, particularly once artillery starts getting used really heavily. If it weren't for the development of the Haber Process, we'd probably still be seeing major shortages every so often.


THIS is the point I'm trying to make. I'm not arguing that it should be available in limitless quantities, but there will never be a point where mere scarcity prevents you from having gunpowder altogether, and the formula's so simple that not figuring it out once you get your hands on a little of the powder (unless you're very outclassed technologically) borders on the impossible.

Knaight
2015-01-16, 02:43 AM
THIS is the point I'm trying to make. I'm not arguing that it should be available in limitless quantities, but there will never be a point where mere scarcity prevents you from having gunpowder altogether, and the formula's so simple that not figuring it out once you get your hands on a little of the powder (unless you're very outclassed technologically) borders on the impossible.

With that said, it's very possible that there won't be very much of it.

Mr. Mask
2015-01-16, 04:50 AM
Gnoman: Referring to the gun's early history. Later, cheaper models became available, and it was a popular gun for WW2.

If I recall, many of the carbines were purchased by the soldiers themselves, not by military issue.

Several Gatling guns were put to use during the Civil War, out of a specific general's own pocket, and they worked quite well.

You can see examples of superior gear languishing due to cost. Cases like the Tiger and King Tiger tanks compared to Shermans are the first that come to mind, but just looking at some of the ships and planes which could be developed but aren't due to expense also serves (what was that stealth jet that had like 20 made, then two were lost?). You can make one super awesome tank, ship or aeroplane, it is possible--but if the enemy can make a hundred that are half as good, they'll win.

Carl
2015-01-16, 05:07 AM
(what was that stealth jet that had like 20 made, then two were lost?).

B2 and that was only so expensive because they only made 20. For modern system the cost of the first order, (i.e. the guaranteed order), is the cost to produce + development costs/number of units. Since only 20 where built and they costed 10's of billions to develop they ended up costs 2 billion apace. But if they'd been produced in the numbers originally intended they'd have been a fraction of that price.

Thiel
2015-01-16, 05:12 AM
Gnoman: Referring to the gun's early history. Later, cheaper models became available, and it was a popular gun for WW2.

Before WWII the FBI was by far the biggest customer. Despite its reputation it wasn't actually particularly widespread among criminals.

Mr. Mask
2015-01-16, 07:15 AM
B2 and that was only so expensive because they only made 20. For modern system the cost of the first order, (i.e. the guaranteed order), is the cost to produce + development costs/number of units. Since only 20 where built and they costed 10's of billions to develop they ended up costs 2 billion apace. But if they'd been produced in the numbers originally intended they'd have been a fraction of that price. Do you think Germany could have produced as many Tiger tanks as Panzers, by the same method?


Before WWII the FBI was by far the biggest customer. Despite its reputation it wasn't actually particularly widespread among criminals. The FBI were better armed, yeah. Know when they started buying the guns exactly? From what I know of the history, sales were very low for the first while, for long enough to practically bankrupt Thompson.

Brother Oni
2015-01-16, 08:22 AM
You can see examples of superior gear languishing due to cost. Cases like the Tiger and King Tiger tanks compared to Shermans are the first that come to mind, but just looking at some of the ships and planes which could be developed but aren't due to expense also serves (what was that stealth jet that had like 20 made, then two were lost?). You can make one super awesome tank, ship or aeroplane, it is possible--but if the enemy can make a hundred that are half as good, they'll win.

The Tiger/Sherman comparison isn't a particularly good one though.

Cost, while an issue, was secondary to the major mechanical reliability problems the Tiger and its derivatives suffered from compared to the Sherman - if I recall correctly, this was due to the tighter tolerances of the German hardware, which was exacerbated by their use of conscripted labor (the laborers were secretly sabotaging what they were making).

The advantages of the Tiger was also limited by the complete air superiority - there's not much a Tiger can do against rocket attacks from a P47 Thunderbolt.

A better one would be the Me262 - it outflew everything the Allies had (the Gloucester Meteor was dedicated to V1 defence) to the extent that the recommended way to destroy them, was while they were parked up at their airfields. The fact the Germany was on the back foot by the time it was introduced, limiting its numbers (and the meddling in its operational role by AH), pretty much relegated the Me262's impact on the war as a footnote.

The Allied jet, the Gloucester Meteor, in addition to being stuck on V1 defence, had issues in that its short endurance (wiki reports that the engines were so fuel hungry, it could only stay in the air for only an hour) prohibited it from other offensive actions.

Mr. Mask
2015-01-16, 08:31 AM
That may well be a better example.

Galloglaich
2015-01-16, 10:27 AM
G: Hmm, that situation sounds remarkably similar to what I was thinking. They even have a nearby Mongol horde to think about.

Here is an excerpt from that paper I linked, which I think sounds like an ideal setup for an RPG campaign.

"By the1450s large parts of northern Hungary were thus in the hands of vagi – variously adventurers, deserters and decommissioned mercenaries who plundered the country-side and established their own ‘brotherhoods’ under elected captains. At this time the number of these bratříci (i.e. ‘brothers’) was put at 20,000 men, operating from 36 field camps and castles."

and

"To these may be added the revenues of justice which fell to Jiskra through his control of the administration of thecounties of which he was ispán. Significantly also, Jiskra drew to the side of thequeen and of Ladislas V the principal mining towns and commercial centres of the region. These included the minting and mining chambers of Košice (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ko%C5%A1ice#History) (Kassa)and Kremnica (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kremnica) (Körmöcbánya), as well as rights to an extensive range of revenues, including taxes, tolls and market dues. It was not, however, the case that the towns and mining communities of Slovakia were forced into supporting Jiskra. The merchant patricians of Košice in particular were anxious at this time to free them-selves from the economic ascendancy of Cracow and they resented recent Polish intrusion into Spiš (the Szepesség).

They thus shared with Jiskra an interest in advancing the cause of Ladislas V against the Polish party of King Wladislas. The extent to which the city and citizens of Košice effectively ‘bankrolled’ Jiskra is demonstrated not only by the large sums lent to him by the city council – almost 27,000 florins between 1440 and 1445 – but also the loans of individual citizens, most notably of the city magistrate, John Moderer, who in the 1440s lent Jiskra well over 30,000 florins. Although by the 1450s, Jiskra had lost the automatic support of Moderer and of the urban communities of the north, until this time it is possible to conceive him as being as much the agent of merchant capital asof Elizabeth, the Habsburg faction and Ladislas V. Nor, we should add, did Jiskra’s power weigh heavily on the communities over which he ruled. Indeed, despite the condition of endemic civil war, investment and extraction rose significantly in Kremnica’s mining industry during the 1440s."

So you can see here an example of the real-world circumstances in which towns can become 'bandit' or up to this point, more accurately 'privateer-bandit' havens, supporting an array of causes (a royal succession) and self-interests (furthering the agenda of autonomy, and competing with regional commercial rivals, i.e. Krakow). This Condotierre Jan Jiskra was one of the few who had the respect of the mercenaries in question, the so called Brethren, and he gained a lot of military benefits from them (they were among the only troops who could consistently defeat the Ottomans at this time, for example during campaigns in 1443) but he also suffered politically from the misdeeds of these troops, particularly the heretics among them who tended to like to loot monasteries and hang Catholic priests. These groups they formed the so called "“bratrík" started to cause a lot of real concern among the Princes of Europe.

The Kings, princes and generals of Hungary decided Jiskra had to be driven away, and after various political and legal moves against him he left for a while to fight in the 13 Years War as a mercenary commander for the Teutonic Knights (he also attempted to negotiate a truce between the Teutonic Order and the Poles, unsuccessfully). Once he left, the Hungarians and Austrians thought they could liquidate the bandit-mercenaries from their strongholds in Slovakia, but they were unable to do so. So they asked for Jiskra to return in the hope that he could get control over the situation.

As this other article notes:

http://www.aepress.sk/hum/full/hum196c.pdf

"The King returned to Jiskra, the administration of the Spiš, Šariš and the mining
towns, only so that Jiskra would stop the rise of the “bratrík” groups. The beginnings
of such groups are most frequently placed in the fourth decade of the 15th
century, when not only in Slovakia, but also in Poland and Austria, the situation
arose after the defeat of the Hussite armies at Lipany in 1434, that many soldiers,
accustomed to an exclusively military way of life, could not find employment in
mercenary armies. They could not live in a different way, and so they formed field
camps for their own protection, and began to call themselves “bratríci”. They
evoked concern in the highest circles of Central Europe, where fear was again
growing of Ottoman aggression, after the fall of Constantinople, the last bastion of
resistance and power of the Byzantine Emperors, on 29th May 1453 when it was
captured and occupied by the armies of Sultan Mehmed II, son of Murad II."

After he was allowed back, Jiskra was put under pressure to reign-in these rogue mercenary groups, but political and practical expediency got in the way

"After Jiskra’s return, the “bratrík” groups mostly made
up of his former soldiers, went over to him, but were successful only against
smaller and more demoralized groups of “bratríci”. The situation in which Jiskra
found himself and with which he agreed, could not be unmarked by the recent painful
disappointment, which he had experienced. He must have known that he was
more or less only used, but he clearly had no other starting point and he did not
seek one. Apart from this, the struggle for supreme power in the country was not
interrupted after the election of Ladislas Posthumus. In the uncertain situation, the
“bratríci” were able to reach their zenith in 1458, when their number reached
20, 000 men, and they had about 36 field camps and castles, of which only an insignificant
proportion lay outside the territory of Slovakia. They rarely built new
castles, but mostly reconstructed fortified places including monasteries. At most
they built strongholds such as on the Zadná Hura Hill at Chmeľov.
Jiskra wanted to make agreements with people he formerly, or not so long ago
commanded. However the agreements did not last very long. At first he declared
the most feared “bratrík” commander, Axamit, to be an enemy of the country, a ravisher,
but he preferred to agree with him."

In the long run Jiskra made Slovakia his power center once more and more or less retained order. The most dangerous bratrík bands were eventually defeated, but the heretics remained and the region continued to be largely autonomous. The towns formed the league called the "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentapolitana]Pentapolitana (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentapolitana) which further enabled the enforcement of peace, and this mountainous area was able to successfully resist external enemies including the Mongols, the Ottomans and various European powers that sought to control and subdue them until the 30 Years War in the 17th Century, (when Austria took over after the Battle of White Mountain) and the region eventually became Slovakia instead of Northern Hungary (in spite of also being the seat of the Hungarian State during the long Ottoman occupation of what we call Hungary today). The Slovakians kind of consider Jan Jiskra to be their "George Washington".

G

Incanur
2015-01-16, 10:53 AM
The Amerindians provide the clearest possible reason why the proposed scenario is stretching the limits of plausibility, as a genuine Stone Age society was able to keep themselves supplied with firearms when fighting someone else that had them, even during times when they couldn't buy them from anyone and nobody was giving them away.

Amerindians varied a great deal in this regard depending on the era. As a general rule, Amerindian groups acquired firearms through trade and capture. Most didn't produce their own gunpowder, though the Cherokee definitely had some gunpowder production in the 19th century if not earlier. Certain Amerindian groups at certain times lacked guns entirely or experienced severe shortages of guns and powder. The presence of competing European colonial powers as well as the difficulty of enforcing trade restrictions went a long way toward supplying many Amerindian groups with guns.

The one-side-has-guns-and-the-other-doesn't scenario becomes vaguely plausible if it's a single powerful state that possess firearms technology. But such a state would need impressive social controls to prevent folks from selling guns to the other side for a fat profit.

Galloglaich
2015-01-16, 11:07 AM
Amerindians varied a great deal in this regard depending on the era. As a general rule, Amerindian groups acquired firearms through trade and capture. Most didn't produce their own gunpowder, though the Cherokee definitely had some gunpowder production in the 19th century if not earlier. Certain Amerindian groups at certain times lacked guns entirely or experienced severe shortages of guns and powder. The presence of competing European colonial powers as well as the difficulty of enforcing trade restrictions went a long way toward supplying many Amerindian groups with guns.

The one-side-has-guns-and-the-other-doesn't scenario becomes vaguely plausible if it's a single powerful state that possess firearms technology. But such a state would need impressive social controls to prevent folks from selling guns to the other side for a fat profit.

I think it took a little while for the Native Americans to completely figure out firearms. By the time you have Lakota warriors running around with repeating rifles on horseback they had been exposed to firearms for centuries. During the initial invasions in Mexico and I think also Peru (though I could be wrong on that, I haven't read up on Peru) the Native Americans really had no idea what they were dealing with, not just the firearms but the horses, dogs, metal armor, steel swords, crossbows and so on. They were back on their heels for a while before they started to realize how to use these things to their own advantage.

Further North some of the initial contacts such as with French fur traders was more collaborative and friendly allowing adoption of various technologies (and vices like whiskey and rum) to spread before the total shock of war hit too hard. As Colonialism hit it's stride certain Native groups like the powerful Iroquois confederation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iroquois) were initially armed and trained with firearms because they were integrated as political and military allies with certain European Colonial powers as the latter fought with one another for control.

G

Storm Bringer
2015-01-16, 12:13 PM
So two quick questions and a mini-rant:

And the rant. Is anyone else annoyed as much as I am in fantasy (or any other genre, really) when a group displays exceedingly, staggeringly bad tactics--which are then praised as excellent? I was recently reading a short story about a group of soldiers who fought in pairs--each pair armed differently--that made no effort to keep any kind of formation. They would deliberately break their formations upon contact. Which is okay, because their enemies apparently weren't any brighter and did the same. The whole time they were displaying the amazing fighting skills of this group, I could only think just how completely a disciplined, properly supported body of pikemen would massacre these people. And that's not even considering cavalry--if they were charged (which they were), they would have to reform mid-combat, and then they didn't even have polearms (or at least a significant number of them) with which to repel cavalry. And they're supposed to be elite soldiers.

:smallannoyed:

this is basically a manifestation of the fact that most authors are, well Authors, and not experts in ww1 small unit tactics/12th century politics/Roman courtship customs/Large scale networking/ any of a hundred other things. Their is a limit on how much research a author can do for a book, given deadlines and such.

As such, they often come up with ideas or concepts (like elite troops) that they don't have the ability to describe in detail, without making errors.

that said, yes, it is annoying.

Thiel
2015-01-16, 02:27 PM
A better one would be the Me262 - it outflew everything the Allies had (the Gloucester Meteor was dedicated to V1 defence) to the extent that the recommended way to destroy them, was while they were parked up at their airfields.
That has always been and still is the recommended to deal with any aircraft, so it's hardly unusual.


The fact the Germany was on the back foot by the time it was introduced, limiting its numbers (and the meddling in its operational role by AH), pretty much relegated the Me262's impact on the war as a footnote.
Engine-wise the real killer was the lack of nickel, cobalt and molybdenum to make heat resistant steel for the compressor blades. They managed to redesign the engine to do without, but this resulted in an engine life of just a few hours so they had to change the engines every other sortie.


The Allied jet, the Gloucester Meteor, in addition to being stuck on V1 defence, had issues in that its short endurance (wiki reports that the engines were so fuel hungry, it could only stay in the air for only an hour) prohibited it from other offensive actions.
This was an issue for all first generation jet engines. The Me262 had a similar endurance of just over an hour.


this is basically a manifestation of the fact that most authors are, well Authors, and not experts in ww1 small unit tactics/12th century politics/Roman courtship customs/Large scale networking/ any of a hundred other things. Their is a limit on how much research a author can do for a book, given deadlines and such.

As such, they often come up with ideas or concepts (like elite troops) that they don't have the ability to describe in detail, without making errors.

that said, yes, it is annoying.

And the more you know the worse it gets. I'm a professional sailor and I've sailed both traditional sailing ships as well as modern tankers with the result that most maritime themed films become unwatchable.
Similarly I've done a lot of reading on artillery from the Napoleonic Wars to WWI which has turned the already questionable Danish series 1864 into a chore.

Gnoman
2015-01-16, 04:48 PM
The Me-262 wasn't really a superfighter. It was a bit faster than most Allied fighter planes (but nowhere near as much as you might think, around 10-15%), but maneuverability was rather poor and the armament wasn't that great for the assigned role of interceptor (it was nearly impossible for it to bring a B-17 down on one pass because the guns didn't fire fast enough in the short engagement window), and piston-engined fighters did quite well against them. It was one of the few German "wonder weapons" that was actually worth having (the other two being the V1 and V2 missiles), but considering that the compeition was the garbage Tiger, the rather bad Panther, mediocre Tiger II, and the absolutely ludicrous super tanks, that isn't saying much.

Galloglaich
2015-01-16, 04:51 PM
B2 and that was only so expensive because they only made 20. For modern system the cost of the first order, (i.e. the guaranteed order), is the cost to produce + development costs/number of units. Since only 20 where built and they costed 10's of billions to develop they ended up costs 2 billion apace. But if they'd been produced in the numbers originally intended they'd have been a fraction of that price.

That is debatable... it gets brought up a lot with very expensive programs like that which get cut down or canceled, but part of the reason they only made 21 of those B2's is that they were so expensive and there were so many cost-overruns. It's also somewhat questionable what exact role a subsonic strategic nuclear bomber even has today anyway.

US has always had problems with major cost overruns and corruption in our military procurement, going back to the Civil War. It's bad in other countries too but the US is just about the worst. Strategic bombers are especially embarrassing on this level, the predecessor of the B-2, the B-1 was famous for the $1000 toilet seats and so on, and the predecessor to that, the B-70 Valkyrie (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_XB-70_Valkyrie), was one of the poster children for procurement disasters (unit cost 750 million in 1969!).


As for the whole Tiger vs. Panther vs. Sherman vs. T-34 thing.. it's such a huge can of worms. Quality, cost, quantity, simplicity of use and reliability are all factors that have to be balanced along a fine-line to make a successful weapon (and all four of those tanks were successful). The Tiger I wasn't as unreliable as some people say, and it was intended to be made in small numbers, as a special 'heavy tank'. They built a lot of Panthers, which were very effective tanks when they were working (and in most circumstances). Good enough that they were sought after by various nations after the war (the French used thousands of them, and continued to use the gun from the Panther in tanks (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMX-13) they were building in the 60's). The Panther did initially have a lot of serious reliability problems but some of that was due to sabotage because they were using slave labor (of people being worked to death) who did what they could to cause problems. Shermans were actually better tanks than the original T-34 in most respects, incidentally (the Russians thought so of the thousands of Shermans they had, which they put into elite Guards units) the only caveat being Shermans had a hard time traversing soft ground due to their thin tracks so they could only be used certain times of year in most of Russia (which was a major limitation of course).

The T-34 proved a huge benefit to the Soviets when it first appeared but it wasn't facing Tigers. It was facing Pz III's armed with 37mm guns, mainly, and the T-34 pretty much owned them (the KV definitely did). So when the T-34 first came out, it wasn't small cheap Soviet tanks dominating big bad German tanks, the T-34's were actually bigger than the Pz III's I think and definitely had bigger guns (76mm).


If it was just a matter of small and cheap beating out big and expensive, the Soviets would have won the war in the early days with their thousands of cheap BT-7 tanks, which theoretically had big enough guns (45mm high velocity) to kill the best German tanks, as well as good performance, high speed and so on. But they were wiped out in catastrophic, apocalyptic numbers by only slightly superior German tanks. It was really relatively subtle factors like a 3 man turret, good radios, better made (as opposed to necessarily thicker) armor, better optics, more and better machineguns, more ammunition, and most of all, better training and unit cohesion which made the difference. Unit cohesion and leadership had been badly damaged for the Soviets by Stalin's pre-war purges.

When the T-34 came out it was a major shock for the Germans but they adjusted within a few months and by the time the Pz IV F2 and it's evil friends like the Marder II and the StuGG IIIf made it to the field (starting around May 1941 through late 1942), it was the Soviets who were back on their heels again trying to figure something out (which they did of course, with weapons like the Su-152 and Su-122.. later the T-34/85, JS 2 etc. and the qualitative edge with armor went back and forth). We all know the Soviets gradually seized the strategic momentum and never let it go, but when used properly, especially on defense, a couple of dozen Tiger I's could and did hold up a major Soviet advance. The solution to dealing with them largely depended on heavy artillery, rockets, and aircraft like the Il2.

Tiger II was never really ready for the real world but by that time Germany had so many problems (fuel, morale, strategic metals, trained crews) that it was kind of a moot point anyway. Regardless, Tigers of both kinds could and did make a big difference on the battlefield and we shouldn't forget about that one.



Generally we have to be careful about reducing things to one dimensional sound bytes to help people understand. If people want to understand history they have to be able to accept nuance.

G

Kiero
2015-01-16, 06:12 PM
this is basically a manifestation of the fact that most authors are, well Authors, and not experts in ww1 small unit tactics/12th century politics/Roman courtship customs/Large scale networking/ any of a hundred other things. Their is a limit on how much research a author can do for a book, given deadlines and such.

As such, they often come up with ideas or concepts (like elite troops) that they don't have the ability to describe in detail, without making errors.

that said, yes, it is annoying.

Worse still when they fail to grasp the basics of the central theme of their work. John Stack managed to write an entire trilogy of books, purportedly about the Roman navy in the First Punic War, while failing to understand the oaring arrangements of galleys of the day, the nature of oarsmen and that the construction of the vessels meant they had to be pulled out of the water when not in use. That's without getting into his poor grasp of the equipment of legionaries in that era and of Roman politics and offices. I'm left wondering exactly what research he did do.

Carl
2015-01-16, 06:22 PM
For anyone interested in the tank side of things look up Jingles's war thunder vids on specific tank's, he goes into all this in them. TBH there more history lessons with cool gameplay as background footage.

@Gallioach: Sort of. My understanding is they cut the order because with the end of the cold war the cost of replacing the B52 fleet vs the increase in capability was not considered cost effective. It's a rare case of one faction ending up with no equivalent tech enemies after their sole competitor imploded. It's certainly true that it's an example of cost being a procurement factor, but it's also beget by very specific circumstances. Had the cold war still been going strong it's unlikely the order would have been cut because against a fully modern foe of sufficient size they actually do represent a major upgrade in capability, it's just that in the new environment there aren't any truly large threats wit the necessary level of capabilities.

That said in war it's rarely cost that limits employment of a weapon system, it's production capacity limitations. Certainly more complicated to produce items are more expensive in general, but that's more of an incidental relationship, it's not the cost itself that limits the numbers. That's also why the ease of production for things like the Sherman, t-34, or the famous liberty ships was such a huge thing. Anyway like i said Jingles covers a lot of this stuff in a lot more detail quite nicely.

Zizka
2015-01-16, 07:28 PM
To continue a debate from the previous thread:


Nevertheless those armies like all modern armies were designed to fight on the basis of coercion of the rank and file, not inherent motivation and high morale, and I think you are overestimating the power of high morale in the early days of the war in light of years of obvious incompetence by the leadership, ongoing terrible conditions, very high casualty rates both from direct combat and disease etc., and a growing understanding of the shared commonalities between the regular troops on both sides, in comparison with the officer class (which was much more sharply divided during WW I than in later wars very generally speaking) in what were essentially conscript armies for the most part. Obviously fomenting actual revolution was a much more daunting task way beyond the capabilities or agendas of the average soldier which wasn't considered worth the effort since what the troops actually wanted to do was simply survive the war. But "Live and Let Live" systems, local truces, combat refusals, and massive desertion was common in WW I and broke out to epidemic levels on several occasions. Keeping the war going proved to be quite difficult especially toward the end.

I agree on the importance of coercion and the impact of the class divide. However I think you are underestimating the importance of morale and general fighting spirit. Even in 1914, after the initial shock and the fumbling attempts of generals to master the new ways of warfare, the majority of troops did not engage in the Christmas truce.

There was a "Live and Let Live" system but it was very much the exception (especially as the war progressed, with the mechanisation of warfare reducing the opportunities for individual actions). The simple truth is that all the armies fought for four long, hard years in the face of class divides, casualties and conditions. When armies did break in 1917 and 1918 they did so at the same time as their nations, largely as a result of the strategy of attrition (and latterly the Allies development of operational warfare).

I think it is clear from reading primary sources that many soldiers fought for reasons beyond bare survival, although as ever motivations were mixed and varied with the progress of the war.

Brother Oni
2015-01-16, 07:36 PM
I'm reading Jack Tar by Roy and Lesley Adkins and I found this interesting little bit regarding sailors having long hair during the late 18th and early 19th Centuries:


I have heard of a sailor whose tail [pig tail] catched in the block [pulley], as the fall [ropes] was going, and had his head pulled out from between his shoulders. So also of a sailor, whose hair was long and loose; it blew in his eyes as he was going up the shrouds [ropes]; he put his hands to his face, to clear it, when he missed his hold, fell into the chains and broke his neck.

He also has something to say about lice:


A sailor who wears his hair tyed appears to me to be a very accommodating man; the queue which falls from his head down his back being well adapted to answer the purpose of a bridge, over which large bodies of lice may decamp from headquarters, when the napper is overstocked, and spread themselves in more commodious pasturage about the jacket, shirt and fork of the trowsers. The tail also well answers the use of a backstay, for it not only assists in keeping the head steady, but it affords the means of giving to every part of the body the same quantity of scrat [scratching], for when the lice are all in the head, the general scrat is there also, but when they crawl down the tail, and disperse themselves, there then exists a general scrat from head to toe

The short version: long hair allows a head lice infestation to become a full body infestation.

Galloglaich
2015-01-17, 10:48 AM
To continue a debate from the previous thread:



I agree on the importance of coercion and the impact of the class divide. However I think you are underestimating the importance of morale and general fighting spirit. Even in 1914, after the initial shock and the fumbling attempts of generals to master the new ways of warfare, the majority of troops did not engage in the Christmas truce.

There was a "Live and Let Live" system but it was very much the exception (especially as the war progressed, with the mechanisation of warfare reducing the opportunities for individual actions). The simple truth is that all the armies fought for four long, hard years in the face of class divides, casualties and conditions. When armies did break in 1917 and 1918 they did so at the same time as their nations, largely as a result of the strategy of attrition (and latterly the Allies development of operational warfare).

I think it is clear from reading primary sources that many soldiers fought for reasons beyond bare survival, although as ever motivations were mixed and varied with the progress of the war.

Ok fair enough, maybe I'm too influenced by "Path's of Glory", Jaroslav Hasec, and my own military experiences. The only real history book I've read on WW I (other than those two personal accounts) was Barbara Tuchmans guns of August, and I've also listened to Dan Carlins' excellent lecture series on the war. But it sounds to me like you've studied it a bit more in depth than that, so I'll take your word for it.

One other comment on the class thing, WW I was arguably the last war in 'The West' (as well as the East) in which the 'best and brightest' including large numbers of the young men from the upper classes were sent to fight and die in the ranks, and that is one of the many reasons that the war left such a terrible scar on the psyche of Europe. In some ways even more than WW II.

G

Zizka
2015-01-17, 11:26 AM
Ok fair enough, maybe I'm too influenced by "Path's of Glory", Jaroslav Hasec, and my own military experiences. The only real history book I've read on WW I (other than those two personal accounts) was Barbara Tuchmans guns of August, and I've also listened to Dan Carlins' excellent lecture series on the war. But it sounds to me like you've studied it a bit more in depth than that, so I'll take your word for it.

Tuchman's book is very well written but is considered seriously outdated, "Paths of Glory" is a very good film (although like most WWI films it features an assault without artillery, which was suicide) but only covers one situation and Hasec (who I still haven't read unfortunately) I imagine is quite accurate but reflects his service with the glorious but farcical Austro-Hungarians. WWI scholarship is going through something of a golden era at the moment and lots of the hoary old myths are being overturned (kinda like HEMA). If you're interested then I'd suggest Bill Philpott's recent book "Attrition", which can get quite technical but gives a pretty good overview of the new scholarship about the war (albeit focusing largely on the Western Front).

Knaight
2015-01-17, 11:51 AM
A better one would be the Me262 - it outflew everything the Allies had (the Gloucester Meteor was dedicated to V1 defence) to the extent that the recommended way to destroy them, was while they were parked up at their airfields. The fact the Germany was on the back foot by the time it was introduced, limiting its numbers (and the meddling in its operational role by AH), pretty much relegated the Me262's impact on the war as a footnote.

This is more or less standard. Consider the Six Days War, between Israel and Egypt. The Egyptian airforce wasn't too far behind the Israeli one technologically, they had a lot of planes. Had they ever been used, it wouldn't have been a six day war. As is, the Israeli forces modified their bombers to give them more flight range, bombed out the airfields, and pretty much won that war then and there. Ironically, that also pretty much killed the chance of a decent treaty coming out of the deal and set up another war, but from a purely military perspective it demonstrates the strategy.

Galloglaich
2015-01-17, 12:12 PM
Tuchman's book is very well written but is considered seriously outdated, "Paths of Glory" is a very good film (although like most WWI films it features an assault without artillery, which was suicide) but only covers one situation and Hasec (who I still haven't read unfortunately) I imagine is quite accurate but reflects his service with the glorious but farcical Austro-Hungarians. WWI scholarship is going through something of a golden era at the moment and lots of the hoary old myths are being overturned (kinda like HEMA). If you're interested then I'd suggest Bill Philpott's recent book "Attrition", which can get quite technical but gives a pretty good overview of the new scholarship about the war (albeit focusing largely on the Western Front).

Yeah, I'm aware Tuchman is dated and more than a little off (this is also very true of her famous novel about the 14th Century, A Distant Mirror, which was an entertaining read but I think reinforced a lot of tropes which were already very obsolete in her own time). I read both when I was a teenager.

I was referring to the novel Paths of Glory (http://www.amazon.com/Paths-Glory-Penguin-Classics-Humphrey/dp/0143106112/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1421514432&sr=1-1&keywords=Paths+of+Glory&pebp=1421514416410&peasin=143106112) by Humphrey Cobb, a WW I veteran who was also the screenwriter for the film.

I'm a little shocked that you never read Hasec!

Have you listened to Dan Carlin's podcasts on the war? I have been really impressed by his work. His lectures on the Anabaptist revolt in Munster and on the Mongols are also quite good.

http://www.dancarlin.com/product/hardcore-history-50-blueprint-for-armageddon-i/

G

snowblizz
2015-01-17, 05:11 PM
One other comment on the class thing, WW I was arguably the last war in 'The West' (as well as the East) in which the 'best and brightest' including large numbers of the young men from the upper classes were sent to fight and die in the ranks, and that is one of the many reasons that the war left such a terrible scar on the psyche of Europe. In some ways even more than WW I.

G
Could you clarify/qualify that statement, I find it a bit puzzling.

Galloglaich
2015-01-17, 05:18 PM
Could you clarify/qualify that statement, I find it a bit puzzling.

There is a typo in that, the last line should read "than WW II"

G

Roxxy
2015-01-17, 09:25 PM
The fantasy world in question is a two sided disk. If you try to tunnel between the two sides, you eventually get to the center of the world, which is a mix of relatively open areas and caverns and has oxygen but not gravity. What happens if one attempts to fire a longbow in such an environment? Swing a sword?

Mr Beer
2015-01-17, 11:58 PM
The fantasy world in question is a two sided disk. If you try to tunnel between the two sides, you eventually get to the center of the world, which is a mix of relatively open areas and caverns and has oxygen but not gravity. What happens if one attempts to fire a longbow in such an environment? Swing a sword?

An arrow will fly until air resistance stops it and it hangs in mid-air. This will take a long time, I imagine. This lack of drop will throw off experienced bow users until they adjust.

When you swing a sword, you will tend to overswing, I imagine. I think fighting in zero gravity is difficult enough to warrant a specialist skill. Adrenaline-charged movements are powerful and dangerous in an environment where weight is zero but mass isn't. Very easy to slam yourself into a wall or go flying off helplessly into the distance.

Carl
2015-01-18, 12:03 AM
Ok i don't think the longbow would have major issues, but trying to swing a sword without being adequately secured to a surface isn't going to work. Also unless the center has had widespread access to the upper gravity bound area for long enough for evolution to take place, (or your invoking magic did it), there would be a virtual death of wildlife and plant-life as neither handles zero g well. The lack of light, sheer cold, (like colder than the arctic cold), and difficulty of creating maintaining or safely containing a fire or other heat/light produce effect would be a serious concern. Whilst high partial oxygen is a LOT more dangerous, zero g doesn't exactly help with keeping a fire safe.

Roxxy
2015-01-18, 12:38 AM
So, fire is dangerous without gravity but with a normal atmosphere? Zero gravity in and of itself means it'll be extremely cold?

Is it possible that close range archery may be how a skirmish in the caverns plays out?

Carl
2015-01-18, 01:29 AM
So, fire is dangerous without gravity but with a normal atmosphere? Zero gravity in and of itself means it'll be extremely cold?


1. Gravity creates certain effects on how fire can spread that are absent in zero g, this is half good half bad. On the good side now that i've done the research the fire, (at least at sizes we've been able to test IRL, how it would function in a larger environment is a bit tougher to be sure on), will eventually put itself out, (my prior comments where working off what i remember of fires in reduced gravity, which is a lot more dangerous because of how it effects convection), the bad news is that the hot gas expands uniformly which creates a significant zone of danger around the fire much larger than the typical value. Also in the equivalent for a dry grass fire it would certainly greatly speed up spread.

2. No but the center of the earth is hot because it's always been hot from the day it formed and never cooled, the center of the moon, (like all objects notably smaller than the earth), has allready cooled enough to no longer by molten, (Io is a special exception to this rule because of tidal heating, and in time one of i think it's Uranus's moons will become one as it spirals inward, up until it crosses the Roche limit anyway). With a world shape like your describing unless there is an artificial source of heat and light it will be pitch black and freezing cold. Depending on the exact thickness of the "crust" it could get close to absolute zero which is not survivable without modern technology, (you pretty much need a space suit).


Is it possible that close range archery may be how a skirmish in the caverns plays out?

The real question is how people are getting about and how they secure themselves. You certainly won't be seeing major foot based military campaigns down there since setting up the means for that many troops to get around will be very hard. What you might see is some sort of zero g airship powered by human muscle power, a sort of airship galley. Though probably not with literal oars.

Thiel
2015-01-18, 05:30 AM
A crossbow might be better for zero-G fighting than a longbow. Since you don't use your entire upper body to point it aiming becomes a lot easier when you have to shoot at an enemy who might be "above" or "below" you

Brother Oni
2015-01-18, 05:51 AM
So, fire is dangerous without gravity but with a normal atmosphere? Zero gravity in and of itself means it'll be extremely cold?

Is it possible that close range archery may be how a skirmish in the caverns plays out?

I don't know about true zero gravity, but flames in microgravity are very strange: link (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKxAs_f1SP8).

As for longbows, I'd think Newton's Third Law would put paid to unsecured archery (the archer would have to be held or otherwise secured to a solid surface to stop him drifting away after the shot). This would probably be even worse with crossbows since they can hit higher poundage than bows.

I read an interesting titbit recently about medieval archery and the differences between countries - typically a bow is drawn (the bow is held outstretched and the string is pulled back) while heavier bows (particularly English archers), the bow is bent instead (the string is held in place and the left hand pushes the bow out): link (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7mP2207Yf44). I'm ashamed to say that I didn't spot this, despite having watched many videos by members of the English Warbow society. :smallredface:


A crossbow might be better for zero-G fighting than a longbow. Since you don't use your entire upper body to point it aiming becomes a lot easier when you have to shoot at an enemy who might be "above" or "below" you

Except that in zero gravity, there isn't a real up or down, so you could just angle your entire body to face an enemy 'above/below' you instead. I'm not so sure whether it's possible to draw a high poundage bow without secure footing though, so crossbows may be favoured instead for that reason.

Edit: typo

snowblizz
2015-01-18, 09:09 AM
There is a typo in that, the last line should read "than WW II"

G
I shouldave clarified, I did mean beyond the typo.

I don't quite agree with the premise. I strongly suspect when you say "West" you mean USA.

After all beyond WW1 & WW2 there's not *that* many wars for the "West" to even partake in.

Another thing is that WW1 largely killed class, at least in the more overt forms, due to universal suffrage and other societal changes.
And did those from better means really end up in the rank and file? Seeing as by and large they would be more educated and thus more likely to be earmarked for officer training.

Thiel
2015-01-18, 10:00 AM
Except that in zero gravity, there isn't a real up or down, so you could just angle your entire body to face an enemy 'above/below' you instead. I'm not so sure whether it's possible to draw a high poundage bow with secure footing though, so crossbows may be favoured instead for that reason.

I realise there's no up and down as such, I was thinking more in terms of someone approaching you along your Y-axis. A crossbow is far less restricted than a bow when it comes to shooting at odd angles in relation to your body.
With a bow you pretty much has to face your target whereas with a crossbow you could "lie down" thus presenting a much smaller target.

Kiero
2015-01-18, 11:45 AM
I realise there's no up and down as such, I was thinking more in terms of someone approaching you along your Y-axis. A crossbow is far less restricted than a bow when it comes to shooting at odd angles in relation to your body.
With a bow you pretty much has to face your target whereas with a crossbow you could "lie down" thus presenting a much smaller target.

The latter is precisely why the Hellenistic powers used the gastraphetes (which is basically a crossbow) in sieges. Though not on the battlefield (where the sling and bow continued to prevail).

Carl
2015-01-18, 12:05 PM
Unless you have a reliable way to secure yourself any missile weapon is likely to be momentum limited. That is if the momentum is too high the push back will become a significant issue. in that kind of situation, particularly with melee out of the question, rate of fire will be very important as will cocking force. Minimizing reloading movements, and bow component masses is vital, so a high poundage low mass shortbow would likely be best, with arrow kept in a near to hand quiver system, (i'd assume from the back works as poorly as swords from the back so a quiver hanging from the waist belt with some form of to shaped stiffer to prevent swinging would be the ideal). Crossobows are fairly hard to hold in the firing position and **** as the grip on the but of the crossbow is non-ideal. Zero g forces you to consider every movement if you can't secure yourself and minimize movement that isn't absolutely necessary as much as possible.

Galloglaich
2015-01-18, 12:44 PM
I shouldave clarified, I did mean beyond the typo.

I don't quite agree with the premise. I strongly suspect when you say "West" you mean USA.

After all beyond WW1 & WW2 there's not *that* many wars for the "West" to even partake in.

Another thing is that WW1 largely killed class, at least in the more overt forms, due to universal suffrage and other societal changes.
And did those from better means really end up in the rank and file? Seeing as by and large they would be more educated and thus more likely to be earmarked for officer training.

No I really mean Europe, especially England and France, but also Germany and much of Central Europe (former Austria - Hungary, and Italy) and Russia of course. The US didn't suffer the way the European countries did in either WW I or WW II. And yes my understanding is that many young men of the upper class did end up in the rank and file in WW I and quite a few of them wrote about their experiences and made art about it and so on. There was a major recoiling if you will from the conventional wisdom across a wide swatch of issues, I think WW I did enormous damage to the power and social capital of the Christian Church in it's various forms.

WW I also led directly to the fall of the governments of 3 of the largest and most powerful States in Europe: Germany, Russia, and Austria-Hungary, the latter ended it's existence as a State. The damage in France came close to that point.

G

spineyrequiem
2015-01-18, 07:00 PM
One thing I was musing to myself about: How do you think (traditional, fish-tailed) mermaids would fight, given a late medieval/early renaissance tech level, and assuming that magic isn't that widespread (in other words, most of the fighting has to be entirely mundane)? For the purposes of this, we'll also assume they've worked out how to make decent steel and stop it rusting, or worked out some sort of coral equivalent.

The major problems I see are that you can't really use chopping or slashing weapons, traditional ranged weapons wouldn't work and you can't brace, meaning that formations would be absurdly easy to break up.

At the moment, the only ways I can think of to fight are skirmishing (probably with light, disposable, poison-tipped spears, stabbed into vulnerable members of formations before running away), grappling and hacking at each other (OK in single combat, less so in formation), and massive, tight-packed formations charging each other with lances. While the water would mean they could do this from any angle, widening tactical options, it also seems like it would be semi-suicidal, as the chances are that if two formations collided the front few ranks would get impaled incredibly quickly. Plus, the formations would get horribly mixed up ('cause water) which would mean casualties were even more absurd. While it's possible it would be very psychological (the aim being to make the other side break and flee before you hit them), I still doubt most of them would be happy to do something where everyone dies if all goes well.

Mabn
2015-01-18, 07:31 PM
One thing I was musing to myself about: How do you think (traditional, fish-tailed) mermaids would fight, given a late medieval/early renaissance tech level, and assuming that magic isn't that widespread (in other words, most of the fighting has to be entirely mundane)? For the purposes of this, we'll also assume they've worked out how to make decent steel and stop it rusting, or worked out some sort of coral equivalent.

The major problems I see are that you can't really use chopping or slashing weapons, traditional ranged weapons wouldn't work and you can't brace, meaning that formations would be absurdly easy to break up.

At the moment, the only ways I can think of to fight are skirmishing (probably with light, disposable, poison-tipped spears, stabbed into vulnerable members of formations before running away), grappling and hacking at each other (OK in single combat, less so in formation), and massive, tight-packed formations charging each other with lances. While the water would mean they could do this from any angle, widening tactical options, it also seems like it would be semi-suicidal, as the chances are that if two formations collided the front few ranks would get impaled incredibly quickly. Plus, the formations would get horribly mixed up ('cause water) which would mean casualties were even more absurd. While it's possible it would be very psychological (the aim being to make the other side break and flee before you hit them), I still doubt most of them would be happy to do something where everyone dies if all goes well.

Well, mermaid on mermaid tactics could be varied I would suppose, just as human on human tactics can be. The first thing that comes to my mind is that it is much harder to overheat underwater. Coupled with buoyancy I would imagine heavy armor would be very prevalent. Since armor on their tail would be far more restricting than armor on their upper body, armor on their tail is likely to be lighter or nonexistent. This means that grappling your enemies torso and holding your own tail away to form a T would allow you to do great damage with a dagger. An extension of this example is that in a field with no real traction and free pivoting of the combatants limiting your opponents movements would be an even greater advantage. Were I a mermaid seeking to win in combat of that tech level I would consider nets and billhooks to be promising tools for their ability to grasp my opponents at range and function effectively with very little speed.

Knaight
2015-01-18, 07:32 PM
Pike blocks still seem fairly viable, though a rectangular prism would be used in lieu of a rectangle. Sure, it's harder to brace things, but there's also not really much in the way of domesticatable animals for cavalry purposes, and the water itself resists movement of things in it to a significant degree.

Gnoman
2015-01-18, 07:36 PM
Crossbows work underwater, although they do lose a lot of force because water is denser than air. Many types of firearms don't work well, either because of exposed gunpowder, excessive velocity causing the bullet to shatter, or simply that the aerodynamic properties of bullets make for poor hydrodymanics. There's no barrier at all to merpeople developing ranged combat.

Galloglaich
2015-01-18, 08:58 PM
No idea about how a mermaid might fight but there are a lot of interesting and richly detailed legends about mermaids from the medieval period which you could mine for ideas for a campaign involving them. Just a few:

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

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

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

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

Most of these are kind of ambiguous beings in the way of faerie legends, either good or bad depending on the circumstances, possible to make friends with but dangerous and generally not to be trifled with. There is a kind of more sinister version which shows up in the Viking sagas, for example this character Hrimgerd who is some kind of female sea-troll, from the description very much like a mermaid, who gets into a flyting (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flyting) or insult-contest* with a Viking standing in a ship.

https://books.google.com/books?id=QrcxAQAAMAAJ&pg=RA1-PA12&lpg=RA1-PA12&dq=Hrimgerd&source=bl&ots=Iug79buXM6&sig=dRJCfeWgcyo8cOpiQNP6xxr1h_4&hl=en&sa=X&ei=amO8VKbkL5DasATtsoD4Dg&ved=0CDcQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=Hrimgerd&f=false

https://books.google.com/books?id=KNvJAwAAQBAJ&pg=PT434&lpg=PT434&dq=Hrimgerd&source=bl&ots=ECpW3oVjVS&sig=MYnwTwoHIDERQ_eaWtaB9HkCVag&hl=en&sa=X&ei=amO8VKbkL5DasATtsoD4Dg&ved=0CDIQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=Hrimgerd&f=false

There is a whole mermaid kingdom in the bottom of the Rhine in the Volsunga Saga (and it's later derivations, the Nibelungenleid and so on) which is quite interesting, and a corresponding earlier myth context in the Classical world.

These female river and harbor spirits remained very important to medieval sailors and into the Early Modern period. It was not unusual for sailors, navigators and ship captains to leave offerings to them before going on a voyage or past a notable navigation hazard like the Lorelei.

The pogues have a great song (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VDw81PRP2SQ) about her, by the way.


G

* insult contests like Flyting are common in all warrior cultures and play a role in modern hip hop

goto124
2015-01-18, 09:14 PM
The fantasy world in question is a two sided disk. If you try to tunnel between the two sides, you eventually get to the center of the world, which is a mix of relatively open areas and caverns and has oxygen but not gravity. What happens if one attempts to fire a longbow in such an environment? Swing a sword?

...why is the centre of the world zero gravity, not extreme gravity? Am I going off-topic?

Carl
2015-01-18, 10:55 PM
Gravity is a product of mass, basically gravity will be towards the most massive object. If the center is hollow then there's nothing pulling you in the direction of the center.

Thinkng about it that means their would be gravity, but it would be inverted compared to the "surface". The zero g point would come halfway to the empty zone.

Knaight
2015-01-19, 12:09 AM
Gravity is a product of mass, basically gravity will be towards the most massive object. If the center is hollow then there's nothing pulling you in the direction of the center.

It's not that there is nothing pulling you towards the center. It's that you've roughly got a mass/(radius squared) distribution that produces a bunch of force vectors that all negate each other. Gravity isn't towards "the most massive object", it's in the direction of the vector of all gravitational forces, where the individual forces are proportional to the mass of the object over the distance of the object. So for instance, if the sun is in the sky (far more massive than Earth), you don't get pulled in to it, as the gravitational force from it is a lot weaker than the gravitational force from the earth, due to the extreme differences in distance.

fusilier
2015-01-19, 01:12 AM
I shouldave clarified, I did mean beyond the typo.

I don't quite agree with the premise. I strongly suspect when you say "West" you mean USA.

After all beyond WW1 & WW2 there's not *that* many wars for the "West" to even partake in.

Another thing is that WW1 largely killed class, at least in the more overt forms, due to universal suffrage and other societal changes.
And did those from better means really end up in the rank and file? Seeing as by and large they would be more educated and thus more likely to be earmarked for officer training.

Italy suffered from this pretty badly even during WW2, with many of the officers representing the aristocratic classes, and a strong north/south divide. It's almost ironic, given pre-unification Italy's long history with communes and republics, that aristocratic divide would be a major factor in the 20th century.

Eldan
2015-01-19, 04:13 AM
The fantasy world in question is a two sided disk. If you try to tunnel between the two sides, you eventually get to the center of the world, which is a mix of relatively open areas and caverns and has oxygen but not gravity. What happens if one attempts to fire a longbow in such an environment? Swing a sword?

There was a question like that on XKCD. I think it was firing an arrow on the ISS, but now I can't find it. Might have been in the book, I'll look it up when I get home.

Telok
2015-01-19, 04:16 AM
Randall Munroe of xkcd answered the arrow in zero-g question in his What If? book.
Assuming a modern arrow, 85 m/s, and Earth normal atmosphere you get 400 meters after ten seconds and the arrow is going 25 m/s. Apparently 100 m/s is fine for elk or small bear hunting, 25 m/s is about throwing speed. After five minutes the arrow has gone a mile and slowed to waking speed. After that things get pretty dependent on the design of the arrow, airflow changes at very slow speeds but he lists 5 to 10 km as a very rough estimate.

Direct testing is noted as being difficult. The ISS apparently only has about 10 m of space and a noted aversion to fast pointy projectiles.

Roxxy
2015-01-19, 04:55 AM
...why is the centre of the world zero gravity, not extreme gravity? Am I going off-topic?Rule of cool.
There was a question like that on XKCD. I think it was firing an arrow on the ISS, but now I can't find it. Might have been in the book, I'll look it up when I get home.Thanks.

Carl
2015-01-19, 05:16 AM
It's not that there is nothing pulling you towards the center. It's that you've roughly got a mass/(radius squared) distribution that produces a bunch of force vectors that all negate each other. Gravity isn't towards "the most massive object", it's in the direction of the vector of all gravitational forces, where the individual forces are proportional to the mass of the object over the distance of the object. So for instance, if the sun is in the sky (far more massive than Earth), you don't get pulled in to it, as the gravitational force from it is a lot weaker than the gravitational force from the earth, due to the extreme differences in distance.

I was being simplistic, assuming a lack of serious distance changes mass is going to be the key determinaitor.

Also fair enough on rule of cool.

Knaight
2015-01-19, 05:44 AM
I was being simplistic, assuming a lack of serious distance changes mass is going to be the key determinaitor.

There are going to be serious distance changes even in this context though, distance can't be neglected in something like this.

Carl
2015-01-19, 09:29 AM
Ughhh. Assuming a lack of serious distance changes mass determines gravity. Serious distances means thousands of KM. I'm assuming a much smaller separation between the opposing sides of this hollow core. maybe your imagining something big enough to hold the moon. In which case sure distances is gonna matter. But i'm assuming something vaguely plausible to navigate.

goto124
2015-01-19, 09:46 AM
How (not) viable were breast cups in breastplates? One side talks about the dagger against your chest, another talks about how it doesn't really matter. And then apparentally boobplate (even male versions, what were they drinking?) actually existed, though I'm not sure if it was frequently worn into battle. A bit of discussion about this was recently held at the DnDemotivators thread, iirc.

Kiero
2015-01-19, 09:58 AM
How (not) viable were breast cups in breastplates? One side talks about the dagger against your chest, another talks about how it doesn't really matter. And then apparentally boobplate (even male versions, what were they drinking?) actually existed, though I'm not sure if it was frequently worn into battle. A bit of discussion about this was recently held at the DnDemotivators thread, iirc.

The male version, the muscle cuirass was most definitely worn in battle. Warriors of antiquity would often wear their best gear for battle, and what better demonstration of your wealth and taste than a thorax with an idealised male torso on it? It was a Greek thing, which was adopted sometimes by the Romans too.

Mike_G
2015-01-19, 10:09 AM
How (not) viable were breast cups in breastplates? One side talks about the dagger against your chest, another talks about how it doesn't really matter. And then apparentally boobplate (even male versions, what were they drinking?) actually existed, though I'm not sure if it was frequently worn into battle. A bit of discussion about this was recently held at the DnDemotivators thread, iirc.

A smooth, keel-shaped breastplate will do a better job of deflecting force away from you. If you get hit on the inside of one of the "breasts," the weapon will be deflected toward your sternum, rather than off to the side.

I think some of the negatives may be exaggerated. It's still a steel plate with adding underneath, so it should help stop weapons from piercing your flesh, but if they don't slide off you, like they would on a smooth breastplate, the force will still be transferred to you, maybe knocking you down or causing trauma as your organs get accelerated and bang into your ribcage.

Spiryt
2015-01-19, 10:24 AM
A smooth, keel-shaped breastplate will do a better job of deflecting force away from you. If you get hit on the inside of one of the "breasts," the weapon will be deflected toward your sternum, rather than off to the side.

I think some of the negatives may be exaggerated. It's still a steel plate with adding underneath, so it should help stop weapons from piercing your flesh, but if they don't slide off you, like they would on a smooth breastplate, the force will still be transferred to you, maybe knocking you down or causing trauma as your organs get accelerated and bang into your ribcage.

The thing is that perfectly 'normal' breastplates still would catch plenty of blows 'directly' there was plenty of 'sticky' attacks, and plenty of flat surfaces too.

We shouldn't assume anything very similar to 'slide' from the very center of the chest to the side.

If the impact in particular is strong enough to seriously cause organs to accelerate.... then it will most likely deform plate as well, even if only temporarily - so it will likely 'stick' to the properly curved plate as well.

I would say that 'boob plate' is without doubt silly idea, but it wouldn't really ruin armor that much if someone had decided that it absolutely, positively, has to be forged into breast shaped surface.

Mr. Mask
2015-01-19, 11:04 AM
One thing I was musing to myself about: How do you think (traditional, fish-tailed) mermaids would fight, given a late medieval/early renaissance tech level, and assuming that magic isn't that widespread (in other words, most of the fighting has to be entirely mundane)? For the purposes of this, we'll also assume they've worked out how to make decent steel and stop it rusting, or worked out some sort of coral equivalent.

The major problems I see are that you can't really use chopping or slashing weapons, traditional ranged weapons wouldn't work and you can't brace, meaning that formations would be absurdly easy to break up.

At the moment, the only ways I can think of to fight are skirmishing (probably with light, disposable, poison-tipped spears, stabbed into vulnerable members of formations before running away), grappling and hacking at each other (OK in single combat, less so in formation), and massive, tight-packed formations charging each other with lances. While the water would mean they could do this from any angle, widening tactical options, it also seems like it would be semi-suicidal, as the chances are that if two formations collided the front few ranks would get impaled incredibly quickly. Plus, the formations would get horribly mixed up ('cause water) which would mean casualties were even more absurd. While it's possible it would be very psychological (the aim being to make the other side break and flee before you hit them), I still doubt most of them would be happy to do something where everyone dies if all goes well. Interestingly in water, your limitation on gear isn't its weight, but its bulk--and the bulk of the floats you use to counter the weight. So, you could wear a ton of steel and offset it with a float that lifts a ton, but the whole outfit would be so unwieldy you could barely move anywhere and would find it hard to fight. If the mermaids could make use of

Theoretically you could not cancel out your weight entirely so as to save on bulk, and operate near the sea floor as very heavy infantry, but I'm not sure what the point would be.

Mermaids might experiment with materials of varying levels of buoyancy, to give them diverse possibilities, mixing and matching materials.

Shields would be an interesting thing to consider. Little metal bucklers might work, but anything larger or made of buoyant materials would be difficult to use and swim with.

Kiero
2015-01-19, 11:37 AM
The muscle cuirass was generally made of bronze, rather than steel. Here's an example of one:

http://fabricaromanorum.shawwebspace.ca/asset/view/37809/e_final_035.jpg/

Lilapop
2015-01-19, 12:56 PM
The "sticky" attacks Spyrit is referring to are what is colloquially known as "blunt" weapons. Many later hammer heads look more like a fork, effectively forming a tripod when trying not to slide off the armor.
http://www.myarmoury.com/images/features/pic_spot_poleaxe11.jpg
That one is a rather extreme example, but the mechanical principle is present in most less-crazy-looking weapons as well. Even flat hammers would often have little bumps, not unlike spikes you would want on the soles on your shoes when walking on ice. Seen on the item on the right here.
http://www.myarmoury.com/images/features/pic_spot_poleaxe18.jpg

rs2excelsior
2015-01-19, 01:11 PM
One thing I was musing to myself about: How do you think (traditional, fish-tailed) mermaids would fight, given a late medieval/early renaissance tech level, and assuming that magic isn't that widespread (in other words, most of the fighting has to be entirely mundane)? For the purposes of this, we'll also assume they've worked out how to make decent steel and stop it rusting, or worked out some sort of coral equivalent.

The major problems I see are that you can't really use chopping or slashing weapons, traditional ranged weapons wouldn't work and you can't brace, meaning that formations would be absurdly easy to break up.

At the moment, the only ways I can think of to fight are skirmishing (probably with light, disposable, poison-tipped spears, stabbed into vulnerable members of formations before running away), grappling and hacking at each other (OK in single combat, less so in formation), and massive, tight-packed formations charging each other with lances. While the water would mean they could do this from any angle, widening tactical options, it also seems like it would be semi-suicidal, as the chances are that if two formations collided the front few ranks would get impaled incredibly quickly. Plus, the formations would get horribly mixed up ('cause water) which would mean casualties were even more absurd. While it's possible it would be very psychological (the aim being to make the other side break and flee before you hit them), I still doubt most of them would be happy to do something where everyone dies if all goes well.

When I first read this, my initial thought was of mermaids bracing some kind of spear or lance and charging "upward" from their perspective (though it could actually be horizontally, or even downward, with respect to the seafloor). Mass of formations would probably become less important, given that there's no ground to brace against and that a mermaid swimming really can't brace against the person to their front like marching human(oid)s can in massed formations. Momentum--speed, especially--would probably become critical, as that would likely negate many of the disadvantages of having no ground against which to brace.

I can also see pike formations being useful, but more for mutual protection in an environment with three dimensions along which a threat could emerge. Possibly they'd prefer shorter spears, to facilitate rapid direction changes. It could be that mermaid battles look like multiple schools of fish, suddenly accelerating and rapidly changing directions to respond to threats. Except armed with spears, and charging into the threat instead of away from it.

And depending on armor, formation density, overall morale, and the like, it's possible that even massed spear formations wouldn't mean certain death for the front ranks. Ancient Greek phalanxes essentially fought like this, and in battles from that period (as has been mentioned in the last incarnation of the thread, I think), many victorious armies reported astonishingly low casualties. Therefore, it's likely that the losers too suffered very light casualties, until their morale broke and their formations disintegrated.

As a final note, causing the enemy to break could be a valid objective. Ever since armies started moving away from mixed pike-and-shot formations in the late 1600s, hand-to-hand combat became less and less common, even though it was still a tactic employed by armies. Through the 1700s and 1800s, armies would still charge with the bayonet (or cavalry would charge infantry), but usually either the defender would break before contact, or they would hold and the attackers would lose their nerve before pressing the charge home. Not to say hand-to-hand combat never happened in this period, of course, but it became much less prevalent when shooting at the enemy became common. A charging into a wall of bayonets (or facing down a wall of bayonets that's charging you) is scary. As Puysegur wrote, "if infantry understands its force, cavalry can never break it."

Spiryt
2015-01-19, 01:39 PM
The "sticky" attacks Spyrit is referring to are what is colloquially known as "blunt" weapons. Many later hammer heads look more like a fork, effectively forming a tripod when trying not to slide off the armor.
[/SPOILER]

It's their most probable reason for them indeed, but I wasn't reffering to any specific weapons.

Everything that hits hard enough to theoritically cause some 'impact' damage trough plate will likely damage the plate structure somewhat, thus 'sticking'.

Especially if said plate is not supported by padding/flesh, but is 'sticking out' a bit.

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Ja1GjHGd6mQ/U02QJ2dzaXI/AAAAAAAAAFE/Inyh6sg1u5Y/s1600/1658663_745049658860732_1340378912_o+%25281%2529.j pg

biggur picture (http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Ja1GjHGd6mQ/U02QJ2dzaXI/AAAAAAAAAFE/Inyh6sg1u5Y/s1600/1658663_745049658860732_1340378912_o+%25281%2529.j pg)

Details would probably depend on many circumstances of course.

In any case, every such strike landing on such silly metal 'boob' would be likely turned/deflected a lot anyway. Landing at least a bit sideways, hitting nearby surfaces.

Powerful enough thrust with something thin yet stiff would be probably most dangerous, but experiments with arrows at least suggest that with enough energy, those dent the plate at spot of the contact anyway.

RonnyBb
2015-01-19, 06:52 PM
And depending on armor, formation density, overall morale, and the like, it's possible that even massed spear formations wouldn't mean certain death for the front ranks. Ancient Greek phalanxes essentially fought like this, and in battles from that period (as has been mentioned in the last incarnation of the thread, I think), many victorious armies reported astonishingly low casualties. Therefore, it's likely that the losers too suffered very light casualties, until their morale broke and their formations disintegrated.


Phalanxes fight with armor, large heavy defensive shields, in formation, and stop at range to poke at each other. If two pike formations actually charged each others the first ranks would indeed have ludicrous fatality rates. Which means that pretty much no one in their right mind would want to have this as their battle plan. (this is exploitable, swiss pikemen for example were famous for their iron discipline. In the game of chicken the ones with more will to live/less balls/training break up and try to leave)


It would indeed be a valid tactic as long as your soldiers were insanely well disciplined and had little fear of death to break the enemy formation by apparent suicidal attack, but note that this is not how phalanxes fought each other. If phalanxes met each other in suicidal charges all the time no one would want to suicidally charge anymore. Phalanxes march into contact and use the range of their spears, and they certainly don't oil up and break out into slow motion out-of-formation sword fights...

This also applies to ridiculous cramped "pushing match" battles you sometimes see in media. While this could happen it's extremely lethal for the front ranks and no one in their right mind would plan to fight like that. These fights would probably be over rather fast as well because of how utterly lethal the situation would be.

Kiero
2015-01-19, 07:23 PM
Phalanxes fight with armor, large heavy defensive shields, in formation, and stop at range to poke at each other. If two pike formations actually charged each others the first ranks would indeed have ludicrous fatality rates. Which means that pretty much no one in their right mind would want to have this as their battle plan. (this is exploitable, swiss pikemen for example were famous for their iron discipline. In the game of chicken the ones with more will to live/less balls/training break up and try to leave)

Hang on, the Greek phalanx and the Macedonian phalanx are two very different things (as Philip of Macedon demonstrated so aptly at Chaeronea). The former uses spears, heavy armour and large shields, and is usually 8-16 ranks deep; the latter pikes, lighter armour and smaller shields and can be up to 32 ranks deep. The Greek phalanx can charge (see the Battle of Marathon), the Macedonian phalanx cannot.


This also applies to ridiculous cramped "pushing match" battles you sometimes see in media. While this could happen it's extremely lethal for the front ranks and no one in their right mind would plan to fight like that. These fights would probably be over rather fast as well because of how utterly lethal the situation would be.

Uh, no it wasn't. As people have said, many of the battles of the Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta had very low casualties on the victorious side. If a hoplite stays facing his opponent, shield up and in formation (where he's also covered by his neighbour's shield), he's very hard to hurt in the press. His greatest risk is being knocked over, and even then as long as he keeps his shield over his body he'll probably just be stepped over by the press.

That phase would have been done quickly because of how tiring it was, not how lethal. Most of the kills in that era occurred when a formation broke, and men turned their backs to flee.

rs2excelsior
2015-01-19, 09:34 PM
Phalanxes fight with armor, large heavy defensive shields, in formation, and stop at range to poke at each other. If two pike formations actually charged each others the first ranks would indeed have ludicrous fatality rates. Which means that pretty much no one in their right mind would want to have this as their battle plan. (this is exploitable, swiss pikemen for example were famous for their iron discipline. In the game of chicken the ones with more will to live/less balls/training break up and try to leave)


It would indeed be a valid tactic as long as your soldiers were insanely well disciplined and had little fear of death to break the enemy formation by apparent suicidal attack, but note that this is not how phalanxes fought each other. If phalanxes met each other in suicidal charges all the time no one would want to suicidally charge anymore. Phalanxes march into contact and use the range of their spears, and they certainly don't oil up and break out into slow motion out-of-formation sword fights...

This also applies to ridiculous cramped "pushing match" battles you sometimes see in media. While this could happen it's extremely lethal for the front ranks and no one in their right mind would plan to fight like that. These fights would probably be over rather fast as well because of how utterly lethal the situation would be.

Well, obviously, I wasn't talking about breaking formation to swordfight. That's just stupid. That and the whole thong-for-armor thing 300 had going on.

But I don't think a clash followed by pushing match between Greek-style phalanxes would be as lethal as you say. Greek hoplites were incredibly well-armored, and combine that with the fact that something like 80% of soldiers in a battle will focus much more on protecting themselves rather than harming the enemy, I don't think two phalanxes pushing at each other for a while would be suicidal for either side. I believe that's how some of the literature from the period describes the battles, but my knowledge of ancient Greek sources is sketchy, so I will let someone else confirm or deny that.

As a comparison, the Romans couldn't fight at long range with their gladii, and yet they also report extremely low casualties for the victors in most cases.

snowblizz
2015-01-20, 05:19 AM
No I really mean Europe, especially England and France, but also Germany and much of Central Europe (former Austria - Hungary, and Italy) and Russia of course. The US didn't suffer the way the European countries did in either WW I or WW II. And yes my understanding is that many young men of the upper class did end up in the rank and file in WW I and quite a few of them wrote about their experiences and made art about it and so on. There was a major recoiling if you will from the conventional wisdom across a wide swatch of issues, I think WW I did enormous damage to the power and social capital of the Christian Church in it's various forms.

WW I also led directly to the fall of the governments of 3 of the largest and most powerful States in Europe: Germany, Russia, and Austria-Hungary, the latter ended it's existence as a State. The damage in France came close to that point.

G
But where does that leave ww1 as the *last* war where upper classes fought? Pre/Early WW1 were still class societies for the most part, if you were high class you'd probably be able to get an officer's position. This would probably be exacerbated by the early volunteering, since they weren't forcing anyone to join they'd have more leeway I'd think. You don't put Lord So and So in the infantry since he knows your aunt's mother's sister. Unless someone specifically volunteered to join say the infantry such as say the entire class of X in schools did.

Certainly we eventually get a certain flattening out of class in the armies. But why is that significant in WW1 compared to later conflicts and how do you perceive it changed? In other words, in which wars after WW1 do you posit the best and brightest did not fight in? Weren't subsequent wars fairly minor in comparison and did not require or lead to a similar needs to mobilise the entire nation. In other words we're back to the volunteering part again, where you have an option to fight.

Not just the churches (although for many countries that was already strongly under way, eg with various socialist ideas/movements spreading) and states, but indeed society as a whole. WW1 (and then WW2 put the nail in the coffin) really affected everyone, women had to come out from the homes to work in factories, more people were asked to sacrifice for their nation and I suspect duly influenced by socialism demanded a stake in it as a consequence.

Mr. Mask
2015-01-20, 05:55 AM
I was curious about the logistics, costs, and details of riding ponies and war horses. Also, I was wondering at what points you would equip your warhorse with their armoured barding.

The optimal amount of cavalry for one knight is something like three riding ponies and one warhorse? Does this amount vary a lot? What would you think of one knight with four war horses (would that be unusual?)?

Anyone know why a good war horse is so incredibly much more expensive than riding ponies? What's the difference in their costs and how they're raised?

Kiero
2015-01-20, 06:52 AM
I was curious about the logistics, costs, and details of riding ponies and war horses. Also, I was wondering at what points you would equip your warhorse with their armoured barding.

The optimal amount of cavalry for one knight is something like three riding ponies and one warhorse? Does this amount vary a lot? What would you think of one knight with four war horses (would that be unusual?)?

Anyone know why a good war horse is so incredibly much more expensive than riding ponies? What's the difference in their costs and how they're raised?

Warhorses, despite being great, powerful animals, are quite fragile. As indeed all horses are - after all a bout of colic (which is a stomach upset) will kill them, and they can be ridden to exhaustion (and thereafter death).

Armouring, and indeed riding a warhorse is something a knight (or any other heavy cavalryman) should only do when riding into battle. At all other times, they should be resting their warhorse. Four warhorses is a waste of money - at most they might have a second, but they'd still need multiple riding horses for remounts. A knight should have at least two riding horses, 3-4 is even better and allows much faster long-term movement than with two, since none of them are ever overtaxed. Though of course it requires much more fodder and more grooms to care for them.

Warhorses are more expensive because they're rarer - they come from more rarified stock and require a lot more training and food to raise.

RonnyBb
2015-01-20, 07:14 AM
Hang on, the Greek phalanx and the Macedonian phalanx are two very different things (as Philip of Macedon demonstrated so aptly at Chaeronea). The former uses spears, heavy armour and large shields, and is usually 8-16 ranks deep; the latter pikes, lighter armour and smaller shields and can be up to 32 ranks deep. The Greek phalanx can charge (see the Battle of Marathon), the Macedonian phalanx cannot.



Uh, no it wasn't. As people have said, many of the battles of the Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta had very low casualties on the victorious side. If a hoplite stays facing his opponent, shield up and in formation (where he's also covered by his neighbour's shield), he's very hard to hurt in the press. His greatest risk is being knocked over, and even then as long as he keeps his shield over his body he'll probably just be stepped over by the press.

That phase would have been done quickly because of how tiring it was, not how lethal. Most of the kills in that era occurred when a formation broke, and men turned their backs to flee.


I didn't know of the charges, cool. They were not charging a phalanx however which was what I was thinking about. It'd be great to read an example where a phalanx charged a phalanx as that would be completely metal but it seems dangerous.


However, it does not take a lot of people to crush a man.

Even if we ignore the part where if you're kept immobile by your mates literally 10-20 cm from your opponents face/arms (shield against shield), modern stadiums have shown us that you don't need deep ranks pushing on someone for the person in front to die, from asphyxiation mostly.

I think the studies done on stadium catastrophes with hordes of people pushing people up against bars concluded something like 4-5 ranks. That's one way, and means that if you have phalanxes 3-4 ranks deep (they were deeper) pushing against each other the people in front are incapacitated within a minute. The fatality rate wouldn't even be "Big risk big reward", it would be a death lottery for whom to stand up front.

I'm willing to accept that this happened, and over a lot of years maybe it happened a lot because war is scary and complicated and sometimes dumb accidental **** happens like at stadiums (Cannae comes to mind). But no one in their right mind would go into a fight with the plan of a shoving match. The most plausible scenario I can think of is when the flanks are mentally breaking and start pushing into the middle to keep away from the danger, crushing and immobilizing their own center.

And if you're going to immobilize yourselves and go into shoulder pushing range then why are you equipped with spears whos main advantage is range? You're foregoing all your advantages for a chance to push yourselves into your enemy and hoping they fall over before you die. The idea of low casualty rates don't seem to support this idea either as when the formations are as tangled as this the losing party would have absolutely crushing losses. Once you fell over on the ground and got literally overrun by your enemy you would have massive death counts.


I haven't read this stuff for ages but I'd wager that low casualty rates in phalanx vs phalanx battles is because:

* Spear fights are usually about morale, the block with poorer will/position will break often before there's even a fight, IE they won't grind it out roman style
* Phalanxes are heavily armored, so in the poking fights that I envision actual spear battles to be are survivable (soldiers like survivable battles)

Kiero
2015-01-20, 07:32 AM
I didn't know of the charges, cool. They were not charging a phalanx however which was what I was thinking about. It'd be great to read an example where a phalanx charged a phalanx as that would be completely metal but it seems dangerous.

The reason you don't charge one phalanx into another isn't because you can't, but because you'd lose the phalanxes main advantage: cohesion. What girds the morale of the phalanx is the knowledge that the man to your right protects you with his shield. As long as everyone keeps their place, all are safe - barring the poor sod on the right-most file, who was always an experienced man for this reason.


However, it does not take a lot of people to crush a man.

Even if we ignore the part where if you're kept immobile by your mates literally 10-20 cm from your opponents face/arms (shield against shield), modern stadiums have shown us that you don't need deep ranks pushing on someone for the person in front to die, from asphyxiation mostly.

I think the studies done on stadium catastrophes with hordes of people pushing people up against bars concluded something like 4-5 ranks. That's one way, and means that if you have phalanxes 3-4 ranks deep (they were deeper) pushing against each other the people in front are incapacitated within a minute. The fatality rate wouldn't even be "Big risk big reward", it would be a death lottery for whom to stand up front.

I'm willing to accept that this happened, and over a lot of years maybe it happened a lot because war is scary and complicated and sometimes dumb accidental **** happens like at stadiums (Cannae comes to mind). But no one in their right mind would go into a fight with the plan of a shoving match. The most plausible scenario I can think of is when the flanks are mentally breaking and start pushing into the middle to keep away from the danger, crushing and immobilizing their own center.

And if you're going to immobilize yourselves and go into shoulder pushing range then why are you equipped with spears whos main advantage is range? You're foregoing all your advantages for a chance to push yourselves into your enemy and hoping they fall over before you die. The idea of low casualty rates don't seem to support this idea either as when the formations are as tangled as this the losing party would have absolutely crushing losses. Once you fell over on the ground and got literally overrun by your enemy you would have massive death counts.


I haven't read this stuff for ages but I'd wager that low casualty rates in phalanx vs phalanx battles is because:

* Spear fights are usually about morale, the block with poorer will/position will break often before there's even a fight, IE they won't grind it out roman style
* Phalanxes are heavily armored, so in the poking fights that I envision actual spear battles to be are survivable (soldiers like survivable battles)

I don't recognise this characterisation of a phalanx fight as a grand pushing match, with every row behind pushing on the front at all. The first rank pushes against the enemy's front rank. The second rank might also push, but more likely they use their spears over the heads of the front rank and wait for someone to fall in the front rank and take his place. The third do the same, if they can reach, or else wait to move up into the second rank. Once again, the primary advantage of the phalanx is that it's a collective endeavour, thus the penalties ascribed in various laws on the man who steps out of formation (the Romans had the same laws too, back when they fought in the phalanx, rather than the maniple).

The best, bravest, biggest fighters wanted the honour of being in the first rank, chances are those in the ranks behind were much more hesistant about getting stuck in, which also removes the pressure from the back. After all, every man of a certain wealth was expected to serve, regardless of how able. There was no shame in being in the back ranks, only in not showing up at all.

Furthermore, hoplites aren't unarmoured men pressed up right up against each other, so I'm not sure stadium studies are really relevant at all. For one, they have rigid coverings on their torsos which would protect them to a degree from compression. For two, they're not standing wedged side-by-side with those in the same row, the aspis projects out about a third of its diameter out of the left side. For three, the opposing line isn't a solid, immovable barrier against which the hoplites bodies are immediately pressed. For four, men didn't just turn up untrained for this, men of the hoplite class trained in armour and indeed regularly trained together in formation too. Which not only builds the necessary morale, but reduces the fear from unfamiliarity too.

rs2excelsior
2015-01-20, 12:04 PM
Kiero addressed most of the points I was going to make, but I will add this:


And if you're going to immobilize yourselves and go into shoulder pushing range then why are you equipped with spears whos main advantage is range? You're foregoing all your advantages for a chance to push yourselves into your enemy and hoping they fall over before you die. The idea of low casualty rates don't seem to support this idea either as when the formations are as tangled as this the losing party would have absolutely crushing losses. Once you fell over on the ground and got literally overrun by your enemy you would have massive death counts.

Except if you have a long spear, you can stab at the second or third rank while your buddy behind you stabs at the guy directly in front of you. You haven't given up your range advantage, and you're threatening more of the enemy's formation, which may cause him to break more quickly.

There's a series of books by Paul Kearney that starts with The Ten Thousand (http://www.amazon.com/The-Ten-Thousand-Paul-Kearney/dp/1844165736). Ostensibly they're fantasy, but in practice they're a retelling of the Battle of Cunaxa and Alexander the Great. They're rather brutal in their depiction of the fights, which use (as far as I can tell) rather accurate ancient Greek weapons, tactics, etc. There's a scene (maybe in the second book) where two formations of hoplites charge one another. The shield-walls hit and the men on the front rank on both sides are lifted off their feet for a moment, before the pressure relaxes and the phalanxes settle into close-range spear fighting, with the front three ranks or so on either side engaged. So probably not a constant shoving match, at least, but close enough to physically force the enemy back when their morale started to waver.

And with regards to casualties, you notice I've been specifying casualties for the victor. Losing armies often did suffer rather horrific casualties--which would actually support the idea of overrunning fallen enemy hoplites. Spears from that era often had a spike on the back end; one of the theorized uses was to stab downward at trampled enemies as the phalanx advanced (I don't know how much support that theory has, so if someone could confirm that'd be great).

I believe (again, if someone can confirm/deny, please do) that there are accounts of men in the front rank of a phalanx passing out from exhaustion during the battle, but being held upright by the men around them, which also suggests a shield-to-shield fight.

Knaight
2015-01-20, 02:07 PM
Ughhh. Assuming a lack of serious distance changes mass determines gravity. Serious distances means thousands of KM. I'm assuming a much smaller separation between the opposing sides of this hollow core. maybe your imagining something big enough to hold the moon. In which case sure distances is gonna matter. But i'm assuming something vaguely plausible to navigate.

It doesn't necessarily mean thousands of KM. If you're using an approximate point mass which can reasonably be assumed to be a few thousand KM away (the surface of a sphere of uniform density or even the surface of a sphere where each shell of a particular radius is of uniform density), such as you can use for the earth, then yeah, mild distance changes aren't a big deal. Earth gravity doesn't change all that significantly on the surface and even LEO is at a significant fraction of sea level gravity (as in most of it).

On the other hand, if you've got two approximated point masses a meter away, a .75 meter change bringing them closer together has a tremendous effect on the gravitational force, making it 16 times as strong. Just saying that mass determines gravity absent serious distance is a huge oversimplification, which is only really all that useful in the context of small changes to center-of-gravity point masses that are already really far away.

Plus, thousands of Km* doesn't necessarily make a big difference. Consider the Pluto-sun system. The orbit ranges from 4.4 to 7.3 billion Km. A few thousand either way is negligible. Heck, a couple million is pretty insignificant to the magnitude of the forces involved at that at that point. This has nothing to do with mass being the determining factor at closer distances and radius being the determining factor at long distances. If we were looking at some sort of exponential function, that sort of thing might be the case; we aren't. What it is is that if the change in either mass or radius is sufficiently small compared to the existing magnitude of mass or radius it can effectively be neglected. So yeah, earth gravity can be treated as a constant for most near-surface level purposes. Similarly, if you're doing something that involves looking at the forces involved when someone climbs a mountain, you can generally neglect the change in mass due to sweating.

*I'm assuming that "thousands of Km" denotes some distance between 2,000 and 50,000 km, with the assumption that "tens of thousands of Km" or a larger unit would be used past that point.

spineyrequiem
2015-01-20, 03:39 PM
The shield-walls hit and the men on the front rank on both sides are lifted off their feet for a moment, before the pressure relaxes and the phalanxes settle into close-range spear fighting, with the front three ranks or so on either side engaged. So probably not a constant shoving match, at least, but close enough to physically force the enemy back when their morale started to waver.

Speaking from my own experience in reenactment, that would be insanely dangerous, and would near guarantee breaking your formation. If you get lifted off your feet, you can't go back down unless the people behind you back off. If the people behind you back off, so do the people behind them, and the ones behind them and it all turns hilarious when someone trips over a rock. As well as this, when you do go back down you're having to concentrate on both finding a good place to stand and not getting killed by the guy in front of you - in practice, a good few people would go down as they lost their footing, as shoes at the time were not terribly grippy. It also wouldn't help that Corinthian helms look fairly difficult to see out of, though not having worn one I can't say for certain.

Another thing I discovered is you don't actually need to push someone to force them back. Especially if you've got more reach, just plain attacking someone will often force them to step back, particularly if they're on the flank. Often, if you can make the flanks back off, you'll also force the centre to go back just to stay in formation, and that'll disrupt all the ranks behind them. It's great when you can pull it off.



Spears from that era often had a spike on the back end; one of the theorized uses was to stab downward at trampled enemies as the phalanx advanced (I don't know how much support that theory has, so if someone could confirm that'd be great).

I can't confirm whether that's true, but one theory I have heard is that it was actually just to slow the progress of rot - if you stick a wooden spear butt in (or even on) the ground, it'll take up water and then start to go a bit manky, which is of course less than ideal for your main weapon. If you have a bit of bronze on the end, water and wood should stay separate, at least for a little while. However, this was quite literally 'some bloke in the pub told me', so take it with salt as necessary.



I believe (again, if someone can confirm/deny, please do) that there are accounts of men in the front rank of a phalanx passing out from exhaustion during the battle, but being held upright by the men around them, which also suggests a shield-to-shield fight.

Staying upright in formation doesn't surprise me. Again, in reenactment we're meant to have our shields overlapping, which necessarily means getting really friendly with the blokes next to you. Thus, if you did pass out, as long as the formation doesn't try to move, you might well just be propped up by everyone around you. However, having a tight formation doesn't necessarily mean you have to get within biting distance of your enemy.

Some things I'd note for various people: It's not impossible to run in a tight formation. We've practiced it a fair bit, and if we can manage it on only a few hours training a week, semi-professional soldiers could probably get the hang of it too. It's quite hard to go more than a hundred metres or so at more than a light jog, but it's certainly not impossible to run while keeping your shields locked. Also, as a further bit of evidence that front rank probably didn't equal suicide, Xenophon noted that the Spartan phalanx consisted of officers in the front and everyone else behind, which would seem to indicate that the front had fairly low casualties.

Kiero
2015-01-20, 03:52 PM
I can't confirm whether that's true, but one theory I have heard is that it was actually just to slow the progress of rot - if you stick a wooden spear butt in (or even on) the ground, it'll take up water and then start to go a bit manky, which is of course less than ideal for your main weapon. If you have a bit of bronze on the end, water and wood should stay separate, at least for a little while. However, this was quite literally 'some bloke in the pub told me', so take it with salt as necessary.

The sauroter is also a counterweight for the head of the spear, meaning you can hold it further back down the shaft. Quite necessary when you're using it one-handed.


Some things I'd note for various people: It's not impossible to run in a tight formation. We've practiced it a fair bit, and if we can manage it on only a few hours training a week, semi-professional soldiers could probably get the hang of it too. It's quite hard to go more than a hundred metres or so at more than a light jog, but it's certainly not impossible to run while keeping your shields locked. Also, as a further bit of evidence that front rank probably didn't equal suicide, Xenophon noted that the Spartan phalanx consisted of officers in the front and everyone else behind, which would seem to indicate that the front had fairly low casualties.

The front rank was the place of honour, where the richest, best-equipped, most enthusiastic men would be. The polemarchos' (commander of the phalanx) place was at the centre of the front rank, leading by example. Many of those men survived several battles to continue to higher political offices, so it can't have been suicide.

The dudes in the rear-most ranks might not even have armour, just their shield and helm, possibly some greaves. But again, the most important thing was that it was a collective endeavour of the whole polis, rich and less-rich (poor men couldn't afford to serve as hoplites).

Mike_G
2015-01-20, 03:52 PM
The thing is that perfectly 'normal' breastplates still would catch plenty of blows 'directly' there was plenty of 'sticky' attacks, and plenty of flat surfaces too.

We shouldn't assume anything very similar to 'slide' from the very center of the chest to the side.

If the impact in particular is strong enough to seriously cause organs to accelerate.... then it will most likely deform plate as well, even if only temporarily - so it will likely 'stick' to the properly curved plate as well.

I would say that 'boob plate' is without doubt silly idea, but it wouldn't really ruin armor that much if someone had decided that it absolutely, positively, has to be forged into breast shaped surface.

No design is going to perfectly present sloped sides to every attack, but the "stickier" the armor is, the worse it is for the person wearing it. You'll not that there are lots of ways they tried to make weapons sticky, so they'd deliver all their force to the target, not slide off. Armor should have as few spots as possible that would trap a blow and hold it on the armor. And any sloped surfaces should direct force away from the wearer, not toward her sternum.

As far as internal organ damage, plenty of people wind up with TBI from blows taken on a helmet. If a blow stick and makes the head turn rather than glancing off, the torsion can produce shearing forces that are bad You can rupture a spleen without punching through the armor. A lance that hit a breastplate between the "boobs" and got directed to the sternum, delivering all its energy, could throw you off your horse or even kill you from cardiac contusion even if it never broke your skin. People have suffered cardiac arrest from a hit with a baseball in the center of the chest. I've see it.

Combat is chaotic, and there will always be odd situations you can't plan for but I'd rather wear a simple keel shaped breastplate sloping back from a central ridge than typical fantasy Kate Upton in "Game of War" commercial boob cups that would channel blows to my heart.

rs2excelsior
2015-01-20, 04:16 PM
Speaking from my own experience in reenactment, that would be insanely dangerous, and would near guarantee breaking your formation. If you get lifted off your feet, you can't go back down unless the people behind you back off. If the people behind you back off, so do the people behind them, and the ones behind them and it all turns hilarious when someone trips over a rock. As well as this, when you do go back down you're having to concentrate on both finding a good place to stand and not getting killed by the guy in front of you - in practice, a good few people would go down as they lost their footing, as shoes at the time were not terribly grippy. It also wouldn't help that Corinthian helms look fairly difficult to see out of, though not having worn one I can't say for certain.

That does make sense. Moving forward as part of a large group can be difficult; much more so moving back. Again, this was from a modern author, who seemed to know what he was talking about but was also shooting for dramatic effect.


Another thing I discovered is you don't actually need to push someone to force them back. Especially if you've got more reach, just plain attacking someone will often force them to step back, particularly if they're on the flank. Often, if you can make the flanks back off, you'll also force the centre to go back just to stay in formation, and that'll disrupt all the ranks behind them. It's great when you can pull it off.

Huh, this is something I haven't thought of. Could be very effective, especially since your enemy would be struggling to maintain formation, and moving back in the face of the enemy is demoralizing. That'd be another reason to put your best, most disciplined men in the front rank, especially near the flanks (or have good flank guards in the form of light infantry/cavalry).




I can't confirm whether that's true, but one theory I have heard is that it was actually just to slow the progress of rot - if you stick a wooden spear butt in (or even on) the ground, it'll take up water and then start to go a bit manky, which is of course less than ideal for your main weapon. If you have a bit of bronze on the end, water and wood should stay separate, at least for a little while. However, this was quite literally 'some bloke in the pub told me', so take it with salt as necessary.


The sauroter is also a counterweight for the head of the spear, meaning you can hold it further back down the shaft. Quite necessary when you're using it one-handed.

I have heard that it was used for both of those purposes, as well as in case the spearhead breaks off--it still serves suitably for poking people, if it would be more unwieldy. Likely it was there for all of the above reasons, I was just choosing to emphasize that one specific use.


Some things I'd note for various people: It's not impossible to run in a tight formation. We've practiced it a fair bit, and if we can manage it on only a few hours training a week, semi-professional soldiers could probably get the hang of it too. It's quite hard to go more than a hundred metres or so at more than a light jog, but it's certainly not impossible to run while keeping your shields locked.

I always find the perspective of reenactors to be fascinating. It depends a lot on what the historians manage to dig up, of course, but there's nothing better for getting a feel for the type of combat short of actually going at it with real weapons--which I imagine would be a bit unpopular [/understatement].

Slightly off-topic, but I have a question for you: I do American Civil War reenacting, and I have noticed that the battle-lines (two deep) tend to bow significantly. For us, the flanks tend to bow forward, even at a steady pace; even more so when advancing at the double-quick (essentially a slow jog). And I have read accounts of attacks in the actual war going forward as a shallow "V", with the colors at the tip of the point and the line to either side sloping away from the enemy. How much does this happen in phalanxes? I'm curious if a deeper formation would discourage that kind of bowing action significantly.

Galloglaich
2015-01-20, 05:00 PM
But where does that leave ww1 as the *last* war where upper classes fought? Pre/Early WW1 were still class societies for the most part, if you were high class you'd probably be able to get an officer's position. This would probably be exacerbated by the early volunteering, since they weren't forcing anyone to join they'd have more leeway I'd think. You don't put Lord So and So in the infantry since he knows your aunt's mother's sister. Unless someone specifically volunteered to join say the infantry such as say the entire class of X in schools did.

What I mean is that up to the beginning of WW I, it wasn't as obvious at it seems to us today that Lord So and So would want to stay out of the infantry (or the cavalry, or whatever front-line unit), since in earlier eras this was how a young man could get glory for yourself. Exposing yourself to fire was seen as a right of passage in some circles for a young man destined for politics or a military career. WW I changed that forever.



Certainly we eventually get a certain flattening out of class in the armies. But why is that significant in WW1 compared to later conflicts and how do you perceive it changed? In other words, in which wars after WW1 do you posit the best and brightest did not fight in? Weren't subsequent wars fairly minor in comparison and did not require or lead to a similar needs to mobilise the entire nation. In other words we're back to the volunteering part again, where you have an option to fight.

I saw a chart once showing the rate of income and land ownership of front line troops in WW I, WW II, the Korean War, and Vietnam (French and later American version). The status declined in stages through the 20th Century. In WW I in European armies a relatively high percentage of people who owned land were in the combat arms, many of them volunteers (though it was still skewed toward poorer people). In England for example they didn't start conscription in WW I until 1916. In WW II it had dropped a notch, and was more middle and working class (particularly urban working class, as farmers got a lot of deferments), with people of higher status either getting deferments or finding jobs more safely further away from the tip of the spear (in aggregate).

By Vietnam it was poor working class people for the most part and anyone with connections (in aggregate, not in every case), for example anyone who could get into college stayed out of the war completely by using deferments, or at worst, getting posted to Germany or Japan or somewhere safe (or if in Vietnam, far behind the lines). You could also avoid death and dismemberment by volunteering. I found a statistic which states that "In 1969, one out of six individuals in the military was a draftee, but 88 percent of the infantrymen in Vietnam were draftees". The aggregate class status came back up a bit during the subsequent US adventures in the middle East with the volunteer army they started in the 80's, since the 70's conscript army had done so poorly in the later years of Vietnam. But these days it's still basically working class people for the most part.

G

spineyrequiem
2015-01-20, 07:06 PM
The sauroter is also a counterweight for the head of the spear, meaning you can hold it further back down the shaft. Quite necessary when you're using it one-handed.



Ooh, thanks for that, that hadn't occurred to me! Would explain why I can't hold our spears one-handed (ours only have points on one end. I've also heard it might have been used to brace the spear against cavalry attacks, though obviously this is quite tricky to test.




I always find the perspective of reenactors to be fascinating. It depends a lot on what the historians manage to dig up, of course, but there's nothing better for getting a feel for the type of combat short of actually going at it with real weapons--which I imagine would be a bit unpopular [/understatement].


You wouldn't believe how many people don't understand why we have safety rules...




Slightly off-topic, but I have a question for you: I do American Civil War reenacting, and I have noticed that the battle-lines (two deep) tend to bow significantly. For us, the flanks tend to bow forward, even at a steady pace; even more so when advancing at the double-quick (essentially a slow jog). And I have read accounts of attacks in the actual war going forward as a shallow "V", with the colors at the tip of the point and the line to either side sloping away from the enemy. How much does this happen in phalanxes? I'm curious if a deeper formation would discourage that kind of bowing action significantly.

I'm actually an early medieval reenactor, but in shieldwalls we have noticed that problem. Certainly, we do get a lot of screaming about keeping pace with the centre. It is, of course, more important for us than you since we need our shield to overlap to stop archers shooting us. With us at least, I think it's because the guys in the centre have to watch out for each other's feet in a way the guys on the flanks don't. However, I'm afraid I can't say how much effect a deeper formation would have - we only tend to do two or three ranks, 'cause we don't have that many people. Most of what I said earlier was extrapolating from what we've noticed with small formations.

dramatic flare
2015-01-21, 04:35 AM
I was curious about the logistics, costs, and details of riding ponies and war horses. Also, I was wondering at what points you would equip your warhorse with their armoured barding.

The optimal amount of cavalry for one knight is something like three riding ponies and one warhorse? Does this amount vary a lot? What would you think of one knight with four war horses (would that be unusual?)?

Anyone know why a good war horse is so incredibly much more expensive than riding ponies? What's the difference in their costs and how they're raised?

You must seperate heavy knights out in their own cateogory for this. For instance, the Mongols kept four or more horses to a man, but they were light and hardy steppe ponies and didn't engage in the heavy armor that the Europeans did.

Kiero
2015-01-21, 04:39 AM
You must seperate heavy knights out in their own cateogory for this. For instance, the Mongols kept four or more horses to a man, but they were light and hardy steppe ponies and didn't engage in the heavy armor that the Europeans did.

Their Scythian predecessors had heavy cavalry (often horses of Persian stock) as well as light, and they also preferred at least four horses per man. That they are heavy is irrelevant to the number of remounts you should have.

Galloglaich
2015-01-21, 08:26 AM
Their Scythian predecessors had heavy cavalry (often horses of Persian stock) as well as light, and they also preferred at least four horses per man. That they are heavy is irrelevant to the number of remounts you should have.


Keep in mind, having that many remounts (sometimes the Mongols had as many as 6 per rider) also had a heavy price - if you are talking about a large army, all those horses need a lot of water and a lot of forage, and they poop a lot. Which means they can't stay in one place for very long. It makes it particularly difficult for sieges. A lot of times cavalry based armies have to disperse whenever they aren't moving, and that makes them vulnerable. This is how many armies were defeated, historically.

On the steppe it's a little easier to cope with a vast herd of horses in your army, since you have a more or less endless sea of grass. In other types of environments it's a bit more tricky. This can and was used against every kind of cavalry army including the Mongols.

While steppe ponies can live on just grass, many other horse breeds require some kind of grain as well, which has to be brought along.


Another effect of all this is that as war progresses, remounts die. Horses suffer disproportionately from the horrors of war. An army which starts out with 4 or 5 remounts per rider (at it's most ideal) might be down to 3 men for every horse just a few months into a campaign. Of course the Mongols tried not to let this happen on their raids (and would retreat when attrition started to hit their horses too hard, if they could) but even for them, this was a problem.

G

Kiero
2015-01-21, 08:37 AM
Keep in mind, having that many remounts (sometimes the Mongols had as many as 6 per rider) also had a heavy price - if you are talking about a large army, all those horses need a lot of water and a lot of forage, and they poop a lot. Which means they can't stay in one place for very long. It makes it particularly difficult for sieges. A lot of times cavalry based armies have to disperse whenever they aren't moving, and that makes them vulnerable. This is how many armies were defeated, historically.

On the steppe it's a little easier to cope with a vast herd of horses in your army, since you have a more or less endless sea of grass. In other types of environments it's a bit more tricky. This can and was used against every kind of cavalry army including the Mongols.

While steppe ponies can live on just grass, many other horse breeds require some kind of grain as well, which has to be brought along.


Another effect of all this is that as war progresses, remounts die. Horses suffer disproportionately from the horrors of war. An army which starts out with 4 or 5 remounts per rider (at it's most ideal) might be down to 3 men for every horse just a few months into a campaign. Of course the Mongols tried not to let this happen on their raids (and would retreat when attrition started to hit their horses too hard, if they could) but even for them, this was a problem.

G

Yep, all very true. Your horse herd is also a very lucrative, very mobile target for thieves, as well.

In my historical game, the PCs were attacked by a local tribe largely because besides the pay offered to do so, they were hoping to steal their horses. Their herd was about sixty animals, so not trivial.

Lilapop
2015-01-21, 11:35 AM
The front rank was the place of honour, where the richest, best-equipped, most enthusiastic men would be. The polemarchos' (commander of the phalanx) place was at the centre of the front rank, leading by example. Many of those men survived several battles to continue to higher political offices, so it can't have been suicide.

The dudes in the rear-most ranks might not even have armour, just their shield and helm, possibly some greaves. But again, the most important thing was that it was a collective endeavour of the whole polis, rich and less-rich (poor men couldn't afford to serve as hoplites).

Incidentally, I had a line of thought about a similar phenomenon last night. In many norse sagas, it is described how after a bit of skirmishing the hero steps out from the shieldwall and starts to heroically massacre the enemy. Looking at some reenactment videos, this seems to be the signal for everyone to switch from cohesive spear-and-shield lines to a (more) chaotic hand weapon and shield melee. Now while it makes sense for a piece of literature to have your hero in that role, why would you put a military or political leader in the risky position of starting this bloody business?
I'd say its simply because he got to eat steak twice a week his entire life (as opposed to once a year), is wearing a maille shirt and a proper helmet (and not just a linnen tunic and a fur cap), and has a real sword, maybe even an ulfberht, instead of a crappy seax made by the village blacksmith. So he does have, comparably, a really good chance of surviving and having major impact on the outcome of the battle.

Galloglaich
2015-01-21, 11:43 AM
Incidentally, I had a line of thought about a similar phenomenon last night. In many norse sagas, it is described how after a bit of skirmishing the hero steps out from the shieldwall and starts to heroically massacre the enemy. Looking at some reenactment videos, this seems to be the signal for everyone to switch from cohesive spear-and-shield lines to a (more) chaotic hand weapon and shield melee. Now while it makes sense for a piece of literature to have your hero in that role, why would you put a military or political leader in the risky position of starting this bloody business?
I'd say its simply because he got to eat steak twice a week his entire life (as opposed to once a year), is wearing a maille shirt and a proper helmet (and not just a linnen tunic and a fur cap), and has a real sword, maybe even an ulfberht, instead of a crappy seax made by the village blacksmith. So he does have, comparably, a really good chance of surviving and having major impact on the outcome of the battle.

It's also because the personal bodyguards and retinue of these VIP's, which they need to maintain their status, (and who were also heavily-armed and well equipped), are often an important part of the (usually pretty small) pre-industrial army, and so it may be thought of as a particularly potent reserve force. This can be deployed like any other reserve force at a crucial phase of a battle, either when the main army is wavering or when the enemy is stretched thin or both.

This continued to be a factor all the way into the 16th and even 17th Centuries in some battles.

G

Kiero
2015-01-21, 12:18 PM
Incidentally, I had a line of thought about a similar phenomenon last night. In many norse sagas, it is described how after a bit of skirmishing the hero steps out from the shieldwall and starts to heroically massacre the enemy. Looking at some reenactment videos, this seems to be the signal for everyone to switch from cohesive spear-and-shield lines to a (more) chaotic hand weapon and shield melee. Now while it makes sense for a piece of literature to have your hero in that role, why would you put a military or political leader in the risky position of starting this bloody business?

Depends on the culture. As I mentioned in phalanx cultures (Greek and thus by inheritance, Roman, until they switched to the manipular system) there were laws against stepping out of the phalanx.

GraaEminense
2015-01-21, 12:28 PM
If you´re a military leader in a culture that prizes courage and personal prowess, and especially if you command loyalty through force of personality, risking your life is both a way to social status and to a political and military career. You show bravery, skill and (perhaps equally important in early days) trust in luck/divine favour.

It´s the same kind of thinking that led thousands of young men to volunteer in 1914, "to get in before it´s over".

Add to that the need to justify your privileged position in society to the people who actually work to feed you (and who potentially could throw in with the neighbouring warlord), the powerful morale boost of seeing someone lead by example, and the actual tactical importance of skilled, well-equipped fighters and there are plenty reasons to risk the leader in the front lines.

However, I want to point out something important in Lilapop´s post:

Looking at some reenactment videos, this seems to be the signal for everyone to switch from cohesive spear-and-shield lines to a (more) chaotic hand weapon and shield melee.
Many reenactment shows (and thus videos) are somewhat staged, to appeal to an audience that may not appreciate the intricacies of the "game" and the ruleset.

I actually recognized what you described here from quite a few shows I´ve participated in, large and small:
We start off in formation, shields up and polearms ready, then clash for a short while with lots of enthusiastic spear-stabbing. Then someone calls for us to "regroup!" or something, and we back off a bit. Then the two leaders or their champions insult eachother as creatively as they can, doing plot-exposition if needed. A duel follows. Then we charge (often to "rescue our guy") and fight it out until only one team is left standing. The audience applauds.

This is theatrics mixed with a desire to inform: We start in formation, to show how it´s "properly" done. We back off for the duel, to pad out the show (fighting is tiring, we take all the breaks we can) and to show the audience a fight between good fighters who know each other well and can pull out all the stops with no cheap shots. We then do a chaotic charge because it looks good and because we often have rules that prevent us from getting good kills with spears against shield walls (no stabbing the face, for example). At this point many drop their polearms because they prefer swords for show-fighting (for some reason, I don´t).

I´m not saying this is what you saw, but it sounds an awful lot like it. While reenactment does give important insights, it´s equally important to know the limitations: shows look good, but shouldn´t be taken as a good source.

Just my ha´penny.

Mr. Mask
2015-01-21, 02:16 PM
Something I'd like to ask for a friend. How possible was it to be a secret pirate on the high seas?

Say, you spot a lonely merchant ship of a nation you aren't at war with. so you decide to change your colours, take her cargo, and sink her, putting all the crew to death, then fence the goods.

Was this an option? Were there many secret pirates in history?

Gnoman
2015-01-21, 05:53 PM
It's pretty unlikely. Most merchant ships, if they were armed at all (this was fairly rare outside of pirate-infested waters such as the Caribbean) carried just enough light armament to ward off pirate attacks, usually simply turning them away by virtue of being armed in the first place. Genrally, only privateers, letters-of-marque (while this term means the formal "licence to steal" carried by privateers, it also refers to a category of ship that carried letters-of-marque and was authorized to take prizes, but were primarily cargo carriers), warships, or outright pirates carried shipkilling guns and the crew required to man them, not to mention the excess crew and small arms needed to carry out a boarding party. Thus, it is very unlikely that an honest merchant would have the ability to take another ship in the first place.

Secondly, cargo is rather bulky, and ships never travelled empty if they could help it. Even if they were to take a ship, they'd be unable to sink it because they'd be completely unable to keep the cargo, because their own hold would be full (the sole exceptions to this were slave ships or livestock carriers, the cargo of which could die or, in the case of slave ships once most nations banned the practice, be thrown overboard). This monumentally increases the difficulty of keeping the action secret, particularly since you'd need to keep most of the crew alive to man the other ship, as merchant ships don't carry prize crews.

Finally, most ships travelled well-trodden routes and carried much the same cargo every time, because that's what the ship's owners had found to be the most profitable. If a ship that always arrives with a cargo of sugar pulls up to the dock with a load of tobacco, it would raise attention.


The closest you'll find to "secret pirates" would be privateers, warship captains, or bounty hunters that decided to expand beyond their "proper" prey and attack whatever struck their fancy, disguising their takes as legitimate prizes or ships "recaptured" from the enemy (in which case they'd get no payment for the ship (which would be returned to her rightful owner), but could get paid for the cargo. I don't know how common this was, although there are persistent rumors that some of the most notorious "pirates" were framed as falling into this category as a pretext for siezing their fortunes.

Galloglaich
2015-01-21, 07:14 PM
Actually I think opportunistic piracy by merchant ships was really common. I know of several documented examples anyway. Whether this counts as 'hidden' piracy by your definition I'm not sure, in most cases it would be against at least nominal enemies of your own region or State, but not always by any means. Quite often the difficulty of controlling ones own citizens from engaging in piracy with neighbors and foreign traders was a major foreign policy problem. I know for example it was an issue for Scotland for a long time for example.

G

Mr. Mask
2015-01-21, 08:13 PM
In the 18th and 19th century of the Caribbean, was a little piracy here and there something the major powers would let slide? Or was it harshly punished in contrast to its thick presence?

Either way, between the two of you it seems it is possible to commit piracy then hide your crimes? It makes me wonder if it would be necessary to kill everyone and burn the enemy ship, or if less extreme measures are normally suitable.

Archpaladin Zousha
2015-01-21, 08:26 PM
What was the most common "kit" for a medieval mercenary? What were the most common weapons? Did they vary by kingdom of origin?

Mr. Mask
2015-01-21, 08:28 PM
The most common kit for a merc was generally the most common kit wherever that merc was from at the time. Many mercs were disbanded military and so had military gear.

Knaight
2015-01-21, 08:34 PM
The most common kit for a merc was generally the most common kit wherever that merc was from at the time. Many mercs were disbanded military and so had military gear.

More than a few were urban militias fighting abroad as well, and it wasn't uncommon for those from a certain region to gain a reputation with a particular set of kit. There's a reason that "Genoese Crossbowmen" and "Swiss pikemen" get talked about a lot, and a large part of it is the mercenaries from the region which often specialized in the weapons in question.

spineyrequiem
2015-01-21, 08:46 PM
What was the most common "kit" for a medieval mercenary? What were the most common weapons? Did they vary by kingdom of origin?

Depends on the time period. As a friend of mine said today 'there are two types of medieval reenactors, the clankies and the jinglies', meaning those who go for plate period and those who do earlier stuff with lots of mail. Broadly speaking, however, I believe they tended to have good-ish kit. For our period (early medieval) that'll mean a hauberk, helmet, probably a sword or two (or maybe a sword and an axe) and either a shield or a polearm. Later on, it'll mean three-quarter plate and a poleaxe, probably.

However, to answer your question properly, yes, it really did vary by kingdom of origin. Also, bear in mind that mercenaries will vary by role - quite clearly, a Genoese crossbowman will be rather differently equipped from one of the White Company. In general terms, though, whatever they're carrying will be fairly decent. As far as I can tell, mercenary companies tended to form from groups of veteran men-at-arms who quite fancied continuing to fight, and they probably wouldn't do that if their was too much risk for them. However, I'll admit I don't know too much about the topic.

Archpaladin Zousha
2015-01-21, 09:07 PM
Depends on the time period. As a friend of mine said today 'there are two types of medieval reenactors, the clankies and the jinglies', meaning those who go for plate period and those who do earlier stuff with lots of mail. Broadly speaking, however, I believe they tended to have good-ish kit. For our period (early medieval) that'll mean a hauberk, helmet, probably a sword or two (or maybe a sword and an axe) and either a shield or a polearm. Later on, it'll mean three-quarter plate and a poleaxe, probably.

However, to answer your question properly, yes, it really did vary by kingdom of origin. Also, bear in mind that mercenaries will vary by role - quite clearly, a Genoese crossbowman will be rather differently equipped from one of the White Company. In general terms, though, whatever they're carrying will be fairly decent. As far as I can tell, mercenary companies tended to form from groups of veteran men-at-arms who quite fancied continuing to fight, and they probably wouldn't do that if their was too much risk for them. However, I'll admit I don't know too much about the topic.
I notice most of the famous mercenary companies are Italian in origin. Were there any from more northerly climes? What might they have used? I'm more interested in "jingly" mercenaries than "clanky" ones.

Knaight
2015-01-21, 09:28 PM
I notice most of the famous mercenary companies are Italian in origin. Were there any from more northerly climes? What might they have used? I'm more interested in "jingly" mercenaries than "clanky" ones.

Mercenaries were all over the place, and while the Italian Condotteri are particularly famous, they are hardly the only ones (and are more in the late medieval period, which is well into "clanky" territory).

Archpaladin Zousha
2015-01-21, 09:51 PM
Would it be anachronistic for someone raised by "vikings" to utilize a crossbow?

Cealocanth
2015-01-21, 10:00 PM
I've got a bit of a sensitive question here, but this thread is usually good about historically political stuff. Google seems pretty lacking on information regarding this topic, so I figured I would ask here to probe the historically inclined. For the record, I have cleared asking this question with a mod, as long as people have a reasonable amount of discretion. Still, this is the internet and people get offended at things, so I have spoilered it so those who don't want to read the question don't have to.

In the ancient world entire civilizations developed around the institution of slavery. (Yes, that institution grew and advanced to horrible levels, but let's focus on the more ancient variety of it for the sake of keeping this a polite forum.) You see this economic system working remarkably well for many ancient empires who focused on warfare; Ancient Egypt, Greece under Alexander the Great, and Assyria all practiced it to name a few. Slaves were used for the hardest, most dangerous tasks and were often treated poorly in order for others to live well. Most of the time these slaves came from prisoners of war, this I am aware of. What is unclear is that, how, in a culture with low levels of technological advancement, people, even armies, managed to keep nearly as many prisoners of war as they did and how they managed to keep them all in line. One would think that most peoples would flee or violently resist capture or otherwise end up killing themselves before being taken prisoner and forced to do this work, yet the Ancient Egyptians managed to capture and keep in line thousands and work them nearly to death, with little to no record of successful or, for that matter, attempted revolts. So the question is, in the ancient world, how would one go about capturing a slave or a prisoner of war? How could they keep them for as long as they did, and how did they manage to force them to work in a way that was economically effective?

If you're curious, this information is for the villains of a D&D game. Sure, they seem evil enough if you say that they are slavers, and you can see the effects of this once slaves are taken, but when a slaver utterly fails to even attempt to capture someone, it's pretty laughable. Some tactics would be useful.

(And this bears repetition, I know this is a sensitive topic, especially when it is extended to more recent forms of it. If you don't want to answer this question, you don't have to. If you are so offended at the very prospect of such a question that you would like to call me out on it, please don't punish the thread just because I asked a question and send me an angry PM instead.)

spineyrequiem
2015-01-21, 10:03 PM
I notice most of the famous mercenary companies are Italian in origin. Were there any from more northerly climes? What might they have used? I'm more interested in "jingly" mercenaries than "clanky" ones.

Yep! The Varangian guard were mostly Scandinavian in origin (though they fought for the Byzantines), and appear to have been famous for their use of two-handed axes, though most had shields as well. This (http://www.oocities.org/egfrothos/Adoption.html) has a bit of stuff about them. They seem to have had a mixture of Byzantine and Scandinavian armour, though as no-one's quite sure about what exactly the Byzantines used we can't quite tell what they'd have. Probably a mixture of mail and lamellar. As well as this, William's army at Hastings had a substantial number of Flemings (Dutch, ish). These were, apparently, mostly heavy spearmen, so I'd guess hauberk, helmet and either a two-handed spear or a one-handed with a shield.

You might find this handy (https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=DIfrdzOtH-gC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false)

Mr Beer
2015-01-22, 12:53 AM
So the question is, in the ancient world, how would one go about capturing a slave or a prisoner of war? How could they keep them for as long as they did, and how did they manage to force them to work in a way that was economically effective?

Capture is "surrender or die!" - not that difficult when one side is crushed in battle.

Keeping a slave is going to vary, but if you are clearly a slave (branding, skin colour, shackles, slave garments) then escape deep in hostile territory may be difficult or impossible.

Someone on a diet of not enough food and hard work may not be able to muster the will and stamina to make an escape.

Some slave jobs were such that escape would be tricky anyway, due to physical separation from the general populace e.g. mines or galleys.

Some slave jobs may be preferable to going back home anyway.

Zizka
2015-01-22, 04:54 AM
The question is about slavery...

The state of slavery can very enormously even within the same civilisation or time period, so it's hard to draw conclusions beyond the fact that men with weapons tend to be able to control those without and that it's not hard to keep enslaved people in bondage (with ropes, shackles, cages, jails, impassable terrain or just their own minds).

Here's a specific (and really long) example of how one particular slave trade operated:

The horrors of the trans-Atlantic slave trade have left an ineradicable mark on history. In the course of a little more than three and a half centuries, 12.5 million prisoners – at least two-thirds of them men destined for a life of labour in the fields – were shipped from holding pens along the African coast to destinations ranging from Argentina in the south all the way north to Canada. It was the largest forced migration in modern history.

When we think of slavery, we tend to think of this African traffic. Yet it was not the only such trade – nor was it, before 1700, even the largest. A second great market in slaves once sullied the world, this one less well-known, vastly longer-lasting, and centred on the Black Sea ports of the Crimea. It was a huge trade in its own right; in its great years, which lasted roughly from 1200 until 1760, an estimated 6.5 million prisoners were shipped off to new and often intensely miserable lives in places ranging from Italy to India.

Slavery in the Crimea, however, differed in significant ways from the model made so familiar by the trans-Atlantic trade. The slaves sold there were white, being drawn for the most part from the great plains of the Ukraine and southern Russia in annual raids known as the “harvesting of the steppe.” Their masters were successively Vikings, Italians and Tatars – the latter being, for nearly half of the trade’s life, the subjects of the Crimean Khanate, a state that owed its own long life to its ability to satisfy demand for slaves. And most of the slaves themselves were not male labourers. They were women and children destined for domestic service – a fate that not infrequently included sexual service. The latter sort of slave was always fairly commonplace in the Crimea. When the Ottoman writer Evliya Çelebi toured the north shores of the Black Sea in 1664, he noted down some examples of the local dialect that he hoped other travellers to the region might find useful. Among the phrases that Çelebi selected were “Bring a girl” and “I found no girl, but I found a boy.”

This special focus – in a market that lay at the intersection not only of Europe and Asia, but also of Christianity and Islam – produced remarkable consequences. More women than men were put up for sale in the Crimea, and they consistently fetched higher prices. The high value of females was established at a very early date – articles 110-121 of the twelfth century Russkaia Pravda, the oldest known Russian law code, noted that female slaves were worth more than males – and it persisted throughout the entire history of the Black Sea trade. Female slaves were twice as expensive as males in Crete in 1301 and 60 percent more expensive 30 years later; when a Turkish noble, Kenan Bey, wrote his will around 1600, a slave girl he left to his wife turned out to be his single most valuable piece of property. As a result, as many as 80 percent of all Black Sea slaves whose sexes and ages are known were females aged between 8 and 24.

The slave traders of the Crimean Khanate became expert at manipulating their stocks so that they could offer Christian slaves to Muslim customers and Muslim slaves to Christians. They became connoisseurs of their clients’ widely varying tastes in beauty. And they developed a fine appreciation of the value of exoticism. Among the most highly-priced slaves on sale in the Crimean markets were blacks from sub-Saharan Africa, who found a ready market in all-white Muscovy, and Circassians from the Caucasus – famed even then for their beauty. The most prized of all varieties of slave, however, appear to have been children brought all the way to the Crimea from the far north – boys and girls who were perhaps between six and 13 years old, who had been seized in organised raids on the Finnish district of Karelia, and then trafficked south via Novgorod, Moscow, and the Volga.

So valuable were children of this sort – and so likely, therefore, to be bought and sold along the way – that only a handful of Finnish exotics ever found their way to the Crimea; Jukka Korpela estimates that their numbers may have been as low as half a dozen a year. The prices they commanded, however, were simply colossal; one source notes that girls who could be purchased for as little as 5 altyn in Karelia could be resold for 6,666 altyn even before they reached the Khanate – a mark up in excess of 133,000 percent. The higher price, equivalent to 200 roubles or (in about 1600) 250 sheep, was also about five times the usual price for a Crimean slave. It is no surprise, in these circumstances, that slaves from the far north were highly sought-after for their colouring – nor that their special characteristics were scrupulously noted in the slave registers so carefully kept in the ports that lay at the heart of this commerce in human misery: “white skin, white hair.”

To get some idea of how this slave trade worked, how it developed and how it was made profitable, it is necessary first to make the point that slave raiding and slave trading were the economic mainstays of the Crimea throughout the medieval period. The trade actually rose and fell twice, once before and once after the fall of Constantinople in 1453, demand for pagan or Muslim slaves for Byzantium being supplanted by the market for Christian slaves in the Ottoman Empire. There seem to have been few years in this period, however, in which at least 2,000 prisoners were not shipped out of Caffa, a port which Mikhalon Litvin – a Lithuanian writing in about 1550 – described as “not a town, but an abyss into which our blood is pouring.” That figure, moreover, substantially understates the true extent of slavery in the Crimea. It has been estimated that at least a third of the prisoners brought into the peninsula remained there, working as slaves for Tatar masters. Another substantial group found their way to rival ports in the peninsula, or were sold on to buyers from other Mongol successor-states such as the khanates of Kazan and Astrakhan.

Understanding this mechanics of this fearsomely efficient business means understanding its parameters. The first and most significant of these was geography. The steppe, which ran uninterrupted from Mongolia all the way to Hungary and Poland, provided the forage required by mounted raiding parties while offering no significant barriers to either the rapid movement of large groups of horsemen or their swift retreat. Neither the great Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (which was until the 1660s the major power in eastern Europe) nor its weaker neighbour, Muscovy, had a defined southern border; rather, both states had frontiers, which were almost impossible to seal. It was not until around 1700 that the Muscovites began the long process of building the Belgorod Line, a chain of fortified settlements, interspersed with earth ramparts and long lines of felled trees that eventually ran for 800 kilometres. These defences limited the Tatars’ freedom of movement, and eventually (though not until the 1760s) rendered large-scale raids impossible. Before that date, however, raiding parties ranged more or less at will across the endless steppe, burning villages, seizing captives, and dragging them off to the south along familiar routes labelled on seventeenth century Ukrainian maps as the “black roads” of the slave trade.

Politics was also vitally important in ensuring the survival of the eastern slave trade. Throughout the great years of the Crimean Khanate, the lands to the north were divided between two powers that were always opposed and frequently at war. Successive khans exploited the bitter enmity of Catholic Poland and Orthodox Muscovy, allying with one power while raiding the other and switching allegiance as they pleased. At no point in the Khanate’s history did it face the combined forces of both enemies.

This mattered because, although it was, for almost the whole of its life, a protectorate of the powerful Ottoman Empire, the Khanate was in almost every other respect a weak and a divided state. Its ruler might have been a direct descendant of Genghis Khan, but he was also was also merely the overlord of four powerful, squabbling tribes, each of which organised two or three thousand of its own men to launch twice-yearly slaving expeditions. The clans ranged indiscriminately and cared little whether they were attacking the enemies or the nominal allies of their state. No khan who wished to remain in power could afford to stop them, and for the most part Crimean rulers contented themselves with taxing the trade at the rate of one in five of all the captives and all the livestock taken on the steppe.

Several sources enable calculations to be made of the losses inflicted in Poland-Lithuania and Muscovy at the high point of this trade in slaves. It seems safest to assume that the huge numbers referred to by contemporary chroniclers – who recorded losses of up to 800,000 captives in a single raid – mean little more than “very many,” but administrative records provide more trustworthy perspectives. Iuromenta, declarations made by Polish nobles who were permitted to claim tax exemptions for peasants who had been captured by Tatar raiders, survive for Lviv in the period 1603-33 and have been used to extrapolate average losses of 7,000 people a year from the whole of the Commonwealth; reports sent to Moscow by regional governors between 1600 and 1650 add a further 4,000 Muscovites each year to that total. Neither of the latter sources is likely to be wholly reliable (the Polish nobles had an incentive to exaggerate losses, while Muscovite governors minimised theirs for fear of appearing incompetent), but it is undeniably the case that the number of captives coming onto the Crimean market was sufficient to support a 2,000-strong slavers’ guild in Istanbul during the fifteenth century. It is not impossible, therefore, that Litvin was right in estimating that there were around 30,000 slaves in Caffa at any one time – outnumbering the city’s Muslim population by around two to one.

What was it like to be one of those prisoners? There is no one answer to that question. The truth seems to be that, in certain circumstances, being a slave was not intolerable. Male captives sent to work, chained, in the galleys – a far from infrequent fate in those days –endured lives that were about as hard as it is possible to imagine. For others, though, slavery meant being clothed and housed and fed, and often it meant household work rather than the backbreaking physical toil expected of a steppe peasant. Captivity of this variety was not too far removed from the sort of life endured by an indentured servant who signed a long term contract promising to serve a single master for a paltry wage, plus board and lodging. In one telling anecdote dating to the last days of the Black Sea trade, a party of miserably impoverished Circassians held on board a ship headed for Istanbul was freed by the crew of a Russian naval vessel. Given the choice of a return home, marriage to Russian or Cossack men, or remaining with their Turkish slave-master, “unanimously and without a moment’s consideration, they exclaimed, ‘To Constantinople – to be sold!'”

In the better-regulated Muslim lands, moreover, slavery was not necessarily for life. Some slaves secured their freedom after a quarter of a century – one English traveller in central Asia stumbled across a party of 25 freed Russian slaves heading home from Samarkand – and captives who married rarely passed on their slave status to their children, as was certainly the case in the Atlantic trade. Those who had good looks, luck and talent might make something of themselves in circumstances such as these. Perhaps the most celebrated example of a slave who rose far above her humble origins was that of Aleksandra Lisowska, the able daughter of a Ruthenian priest who was seized by the Crimean Tatars in Galicia during the 1520s. Taken to Caffa and then sold on to Istanbul, she became the favourite wife of the Turkish sultan Suleiman the Magnificent and a significant power in her own right in the Ottoman Empire.

It would be a terrible mistake, however, to see the Crimean slave trade as in any sense benign. Capture by a Tatar raiding party could and often did mean death. The very young and very old – those unable to walk – would be released or simply killed at this point. An account by Sigmund Freiherr von Herberstein, an envoy from the Holy Roman Empire who visited Russia in the sixteenth century, alleged that “old and infirm men, who will not fetch much at a sale, are given up to the Tartar youths much as hares are given to whelps by way of their first lesson in hunting.” The respective fates of the young and attractive and of those too old to work are confirmed by a snatch of Ukrainian folk song: “Old mother is sabred/And my dear is taken into captivity.”

Those who were fit and beautiful enough to survive this cull would have their hands pinioned behind their backs and be yoked in lines to Tatar ponies. Secured in this fashion, and whipped to ensure that they maintained a steady pace behind their captors, they would trudge for several hundred miles across the steppe. Male prisoners were sometimes castrated and frequently branded, and those who survived both this harsh treatment and the march south were confined in Crimean dungeons, classified according to their age, sex, status and skills, and finally inspected for physical appearance. Here the experience of slaves seems to have been humiliatingly similar throughout the long years of the eastern trade. Writing in the 1420s, the Spanish traveller Pero Tafur recorded that the Genoese forced new slaves to “strip to the skin, males as well as females, and they put on them a cloak of felt, and the price is named. Afterwards they throw off their coverings and make them walk up and down to show whether they have any bodily defect.” 250 years later, so many Tatar slavers used cosmetics to improve the appearance of their female captives that the Khanate issued an edict forbidding the practice.

The value of these captives varied significantly over the years according to both the numbers coming onto the market and the personal qualities of the slaves themselves. General factors, especially the advent of war and peace, famine and epidemics, made huge differences to cost, and this seems to have remained true irrespective of which power was in control of the Black Sea slave routes. We know that, in the last days of the Byzantine Empire, when the Crimean trade was in the hands of the Genoese and the Venetians, prices rose sharply as a result of a severe outbreak of plague in Romania in 1393, and also that in the closing years of the thirteenth century the price of a Turkish slave fell briefly below that of a sheep thanks to the glut of prisoners produced by a successful Byzantine campaign. Similarly, during a famine in Astrakhan in the 1550s, peasants would sell their daughters into slavery for six pence worth of corn. Four decades later, in a time of plenty, girl slaves in the same town cost 405 florints.

Specifics mattered a great deal, too, however. Noble captives taken during military campaigns would be ransomed rather than sold on the open market. When János Kemany, the Prince of Transylvania, was captured in 1658 with a number of his nobles, he was eventually ransomed for 100,000 thalers (a quarter of what had originally been demanded) and a subordinate, Ferenc Kornis, for 40,000. A surviving register of prisoners lists 275 other named captives, and of these a further 66 are known to have been ransomed for an additional 64,530 thalers – a total figure equivalent to eight years’ of tribute payments by the Transylvanians.

A Crimean Tatar warrior, wielding the celebrated recurved bow that was for centuries the main weapon of the Mongol and Tatar peoples. Raiding parties of such warriors, up to 30,000 strong, scoured the western steppes for prisoners almost annually throughout the medieval and early modern periods.
A Crimean Tatar warrior, wielding the celebrated recurved bow that was for centuries the main weapon of the Mongol and Tatar peoples. Raiding parties of such warriors, up to 30,000 strong, scoured the western steppes for prisoners almost annually throughout the medieval and early modern periods.

By the seventeenth century, moreover, ransoms were increasingly being paid for far less exalted captives. Redeeming prisoners from the clutches of the infidel had come to be regarded in both Muscovy and Poland-Lithuania as a moral and religious duty – no Christian could view with anything less than horror the fate of slaves who died in Muslim lands without administration of the last rites – and it was because of this that Muscovy collected a special ransom tax to redeem thousands of ordinary prisoners between 1551 and 1679. There is also good evidence that all Crimean captives were the subject of elaborate pricing mechanisms; the usual prices charged for slaves were, for example, discounted to take account of physical imperfections and injuries. A case tried in Genoa in 1423 concerned a Bulgar slave girl who had been struck over the head when she was captured and now suffered from “falling sickness” – perhaps epilepsy. The slave-owner was able to press a case to get the sale declared invalid on the grounds that the girl had been ill at the time he purchased her.

Finally, it is important to see the eastern slave trade in its proper context. To think of the Muscovites and Poles as nothing more than victims of the Tatars is to radically distort the truth. Muscovy, in particular, was frequently complicit, and the institution of slavery flourished for many years within its borders. This was a matter of special significance when it comes to explaining how it was possible for Finns to find their way to the Crimean market, for the truth is that they were mostly seized and sent there by Russians. The northern town of Novgorod – known during the middle ages as Novgorod the Great in deference to its wealth and power – was a key centre of the slave trade in this region, and the men of Novgorod are known to have mounted numerous raids into Karelia with the explicit purpose of capturing exotic Finnish children. Prisoners taken in this region were so valuable, indeed, that after the incorporation of the Khanate of Astrakhan into the growing Muscovite empire, the son of its former khan was permitted to lead two expeditions through Muscovy to launch raids in Karelia (1555 and 1577), while Shah Abbas of Persia sent delegations that managed to acquire three Finnish girls in Moscow and 30 more in Kazan.

The advantages of slave raiding in the far north were considerable. There was no powerful Finnish state capable of protecting its subjects, and although most southern parts of Finland were Christianised during the Middle Ages, large swathes of the population remained pagan – an attractive proposition, since captives from this source enjoyed no protection from the church and could be sold indiscriminately to both Christian and Muslim buyers. The proximity of Novgorod meant that there was an attractive slaving base nearby, and removed much of the cost and risk involved in transporting prisoners across large distances.

According to Jukka Korpela, the chronicles of the medieval period record major raids into Karelia on average once every 10 years between the mid-14th and early 16th centuries, “which is a very high frequency in view of the fact that this area lay outside the interests of the late medieval realms.” Some were mounted by private enterprise – notably “marauding boatmen” from Novgorod. Others were sponsored by local rulers who hoped to profit handsomely from them.

The earliest records that we have of Muscovite raids in this region date to 1477, the year before Novgorod fell to Tsar Ivan the Great. An account dating to 1490 gives more detail about the specifics of the trade: the Russians plundered the parish of Kemi, in northern Finland, kidnapped its women and children, and offered them for ransom. Some families paid to recover their relatives; most could not, and lost them to slavery. When Tatar troops from Astrakhan mounted their similar raid in 1577, they left children too young to walk out on the ice to die.

This trade in Scandinavian captives – known to the Muscovites as nemtsy – flourished throughout the 16th century, and was large enough for other rulers to send specially to Moscow for these coveted slaves. Izmail-bek, the khan of the Nogai horde (whose lands were situated north of the Crimea) sent a diplomat north to purchase two Scandinavian children in 1561; the khan of far-off Bukhara dispatched a delegation which toured the slave quarters of five towns for nemtsy girls. The prices they paid were about ten times the average for an ordinary slave, and Korpela suggests that the word nemtsy itself became practically a trademark, “which referred to an already established extra quality.” While the numbers of Finnish captives who actually reached the Crimea was undoubtedly low, therefore, the fact that there was plainly an active trade in them, involving special terminology, a long-distance trading network, and – last but by no means least – clear profits, suggests a sophistication and an ability to disseminate intelligence and even place “orders” for slaves with particularly valued characteristics that appears remarkable at such an early date.

It can be argued, indeed, that the significance of the Crimean slave trade as a whole has been severely under-estimated. It was not simply a precursor of the Atlantic trade; it provided a model and, in a number of cases, the expertise for it. Some of the Genoese slavers who were thrown out of Caffa by the Ottomans a few years after the fall of the Byzantium reappeared as founders of the Atlantic trade towards the end of the fifteenth century. Moreover, Ottoman Istanbul, the largest city in all of Europe and western Asia by 1550, grew rapidly in part because one in five of its booming population was a Crimean slave. And the Cossacks of the Ukraine first organised themselves into large bands to protect against Tatar slave raids.

Finally, the diversion of Muscovite resources and Russian gold to Caffa plainly had some impact on the development of Russia. The cost of ransom slavery alone was as much as 6 million roubles each year after 1600, and the great Russian historian Vasily Klyuchevsky – writing late in the nineteenth century, at a time when Russia’s inability to keep pace with the developing west was a matter of prime political importance – observed that “if you consider how much time and spiritual and material strength was wasted in the monotonous, brutal, toilsome and painful pursuit of [the Tatar] steppe predators, one need not ask what people in Eastern Europe were doing while those of Western Europe advanced in industry and commerce, in civil life and in the arts and sciences.”

That so many lives, and so many millions in gold, in short, were not available to be invested in Russia, nor to be directed against Poland-Lithuania or Sweden for so long, may have been merely an inadvertent consequence of the Crimean khan’s inability to control his chiefs and followers. It was a consequence, nonetheless.

Additional material: Ffion Dash

Sources:

Eric Christiansen. The Northern Crusades. London: Macmillan, 1980; Virgil Ciocîltan. The Mongols and the Black Sea Trade in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries. Leiden: Brill, 2012; Leslie J.D. Collins. The Fall of Shaikh Ahmed Khan and the Fate of the People of the Great Horde, 1500-1504. Unpublished University of London PhD thesis, 1970; Jodocus Crull. The Antient and Present State of Muscovy. London: A. Roper, 1698; David Brion Davis. Inhuman Bondage: The Rise and Fall of Slavery in the New World. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1006; David Eltis. The Rise of African Slavery in the Americas. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000; David Eltis and David Richardson. Atlas of the Transatlantic Slave Trade. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010; Maria Ivanics. ‘Enslavement, slave labour and the treatment of captives in the Crimean Khanate.’ In Géza Dávid and Pál Fodor (eds). Ransom Slavery along the Ottoman Borders. Leiden: Koninklijke Brill, 2007; Kate Fleet. European and Islamic Trade in the Early Ottoman State: the Merchants of Genoa and Turkey. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004; Charles J. Halperin. The Tatar Yoke: The Image of the Mongols in Medieval Russia. Bloomington [IN]: Slavica Publishers, 2009; Richard Hellie. Slavery in Russia 1450-1725. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982; V. L. Ianin. ‘Medieval Novgorod.’ in The Cambridge History of Russia: From Early Rus’ to 1689. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008; Halil Inalcik. ‘The Khan and the tribal aristocracy: the Crimean Khanate under Sahib Giray I.’ Harvard Ukrainian Studies 3-4 (1979-80); Michael Khoradovsky. Russia’s Steppe Frontier: The Making of a Colonial Empire, 150-1800. Bloomington: Indianapolis University Press, 2002; Mikhail Kililov. ‘Slave trade in the early modern Crimea from the perspective of Christian, Muslim and Jewish sources.’ Journal of Early Modern History 11 (2007); Charles King. The Black Sea: A History. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005; Denise Klein (ed). The Crimean Khanate Between East and West (15th-18th Century). Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2012; D. Kolodziejczyk. ‘Slave hunting and slave redemption as a business enterprise: the northern Black Sea region in the sixteenth to seventeenth centuries.’ Oriente Moderno 86 (2006); Jukka Korpela. ‘The Baltic Finnic People in the Medieval and Pre-Modern Eastern European Slave Trade.’ Russian History 41 (2014); Eizo Matsuki, “The Crimean Tatars and their Russian-Captive Slaves: an Aspect of Muscovite-Crimean Relations in the 16th and 17th Centuries“, Mediterranean Studies Group at Hitotsubashi University, nd; Alexandre Skirda. La Traite des Slaves: L’Escalvage des Blancs du VIII au XVIII Sičcle. Paris: Les Editions de Paris Max Chaleil, 2010; Alessandro Stanziani. Bondage: Labor and Rights in Eurasia from the Sixteenth to the Early Twentieth Centuries. New York: Berghahn Books, 2014; William Urban, ‘Victims of the Baltic Crusade.’ Journal of Baltic Studies 29 (1998); Charles Verlinden. ‘Medieval “Slavers”.’ In David Herlihy, Robert S. Lopez and Vsevolod Slessarev (eds.), Economy, Society and Government in Medieval Italy, Kent [OH]: Kent State University Press, 1969; Brian Glyn Williams. The Crimean Tatars: The Diaspora Experience and the Forging of a Nation. Leiden: Brill, 2001.

https://allkindsofhistory.wordpress.com/2015/01/15/blonde-cargoes-finnish-children-in-the-slave-markets-of-medieval-crimea/#more-2620

Spiryt
2015-01-22, 05:16 AM
Would it be anachronistic for someone raised by "vikings" to utilize a crossbow?

"Viking" is term, mostly a verb, describing Norsemen (usually) sailing trough the seas, gulfs, rivers etc. to distant lands for some general risky, but potentially profitable deeds.

Be it trading, exploring, settling, or stereotypical pillaging.

Thus, though "Viking Era' as such had generally ended before 'Crossbow era' it would be probably not anachronistic for some 12th century Viking to have crossbow.

They were pretty common on the continent then already, dunno about Scandinavia.

If you're aiming for most common Viking trope, as in ~9th century raider and sea-farer, then crossbow is likely out of question.


In the ancient world entire civilizations developed around the institution of slavery. (Yes, that institution grew and advanced to horrible levels, but let's focus on the more ancient variety of it for the sake of keeping this a polite forum.) You see this economic system working remarkably well for many ancient empires who focused on warfare; Ancient Egypt, Greece under Alexander the Great, and Assyria all practiced it to name a few. Slaves were used for the hardest, most dangerous tasks and were often treated poorly in order for others to live well. Most of the time these slaves came from prisoners of war, this I am aware of. What is unclear is that, how, in a culture with low levels of technological advancement, people, even armies, managed to keep nearly as many prisoners of war as they did and how they managed to keep them all in line. One would think that most peoples would flee or violently resist capture or otherwise end up killing themselves before being taken prisoner and forced to do this work, yet the Ancient Egyptians managed to capture and keep in line thousands and work them nearly to death, with little to no record of successful or, for that matter, attempted revolts. So the question is, in the ancient world, how would one go about capturing a slave or a prisoner of war? How could they keep them for as long as they did, and how did they manage to force them to work in a way that was economically effective?

Like mentioned, there's just too many variables here.

Generally though, majority of such 'hard' slaves would be people settled in some completely stranger land, treated brutally and harshly, without perspectives and possibilities to grasp.

No ability to sustain themselves while free.

They would learn that subordination would make their lives easiest.

And often they would find it bearable, sometimes even better than life in their home village, after all. Especially if they came from some very primal, harsh upbringing into some urbanized, prospering city.

Depending on the particular slave system, their possibilities for social advance could be greater as well.


Generally, if slave system was actually prospering for longer, it simply had effective mechanisms of sustaining itself, accordingly to the mentality of people involved.

From acting via maiming and will breaking to straight out bribing.

GraaEminense
2015-01-22, 05:26 AM
Thus, though "Viking Era' as such had generally ended before 'Crossbow era' it would be probably not anachronistic for some 12th century Viking to have crossbow.

They were pretty common on the continent then already, dunno about Scandinavia.

If you're aiming for most common Viking trope, as in ~9th century raider and sea-farer, then crossbow is likely out of question.
The crossbow did not come into common use in Scandinavia before the conventional end of the Viking era, but it seems to have been present at Hastings in 1066 and were probably used by the Picts as early as the 6th-9th Centuries (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossbow#Medieval_Europe). Since the Vikings had contact with both 11th Century Saxons and Normans and earlier Picts they must have known of the weapon.

It is unlikely, but not impossible, that a Viking from the traditional era (8th-11th century) could have possessed and used a crossbow.

snowblizz
2015-01-22, 06:23 AM
In the 18th and 19th century of the Caribbean, was a little piracy here and there something the major powers would let slide? Or was it harshly punished in contrast to its thick presence?No it was not, piracy was harshly punished everywhere really. One reason being that you want your own privateers to keep in line, and that's a tough job already. Piracy was more or less eradicated when the Great Britain/the Royal Navy got fed up with it. Very simplistically said, but there's certain truth to it. It's no incident that the prevailing (maritime) power is the one most against piracy whereas less powerful nations are more "liberal" in their view.

Rather unflattering for the Royal Navy e.g. the Barbary pirates could keep on going because British and other powerful nations let them as long as they stayed away from attacking their shipping.

We should keep in mind though that there are several layers of authority and interests. So while at the top piracy was basically universally condemned, lower down the scale, more local governors and mayors (and/or towns/cities/regions) could be more tolerant. Because a pirate needs a base really, and that is largely how it was killed, you remove the places where they can rest/repair/resell.
Any "secret" pirate would need a base and there he'd likely not be that secret.


Either way, between the two of you it seems it is possible to commit piracy then hide your crimes? It makes me wonder if it would be necessary to kill everyone and burn the enemy ship, or if less extreme measures are normally suitable.
Almost any crime is possible when you hide it. I'd say being a totally secret pirate is almost impossible though. The main problem will be in divesting yourself of your ill-gotten gains. Which as mentioned, but it bears repeating, were mostly of ordinary colonial goods and the sale and trading thereof was usually heavily regulated. Most pirate careers were really short. Take Blackbeard for example, 2 years. Of course one could argue the most successful ones are probably those we never heard of.
As G said opportunistic piracy, sure that I can see. But making it a career to be "secret" pirate, I really doubt it that.

Kiero
2015-01-22, 06:52 AM
I've got a bit of a sensitive question here, but this thread is usually good about historically political stuff. Google seems pretty lacking on information regarding this topic, so I figured I would ask here to probe the historically inclined. For the record, I have cleared asking this question with a mod, as long as people have a reasonable amount of discretion. Still, this is the internet and people get offended at things, so I have spoilered it so those who don't want to read the question don't have to.

In the ancient world entire civilizations developed around the institution of slavery. (Yes, that institution grew and advanced to horrible levels, but let's focus on the more ancient variety of it for the sake of keeping this a polite forum.) You see this economic system working remarkably well for many ancient empires who focused on warfare; Ancient Egypt, Greece under Alexander the Great, and Assyria all practiced it to name a few. Slaves were used for the hardest, most dangerous tasks and were often treated poorly in order for others to live well. Most of the time these slaves came from prisoners of war, this I am aware of. What is unclear is that, how, in a culture with low levels of technological advancement, people, even armies, managed to keep nearly as many prisoners of war as they did and how they managed to keep them all in line. One would think that most peoples would flee or violently resist capture or otherwise end up killing themselves before being taken prisoner and forced to do this work, yet the Ancient Egyptians managed to capture and keep in line thousands and work them nearly to death, with little to no record of successful or, for that matter, attempted revolts. So the question is, in the ancient world, how would one go about capturing a slave or a prisoner of war? How could they keep them for as long as they did, and how did they manage to force them to work in a way that was economically effective?

If you're curious, this information is for the villains of a D&D game. Sure, they seem evil enough if you say that they are slavers, and you can see the effects of this once slaves are taken, but when a slaver utterly fails to even attempt to capture someone, it's pretty laughable. Some tactics would be useful.

(And this bears repetition, I know this is a sensitive topic, especially when it is extended to more recent forms of it. If you don't want to answer this question, you don't have to. If you are so offended at the very prospect of such a question that you would like to call me out on it, please don't punish the thread just because I asked a question and send me an angry PM instead.)

First up, Google is the wrong place to look. There's an extensive portal on slavery on Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery) which is a good starting point.

The stuff you've got in spoiler space is a bit confused, here's something I've written for Mercenary, Liberator, Tyrant on slavery (bearing in mind it's focused around 3rd century BC and the institution evolved and changed both before and especially after with Roman industrialisation of slavery):

Slavery
Chattel slavery, the practise of treating human beings as personal property without rights, was practised by every society in antiquity, though it varied in its extent. It was not thought of as some great evil that needed to be eradicated, but as part of the natural order of things. That said, the existence of Greek slaves and especially the practise of enslaving a whole city, was a source of discomfort for Greeks. Some generals refused to enslave conquered cities and in the Hellenistic era some cities passed accords not to enslave each other's citizens in the event one defeated the other. By contrast, freeing an enslaved city carried great prestige.

The owner of a slave could buy, sell or lease them as they pleased, and there were very few curbs on what they could do with them. Even the deliberate killing of a slave was more often treated in law as destruction of property, rather than murder as would be the case if the victim were free.

All economic activities were open to slaves, because it was citizenship status which determined your importance. The primary avenues of employment were domestic service, acting as their master's second or proxy in business, agricultural labourers and skilled craft trades. Slaves were also used in large numbers in mining and serve as oarsmen on galleys (though contrary to myth, most rowers were free professionals).

There were four main sources of slaves; war, piracy, banditry and trade. In war, the victor had absolute rights over the vanquished, and might choose to sell captives into slavery. This could be enacted on the scale of an entire population if a settlement was taken by siege.

In both piracy and banditry, taking captives was a lucrative business, especially if the captured had a ransom value. However, if a captive was not important enough to be able to raise a ransom (or it was not paid), they could instead be sold as slaves to traffickers. In some areas piracy was virtually a "national speciality", including those such as the Arcananians, Cretans, Aetolians, Illyrians, Phoenicians and Etruscans, and in the Hellenistic era the Cilicians and other Anatolian mountain-peoples.

The slave trade existed between kingdoms and nations, with local professionals selling their own people to Greek and other slave traders. The principal centres were at Ephesus, Byzantium, Tanais and later the island of Delos, which in the Hellenistic era grew to be the largest.

There were two other ways of becoming a slave. Houseborn slaves (ie those born to parents who were themselves slaves) were not unknown, though in the classical era the idea of "breeding" slaves was discouraged. Childbirth exposed a female slave to danger (pregnancy was a major cause of death for women) and there was no guarantee the child would survive to adulthood (infant mortality was often 50% or higher). It was often cheaper to buy a slave than raise one from infancy, and it was felt disruptive to loyalties in household to allow slaves to raise their own children. Houseborn slaves often received privileged treatment, such as being entrusted to take children to school, particularly if they were the offspring of the master, though their status was usually determined by that of their mother.

The other was a special case, debt slavery, whereby a citizen unable to pay their debts could be enslaved by their creditor. It was by no means a universal practise, and the Athenians outlawed it in the constitution of Solon, which forbade the selling of free Athenians.

Slavery was not a permanent status, it was possible to buy freedom, usually for at least a slave's market value. Slaves were allowed to own property and have money, and could save to purchase their freedom, or take a loan from their master. This transaction was handled as though it were a sale - either to a deity through a temple (which took a cut) or to the city where a magistrate managed the proceeds. However, a master might only grant temporary freedom, or require continued obligations such as presenting themselves for work (particularly likely where the slave had a skilled trade). Even those freed without obligation and legally protected from being re-enslaved carried a stigma in certain social settings (such as being barred membership to the gymnasium).

Freedom from bondage was another important facet of freedom, particularly given that capture in war could lead to slavery. It is noteworthy that in pre-Roman antiquity, there is no evidence of any wide-scale slave revolts, perhaps in part due to the much lower densities of slave-holdings and smaller volumes of trade compared to that in the Roman period. However, slaves did run away and individual acts of revolt were not unheard of.

Land-bonded slavery, like Spartan helots (equivalent to medieval serfdom), was a much rarer form of the practise.


Most slaves weren't used in the especially hazardous tasks: mines and galleys (though contrary to Ben Hur, most oarsmen were professionals, not slaves); or in large concentrations as on the Roman agricultural estates (especially in Sicily, which saw a number of Servile Wars as a result); they were kept in households in small numbers. Nor were the densities that high before the Roman era, which prevented any sort of "class consciousness" emerging where slaves began to seem themselves as a common people.

Brother Oni
2015-01-22, 08:03 AM
Just to add to the control aspect of slavery, Spartans youths used to go out looking for trouble at night and any slave they found out and about, was typically harassed at least, or more typically tortured and/or killed publically, thus fear of retribution allowed the much smaller Spartan population to dominate their subjugated people (wiki link on helots (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helots)).

These 'night raids' by vigilante groups are often still practiced today in various cultures as a way of getting rid of undesirables (homeless people, etc): link (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/death-to-undesirables-brazils-murder-capital-1685214.html).

Galloglaich
2015-01-22, 10:02 AM
The state of slavery can very enormously even within the same civilisation or time period, so it's hard to draw conclusions beyond the fact that men with weapons tend to be able to control those without and that it's not hard to keep enslaved people in bondage (with ropes, shackles, cages, jails, impassable terrain or just their own minds).

Here's a specific (and really long) example of how one particular slave trade operated:

The horrors of the trans-Atlantic slave trade have left an ineradicable mark on history. In the course of a little more than three and a half centuries, 12.5 million prisoners – at least two-thirds of them men destined for a life of labour in the fields – were shipped from holding pens along the African coast to destinations ranging from Argentina in the south all the way north to Canada. It was the largest forced migration in modern history.

When we think of slavery, we tend to think of this African traffic. Yet it was not the only such trade – nor was it, before 1700, even the largest. A second great market in slaves once sullied the world, this one less well-known, vastly longer-lasting, and centred on the Black Sea ports of the Crimea. It was a huge trade in its own right; in its great years, which lasted roughly from 1200 until 1760, an estimated 6.5 million prisoners were shipped off to new and often intensely miserable lives in places ranging from Italy to India.

Slavery in the Crimea, however, differed in significant ways from the model made so familiar by the trans-Atlantic trade. The slaves sold there were white, being drawn for the most part from the great plains of the Ukraine and southern Russia in annual raids known as the “harvesting of the steppe.” Their masters were successively Vikings, Italians and Tatars – the latter being, for nearly half of the trade’s life, the subjects of the Crimean Khanate, a state that owed its own long life to its ability to satisfy demand for slaves. And most of the slaves themselves were not male labourers. They were women and children destined for domestic service – a fate that not infrequently included sexual service. The latter sort of slave was always fairly commonplace in the Crimea. When the Ottoman writer Evliya Çelebi toured the north shores of the Black Sea in 1664, he noted down some examples of the local dialect that he hoped other travellers to the region might find useful. Among the phrases that Çelebi selected were “Bring a girl” and “I found no girl, but I found a boy.”

This special focus – in a market that lay at the intersection not only of Europe and Asia, but also of Christianity and Islam – produced remarkable consequences. More women than men were put up for sale in the Crimea, and they consistently fetched higher prices. The high value of females was established at a very early date – articles 110-121 of the twelfth century Russkaia Pravda, the oldest known Russian law code, noted that female slaves were worth more than males – and it persisted throughout the entire history of the Black Sea trade. Female slaves were twice as expensive as males in Crete in 1301 and 60 percent more expensive 30 years later; when a Turkish noble, Kenan Bey, wrote his will around 1600, a slave girl he left to his wife turned out to be his single most valuable piece of property. As a result, as many as 80 percent of all Black Sea slaves whose sexes and ages are known were females aged between 8 and 24.

The slave traders of the Crimean Khanate became expert at manipulating their stocks so that they could offer Christian slaves to Muslim customers and Muslim slaves to Christians. They became connoisseurs of their clients’ widely varying tastes in beauty. And they developed a fine appreciation of the value of exoticism. Among the most highly-priced slaves on sale in the Crimean markets were blacks from sub-Saharan Africa, who found a ready market in all-white Muscovy, and Circassians from the Caucasus – famed even then for their beauty. The most prized of all varieties of slave, however, appear to have been children brought all the way to the Crimea from the far north – boys and girls who were perhaps between six and 13 years old, who had been seized in organised raids on the Finnish district of Karelia, and then trafficked south via Novgorod, Moscow, and the Volga.

So valuable were children of this sort – and so likely, therefore, to be bought and sold along the way – that only a handful of Finnish exotics ever found their way to the Crimea; Jukka Korpela estimates that their numbers may have been as low as half a dozen a year. The prices they commanded, however, were simply colossal; one source notes that girls who could be purchased for as little as 5 altyn in Karelia could be resold for 6,666 altyn even before they reached the Khanate – a mark up in excess of 133,000 percent. The higher price, equivalent to 200 roubles or (in about 1600) 250 sheep, was also about five times the usual price for a Crimean slave. It is no surprise, in these circumstances, that slaves from the far north were highly sought-after for their colouring – nor that their special characteristics were scrupulously noted in the slave registers so carefully kept in the ports that lay at the heart of this commerce in human misery: “white skin, white hair.”

To get some idea of how this slave trade worked, how it developed and how it was made profitable, it is necessary first to make the point that slave raiding and slave trading were the economic mainstays of the Crimea throughout the medieval period. The trade actually rose and fell twice, once before and once after the fall of Constantinople in 1453, demand for pagan or Muslim slaves for Byzantium being supplanted by the market for Christian slaves in the Ottoman Empire. There seem to have been few years in this period, however, in which at least 2,000 prisoners were not shipped out of Caffa, a port which Mikhalon Litvin – a Lithuanian writing in about 1550 – described as “not a town, but an abyss into which our blood is pouring.” That figure, moreover, substantially understates the true extent of slavery in the Crimea. It has been estimated that at least a third of the prisoners brought into the peninsula remained there, working as slaves for Tatar masters. Another substantial group found their way to rival ports in the peninsula, or were sold on to buyers from other Mongol successor-states such as the khanates of Kazan and Astrakhan.

Understanding this mechanics of this fearsomely efficient business means understanding its parameters. The first and most significant of these was geography. The steppe, which ran uninterrupted from Mongolia all the way to Hungary and Poland, provided the forage required by mounted raiding parties while offering no significant barriers to either the rapid movement of large groups of horsemen or their swift retreat. Neither the great Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (which was until the 1660s the major power in eastern Europe) nor its weaker neighbour, Muscovy, had a defined southern border; rather, both states had frontiers, which were almost impossible to seal. It was not until around 1700 that the Muscovites began the long process of building the Belgorod Line, a chain of fortified settlements, interspersed with earth ramparts and long lines of felled trees that eventually ran for 800 kilometres. These defences limited the Tatars’ freedom of movement, and eventually (though not until the 1760s) rendered large-scale raids impossible. Before that date, however, raiding parties ranged more or less at will across the endless steppe, burning villages, seizing captives, and dragging them off to the south along familiar routes labelled on seventeenth century Ukrainian maps as the “black roads” of the slave trade.

Politics was also vitally important in ensuring the survival of the eastern slave trade. Throughout the great years of the Crimean Khanate, the lands to the north were divided between two powers that were always opposed and frequently at war. Successive khans exploited the bitter enmity of Catholic Poland and Orthodox Muscovy, allying with one power while raiding the other and switching allegiance as they pleased. At no point in the Khanate’s history did it face the combined forces of both enemies.

This mattered because, although it was, for almost the whole of its life, a protectorate of the powerful Ottoman Empire, the Khanate was in almost every other respect a weak and a divided state. Its ruler might have been a direct descendant of Genghis Khan, but he was also was also merely the overlord of four powerful, squabbling tribes, each of which organised two or three thousand of its own men to launch twice-yearly slaving expeditions. The clans ranged indiscriminately and cared little whether they were attacking the enemies or the nominal allies of their state. No khan who wished to remain in power could afford to stop them, and for the most part Crimean rulers contented themselves with taxing the trade at the rate of one in five of all the captives and all the livestock taken on the steppe.

Several sources enable calculations to be made of the losses inflicted in Poland-Lithuania and Muscovy at the high point of this trade in slaves. It seems safest to assume that the huge numbers referred to by contemporary chroniclers – who recorded losses of up to 800,000 captives in a single raid – mean little more than “very many,” but administrative records provide more trustworthy perspectives. Iuromenta, declarations made by Polish nobles who were permitted to claim tax exemptions for peasants who had been captured by Tatar raiders, survive for Lviv in the period 1603-33 and have been used to extrapolate average losses of 7,000 people a year from the whole of the Commonwealth; reports sent to Moscow by regional governors between 1600 and 1650 add a further 4,000 Muscovites each year to that total. Neither of the latter sources is likely to be wholly reliable (the Polish nobles had an incentive to exaggerate losses, while Muscovite governors minimised theirs for fear of appearing incompetent), but it is undeniably the case that the number of captives coming onto the Crimean market was sufficient to support a 2,000-strong slavers’ guild in Istanbul during the fifteenth century. It is not impossible, therefore, that Litvin was right in estimating that there were around 30,000 slaves in Caffa at any one time – outnumbering the city’s Muslim population by around two to one.

What was it like to be one of those prisoners? There is no one answer to that question. The truth seems to be that, in certain circumstances, being a slave was not intolerable. Male captives sent to work, chained, in the galleys – a far from infrequent fate in those days –endured lives that were about as hard as it is possible to imagine. For others, though, slavery meant being clothed and housed and fed, and often it meant household work rather than the backbreaking physical toil expected of a steppe peasant. Captivity of this variety was not too far removed from the sort of life endured by an indentured servant who signed a long term contract promising to serve a single master for a paltry wage, plus board and lodging. In one telling anecdote dating to the last days of the Black Sea trade, a party of miserably impoverished Circassians held on board a ship headed for Istanbul was freed by the crew of a Russian naval vessel. Given the choice of a return home, marriage to Russian or Cossack men, or remaining with their Turkish slave-master, “unanimously and without a moment’s consideration, they exclaimed, ‘To Constantinople – to be sold!'”

In the better-regulated Muslim lands, moreover, slavery was not necessarily for life. Some slaves secured their freedom after a quarter of a century – one English traveller in central Asia stumbled across a party of 25 freed Russian slaves heading home from Samarkand – and captives who married rarely passed on their slave status to their children, as was certainly the case in the Atlantic trade. Those who had good looks, luck and talent might make something of themselves in circumstances such as these. Perhaps the most celebrated example of a slave who rose far above her humble origins was that of Aleksandra Lisowska, the able daughter of a Ruthenian priest who was seized by the Crimean Tatars in Galicia during the 1520s. Taken to Caffa and then sold on to Istanbul, she became the favourite wife of the Turkish sultan Suleiman the Magnificent and a significant power in her own right in the Ottoman Empire.

It would be a terrible mistake, however, to see the Crimean slave trade as in any sense benign. Capture by a Tatar raiding party could and often did mean death. The very young and very old – those unable to walk – would be released or simply killed at this point. An account by Sigmund Freiherr von Herberstein, an envoy from the Holy Roman Empire who visited Russia in the sixteenth century, alleged that “old and infirm men, who will not fetch much at a sale, are given up to the Tartar youths much as hares are given to whelps by way of their first lesson in hunting.” The respective fates of the young and attractive and of those too old to work are confirmed by a snatch of Ukrainian folk song: “Old mother is sabred/And my dear is taken into captivity.”

Those who were fit and beautiful enough to survive this cull would have their hands pinioned behind their backs and be yoked in lines to Tatar ponies. Secured in this fashion, and whipped to ensure that they maintained a steady pace behind their captors, they would trudge for several hundred miles across the steppe. Male prisoners were sometimes castrated and frequently branded, and those who survived both this harsh treatment and the march south were confined in Crimean dungeons, classified according to their age, sex, status and skills, and finally inspected for physical appearance. Here the experience of slaves seems to have been humiliatingly similar throughout the long years of the eastern trade. Writing in the 1420s, the Spanish traveller Pero Tafur recorded that the Genoese forced new slaves to “strip to the skin, males as well as females, and they put on them a cloak of felt, and the price is named. Afterwards they throw off their coverings and make them walk up and down to show whether they have any bodily defect.” 250 years later, so many Tatar slavers used cosmetics to improve the appearance of their female captives that the Khanate issued an edict forbidding the practice.

The value of these captives varied significantly over the years according to both the numbers coming onto the market and the personal qualities of the slaves themselves. General factors, especially the advent of war and peace, famine and epidemics, made huge differences to cost, and this seems to have remained true irrespective of which power was in control of the Black Sea slave routes. We know that, in the last days of the Byzantine Empire, when the Crimean trade was in the hands of the Genoese and the Venetians, prices rose sharply as a result of a severe outbreak of plague in Romania in 1393, and also that in the closing years of the thirteenth century the price of a Turkish slave fell briefly below that of a sheep thanks to the glut of prisoners produced by a successful Byzantine campaign. Similarly, during a famine in Astrakhan in the 1550s, peasants would sell their daughters into slavery for six pence worth of corn. Four decades later, in a time of plenty, girl slaves in the same town cost 405 florints.

Specifics mattered a great deal, too, however. Noble captives taken during military campaigns would be ransomed rather than sold on the open market. When János Kemany, the Prince of Transylvania, was captured in 1658 with a number of his nobles, he was eventually ransomed for 100,000 thalers (a quarter of what had originally been demanded) and a subordinate, Ferenc Kornis, for 40,000. A surviving register of prisoners lists 275 other named captives, and of these a further 66 are known to have been ransomed for an additional 64,530 thalers – a total figure equivalent to eight years’ of tribute payments by the Transylvanians.

A Crimean Tatar warrior, wielding the celebrated recurved bow that was for centuries the main weapon of the Mongol and Tatar peoples. Raiding parties of such warriors, up to 30,000 strong, scoured the western steppes for prisoners almost annually throughout the medieval and early modern periods.
A Crimean Tatar warrior, wielding the celebrated recurved bow that was for centuries the main weapon of the Mongol and Tatar peoples. Raiding parties of such warriors, up to 30,000 strong, scoured the western steppes for prisoners almost annually throughout the medieval and early modern periods.

By the seventeenth century, moreover, ransoms were increasingly being paid for far less exalted captives. Redeeming prisoners from the clutches of the infidel had come to be regarded in both Muscovy and Poland-Lithuania as a moral and religious duty – no Christian could view with anything less than horror the fate of slaves who died in Muslim lands without administration of the last rites – and it was because of this that Muscovy collected a special ransom tax to redeem thousands of ordinary prisoners between 1551 and 1679. There is also good evidence that all Crimean captives were the subject of elaborate pricing mechanisms; the usual prices charged for slaves were, for example, discounted to take account of physical imperfections and injuries. A case tried in Genoa in 1423 concerned a Bulgar slave girl who had been struck over the head when she was captured and now suffered from “falling sickness” – perhaps epilepsy. The slave-owner was able to press a case to get the sale declared invalid on the grounds that the girl had been ill at the time he purchased her.

Finally, it is important to see the eastern slave trade in its proper context. To think of the Muscovites and Poles as nothing more than victims of the Tatars is to radically distort the truth. Muscovy, in particular, was frequently complicit, and the institution of slavery flourished for many years within its borders. This was a matter of special significance when it comes to explaining how it was possible for Finns to find their way to the Crimean market, for the truth is that they were mostly seized and sent there by Russians. The northern town of Novgorod – known during the middle ages as Novgorod the Great in deference to its wealth and power – was a key centre of the slave trade in this region, and the men of Novgorod are known to have mounted numerous raids into Karelia with the explicit purpose of capturing exotic Finnish children. Prisoners taken in this region were so valuable, indeed, that after the incorporation of the Khanate of Astrakhan into the growing Muscovite empire, the son of its former khan was permitted to lead two expeditions through Muscovy to launch raids in Karelia (1555 and 1577), while Shah Abbas of Persia sent delegations that managed to acquire three Finnish girls in Moscow and 30 more in Kazan.

The advantages of slave raiding in the far north were considerable. There was no powerful Finnish state capable of protecting its subjects, and although most southern parts of Finland were Christianised during the Middle Ages, large swathes of the population remained pagan – an attractive proposition, since captives from this source enjoyed no protection from the church and could be sold indiscriminately to both Christian and Muslim buyers. The proximity of Novgorod meant that there was an attractive slaving base nearby, and removed much of the cost and risk involved in transporting prisoners across large distances.

According to Jukka Korpela, the chronicles of the medieval period record major raids into Karelia on average once every 10 years between the mid-14th and early 16th centuries, “which is a very high frequency in view of the fact that this area lay outside the interests of the late medieval realms.” Some were mounted by private enterprise – notably “marauding boatmen” from Novgorod. Others were sponsored by local rulers who hoped to profit handsomely from them.

The earliest records that we have of Muscovite raids in this region date to 1477, the year before Novgorod fell to Tsar Ivan the Great. An account dating to 1490 gives more detail about the specifics of the trade: the Russians plundered the parish of Kemi, in northern Finland, kidnapped its women and children, and offered them for ransom. Some families paid to recover their relatives; most could not, and lost them to slavery. When Tatar troops from Astrakhan mounted their similar raid in 1577, they left children too young to walk out on the ice to die.

This trade in Scandinavian captives – known to the Muscovites as nemtsy – flourished throughout the 16th century, and was large enough for other rulers to send specially to Moscow for these coveted slaves. Izmail-bek, the khan of the Nogai horde (whose lands were situated north of the Crimea) sent a diplomat north to purchase two Scandinavian children in 1561; the khan of far-off Bukhara dispatched a delegation which toured the slave quarters of five towns for nemtsy girls. The prices they paid were about ten times the average for an ordinary slave, and Korpela suggests that the word nemtsy itself became practically a trademark, “which referred to an already established extra quality.” While the numbers of Finnish captives who actually reached the Crimea was undoubtedly low, therefore, the fact that there was plainly an active trade in them, involving special terminology, a long-distance trading network, and – last but by no means least – clear profits, suggests a sophistication and an ability to disseminate intelligence and even place “orders” for slaves with particularly valued characteristics that appears remarkable at such an early date.

It can be argued, indeed, that the significance of the Crimean slave trade as a whole has been severely under-estimated. It was not simply a precursor of the Atlantic trade; it provided a model and, in a number of cases, the expertise for it. Some of the Genoese slavers who were thrown out of Caffa by the Ottomans a few years after the fall of the Byzantium reappeared as founders of the Atlantic trade towards the end of the fifteenth century. Moreover, Ottoman Istanbul, the largest city in all of Europe and western Asia by 1550, grew rapidly in part because one in five of its booming population was a Crimean slave. And the Cossacks of the Ukraine first organised themselves into large bands to protect against Tatar slave raids.

Finally, the diversion of Muscovite resources and Russian gold to Caffa plainly had some impact on the development of Russia. The cost of ransom slavery alone was as much as 6 million roubles each year after 1600, and the great Russian historian Vasily Klyuchevsky – writing late in the nineteenth century, at a time when Russia’s inability to keep pace with the developing west was a matter of prime political importance – observed that “if you consider how much time and spiritual and material strength was wasted in the monotonous, brutal, toilsome and painful pursuit of [the Tatar] steppe predators, one need not ask what people in Eastern Europe were doing while those of Western Europe advanced in industry and commerce, in civil life and in the arts and sciences.”

That so many lives, and so many millions in gold, in short, were not available to be invested in Russia, nor to be directed against Poland-Lithuania or Sweden for so long, may have been merely an inadvertent consequence of the Crimean khan’s inability to control his chiefs and followers. It was a consequence, nonetheless.

Additional material: Ffion Dash

Sources:

Eric Christiansen. The Northern Crusades. London: Macmillan, 1980; Virgil Ciocîltan. The Mongols and the Black Sea Trade in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries. Leiden: Brill, 2012; Leslie J.D. Collins. The Fall of Shaikh Ahmed Khan and the Fate of the People of the Great Horde, 1500-1504. Unpublished University of London PhD thesis, 1970; Jodocus Crull. The Antient and Present State of Muscovy. London: A. Roper, 1698; David Brion Davis. Inhuman Bondage: The Rise and Fall of Slavery in the New World. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1006; David Eltis. The Rise of African Slavery in the Americas. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000; David Eltis and David Richardson. Atlas of the Transatlantic Slave Trade. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010; Maria Ivanics. ‘Enslavement, slave labour and the treatment of captives in the Crimean Khanate.’ In Géza Dávid and Pál Fodor (eds). Ransom Slavery along the Ottoman Borders. Leiden: Koninklijke Brill, 2007; Kate Fleet. European and Islamic Trade in the Early Ottoman State: the Merchants of Genoa and Turkey. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004; Charles J. Halperin. The Tatar Yoke: The Image of the Mongols in Medieval Russia. Bloomington [IN]: Slavica Publishers, 2009; Richard Hellie. Slavery in Russia 1450-1725. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982; V. L. Ianin. ‘Medieval Novgorod.’ in The Cambridge History of Russia: From Early Rus’ to 1689. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008; Halil Inalcik. ‘The Khan and the tribal aristocracy: the Crimean Khanate under Sahib Giray I.’ Harvard Ukrainian Studies 3-4 (1979-80); Michael Khoradovsky. Russia’s Steppe Frontier: The Making of a Colonial Empire, 150-1800. Bloomington: Indianapolis University Press, 2002; Mikhail Kililov. ‘Slave trade in the early modern Crimea from the perspective of Christian, Muslim and Jewish sources.’ Journal of Early Modern History 11 (2007); Charles King. The Black Sea: A History. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005; Denise Klein (ed). The Crimean Khanate Between East and West (15th-18th Century). Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2012; D. Kolodziejczyk. ‘Slave hunting and slave redemption as a business enterprise: the northern Black Sea region in the sixteenth to seventeenth centuries.’ Oriente Moderno 86 (2006); Jukka Korpela. ‘The Baltic Finnic People in the Medieval and Pre-Modern Eastern European Slave Trade.’ Russian History 41 (2014); Eizo Matsuki, “The Crimean Tatars and their Russian-Captive Slaves: an Aspect of Muscovite-Crimean Relations in the 16th and 17th Centuries“, Mediterranean Studies Group at Hitotsubashi University, nd; Alexandre Skirda. La Traite des Slaves: L’Escalvage des Blancs du VIII au XVIII Sičcle. Paris: Les Editions de Paris Max Chaleil, 2010; Alessandro Stanziani. Bondage: Labor and Rights in Eurasia from the Sixteenth to the Early Twentieth Centuries. New York: Berghahn Books, 2014; William Urban, ‘Victims of the Baltic Crusade.’ Journal of Baltic Studies 29 (1998); Charles Verlinden. ‘Medieval “Slavers”.’ In David Herlihy, Robert S. Lopez and Vsevolod Slessarev (eds.), Economy, Society and Government in Medieval Italy, Kent [OH]: Kent State University Press, 1969; Brian Glyn Williams. The Crimean Tatars: The Diaspora Experience and the Forging of a Nation. Leiden: Brill, 2001.

https://allkindsofhistory.wordpress.com/2015/01/15/blonde-cargoes-finnish-children-in-the-slave-markets-of-medieval-crimea/#more-2620


Thanks for posting this, this is very useful for me, one of the things which makes the issue of slavery so distorted in the modern understanding is that the history of European slavery (by which I mean, Europeans as slaves) has been almost erased from visibility, and it's even hard to find anything about it in English with a targeted google search. As a result the whole concept of slavery now has been highly racialized even though it was something which happened in every part of the world, is a dismal part of the legacy of every society (and is really still a threat to everyone). No matter where you are from in the world or what your ethnicity is, there is a good chance that somewhere in your family tree are slaves.

The Crimea has been in the news in recent years, it's a center of trade because of it's position between Europe and Asia, and along north-south and east-west (the Silk Road) trade routes. This region, where 75% of the population were slaves, was a huge center of the world slave trade from the medieval period until the early 20th Century, and most of the slaves being traded there were European. Same with the Barbary pirates incidentally. The Ottoman Empire, the Mongol Hordes (particularly the Crimean and Golden Hordes), the Mamluks and the various principalities of North Africa engaged in a brisk and and extremely brutal slave trade with an emphasis on sexual slaves (women and boys) as well as slaves used for short-lifespan hard labor in mines, plantations and quarries and so on, for centuries. European slaves, especially Slavs, were one of the main commodities in the Muslim world for over 1000 years. The devşirme, the principle Ottoman tax on the conquered lands in the Balkans (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_the_Ottoman_Empire#Ottoman_slavery_in_E astern_Europe) was for little boys.

In the rare instances where this does ever get discussed, commentators tend to emphasize the opportunities for the very tiny minority to advance into high positions (which was possible for example among the Ottomans and the Mamluks, though not necessarily the Tartars)

The slave trade from North Africa was hardly negligable though almost nobody is aware of it, the Barbary pirates captured 1.25 million slaves (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_slavery#Arab_slave_trade) from Western Europe between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries

Ukranian women remain one of the highest value and most sought-after commodities in the world to this day.

G

Galloglaich
2015-01-22, 10:16 AM
The question is about slavery.

This short excerpt from Ziska's post should provide a succinct answer to your question:

Those who were fit and beautiful enough to survive this cull would have their hands pinioned behind their backs and be yoked in lines to Tatar ponies. Secured in this fashion, and whipped to ensure that they maintained a steady pace behind their captors, they would trudge for several hundred miles across the steppe. Male prisoners were sometimes castrated and frequently branded, and those who survived both this harsh treatment and the march south were confined in Crimean dungeons, classified according to their age, sex, status and skills, and finally inspected for physical appearance.

That is all a bit more brutal than you'd typically depict in most RPG's (at least the way most people run them) bt that is how they were kept in line.

G

GraaEminense
2015-01-22, 10:32 AM
Tangential anecdote: Interestingly, the Barbary pirate threat also seems to have been an important driving force in the centralization of Federal power in the newly-founded USA. American merchants were under threat in the Mediterranean and in the seas off North-Western Africa, and without a proper navy the US had to negotiate terms of safe passage and ransoms for ships and sailors from a weak position.

This was expensive and humiliating enough to justify the Naval Act of 1794 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naval_Act_of_1794) and increased the Federal budget by significant amounts to pay for the six frigates (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Original_six_frigates_of_the_United_States_Navy) that should defend national interests (one of which was the USS Constitution (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Constitution)). With increased budgets come increased importance and power.

Yes, I just figured out the URL function.

Galloglaich
2015-01-22, 11:55 AM
Tangential anecdote: Interestingly, the Barbary pirate threat also seems to have been an important driving force in the centralization of Federal power in the newly-founded USA. American merchants were under threat in the Mediterranean and in the seas off North-Western Africa, and without a proper navy the US had to negotiate terms of safe passage and ransoms for ships and sailors from a weak position.

This was expensive and humiliating enough to justify the Naval Act of 1794 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naval_Act_of_1794) and increased the Federal budget by significant amounts to pay for the six frigates (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Original_six_frigates_of_the_United_States_Navy) that should defend national interests (one of which was the USS Constitution (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Constitution)). With increased budgets come increased importance and power.

Yes, I just figured out the URL function.

And I think it has something to do with one of the lines in the Marine Corps (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marines%27_Hymn) Hymn too.

Linking this to an earlier discussion from the previous incarnation of this thread, you could argue that the reaction by the young US Republic at that time to it's citizens being captured by slavers (and / or having to pay bribes to them) differs from that of some other kinds of States. The Kingdom of Muscovy was apparently complicit for a long time in the enslavement of it's own people, and later as a matter of policy chose for many centuries to simply pay ransoms (for which a special tax was enacted) rather than make the huge effort required to suppress the slave raids.

This doesn't mean republics were nicer, just that certain types of republics were by necessity (due to their governments being more vulnerable to the discontent of a larger percentage of the population) more responsive to a particular level of public sentiment than a dictatorship or absolute Monarchy.

That does not for example extend necessarily to anybody who isn't a citizen of the republic. The maritime Republics of Genoa and Venice were only too happy to run the Mongol and later Ottoman slave trade in order to have access to the trade routes of the Silk Road, so long as their own citizens weren't the ones enslaved. This kind of attitude extends back into antiquity as well of course when it had reached a level which was arguably counterproductive for many of the City States of the Classical World, since they didn't have many qualms about preying upon one another, or upon 'subject' populations.

The article Ziska linked to also makes the important observation that the European slave trade in the Crimea contributed directly to the African trans-Atlantic slave trade of the Early Modern era, as many Genoese slavers shifted directly from the Crimea (after being thrown out by the Ottomans due to their interference in the internal politics of the Crimean Horde) to Portugal and Spain and the nascent African slave trade that was already being linked to the sugar industry by the end of the 15th Century.

G

Gnoman
2015-01-22, 03:46 PM
And I think it has something to do with one of the lines in the Marine Corps (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marines%27_Hymn) Hymn too.


"From the halls of Montezuma, to the shores of Tripoli." Right there in the very first line.

The biggest reasons, from what I've read, that the new American government took such a hard line with the Barbary pirates as compared to the other great powers of the age were the relatviley small size of the American merchant fleet, the sorry state of the Federal treasury at the time, and the fact that they'd just fought a 8 year war to be free of foreign domination. While a nation such as Great Britain had so many merchant ships that losing a few didn't matter, the Americans couldn't afford to lose even one, and where Britain or France might see bribing the pirates to be an economical alternative to diverting elements of an overextended fleet, the American government simply couldn't afford a bribe, and using the crisis to build a fleet would be a net benefit for protection of shipping (which proved very useful when the Quasi-war broke out in 1798). Add in the strong distaste for foreign "masters" left over from the Revolutionary War, and you create a situation where the young country had everything to gain and nothing to lose by smashing the pirate nations.

Galloglaich
2015-01-22, 04:14 PM
"From the halls of Montezuma, to the shores of Tripoli." Right there in the very first line.

The biggest reasons, from what I've read, that the new American government took such a hard line with the Barbary pirates as compared to the other great powers of the age were the relatviley small size of the American merchant fleet, the sorry state of the Federal treasury at the time, and the fact that they'd just fought a 8 year war to be free of foreign domination. While a nation such as Great Britain had so many merchant ships that losing a few didn't matter, the Americans couldn't afford to lose even one, and where Britain or France might see bribing the pirates to be an economical alternative to diverting elements of an overextended fleet, the American government simply couldn't afford a bribe, and using the crisis to build a fleet would be a net benefit for protection of shipping (which proved very useful when the Quasi-war broke out in 1798). Add in the strong distaste for foreign "masters" left over from the Revolutionary War, and you create a situation where the young country had everything to gain and nothing to lose by smashing the pirate nations.

Another reason is that the merchants and ship-owners being affected were probably directly linked to some members of the Congress and therefore were able to put pressure on the government to solve their problem.

In some Monarchies historically this would not necessarily be the case at all. The merchant class might not even be connected to the ruling stratum which could be indifferent or it might even be part of a rival faction which the administration and therefore subject to it's antipathy. That is one of the reasons why so many early explorers took such care in getting on the right side of the Monarch before departing on particularly dangerous voyages.

G

Cealocanth
2015-01-22, 04:45 PM
That went a lot better than expected. Thanks all, especially for the referential texts and the like where I can do some more research. I'll come back if something else crops up.

Gnoman
2015-01-22, 05:43 PM
Another reason is that the merchants and ship-owners being affected were probably directly linked to some members of the Congress and therefore were able to put pressure on the government to solve their problem.


It's likely that many members of Congress owned the ships directly, even. You're right, that is another major factor.

Knaight
2015-01-22, 09:56 PM
On a completely different note: Galloglaich and other people with extensive sources they know, have anything particularly good on armor distribution in the late medieval period, particularly regarding access to armor for the peasantry and townsman classes?

Tobtor
2015-01-23, 08:13 AM
I just saw something about archery on youtube that some Danes made, and thought that some might find interesting:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEG-ly9tQGk

It might not always be accurate bows etc, but note how he actually catches arrows in flight both with his hand AND his own arrows. How he shoots multiple arrows (WHILE HE JUMPS!) and how he holds the arrows. Lots of interesting stuff for archery interested people.

Notice how he can change hands between arrows and still hit targets (eyes of fake skulls).

It's pretty crazy.

Craziest shooting I have seen.

snowblizz
2015-01-23, 10:24 AM
On a completely different note: Galloglaich and other people with extensive sources they know, have anything particularly good on armor distribution in the late medieval period, particularly regarding access to armor for the peasantry and townsman classes?
I know exactly why you ask, I happened to see the post about Full Plate too. We've had discussions and numbers posted in this series of threads and I was trying to search for them in old threads but it was too difficult to find so I gave up.

Galloglaich
2015-01-23, 10:49 AM
On a completely different note: Galloglaich and other people with extensive sources they know, have anything particularly good on armor distribution in the late medieval period, particularly regarding access to armor for the peasantry and townsman classes?

It varied a lot by region, but we have quite a bit of records from that period which give us some insight.

In towns under German Town Law (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_town_law), which covers Central and Northern Europe, i.e. most of Europe north of the Alps, East of the Rhine, and West of Russia, members of the militia were required to own weapons and at least some armor (usually a breast plate and a helmet, but sometimes a more complete harness) as one of the conditions for citizenship or partial citizenship. Citizens were a minority in the towns however (the active militia was usually 10-20% of the population) and the town government and the guilds both retained armories, usually kept in specific towers within the town wall or at other strategic points in the city, with with to arm the non-citizen classes (like apprentices and servants) in an emergency. For example: in 1491 the wool weavers of Wismar had: "two tons of armor including seven complete sets of armored harness, five proofed gorgets, eight smaller pieces, two proofed bevors, a bow and an iron helmet." Why only one helmet I have no idea! In 1427 the town council of Krakow, after having encountered a raid by Hussite heretics for the first time, decided to immediately purchase 87 'hand boschen' (hand guns) and 147 war-flails.

Wealthier citizens, especially the richer merchants and members of the town council, (as well as some of the more affluent craft guilds,) were required by law to maintain full harness and horses, and fought like knights. They had special merchant-warrior societies called 'Constafler' which participated in knightly tournaments and so on. One specific example of such a group is the "Society of the Blackheads (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brotherhood_of_Blackheads)" from Livonia.

In her "Martial Ethic in Early Modern Germany" Professor Ann Tlusty, incidentally, noted that in many towns (and in rural territories owned by towns) in Germany it was illegal to not own a sword, and she cited some examples were men were arrested for not being 'decently armed' as late as the 17th Century. In the mid 15th Century the Italian diplomat and Humanist, (later Pope Pius II) Enea Silvio de Piccolomini wrote of his German hosts in 1444 that "every burgher in the guilds has an armory in his house … the skill of the citizens in the use of weaponry is extraordinary.’"

So the short answer is that Central and Northern European burghers were allowed to own armor legally, in some cases they were required to own it, and from the middle classes on up generally could afford armor of their own. The poorer burghers would have it provided for them by the guild or the city government in an emergency.

Militias of towns in Italy were pretty similar in this respect, though that started to change in the later 15th Century as town governments were taken over by Condottieri / Signore who relied on their own mercenaries for town protection, and in some towns restricted the ownership of certain arms and armor for the lower classes (I know Milan enacted a restrictive law in the 16th Century), while conversely in Venice, the militias remained strong and very well equipped. Towns in Flanders were quite warlike and their citizens were if anything, more heavily armed than the Germans. Here is an excerpt from the craft guild regulations for the shearers of the town of Arras (in what is today France, but was then part of the "Low Countries" region) 1236 AD:90

7. And whichever brother of this fraternity of shearers
does not come to the militia when it is called, shall not
remain in the city, unless it is through the aldermen of
the city, 20 sous should go to the confraternity.

25. And each master should have his arms when
someone summons them. And if he does not have them,
he owes 20 sous.

26. Whichever of the brothers does not go around with
the burgomeister, the first night that the militia
overnights, owes 10 sous.

27. Whichever of the brothers leaves the district by land
and by day, and will not embark, owes 10 sous to the
confraternity.

28. And whichever of the brothers takes the weapons of
the fraternity, if he does not return them on the day that
he took them, he owes 20 sous to the fraternity, unless he
is keeping them with the consent of the burgomeister and
the aldermen.

29. And if any brother begins to mix it up after the
militia has been quieted, he owes 40 sous to the
confraternity, saving that which is owed to the lord.

30. And at the hour when the mayor and the aldermen order
the brothers to arm, he who does not arm owes 10 sous.

For peasants it varied a bit more widely. In some districts (Mazovia for example in modern day Poland) they were forced to own armor and a certain amount of other military kit, in other areas (certain parts of France) they were banned from owning it. In most districts of Poland records show that peasants deployed for battle with good armor and military grade weapons (as opposed to like pitch forks and scythes - source Arms and Armor in Medieval Poland 1350-1450, Andrzej Nadolski (1990), page 475). In Sweden peasants were pretty heavily armed, augmented by kit they seized in numerous victories over foreign mercenaries. From what Tobtor posted here in the past it sounds like Denmark was restrictive of peasants owning military kit. Germany varied, in some places like Brandenburg there were restrictions, and generally a kind of 'squeeze' started against the peasants toward the 16th Century, (contributing to wide social unrest) but in most German districts in the late medieval era wealthier peasants could afford armor and were fairly routinely called up for military duty. Certain regions of Germany had 'wild' peasants (like in Switzerland or lower Saxony) who were heavily armed and armored. In England and Scotland wealthier peasants (yeomen) were recruited as archers and those who actually joined armies would have some kind of armor.

I'm not sure about Spain, Italy, or France. Maybe somebody can chime in on that.

G

Galloglaich
2015-01-23, 11:41 AM
For an idea of what urban militia from the late medieval period might have looked like, here is a detail from Hans Memling's (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Memling) famous and magnificent reliquary of St. Ursula made in 1489. Memling was a citizen of Bruges (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruges#History) and the soldiers are probably paintings of members of the Bruges militia. Their equipment is very detailed and considered historically accurate.

http://uploads7.wikiart.org/images/hans-memling/the-reliquary-of-st-ursula-1489-1.jpg

http://www.backtoclassics.com/images/pics/hansmemling/hansmemling_stursulashrinemartyrdom-scene6.jpg

http://uploads7.wikiart.org/images/hans-memling/the-martyrdom-of-saint-ursula-and-her-companions-at-cologne-from-the-reliquary-of-st-ursula-1489.jpg



G

No brains
2015-01-23, 05:55 PM
I just saw something about archery on youtube that some Danes made, and thought that some might find interesting:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEG-ly9tQGk

It might not always be accurate bows etc, but note how he actually catches arrows in flight both with his hand AND his own arrows. How he shoots multiple arrows (WHILE HE JUMPS!) and how he holds the arrows. Lots of interesting stuff for archery interested people.

Notice how he can change hands between arrows and still hit targets (eyes of fake skulls).

It's pretty crazy.

Craziest shooting I have seen.

I was just about to pass this along myself.

One thing that has me curious is the claim of using both arms to draw in bow in opposite directions 'for more power'. Doesn't the equal and opposite reactions of pulling the bow in two directions cancel these forces and not make much difference? It may be more ergonomic, but I'm curious if physics and engineering really allow it to 'deliver more power'.

Kiero
2015-01-23, 07:18 PM
I just saw something about archery on youtube that some Danes made, and thought that some might find interesting:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEG-ly9tQGk

It might not always be accurate bows etc, but note how he actually catches arrows in flight both with his hand AND his own arrows. How he shoots multiple arrows (WHILE HE JUMPS!) and how he holds the arrows. Lots of interesting stuff for archery interested people.

Notice how he can change hands between arrows and still hit targets (eyes of fake skulls).

It's pretty crazy.

Craziest shooting I have seen.

What uncannily well-timed inspirational material; I'm about to start a new Werewolf: the Forsaken game where I play an archer.

Mabn
2015-01-23, 07:20 PM
I was just about to pass this along myself.

One thing that has me curious is the claim of using both arms to draw in bow in opposite directions 'for more power'. Doesn't the equal and opposite reactions of pulling the bow in two directions cancel these forces and not make much difference? It may be more ergonomic, but I'm curious if physics and engineering really allow it to 'deliver more power'.

With no background in archery, I took that line to mean it allowed the user to have a higher draw weight with equivalent ease. Just practicing something like the motion a few times it seems to make use of more muscles and have better balance and bracing. It also seems like it would mess with aiming, although probably not that guy's.

Mike_G
2015-01-23, 07:43 PM
I was just about to pass this along myself.

One thing that has me curious is the claim of using both arms to draw in bow in opposite directions 'for more power'. Doesn't the equal and opposite reactions of pulling the bow in two directions cancel these forces and not make much difference? It may be more ergonomic, but I'm curious if physics and engineering really allow it to 'deliver more power'.

You can use a much heavier bow if you "push" your bow hand out while pulling the string hand back. It's very difficult to pull a heavy bow straight back with the left arm straight just the right hand on the string.

Watch the English Warbow guys. They use their back, their shoulders and both arms to draw the bow.

For quick, close shooting like he was doing, he could use a very light bow.

goto124
2015-01-23, 09:09 PM
On the note of archery, in the movie Brave, how accurate was the ripping of Merida's dress when she had to use a bow? It seems rather more accurate than most movies would potray, as are the newbie archery mistakes made by the princes.

warty goblin
2015-01-24, 12:18 AM
I was just about to pass this along myself.

One thing that has me curious is the claim of using both arms to draw in bow in opposite directions 'for more power'. Doesn't the equal and opposite reactions of pulling the bow in two directions cancel these forces and not make much difference? It may be more ergonomic, but I'm curious if physics and engineering really allow it to 'deliver more power'.

You've gotta do so much work to bend the bow. If you use only one arm, all the energy has to come from that arm. If you push with both, you don't need to bend the whole thing with just the muscles of the arm pulling the string.

Kiero
2015-01-24, 04:48 AM
You've gotta do so much work to bend the bow. If you use only one arm, all the energy has to come from that arm. If you push with both, you don't need to bend the whole thing with just the muscles of the arm pulling the string.

If you're using both arms, surely you'll automatically engage the muscles of the shoulder and back as well? More actively then just bracing one and drawing the other back.

Brother Oni
2015-01-24, 07:41 AM
Craziest shooting I have seen.

Bear in mind that this is trick shooting with a fairly light bow. Battlefield conditions against men in armour - not so useful.


Watch the English Warbow guys. They use their back, their shoulders and both arms to draw the bow.

There's actually two slightly different ways to draw a bow, which I mentioned in an earlier post - you can draw (hold the bow out and pull the string back) or bend (hold the string in place and push the bow out). English archers tend to bend their bow more than draw it and the really heavy warbows use the whole body.


On the note of archery, in the movie Brave, how accurate was the ripping of Merida's dress when she had to use a bow? It seems rather more accurate than most movies would potray, as are the newbie archery mistakes made by the princes.

Having just watched the scene (link (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gavGycTobZo&feature=player_detailpage&x-yt-ts=1421914688&x-yt-cl=84503534#t=97)), reasonably accurate. She needs the chest and shoulder flexibility to draw and the dress tears along the seams as they're the weakest points. Not so sure why there's a tear in her left elbow though.


If you're using both arms, surely you'll automatically engage the muscles of the shoulder and back as well? More actively then just bracing one and drawing the other back.

Both arms and the shoulder, but not necessarily fully engaging the back. Due to my build and previous martial arts experience, I tended not to use my back at all and it's one of the things that I had to work at, to get right.

If you're using a light bow, you can get away with not using the back - heavy ones will need all the force you can muster, especially after a couple of ends.

Galloglaich
2015-01-24, 11:20 AM
Several pages back on the previous iteration of this thread, I promised to produce a video

This video shows techniques (sort of a preliminary interpretation, which I've been told has since been improved upon) from a Spanish fencing manual of the early 16th Century, which was a time in which both longswords and fairly large steel shields (rotela) were on the battlefield simultaneously. These show one of the recommended tactics for dealing with the shield men or rodeleros.

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=10202019040978710&set=vb.595834913784323&type=2&theater

It's similar to what I've done in the past with a longsword, though you would alternate a bit more between high and low strikes.

I don't expect this to settle the argument, first because there are a lot of differences here; the rotella is both smaller and much tougher than a scutum, for one thing, and the sword being simulated here, a montante, is typically about 5' long, so about a foot longer than a typical longsword. He's also using Spanish techniques rather than the German I'm more familiar with personally, but like I said it's definitely in the ballpark.

So it gives you an idea how the reach of the longer weapon effectively converts to speed. Of course he's only using a waxwood staff to simulate the montante, (for safety) but a skilled practitioner can strike with the montante quite a bit faster than they are doing in that video. I have a video of one of those same guys doing a flourish with a real montante somewhere but I can't find it at the moment, I'll post it when I do.

G

Galloglaich
2015-01-24, 11:38 AM
Found it. I just uploaded it to VIMEO, it should be visible about 11:15 AM Central Standard Time.

https://vimeo.com/117672551

This was at a fencing tournament in late 2014, he's being a little careful because that is a sharp and it's kind of tight quarters, but it gives you an idea how agile and quick a five foot long, 2 kg sword can be. The drill he's doing is intended to train shifts from facing targets in front and behind, which is something you see a lot in the Spanish (Iberian) montante manuals.

G

Roxxy
2015-01-24, 03:21 PM
Archery video hailing long lost historical techniques. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEG-ly9tQGk&feature=youtu.be)

I don't trust it. It sounds like it's taking solid evidence that Hollywood is wrong, then running way too far with it and going to conclusions not necessarily supported by the evidence, and it's too obsessive of the idea of OMGSUPARBADASS master archers. What say you guys?

Tobtor
2015-01-25, 05:29 AM
Roxxy: That was the video I posted above.

I do not know what you mean you do not trust it? In what way is it misleading? They clearly states that the archer himself is not as strong/fit as someone "back then" would have been. The archer is around 50 years old and he has trained around 10 years, and it's a hobby not his profession.

Brother Oni:
"Bear in mind that this is trick shooting with a fairly light bow. Battlefield conditions against men in armour - not so useful."

I said it was the craziest shooting, not the most efficient in battle.

That said: he does show him penetrating a moving target chain-mail+heavy gambeson with three arrows, it is true it is at quite close distance and thus not optimal for mass battles. In other videos he shows that the mail is riveted and not butted. However it is true that the arrow after the mail+gambeson only go a few centimetres further and wouldn't have gone through the rib-cage or been deadly.

His different feats are done with different bows. The 3 arrows in 0,6 seconds while jumping probably wouldn't even kill an unarmoured or lightly armoured foe, but his slightly more powerful bow firing 3 arrows in 1.5 seconds would, but not of course heavy armoured opponents (plate) or medium amoured such as chain-mailed protected foes (at longer distances? and only wound them at closer?). Thus an English longbowman could likely be deadly at 3-4 times his distance (or more).

So I agree his bow is not strong enough for real battle, however that doesn't make his display useless in considering bows and archery combat. Especially from horseback where moving closer releasing three arrows (instead of one) and moving away again, would be quite useful. But also more mixed armies of early-mid medieval periods where bowmen could be mixed into the rank of foot troops; here even a few archers could send a deadly rain at the enemy before impact - notice how he shoots the two "skulls" in the eye, just hitting the face is enough that 40-50 pound bows, would be quite deadly and definitely enough to make approaching enemies hesitate.

Lars Andersen can manage to have 11 arrows in the air at the same time (from one of his older videos). This require a bit stronger bow that the lightest since the arrows then stay in the air for longer.

Further; most of his technique could be employed by a stronger archer with a heavier bow (again; especially horse archers and other using shorter bows). The 3 arrows in 1.5 seconds is what he finds that the Saracen considered fast enough

His technical aspects can be separated into different parts:
Where the quiver is placed
Any archer not completely stationary would benefit from not having the quiver on the back, and even stationary archers might. You just have better control of your arrows if they aren't placed where you can't see them. They are also easier to draw from a hip-quiver - just like swords are not carried at the back.

Side of the bow the arrow is placed
For fast repeated firing, placing the arrow on the right side (assuming right handed archer) of the bow, allow a faster rate of fire. This is true also of heavier bows, such as English longbows where you also want to fire fast when sending volleys of arrows at longer distances.

Holding multiple arrows in the "arrow" hand
This allow for much faster shooting and only slightly reduced draw length, and thus would be very handy for close quarter shooting and from horseback. I do not know if it will be a problem for mass units in "English longbow style" (in lack of a better word). This however is the part that require the most training.

Shooting while moving
Lars Andersen show that you can shoot on the move much better than many assume, without loosing too much accuracy (splitting the arrow against a knife blade etc). Likely to be most relevant for skirmish archery and horse archery, but also nice if your unit of bowmen can fire while retreating backwards to get out of reach of approaching enemies.

And then there are the tricks; shooting while jumping, shifting bow-hand between shots, catching incoming arrows and splitting incoming arrows with your own and so on. These are not likely to be that useful for on a major battlefield. Some might be useful in small skirmishes, city fights or in heavy forests. Others might not.

G: "From what Tobtor posted here in the past it sounds like Denmark was restrictive of peasants owning military kit."
I do not think I said that. I said there where restriction on whether they could get out of their contracts (on land). It is true that the king increasingly relied on gentry/knights supplemented with professional mercenaries in his wars and thus that a tax was made that could substitute the peasant levy. But for a long time (at least in some parts of Denmark) the peasants was obliged to own weapons. How this was handled in practise is a bit fussy.

I have not studied the different rules in detail, but remember hearing one instance where the peasant of a specific area had to own a padding (gambeson?), a crossbow, a iron-hat (helmet) and a side arm (unspecified, likely something like a messer, handaxe or sword?), I think it was 14th century. But this was mainly the land owning peasants, who got rare in the end of the medieval period, partly because the tax forced the free farmers to become tenants/serfs.

Yora
2015-01-25, 08:01 AM
Trick shooting is always trick shooting and not directly applicable to combat conditions. In combat, you are unlikely to have targets that move at completely predictable speeds and directions or remain truly stationary, there are lots of distractions and a blunder can kill you, so it's unlikely that anyone would try such very difficult shots. Also, this material is cut down to the attempts that actually were successful, and it's most likely that they are the best out of dozens or hundreds of tries that have been recorded. In a sport competition, every arrow counts for the final score and archers are given all the time in the world to aim, so the do.
And as has been said, these seem to be done with a bow for speed and precision, not for penetrating power.

But I think it's still a good demonstration of how fast and accurate the human body can be with a bow, even when it's essentially shot from the hip. Even with perhaps half the rate of shoting and arrows landing 10cm off target, it would still be a lot faster and lethal than what you get to see in movies. (Though in movies, a single arrow tends to be an instant kill every time, so there is that.)

Brother Oni
2015-01-25, 08:28 AM
That said: he does show him penetrating a moving target chain-mail+heavy gambeson with three arrows, it is true it is at quite close distance and thus not optimal for mass battles. In other videos he shows that the mail is riveted and not butted. However it is true that the arrow after the mail+gambeson only go a few centimetres further and wouldn't have gone through the rib-cage or been deadly.

The video doesn't go into enough detail about that test (depth of penetration, head type, etc) and other penetration tests have indicated that mail+gambeson was quite effective from most types of arrow, with only bodkins tending to penetrate.

While I agree he's very skilled and a number of his observations do make sense (western archery was mostly forgotten after the early Modern period and most techniques were re-invented rather than re-discovered when archery was taken up again during the Victorian era), I don't think this video is particularly good at demonstrating them in a non-sensationalist fashion.
The shooting on the move stuff is fine - I'm dubious about the effectiveness of all the flashy jumping demonstrations.



So I agree his bow is not strong enough for real battle, however that doesn't make his display useless in considering bows and archery combat. Especially from horseback where moving closer releasing three arrows (instead of one) and moving away again, would be quite useful. But also more mixed armies of early-mid medieval periods where bowmen could be mixed into the rank of foot troops; here even a few archers could send a deadly rain at the enemy before impact - notice how he shoots the two "skulls" in the eye, just hitting the face is enough that 40-50 pound bows, would be quite deadly and definitely enough to make approaching enemies hesitate.

I can't judge the distance he takes those particular shots, but close range shooting ends up with the same issue of distance as firearms versus knife attackers (a minimum of 21 feet is required, else a melee attacker can stab the shooter before getting double tapped COM). I'm not disputing useful against lightly armoured foes, particularly with horse archers who skirmish more anyway.



Side of the bow the arrow is placed
For fast repeated firing, placing the arrow on the right side (assuming right handed archer) of the bow, allow a faster rate of fire. This is true also of heavier bows, such as English longbows where you also want to fire fast when sending volleys of arrows at longer distances.


This particular one is a target archery technique and I agree right side of the bow is undoubtedly faster. I'm curious about its effect on accuracy though, particularly how it resolves the archer's paradox. Unfortunately, I can't test this with my bow (I have a modern recurve).

Only other comment I'll make is that according to the texts, Saracen archery used a thumb draw rather than the three-fingered Mediterranean draw that Mr Andersen uses and from what I've been told, this is even faster.

Mr. Mask
2015-01-25, 10:30 AM
Another thread made me very curious about a subject we've poked at a little in the past.

Situation: You're in the wild west, with your Rusty Flint-lock Pistol of Sharpness. Your dream is to obtain a double-action revolver and a Henry repeating rifle, something which is tremendously expensive and hardly anyone seems to have.


How do you justify that situation? The flint-lock pistol might be a bit much (or is it?), but the general idea of having an influx of outdated gear and a small quantity of fantastic gear. This harkens to old ideas of fallen empires and great technology of the past, but doesn't quite seem to fit a western setting (perhaps a post-apocalyptic western).

Tobtor
2015-01-25, 10:47 AM
Yora:
"Trick shooting is always trick shooting and not directly applicable to combat conditions."

Definitely. Some of the shots are just show - like the one with the foot. Only relevant in very special circumstances (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0936.html).

"it's most likely that they are the best out of dozens or hundreds of tries"

Generally not true. Maybe for some of them, but most of the stuff he can do pretty regularly (as I understand people who knows him, I have only "met" him, never really talked to him). For example firing 3 arrows in 1.5 seconds. Or fire 8-10 arrows before the first hits the ground, sure 11 is is record., but 9 is also quite impressive. The motorcycle drive-by was a first attempt.
But yes, it is likely that most of the time he only fire 2 arrows in one jump of 0,6 seconds and the third landing after he hits the ground.

"In combat, you are unlikely to have targets that move at completely predictable speeds and directions or remain truly stationary"

If you watch one of his older videos, you will see that he also shoots a disk trown out, while he starts with his back to it (also him shooting at a target area at 69m (around 220 feet), and sure he doesn't hit every time, but well enough for volleys.


Regarding chaotic fights: I have experience him in LARP fights (with poor foam arrowheads) and he generally hits his target and fire quickly (having him fire into your formation you are advancing is not fun).

"Though in movies, a single arrow tends to be an instant kill every time, so there is that"

Agreed on that, most fighters can continue (at least for some time) after a single arrow, especially if it is bodkin arrows.

Brother Oni:
"The video doesn't go into enough detail about that test (depth of penetration, head type, etc) and other penetration tests have indicated that mail+gambeson was quite effective from most types of arrow, with only bodkins tending to penetrate."

I have also seen many test and yes generally true only very "pointy" arrows go through and as I said his like only do so at relative close range. As I also mentioned; they said somewhere (in a comment) that the arrow go through, but only just a few centimetres suggesting it wouldn't be lethal.

"I can't judge the distance he takes those particular shots, but close range shooting ends up with the same issue of distance as firearms versus knife attackers (a minimum of 21 feet is required, else a melee attacker can stab the shooter before getting double tapped COM). I'm not disputing useful against lightly armoured foes, particularly with horse archers who skirmish more anyway."

Why I mentioned mixed troops of Early Medieval armies, if you can go behind a shield wall the distance he hits those at, are sufficient (I think it is a little less than 21 feet, likely around 15-18 feet but then he hits the eye, at 21 or even more he can likely hit more generally in the face region.

"This particular one is a target archery technique and I agree right side of the bow is undoubtedly faster. I'm curious about its effect on accuracy though, particularly how it resolves the archer's paradox. Unfortunately, I can't test this with my bow (I have a modern recurve)."

His accuracy doesn't suffer that much, notice him moving sideways and hitting the knifeblade (and no it not 1:100, but maybe not every time either). Also the incoming arrows, the thrown targets etc.

"Only other comment I'll make is that according to the texts, Saracen archery used a thumb draw rather than the three-fingered Mediterranean draw that Mr Andersen uses and from what I've been told, this is even faster. "

I am not quite sure wich method he uses in the video, I have seen different comments on that.

Knaight
2015-01-25, 03:43 PM
Another thread made me very curious about a subject we've poked at a little in the past.

Situation: You're in the wild west, with your Rusty Flint-lock Pistol of Sharpness. Your dream is to obtain a double-action revolver and a Henry repeating rifle, something which is tremendously expensive and hardly anyone seems to have.


How do you justify that situation? The flint-lock pistol might be a bit much (or is it?), but the general idea of having an influx of outdated gear and a small quantity of fantastic gear. This harkens to old ideas of fallen empires and great technology of the past, but doesn't quite seem to fit a western setting (perhaps a post-apocalyptic western).

The flint lock is a bit much, there's no fallen empire with better guns, etc. Plus, a lot of the west was connected to the east by rail, and with rail things often traveled fairly quickly. With that said, there is the option wherein there's a small quantity of fantastic gear, because it's very new. Give it a few years and it will be prevalent, bur right now that rifle is special.

Brother Oni
2015-01-25, 04:19 PM
Situation: You're in the wild west, with your Rusty Flint-lock Pistol of Sharpness. Your dream is to obtain a double-action revolver and a Henry repeating rifle, something which is tremendously expensive and hardly anyone seems to have.


If the flintlock is the standard, I'd also include ammunition issues since there's still the invention of mercury fulminate/percussion caps, integrated cartridge ammunition then metallic cartridges for both revolver and rifle.



I have also seen many test and yes generally true only very "pointy" arrows go through and as I said his like only do so at relative close range. As I also mentioned; they said somewhere (in a comment) that the arrow go through, but only just a few centimetres suggesting it wouldn't be lethal.

I'd be curious to see what sort of penetration his shots get on normal ballistic gel or similar.


I am not quite sure wich method he uses in the video, I have seen different comments on that.

If you watch his draw hand carefully, you can see. On closer examination, it looks like he used a mixture of a three finger draw and possibly a pinch draw when he's holding arrows in his draw hand. This latter method would suggest his draw weight is on the weaker side since he doesn't appear to have forearms the size of a gorilla. :smalltongue:

I also dispute the video's claim that modern target archery only uses one eye - take a look at any Olympic archer and they use both eyes (this was what I was taught too).

I really wish the video resolution was sufficient to see the draw weight on the scale.

rs2excelsior
2015-01-25, 06:00 PM
Another thread made me very curious about a subject we've poked at a little in the past.

Situation: You're in the wild west, with your Rusty Flint-lock Pistol of Sharpness. Your dream is to obtain a double-action revolver and a Henry repeating rifle, something which is tremendously expensive and hardly anyone seems to have.


How do you justify that situation? The flint-lock pistol might be a bit much (or is it?), but the general idea of having an influx of outdated gear and a small quantity of fantastic gear. This harkens to old ideas of fallen empires and great technology of the past, but doesn't quite seem to fit a western setting (perhaps a post-apocalyptic western).

The flintlock pistol doesn't really fit in, but this could be set immediately post-Civil War, and the weapon could be a cap-and-ball single action revolver instead. Metallic cartridges existed by then, but hadn't come into extremely widespread use, especially in civilian markets, I'd think. A Henry rifle or cartridge-fed double-action revolver would still have significantly better performance than the cap-and-ball pistol, enough to make the desire to get one worthwhile.

Mr. Mask
2015-01-25, 06:31 PM
I wasn't asking how it is. I'm asking how it could get to be how I described.

Gnoman
2015-01-25, 10:00 PM
Almost impossible. Converting a flintlock to cap-and-ball is absurdly cheap, and takes about half an hour.

GraaEminense
2015-01-26, 03:37 AM
I wasn't asking how it is. I'm asking how it could get to be how I described.
Not sure you can, outside of an apocalypse of some sort. You need the loss of skill (apocalypse) or the loss of communication to those with the skill (railroads East disappear and demon ghost-bison haunt the trails) for this to happen. If you can´t get the good stuff from those who make it because of distance or because they´re all zombies now, local craftsmen will step up to provide an alternative -which will be inferior, at least in the beginning.

The Afghan jezail (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jezail) is an interesting if not perfect example, it was arguably superior to the British muskets it first competed with and it often used traded or captured British guns for parts, but it remained in (limited) use until the 1980s (when the US and USSR dumped enough AKs and Type-56s in the country to supersede it) because it could be built and repaired locally.

Galloglaich
2015-01-26, 09:33 AM
Regarding the viral archery video of that Lars guy, he's fast, fun to watch etc., I don't think he could pierce historical type mail with that bow he was using, I don't think he was using a very powerful bow, and I do think the video represents the best of many attempts for some of the more wild stunts (shooting an arrow out of the air etc.)

I also don't think he invented most of that stuff, there are other more academic / martial arts oriented researchers who have been doing this for a while

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2yorHswhzrU#t=88

But what I do think that Lars (?) shows us is the power of someone learning to shoot a bow for fun, obsessively, in the same manner that a kid learns to ride a skateboard. This is not how most military training is done today, but it is a powerful method, and I think it does reflect how warriors from pre-industrial eras who carried a bow around with them habitually from childhood learned it(and other important skills like horseback riding).. It gives us an idea how far that process can take you.

In the medieval world, most of the training of militias, knights, and soldiers seems to have been done based on a kind of sport, fencing tournaments, shooting tournaments, shooting the popinjay, jousts, neighborhood stick-fights, fights at the barriers, and so on. It seems rather haphazard but the results in terms of the apparent skill of the fighters were often spectacular. Maybe this is why.

G

Tobtor
2015-01-26, 02:50 PM
"I also dispute the video's claim that modern target archery only uses one eye - take a look at any Olympic archer and they use both eyes (this was what I was taught too)."

I do not think he claims they always do, he is after all in a shooting club together with modern archers; I think he says that modern archery sometimes uses on-eye shooting, which is in fact true (with the modern bow as an example).

"Regarding the viral archery video of that Lars guy, he's fast, fun to watch etc., I don't think he could pierce historical type mail with that bow he was using, I don't think he was using a very powerful bow, and I do think the video represents the best of many attempts for some of the more wild stunts (shooting an arrow out of the air etc.)"

Two thing: 'that bow he was using' is slightly wrong, you will notice him using different kinds of bows (at least three). True the really fast-shooting is with a quite small bow (I believe it should be around 30-35 pounds), while other are stronger (the ones used in the 69m distance and the mail piercing part). The second thing; other factors affect the penetration, like arrow weight. I saw a long debate (unfortunately in Danish) with test of various arrow weight give very different impacts; a 45pound bow dealing the same impact energy as a 60 pound bow with a (20-30%) lighter arrow. The thing is then a 45 pound bow will not shoot that heavy arrow very far, thus it only works at close range (as in the mail clip).

The film you link to is shown in the background as one of the people Lars shoots against (I think, its a bit blurry). I agree the film you refer to is obviously better made (production-wise, apparently Lars prefers the simple look, even when someone offered to do it slightly more prof). However I do not know if that Hungarian guy is more academic, the film doesn't really say. He uses left-side shooting and would likely shoot faster if didn't (without loosing power).

"In the medieval world, most of the training of militias, knights, and soldiers seems to have been done based on a kind of sport, fencing tournaments, shooting tournaments, shooting the popinjay, jousts, neighborhood stick-fights, fights at the barriers, and so on. It seems rather haphazard but the results in terms of the apparent skill of the fighters were often spectacular. Maybe this is why."

I agree on this part, and some of the tricks Lars does, are those exact kinds of trick they used (in this case mostly Saracen, but also Europeans, native americans, and so on). I know Lars have been annoyed in how some of these feats have been rejected as "impossible" by historeans and that was what him try to replicate them.

He now needs to hit butterflies while they fly, I have seen suggested in an academic paper that this was a way of training for medieval archers (and sword fighters), this would make sense: small target with unpredictable movement.

On a more general note; it is true English Longbows (and other medieval bows) had very high draw weights (above 100 pounds, some considerably higher), but in armies with less armour than high or late medieval Europe, less can do quite well. My primary interest area is prehistoric, and as a comparison stone age hunters hunted aurochs (huge cattle things) with 50-60 pound bows (and flint arrow heads). So I am reasonably sure that 50 pounds is enough to deal lethal damage to an unamoured opponent.

Galloglaich
2015-01-26, 03:10 PM
I agree the film you refer to is obviously better made (production-wise, apparently Lars prefers the simple look, even when someone offered to do it slightly more prof). However I do not know if that Hungarian guy is more academic, the film doesn't really say. He uses left-side shooting and would likely shoot faster if didn't (without loosing power).

Ah, yeah, he is. He's not a LARPer anyway.

http://translate.google.co.in/translate?hl=en&sl=hu&u=http://hu.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kassai_Lajos&prev=search



On a more general note; it is true English Longbows (and other medieval bows) had very high draw weights (above 100 pounds, some considerably higher), but in armies with less armour than high or late medieval Europe, less can do quite well. My primary interest area is prehistoric, and as a comparison stone age hunters hunted aurochs (huge cattle things) with 50-60 pound bows (and flint arrow heads). So I am reasonably sure that 50 pounds is enough to deal lethal damage to an unamoured opponent.

Sure, people hunt deer and wild pigs and even bears with bows about that powerful. But if one army has bows with 120 lbs draw (or composite bows of 90 lbs draw) and the other has bows with 50 lbs draw, the former can (depending on the terrain) park itself out of range 300 meters away and just murder the latter at their leisure, armor or no.

The more powerful type of longbows, at least in the 80-90 lbs range, seem to have existed going back to the Neolithic, incidentally. I guess you probably knew that if you are studying that era.

G

Spiryt
2015-01-26, 04:05 PM
But if one army has bows with 120 lbs draw (or composite bows of 90 lbs draw) and the other has bows with 50 lbs draw, the former can (depending on the terrain) park itself out of range 300 meters away and just murder the latter at their leisure, armor or no.



To be fair, range is mainly product of velocity and longbows/selfbows can attain similar ones no matter of draw weight, with proportionally lighter arrows.

Obviously there will be a lot of different factors, heavier arrows will tend to fly steadier, other things equal, at those longer ranges.

But all in all, this few dozen yards of difference can really be covered quickly by men.

So while heavier bow will, with other factors same, of course be better, as long as archers can shoot them comfortably, I don't think it can in any way equal 'leisure' win. It will be a factor, sure, but can be easily mitigated by other things, like lighter weight guys being better archers, for starters.




As far as this archer video that keeps coming back once in a while, I don't think what's the point TBH.


It shows that talented enough guy (If wouldn't expect such results after ten years to say at least :smalltongue:), training hard and long enough can perform utterly insane tricks with a bow.

Doesn't really change the fact that those are indeed tricks, like all of those in any field, of somehow limited relevancy outside their context.

Galloglaich
2015-01-26, 04:35 PM
To be fair, range is mainly product of velocity and longbows/selfbows can attain similar ones no matter of draw weight, with proportionally lighter arrows.

Obviously there will be a lot of different factors, heavier arrows will tend to fly steadier, other things equal, at those longer ranges.

But all in all, this few dozen yards of difference can really be covered quickly by men.



Hmmmm.... well, if that is the case, I wonder why all the records I've seen for distance with bows are quite a bit longer for the stronger bows.

http://www.theenglishwarbowsociety.com/records2013_EN.html

I guess it would depend on how fast you can run and how many men were involved in the battle, but if you had a few hundred people on one side of the field, with bows that had a range of 350 meters, facing another group of men with bows that have a maximum range of 150 meters... especially if the group with the better bows keeps moving away to keep the distance, the one with the shorter range bows is in a bad place.

I mean this is what the Mongols, Huns, Ottomans etc. did in numerous battles over centuries of time.

G

Mr. Mask
2015-01-26, 04:56 PM
How well does shooting and backing off work?

You can try taking a couple of steps back as you nock the next arrow.

You could try splitting up your archers to confuse the enemy, and possibly expose one of their divisions to flanking fire (or force them to turtle up and slow down), potentially splitting up until the archers are single men picking off the enemy from any angle they aren't pursuing (or even setting ambushes for them).

If you're light infantry against heavy, or mounted archers against unmounted, or light cavalry against heavy cavalry, then you can repeatedly run away and fire. Specifcally with mounted archers, if your cavalry is as fast as theirs, then you can fire as you maintain the distance.

If you have prepared positions, you can fall back to another defensive position when the first one is being taken.

Spiryt
2015-01-26, 05:24 PM
Hmmmm.... well, if that is the case, I wonder why all the records I've seen for distance with bows are quite a bit longer for the stronger bows.

http://www.theenglishwarbowsociety.com/records2013_EN.html


This is useful data, but very limited one.

Especially that those lighter bows are generally shot by ladies, juniors, and generally not quite as 'main dish' as heavy ones, and arrows used are indeed optimized for heavy ones.

Can't think of anything 50 pounds right now, but here's
80 pound (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWrBfJyBCwQ&list=LLVugGZq_WVqGrzCVEph7Z8g&index=168).


His 56 g arrow is bit heavier than their Standard Arrow - and with 240 yards, he had all Society ~80 pounds records pretty comfortably beaten, with bow drawing at 28 inches only, as well.

And this is rather heavy arrow for 80#, at 11 grains per pound. True flight shooting would require lighter ones.

http://www.brown.edu/Departments/Engineering/Labs/Nanomicro/papers/2009_World_%20Regular_Flight_Records_Archery.pdf


Here you have some official records.

As you can see 50# 'English Longbow' can attain 290 m. Lesser than 'unlimited' one, but not really by that much.

Some other 50# 'primitive self' apparently managed over 300.

World record with modern-tech, velocity optimized recurves are also set with relatively light bows, actually, as you can see. Same principle.



I guess it would depend on how fast you can run and how many men were involved in the battle, but if you had a few hundred people on one side of the field, with bows that had a range of 350 meters, facing another group of men with bows that have a maximum range of 150 meters... especially if the group with the better bows keeps moving away to keep the distance, the one with the shorter range bows is in a bad place.

Well, in vast majority of battles one cannot just freely move away though, doesn't work well even in Total Wars. :smallbiggrin:

And moving forward to get closer is quite a bit easier than actually ceasing to shoot and retreat.

And, as mentioned, if one side can shoot at 350 meters, and one at mere 150, then the latter doesn't really just have lighter bows, those bows just have to be crap compared to those extremely good ones. Or they are bad archers. Or both.



I mean this is what the Mongols, Huns, Ottomans etc. did in numerous battles over centuries of time.
G

To be fair, I seem to recall that Ottoman source from 15th century(?) indeed recommend raining arrows from as close as possible, actually. I will try to dig it up.

However it actually usually used, those guys in any case were horse archers, and that indeed changes dynamics quite a bit, making 'kiting' more viable.

And with their composite bows, even with 60 # ones, maximal range would anyway be far greater than practical one, so no advantage here for heavier bows.



How well does shooting and backing off work?

Depends hugely, on circumstances. Like most things of course.

If archers shooting and backing off are smaller group doing some partisan fighting/harassing, then theoretically they can indeed pepper enemies and hop away as long as they can. Or as long as endurance (of horses) number of arrows, etc. allows.

In pitched battle with formations, battlefield to hold, your own wagon etc. capabilities are way more limited.

Galloglaich
2015-01-26, 05:25 PM
How well does shooting and backing off work?

You can try taking a couple of steps back as you nock the next arrow.

You could try splitting up your archers to confuse the enemy, and possibly expose one of their divisions to flanking fire (or force them to turtle up and slow down), potentially splitting up until the archers are single men picking off the enemy from any angle they aren't pursuing (or even setting ambushes for them).

If you're light infantry against heavy, or mounted archers against unmounted, or light cavalry against heavy cavalry, then you can repeatedly run away and fire. Specifcally with mounted archers, if your cavalry is as fast as theirs, then you can fire as you maintain the distance.

If you have prepared positions, you can fall back to another defensive position when the first one is being taken.

I think it's fairly obvious on horseback, they even had the parthian shot and so on. On foot, I think if they were somewhat trained or experienced in war, it would probably be a matter of one group shooting while the other group falls back, and leaprfrogging like that.

If untrained just everybody just moving back and shooting ad-hoc.

G

Mr. Mask
2015-01-26, 05:29 PM
Blast, I forgot leapfrogging. Good way to suppress and slow the enemy so they won't catch up.

Galloglaich
2015-01-26, 07:03 PM
Seriously dude? You don't think a much more powerful bow will shoot an arrow further? Sometimes it seems like night is always day around here and vice versa.


This is useful data, but very limited one.

They have much more detailed records on that site for all the 'shoots' they have done going back several years. You are welcome to look through them.




Especially that those lighter bows are generally shot by ladies, juniors, and generally not quite as 'main dish' as heavy ones, and arrows used are indeed optimized for heavy ones.

Actually they shoot heavy, medium and light arrows in there - the flight arrows are the light ones (more on that in a second)



His 56 g arrow is bit heavier than their Standard Arrow - and with 240 yards, he had all Society ~80 pounds records pretty comfortably beaten, with bow drawing at 28 inches only, as well.

And this is rather heavy arrow for 80#, at 11 grains per pound. True flight shooting would require lighter ones.

(snip)
Here you have some official records.

As you can see 50# 'English Longbow' can attain 290 m. Lesser than 'unlimited' one, but not really by that much.

Some other 50# 'primitive self' apparently managed over 300.

Even if that is the case (and they for example are using traditional type arrows in that record), the record on the Warbow site for flight arrows is 438 yards , 370 for the 'Mary Rose' type, so that is still a huge advantage.




And, as mentioned, if one side can shoot at 350 meters, and one at mere 150, then the latter doesn't really just have lighter bows, those bows just have to be crap compared to those extremely good ones. Or they are bad archers. Or both.

I don't think you have actually shown any evidence of that. All other things being equal, the more powerful bows will shoot much further than the lighter bows. Otherwise one wonders why all the Steppe nomads bothered to make such powerful bows (http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Ottoman+bows--an+assessment+of+draw+weight,+performance+and+tact ical...-a0169923798) (especially and specifically for distance shooting). All their arrows tended to be light arrows (about 40 grams for standard 'war' arrows vs. 80 grams for the typical 'standard' longbow arrow).



To be fair, I seem to recall that Ottoman source from 15th century(?) indeed recommend raining arrows from as close as possible, actually. I will try to dig it up.

Seriously? Obviously they did both. When faced with an enemy who was too dangerous to close with, and that they had a range advantage over, the Steppe Nomads would shoot flight arrows from a looong distance. Like at the Battle of Mohi. Once the enemy formations had broken up, they had lost morale, or if they were just inferior close in, they would shoot at point blank range. All the Steppe Nomads followed pretty much that same pattern. They even used two different bows, one for rapid shooting and one for long range (but none as weak as that bow Lars was using in the video)



And with their composite bows, even with 60 # ones, maximal range would anyway be far greater than practical one, so no advantage here for heavier bows.

Then why did they use them for distance shooting?



G

Mr. Mask
2015-01-26, 07:45 PM
Given the same relative ammo weight, a stronger bow means more range.

fusilier
2015-01-26, 11:06 PM
Another thread made me very curious about a subject we've poked at a little in the past.

Situation: You're in the wild west, with your Rusty Flint-lock Pistol of Sharpness. Your dream is to obtain a double-action revolver and a Henry repeating rifle, something which is tremendously expensive and hardly anyone seems to have.


How do you justify that situation? The flint-lock pistol might be a bit much (or is it?), but the general idea of having an influx of outdated gear and a small quantity of fantastic gear. This harkens to old ideas of fallen empires and great technology of the past, but doesn't quite seem to fit a western setting (perhaps a post-apocalyptic western).

I've seen Flintlock American "plains rifles" that were made in the 1860s. Certain people (e.g. mountain men) were distrustful of the percussion caps: they preferred flintlocks, as they knew how to maintain them, and they could collect and knap the flints themselves. So there was a logistical argument to be made (they didn't need manufactured percussion caps). They were duly chastised and mocked in their opinions by others at the time. Nevertheless not only were flintlocks available, they were still being produced!

Most militaries did convert flintlock muskets to percussion, but not all of them, and some soldiers in the American Civil War were equipped with flintlocks (although it was pretty rare).

Henry rifles were introduced to the market in 1860. At that time they were produced in very small numbers: it was a relatively new idea, and it wasn't clear that it would be successful. Also, brass cartridges were new and rare too, so if you had the rifle securing the ammunition could be difficult. Even a historical campaign set before the Civil War could create similar conditions to what you describe.

Double action revolvers were more of a European thing, American manufacturers during the "Old West" period preferred single action revolvers. Although pepperbox pistols were almost always double action, and they predate the colt revolver. So scarcity isn't necessarily a matter of lacking technology to make something.

A cool example of a scarce weapon is the LeMat Revolver:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LeMat_Revolver

A nine(!) shot .42 caliber revolver -- the cylinders revolved around a 20 gauge shotgun barrel, giving a total of 10 shots to the weapon. It basically combined the aspects of an old, large, single-shot horse pistol with a modern revolver. Very few were made (undoubtedly there are more modern reproductions than originals). They've entered into lore because of the unusual number of shots, with heroes or villains in cliched westerns surprised by a gun with more than 6-shots! Although there are some claims they really weren't very good pistols.

Mr. Mask
2015-01-27, 02:55 AM
Thanks fusilier! History tends to be a lot less uniform than it is made to seem, with surprising examples as you described.



Different question. Let's say someone with a very large, protruding belly (with the rest of his body normally sized) wanted to armour themselves in plate. How would you go about it? I was thinking having a chest piece a few sizes larger than the rest of the armour, so hie belly wouldn't be apparent. What I also wonder, though, is how thick the padding over his belly would be compared to the padding over the rest of him. If it's as thick as the rest of the padding, wouldn't he feel squashed?

Tobtor
2015-01-27, 06:41 AM
"Ah, yeah, he is. He's not a LARPer anyway.

http://translate.google.co.in/transl...os&prev=search"

Two things; I can still not see where the academic part comes in - maybe it is lost in translation? I can see he has been making bow for many years and then some results of his shooting etc.

Second: being a LARPer does not mean you cannot be an academic. Many LARP'ers are historians etc. and LArs have discussed a great deal bows on in danish foras before doing youtube videos (I know from comments in the Danish milieu around LARP and re-enactment). I have been told that Lars have spend a lot of time the last 5 years looking at manuscripts and articles as well as discussed with archery- and historical experts.

"Sure, people hunt deer and wild pigs and even bears with bows about that powerful."

An aurochs has somewhat ticker hide than those (to say the least, Bison or Buffaloes are the closest parallel), that was the reason I mentioned aurochs and not boars, red deer or elk/moose etc.

"But if one army has bows with 120 lbs draw (or composite bows of 90 lbs draw) and the other has bows with 50 lbs draw, the former can (depending on the terrain) park itself out of range 300 meters away and just murder the latter at their leisure, armor or no."

Ohh, I definitely agree that higher end bows has an advantage, especially on a large battlefield (and also in many smaller ones and other situations, you could also halfdraw and still penetrate armour for some distance).

The point was; it does not NEED to be above 90 pound to kill a human (what is sometimes thought, see some of the criticism against his shooting).

The thing is; sure on large battlefield heavy bows are supreme, but in many cases you have fighting going on on a smaller scale or in environment where range isn't as important (towns etc). Here rate of fire might become a more important issue.
Lets take an example I know you are familiar with (from previous posts): Lets assume some Danish king wants to attack his Swedish neighbours sometime from 11th- to mid. 14th century (in this time frame I would assume the Swedish army wasn't equipped with plate etc, and in the early part mail would be rare). Is there any advantage of shooting 350m over 150-200m? I have been to the part of Sweden his army had to cross, and I didn't see many spots with 350m open space for placing your armies at (mainly if you could convince the enemy to stand on the other side of some of the lakes). Mostly ranges would be 50-150m small fields or a bit of open land near roads, or however far you can see in the forest. So in this case I would question the need to have a 120 pound bow over an 80 pound one, it has a 50% higher draw but I think that in the ranges relevant both will be enough to pierce your opponent. Here rate of fire is more relevant.


"The more powerful type of longbows, at least in the 80-90 lbs range, seem to have existed going back to the Neolithic, incidentally. I guess you probably knew that if you are studying that era."

Hmmm not any I am aware of: any good links to such bows?

The reconstruction I see usually ranges from 40-55 and even if you allowed for slightly higher (55-65) that would be somewhat below that. I have mostly references in Danish, Swedish and Norwegian and to north Eurpoean examples (and our lovely Danish bogs and shallow coast make sure we are well represented on any map for early exmples of bows). So looked at the net, and English reference confirmed my impression (even in the low end of weights ranging between 40-45 pounds):

http://www1.somerset.gov.uk/archives/hes/downloads/HES_150_Years_Chapter_4.pdf

https://www.academia.edu/4565338/Meso_Neolithic_bowhunting._Experimental_archaeolog y

The second article has a reference to etnographic elefanthunters with 100pound bow though. But that a quite particular hunting target, so if it is possible to extrapolate from that is doubtfull.

Spiryt
2015-01-27, 07:59 AM
Seriously dude? You don't think a much more powerful bow will shoot an arrow further? Sometimes it seems like night is always day around here and vice versa.


It often, will, sometimes not, it's pretty complicated manner.

Like mentioned, velocity and it's conservation here is by far most important, not any total energy.

Though most important thing is probably somehow complex and not very well understood 'tuning' with the bow - so arrow needs to leave bow with minimal shaking, flexing and other deviations, otherwise it will lose even greatest velocity too quickly.

I've never objected it, anyway, just the notion that much more powerful bows will be give huge advantage in range simply isn't correct.




They have much more detailed records on that site for all the 'shoots' they have done going back several years. You are welcome to look through them.


I have looked trough it many times in the past, and like I said, their records aren't very helpful for lighter bows.



Actually they shoot heavy, medium and light arrows in there - the flight arrows are the light ones (more on that in a second)


Yes, and those arrows can be summed as such for those 120+ pounds hefty bows.

For 80 pounds bow 52g is pretty damn heavy, so no chance for far shots.




Even if that is the case (and they for example are using traditional type arrows in that record), the record on the Warbow site for flight arrows is 438 yards , 370 for the 'Mary Rose' type, so that is still a huge advantage.

438 yards is for laminate of bamboo, iroko and ipe and it indeed will be way faster with light arrows than selfbows. Not relevant to any historical archery though.

If they had 60 pounds b/i/i



I don't think you have actually shown any evidence of that. All other things being equal, the more powerful bows will shoot much further than the lighter bows. Otherwise one wonders why all the Steppe nomads bothered to make such powerful bows (http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Ottoman+bows--an+assessment+of+draw+weight,+performance+and+tact ical...-a0169923798) (especially and specifically for distance shooting). All their arrows tended to be light arrows (about 40 grams for standard 'war' arrows vs. 80 grams for the typical 'standard' longbow arrow).

Then why did they use them for distance shooting?


Because flight optimized composites were vastly more efficient with lighter arrows than 'war' bows, not to mentioned any selfbows.

So adding few dozens of pounds in draw weight would indeed add some feet/second, and in result, more meters.

But at this point we would be indeed talking about differences like between 700 m and 800 m - so purely about sport - to shoot as far as possible.

As you can see in Karpowicz bow tests, for example, once arrows get very light, velocity gains with increased poundage are getting very, very slow.

With longbows etc. it's way more visible.

Galloglaich
2015-01-27, 09:54 AM
I'm sorry Spiryt, you know I respect your knowledge and intelligence, but this is horse-hockey. All things being equal, a more powerful bow is going to shoot an arrow farther. The context of the original comment was two primitive cultures which lacked armor, one with powerful bows and one with weaker ones. The group with the powerful bows would have a distinct military advantage (again all things being equal), unless they were in very dense forested terrain or something like that.

This is why archery cultures from England to Hungary to Mongolia used quite powerful bows, and specifically used the stronger ones for long range military shooting. As they point out in that article on Ottoman archery which I linked. Longbow flight arrows may be what you consider heavy, but the military grade arrows used by the Steppe nomads, almost always in the 40 gram range for standard military arrows and 20 grams for flight arrows, were still used with powerful bows. As the article I linked noted, the average for Turkish bows was the same as what it appears to be for late era English Longbows, i.e. about 110-120 lbs draw.

Shooting for distance only with space-age ultra-low drag materials (which don't have much if any military value anyway) is a completely different context and irrelevant to the conversation, since the topic was about historical archery for military purposes.

Also, 80 lbs is within the lower range of an actual military bow historically, the weapon Lars is using is closer to 30 lbs. Somehow in this debate the power of the 'weak' bow keeps climbing upward.


438 yards is for laminate of bamboo, iroko and ipe and it indeed will be way faster with light arrows than selfbows. =

It's hard not to see this as being intentionally obtuse, did you miss the second half of that sentence "370 yards for Mary Rose" (which is still a significant advantage over alleged 300 yards even with modern materials)

G

Spiryt
2015-01-27, 11:55 AM
I'm sorry Spiryt, you know I respect your knowledge and intelligence, but this is horse-hockey. All things being equal, a more powerful bow is going to shoot an arrow farther.


It's just not true though.

If 'all other things' equal mean, like 15 gram arrow, it's extremely possible that 150 pound longbow won't shoot it significantly further than say, 70 pound one.

If they would try to shoot 80 gr arrow instead, 150 pound longbow would manage fine, while 70 pound would struggle hard indeed.

This is the whole point, I think you understood it badly.


The group with the powerful bows would have a distinct military advantage (again all things being equal), unless they were in very dense forested terrain or something like that.

Never denied 'military advantage' in any way!

Just pointing out that clear, 'unattainable for other side' reach isn't just going to be one of them.




This is why archery cultures from England to Hungary to Mongolia used quite powerful bows, and specifically used the stronger ones for long range military shooting. As they point out in that article on Ottoman archery which I linked. Longbow flight arrows may be what you consider heavy, but the military grade arrows used by the Steppe nomads, almost always in the 40 gram range for standard military arrows and 20 grams for flight arrows, were still used with powerful bows. As the article I linked noted, the average for Turkish bows was the same as what it appears to be for late era English Longbows, i.e. about 110-120 lbs draw.

But I already explained it too - that lower draw weight 'grade' ~60 pound Turkish bow is anyway capable of sending that 20 g arrow at range above general practical military one.

Such is specific of those bows, that they are indeed way faster and rangier with light arrows.

Usage of more powerful bows even with very same arrows would give more punch and flatter trajectory, all useful things.

Though I really doubt they wouldn't be matching them properly in any way - proportionally heavier arrow for heavier bow always makes good sense, even if one decides to use arrows that are light in absolute sense.



Shooting for distance only with space-age ultra-low drag materials (which don't have much if any military value anyway) is a completely different context and irrelevant to the conversation, since the topic was about historical archery for military purposes.

I didn't mention any 'space age technology' though... :smallconfused:

Turkish shots for great distance that are so famous were indeed a sport, irrelevant to military context, but they loved doing it very much indeed. Going for great lengths to supposedly attain something like that 900m in your article.





It's hard not to see this as being intentionally obtuse, did you miss the second half of that sentence "370 yards for Mary Rose" (which is still a significant advantage over alleged 300 yards even with modern materials)


There's no 'modern materials', dunno where do you take it from.

There's 310 meters (which is 340 yards) from 50 pound bow.

Which is entirely comparable distance with those 370 yards, especially that we don't know much details, like wind, pressure etc. and they can make a lot of difference at such distances.

Which leads us to:



Also, 80 lbs is within the lower range of an actual military bow historically, the weapon Lars is using is closer to 30 lbs. Somehow in this debate the power of the 'weak' bow keeps climbing upward.


I wasn't really commenting on this Lars video or it's 'viability' just commenting on your post about 150 and 50 pound longbows.

You made it read as if 3x heavier longbow would have more than 2 times maximal range of weaker one, which is simply not true.

In fact, they will have relatively similar range with proper arrows, much 3 times heavier bow likely indeed having only something like 10% edge with good release.

Sometimes way more, sometimes actually less, it depends on particular bow,arrow and archer way more than on a draw weight.

And that's what I was trying to point out.

If we want to relate it somehow to Lars, then since his bows obviously seem pretty damn dynamic, he likely could send them at some 250 yards at least, even if his bow is only 30.

It could be seen even in this video, that those arrows are pretty fast - in those longer range shooting.

Though it's impossible to tell for sure without knowing what he exactly uses, of course. Looks like some laminated modern material(?) reflexive bow.

Would be fun if he tried to try this with maximal range.

Since there are plenty legends, stories and all about archer 'sending 5 arrows fly before first one hits the ground' etc.

Tobtor
2015-01-27, 01:59 PM
Since there are plenty legends, stories and all about archer 'sending 5 arrows fly before first one hits the ground' etc.

There is legends saying native americans shot 8 arrows (and Hiawatha 10) before the first one the first hit the ground. But if you shoot fast enough this is doable with a small bow:

Lars shooting 11 arrows into the sky (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKY9FpRGyJI)

Now for distance again this dosn't really count as they are going straight up (more or less).

I think what drives him is all those historians who say the old legends/stories cant be true... well maybe they are. If an old amateur can do it why not a great chieftan/hero.

Galloglaich
2015-01-27, 02:46 PM
What would really impress me is if he could shoot an arrow* from that bow 350 meters but I'm not going to hold my breath.

* by which I mean, an arrow which could actually cause some real harm to a target, not something which weighs 10 grams

G

chainer1216
2015-01-28, 06:19 AM
I have a question!

In my DND group we've acquired a largish keep and I'm in charge of all the fun logistics, including setting up our defenses, magical and mundane, and I was wondering, what is the minimum number of personnel needed for a cavalry charge to be effective/actually considered a cavalry unit.

Storm Bringer
2015-01-28, 07:43 AM
one.
:smallbiggrin::smallbiggrin:

on a serious note, it really depends on the opposition, terrain, and availably of horsemen. the threat of a dozen or so horsemen can affect a infantry unit behaviour, even if they never attack it (by forcing it into a dense anti cavalry formation, even if it's under fire).

for example, a roman legion of over 5,000 had only 300 horsemen as part of the legion (Mostly for courier work)

snowblizz
2015-01-28, 07:52 AM
Different question. Let's say someone with a very large, protruding belly (with the rest of his body normally sized) wanted to armour themselves in plate. How would you go about it? I was thinking having a chest piece a few sizes larger than the rest of the armour, so hie belly wouldn't be apparent. What I also wonder, though, is how thick the padding over his belly would be compared to the padding over the rest of him. If it's as thick as the rest of the padding, wouldn't he feel squashed?
This is what Henry 8 looked like, ok he was a tall guy, but my understanding that later on, from when this armour is he was also decidedly "big".
http://i238.photobucket.com/albums/ff120/ang_h_ri/Trips/New%20York%20City/Met%20Museum/IMG_1835.jpg (http://s238.photobucket.com/user/ang_h_ri/media/Trips/New%20York%20City/Met%20Museum/IMG_1835.jpg.html)

Also the Peascod plate shape kinda facilitates the belly. Since a lot of people in plate would have this "problem" there are undoubtedly solutions.

Basically you'd have armour fitted so the belly fits, it's not going to look entirely like everyone else's. Why wouldn't the belly be apparent? Guy would probably be proud of it...

goto124
2015-01-28, 08:42 AM
I feel the armor makes the belly not so apparent, but that's probably a side effect and not something on purpose (and fatness didn't carry the modern negative connotations, but bring it to the non-miltary thread please). More important considerations after all, such as having that armor fit!

Also, it was a lot harder to get fat back in those days I think? If you are trained in combat, you probably can't be THAT fat, perhaps the fatness that comes with being well-fed. Would be fat by medieval standards probably.

How often was armor for fatness made? Are they custom-made to fit the wearer, since whoever wore them would be well-off?

Galloglaich
2015-01-28, 10:04 AM
I feel the armor makes the belly not so apparent, but that's probably a side effect and not something on purpose (and fatness didn't carry the modern negative connotations, but bring it to the non-miltary thread please). More important considerations after all, such as having that armor fit!

Also, it was a lot harder to get fat back in those days I think? If you are trained in combat, you probably can't be THAT fat, perhaps the fatness that comes with being well-fed. Would be fat by medieval standards probably.

How often was armor for fatness made? Are they custom-made to fit the wearer, since whoever wore them would be well-off?

Actually fatness did carry the modern negative connotations, even more so.

There was a lot of social opprobrium against being fat in the medieval world (http://www.femininebeauty.info/f/stunkard.obesity.stigma.pdf), particularly for nobles or burghers (the people who were mostly likely to own and wear plate armor). People considered gluttony a vice, one of the seven deadly sins in fact, and looked down on it socially. People weren't nearly as sedentary as they are today, since to get anywhere you had to walk or ride a horse usually, (though you could also ride a cart or a carriage).

If you look at films of crowds even as recently as the 1960's, you'll see far fewer obese people than you do today, in fact they are very rare, whereas today it's very common (http://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/adult.html). It's not because they didn't have enough nutrition in the 1960's (or the 15th Century). The exact reasons why it has gotten so out of control today veer into off-topic subjects for this thread.

That said being overweight wasn't unheard of in medieval times and they certainly had enough food to get fat.

This Augsburg burgher on watch duty for example (16th Century) is pretty fat, comparable to Henry VIII

http://s3.amazonaws.com/appendixjournal-images/images/attachments/000/001/486/large/MS_46.jpg

But it's unusual to see armor for someone much fatter than that (I think I have seen a few examples though, mostly princely armor)

If you were really fat, you probably aren't going to go through the expense to get full harness (plate armor 'suit') made in most cases, unless you are a king or a prince and need it for ceremonial reasons, because really obese people aren't going to go to war. You might have to fight in a civilian context, self defense in a robbery or a raid or something, but for that other forms of armor are probably more likely. As mentioned already a lot of peascod cuirasses can accommodate a pot belly. Fighting is one thing if you are fat, but moving around in armor, marching, living in the field and so on is exhausting cardiovascular exercise that isn't easy to do if you are obese, so people in the militias or armies didn't get super fat for the exact same reasons we don't allow members of our active duty military to get fat.

G

Spiryt
2015-01-28, 10:14 AM
I feel the armor makes the belly not so apparent, but that's probably a side effect and not something on purpose (and fatness didn't carry the modern negative connotations, but bring it to the non-miltary thread please). More important considerations after all, such as having that armor fit!

Fatness might not have 'modern' connotations, but anyone could see it made person less mobile and able, that it was visibly connected with no activity and consuming large amounts of food, more expensive and fancy one in particular, etc. So connected with gluttony, sloth and other negative qualities.




Also, it was a lot harder to get fat back in those days I think? If you are trained in combat, you probably can't be THAT fat, perhaps the fatness that comes with being well-fed. Would be fat by medieval standards probably.

Don't think so. Many 'trained' people, including kings like Henry VIII were becoming badly obese, particularly with age, even though they were very able with weapons.

Being trained and good with weapons doesn't really mean one will train hard forever, won't eat too much, will bother with getting actually tired to keep fit etc.

Modern Exhibit A, in any case:

http://cdn1.bloguin.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/77/2013/10/roy-nelson1.jpg

http://blog.paddypower.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Roy-Nelson-vs.-Antonio-Rodrigo-Nogueira.gif




How often was armor for fatness made? Are they custom-made to fit the wearer, since whoever wore them would be well-off?

Well, most 'fat armors' preserved are indeed for very rich people.

http://www.muzeumwp.pl/emwpaedia/zbroja-krzysztofa-pioruna-radziwilla.php

But most armors preserved PERIOD are somehow luxurious pieces.

And common people would be often overweight as well.

Galloglaich
2015-01-28, 10:34 AM
The problem with steel armor though is that it doesn't grow (or shrink) as your body does, so if you had armor made during your youthful heydey in your 20's or 30's, when you are are a weary 60 year old man (which is usually the upper age limit for militia requirements, incidentally) your old armor may not fit any more.

Making armor for truly morbidly obese size was unusual, unless like the Magnate who owned the armor Spiryt linked, you are a prince with a required role as military and civil leader, who must wear armor for ceremonial purposes or as a kind of uniform for leading an army even if you are not really an active fighter.

G

Roxxy
2015-01-29, 02:06 PM
Let's presume the hypothetical that a Russian military jet strays into US territory, gets confronted by US aircraft, gets too aggressive with the Americans (in excess of his own rules of engagement), and gets shot down. The pilot bails out and lands in either the ocean off the coast of Alaska, an Alaskan forest, or somewhere near an urban area in Alaska. The question is what forces the US sends to go retrieve him, and what the protocol for handling him is (If the Coast Guard sends a helicopter to rescue him from the ocean, do they bring any armed personnel with them? How do they insure the safety of whoever rappels down to get the pilot?). After retrieving him, what does the US do with him?

Storm Bringer
2015-01-29, 04:14 PM
Let's presume the hypothetical that a Russian military jet strays into US territory, gets confronted by US aircraft, gets too aggressive with the Americans (in excess of his own rules of engagement), and gets shot down. The pilot bails out and lands in either the ocean off the coast of Alaska, an Alaskan forest, or somewhere near an urban area in Alaska. The question is what forces the US sends to go retrieve him, and what the protocol for handling him is (If the Coast Guard sends a helicopter to rescue him from the ocean, do they bring any armed personnel with them? How do they insure the safety of whoever rappels down to get the pilot?). After retrieving him, what does the US do with him?


my take:

whoever is closest is sent to pick him up, especially if he goes down in the drink. they will be armed, but not overtly hostile (as downed pilots are not normally thought of as active combatants anymore, unless they try and shoot someone with their pistol).


once hes picked up, he's taken for medical treatment (if needed), then kept in internment according to the Geneva convention, until the Russians can arrange for his release.

Telok
2015-01-29, 05:31 PM
Let's presume the hypothetical that a Russian military jet ... gets shot down.... the ocean off the coast of Alaska, an Alaskan forest, or somewhere near an urban area in Alaska. The question is what forces...

As someone living in the People's Republic of Alaska (I'll let you keep your delusions if you let me keep mine) the water rescue is going to be the US Coast Guard, a local ship, or an Army/Navy unit depending entirely on what's closest. At this time of year being in the Bering Sea without a protective suit is generally considered a 15 minute death sentence. The suit might give you an hour or so.

In the interior it will be local law enforcement if the pilot is near the road system and Army/Air Force search and rescue if he isn't. The volunteer search and rescue units will probably stay out of this one for the most part.

There are two situations where this changes, the villages off the road system and the mountains. If the pilot wanders into a village the authorities will be notified (you might not be able to buy fresh milk out there but you can get Twitter) and someone will go out an pick him up. Unless he pulls a gun, then he's dead. In the mountains all the search and rescue elements of that area will go out looking. It's just what we do, the mountains are less survivable and time-to-rescue becomes more important.

As to what happens after that someone with more semi-hostile international relations experience will have to answer that.

Wardog
2015-01-29, 06:06 PM
In the 18th and 19th century of the Caribbean, was a little piracy here and there something the major powers would let slide? Or was it harshly punished in contrast to its thick presence?

Either way, between the two of you it seems it is possible to commit piracy then hide your crimes? It makes me wonder if it would be necessary to kill everyone and burn the enemy ship, or if less extreme measures are normally suitable.

Rather than killing all the crew, why not just recruit them?

I think that was actually quite a common way for people to become pirates - especially given that it generally paid much better than honest work. (In the case of merchant seamen, sharing your cargo with the pirates was more lucrative than being paid to transport it. And for sailors in the navy, pirate loot was generally shared out much more equitably than naval prize money).

Incanur
2015-01-29, 06:30 PM
As far as military archery goes, there's not a whole lot of evidence for bows under 70lbs. 18th-century Qing military standards considered six-strength bows the minimum, which was around 80lbs by most accounts but almost certainly at least 70lbs. And that was probably primarily for mounted archery. A late-Ming-era text describes 79lbs as the draw weight for weak archers or the draw weight suitable for any archer to use, depending on translation (http://www.myarmoury.com/talk/viewtopic.php?p=292425). Either way, 79lbs appears a minimum figure for infantry archery, while 158lbs was ideal.

Of course, that's data from the 17th and 18th centuries, but even earlier I suspect most infantry bows would have been 80+lbs assuming good enough materials and skilled bowyers. In certain case, even groups who encountered little or no armor developed extremely powerful bows, such as certain Native groups in what's now the Southeastern United States (see 16th-centuries Iberian accounts).

As far as range goes, though, shooting at extreme range isn't necessarily the most effective technique. In the late 16th century, Sir John Smythe wrote that many archers could shoot 440ish yards with flight arrows but didn't consider shooting at that range with such arrows militarily effective. Even at around 200 yards, a common engagement distance for English archers, a volley might completely or partially miss an enemy formation. It's not easy to aim arcing shots and just gets harder the farther you're shooting.

Galloglaich
2015-01-30, 12:04 AM
As far as range goes, though, shooting at extreme range isn't necessarily the most effective technique. In the late 16th century, Sir John Smythe wrote that many archers could shoot 440ish yards with flight arrows but didn't consider shooting at that range with such arrows militarily effective. Even at around 200 yards, a common engagement distance for English archers, a volley might completely or partially miss an enemy formation. It's not easy to aim arcing shots and just gets harder the farther you're shooting.

It was not the ideal, let alone the only strategy used by archers, but we know it was used by many in several famous battles that I hope I don't need to enumerate.

The original context of the comment was one group of unarmored warriors using bows equivalent to the bow Lars was using in that video (I'm guessing around 30 lbs draw) facing another group with powerful bows of military grade (say, 120 lbs draw). All other things being equal, I think the safest tactic for the latter group would be to do what the Mongols did in Hungary and just pour arrows on a helpless enemy until they were good and softened up, and then move in for the kill (with or without initiating a retreat / rout first).

G

Brother Oni
2015-01-30, 02:59 AM
Rather than killing all the crew, why not just recruit them?

Indeed. Theoretically, it was not that different from being press ganged, except you were at sea rather than on land when conscripted.

snowblizz
2015-01-30, 03:41 AM
Rather than killing all the crew, why not just recruit them?

I think that was actually quite a common way for people to become pirates - especially given that it generally paid much better than honest work. (In the case of merchant seamen, sharing your cargo with the pirates was more lucrative than being paid to transport it. And for sailors in the navy, pirate loot was generally shared out much more equitably than naval prize money).

In theory yes, and it did happen (though most common way to become pirate is worlds different from it being a common occurrence). Piracy did not pay much better than honest work, on average (more specifically, they type of pirate treasure we imagine almost never happened), and was incredibly more dangerous. Most pirate careers were short and spectacular failures, and few of the successful ones ever got to enjoy their fortunes.

Here's the problem, most crew on the average ship can't just disappear into thin air, they have families and other relations they want to keep, families to support, and so on. Becoming a pirate is a death sentence after all.

All it takes is for one guy at the first authority to say "hey, these guys are pirates and kidnapped me" and things suck pretty much all round.

Another problem is that sharing the cargo means a lot less money for the pirates in the first place. That fairly average haul is going to be cut down further, leading to the question as to why risk oneself like that.

Tobtor
2015-01-30, 04:10 AM
The original context of the comment was one group of unarmored warriors using bows equivalent to the bow Lars was using in that video (I'm guessing around 30 lbs draw) facing another group with powerful bows of military grade (say, 120 lbs draw). All other things being equal, I think the safest tactic for the latter group would be to do what the Mongols did in Hungary and just pour arrows on a helpless enemy until they were good and softened up, and then move in for the kill (with or without initiating a retreat / rout first).




I guess it would depend on how fast you can run and how many men were involved in the battle, but if you had a few hundred people on one side of the field, with bows that had a range of 350 meters, facing another group of men with bows that have a maximum range of 150 meters... especially if the group with the better bows keeps moving away to keep the distance, the one with the shorter range bows is in a bad place.

I mean this is what the Mongols, Huns, Ottomans etc. did in numerous battles over centuries of time.

Sure, I agree on open plains that is an amazing tactic. But you neglect to answer for all the situations where a range of 350m is irrelevant due to obstacles. Perhpas that is why the Mongols, Huns etc had limited success in western Europe? The terrain was too varied

Before I suggested Smĺland in Sweden (boderland between Scania and the rest of Sweden wich would have been the borderland between Denmark-Seden in the medieval period) as an example. But looking around in my immediate surroundings, even with large modern fields, I think you will be hard pressed to find a spot where 200 archer oposing another 200 archers could shoot it out at 350m, let alone practise tactic of retreating and shooting. The The landscape is full of line of trees, small and large hills, small watercourses and wetlands that make retreating/reshooting tactics difficult.

But definitely 120# bows had a major impact in battles, especially in large pitched battles such as the famous Agincourt, Poitier etc. But so many other scenarios are relevant to consider. Lets asume a mixed group of Viking raiders (50-60) landed on the coast, and that the defenders could muster 30 men with melee weapons and 20 with bows. Would they really begin shooting at 350m? The attackers would have plenty of time to do loose formation and the change of hitting them would be abysmal. I think you would rather fire at 100m distance or even closer (if assumed a advancing speed of 6km it would take the attacker 1 minute, if the ran maybe oaround 30 seconds) would to soften them up before close combat fighting, and then you would want a fast rate of fire, and especially sending many volleys of arrows just before contact to disrupt the enemy line.

The same would be true for small achers vs archer groups like in the Neolithic, where a hunting/raiding party might consist of 10 people. Here 45-50# bows are sufficient to kill/wound the opponent within a distance you would want to shoot. But again if you have examples of Neolithic bows of 90# (that wasn't for elephanhunting) I would be interested.

Next week I will be in the library and will look up draw weight for bronze-age and iron age North European bows, my memmeroy suggest that few exeeded 60-70#.

I got similar data as incanur.

http://www.manchuarchery.org/historical-draw-weights-qing-bows

However, it seem some of the heavy drawing was more a competition than actual use. I notice these quotes;

"The bows made for the army were made of four weights, 70, 80, 90, and 100 pounds pull."
Source:
Jesuit missionary Jean Joseph Marie Amiot.
From: Art Militaire Des Chinois, Didot L'Ainé, Paris, 1772. Page 387.

"Their bows ... require the power of from seventy to one hundred pounds in drawing them; the string is composed of silk threads closely wounded, and the arrows are well made and pointed with steel."
Source:
William Alexander and George Henry Mason, accompanied the Macartney Embassy to China in 1792.
From: Views of Eighteenth Century China: Costumes, History, Customs, reprint, London: Studio Editions, 1988, 132.

That means, even though some (a few, like 1:40) could shoot with bows of 150#, this would not be standard military equipment. Instead lower draw weights was preferred. Likely due to the fcat that if you pull 150# you soon get very tired stretched in the arms, and thus your rate of fire might drop or even stop. Its like weightlifting, if you go near your maximum you cant keep doing it for long at a time.

People keep referring to the Mary Rose bows for strengths above 110#, but it is a matter of debate whether these estimates are relevant for any discussion for bows made before 1400AD, that is before heavy armors. Even Mary Rosebows have been reconstructed with lower draw weights:

https://books.google.dk/books?id=oCuK9Jsxx1IC&pg=PA15&lpg=PA15&dq=draw+bow+neolithic&source=bl&ots=ikF6kI6Pxu&sig=pnoK08f43AFnW8ZlZNkeKtLN3ic&hl=da&sa=X&ei=8EXLVLLmJ4KrPJmagZAO&ved=0CFkQ6AEwBw#v=onepage&q=draw%20bow%20neolithic&f=false

Though I agree they estimates are likely too low, Pope did (according to this "popular" and not scientific book) estimate below 90#. However, I do think the more recent estimates for drawing strength of 100-120 (with a few higher examples) might be more accurate. The question is; why do it in earlier period, before plate (or well made mail) was commonplace? Less than 20% of Viking and other early medieval armies would be be armoured in mail.

Historically, I think, the majority of longbows pre 14/15th century used for war in western Europe would have been 60-100# with average around 70-80#. Thse are also the weights I see for reconstructed Viking bows etc (Haithabu, Bergen). This makes more sense in most cases (smaller battles, skirmishes, sieges etc), and is only a small disadvantage in large battles (if you have 40-50 arrows pr. archer you would want to make them last, and you are firing at advancing spearmen/cavalry rather than other archers). The weight would be lower pre state societies, where armies where less common and hunting and tribal warfare more common.

(exception should be made for the above for steppe nomads where distance is clearly a different matter).

All that said; yes Lars uses a bow around 35# and it too low for combat, he say so himself in the comments to the film. He also uses a slightly stronger bows (again: at least three different bows where used, talking about "the" bow he uses is a bit difficult), but no-one in the 60-80# range. But for historical bows his technique would be valid for a better trained archers, and that is his point.

Galloglaich
2015-01-30, 08:41 AM
Would they really begin shooting at 350m? The attackers would have plenty of time to do loose formation and the change of hitting them would be abysmal. I think you would rather fire at 100m distance or even closer.


As I've pointed out before, it was only one tactic among many, but it was definitely a major one in the arsenal of most trained archers, and this included infantry archers as well as mounted. In England they used to practice what was called 'clout shooting'. A version of this is still done as a sport with the standard range for men being 180 yards.

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

In medieval times they would lay a sheet or a 'clout' on the ground, circular or square, and shoot at it. The idea was to get the arrows into an area, like a 10' circle, for an effect something like a mortar attack. Usually this was done outside of the range of the enemies troops. They got pretty good at it, and it was the basis of several major military victories, not just the three famous ones in France.

G

Storm_Of_Snow
2015-01-30, 10:35 AM
There might also be a psychological aspect to it rather than a simple "kill as many of the enemy as possible" - think of it this way: you're under a constant stream of arrows which are sticking into/ringing off your shield as you hold it over your head (and your arms' starting to get tired from holding up the weight), your units cohesion, already reduced because you're in loose order, is being damaged even more because of the weight of fire, you haven't got your mates immediately around you, there's no one directly behind you pushing you on, and you've still got hundreds of feet to go to get in close to the enemy, who at some point will switch over to more accurate/lethal direct fire.

I dare say most units under such attack would stop an advance and retreat back out of range (and those with the very worst morale might just run for it) - actual casualties inflicted might be very low, but the enemy's line has been disrupted.

King of Casuals
2015-01-30, 12:57 PM
Okay, so in the pathfindet RPG theres this gladiatorial weapon called a flying blade, basically a curved bastard-sword tied to a rope or chain, so you can swing it around from the rope to get a bit of extra range. I've looked it up on google to try and find the real world equivalent, but I had no luck. Does anyone know anything about it?:smallconfused::smallconfused:

Storm_Of_Snow
2015-01-30, 02:43 PM
Wouldn't the blade just spin around as you swung it, so you'd be unlikely to get the cutting edge next to your opponent? Although there is the Kyoketsu-shoge, which is more like a throwing knife.

And about the only time I've ever seen a sword blade on a chain is in the act of the sword-swallower who's a part of the Circus Of Horrors theatre group in the UK (I'll err on the side of caution and say they're NSFW if you want to look them up), which he starts with to prove the blade's not just telescoping back into the handle.

warty goblin
2015-01-30, 02:49 PM
Okay, so in the pathfindet RPG theres this gladiatorial weapon called a flying blade, basically a curved bastard-sword tied to a rope or chain, so you can swing it around from the rope to get a bit of extra range. I've looked it up on google to try and find the real world equivalent, but I had no luck. Does anyone know anything about it?:smallconfused::smallconfused:

Sounds like a very inventive way to acquire a lot of very shallow cuts to your favorite limbs while being complete ineffective against the stick-in-the-mud traditionalist who holds on to his or her sword by the handle. Seriously, somebody starts swinging a longsword on a lanyard at me, my best bet to wail on the blade as hard as I can, then stab the poor bastard while they try to get it back under control.

Brother Oni
2015-01-30, 05:13 PM
Sure, I agree on open plains that is an amazing tactic. But you neglect to answer for all the situations where a range of 350m is irrelevant due to obstacles. Perhpas that is why the Mongols, Huns etc had limited success in western Europe? The terrain was too varied.

Unless you're in the Netherlands or Denmark, there's plenty of natural high places like hills or artificial ones like castles, city walls, etc where obstacles are cut back to provide clear firing arcs for the defenders.

Farmer's fields tend to be quite clear and wide and I can think of a number of .


Okay, so in the pathfindet RPG theres this gladiatorial weapon called a flying blade, basically a curved bastard-sword tied to a rope or chain, so you can swing it around from the rope to get a bit of extra range. I've looked it up on google to try and find the real world equivalent, but I had no luck. Does anyone know anything about it?:smallconfused::smallconfused:

Further to Storm of Snow's Kyoketsu shoge, there's the Chinese version which was the rope dart (link (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rope_dart)).

I don't know of anything as long as the weapon you've mentioned though.

Yora
2015-01-30, 05:50 PM
Could you tell me everything that you can find that is wrong with this armor?

https://41.media.tumblr.com/833c5659a0ec71eb1fcc8c20235c4053/tumblr_nj0hz30Wiw1rz7r1oo1_540.jpg

Because even though my first thought was that it's silly fantasy armor, this does actually look quite practical. The only thing that I see that really is not going to work are the tusks at the helm which only would get in the way and hooked at things. But otherwise this looks to me as if you are clearly better off wearing it than going into battle without it.

Kiero
2015-01-30, 06:01 PM
It might be practical to wear, but it's providing very little functional protection. There's bones over the heart/lungs, but nothing covering the much softer/less well-protected organs in the abdomen (front or back). The vulnerable spot between neck and shoulder is exposed, and the throat is completely open. No protection to the armpit/side ribs. Nothing covering femoral artery or hamstrings. No apparent protection for the groin (at the least that bone skirt should have been two layers covering it completely).

Spiryt
2015-01-30, 06:06 PM
The main problem is what it's supposed to be, and protect on what principle?

Looks like pretty random junk strapped to the body.

On paper it can be made to look slick and all, but it would most likely be horrible to actually move in.



Sure, I agree on open plains that is an amazing tactic. But you neglect to answer for all the situations where a range of 350m is irrelevant due to obstacles. Perhpas that is why the Mongols, Huns etc had limited success in western Europe? The terrain was too varied

Before I suggested Smĺland in Sweden (boderland between Scania and the rest of Sweden wich would have been the borderland between Denmark-Seden in the medieval period) as an example. But looking around in my immediate surroundings, even with large modern fields, I think you will be hard pressed to find a spot where 200 archer oposing another 200 archers could shoot it out at 350m, let alone practise tactic of retreating and shooting. The The landscape is full of line of trees, small and large hills, small watercourses and wetlands that make retreating/reshooting tactics difficult.

Well, Mongols didn't really move much into 'Western' Europe really, so they didn't have success, nor defeats...

And as mentioned before, maximal range isn't really all that great reason to use heavy bow.

Penetration, higher velocities with heavier arrows (more accuracy) stability against wind etc., ability to release variety of more beefy arrowheads, and so on.

Mr. Mask
2015-01-30, 06:09 PM
The tusks aren't so bad, unless you're regularly hitting your chin on stuff.

I wonder about the vambrace. All those rope straps on bare skin seem pretty uncomfortable.

Other than that, the coverage and materials seem unusual. Full plate boots and shin guard (probably the armour piece which slows you down most), but an entirely bare arm. The stomach seems to be armoured only by straps, I think, and there is a bare area in the back. Not sure if that's meant to be a skull helmet or decoration over a steel helmet (the mask-like visor may be an indicator of the latter). The large pointy ears seem in jeopardy of getting cut, though the tusks may help with that. I also wonder what will happen to them if the helmet turns when it takes a hit.


Kiero: I think the bones on the chest are decoration, covering a metal breast plate. Well, part of a breastplate (the stomach and back look bare as you pointed out). It may be the same with the loincloth, that there's some heavier protection beneath it.

oudeis
2015-01-30, 06:33 PM
Note: I am not an expert or even particularly well-informed, so this is just an opinion.

I'm skeptical about all the projections, especially the ones on the head. These seem like they would be well-suited to catching blows instead of deflecting them into tangential or superficial vectors. An attack that struck or caught on the protruberances on the helmet would have a pretty good chance to dislodge or twist the helmet around, and either render the entire head vulnerable or simply cover the eyes of the wearer, which would be catastrophic in combat.

Gnoman
2015-01-30, 08:48 PM
Had a thought recently. Take a typical phalanx with long spears. Historically, formations of this sort were surprisingly vulnerable to Roman short swords, as their spears were a hinderance in close combat. Would it be effective to instruct your front ranks to not carry a spear at all, relying entirely on the sword to counter hostile swordsmen at very close range?

Mr. Mask
2015-01-31, 02:40 AM
Well, it'd be effective for the first rank. Once that first rank was dealt with, you'd return to the original problem. It would also reduce the phalanx qualities of the formation, increasing the chance of enemies getting close.

Since you mention the subject, I do wonder how effective it was to swap from spears to swords. A good phalanx often carried reasonable swords as sidearms, some like the gladius, so I wonder why they couldn't simply swap fighting styles.

Telok
2015-01-31, 03:15 AM
Could you tell me everything that you can find that is wrong with this armor?

Well, it might be better thatn going in naked.

It did occur to me that if I had a flanged mace or a one handed flail I'd be pretty tempted to take any shots at his head that presented themselves, especially if it was part of a general melee and I was passing by or something. If you smash his face or something it's good, if he ducks or parries that's fine. But if you can snag one of those tusks and it doesn't break off you might be able to wrench or snap his neck. If the helm is loose enough to come off then he's either bare headed or has a screwed up helmet to deal with.

Other than that, heavy looking boots, no hand protection, no knee or elbow protection, exposed midriff, and dangly bits to get caught on stuff or for enemies to grab.

snowblizz
2015-01-31, 06:38 AM
Unless you're in the Netherlands or Denmark, there's plenty of natural high places like hills or artificial ones like castles, city walls, etc where obstacles are cut back to provide clear firing arcs for the defenders.

Farmer's fields tend to be quite clear and wide and I can think of a number of .

Actually unless you are in Denmark or the Netherlands think less field and more clearing in the middle of dense forest. Although that heavily depends on where you are of course, the longer the history of human habitation the more open it tends to be.

I flew from Chicago to Stockholm once and it is really noticeable how differently fields are arranged in former plains vs former forest. In the latter few fields tend to be very "wide" in both directions, ie theres's almost always a "short" side to them. Obviously there are plenty of places where you could plant yourself in the middle of an open area and have a longbow's range of room to to use, but if you do you aren't going to be doing anyone any good either standing in the middle of nowhere.

Yora
2015-01-31, 08:11 AM
In a flat open area it becomes very difficult to use castles as a way of securing the area against moving enemies. It's just too easy to go around the fort in a wide arc. The more difficult the terrain is, the more moving troops are restricted in the routes they can take, which allows for the strategic construction of castles to cut off access of passes and river crossings.
In wide open land, fortifications work just to defend a settlement inside them. Unfortunately, these have to be a lot bigger and therefore a lot more expensive and on top of that regions of flat land don't tend to have any quarries nearby. Importing stone would make the costs even higher, which is why we don't really have fortified castles on the North Sea areas.
Those things we call castles are usually fancy mansions with a moat and that's it.

I currently live near the french border and here we have castles absolutely everywhere. There are 6 within a 10 minute car drive from my home alone. Here it's all hills and river valleys and there's no way to transport anything without using either the rivers or the road on the shore. And that's where all the castles are placed.

Kiero
2015-01-31, 09:20 AM
Had a thought recently. Take a typical phalanx with long spears. Historically, formations of this sort were surprisingly vulnerable to Roman short swords, as their spears were a hinderance in close combat. Would it be effective to instruct your front ranks to not carry a spear at all, relying entirely on the sword to counter hostile swordsmen at very close range?

Macedonian-style pike phalanxes certainly had trouble with Roman legionaries if they get into their flanks/rear, but there's not much evident Greek-style hoplite phalanxes did. Not least because the second rank of spearmen are good at protecting the first rank against things too close for their spears.

The front of a phalanx was virtually invulnerable, there are two, possibly three ranks of spear-points searching out enemies who try to close. The Romans would have to infiltrate the phalanx in order to get close enough to use their swords, and couldn't respond until they were past the points. That is not an easy task at all, it's not all cut and dried at all.

Mr. Mask
2015-01-31, 12:35 PM
Castles: A good network of castles will form sorts of rings, each taking advantage of nearby terrain, and each within striking distance of an enemy's supply lines. If the enemy goes past, you either keep hitting their supplies, or follow them, awaiting a chance to attack (probably when they hit your capital's main force) while causing them trouble in the meantime.


Kiero: An important part of the Roman cohorts, admittedly, is their javelins. They helped to put some chaos in the enemy formation before the attack, and could disable shields. While I'm not sure Romans could certainly prevail from the front, I recall one source speaking about how the cohorts were a lot more mobile and so were good at hitting the flanks? Maybe this is just poor memory.

Incanur
2015-01-31, 10:00 PM
Would they really begin shooting at 350m? The attackers would have plenty of time to do loose formation and the change of hitting them would be abysmal. I think you would rather fire at 100m distance or even closer (if assumed a advancing speed of 6km it would take the attacker 1 minute, if the ran maybe oaround 30 seconds) would to soften them up before close combat fighting, and then you would want a fast rate of fire, and especially sending many volleys of arrows just before contact to disrupt the enemy line.

According to Sir John Smythe, English bows weren't effective at 350 meters. Arguing against shooting heavy muskets at 480 yards, Smythe wrote that many archers could shoot 400+ yards "with their flights" (presumably flight arrows) but that giving volleys of flight arrows at 360 yards was as ridiculous as firing muskets at 480 yards.


Mosquettiers may giue effectuall volees 24. scores of (as it is fondlie reported) then some number of Archers being chosen, that could with their flights shoote 24. or 20. scores (as there be manie that can) may by the same reason giue volees of flights at their enemies 18. scores of, which both the one & the other are mockeries to bee thought of, because there is no weapon in the field effectuall, further than to a conuenient and certen distance.

Smythe typically gave 160-220 yards the English bow's effective range (sometimes 180-240 yards). A few decades earlier, Raimond de Fourquevaux mentioned 100-200 paces (probably roughly yards, would have to check) as an effective range for crossbows and bows. Fourquevaux also noted the option of bringing crossbowers and archers as close as possible to their targets for increased effect.


"The bows made for the army were made of four weights, 70, 80, 90, and 100 pounds pull."
Source:
Jesuit missionary Jean Joseph Marie Amiot.
From: Art Militaire Des Chinois, Didot L'Ainé, Paris, 1772. Page 387.

"Their bows ... require the power of from seventy to one hundred pounds in drawing them; the string is composed of silk threads closely wounded, and the arrows are well made and pointed with steel."
Source:
William Alexander and George Henry Mason, accompanied the Macartney Embassy to China in 1792.
From: Views of Eighteenth Century China: Costumes, History, Customs, reprint, London: Studio Editions, 1988, 132.

These two quotations likely refer to Qing cavalry bows, as the bow was primarily a cavalry weapon in this period.


That means, even though some (a few, like 1:40) could shoot with bows of 150#, this would not be standard military equipment.

158lbs was the desired draw weight according to that late-Ming source.


Instead lower draw weights was preferred. Likely due to the fcat that if you pull 150# you soon get very tired stretched in the arms, and thus your rate of fire might drop or even stop. Its like weightlifting, if you go near your maximum you cant keep doing it for long at a time.

To effectively use any bow the archer has to command the draw weight, yes. At least some people today can do this with 150+lbs. Historical infantry archers who shot 150+lbs presumably *could* draw more weight, but they couldn't completely command their weight at such weights.


People keep referring to the Mary Rose bows for strengths above 110#, but it is a matter of debate whether these estimates are relevant for any discussion for bows made before 1400AD, that is before heavy armors.

Heavy armor was around in Europe and elsewhere well before 1400AD. And the 16th-century English generally thought archery had declined compared with 15th-century standards. That might have been nostalgia, but if nothing else a bunch of skilled archers surely perished in the War of the Roses.

I think there's a decent chance English draw weights were actually *higher* in 14th- and 15th-century armies as compared with the Mary Rose crew. The mediocre performance of yew self-bows means historical English archers would have needed all the draw weight they could get, and they genuinely impressed the Continent in the 14th and 15th centuries.

If 16th-century English archers could actually shoot 400 or 480 (!) yards with flight arrows, then they had sweet flight arrows, impressively efficient yew bows, and/or 170+lb bows. The 170lb fiberglass bow in The Great Warbow test only managed 424 yards with a 53.6g arrow, and it performed better than the yew reconstruction.

Mr. Mask
2015-02-01, 12:35 AM
In a discussion, someone was adamant that shoulder-fired rockets would not be changed in two hundred years from now. I admit I cannot say how they would change, and any speculation is simply speculation, but the idea that RPGs in the year 2220 will be more or less identical to today's, and even that it is infeasible they change, that seems too rigid a statement.

Any thoughts on this? Do you think it would be possible to predict what a man-carried rocket launcher would be like? In the story I'm working on, should they be identical to today's examples?

Brother Oni
2015-02-01, 04:50 AM
In a discussion, someone was adamant that shoulder-fired rockets would not be changed in two hundred years from now. I admit I cannot say how they would change, and any speculation is simply speculation, but the idea that RPGs in the year 2220 will be more or less identical to today's, and even that it is infeasible they change, that seems too rigid a statement.

Any thoughts on this? Do you think it would be possible to predict what a man-carried rocket launcher would be like? In the story I'm working on, should they be identical to today's examples?

In my opinion, the basic principle of the weapon is unlikely to change, just the weight, targeting system and warheads.

The warheads are going to change in response to operational needs (eg the introduction of the new NE thermobaric warheads in 2004, intended for use against lightly constructed buildings) or new armour developments (eg tandem charges against reactive armour), so it's hard to predict exactly how these will develop, since they're reliant on other factors.

The targeting system is likely to improve towards accuracy and range, although this would be competing with the need to keep costs down - it's very nice if your charge can hit the eye of a needle, but when all you need is to hit a CD sized target and at a fraction of the price, this would be preferable.

Weight is easy - it's always going to tend towards decreasing the overall weight and profile of the weapons system.

Kiero
2015-02-01, 06:10 AM
Kiero: An important part of the Roman cohorts, admittedly, is their javelins. They helped to put some chaos in the enemy formation before the attack, and could disable shields. While I'm not sure Romans could certainly prevail from the front, I recall one source speaking about how the cohorts were a lot more mobile and so were good at hitting the flanks? Maybe this is just poor memory.

Not even the vaunted Romans could defeat a (Macedonian) phalanx front-on. It's notable that the battles where they broke it (Pydna, Magnesia, etc), the phalanx moved onto broken ground which allowed maniples to flank them locally. They didn't break through the front.

The only example I've heard of where anyone did that was when the Gauls overran Greece in 279BC and defeated Ptolemy Keravnos - apparently their favoured tactic was to roll under the pikes and get in close.

Galloglaich
2015-02-01, 10:10 AM
In a flat open area it becomes very difficult to use castles as a way of securing the area against moving enemies. It's just too easy to go around the fort in a wide arc. The more difficult the terrain is, the more moving troops are restricted in the routes they can take, which allows for the strategic construction of castles to cut off access of passes and river crossings.
In wide open land, fortifications work just to defend a settlement inside them. Unfortunately, these have to be a lot bigger and therefore a lot more expensive and on top of that regions of flat land don't tend to have any quarries nearby. Importing stone would make the costs even higher, which is why we don't really have fortified castles on the North Sea areas.

There are tons of castles in the Baltic region, they are just mostly made of brick

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ef/Malbork_Castle_Exterior_3.jpg



Those things we call castles are usually fancy mansions with a moat and that's it.

A lot of castles were replaced with palaces in the 18th and 19th Century (what the French call chateau) and a lot of fake castles were made at that time. But in France including in the Rhine border areas you see many traditional family seats of a noble family (every few miles in some regions0 where there is a castle and a chateau in the same area, the castle (often in a more inaccessible point on a hilltop or in the middle of a lake or something) was for trouble and the much more comfortable chateaux was for living in most of the time. Quite often the castle is just a ruin.

http://chateauchallain.smugmug.com/Travel/A-Chateau-in-France-Chateau-de/i-m539mFD/0/L/bedrooms%20191-L.jpg

Many of the serious medieval fortifications in France and also in many parts of Germany were destroyed during war or in peace time by various governments because of their potential use as fortifications. The French in particular spent the last few centuries dismantling regional power centers. That is why you see more of the old type in places like the Czech Republic which avoided most of the ultra-destructive 20th Century wars and never had an efficient or aggressive enough government to destroy them all when they were being destroyed.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b6/Burgkarlstein01.jpg

http://www.mytripolog.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Pernstejn-historical-castle-Czech-Republic.jpg
This place is so ready for the zompoc

http://prague-stay.com/img/3458/2/false/prague-kost-castle.jpg




I currently live near the french border and here we have castles absolutely everywhere. There are 6 within a 10 minute car drive from my home alone. Here it's all hills and river valleys and there's no way to transport anything without using either the rivers or the road on the shore. And that's where all the castles are placed.

That is definitely true.

And it's also true that the majority of 'castles' were really just stone or brick houses with a wall around them, they tended to get hard core only under substantial and sustained military pressure, either from external or internal enemies, since obviously the really hard core castles were tough and expensive to make and not that comfortable to live in.

Sometimes they start out as fortified buildings but gradually as the district becomes safer they add a lot of windows and remove some of the walls and so on, making them more comfortable as a home and less suitable as a fortification. For example this castle in the far north of Germany was built in 1340 by a Saxon robber knight, captured by the city of Hamburg in 1393 and was used by Hamburg ever since to control the traffic in the lower Elbe river and to defend their shipping from pirates who were very active in the area, as well as occasionally difficult Frisian peasants who sometimes collaborated with the pirates.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c9/Cuxhaven_Schloss_Ritzebuettel_2006-04-08_84.jpg/220px-Cuxhaven_Schloss_Ritzebuettel_2006-04-08_84.jpg

Back in the 14th / 15th Century though there weren't any windows on the ground floor.

G

Kiero
2015-02-01, 12:36 PM
As an aside, it's worth noting that medieval fortresses were increasingly made obsolete (from around 17th century onwards) by artillery, which could reduce them to rubble in a matter of hours. Artillery-resistant fortifications were low, thick, and angled to direct shot away, the so-called star forts (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_fort).

Galloglaich
2015-02-01, 12:51 PM
As an aside, it's worth noting that medieval fortresses were increasingly made obsolete (from around 17th century onwards) by artillery, which could reduce them to rubble in a matter of hours. Artillery-resistant fortifications were low, thick, and angled to direct shot away, the so-called star forts (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_fort).

Yeah but keep in mind as well, late medieval castles and other fortifications were also designed with the threat of cannon in mind. Star forts go back to the mid 15th Century and were only one of two successful types of anti-artillery fortifications (the other being the artillery fort, basically having more and bigger cannon than the besieging army has, which is how many towns defended themselves). Quite a few of the more formidable medieval fortifications remained in continuous (successful) use from the late medieval period until the Napoloenic wars.

G

Tobtor
2015-02-01, 01:48 PM
Smythe typically gave 160-220 yards the English bow's effective range (sometimes 180-240 yards). A few decades earlier, Raimond de Fourquevaux mentioned 100-200 paces (probably roughly yards, would have to check) as an effective range for crossbows and bows. Fourquevaux also noted the option of bringing crossbowers and archers as close as possible to their targets for increased effect.

I was not arguing whether or not firing at 350m (or yards) was a good strategy, merely that smaller groups or groups in loose formation would be shot at at a much closer range, since it is easier to hit a grouop/army of hundreds of soldiers in close formation with arched shooting, than 10 neolithic warriors in a hunting party.


158lbs was the desired draw weight according to that late-Ming source.

In the collection of quotes etc I found and posted, I see the same number (or a more average statement of 160pounds, but thats likely translation acuracy). However, the source seem to indicate it is some sort of test and that they also need to do a pole-arm test of 71kilo (roughly 140 pounds) which I do not understand, but more importantly they needed to lift 179kilos (360pounds)! So it seem more like a modern strongman competition than what they actually used in war. One thing is to pull 160pound or more for one shot, or three shots. But can you do it for 30 shots in a row? I doubt they could lift those 179kilos more than ones or twice at a time.


So the question remains what was actually done in war?
Some army statistics;
"A 1736 report found that of 3,200 troops at the Hangzhou garrison about 2,200 were able to draw bows of strengths six to ten [80-133], and 80 could handle bow strengths of eleven to thirteen [147-173 pounds]..."
Suggesting the majority USED bows in the range 80-130pounds, while only 80 out of 3.200 used one of 147-173pounds...

This is compared to:
"...In comparison, the 500 troops at the small Dezhou garrison acquitted themselves with honor, all of them being able to take a five-strength bow [67 pounds], 203 a six-strength [80 pounds], 137 a seven *strength [93 pounds], and 85 a ten-strength bow [133 pounds]."

Both from: Mark C. Elliott, professor of Chinese and Inner Asian History at Harvard University.
From: The Manchu Way, Stanford University Press, 2001, pages 179 & 180
According to the page I linked to above.

This second one have even lower numbers than the first.

But the same source say "The champion in a 1728 contest between the one hundred top bowmen in the empire won one hundred taels when he hit the bull's-eye using an eighteen-strength bow an estimated drawing weight of almost 240 pounds!".

Thus, we clearly need to separate contest bows and standard military equipment. From the quotes I linked to above it seemed that 80-110pound were standard, and the ones posted here that 80-133 pounds where the norm, while a minority actually (80:3.200) used the bows of 160pound or above.


To effectively use any bow the archer has to command the draw weight, yes. At least some people today can do this with 150+lbs. Historical infantry archers who shot 150+lbs presumably *could* draw more weight, but they couldn't completely command their weight at such weights.

As mentioned I think we need to assume that bows of strength from 80-130 where the norm as weapons, as that is what army statistics and standard equipment reports suggest, but sure it DOES seem that SOME used heavier bows, but that 160pounds where rare (1:40 or similar) as army equipment, but the ones used for competitions, where also weightlifting was part, where 160pounds.


Heavy armor was around in Europe and elsewhere well before 1400AD. And the 16th-century English generally thought archery had declined compared with 15th-century standards. That might have been nostalgia, but if nothing else a bunch of skilled archers surely perished in the War of the Roses.

I didn't say it wasn't around, but that it wasn't AS common. Plate was not of the quality in lets say mid 14th century as it was in the mid 15th century, and before that mail would have been used. It was also not as common as in the 15th and 16th century. But as I said, less than 20% of vikings likely used mail. Mail was for the king and his retainers and chieftains. The same goes for many early medieval armies; mainly the knigths and richer people wore heavy armours. This change toward the end of the 14th century and 15th century where it seem more common

Spiryt
2015-02-01, 01:54 PM
Castles were undoubtedly still useful against all but most powerful cannons, but still with decent artillery they were pretty much guaranteed to get damaged badly.


Thus they generally had to be supplemented with forward, wooden based fortifications, much more resistant to cannon fire.

I remember that during Polish/Lithuanian war against Moscow in 1577-1582, stone walls of Pskov were falling surprisingly quickly compared to wooden/earth fortifications of Vielikiye Luki and Polock.

Most of the defense had to be thus continued from ruins and quickly raised inside-walls.

Of course, wooden and earth fortifications were in turn susceptible to fire, and no where as impenetrable for infantry, and generally harder to defend.

Thus sieges in general were changing quickly.

Incanur
2015-02-01, 04:59 PM
I was not arguing whether or not firing at 350m (or yards) was a good strategy, merely that smaller groups or groups in loose formation would be shot at at a much closer range, since it is easier to hit a grouop/army of hundreds of soldiers in close formation with arched shooting, than 10 neolithic warriors in a hunting party.

Smythe did write about long-distance (200ish-yard) shooting when skirmishing in loose order in small bands, but I doubt such shots had a high hit percentage. Descriptions of Amerindian warfare in land now claimed by the United States include references to warriors dodging the majority of arrows when skirmishing. Hitting a moving individual would be difficult beyond about 60 yards.


In the collection of quotes etc I found and posted, I see the same number (or a more average statement of 160pounds, but thats likely translation acuracy). However, the source seem to indicate it is some sort of test and that they also need to do a pole-arm test of 71kilo (roughly 140 pounds) which I do not understand, but more importantly they needed to lift 179kilos (360pounds)! So it seem more like a modern strongman competition than what they actually used in war. One thing is to pull 160pound or more for one shot, or three shots. But can you do it for 30 shots in a row? I doubt they could lift those 179kilos more than ones or twice at a time.

You're comparing different sources. Qing military exams for officers required drawing extremely heavy bows, performing a drill with an all-steel polearm, and lifting a heavy stone. In that case, soldiers who could draw 160-180lbs probably didn't use such hard bows in the field and especially not from horseback. Much earlier examinations, however, did at least sometimes involve shooting multiple arrows (over 30 in one Tang-era case) from 150+lb bows on foot. Those were apparently for officers rather than all soldiers, but if you can shoot 30 arrows from a 168lb bow and hit the target then you can probably use a bow of around that weight in combat. See this thread (http://www.myarmoury.com/talk/viewtopic.php?t=31345&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0) for a discussion of the relevant sources. The late-Ming source (Sung Ying-Hsing or Yingxing Song, depending on transliteration scheme) specifies 158lb bows for the battlefield.


Some army statistics;
"A 1736 report found that of 3,200 troops at the Hangzhou garrison about 2,200 were able to draw bows of strengths six to ten [80-133], and 80 could handle bow strengths of eleven to thirteen [147-173 pounds]..."
Suggesting the majority USED bows in the range 80-130pounds, while only 80 out of 3.200 used one of 147-173pounds...

This is compared to:
"...In comparison, the 500 troops at the small Dezhou garrison acquitted themselves with honor, all of them being able to take a five-strength bow [67 pounds], 203 a six-strength [80 pounds], 137 a seven *strength [93 pounds], and 85 a ten-strength bow [133 pounds]."

These are both from southern garrisons that saw little if any actual combat at the time. Superior forces likely had higher average draw weights. These mass tests were conducted significantly because of concerns over declining martial skills. As far as I know no numbers exist from northern garrisons that fought more regularly, probably because authorities had more confidence in the prowess of soldiers there.

Like other military skills but arguably even more so, archery required constant practice to maintain a level of performance. On average, the better the force of archers in question, the higher the advantage draw weight. Of course in any case draw weights varied, and the evidence suggests at least a few infantry soldiers fought with bows as low as 80lbs (possibly lighter in earlier times). I find the case for higher average draw weights more convincing myself, but I acknowledge there's lots of uncertainty.

Note that according to The Great Warbow, even a 150lb yew warbow with a heavy arrow only delivers around 125 J at 50m. According to The Knight and the Blast Furnace, it takes 105 J to just pierce 2mm of wrought iron (the worst metal) at a slight angle (caused by the curvature of the armor). Add in padding and the wearer would likely be safe. A mere 1mm of hardened steel takes about the same amount of energy to defeat. By such numbers, mediocre armors would still handily protect against 150+lb yew bows. Yew bows really need high draw weights to be much of a threat.

Tobtor
2015-02-02, 04:13 AM
You're comparing different sources. Qing military exams for officers required drawing extremely heavy bows, performing a drill with an all-steel polearm, and lifting a heavy stone. In that case, soldiers who could draw 160-180lbs probably didn't use such hard bows in the field and especially not from horseback. Much earlier examinations, however, did at least sometimes involve shooting multiple arrows (over 30 in one Tang-era case) from 150+lb bows on foot. Those were apparently for officers rather than all soldiers, but if you can shoot 30 arrows from a 168lb bow and hit the target then you can probably use a bow of around that weight in combat. See this thread (http://www.myarmoury.com/talk/viewtopic.php?t=31345&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0) for a discussion of the relevant sources. The late-Ming source (Sung Ying-Hsing or Yingxing Song, depending on transliteration scheme) specifies 158lb bows for the battlefield.

Sorry Incanur, I read the thread you posted completely different. Mainly; they are primarily talking about test/exams for officers.

"The Chinese military exams were for selection of officer candidates. The tests aren't meant to be something that every soldier can do; success in the exams is meant to show that the candidate is superior. The 70-75kg draw weights are for shooting on foot; the tests of horseback archery in the exams specify lower draw weights (usually 45-50kg). Then we have exams where lower draw weights could be used, to obtain an inferior pass (such as the Qing exams, where a 48kg bow was sufficient for the minimum pass, but 72kg was required for the top grade on this test). "

So the first grade exam is that: 159pound for foot soliders, less for archers. Second grade exams where less (in the Qing period). If 159pounds get you a first degree officer exam, and is comparable to lifting 350-400pound stones and doing a drill with an extremely heavy polearm, then I do not think we can assume it is standard military equipment.

Then they discuss ealier periods, where again 159pound are considered strong, and that most use less power (there are some translation discussion on how much lower). Again they poitn to "lower strength, and half (36kg/79lb), good enough for all", that means around 80pounds are acceptable. It is also clear that the high end bows where valued for armour piercing qualities.

But then (albeit later) sources say (from the page I linked):
“The Manchus had long emphasized mounted archery... ...when they first established their state their archery was as follows: they used bows of eight li draw weight [approx. 106 pounds]... ...whatever they hit, they pierced, and they could even transfix two men with some power to spare.”
Source: Quoted from Xu Ke, Qingbao Leichao (Categorized Anthology of Petty Matters from the Qing Period), 1917.
Translation by Stephen Selby in Chinese Archery, Hong Kong University Press, Hong Kong, page 348.

You say:
"These are both from southern garrisons that saw little if any actual combat at the time. Superior forces likely had higher average draw weights. These mass tests were conducted significantly because of concerns over declining martial skills. As far as I know no numbers exist from northern garrisons that fought more regularly, probably because authorities had more confidence in the prowess of soldiers there."

It is suggested in the post you give, but no numbers are given, just that there might be more who could do stronger bow in the north.
And the quotes about standard military equipment still stands:
"The bows made for the army were made of four weights, 70, 80, 90, and 100 pounds pull."
Source:Jesuit missionary Jean Joseph Marie Amiot. From: Art Militaire Des Chinois, Didot L'Ainé, Paris, 1772. Page 387.

"Their bows ... require the power of from seventy to one hundred pounds in drawing them; the string is composed of silk threads closely wounded, and the arrows are well made and pointed with steel."
Source: William Alexander and George Henry Mason, accompanied the Macartney Embassy to China in 1792.
From: Views of Eighteenth Century China: Costumes, History, Customs, reprint, London: Studio Editions, 1988, 132.

“In archery the Chinese have long been experts, especially those of Manchuria and Szechuan. (…) Their bows are graded according to their pull, the standard being 100 catties, about 135 pounds."
Source: Hong Kong telegraph of August 17, 1893

Other sources do say: "The Chinese bows are large and powerful... Bows of 150 pounds are by no means rare in China."

I know these sources are later, but it is interesting that this is what is considered standard army equipment at the time.

But we need to consider what "not rare" means and how the standard was on the battlefield
Now different period might have had stronger averages, but the information from those periods are mainly exams/competitions, and they still regard 159pound as strong, and around 80 as sufficient.

Agian from the page I linked, my emphasis:
"We also have tangible evidence to confirm that the emperors indeed walked their talks. In the collection of the Palace Museum in Beijing are numerous bows that belonged to emperors that still have their original inventory tags. Among them a 100 and a 147 pound bow that both belonged to the Kangxi emperor and a 93 pound bow that had belonged to the Qianlong emperor (ruled 1736-1796). Apart from that, many Manchu bows I examined in various private and museum collections with dimensions that put them well in the 100 pound range. Some old bows that were strung up by bow maker Wen Chieh Huang turned out to be between 70 and 160 pounds."
Source:The Complete Collection of the Treasures of the Palace Museum. Volume 56: Armaments and Military Provisions.
Hong Kong, The Commercial Press, 2008

I am in no doubt that 159pounds or higher was valued, but I just question whether it was average/standard. That seem more likely to have been around 100 pounds (at most 70-130 span), for foot soldiers, and perhaps less for horse archers.

I also see in the discussion you linked that Ottomans had strengths of around 100pounds.

As the chinese say, my emphasis:
“If there are those who wish to learn how to use a hard bow, they should practice naturally, gradually increasing the strength of the bow. How can one go to such extremes as to take medicine? Unless one knows the nature of the drug there is the chance that people will be hurt. Besides, using a hard bow on horseback is difficult, so what is the advantage? A bow that is of strength six [80 pounds] or greater is enough.”
Edict from the Yongzheng Emperor, ruled 1722 - 1735. Mark C. Elliott, The Manchu Way, The eight banners and Ethnic Identity in Late Imperial China. Stanford University Press, 2001. Page 180

Again both Manchu, as well as Mongols and English longbowmen are famous for their archers. Mary Rose was an "elite" equiped ship in the plate armour era, and there are wildly different estimate on the strength (modern estimates have averages from 105pound and up to almost 180pounds). Other countries and periods do exist and here bows can be lighter, as indeed iron age/viking age ones.

There are many problems regarding both penetration estimates and bow-draw-strength estimates, alot deppend on the arrow as well, as well as the arrow head: as Lars say in the comment on his film:

"Around 04:22 I penetrate chainmail. The arrows had bodkin tips, and the chainmail is riveted. However, while the gambeson is thick, it's not as thick as some I've seen elsewhere. But one reason the arrows penetrate is that I sharpen not only the tip itself, but also the edges of the bodkin tip."

I would like to note that the very heavy gambesons sometimes shown are not well documented (at least as far as I know), and that gambeson for viking age and early medieval is in itself undocumented (at least in northern Europe), but assumed, since it makes sense. So thickness and fabric is difficult to account for.

But clearly many different things factor in the penetration of armour: bowstrength (or rather release force), the arrows qualities (stiffness, weight etc), the arrowhead qualities, the armour quality. We simply have too little really high end research on the matter. Most people estimate one part of the equation and make that fit with what they assume (that is at least my interpretation of average draw weights at Mary Rose of 160-180pounds, which are just as wrong and biased as Popes much smaller estimates).

goto124
2015-02-02, 07:16 AM
Is shooting more than 1 arrow at a time really a viable tactic IRL? I figured it made an interesting game mechanic, but nothing more.

Galloglaich
2015-02-02, 09:43 AM
I didn't say it wasn't around, but that it wasn't AS common. Plate was not of the quality in lets say mid 14th century as it was in the mid 15th century, and before that mail would have been used. It was also not as common as in the 15th and 16th century. But as I said, less than 20% of vikings likely used mail. Mail was for the king and his retainers and chieftains. The same goes for many early medieval armies; mainly the knigths and richer people wore heavy armours. This change toward the end of the 14th century and 15th century where it seem more common

Actually that isn't true. The Viking Age covers a long period of time (late 8th to mid 11th Centuries) and a huge amount of space (Iceland to Russia). Mail was very rare in most Scandinavian armies circa 800 AD (Scandinavians were poor even swords were pretty rare), but it was ubiquitous in many Norse armies by the 10th - 11th Century. Centuries of Danegelds and plunder had made them rich by contemporaneous standards.

G

Spiryt
2015-02-02, 10:53 AM
Is shooting more than 1 arrow at a time really a viable tactic IRL? I figured it made an interesting game mechanic, but nothing more.

Aside from problems with aiming at about anything at all, but arrows will obviously have about 50% of energy that one arrow would have.

If arrows are very light for the bow, they could have more, of course, but the fact remains that people were then shooting one heavier arrow instead of experimenting with Legolasing. :smallwink:

Incanur
2015-02-02, 06:30 PM
Sorry Incanur, I read the thread you posted completely different. Mainly; they are primarily talking about test/exams for officers.

Sung Ying-Hsing/Yingxing Song wasn't.


Then they discuss ealier periods, where again 159pound are considered strong, and that most use less power (there are some translation discussion on how much lower). Again they poitn to "lower strength, and half (36kg/79lb), good enough for all", that means around 80pounds are acceptable. It is also clear that the high end bows where valued for armour piercing qualities.

The "good enough for all" is Timo's translation. The E-tu Zen Sun and Shiou-Chuan Sun translation describe such bows as "weak" - either way the effect is about the same - and notes how strong archers are needed on the battlefield.


But then (albeit later) sources say (from the page I linked):
“The Manchus had long emphasized mounted archery... ...when they first established their state their archery was as follows: they used bows of eight li draw weight [approx. 106 pounds]... ...whatever they hit, they pierced, and they could even transfix two men with some power to spare.”
Source: Quoted from Xu Ke, Qingbao Leichao (Categorized Anthology of Petty Matters from the Qing Period), 1917.
Translation by Stephen Selby in Chinese Archery, Hong Kong University Press, Hong Kong, page 348.

Soldiers who draw 106lbs mounted can typically handle heavier bows on foot. 106lbs mounted translates to 140-160lbs on foot according to the ratios in the earlier officer exams.


And the quotes about standard military equipment still stands:
"The bows made for the army were made of four weights, 70, 80, 90, and 100 pounds pull."
Source:Jesuit missionary Jean Joseph Marie Amiot. From: Art Militaire Des Chinois, Didot L'Ainé, Paris, 1772. Page 387.

"Their bows ... require the power of from seventy to one hundred pounds in drawing them; the string is composed of silk threads closely wounded, and the arrows are well made and pointed with steel."
Source: William Alexander and George Henry Mason, accompanied the Macartney Embassy to China in 1792.
From: Views of Eighteenth Century China: Costumes, History, Customs, reprint, London: Studio Editions, 1988, 132.

If that was primarily for mounted use as it likely was, that's broadly consistent with the other data points.


I am in no doubt that 159pounds or higher was valued, but I just question whether it was average/standard. That seem more likely to have been around 100 pounds (at most 70-130 span), for foot soldiers, and perhaps less for horse archers.

The archaeological evidence indicates that 150-160lbs was the average on the Mary Rose. That's disputed, but I find Matthew Strickland and Robert Hardy convincing in this regard.


I also see in the discussion you linked that Ottomans had strengths of around 100pounds.

The extant Turkish bows examined by Adam Karpowicz (http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Ottoman+bows--an+assessment+of+draw+weight,+performance+and+tact ical...-a0169923798) averaged 111lbs once he removed ones he considered either too hard (150lbs and above) or too soft (70lbs and below) for field use. Most of these were probably for mounted archery.


“If there are those who wish to learn how to use a hard bow, they should practice naturally, gradually increasing the strength of the bow. How can one go to such extremes as to take medicine? Unless one knows the nature of the drug there is the chance that people will be hurt. Besides, using a hard bow on horseback is difficult, so what is the advantage? A bow that is of strength six [80 pounds] or greater is enough.”
Edict from the Yongzheng Emperor, ruled 1722 - 1735. Mark C. Elliott, The Manchu Way, The eight banners and Ethnic Identity in Late Imperial China. Stanford University Press, 2001. Page 180

This came in the context of folks taking drugs to improve their drawing strength. According to Elliott's text, strength six was the considered the minimum and soldiers couldn't draw six-strength bows got special training to get them up to speed.

Tobtor
2015-02-03, 04:02 AM
Incanur: you bring up some very good points, and I am partially convinced.


Sung Ying-Hsing/Yingxing Song wasn't.

OK. True, but that was the text that still conisdered 159 pund as strong, and that most would use a lighter bow (10-20%, that is bows in the 125-145 range). And that half was the minimum. It is difficult to ascertain what "strong" is and how many "most" are, and how many would just have made the minimum. That minimum is encountered must be ssumed, otherwise there is no need to mention it. Would it be fair to assume some sort of normal distribution in the 100-160pound range? And that archers in the 80-100pound range is just as rare as those above 160? But it will in the end come down to interpretation of the words used.

I think I have come on as too critically about the top strengths, but it comes from a dissatisfaction of claims that 150-160pounds are the MINIMUM strength of warbows sometimes encountered. In the chinese examples the sources suggest that the 160 was for officer exams in the later part and considered "strong" in the earlier. Thus, elite archers in in an army focussed on this can likely handle 150-160pound on foot, but there would be plenty (most in the source mentioned), that used ligther bows, and as little as 80pounds was considered acceptable as a minimum.


Soldiers who draw 106lbs mounted can typically handle heavier bows on foot. 106lbs mounted translates to 140-160lbs on foot according to the ratios in the earlier officer exams.

Fair point, I acknowledge that. The Manchu was here celebrated for their archery, so it still seem that historically 110pounds on horse and 150-160 on foot is considered elite, rather than minimumstandards. Fits also with the Turkish example you gave.



The archaeological evidence indicates that 150-160lbs was the average on the Mary Rose. That's disputed, but I find Matthew Strickland and Robert Hardy convincing in this regard.

I think I am more critical about their estimates, but I haven't looked into the details and what I have is some time ago.

I remember feeling that they whenever they could assumed high estimates and used this for their next estimates, rather than testing both high and low estimates on various points. Like using the draw weight based on the longer arrows (30inches), rather than shorter ones (28inches) and this will clearly affect the draw-strenght, pulling the same bow and bowstring 28 or 30 inches back (purely from memory, so I could be wrong). I was also unconvinced in their selection of bows and reconstructed diameters. There were other examples, but as I said; it was a short look and some time ago.

Tobtor
2015-02-03, 04:24 AM
Actually that isn't true. The Viking Age covers a long period of time (late 8th to mid 11th Centuries) and a huge amount of space (Iceland to Russia). Mail was very rare in most Scandinavian armies circa 800 AD (Scandinavians were poor even swords were pretty rare), but it was ubiquitous in many Norse armies by the 10th - 11th Century. Centuries of Danegelds and plunder had made them rich by contemporaneous standards.

Really, wow.... I didn't know that.

What is this very certain claim that many norse armies, had widespread use of mail, come from?
The 1 (one) existing Scandinavian find of a complete mail? From an elite grave, no less. Or from the few (a few here means in the 8-12 range) fragments of mail from the period? I havn't seen many examples from Viking graves in England either.

In Scandinavia mail is much rare than swords in finds, both graves and otherwise (like ALOT rarer) long into the medieval period.

So perhaps it is from written sources, in that case they must be English, since I haven't seen any references backing that statementment up, in any Scandinavian ones both historically or the more literary ones such as the the Sagas (where mail is sometime mentioned, but mostly for chieftains, earls, kings and their sons, but also sometimes for high standing retainers - but even for the hero where the equipment and weapons, shield etc can be very detailed described in the "pre battle scene" mail is rarely mentioned).

It could also come from pictures, where mail is very rare in Scandinavia, but more widespread on the Bayeux tapestry, but even here we sometimes see people going battle without armour. And other scene where evryone wears what is likely mail (see top and bottom of this part:
http://rubens.anu.edu.au/htdocs/laserdisk/0214/21429.JPG

Why should they invest in amour when they where successful without? Vikings spend their money on land and prestige items (silk, silver, gold etc - they really liked this, also swords of course). Also mail and seafaring doesn't go together, which is why all the norman ones are packed away in the trip across the water to England:

http://rubens.anu.edu.au/htdocs/laserdisk/0214/21439.JPG

One a different note; where did you see that about 90pounds neolithic bows, I am very interested.