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

[Clistenes]

There's no maybe about it, the notion that stirrups are required for a couched charge is nonsense. Alexander's Companions were charging-home, heavy cavalry, none of them had stirrups. Their primary purpose was to give horse-archers a good seat.

Again: Even if stirrups doesn't make such a big difference, you still need a lot of training to become an efficent horseman, which was the point we were speaking about. And the Companions were mostly made up of Macedonian aristocracy, not of artisans or peasants who had to work many hours a day to make a living...


There isn't really a lot of time between the re-establishment of democracy in 510BC and the Ionian Revolt in 499BC, so I think the point is rather moot.

Solon, on the other hand, became ruler of Athens almost 100 years before the Ionian Revolt, so the evolution towards democracy started long before that... And the Ekklesia and the hoplite soldier existed long before Solon. The shift from an aristocratic, patrimonial form government towards a democratic one was gradual, over several centuries...

EDIT: And anyways, Greek warfare kept evolving after 510 BC. As I said, there were 152 years between Marathon and Chaeronea, and warfare evolved a lot in between.


For the most part, Greece itself didn't have professional armies in the Hellenistic era, it still relied on citizen-militias. They changed back and forth between hoplite/pike/thureophoros models as they won and lost in conflicts. The closest anyone came to professionalism was if they turned mercenary.

Even Alexander didn't have a lot of use for Greeks on his campaigns; the fighting was done by Makedonians and various allied nations, Greeks might be put on a flank or more often used as garrisons to hold strong points while the rest of the army moved on.

Well, when I spoke about greek warfare during the Hellenistic period, I was speaking of all the Hellenistic kingdoms, and not just Greece proper.


The professionals in the Hellenistic were Makedonian settlers and other Hellenes and Hellenising peoples given grants of land in return for service. And mercenaries.

My understanding is that there was a core of full-time professional elite soldiers, while the farmer-soldiers were more like reserves. And the number of mercenaries increased over time, becoming a large percentage of some armies, and even the bulk of the troops in some cases...

Anyways, all (or at least most) Hellenistic states turned to recruit natives (hellenized or not) over time.


No they weren't different, that's a modern division that doesn't apply. Athletes trained for the Olympics and other major games, which contained a host of martial events in them; running in and out of armour, throwing javelins and discus, boxing/wrestling (pankration), fighting in armour, horse-racing. All those events were practise for war. We have the example of the athlete Dioxippus (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dioxippus) famously beating one of Alexander's soldiers in a set-piece bout.

And you will notice that fencing with spear or sword wasn't an Olympic discipline, neither was archery nor mounted archery, nor throwing javelins at the target, nor jousting... None of the Olympic disciplines trained citizen-soldiers in the use of real weapons of war (not even javelin-throwing; they didn't practice accuracy...).

[Kiero]

Generals don't make for a good argument, I think. There are two reasons for this, the first one being that generals are, by definition, an exception within an army. The second one is that, in Athens, the strategoi and the archon polemarchos were chosen by the city, and these roles would surely have overruled membership to a corps.

However, I do recognize that things weren't anywhere near as clear cut as I stated earlier. I have taken a look around. Apparently, the Athenian cavalry could have amounted to just 90 men before the Persian Wars, which suggests either that very few of the hippeis actually served, or that many preferred to serve elsewhere. It might however be worth wondering whether Athens needed a huge army before 490. Anyway, nothing sure is known from this time about Athenian cavalry, with different scholars giving a radically different reading of the few data we have (iconography in particular).
Later the cavalry was expanded up to 1000 riders + 200 horse archers. The increase was gradual and took place over many decades. What I find interesting is that the horses were property of the riders, but would be refunded by Athens if they were lost in the fighting. Documents reporting the value of the single horses have been found. These riders were not just Athenians, but also aristocrats from allied cities.

Anyway, numbers are probably the best argument for free choice among hippeis, since Athens was in a position to pretty much never run out of its allotted horsemen, even with free choice. I am not as incredulous as I was, although I keep some doubts. The thing is that I see the presence of such a class as a way to make sure that there was enough equipment and horses. So I wonder if a rich artisan that didn't want to be a rider or waste time on a stable could instead pay a tax equivalent to the cost of equipping a rider and keeping his horse(s).

As a side note, an impoverished aristocrat would have fallen from hippeus to zeugite. That kind of mobility was probably expected.

Did they have an equivalent official to the Roman censors actively looking to remove people from classes they no longer qualified for? More pertinently, even if they did, were they immune to political pressures from impoverished, but still influential families staying their hand?

I think the reality is that mobility would be stymied, both by people working not to fall from their traditional class, but also those higher up the ladder trying to keep those below them down.


The different sets of skill between boxing and warfare was already recognised in Homer. See the Patroclus games. It would be interesting to see what the Olympic poets thought.

Why would they have bothered adding the hoplitodromos (foot-race in full armour), if there was no linkage between the games and war?


Concerning the development of the fleet, those aren't the relevant dates. Around 500 Athens had about 50 penteconters, and sent 20 ships to the Ionian Revolt. Themistocles entered politics around 493 and had the port moved to Piraeus. But the huge enlargement of the fleet became possible in 483, after the discovery of the silver, after which Themistocles managed to get over 200 new ships built. This was made possible by the pressure of war upon the voters, first against Aegina, and then the expected one against Persia. Otherwise, the silver would probably have been distributed to the citizens. I think that it was the fleet which strengthened democracy, but democracy didn't cause the construction of the fleet. By comparison, Corinth wasn't a democracy and developed its naval power under tyrants and an olygarchy.

Cornith didn't seem to have anything like the same volume of rowing manpower available that Athens did. Democracy didn't cause the construction of the fleet, but it certainly seemed to encourage lots of lower-class men to volunteer to participate. Even after defeats Athens didn't seem to have trouble raising new fleets (especially from a manpower perspective).


Again: Even if stirrups doesn't make such a big difference, you still need a lot of training to become an efficent horseman, which was the point we were speaking about. And the Companions were mostly made up of Macedonian aristocracy, not of artisans or peasants who had to work many hours a day to make a living...

I have made a point, throughout this discussion, of both distinguishing the Thessalians from other Greeks, and by extension distinguishing the Makedonians (who copied the Thessalian cavalry traditions) from Greeks as well. Yes, I know the Companions weren't artisans, my point in raising them here was to debunk the notion that you need stirrups to charge home.


Solon, on the other hand, became ruler of Athens almost 100 years before the Ionian Revolt, so the evolution towards democracy started long before that... And the Ekklesia and the hoplite soldier existed long before Solon. The shift from an aristocratic, patrimonial form government towards a democratic one was gradual, over several centuries...

EDIT: And anyways, Greek warfare kept evolving after 510 BC. As I said, there were 152 years between Marathon and Chaeronea, and warfare evolved a lot in between.

Yes, and it continued to do so afterwards, even while the Diadochi slugged it out. As I said, city-states had a non-linear evolution between three potential models, where they sometimes moved back and forth.


Well, when I spoke about greek warfare during the Hellenistic period, I was speaking of all the Hellenistic kingdoms, and not just Greece proper.

That's Hellenistic warfare, not merely Greek. The distinction matters, because a lot of the military pre-occupation of the Diadochi (based outside Greece) surrounded how to recruit Makedonian settlers to fill their phalanx, because natives weren't as good. Or they didn't want to transmit the knowledge for fear of it being used against them, such as the Machimoi pikemen who rebelled after being deployed by the Ptolemaioi at Raphia (triggering half a century of unrest).

Greece wasn't the front line of the conflicts of the Hellenistic era either, that happened in Syria and Anatolia. They were sheltered from many of the pressures driving evolution


My understanding is that there was a core of full-time professional elite soldiers, while the farmer-soldiers were more like reserves. And the number of mercenaries increased over time, becoming a large percentage of some armies, and even the bulk of the troops in some cases...

Anyways, all (or at least most) Hellenistic states turned to recruit natives (hellenized or not) over time.

Those farmer-soldiers were the colonists - kleruchoi or katoikoi - like pre-Marian Roman legionaries, they were expected to have free time to devote to training, holding sizable grants of land. They didn't just settle Makedonians either - Galatian Celts, Thracians, Thessalians, Kretans, all sorts were settled to provide a reliable source of manpower. They were the core of the infantry, both phalanx and other elements.

As above, the roles those natives were recruited in were distinct. The core heavy infantry was Makedonian/Greek/very Hellenised other. Other natives served as cavalry (the Seleukids had lots of very good quality satrapal cavalry available of all classes) or light infantry.


And you will notice that fencing with spear or sword wasn't an Olympic discipline, neither was archery nor mounted archery, nor throwing javelins at the target, nor jousting... None of the Olympic disciplines trained citizen-soldiers in the use of real weapons of war (not even javelin-throwing; they didn't practice accuracy...).

Pankration most certainly did, since it was the primary set of close-in fighting techniques. The hoplitodromos was a run in armour (full hoplite panoply) - you can't do that effectively and hope to win if you don't train in armour. If athletes were of no use, why would the story of Dioxippus have made such a stir?

[Blackhawk748]

Before i go diggin through the internet, can anyone recommend a good training manual for the English Bill? I think im doing it right but id like to confirm as well as know more about the fighting style.

[Batou1976]

Before i go diggin through the internet, can anyone recommend a good training manual for the English Bill? I think im doing it right but id like to confirm as well as know more about the fighting style.

I'm not aware of any manuals devoted specifically to the bill. I wouldn't be surprised if there aren't any. Instead, your best bet is probably to do as the old masters of defense recommended and study the longsword first and become proficient with it; from this you will become competent in the basic elements of fighting, and from there you could work on practicing with the pollax. Once you know what you're doing when it comes to other weapons, you could likely extrapolate how to use a bill without the need for a manual devoted specifically to it (and I believe this is why most European weapons didn't have manuals peculiar to them but instead the great bulk of surviving fechtbucher concentrate on the longsword;).

ARMA (www.thearma.org) has lots of free resources on its website if you want to check it out.

[Batou1976]

Damn, now I feel compelled to start working out stats for guns in my setting. :smallbiggrin:

You really should. Imagine the look on your player's faces the first time some armored "knight" comes charging at them and instead of swinging a sword at them, he stops (safely out of melee range, of course), takes aim, and fires a shot at them from a wheellock pistol. :smallbiggrin:


I figured that magical weapons might necessitate the production of magical armor, so the "arms race" could continue and produce plate and such without firearms and it would still feel valid, but all this is really interesting and hard to argue against. Especially since I like high-magic settings, and it wouldn't be too hard to imagine an alchemical gunpowder analogue.
Maybe I'll stat guns like I was thinking about an Arbelast- large damage but with a long reload time, so it's really only attractive to people in siege-situations and maybe massed-combat. Definitely not the sort of thing adventurers in small-group or solo-combat situations would favor.

You don't say what system you're using, but Pathfinder already has a splatbook with stats for gunpowder weapons, and I remember seeing a section about them in the 5E DMG as well.
If you're using some other system and are going to have to stat them yourself, I'd suggest doing some homework on the history of firearms, since the spectrum of earlier technologies didn't all exist concurrently, and some of them didn't gain a whole lot of traction for a reason.

[rrgg]

Pankration most certainly did, since it was the primary set of close-in fighting techniques. The hoplitodromos was a run in armour (full hoplite panoply) - you can't do that effectively and hope to win if you don't train in armour. If athletes were of no use, why would the story of Dioxippus have made such a stir?

That's sort of the point though. The classical Greeks heavily emphasized the importance of physical fitness (developing the perfect body) and courage for hoplites and hoplite combat, but mentions of actual weapons training with the spear or sword or formation drills are practically nonexistant until the rise of the Macedonians.

[Kiero]

That's sort of the point though. The classical Greeks heavily emphasized the importance of physical fitness (developing the perfect body) and courage for hoplites and hoplite combat, but mentions of actual weapons training with the spear or sword or formation drills are practically nonexistant until the rise of the Macedonians.

The existence of the pyrrichios (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyrrhichios), which predates the hoplite, would suggest otherwise on formation drills being non-existent.

[Slipperychicken]

Might be a little bit outside the scope of the thread, but..

What exactly do modern attack-dogs and security-dogs do when they've reached their target? I know they bark loudly, bite, and scratch, but is it generally to maul, or to immobilize with agony while humans move in? How often do people get knocked down by these animals in close quarters? Which extremities are their favorites, or would they be trained to attack specific areas? Is more of the dog's work done through terror, or the dog's physical power?

How do trained dogs fare against armed and well-armored humans? We can assume the human is holding or wearing an automatic rifle or pistol (which he is trained to use) along with a backpack or duffel-bag laden with gear, is already in close quarters with the dog, and is wearing military-style armor designed to protect against firearms rather than animals. He also has a knife on his person. Would a properly-trained dog simply work around armor and bite less-armored areas? Will a few quick body-shots disable an attacking canine? We can also do a variant where the dog is wearing a typical armored vest.

[Mike_G]

Might be a little bit outside the scope of the thread, but..

What exactly do modern attack-dogs and security-dogs do when they've reached their target? I know they bark loudly, bite, and scratch, but is it generally to maul, or to immobilize with agony while humans move in? How often do people get knocked down by these animals in close quarters? Which extremities are their favorites, or would they be trained to attack specific areas? Is more of the dog's work done through terror, or the dog's physical power?

How do trained dogs fare against armed and well-armored humans? We can assume the human is holding or wearing an automatic rifle or pistol (which he is trained to use) along with a backpack or duffel-bag laden with gear, is already in close quarters with the dog, and is wearing military-style armor designed to protect against firearms rather than animals. He also has a knife on his person. Would a properly-trained dog simply work around armor and bite less-armored areas? Will a few quick body-shots disable an attacking canine? We can also do a variant where the dog is wearing a typical armored vest.

The dog is boned.

Dogs aren't trained to avoid armor. Not sure they can be. Police use them to attack, since they generally face unarmored people who will run from a vicious dog, and they can go places a human officer can't. Military dogs are used to sniff out stuff, not attack, usually.

A man with a knife can beat a dog easy. A man with a gun can beat a dozen dogs.

Now, most body armor is for the vitals, and if a dog bites the limbs it might miss the armor, but if a dog bites my leg and I have a knife, I'm limping home, but the dog is dead.

[darkdragoon]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDD6Yerl0k0

Keep in mind in the field they have armor and mounted cameras too.

[Mr Beer]

How do trained dogs fare against armed and well-armored humans?

We can assume the human is holding or wearing an automatic rifle or pistol (which he is trained to use) along with a backpack or duffel-bag laden with gear, is already in close quarters with the dog, and is wearing military-style armor designed to protect against firearms rather than animals. He also has a knife on his person.

In this scenario: extremely badly.

A big attack dog is an alarming foe for a typical unarmed human, while there are guys who could probably take on any dog and win (grappling is a thing, so is a big brain), I certainly wouldn't want to try it.

An armoured soldier with a knife, let alone a pistol, is going to destroy any dog I can imagine at least 90% of the time. The dog has to get to the neck or face, through an armoured arm, while the human shoots it basically anywhere multiple times and then if he drops his pistol, he stabs it multiple times.

Humans generally mass more than a large guard dog, can grapple, a knife is a nastier weapon than a bite, and a knife vs. dog inflicts way more damage than teeth vs. armour. The dog has negligible advantages, I guess it has better balance due to 4 legs and can probably retreat if beaten but not fatally wounded. Everything else is in favour of the human.

I don't have any relevant training and I'd take on any dog you want in these circumstances, for a decent pay day of course. A soldier or anyone with decent unarmed or knife skills or any aggressive fit man would waltz it.

If dogs could savage armed and armoured men, they would have been used extensively on the battlefield.

[gkathellar]

The dog is boned.

Dogs aren't trained to avoid armor. Not sure they can be. Police use them to attack, since they generally face unarmored people who will run from a vicious dog, and they can go places a human officer can't. Military dogs are used to sniff out stuff, not attack, usually.

A man with a knife can beat a dog easy. A man with a gun can beat a dozen dogs.

Now, most body armor is for the vitals, and if a dog bites the limbs it might miss the armor, but if a dog bites my leg and I have a knife, I'm limping home, but the dog is dead.

Pfft, clearly you've not seen the greatest movie of our time. (https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=AMupA9_wLcw)

[Yora]

One dog against one armed human is pretty hopeless for the dog.

But several dogs jumping on one human at once would probably look very different. That is an important distinction to make. Modern military armor would help some, but I am not sure how much.
How much a gun would help would highly depend on how many dogs and how early the human becomes aware of them. Single dog and a pistol would again be no fight. Four dogs charging around a corner on someone with a rifle would do much better. The first one might get shot, but if the other three can jump on the human, the rifle won't be any good after that. Knife would be great, if you don't lose it in the struggle.

The Romans used war dogs, but there is no documentation on what they were used for. Guard dogs to warn of ambush would probably be the most likely case.

[Vinyadan]

Attack dogs aren't really trained to kill. Why use a dog, when there are far cheaper alternatives, like a gun?
But attack dogs can be trained to aggressively subdue an opponent, be it a man running away, or a bad guy who just pulled a gun or a knife. In this case, however, the point is that the dog isn't supposed to be there alone. So it isn't really dog vs human, more like dog protecting (armed) owner from human.
A well trained dog will attack the upper arm. A less well trained dog will aim for more external parts, like the hands and lower arm.
Once the dog has grabbed the guy in the upper body, it's easy to make him fall. Since we are so tall with a small base, we don't have much equilibrium. A large dog is between 40 and 70 kg (it can be more, but it depends on race). When it bites the guy, it doesn't go for many bites: just one, then holds on, while pulling and pushing back and forth.

Now, a man with a weapon that sees the dog running at him won't have any trouble shooting it. The police sometimes has to do this. A knife isn't as good, but, if it is pulled out while already being bitten, it should win you the fight.

There were other dogs in the past that were eg trained to find and hold escaped slaves. I don't know how that exactly went.

[Deepbluediver]

What exactly do modern attack-dogs and security-dogs do when they've reached their target? I know they bark loudly, bite, and scratch, but is it generally to maul, or to immobilize with agony while humans move in? How often do people get knocked down by these animals in close quarters? Which extremities are their favorites, or would they be trained to attack specific areas? Is more of the dog's work done through terror, or the dog's physical power?

How do trained dogs fare against armed and well-armored humans? We can assume the human is holding or wearing an automatic rifle or pistol (which he is trained to use) along with a backpack or duffel-bag laden with gear, is already in close quarters with the dog, and is wearing military-style armor designed to protect against firearms rather than animals. He also has a knife on his person. Would a properly-trained dog simply work around armor and bite less-armored areas? Will a few quick body-shots disable an attacking canine? We can also do a variant where the dog is wearing a typical armored vest.
I recall reading one account of police trying to determine if a dog had been used as the "murder weapon" in a crime- I think the man was accused of setting it on a woman. He claimed it was just an accident, and the police had to prove it had been intentional. Apparently the dog was very sweet and friendly, until they police brought out one of those padded suits (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01AKFNPN8/ref=asc_df_B01AKFNPN85294242/?tag=hyprod-20&creative=394997&creativeASIN=B01AKFNPN8&linkCode=df0&hvadid=198079906959&hvpos=1o8&hvnetw=g&hvrand=3442393428004911900&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9028844&hvtargid=pla-354081279569) used for dog-training. And just on sight the dog started snarling and barking and trying to bite it. Unfortunately since the police were never able to figure out what word was the "attack" command, they had to destroy the animal because they couldn't be certain no one wouldn't accidentally trigger it.

So dogs can definitely be trained to attack specific things- I don't know if they have the mental capacity though to recognize and AVOID a wide range of armor.

What might be easier is to just train the dogs to go for arms and legs, which tend to be less armored anyway. AFAIK, wolves mainly bring down large prey by encircling it and biting at the legs and hindquarters until it goes into shock or collapses from bloodloss. Even if a dog couldn't kill an armored enemy on it's own, it might trip them up, slow them down, or even just distract them at the crucial moment. Given how many resources it takes to train a dog and how easily one might be dispatched with a single thrust or shot, I don't know if it's worth it (I'm sure people have tried armoring dogs, but I don't know how effective it could be) to do on a large scale, but in a more small-group setting like scouting parties they might be useful.

The other thing you might try is getting dogs to attack the enemy's horses. War-horses are usually pretty well trained, but unless they were specifically trained against dogs, a snarling pack might be enough to panic a horse and break a charge, or at least trip, distract, slow down, etc. The key would be getting the dogs to only go for enemy horses if both sides are using them. Maybe you could put bells on your horse's ankles or something like that, and teach the dogs to only go for unbelled ankles.

[Galloglaich]

One dog against one armed human is pretty hopeless for the dog.

But several dogs jumping on one human at once would probably look very different. That is an important distinction to make. Modern military armor would help some, but I am not sure how much.
How much a gun would help would highly depend on how many dogs and how early the human becomes aware of them. Single dog and a pistol would again be no fight. Four dogs charging around a corner on someone with a rifle would do much better. The first one might get shot, but if the other three can jump on the human, the rifle won't be any good after that. Knife would be great, if you don't lose it in the struggle.

The Romans used war dogs, but there is no documentation on what they were used for. Guard dogs to warn of ambush would probably be the most likely case.

Dogs, called Greyhounds but obviously a different creature than the modern racing dog, were a major military asset for the Conquistadors and definitely terorrized and killed a lot of Indians including armed ones. Their value to the Spanish was immediately understood and exploited. It was considered that 3 or 4 soldiers in a village were vulnerable but with a dog the Indians were too afraid to start trouble.

I agree though for dogs it's numbers that make the difference. A single dog can't deal with a bear or a really large boar, but 6 or 7 fairly innocuous looking hunting dogs working together can take one down or at least keep it at bay and confused, quite routinely. You can watch a lot of videos on youtube particularly where hunters are using knives or spears.


This is going to sound crazy but when I was a young man, I used to walk or skateboard to my friends house through an area which was Skid Row back then, (now a fancy yuppie area). There was a big bridge there and people used to fight dogs in empty lots under the bridge. The dogs that lost, if they lived, were often let loose and formed scary packs of pit bulls, rottweilers, German Shepherds and dobermans. Quite aggressive.

Several people were bitten until finally after the dogs killed a homeless guy, the city went in there and shot a bunch of them and captured the rest. I myself 3 times was chased by small packs of them and had to climb up on top of a car. They couldn't get me on top of the car and when they tried I'd swing my skateboard or backpack at them. I was **** scared the first time but then like with a lot of other dangers back then it became almost routine. They couldn't get you when you were on the car.

Even though those were former fighting dogs though I don't think they were anywhere near as mean or determined as a police dog or a Roman mastiff. If they had caught me on the ground they might have killed me but they were sort of half playing with me i think.

Still pretty scary experience and I saw, and felt, how they could worry at you from multiple directions. Thankfully we apes have the ability to climb and work in that third dimension dogs don't understand so well.

G

[gkathellar]

In general canines are not really built for fighting. Compared to say, a cougar, or hell, a bull cow or a large buck, a dog or even a wolf is stiff, poorly armed, relatively light, and not built for power.

That said, they're a lot like people: relatively keen senses in general, tons of endurance over long distances, strong cooperative instincts, and a tendency to form tight social bonds.

[awa]

one thing to keep in mind is dogs are fast and have good night vision if it has been trained not to warn you by barking, then in the proper environment you may only become aware of it once it has already attacked. Another thing to remember is psychology if the target has not been trained to deal with dogs then the panic can be significantly more effective then a dogs raw abilities may suggest.

[Mr Beer]

I myself 3 times was chased by small packs of them and had to climb up on top of a car. They couldn't get me on top of the car and when they tried I'd swing my skateboard or backpack at them. I was **** scared the first time but then like with a lot of other dangers back then it became almost routine. They couldn't get you when you were on the car.

I've been surrounded by a pack of dogs twice, both times I was able to continue in the general direction I was heading by making aggressive lunges and swings at a dog every time I was near enough. Was particularly careful to keep checking behind me and try to kick ones circling round.

In retrospect they probably weren't dangerous to an adult, there was no concerted effort to overwhelm me, but still. One of the times this happened it was in India and I really didn't want to have to go get rabies shots.

[Clistenes]

Dogs, called Greyhounds but obviously a different creature than the modern racing dog, were a major military asset for the Conquistadors and definitely terorrized and killed a lot of Indians including armed ones. Their value to the Spanish was immediately understood and exploited. It was considered that 3 or 4 soldiers in a village were vulnerable but with a dog the Indians were too afraid to start trouble.
G

The Conquistador's "greyhounds" were big game hunting dogs, similar to wolfhounds, deerhounds and borzois; not the modern ones, that are bred for their looks and to win prizes at shows, but the old landraces that were used to hunt wolves, deer and similar...

They also had "alanos", which were big game catch dogs similar to argentine mastiffs used to hunt boars and bears. The alanos were the dogs who were expected to fight armed men who stood their ground, while sighthounds were used to chase natives who were running away.

They equiped their dogs with leather and cotton armor, good enough to stop crappy native arrows, spears and javelins.

And psychological warfare played a big part on it. Natives were terrified of european dogs, which they saw as alien human-eating beasts similar to wolves or cougars (they didn't have big dogs). On top of that, the native americans from the Caribbean and Mexico didn't have mounts, beasts of burden, working beasts, shepherd dogs or even specialized hunting dogs, so they weren't used to watch trained animals acting in a way that looked intelligent. The sight of a weird beast wearing armor, following verbal orders during battle and taking cover from arrows must have seem unnatural to them...

Another advantage dogs had was their ability to detect hidden enemies and to guard the camp at night, preventing both ambushes and nocturnal attacks.

And as somebody said, dogs could fight in pitch darkness. Becerrillo (Little Calf) was said to have killed thirty-three enemies during a nocturnal battle; it seems the natives assaulted the spanish camp at night, hoping to use the surprise and the lack of visibility to compensate for their lesser equipment, but they bumped onto Becerillo, who picked them one by one at his pleasure; the caribbeans couldn't see him, and even if they could hear him, they probably hesitated before running towards the screams of a fellow being butchered by a beast in pitch darkness...

The best dogs had a pay as high as a crossbowman (50% more than a swordman).

[Vinyadan]

And psychological warfare played a big part on it. Natives were terrified of european dogs, which they saw as alien human-eating beasts similar to wolves or cougars (they didn't have big dogs).

What can make you sing? Chihuahua!

[Galloglaich]

The Conquistador's "greyhounds" were big game hunting dogs, similar to wolfhounds, deerhounds and borzois; not the modern ones, that are bred for their looks and to win prizes at shows, but the old landraces that were used to hunt wolves, deer and similar...

They also had "alanos", which were big game catch dogs similar to argentine mastiffs used to hunt boars and bears. The alanos were the dogs who were expected to fight armed men who stood their ground, while sighthounds were used to chase natives who were running away.

They equiped their dogs with leather and cotton armor, good enough to stop crappy native arrows, spears and javelins.

And psychological warfare played a big part on it. Natives were terrified of european dogs, which they saw as alien human-eating beasts similar to wolves or cougars (they didn't have big dogs). On top of that, the native americans from the Caribbean and Mexico didn't have mounts, beasts of burden, working beasts, shepherd dogs or even specialized hunting dogs, so they weren't used to watch trained animals acting in a way that looked intelligent. The sight of a weird beast wearing armor, following verbal orders during battle and taking cover from arrows must have seem unnatural to them...

Another advantage dogs had was their ability to detect hidden enemies and to guard the camp at night, preventing both ambushes and nocturnal attacks.

And as somebody said, dogs could fight in pitch darkness. Becerrillo (Little Calf) was said to have killed thirty-three enemies during a nocturnal battle; it seems the natives assaulted the spanish camp at night, hoping to use the surprise and the lack of visibility to compensate for their lesser equipment, but they bumped onto Becerillo, who picked them one by one at his pleasure; the caribbeans couldn't see him, and even if they could hear him, they probably hesitated before running towards the screams of a fellow being butchered by a beast in pitch darkness...

The best dogs had a pay as high as a crossbowman (50% more than a swordman).

Fascinating info there Cistenes, thanks for posting.

Do you recommend any primary sources on this stuff in particular? I have read Bernal Diaz which is fantastic.

G

[Clistenes]

Fascinating info there Cistenes, thanks for posting.

Do you recommend any primary sources on this stuff in particular? I have read Bernal Diaz which is fantastic.

G

If you google "Becerrillo" and "Leoncico" you should find a bunch of books. Those two were the most famous wardogs of the Conquistadors.

[Yora]

I've seen an unsourced claim that the Romans used dogs to break up shield walls and phalanxes. And I can see that potentially working really well. Dogs might be very well suited to quickly slip under the spears and shields of the defenders and start biting at their unprotected legs. Even if they don't deal a lot of damage, some men in the front ranks will have to drop their spears and won't be able to keep their shields firmly aligned. And once you get a hole in a shield wall it's basically over.
The one problem I see is how you're going to get your dogs back. When the enemy formation is getting squeezed and there is no way to move, lots ot dogs would probably get crushed.

Disrupting cavalry charges that are not used to dogs should also work quite well.

Speaking of densely packed soldiers getting crushed in a panic: I recently saw the claim that the Battle of Agincourt was not won by the English archers at all, but simply by the terrain. An analyst for crowd safety said that the battlefield had really muddy ground and the topography is forming a natural funnel narrowing towards the English position. Having thousands of densely packed men charging in there are perfect conditions for a disaster. Some will slip, the ones behind them can't go around them, and you get a massive pileup of heavily armored men crushing each other to death. The English would only have to deal with those trickling through at the fringes, who would not nearly have the strength to slam into the English formations and overwhelm them.

[snowblizz]

Actually I think you are wrong - plate armor was at least in part, developed due to guns, (and heavy crossbows and recurve bows).

They were proofing plate armor with test-dents from crossbows in the 14th Century and started using firearms in the 15th, which I think is a pretty good indication of the link.

G

Something I remembered but keep forgetting to mention. In Sengoku Jidai Japan armour did develop in a similar way to Europe with bigger and more solid cuirasses roughly at the same time as arquebuses were introduced. They had no crossbows or armourpiercing weapons like medieaval Europe (in general, e.g. crossbows were used earlier in sieges amongst other things but seem to fall largely out of use). Of course as in Europe it's chicken/egg problem really.

However, such a period of dynamic warfare pushed the envelope too so it's probably fair to say metallurgy also developed in response to increasing demands of mass manufacture of equipment (e.g. katana quality is considered to dip during this period compared to earlier ones) and they developed simpler types of armour more easily made in bulk and stored. It's also not impossible to dismiss the notion that they literally got the idea from the very same westeners bringing guns to Japan.




Speaking of densely packed soldiers getting crushed in a panic: I recently saw the claim that the Battle of Agincourt was not won by the English archers at all, but simply by the terrain. An analyst for crowd safety said that the battlefield had really muddy ground and the topography is forming a natural funnel narrowing towards the English position. Having thousands of densely packed men charging in there are perfect conditions for a disaster. Some will slip, the ones behind them can't go around them, and you get a massive pileup of heavily armored men crushing each other to death. The English would only have to deal with those trickling through at the fringes, who would not nearly have the strength to slam into the English formations and overwhelm them.
Well that's definitely a major factor. But the English also picked the spot specifically for that reason. I would suggest that totally dismissing the English archers is as bonkers as claiming it as the sole instrument of victory. The aggregate effect of lucky arrows would have encouraged the French troops forwards am sure. Because if you aren't under fire odds are you can take more time to properly attack. The core of dismounted men-at-arms would have held back the French troops that arrived too, it was a heavily contested combat not picking off a few stragglers. Which would have exarberated the bottleneck properties of the the terrain while a steady rain of arrows making it dangerous to open your visor would have meant less local awareness and more packing of troops.

That'd be my version of it at least.


In general canines are not really built for fighting. Compared to say, a cougar, or hell, a bull cow or a large buck, a dog or even a wolf is stiff, poorly armed, relatively light, and not built for power. Actually a fighting dog is breed specifically for that. It *is* built for power, aggression and good canines.
However, as was mentioned it's also not meant to do it alone. The attack dog is today a tool to help normally police officers to subdue people more safely.

We should also remember that even though it's expensive to train a dog, it may save human lives which tends to be more important. Sometimes we forget today. As much as a policedog is mourned it is trained to go for a criminal's arm making wielding a weapon hard. If it is killed doing that, it probably saved an officer's life.

If the Roman army lost a bunch of dogs breaking a shieldwall they probably considered it a good trade-off.

[Vinyadan]

Yup, a good example is Diesel, the French police dog that was sent first into the St. Denis apartment. The idea was clearly that of avoiding dead policemen, and it worked, since, after the bad guys stopped firing, the dog was sent first to explore the rooms, where it was ambushed and shot.

[Storm Bringer]

We should also remember that even though it's expensive to train a dog, it may save human lives which tends to be more important. Sometimes we forget today. As much as a policedog is mourned it is trained to go for a criminal's arm making wielding a weapon hard. If it is killed doing that, it probably saved an officer's life.

If the Roman army lost a bunch of dogs breaking a shieldwall they probably considered it a good trade-off.

on one of by pre-deployment briefings put it:

"A Dog is valuable asset. its a loyal and dependable friend. Just like you, it has a regimental number....but it ALSO has a NSN (Nato Stock Number), And when it dies, you take its corpse back, go to your QM (quartermasters), fill out a demand sheet and say "I need a new one", and a new one will be brought out of stores. its a tool, just as your rifle is, or your water bottle, and when it is no longer fit for purpose, we will replace it".

that said, most military working dogs are used for shearches, not attack.

[Blackhawk748]

Since we are speaking of war animals, does anyone have any recommendations for reading in regards to War Elephants? I find them facinating and i would love to use them more in my TTRPGs.

[Vinyadan]

Concerning Greek warfare:

Formation drills probably existed, at least in some cities. Herodotus says that the Spartans were able to feign running away, then stop, regroup, get back into formation, and attack the pursuers. I can't imagine something like this happened without previous training.
Dancing is first and foremost a form of expression, however it is known that Spartan culture underwent huge changes in its relationship with poetry, singing, and dancing, by which I mean that their once rich practice had almost dried up by the fifth century. The Spartans kept dancing (in a sad way, said some Greek author whose name I can't remember), and it doesn't surprise me if its incidental usefulness was cannibalised for combat training.

Concerning sports: the Greeks had contrasting opinions. Some explicitly said that they were a preparation for war, because of physical prowess and competition. Others explicitly stated that sports belonged to a lifestyle that didn't have anything to do with the reality of war, and were even counterproductive. The sportsman accurately followed a certain diet, a certain routine, needed to sleep enough and be disturbed as little as possible. Soldiers were constantly on the move, slept little, on the ground, had to live with the available food, and, most importantly, needed to be brave enough to go to the slaughter of battle, something for which sports gave no preparation.

The hoplitodromia has a few problems to it. One is that it can be simply seen as a loaded race. But I think that there are two more things. One is of practical nature, which is getting a whole phalanx (in the Greek sense of line) to sprint run 350 metres. Another one is the fact that the Olympian hoplitodromia was actually the shortest one, with at least one competition going for 4 to 15 stadioi (700-2600 m). It's unthinkable that untrained people could reach such levels, and resistance running is a sport that requires constant training. What I mean is that sprinting in armour (like in Olympia) or doing resistance hoplitodromia (like in Plataea, where the runners also wore the cuirass) reflected the kind of skill that, with a. Greek soldier training, is impossible to obtain and maintain on a mass level, which is what the hoplitai needed. Instead, this is the kind of exercise that goes well with individual kleos, the one sought after in sports. Which brings me to what I think was the most important point: hoplitodromia entered Olympia in 520, but a more ancient form had long existed in Athens. In here, however, the run was made in couples: two men were on a chariot, one was the driver; the other one wore armour; at intervals, he jumped off the chariot, and ran along it, and then jumped back in. This seems to me a representation of much older times, and the kind of war described by Homer, with the individualistic, kleos-seeking, fleet-footed attacking hero running on the chariot and jumping down to chase and fight. Olympic hoplitodromia may very well be the simple evolution of this.
Of course, there are other explanations, like the idea that 350 m (2 stadioi) was the throw distance of a Persian bow. But, even if the origin of the sport were in updated drills that tried to have the soldiers get over the massed archery killing zone as fast as possible, I still think that the sport would have taken a very different direction, ignoring formation and having the athlete give up as much energy as possible during the race, without care for the later melee.
There also is the problem of Herodotus' account of Marathon (6.112): on one side, it declares that the Athenians did run 8 stadioi; on the other hand, it says that it was the first time a Greek army had charged running towards the enemy. But, if the hoplitodromia had been introduced 30 years earlier at Olympia as an answer to new drills for running in armour, we would expect that someone would have put the drill to use a bit before that. Was this done out of necessity? How fast did they run? Or was it a side effect of a huge part of citizens that loved running in armour during their free time? How conditioned were farmers? This last question is not a joke, since the Greeks later recognised that a farmer's job was extremely heavy for the unaccustomed.
Of course, if I had numbers for sport participation outside the top levels, it would be easier to form a theory about its impact on the performance of citizen soldiers.

About naval power: Athens and Corinth weren't the only cities with huge fleets. During the 430s, Corcyra had a larger fleet than Corinth, and was considered the second naval power in Greece, after Athens. Siracusa also had a large fleet, although it was eclipsed by Athens after 482. I'm sure that there were other large naval powers out there; Sparta of course had a run at it, and Aegina in archaic times was considered a huge naval power.
Now, for a navy you need people and ships. Thukydides observes that there always were people, and that stuff is harder to get, and was the real limiting factor in older times, especially when mounting expeditions.
Athens had a huge material base in the Delian League. At first, the allies would arm their own ships and have them serve in a common fleet. Later, Athens managed to get money instead of ships. This meant that Athens would build and have all ships directly under its control.
And where did they get the rowers?
Again, from the allies. People who had previously worked as rowers in e.g. Delos would row under a private contract in the Athenian fleet. Athenian rowers also got paid. Being a rower was actually a profession. Occasionally, rowers would even subcontract to slaves, a practice that became important with time. Other times, rowers would get paid more if they brought slaves to row alongside them.
This was made easier by the fact that the triarchs were given an empty hull by the city, and would have to fill it as they saw fit. They wanted to do a good job at it, however, since they would be commanding it.
Now, the city had the rowers paid first one, later two oboli a day. A hoplite also got two oboli a day, one for himself and one for his servant. When hoplites needed to get overseas, they would fill a ship themselves, and sail and row it to destination. However, they weren't considered skilled, and fared badly in battle.
Skill is the critical factor here, as we come to the comparison with Corinth. We know that Corinth attempted to buy the mercenary rowers from the League paying them more than Athens. Perikles observed that it would not work, because those rowers would have been exiled from their home cities, if they served for the enemy.
And that's the thing, I believe. Athens wasn't just a ludicrously rich and large city, with an extremely skilled lower class: it had got the exclusive access to the most important depot of skilled seamen, the cities of the League. How many of them served? Some take a maximalist reading of 2/3 of the fleet being made up by allies, with Athenians having the top third. An option would be to verify the quantity of ships given by each ally before they got to pay money, and assume that the quantity of rowers was proportional to the quantity of ships previously armed.

Corinth didn't have men that skillful. The fight against Phormio, when a numerically superior Corinthian fleet avoided engagement with the Athenians as long as possible, only to be defeated by their own tactics, is a testament to this. They surely also had smaller numbers, since Corinth was smaller than Athens. And they also had a different economy. In Athens, the standing fleet was one of various mass activities for which a citizen could be paid by the city, judiciary service eg lasting a year and being paid two oboli a day, later three. Corinth instead had a rich manufacturing sector. Very small, single dose Corinthian parfume vases were everywhere. And Corinth actually sold triremes (although this is attested in 489, much earlier than the Peloponnesian War), which means that a lot of workers were on shipyards. The result was that in the 430s Corinth had to take workers from their jobs to put them into ships. This must have been very unpopular, and also have reduced the competitiveness of the city industries, opening up the market for their rivals.
The curious fact is that, when Athens tried to draft rowers in a similar way (much later, around 340 I think), it didn't work. The drafted simply mostly didn't show up. They also were not prosecuted.
And, however bizarre, Athens might have been helped by the many poor who lived in the city. Rowers were explicitly defined as poor. The more the poors, the more the rowers available, and this wasn't just in Athens. (Another reason why people probably didn't like being drafted.)
So this is my explanation for why Corinth had trouble recovering naval losses, compared to Athens: lack of specialised manpower willing to serve. This was mostly due to Athenian size and its political success in obtaining the exclusive allegiance of the sea cities of the Delian League, as well as its deliberate effort to keep Corcyra independent from Corinth (whose two navies, together, were larger than Athens's).

About the relationship between democracy and the fleet in Athens, the fleet occasionally became the guardian of democracy (Samos 411). It's also true that the poor were happy of new ships being launched, because it meant new jobs as rowers. If the poor had power, they facilitated the expansion of the fleet. Thetes explicitly meant "wage earners", so they were linked to paid service, which was their living. So the thing went both ways.

On a side note, Athens was paying its men earlier than Rome (the siege of Veii being the first known instance, around 406-396).

This took quite long to put together. Later I can post some sources, if anyone is interested.

[Yora]

Well that's definitely a major factor. But the English also picked the spot specifically for that reason. I would suggest that totally dismissing the English archers is as bonkers as claiming it as the sole instrument of victory. The aggregate effect of lucky arrows would have encouraged the French troops forwards am sure. Because if you aren't under fire odds are you can take more time to properly attack.

Archers also not only shot arrows. Every archer is also a light infantry man. They wouldn't be much of a match to a man at arms in close combat, but in this specific situation the French couldn't make effective use of their numbers while the English had a lot of archers. Those French men at arms who managed to untangle themselves from the massive pileup and made it to the other side probably did not make up a coherent fighting force in proper fighting shape. Even if they made it out without serious injuries from getting crushed, the physical exertion from pulling themselves out of a pile of bodies while in knee deep mud would have put them into bad shape against the stationary English. And barely escaping from a lethal situation to stumble unorganized into a waiting foe would certainly have been highly distressing even for hardened veterans.

[Durkoala]

Does anybody have any information about melee boomerangs? I saw a picture of one in a book long ago: it was was roughly the size of a sword and had a hooked edge to overcome shields, but I can't find any information about them.

Iirc, there were non-hooked designs too and the caption said that they were often used with shields in close quarter fighting by austalian aboridgines.

[Martin Greywolf]

I've seen an unsourced claim that the Romans used dogs to break up shield walls and phalanxes. And I can see that potentially working really well. Dogs might be very well suited to quickly slip under the spears and shields of the defenders and start biting at their unprotected legs. Even if they don't deal a lot of damage, some men in the front ranks will have to drop their spears and won't be able to keep their shields firmly aligned. And once you get a hole in a shield wall it's basically over.
The one problem I see is how you're going to get your dogs back. When the enemy formation is getting squeezed and there is no way to move, lots ot dogs would probably get crushed.

This is one of those things that looks good at first glance and then falls apart once you start to think it through.

First problem is shields, especially in a shield wall, stop dogs cold. If you see the pooch coming, there's no way he should be able to bypass it, especially not if it is something like an aspis or scutum.

Then there are spears - you can't slip under them unless the men using them are idiots. Maybe you could do it with something like a pike or sarissa, but even then, you're taking casualties. That aside, if they do slip by, so what? You still have a sword exactly for this reason.

Another problem is training - how on Earth do you want to make sure the dogs don't bite your own people? This is one problem that came up every single time in warfare, and why dogs are used today in small teams that the dog can learn to recognize, together with a handler close by who can call him off. A handler whose job would be almost impossible to do in a massed formation fight, if only because dogs in large numbers tend to be more temperamental than usual.

Add to that the problem of dogs needing their own care, food and drink while being decidedly less versatile than a human soldier, and they quickly become not worth it.

And lastly, there's the problem of following up. See, if the dogs disrupt front of a shield wall and you want to capitalize on that, you now have to run into the middle of a bunch of aggressive dogs fighting for their life, and pass by them, putting them behind your shield.



Disrupting cavalry charges that are not used to dogs should also work quite well.

I don't think there were many, if any, horses unused to dogs in relevant time periods. And horses are quite capable of trampling a crowd of humans on their own.

Lastly, horses trained for war were used to a lot of things, from angry bears to cannon barrages, bunch of dogs would hardly register to those.



Speaking of densely packed soldiers getting crushed in a panic: I recently saw the claim that the Battle of Agincourt was not won by the English archers at all, but simply by the terrain. An analyst for crowd safety said that the battlefield had really muddy ground and the topography is forming a natural funnel narrowing towards the English position. Having thousands of densely packed men charging in there are perfect conditions for a disaster. Some will slip, the ones behind them can't go around them, and you get a massive pileup of heavily armored men crushing each other to death. The English would only have to deal with those trickling through at the fringes, who would not nearly have the strength to slam into the English formations and overwhelm them.

We have account of Agincourt from people who saw it themselves. There was no crushing of men - well, there was, but with mallets after they were to exhausted to move, not by press of a crowd.

What did happen was the mud and chokepoint slowing down the charge, and English preparations of obstacles made it possible for archers to safely point blank the enemy. A plate armor is almost impenetrable by a warbow from front, but it has to be good quality armor, and it isn't doing so well against flanking fire. Even so, not doing so well means that maybe one arrow in 20 get through, but if you have enough archers...

Let's not forget that being hit in armor with an arrow that powerful still hurts. Not a lot, somewhat less than a punch, but again, put that together with exhaustion from muddy ground and a lot of archers.

And lastly, only the somewhat rich could afford the plate armor in the first place.

What did not happen was warbows moving down knights in full plate at 200 yards like fresh grass. What also didn't happen was the victory of common man, seeing as the warbow archers were not really poor commoners.


Archers also not only shot arrows. Every archer is also a light infantry man. They wouldn't be much of a match to a man at arms in close combat

Kinda depends on your definition of man at arms and archers, some archers had pretty damn heavy gear, up to and including their own plate armor, and many men at arms didn't have the best arms and armor.



but in this specific situation the French couldn't make effective use of their numbers while the English had a lot of archers. Those French men at arms who managed to untangle themselves from the massive pileup and made it to the other side probably did not make up a coherent fighting force in proper fighting shape. Even if they made it out without serious injuries from getting crushed, the physical exertion from pulling themselves out of a pile of bodies while in knee deep mud would have put them into bad shape against the stationary English. And barely escaping from a lethal situation to stumble unorganized into a waiting foe would certainly have been highly distressing even for hardened veterans.

There was no massive crushing pile up, only a lot of exhausted men in a very deep mud. They also managed to briefly push back English front line, but flanking charge from archers saw to that. Whoever made those claims about Agincourt didn't know much about it, it seems.

[Max_Killjoy]

Agincourt seems to be a magnet for odd explanations that aren't actually needed.

[gkathellar]

Actually a fighting dog is breed specifically for that. It *is* built for power, aggression and good canines.

As canids go, yes, attack dogs and grey wolves are about as powerful as it gets. That's my point - even they do not compare favorably to big cats and many ungulates (among others) in terms of power, mainly because canidae's survival strategy has nothing to do with being a walking tank or a sleek, quiet killing machine. Even the biggest, strongest canids are built for endurance, speed, intelligence, keen senses, and group engagement, because canid bodies are not laid out for "I am become death destroyer of worlds."

Dogs can absolutely be strong, fast, and vicious. IIRC fully 3/4 of dogs are wild, in fact. But the main reason to breed them for fighting is the other parts of the package - intelligence, endurance. and loyalty. If you could get tigers or crocodiles that behaved like dogs and could do cross-country like dogs, you'd see guard-tigers and attack-crocodiles in the historical record. But since dogs are pretty much unique in this respect, we use them for those tasks and breed them for power, even though they're not especially powerful as animals go.


Agincourt seems to be a magnet for odd explanations that aren't actually needed.

Well, it's the tenure thing. You get people to know your name by putting forth new ideas, quality optional. Agincourt is well-known, so it's easier to get a news feature about your weird, spurious hypothesis about it.

I wonder if there are battles that have a similar role outside of the Anglophone sphere, in being the subject of endless, pointless speculation.

[Yora]

Does anybody have any information about melee boomerangs? I saw a picture of one in a book long ago: it was was roughly the size of a sword and had a hooked edge to overcome shields, but I can't find any information about them.

Iirc, there were non-hooked designs too and the caption said that they were often used with shields in close quarter fighting by austalian aboridgines.

That sounds simply like some kind of curved club.

E: turns out the name is waddy. Described as "an Aboriginal Australian war club" Some do look somewhat similar to boomerangs with their curves, while others do not.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d9/Arrernte_Keulen_EthnM.jpg/220px-Arrernte_Keulen_EthnM.jpg

[wolflance]

They had no crossbows or armourpiercing weapons like medieaval Europe (in general, e.g. crossbows were used earlier in sieges amongst other things but seem to fall largely out of use).
You missed out the bows, which in general are more powerful (as in more armor-piercing) than crossbow despite being much lower in actual poundage.

As recent tests go, I am not sure if even the heaviest barely-handheld crossbow (i.e. 1200+ lbs steel arbalest) can match up with a heavy English warbow in power, let alone a Japanese bow.

[Brother Oni]

As recent tests go, I am not sure if even the heaviest barely-handheld crossbow (i.e. 1200+ lbs steel arbalest) can match up with a heavy English warbow in power, let alone a Japanese bow.

I'm not sure where you heard this, but it's incorrect.

Here's a replica 1250lb draw crossbow that Tod Todeschini is shooting (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WEOeZTV9wiA) and in the comments, the bolt weighs 90g and initial velocity is ~55m/s, for an overall KE of 136J. Other papers I've read on similar draw weight crossbows place them in the 100+ J range.

Meanwhile those same papers put a 140lb longbow putting out arrows at between 75-95J, depending on the type of arrow being shot (bodkin, lozenge, etc). I can't see a yumi outperforming an English longbow by much as it's generally the same bow type, despite the normal laminated composite construction.

A recurve bow (particularly a turkic/mongolian composite design) is an different beast - they can usually shoot the same weight arrows as a long bow, but typically about 30-50fps faster, so ~106-160J if I've done my math right for a 140lb recurve, all other things being equal to that 140lb longbow.

Edit: I should include my source as per the OP: A report of the findings of the Defence Academy warbow trials Part 1, Summer 2005; Arms and Armour Vol 4, No.1 2007; Bourke and Whetham.

[Haighus]

If I remember correctly, the numbers from the famous Payne-Gallwey antique crossbow test firing were better than any modern reproduction too, which suggests there is still a lot of missing knowledge regarding crossbow construction. I think this is at least partially supported by such shots of the type Payne-Gallwey achieved being reasonably common in Medieval sources, although I couldn't quote any. This is all from reading earlier incarnations of this thread.

[Roxxy]

Does anyone know how common it actually was for captured spies to be executed in either world war, or for soldiers captured in articles of enemy clothing to be shot? I know it was done, such as in the case of those German sabuteurs caught in New York, or those Germans in American uniforms at The Bulge, but was it universal? Like, did we basically always execute spies, or were they sometimes improsioned for the war instead? If the second, who made the decision? What about that scene in Fury, where a German soldier who put on an American jacket to keep warm is shot? I don't doubt soldiers sometimes lost their temper at seeing an enemy wearing a jacket they clearly took off a dead American and shot the offender, but was it common or typical? Nobody thinks he was a spy, after all.

[wolflance]

I'm not sure where you heard this, but it's incorrect.

Here's a replica 1250lb draw crossbow that Tod Todeschini is shooting (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WEOeZTV9wiA) and in the comments, the bolt weighs 90g and initial velocity is ~55m/s, for an overall KE of 136J. Other papers I've read on similar draw weight crossbows place them in the 100+ J range.

Meanwhile those same papers put a 140lb longbow putting out arrows at between 75-95J, depending on the type of arrow being shot (bodkin, lozenge, etc). I can't see a yumi outperforming an English longbow by much as it's generally the same bow type, despite the normal laminated composite construction.
Aren't Primitive Archer test demonstrated a English warbow that achieved 160J? (I think the 75-95J figures are measured when the arrows hit their targets. Tod and Primitive Archer test measure the initial energy)

Also, while Japanese bow looks outwardly similar to longbow, they actually shares a lot more similarities with asiatic recurves (unsuprisingly), in that it is recurved (storing more energy), and has one of the longest draw among traditional bows (36" to something like 43" if I remember correctly)

[wolflance]

If I remember correctly, the numbers from the famous Payne-Gallwey antique crossbow test firing were better than any modern reproduction too, which suggests there is still a lot of missing knowledge regarding crossbow construction. I think this is at least partially supported by such shots of the type Payne-Gallwey achieved being reasonably common in Medieval sources, although I couldn't quote any. This is all from reading earlier incarnations of this thread.
I was probably in those discussions too, since it is in my particular interests. At the moment I am inclined to think that Payne's result as an outlier, and willing to put more trust on modern tests conducted with modern measuring technology.

While I am sure ancient people had good reasons to make crossbows as they did, short powerstroke and light bolt weight put severe disadvantages on the power of medieval crossbow in term of delivered energy (which IMO can't be overcome by improving the efficiency of other parts of the crossbow. Instead one should just straightforwardly increase those two, or cram in even more draw weight, for better power).

In modern archery it is recommeneded that you match the draw weight of bow with arrow (something like 5grain-per-pound depending on standard) for optimum performance. I don't know how applicable this is to crossbow, but using the same standard a 1000lbs crossbow should be shooting a 5000 grain superheavy bolt (324 gram) to achieve optimal result.

[Brother Oni]

Aren't Primitive Archer test demonstrated a English warbow that achieved 160J? (I think the 75-95J figures are measured when the arrows hit their targets. Tod and Primitive Archer test measure the initial energy)

Also, while Japanese bow looks outwardly similar to longbow, they actually shares a lot more similarities with asiatic recurves (unsuprisingly), in that it is recurved (storing more energy), and has one of the longest draw among traditional bows (36" to something like 43" if I remember correctly)

Do you have a link to the test? I've poked about the site and can't find any test with values approaching 160J. All the energy values are calculated by shooting the arrow past a chronograph, which measures the arrow speed in flight - typically they're set up just after the arrow has cleared the bow so that you can confirm the arrow has entered and exited the chronography measurement area correctly, so the 75-95J figure is exactly the same setup as the crossbow test.

While I agree that the yumi does appear recurved, nothing in the literature I've found indicates it has the same performance as one. I'm more than happy to be proved wrong if you have something that says otherwise.
I agree that all other variables being equal, the higher draw weight would indicate greater stored energy, but a yumi would be tillered (constructed) so that that you would achieve maximum draw weight at full extension, which would give a lower gradient force/draw curve (easier and smoother to draw) rather than greater stored energy.

One problem is that there doesn't appear to be anybody interested (at least nothing published in English) in verifying the historical performance of high draw weight yumi (Kyudo practitioners use 30lb draw bows apparently). Some other research also indicates that yumi draw weights didn't get up to the same heights as Mongol/Chinese/English bows, mostly because there wasn't a need for it; gusoku even with a nanban dou (western style one piece steel cuirass), wasn't as protective as plate harness, despite what all the rapid fans claim.

While hunting around, I found this test by Joe Gibbs of the English Warbow Society with a 180lb Tartar bow (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8OLbdV5snk) and it shot a 63.3g arrow at 211 fps, which converts to 133J.


In modern archery it is recommeneded that you match the draw weight of bow with arrow (something like 5grain-per-pound depending on standard) for optimum performance. I don't know how applicable this is to crossbow, but using the same standard a 1000lbs crossbow should be shooting a 5000 grain superheavy bolt (324 gram) to achieve optimal result.

While you would expect an efficiency improvement with using the correct projectile weight for the draw weight, I can't find a precise value for crossbows (pretty much everything I can find is for modern crossbows). While I agree that a bow is always going to be more efficient than a crossbow in terms of stored energy to projectile energy conversion, whether that can be used as an indicator of superior performance is more debatable.

[Clistenes]

*snip*

Conquistadors used wardogs not in big battles, but during slave hunting raids in the Caribbean (which was illegal, but the Spanish government couldn't stop them), as a counter to guerrilla warfare, and as a psychological weapon to be used before and after battle.

Dogs could track natives across the forest, neutralizing the advantage the natives' knowledge of the terrain gave them. Dogs could detect hidden people, ruining ambushes and finding natives who were trying to hide from slave catchers. Dogs could run faster than both people and horses in mountainsous terrain and woodlands. Dogs could awaken the Spaniards when the natives tried nocturnal attacks.

[jayem]

Does anyone know how common it actually was for captured spies to be executed in either world war
In the second, at least a few turned (Nazi>-British) double agent (in many cases actively seeking the British out). The net effect was that I understand the whole of the German spy network in Britain was under British control (it helped that the leader of the German spy network in Germany, wasn't a big Nazi fan).
These of course weren't executed, though they may have been threatened.

[Incanur]

I'm not sure where you heard this, but it's incorrect.

It is in fact correct!


Here's a replica 1250lb draw crossbow that Tod Todeschini is shooting (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WEOeZTV9wiA) and in the comments, the bolt weighs 90g and initial velocity is ~55m/s, for an overall KE of 136J. Other papers I've read on similar draw weight crossbows place them in the 100+ J range.

136 J ain't remotely impressive for a 1,250lb draw weight, and it's not even clear the crossbow in question performs that well. See this thread (http://myarmoury.com/talk/viewtopic.php?t=35792).

If Sir Ralph Payne-Gallwey's 440-460 yard shot with that refurbished 15th-century crossbow actually happened, that bow probably managed 200+ J. I tend to think that's how historical crossbows performed, but so far nobody's been able to recreate that.


Meanwhile those same papers put a 140lb longbow putting out arrows at between 75-95J, depending on the type of arrow being shot (bodkin, lozenge, etc).

That's how one of Mark Stretton's lower-quality bows performed, yes. The Mary Rose replica 150lb yew bow tested for The Great Warbow performed rather better, up to 146 J with a heavy arrow and still 111 J with the lightest arrows tested.

A mere 82lb Manchu bow supposedly (http://www.manchuarchery.org/bows) managed 135 J with a heavy arrow. There's probably something wrong with that test, but theoretical calculations suggest very impressive performance from Manchu bows.

With typical light arrows, a 110lb Turkish bow only reaches just under 100 J. Such a bow could get 120+ J with heavy arrows, but there's not evidence for this for Turkish archery specifically.


I can't see a yumi outperforming an English longbow by much as it's generally the same bow type, despite the normal laminated composite construction.

Some yumi had really long draws, which helps with energy storage. But I've never seen any good numbers for historical-style Japanese bows.

[Haighus]

Speaking of longbows and recurves, I've read there was some evidence of recurved tips on some of the longbows recovered from the Mary Rose wreck. Dunno how true this is, or what impact that would have on the bows performance.

[snowblizz]

You missed out the bows, which in general are more powerful (as in more armor-piercing) than crossbow despite being much lower in actual poundage.

I haven't actually missed out bows because it's clear they aren't drivers towards platearmour either in Europe, Japan or anywhere else for that matter. If bows were so armourpiercing then logically better armour would have been developed earlier surely? And what would the point of the crossbow be seeing that an archer can shoot what a dozen arrows for the crossbowman's one? If bows are per definition more powerful and more armour piercing than crossbows?

Makes absolutely no sense to me at all.

As Galloglaich has noted before, crossbows and guns were often used to proof armours. Not so much bows.

[Clistenes]

I haven't actually missed out bows because it's clear they aren't drivers towards platearmour either in Europe, Japan or anywhere else for that matter. If bows were so armourpiercing then logically better armour would have been developed earlier surely? And what would the point of the crossbow be seeing that an archer can shoot what a dozen arrows for the crossbowman's one? If bows are per definition more powerful and more armour piercing than crossbows?

Makes absolutely no sense to me at all.

As Galloglaich has noted before, crossbows and guns were often used to proof armours. Not so much bows.

During the Renaissance they called "bulletproof" an armor able to stop pistol and aequebuss bullets, "fullproof" one able to stop military crossbow bolts, and "halfproof" one able to stop longbow arrows. Halfproof < Fullproof<Bulletproof.

Of course, I can accept those abnormal monsters they found aboard the Mary Rose were probably more powerful than many crossbows, but on average crossbow>longbow...

[gkathellar]

Does anyone know how common it actually was for captured spies to be executed in either world war, or for soldiers captured in articles of enemy clothing to be shot? I know it was done, such as in the case of those German sabuteurs caught in New York, or those Germans in American uniforms at The Bulge, but was it universal? Like, did we basically always execute spies, or were they sometimes improsioned for the war instead? If the second, who made the decision? What about that scene in Fury, where a German soldier who put on an American jacket to keep warm is shot? I don't doubt soldiers sometimes lost their temper at seeing an enemy wearing a jacket they clearly took off a dead American and shot the offender, but was it common or typical? Nobody thinks he was a spy, after all.

While I can't say how common it was, bear in mind that there's also a third option: subversion. I've read that the English in particular were fond of double agents during WW2, and that they had a really shocking number of them.

[Incanur]

It's unlikely the bows from the Mary Rose were particularly abnormal or monstrous. And even that 150lb Mary Rose replica doesn't perform as well as much lighter Manchu bows and other composites shooting heavy arrows probably did.

Honestly, given yew longbow performance, they need that 150-160lb draw weight. And there are records of similar draw weights for infantry archers across the world, such as this Ming-era source (https://myarmoury.com/talk/viewtopic.php?p=292459).

A high-quality 150lb Turkish-style composite bow might manage 180+ J with a heavy arrow based on replicas. Late Ming-era bows were probably somewhere in between Turkish and Manchu designs.

Some period sources do indicate that crossbows were more powerful than bows, but many others treat bows and crossbows as equivalent and some emphasize the power of bows.

Conceptually I agree that crossbows should be more powerful, but current replicas fall short of that mark.

It's possible that European nongunpowder projectile weapons were just bad compared with their Chinese-region counterparts.

[snowblizz]

Does anyone know how common it actually was for captured spies to be executed in either world war, or for soldiers captured in articles of enemy clothing to be shot? I know it was done, such as in the case of those German sabuteurs caught in New York, or those Germans in American uniforms at The Bulge, but was it universal? Like, did we basically always execute spies, or were they sometimes improsioned for the war instead? If the second, who made the decision? What about that scene in Fury, where a German soldier who put on an American jacket to keep warm is shot? I don't doubt soldiers sometimes lost their temper at seeing an enemy wearing a jacket they clearly took off a dead American and shot the offender, but was it common or typical? Nobody thinks he was a spy, after all.
It wasn't universal no. But there were certain trends so to speak. The more democratic and "decent" a country was the more likely it'd be to capture and not kill. If you were the opposite so to speak or worse engaged in bitter partisan efforts and such well, kill rather than capture was the more likely scenario. So e.g. WW2 Germany would kill any "saboteurs", commandos and such outright for the most part, and would captrue, torture and kill spies, such as essentially all Allied operatives sent to the Netherlands for the entire war despite the captured agents failing to use the safewords that would alert the British of this exact thing, which they studiously ignored. Which is to say even though spies were killed they'd wring all the info out of them first or in this case keep em around. Though in most cases I know of few captured spies survived.

Of course this general ruthlessness led to the ww2 germans having few reliable spies of their own. And those who sorta "drank the koolaid" didn't make for good spies. Similarly the SS got a reputaion for not taking prisoners and I'd give them even odds of getting the same treatment unless a sufficiently conscientious higher officer was around.

I'd also say when it comes to spies it matters who they were, your own people as traitors tended to get a short trial and a firing squad whereas foreigners might be saved for a later exchange of some kind. This was kinda common during the Cold War period but that was also a period trying not to got hot and pretending stuff like that wasn't happening at all. During active war rules tend to fly out the window. And whoever thinks they ahve the upper hand tends to ignore the niceties, which has come back to bite more than one warring part.

Going to be hard to get solid numbers since executing prisoners is a warcrime so you don't tend to advertise it. Similarly spies and such by their nature is hush-hush so alot is classified even today. And ofc the crime part might apply too in that not every one cauhgt as a spy might have been so embarrasing details might be shuffled under the carpet.

[Vinyadan]

Afaik it's illegal to kill POWs as such, and captured spies don't always belong to this category. If they eg don't wear their country's uniform, or carry their weapons concealed, then they can laufully be denied POW status upon capture.

[Max_Killjoy]

Afaik it's illegal to kill POWs as such, and captured spies don't always belong to this category. If they eg don't wear their country's uniform, or carry their weapons concealed, then they can laufully be denied POW status upon capture.

True, spies and covert operatives aren't protected the same way uniformed soldiers are. Part of that is to keep soldiers and civilians as clearly separate categories for the protection of civilians.

[rrgg]

On the subject of crossbows, here's something interesting from Anna Comnene's description of the Frankish crossbow: https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/basis/AnnaComnena-Alexiad10.asp


In the middle of the string is a socket, a cylindrical kind of cup fitted to the string itself, and about as long as an arrow of considerable size which reaches from the string to the very middle of the bow; and through this arrows of many sorts are shot out.

So although she says the arrows it shoots were typically short, thick, and heavy, the length of the cylindrical groove between where the string latches and the bow is about as long as a normal arrow or longer. She then goes on to explain that the bow is very powerful and can pierce shields, armor, and bronze statues. So perhaps earlier medieval crossbows did have a draw length closer to that of a regular bow?

I do think that europeans probably had a good reason to make their crossbows in such an apparently inefficient manner in the late middle ages. IIRC crossbows in china were becoming smaller or falling out of use as well in the middle ages.

---

Regarding the power of bows or crossbows in combat, another thing to keep in mind is that the weapons or arrows used by soldiers in combat might not be in the best condition or even designed to maximize performance in the first place. This seems to have been the case for the longbow at least according to Barnabe Rich's A Martial Confrerence


for although there be many that in their gaming bowes and there arrowes, fitted to their length, and neately feathered, will shoote sixteene or eighteene score, yet when they shall be brought to their liverie bowes, which are rather made to indure weather, then for free shooting, their arrowes likewise big timbered, their fethers ruffled, whereby they will gather winde, and ordinarily made of such length, that very few will draw them to the heads by two three inches, these things considered, if tenne amongst a hundred do shoote above tenne score, all the rest will shoote short of nine.

[snowblizz]

Afaik it's illegal to kill POWs as such, and captured spies don't always belong to this category. If they eg don't wear their country's uniform, or carry their weapons concealed, then they can laufully be denied POW status upon capture.
Right, which is why I mentioned warcrimes. There's theory and unfortunately there's practice.

True, spies and covert operatives aren't protected the same way uniformed soldiers are. Part of that is to keep soldiers and civilians as clearly separate categories for the protection of civilians.

And often uniformed soldiers aren't either. The germans in 1942 giving the infamous cammondo order for instance.
Wiki actually has some good info on the subject. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commando_Order
And OP can probably get more from the links.

[Slipperychicken]

But attack dogs can be trained to aggressively subdue an opponent, be it a man running away, or a bad guy who just pulled a gun or a knife. In this case, however, the point is that the dog isn't supposed to be there alone. So it isn't really dog vs human, more like dog protecting (armed) owner from human.

That is in line with my thinking. In the cyberpunk setting I'm considering, standard security forces' role when facing elite criminal mercenaries is to delay and suppress the intruders until the arrival of a SWAT-equivalent unit. My thought is for them to employ dogs to slow criminals in a way that reduces risks to human personnel.

I suppose I should have clarified the context: there would be less-well-armed humans (probably pistols and armor vests) protecting a facility, using dogs as part of an organized approach to fend off well-armed intruders who are in a hurry to get in and out. Delaying and subduing are both valuable since they slow people down and give time for some cop to shoot the bad guy.


One dog against one armed human is pretty hopeless for the dog.

But several dogs jumping on one human at once would probably look very different. That is an important distinction to make. Modern military armor would help some, but I am not sure how much.
How much a gun would help would highly depend on how many dogs and how early the human becomes aware of them. Single dog and a pistol would again be no fight. Four dogs charging around a corner on someone with a rifle would do much better. The first one might get shot, but if the other three can jump on the human, the rifle won't be any good after that. Knife would be great, if you don't lose it in the struggle.

If big weapons are less-effective while one is latched onto by a dog, that's good to know. I'll think of ways to incorporate that. Thanks!

[Clistenes]

It's unlikely the bows from the Mary Rose were particularly abnormal or monstrous. And even that 150lb Mary Rose replica doesn't perform as well as much lighter Manchu bows and other composites shooting heavy arrows probably did.

Some of those bows are said to have draw forces of 180-190 lbs when they were new, far above other surviving longbows...

[Mr Beer]

From what I've read, it was not uncommon for uniformed soldiers surrendering in WWII got shot anyway.

Sometimes this happened for practical reasons. If your company is storming a large enemy position and in the process a couple of guys in an outlying foxhole surrender, you can either take time out from the battle to take them back to HQ, or you go past and trust that they behave as prisoners despite being unsupervised or you can gun them down. Or say you are in the process of a rapid journey in enemy territory and you don't have any facilities or resources for transporting, securing and feeding prisoners.

Next, there's the fact that soldiers can get quite bitter about the opposition after they've seen a few friends killed. So once captured, prisoners might be shot 'trying to escape' while being transported back for interrogation. This was enough of a problem that officers issued directives about this or even wouldn't use certain individuals to transport prisoners.

Both of these problems occurred amongst British and American armies. The tendency to simply murder prisoners was of course much greater amongst Russian, Japanese and German troops, depending on the type of unit and their officers' attitudes on the subject. If not killed, prisoners might then be treated somewhere between acceptably and incredibly badly by these nations. British and American officers were generally treated reasonably well by the Germans, whereas Russian troops might well be starved to death in barbed-wire enclosures.

[Incanur]

Lately I've once again been think about how different melee weapons compare, particularly for unarmored single combat.

Of historical sources, George Silver (http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/paradoxes.html) provided the clearest and most comprehensive weapon hierarchy.

Writing a couple decades later, Joseph Swetnam vehemently disagreed with his assignment of the short sword (baskhilt or backsword) against the long rapier, instead assigning odds to the latter. However, despite technique differences, Swetnam like Silver gave the staff (7-8ft for Swetnam, 8-9ft for Silver, with a sharp point for both) the advantage against most or all other weapons.

Almost a hundred years earlier in 1531, Antonio Manciolino offered the general principle that longer weapons trump shorter ones, specifically recommending the partisan over the two-handed sword and the lancia (12-14ft or so) over the spiedo (8ft or so).

The idea that staff weapons have the advantage against swords and the like comes up in a wide variety of sources.

Then you get Donald McBane (http://www.aboutscotland.com/theroyalscots/histmcbane.html), an experienced fighter who argued for the superiority of the smallsword over the broadsword and gave advice for how to defeat broadsword and targe with smallsword alone. And various other authors across the 18th and 19th centuries argued for the smallsword's advantage against broadsword (https://smallswordproject.com/2016/10/30/the-duke-of-wellington-on-the-supremacy-of-the-smallsword/), sabre, etc. Others disagreed. Folks argued endless about the merits of thrusting vs. cutting. And so on.

Note that 18th/19th century swords were generally shorter and lighter than 16th-century swords: Silver thought a 37-40in blade made for a short sword while 18th/19th-century smallswords, broadswords, and sabres tended to have 30-33in blades. Silver's method was revived in the hopes of military use at the end of the 19th century, but I don't know that anybody was using it was blades quite as long as he recommended. (The most famous modern Silverists, the Stoccata folks, use a conservative interpretation of Silver's measuring position and thus use slightly short blades than Silver specified.)

I've been YouTube commenting back and forth with Nick Thomas about this subject. A skilled fencer, he claims that the longsword has no advantage over the sabre for unarmored single combat. From my 16th-century perspective and Silverist perspective, this seems bizarre. Silver didn't even take weapons like the sabre seriously, lumping them into the broad category of weapons shorter than perfect length. Similar swords existed in the 16th century, like the messer, but they didn't get too much attention in either the civilian or military context. What was everybody doing with those longswords and single-handed swords with 36+in blades if a glorified messer/falchion would serve just as well?

From an RPG perspective, as I mentioned to Nick, if the longsword and sabre are even in an unarmored duel then the sabre is better for that purpose because is less of an encumbrance, both shorter and lighter. That's possible, but seems odd. It's this dynamic, as well as evidence from 21st-century sparring, that's really been making me doubt Silver's claim that the longsword has the advantage over the sword and target. A target (rotella/rodela) is bulky and heavy (6-9lbs). It's considerably more trouble than wearing a somewhat heavier sword with a somewhat longer handle.

In Silver's system, the longsword seems a bit overpowered. Even sword & buckler, which Silver says the longsword also beats, strikes me as a little more trouble to wear than a longsword, though it's close. The target here functions strictly as a weapon for the field, for fighting in formation and/or in armor.

By contrast, in contemporary sparring, sword & shield usually looks to have significant odds over the longsword. Sometimes this combination even appears competitive with staff weapons, though of course those are harder to simulate safely.

From a balance perspective, aligning advantage with difficulty of carry makes a lot of sense. Obviously this only goes so far if we want to match reality: a 50lb bag of manure doesn't beat a dagger. But for widely used weapons, I think it's got some merit. I remain deeply skeptical that sabres and smallswords are just as good as any other sword. I suspect they're optimized for both martial effectiveness and convenience. The same goes for the katana.

As an extreme example of the it-comes-down-to-skill position, Tom Leoni, an excellent fencer, years ago argued that halberd vs. dagger was an even fight. It's all a bit vexing and confusing.

[Mike_G]

Lately I've once again been think about how different melee weapons compare, particularly for unarmored single combat.

Of historical sources, George Silver (http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/paradoxes.html) provided the clearest and most comprehensive weapon hierarchy.

Writing a couple decades later, Joseph Swetnam vehemently disagreed with his assignment of the short sword (baskhilt or backsword) against the long rapier, instead assigning odds to the latter. However, despite technique differences, Swetnam like Silver gave the staff (7-8ft for Swetnam, 8-9ft for Silver, with a sharp point for both) the advantage against most or all other weapons.

Almost a hundred years earlier in 1531, Antonio Manciolino offered the general principle that longer weapons trump shorter ones, specifically recommending the partisan over the two-handed sword and the lancia (12-14ft or so) over the spiedo (8ft or so).

The idea that staff weapons have the advantage against swords and the like comes up in a wide variety of sources.

Then you get Donald McBane (http://www.aboutscotland.com/theroyalscots/histmcbane.html), an experienced fighter who argued for the superiority of the smallsword over the broadsword and gave advice for how to defeat broadsword and targe with smallsword alone. And various other authors across the 18th and 19th centuries argued for the smallsword's advantage against broadsword (https://smallswordproject.com/2016/10/30/the-duke-of-wellington-on-the-supremacy-of-the-smallsword/), sabre, etc. Others disagreed. Folks argued endless about the merits of thrusting vs. cutting. And so on.

Note that 18th/19th century swords were generally shorter and lighter than 16th-century swords: Silver thought a 37-40in blade made for a short sword while 18th/19th-century smallswords, broadswords, and sabres tended to have 30-33in blades. Silver's method was revived in the hopes of military use at the end of the 19th century, but I don't know that anybody was using it was blades quite as long as he recommended. (The most famous modern Silverists, the Stoccata folks, use a conservative interpretation of Silver's measuring position and thus use slightly short blades than Silver specified.)

I've been YouTube commenting back and forth with Nick Thomas about this subject. A skilled fencer, he claims that the longsword has no advantage over the sabre for unarmored single combat. From my 16th-century perspective and Silverist perspective, this seems bizarre. Silver didn't even take weapons like the sabre seriously, lumping them into the broad category of weapons shorter than perfect length. Similar swords existed in the 16th century, like the messer, but they didn't get too much attention in either the civilian or military context. What was everybody doing with those longswords and single-handed swords with 36+in blades if a glorified messer/falchion would serve just as well?

From an RPG perspective, as I mentioned to Nick, if the longsword and sabre are even in an unarmored duel then the sabre is better for that purpose because is less of an encumbrance, both shorter and lighter. That's possible, but seems odd. It's this dynamic, as well as evidence from 21st-century sparring, that's really been making me doubt Silver's claim that the longsword has the advantage over the sword and target. A target (rotella/rodela) is bulky and heavy (6-9lbs). It's considerably more trouble than wearing a somewhat heavier sword with a somewhat longer handle.

In Silver's system, the longsword seems a bit overpowered. Even sword & buckler, which Silver says the longsword also beats, strikes me as a little more trouble to wear than a longsword, though it's close. The target here functions strictly as a weapon for the field, for fighting in formation and/or in armor.

By contrast, in contemporary sparring, sword & shield usually looks to have significant odds over the longsword. Sometimes this combination even appears competitive with staff weapons, though of course those are harder to simulate safely.

From a balance perspective, aligning advantage with difficulty of carry makes a lot of sense. Obviously this only goes so far if we want to match reality: a 50lb bag of manure doesn't beat a dagger. But for widely used weapons, I think it's got some merit. I remain deeply skeptical that sabres and smallswords are just as good as any other sword. I suspect they're optimized for both martial effectiveness and convenience. The same goes for the katana.

As an extreme example of the it-comes-down-to-skill position, Tom Leoni, an excellent fencer, years ago argued that halberd vs. dagger was an even fight. It's all a bit vexing and confusing.

I honestly don't think there's a real true hierarchy.

All weapons have advantages and disadvantages. People are built differently, and those differences will accentuate or alleviate those advantages and disadvantages. And hwat you are trying to do with the weapon has a huge effect on which advantages and disadvantages actually matter.

I don't think there is a perfect sword. But I think there's a perfect sword for me, with my height and speed and strength and training to use in a given situation. If you are taller, but slower and less aggressive, you want a different sword.

And it matters if you want a weapon to duel with in a planned encounter, or one you want to take to battle against unknown enemies on unknown terrain, maybe with armor.

This is one of my issues with slavish devotion to any given master. He may be right in a given circumstance, for a given fencer. But tehre's a reason that backswords and polearms and longswords and sabres and smallswords were all in use during overlapping time periods. There was no clear, perfect weapon, no obvious staff>longsword>backsword>rapier rule, or everybody would have tossed out their rapiers and got a much cheaper wooden stick.

Read the masters, read the manuals, but then go fight somebody and try stuff.

I have done a lot of different stuff, and I really don't like longsword versus anything that isn't a longsword. I would much rather have a sword and buckler versus a longsword, or even a sword and dagger. I like sabres and rapiers, but that's probably because I can use a lot more of my 30 years of sport fencing experience with those weapons, so I'm starting out with a firmer base.

And being really short, I have always been at a reach disadvantage, so I am very good at overcoming it, and much less good at using superior reach when I do have it. I've always had to avoid or defeat the first attack then get into range, so sword and buckler versus a longer weapon is right in my wheelhouse. I have tall friends who like to keep distance and play reach games all day, so they probably feel more at home with a longsword or staff.

In short, I think the idea of "perfect length" is a weakness in Silver. My perfect length is probably different from yours.

[Incanur]

There was no clear, perfect weapon, no obvious staff>longsword>backsword>rapier rule, or everybody would have tossed out their rapiers and got a much cheaper wooden stick.

This is misleading for at least two reasons. First, obviously there are situations where a dagger trumps a staff: in a bar with a low ceiling, in a tight press on the battlefield, in a grapple, inside a covered wagon, most indoor environments, etc. Second, sidearms are fundamentally different from staff weapons and greatswords. If you can't wear it, a weapon becomes a lot more trouble. A staff can't do a sidearm's job. You can wear a rapier, even one with a 45in blade. You can't practically wear a 7-9ft staff.


Read the masters, read the manuals, but then go fight somebody and try stuff.

My sparring experience, which was limited and years ago now, felt consistent with Silver's claims. Silver's system worked pretty well for me, though we didn't have rapier simulators or decent shields. The longsword simulator definitely felt advantaged against the single sword, and that was without much longsword practice.


My perfect length is probably different from yours.

Note that Silver would have agreed with this. Each person's perfect length is different, but for most people [presumably males] according to Silver it fell into the 37-40in blade-length range.

[Haighus]

...no obvious staff>longsword>backsword>rapier rule, or everybody would have tossed out their rapiers and got a much cheaper wooden stick.

Further to what Incanur said, I think it is worth pointing out there is a distinction between sidearms and primary weapons. The vast majority of melee combantants in history essentially have used some kind of staff as a primary weapon, so you could say they did toss their swords and get a cheaper stick. Except instead of tossing them, you can wear them for back up.

I would say the historical record of use shows that wearable* swords are outclassed as weapons by polearms throughout history, with a few exception combining them with large shields (Roman legionaries), or for very specific roles like light cavalry and naval combat.

As for specific swords against each other, that all seems to be very context specific, with weapons good for the battlefield often not being as suited for duels and vice versa. As you have both discussed, there are a host of individual factors, but I still feel trends can be drawn, especially when looking at the kinds of preferred weapons in history.

*Wearable being swords that can be drawn from the hip, rather than big two-handers like zweihanders/montante/nodachi etc. I feel these are basically polearms.

[Mike_G]

This has nothing to do with pikes versus sidearms.

This was a response to musing about how Silver's advocacy of the longsword over sword and targe/sword and buckler seems to be contradicted by a lot of sparring, and similar issues.

1. Pretty much all the fencing masters were not dispassionate scholars and scientists of fighting, but guys trying to sell their style. And some have pretty odd ideas. See Capo Ferro's back weighted stances or Fabris' insane forward leaning guard. They all have adherents, and each style take advantage of certain strengths. Some work really well for tall people or aggressive people or fast people.

None of them is a universal tructh, but all of them claim to be.

Do not drink the Kool Aid.

2. Sabre is probably the most widely used sword type over quite a long period. It's a very good weapon if you are fighting unarmored enemies, and have to defend yourself with your sword instead of a shield or parrying dagger. It's light, it's fast, and generally has some decent hand protection. It loses a little bit of reach to a longer sword, but not as much as you think, and I say that reach is overrated. It's nice and all, but I have the medals to prove it's not an insurmountable advantage.

3. Smallsword is a good weapon. It's fast, it's very light, and thrusts very well. It can't cut, really at all, and it's iffy parrying a heavier blade, but proper parrying form using the forte can compensate for this. Yes, it's a dueling weapon, but infantry officers carried the into battle fairly often and did fight with them. And it was carried as a civilian self defense weapon.

4, 37 inches of blade is waaaaaay too long for me, and I think it hampers infighting.

5. A buckler, shield or dagger in the off hand is a huuuge advantage against a single weapon, even a longsword or polearm, since you can occupy the weapon with one hand and attack with the other.

6. I don't like longsword because, like Epee, you have to defend and attack with the same blade, or get killed by the counter/afterblow, with no timer to save you like in sport, and I find that limiting. I'd rather stop his attack with my left hand and kill with my right.

Now if I were a master, I would say that the perfect single sword was a sabre with a 30 inch blade, but that the preferred combination is sword of 30-32 inches, capable of cut and thrust with a good hand guard and shield, or failing that, sword and dagger.

But since I'm not trying to lure students to my school away from some filthy foreigner's school, I will admit that this is the perfect system for strong, fast, angry guys under 5'6", but it isn't a universal, scientifically superior system for everyone.

So, my advice is: Don't be a disciple of any one master. Be Inigo Montoya. Use Bonetti's defense, which is appropriate given the rocky terrain, attack with Capo Ferro, cancel it with Thibualt, and study your Agrippa.

[gkathellar]

I think weapon hierarchies sort of miss the point, in part because the usefulness of any given weapon or technique is context-sensitive, and in part because they purport to make a statement about "the truth," rather than providing insight that may be useful.

Silver's conceptual models of time, observations of what can go wrong in a rapier duel, and thoughts on technique are useful; his weapon hierarchies are an attempt to start a pissing contest with the Italians.

[Incanur]

Someday we'll have near-perfect simulation and/or the medical tech for folks to fight to the death and then get back up again. These questions will have answers, eventually. :smallsmile:

(Yes, the answers could include specific best weapons for individuals. Hell, maybe Tom Leoni's right and dagger's just as good as halberd!)

Are there any current tournaments that allow a range of weapons within certain limits? (Example: any sword up to 4.5lbs and 4.5ft total length.) That could be useful data.

[Mike_G]

Someday we'll have near-perfect simulation and/or the medical tech for folks to fight to the death and then get back up again. These questions will have answers, eventually. :smallsmile:

(Yes, the answers could include specific best weapons for individuals. Hell, maybe Tom Leoni's right and dagger's just as good as halberd!)


More HEMA groups are springing up, and weapons are getting better, so there should be more actual testable evidence that years ago.

I studied sport fencing in college because that was the only option for swordfighting. There was some SCA stuff around, but that was all heavy guys bashing one another with rattan clubs and hiding behind a shield the size of a refrigerator door. They had some odd, game changing rules as well. For safety, I get it, but that made it a game, just like Olympic foil is a game

Rapier fighting ten or fifteen years ago was just a sport Epee blade on a complex hilt. HEMA groups went from using shinai to nylon swords to a lot of pretty good steel blades that act a lot more like the real thing.

I finally found a HEMA group with a reasonable hike after years of looking, and it's eye opening to use a sabre with some weight, rather than the car antenna I competed with in college. Stuff makes more sense after you dot it. I'm much better at hands on learning than book learning.

I think we have a much better picture of historical swordfighting today than we did 30 years ago when i picked up a foil for the first time.



Are there any current tournaments that allow a range of weapons within certain limits? (Example: any sword up to 4.5lbs and 4.5ft total length.) That could be useful data.

The guys at Academy of Historical Fencing post a lot of videos of unlike weapons sparring.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_HtUzv9WIfxx31eYKDo4aA

These guys are a pretty good resource.

[Yora]

Both of these problems occurred amongst British and American armies. The tendency to simply murder prisoners was of course much greater amongst Russian, Japanese and German troops, depending on the type of unit and their officers' attitudes on the subject. If not killed, prisoners might then be treated somewhere between acceptably and incredibly badly by these nations. British and American officers were generally treated reasonably well by the Germans, whereas Russian troops might well be starved to death in barbed-wire enclosures.

In many ways, Germany was fighting two very different wars at the same time. The Western Front seems to have been something of a quite ordinary European war on a massive scale. The Eastern Front was a very different story more comparable to the Mongol Horde or 30 Years War in its scope of massacres and destruction.

[Mike_G]

In fact, here's a sabre vs longsword bout.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=INscVidE_ts

I wouldn't say either weapon has a huge advantage.

[Blackhawk748]

More HEMA groups are springing up, and weapons are getting better, so there should be more actual testable evidence that years ago.

I studied sport fencing in college because that was the only option for swordfighting. There was some SCA stuff around, but that was all heavy guys bashing one another with rattan clubs and hiding behind a shield the size of a refrigerator door. They had some odd, game changing rules as well. For safety, I get it, but that made it a game, just like Olympic foil is a game

Rapier fighting ten or fifteen years ago was just a sport Epee blade on a complex hilt. HEMA groups went from using shinai to nylon swords to a lot of pretty good steel blades that act a lot more like the real thing.

I finally found a HEMA group with a reasonable hike after years of looking, and it's eye opening to use a sabre with some weight, rather than the car antenna I competed with in college. Stuff makes more sense after you dot it. I'm much better at hands on learning than book learning.

I think we have a much better picture of historical swordfighting today than we did 30 years ago when i picked up a foil for the first time.

*eye twitch* I have a pathological hatred for the foil. You are, in essence, wielding a pointy car antennae as a weapon. It looks like someone could just grab it and bend it straight up, then gut you with a "real" sword. Though that may be my backsword bias showing.

[Mike_G]

*eye twitch* I have a pathological hatred for the foil. You are, in essence, wielding a pointy car antennae as a weapon. It looks like someone could just grab it and bend it straight up, then gut you with a "real" sword. Though that may be my backsword bias showing.

If somebody can grab your foil, you deserve to get gutted.

That said, it's NOT a weapon.

It is the shinai version of a smallsword.

[Blackhawk748]

If somebody can grab your foil, you deserve to get gutted.

That said, it's NOT a weapon.

It is the shinai version of a smallsword.

I thought there was a weapon called a foil...Now i wanna know what it was i was thinking of. Its like a rapier, but only has a proper edge on the last few inches of the blade and i believe its French.

[Mike_G]

I thought there was a weapon called a foil...Now i wanna know what it was i was thinking of. Its like a rapier, but only has a proper edge on the last few inches of the blade and i believe its French.

Nope.

This (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foil_(fencing)) is a foil.

It's purely a trainer invented to teach fencing with the smallsword (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_sword). The sport evolved from there.

A foil has a rectangular blade cross section, is crazy light, and bendy on purpose so you don't kill your students with a thrust, the blunt point stops and the blade bends.

Comparing it to a sword is like complaining about the stopping power of a paintball gun.

[Incanur]

In fact, here's a sabre vs longsword bout.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=INscVidE_ts

I wouldn't say either weapon has a huge advantage.

That's the video where I'm commenting back and forth with Nick Thomas that I mentioned earlier.

I agree Nick's group is a good resource, but to get really solid data you'd need lots of folks from different styles competing over an extended period of time. Nick tends to win because he's a skilled fencer and more practiced with sabre and rapier than with longsword.

Paul Wagner, a Silverist, also tends to win on his home turf and in localish contests. He can make backsword against longsword seem favorable to the former but at least back in the day he unequivocally agreed with Silver that the longsword has the advantage in that contest.

[Mr Beer]

In many ways, Germany was fighting two very different wars at the same time. The Western Front seems to have been something of a quite ordinary European war on a massive scale. The Eastern Front was a very different story more comparable to the Mongol Horde or 30 Years War in its scope of massacres and destruction.

This is absolutely true.

To put it another way, Germany was fighting one land war which was called the Eastern Front and also a sideshow called the Western Front.

This is not an opinion shared by popular Western culture though.

[Max_Killjoy]

This is absolutely true.

To put it another way, Germany was fighting one land war which was called the Eastern Front and also a sideshow called the Western Front.

This is not an opinion shared by popular Western culture though.

It certainly wasn't a sideline for the French, Dutch, Belgians, etc.

And without the Western Front, Africa, and Greece, and gobs of logistical support to the Soviets, the Eastern Front is likely a German victory in the end.

[Blackhawk748]

It certainly wasn't a sideline for the French, Dutch, Belgians, etc.

And without the Western Front, Africa, and Greece, and gobs of logistical support to the Soviets, the Eastern Front is likely a German victory in the end.

Its one of those moments where both sides where necessary. Without one, the other fails.

[rrgg]

It certainly wasn't a sideline for the French, Dutch, Belgians, etc.

And without the Western Front, Africa, and Greece, and gobs of logistical support to the Soviets, the Eastern Front is likely a German victory in the end.

I wouldn't go that far. Operation Barbarossa was ill concieved to begin with and even against Russia alone the German army would have eventually run out of men, material, and food for their horses. But aid from the western allies definitely helped ensure that the war was over quicker and saved a lot of lives.

[Max_Killjoy]

I wouldn't go that far. Operation Barbarossa was ill concieved to begin with and even against Russia alone the German army would have eventually run out of men, material, and food for their horses. But aid from the western allies definitely helped ensure that the war was over quicker and saved a lot of lives.

With the earlier start and extra divisions freed up by not having to defend in the west, fight in Africa, and help the Italians in the Balkans, it's very possible that the Germans roll the Soviets so far back that there's no recovering for the Soviets.

On the flip side, if there's no eastern front... Hiroshima is probably not the first city hit with an atomic weapon.

[Mr Beer]

It certainly wasn't a sideline for the French, Dutch, Belgians, etc.

Obviously not, nor for the British, Americans, Canadians etc.


And without the Western Front, Africa, and Greece, and gobs of logistical support to the Soviets, the Eastern Front is likely a German victory in the end.

Maybe, maybe not. Western assistance was hugely important to the Soviets, although they underplayed that both at the time and since. Whether it was decisive is not, I think, an answered question.

My point is not that defeating Hitler was a solo effort but rather I'm remarking upon the fact is that the Eastern Front pretty much was the land war against Germany. 80% of what was required i.e. killing German soldiers, was done on the Eastern front.

[Vitruviansquid]

Some thoughts that are either unintuitive to me to too suspiciously intuitive to me, submitted for the opinions of this thread:

1. The rate of fire for bows and crossbows was not considered that much of a big deal for bowmen and crossbowmen. Arrows and bolts are not bullets, and are much larger and more difficult to carry. These weapons are also man-powered rather than chemical-powered. As a result, you are only generally getting some number of shots out of every archer or crossbowman before they had to re-supply or they became too tired to be effective shots, and that evened out the "rate of fire" for these weapons even if the bowman was shooting X number of shots for each shot that the crossbowman was shooting. Sure, you can re-supply everyone with arrows, but they would have to go to an arrow stash or cart or something, or an arrow stash or cart would have to be attached to the unit and slow it down, or they would have to waste manpower on people going to fetch arrows for the shooters.

2. This one I saw on the "Metatron" youtube channel here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgRjGlzoRvk. Metatron makes the point that medieval soldiers who were able to equip themselves with full plate armor were filthy rich. He makes this point by discussing how a modern-day replica suit of armor for something like re-enactment costs an enormous sum of money, and is also produced with efficient modern tools and using cheaper, more abundant modern materials. Therefore, a medieval suit of armor must be even more comparatively expensive for a knight trying to acquire one than a modern suit of armor would be for a re-enactor trying to acquire one.

I don't think this is true for a few reasons. First, I think there may not be as much supply of steel for making armor, but there is simply a larger supply of armor. In modern times, there is less expertise around for making armor because it's not a practical or desirable skill for most people, driving down supply. In medieval times, there is a larger supply of people able and willing to make armor because it was a relevant and important profession, driving up supply. As well, there must have been more armor simply floating around because armor seems likely to survive its owner, and then be passed on to someone else, and this should raise supply. As well, in modern times, it seems like armor is a very niche good that sellers will charge more for because there is only a limited pool of buyers and those buyers tended to want to spend more on it. In medieval times, armor would've been a necessity, and with more suppliers and more purchasers, there are more people who are willing to shop around for quality at a lower price and more people who are willing to compete with each other to provide it.

[rrgg]

With the earlier start and extra divisions freed up by not having to defend in the west, fight in Africa, and help the Italians in the Balkans, it's very possible that the Germans roll the Soviets so far back that there's no recovering for the Soviets.

On the flip side, if there's no eastern front... Hiroshima is probably not the first city hit with an atomic weapon.

It's possible, but not likely. More men doesn't ensure that an army moves any faster if supply lines are strained as it is. Meanwhile the Soviets could keep moving their people and industry farther east while they put together a defense, and there was no way they were going to capitulate once it became clear that the Germans were waging a literal war of extermination against the Russian people.

The US probably could have beaten Nazi Germany as well. WWII essentially boils down to one crazy guy and his rogue state declaring war against the whole world. It's already a miracle that the Axis lasted as long as it did in the first place.

[Duff]

Yes, the last version of D&D I played was the Red Box edition, so pre-dating even AD&D.

God I feel old now... :smallsigh:

Red box had electram coins too

[Mr Beer]

I don't think this is true for a few reasons. First, I think there may not be as much supply of steel for making armor, but there is simply a larger supply of armor. In modern times, there is less expertise around for making armor because it's not a practical or desirable skill for most people, driving down supply. In medieval times, there is a larger supply of people able and willing to make armor because it was a relevant and important profession, driving up supply. As well, there must have been more armor simply floating around because armor seems likely to survive its owner, and then be passed on to someone else, and this should raise supply. As well, in modern times, it seems like armor is a very niche good that sellers will charge more for because there is only a limited pool of buyers and those buyers tended to want to spend more on it. In medieval times, armor would've been a necessity, and with more suppliers and more purchasers, there are more people who are willing to shop around for quality at a lower price and more people who are willing to compete with each other to provide it.

I think wages were generally comparatively lower as well, back in the day. Obviously machinery is generally more efficient than even cheap modern human labour but my guess is that doesn't help a great deal with modern armour production.

[snowblizz]

1. The rate of fire for bows and crossbows was not considered that much of a big deal for bowmen and crossbowmen. Arrows and bolts are not bullets, and are much larger and more difficult to carry. These weapons are also man-powered rather than chemical-powered. As a result, you are only generally getting some number of shots out of every archer or crossbowman before they had to re-supply or they became too tired to be effective shots, and that evened out the "rate of fire" for these weapons even if the bowman was shooting X number of shots for each shot that the crossbowman was shooting. Sure, you can re-supply everyone with arrows, but they would have to go to an arrow stash or cart or something, or an arrow stash or cart would have to be attached to the unit and slow it down, or they would have to waste manpower on people going to fetch arrows for the shooters. It does kind of matter because battles could be over rather quickly too sometimes. If the enemy is advancing on you you want to make sure your 36 arrows are all downrage doing something to reduce or ideally stop the enemy advance.


2. This one I saw on the "Metatron" youtube channel here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgRjGlzoRvk. Metatron makes the point that medieval soldiers who were able to equip themselves with full plate armor were filthy rich. He makes this point by discussing how a modern-day replica suit of armor for something like re-enactment costs an enormous sum of money, and is also produced with efficient modern tools and using cheaper, more abundant modern materials. Therefore, a medieval suit of armor must be even more comparatively expensive for a knight trying to acquire one than a modern suit of armor would be for a re-enactor trying to acquire one.
Utter bunk. And it's brought up many times in this thread with pricelists and wage earning comparisons. The picture isn't complete but in all examples good armour is available essentially to those who want it.
Really, a better comparison would be with cars in the modern day. There's a huge industry working en masse to produce a car just for you. It's not throw away cheap brand new but there are ways to cut the cost of entry (and having done that, soldiery could be fairly well paying profession, so you'd in reasonable time be able to afford the best). Also there are the massmarket versions and the handmade artisanal cars.

What that guy on youtube is doing is equivalent to looking at Lamborghinis and saying there's no way any normal person can afford a Kia Ceed because cars are clearly too expensive to make.


It's possible, but not likely. More men doesn't ensure that an army moves any faster if supply lines are strained as it is. Meanwhile the Soviets could keep moving their people and industry farther east while they put together a defense, and there was no way they were going to capitulate once it became clear that the Germans were waging a literal war of extermination against the Russian people.However it does ensure that the substantial losses you've taken to trained personnel and materiel, and in the ww2 German case, especially the Luftwaffe are available at the start. And that maybe, just maybe a bit more logistical planning goes into the operation.

Let's not overstate the Soviet position either. Stalin was sitting on a precarious construction held in check by his abiltiy to inflict terror, remember the Soviet union was a lot more than just Russians who tended to occupy a similar position vis a vis the others as had been the case during previous regimes. There was less patriotic outcry until around 1942 when they figured out to appeal to Mother Russia instead of the beloved *ahem* socialism. Many of the Soviet republics may well have broken off. The Baltic states were rearing to go, Ukraine and Azerbadjan could have decided they were happy to be rid of their oppressors, several central Asian ones might also reconsider positions given a topplign regime. Of course it's unlikely the WW2 Germans could have not become the oppressors themselves, so that's uncertain. It becomes a tossup between meaningfully shaking the Stalin edifice and starting a terror of their own making I think.
It's not a given that the Soviets could have moved all industry away either in a situation with a stronger Luftwaffe, more German troops and materiel available to cover distances and less troops and materiel of their own. The move caused massive disruptions which very largely covered with outside help. It was very close that the Baku oilfields were lost, and even more importantly the equipment and expertise, without which the Soviet union could not have functioned after 1942. Consider how a weakened Great Britain sent convoys of stuff to their ally, it wasn't just a marketing gimmick, that's how badly the Soviet union needed essential supplies.

And Stalin himself wasn't popular by any stretch. Even though he was good at eliminating rivals and plots and so, it's not inconceivable that desperation would drive someone to get rid of him to change the game, maybe look at a peace. Had the Germans stood in Moscow in june 1941 instead of just starting out it would be a much different war. Had they managed to push into Leningrad and Moscow in 1941 Stalin might well have been sitting very losely and those fabled Siberian divisions might not have cared to obey orders anymore.

When we look after the fact ww2 Germany vs Soviet Union looks very uneven on paper, and we know how it turned out when a weaker Germany and supported Soviet union fought it out. But all totalitarian states have that inherent flaw that they are really only some random shock away from a crack forming that topples it. And that would have mattered more than all the land you can supposedly retreat from.

Of course all this speculation also hinges on a more pragmatic Germna leadership which I'm also not convinced was possible. I don't like to be deterministic but some things are hard to see not happening.

[wolflance]

I'm not sure where you heard this, but it's incorrect.

Here's a replica 1250lb draw crossbow that Tod Todeschini is shooting (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WEOeZTV9wiA) and in the comments, the bolt weighs 90g and initial velocity is ~55m/s, for an overall KE of 136J. Other papers I've read on similar draw weight crossbows place them in the 100+ J range.

Meanwhile those same papers put a 140lb longbow putting out arrows at between 75-95J, depending on the type of arrow being shot (bodkin, lozenge, etc). I can't see a yumi outperforming an English longbow by much as it's generally the same bow type, despite the normal laminated composite construction.

A recurve bow (particularly a turkic/mongolian composite design) is an different beast - they can usually shoot the same weight arrows as a long bow, but typically about 30-50fps faster, so ~106-160J if I've done my math right for a 140lb recurve, all other things being equal to that 140lb longbow.

Edit: I should include my source as per the OP: A report of the findings of the Defence Academy warbow trials Part 1, Summer 2005; Arms and Armour Vol 4, No.1 2007; Bourke and Whetham.
Sorry for the delayed reply. The English Warbow I said before is actually 156 joules (not 160), and is found in "The Old English Warbow, parts 1&2&3" Primitive archer Volume 9, Issue 2 & Volume 9, Issue 4, written by Pip Bickerstaffe.

Unfortunately I don't have original source, although I've read other sources that quote it. (such as this one (https://www.yumpu.com/en/document/view/46067179/english-longbow-testing-the-current-middle-ages))

Looking back, maybe I should treat this as outlier as well?




While I agree that the yumi does appear recurved, nothing in the literature I've found indicates it has the same performance as one. I'm more than happy to be proved wrong if you have something that says otherwise.
I agree that all other variables being equal, the higher draw weight would indicate greater stored energy, but a yumi would be tillered (constructed) so that that you would achieve maximum draw weight at full extension, which would give a lower gradient force/draw curve (easier and smoother to draw) rather than greater stored energy.


I've made a mistake here as well, when I said "recurved", what I meant was "reflexed", in that the bow bends away from the user when unstrung. This allows the bow to be pre-stressed (storing energy) when strung, before it is even drawn.

For the Yumi's performance, I will just copy these quotes from Myarmoury wholesome. Note that the efficiency number is not an estimate, but just a rough outline on why Yumi outperforms longbow (of the same draw weight).


It(Yumi)'s a reflex-recurve bow, but only moderately reflexed, rather than with the tips almost touching (might have 1-2 feet from a line between the tips to the furthest point on the belly, unstrung, for a 7' yumi). Made from laminated bamboo strips, or bamboo and wood, often with a covering for weather protection.

A late Medieval Japanese warbow would probably exceed 100lb in draw weight (based on thickness of modern yumi limbs and old warbow limbs). It's also a long draw bow, with the drawing hand ending up in front of the rear shoulder - a 35" draw length would not be unusual. The long draw and the reflex-recurve should give a 100lb yumi about the same energy as a 150lb English longbow. A military yumi is large and heavy-limbed, and arrows are usually very heavy (e.g., 125g). Because the arrows are so heavy, they're not very fast, and long-range performance isn't very good. But the bow delivers a lot of energy at close range.



The area under the force-draw curve is equal to the energy stored in the bow. If the bow acted as a linear spring, the force-draw curve would be a straight line (that's the "linear" part), and the energy would be
E = 1/2*(draw weight)*(draw length - brace height).
Note that (draw length - brace height) is the distance the string is drawn back from the starting point. (Formula above is the area of a triangle.) If the bow is very, very long, and a straight stick when unstrung, and bends uniformly, the force-draw curve will be close to that linear curve. For a realistic length for such a bow, the force-draw curve is concave. The shorter, the more concave, and the longer, the straighter.

How can you store more energy? Equivalently, we can ask how to increase the energy under the force-draw curve? You can increase the draw weight, or you can increase the draw length, or you can change the shape of the curve, typically to something convex rather than concave. Recurved limbs will make the force-draw curve flatten out later in the draw (the tips of the limbs stay further apart, giving better leverage, so less force is needed). Reflex will strain the bow more when strung. Strung and undrawn, it's bent a lot more from its starting shape than a straight stick longbow. This means that the string is under more tension. This means that the slope of the start of the force-draw curve is steeper. Combine these two, and you have a convex force-draw curve.

For the yumi, (draw length - brace height) is about 25% than for a longbow, so 25% more energy. A reflex-recurve bow can give about 20% more energy from the convexity of the force-draw curve. Combine these, and you have about 50% more energy. Yes, the yumi counts as recurve.

If the bow stacks towards the end of the draw, the end of the force-draw curve will be concave. This is common, giving a S-shaped force-draw curve for many recurve bows. A gently S-curve is normal for a slightly reflexed and/or recurved longbow.



One problem is that there doesn't appear to be anybody interested (at least nothing published in English) in verifying the historical performance of high draw weight yumi (Kyudo practitioners use 30lb draw bows apparently). Some other research also indicates that yumi draw weights didn't get up to the same heights as Mongol/Chinese/English bows, mostly because there wasn't a need for it; gusoku even with a nanban dou (western style one piece steel cuirass), wasn't as protective as plate harness, despite what all the rapid fans claim.
Indeed Kyudo practitioners used very low draw weight bows (up to 60 lbs maximum, I think), however there are no historical sources that suggest Yumi to be weaker in draw weight compared to Chinese/Mongol bow - the opposite appears to be true, based on Chinese sources I came across.

It should be noted that Japanese armor is mostly inferior to European full plate harness in terms of COVERAGE, the armored parts are still protected with good iron plates, so there's definitely needs of high powered bow that can punch through armor.


While you would expect an efficiency improvement with using the correct projectile weight for the draw weight, I can't find a precise value for crossbows (pretty much everything I can find is for modern crossbows). While I agree that a bow is always going to be more efficient than a crossbow in terms of stored energy to projectile energy conversion, whether that can be used as an indicator of superior performance is more debatable.
Indeed, I can't find one either, and even the modern ones appear to be suggestions more than anything.

However, there's one crossbow test that shows incredible power (488 joule!) because they tested with a significantly heavier bolt. I am not sure if bolts that heavy are historical though, medieval bolts tend to be fairly light as far as I am aware.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nY2untEwCnU


While hunting around, I found this test by Joe Gibbs of the English Warbow Society with a 180lb Tartar bow (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8OLbdV5snk) and it shot a 63.3g arrow at 211 fps, which converts to 133J.
Although the comments in that video indicate that this performance is surprisingly poor, I personally think that it is quite good. Maybe the bow can shoot with greater joules if he switched to a heavier arrow, but then the range will likely suffers.

[wolflance]

I haven't actually missed out bows because it's clear they aren't drivers towards platearmour either in Europe, Japan or anywhere else for that matter. If bows were so armourpiercing then logically better armour would have been developed earlier surely? And what would the point of the crossbow be seeing that an archer can shoot what a dozen arrows for the crossbowman's one? If bows are per definition more powerful and more armour piercing than crossbows?

Makes absolutely no sense to me at all.

As Galloglaich has noted before, crossbows and guns were often used to proof armours. Not so much bows.
While not plate armor per se, it appears to me that heavier armor did develop (or spread) earlier in cultures where archery reigned supreme. The ancient equivalent of armored tank - the cataphract, originated from Iran, and spread eastward, and remained almost exclusively "Eastern". Thus it can be argued that bows & arrows did drive the advancement of heavy armor.

For comparison, European didn't appear (to me at least) to be seriously pursuing heavier protection until sometime around 10 or 11th century...

(BTW, People didn't "prove" armor with bows probably for the same reason they didn't prove it with couched lance. Hiring the archer/knight cost extra money, why not just shoot it with something everyone can use?)

[Vinyadan]

Putting numbers aside for a moment, I don't think that war on the Western Front was normal. It might have been for the expeditionary forces of the Allies, which were rather humanely treated. But the Nazi deported millions of civilians for forced labour, and destroyed whole villages, killing all of the residents, sometimes hundreds at a time. They also kept the murder of Jews, Gypsies, and many others going.
Yes, it was better than in the East, but it wasn't a normal war by Western standards, especially since the concept of war crimes and protection of civilians had been floating around since the late XIX century, and "civilized" nations were expected to abide by it.

[gkathellar]

However it does ensure that the substantial losses you've taken to trained personnel and materiel, and in the ww2 German case, especially the Luftwaffe are available at the start. And that maybe, just maybe a bit more logistical planning goes into the operation.

Let's not overstate the Soviet position either. Stalin was sitting on a precarious construction held in check by his abiltiy to inflict terror, remember the Soviet union was a lot more than just Russians who tended to occupy a similar position vis a vis the others as had been the case during previous regimes. There was less patriotic outcry until around 1942 when they figured out to appeal to Mother Russia instead of the beloved *ahem* socialism. Many of the Soviet republics may well have broken off. The Baltic states were rearing to go, Ukraine and Azerbadjan could have decided they were happy to be rid of their oppressors, several central Asian ones might also reconsider positions given a topplign regime. Of course it's unlikely the WW2 Germans could have not become the oppressors themselves, so that's uncertain. It becomes a tossup between meaningfully shaking the Stalin edifice and starting a terror of their own making I think.
It's not a given that the Soviets could have moved all industry away either in a situation with a stronger Luftwaffe, more German troops and materiel available to cover distances and less troops and materiel of their own. The move caused massive disruptions which very largely covered with outside help. It was very close that the Baku oilfields were lost, and even more importantly the equipment and expertise, without which the Soviet union could not have functioned after 1942. Consider how a weakened Great Britain sent convoys of stuff to their ally, it wasn't just a marketing gimmick, that's how badly the Soviet union needed essential supplies.

And Stalin himself wasn't popular by any stretch. Even though he was good at eliminating rivals and plots and so, it's not inconceivable that desperation would drive someone to get rid of him to change the game, maybe look at a peace. Had the Germans stood in Moscow in june 1941 instead of just starting out it would be a much different war. Had they managed to push into Leningrad and Moscow in 1941 Stalin might well have been sitting very losely and those fabled Siberian divisions might not have cared to obey orders anymore.

When we look after the fact ww2 Germany vs Soviet Union looks very uneven on paper, and we know how it turned out when a weaker Germany and supported Soviet union fought it out. But all totalitarian states have that inherent flaw that they are really only some random shock away from a crack forming that topples it. And that would have mattered more than all the land you can supposedly retreat from.

Of course all this speculation also hinges on a more pragmatic Germna leadership which I'm also not convinced was possible. I don't like to be deterministic but some things are hard to see not happening.

It's hard to speculate on, because the whole set of political calculations would have been very different in the absence of two fronts. What I've been given to understand is that Stalin's "great mistake" was failing to prepare for a war with Germany following the 1939 Nazi-Soviet pact, and in the absence of a Western front I think that may have played out very differently, if it had played out at all.


It should be noted that Japanese armor is mostly inferior to European full plate harness in terms of COVERAGE, the armored parts are still protected with good iron plates, so there's definitely needs of high powered bow that can punch through armor.

Point of agreement: extant Sengoku-period swordsmanship (TKSR, in particular) treats armor as pretty much impenetrable, and generally focuses on striking gaps between the plates when dealing with an armored opponent. Kenjutsu looks very different when it's aiming for people's underarms and elbows.

[Incanur]

However, there's one crossbow test that shows incredible power (488 joule!) because they tested with a significantly heavier bolt. I am not sure if bolts that heavy are historical though, medieval bolts tend to be fairly light as far as I am aware.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nY2untEwCnU

Bolts around that weight are historical: there's one listed in the book A Deadly Art. Edit: Actually, it was only 177g. However, at 23lbs, over 4ft long, and nearly 5ft across, that's a rather awkward weapon. I'm not sure it could be effectively shot without something to prop it on. (Later target crossbows (https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/33744) of similar or even greater weight apparently were shot from a standing position with any rest or prop, but they're more compact.)

Accounts of great crossbows shooting through multiple people go back well into the medieval period.

I do love the idea of big honking crossbows used as nongunpowder muskets for a fantasy setting. It might be possible with that design: 488 J would defeat most plate armor at close range. The width of the prod would make concentrated shooting formations a lot harder, though.

Additionally note that this crossbow isn't very efficient. The best historical crossbows might have performed much better. There are steel crossbows today (not historical designs) that look to have the same or better efficiency (38%) at higher velocity (71 m/s or 233 fps). And Ralph Payne-Gallwey's refurbished 15th-century crossbow probably performed even better if it really shot 440-460 yards.


Although the comments in that video indicate that this performance is surprisingly poor, I personally think that it is quite good. Maybe the bow can shoot with greater joules if he switched to a heavier arrow, but then the range will likely suffers.

It really isn't good if you compare it to Adam Karpowicz's Turkish bow tests (https://web.archive.org/web/20060303115738/http://www.atarn.org/islamic/akarpowicz/turkish_bow_tests.htm). His 136lb bow managed about 141 J at 210fps.

With both simple wooden and composite bows there's a wide range of performance based on quality. An excellent self bow will perform better than a poor composite bow.

[Martin Greywolf]

1. The rate of fire for bows and crossbows was not considered that much of a big deal for bowmen and crossbowmen. Arrows and bolts are not bullets, and are much larger and more difficult to carry. These weapons are also man-powered rather than chemical-powered. As a result, you are only generally getting some number of shots out of every archer or crossbowman before they had to re-supply or they became too tired to be effective shots, and that evened out the "rate of fire" for these weapons even if the bowman was shooting X number of shots for each shot that the crossbowman was shooting. Sure, you can re-supply everyone with arrows, but they would have to go to an arrow stash or cart or something, or an arrow stash or cart would have to be attached to the unit and slow it down, or they would have to waste manpower on people going to fetch arrows for the shooters.

We can't known for sure - not a lot of field handbooks left from 15th century - but that arrow resupply? It was most likely done, and very efficiently at that. If we go to 100 years war again, most of the battles where archers had their day were defensive in nature - English had enough time to set up defensive fortifications. That means it is very likely they set up carts/barrels of arrows at regular intervals among their archery positions.

Another example is Crecy, where English had time to set up, whereas crossbowmen on the French side didn't. I imagine things like this are what could make or break a battle easily.

On a somewhat related note, this makes mounted archers pretty useful, even if they don't shoot from the horseback - they can carry a lot of arrows with them.



2. This one I saw on the "Metatron" youtube channel here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgRjGlzoRvk. Metatron makes the point that medieval soldiers who were able to equip themselves with full plate armor were filthy rich. He makes this point by discussing how a modern-day replica suit of armor for something like re-enactment costs an enormous sum of money, and is also produced with efficient modern tools and using cheaper, more abundant modern materials. Therefore, a medieval suit of armor must be even more comparatively expensive for a knight trying to acquire one than a modern suit of armor would be for a re-enactor trying to acquire one.

I don't think this is true for a few reasons. First, I think there may not be as much supply of steel for making armor, but there is simply a larger supply of armor. In modern times, there is less expertise around for making armor because it's not a practical or desirable skill for most people, driving down supply. In medieval times, there is a larger supply of people able and willing to make armor because it was a relevant and important profession, driving up supply. As well, there must have been more armor simply floating around because armor seems likely to survive its owner, and then be passed on to someone else, and this should raise supply. As well, in modern times, it seems like armor is a very niche good that sellers will charge more for because there is only a limited pool of buyers and those buyers tended to want to spend more on it. In medieval times, armor would've been a necessity, and with more suppliers and more purchasers, there are more people who are willing to shop around for quality at a lower price and more people who are willing to compete with each other to provide it.

I agree with snowblizz on this one. Metatron on the whole has a problem of insufficient research - it seems like he sees an article somewhere and rushes to present it in a video as THE truth. A bit like Lindybeige, though Lindy is more knowledgeable on the whole and pretty much the best popular source for Hannibal and ancient Rome/Greece (his video on Ochs is still a disaster, though).

Tying the prices to modern re-enactors is just silly - these are luxury items for us with low demand. As for how modern production would look, I have one more point to add to your description - imagine something like modern large automobile plants, only with plate armor.

Modern bulletproof (anti-rifle grade) vest, which we can say is comparable to cuirass without backplate, will set you back about $500 and up, which is one to three months for most of the people in the richer countries. That's remarkably similar to the medieval cost.




However, there's one crossbow test that shows incredible power (488 joule!) because they tested with a significantly heavier bolt. I am not sure if bolts that heavy are historical though, medieval bolts tend to be fairly light as far as I am aware.

I can give you some personal recollection on this. See, one day we made a ballista. Starting like that, you know this story is gonna be good.

We didn't do any speed tests, mostly on account of not having the equipment, but we did find out one very important thing - the lighter the bolt, the worse it was, in a way that was really remarkable. We made a few bolts from really light wood, and those had a range of maybe 30-50 meters, even with fins - we used those against other armored people after adding padding to the top.


http://galahad.sk/img_loader.php?img=nBnLuEOMw81ft92a9dmchW2ahtGdqjG ItAkbq5xdalFNWAJMvMXfnFxbjlSYqjXfsF2fvUmbyVGdu92a

What we discovered, though, was that once you loaded something heavier, like, say, a brick, the performance improved dramatically. Said brick flew over a line of trees and into the middle of a river (don't worry, we checked both for people beforehand), achieving a distance of 60-100 meters.

The reason for this is, I think, that the bow itself has a max speed at which it straightens out, and this speed depends mostly on material, steel seems to be a lot slower than wood. However, the maximum weight that can be dragged depends on raw poundage, which in the end means that a crossbow maxes out the speed it can achieve faster, but can get heavier projectiles up to it. Which is a pretty good property for armor piercing weapon when we're talking about plate and mail.

Which makes the absence of all metal bolts rather curious, but I wonder if that isn't related to them being metal and therefore very meltable if you need that extra bit of iron, while the small wooden bolt heads are usually not worth the trouble.

[gkathellar]

Wouldn't an all-metal bolt have very different aerodynamic characteristics due to the weight of the shaft relative to the weight of the head?

[DrewID]

The reason for this is, I think, that the bow itself has a max speed at which it straightens out, and this speed depends mostly on material, steel seems to be a lot slower than wood. However, the maximum weight that can be dragged depends on raw poundage, which in the end means that a crossbow maxes out the speed it can achieve faster, but can get heavier projectiles up to it. Which is a pretty good property for armor piercing weapon when we're talking about plate and mail.

When you loose an arrow or bolt, the projectile isn't the only thing being moved; there is also the bow arms. And while they move less (the tips move something like half the distance of the projectile during the acceleration phase; the center moves essentially not at all), they have orders of magnitude more mass. And at the low end, the mass of the projectile is so small in comparison that changes in mass almost leave the energy equation unchanged. An article in a science magazine I read in the 80's pointed this out, and said this was one of the big advantages of the compound bow with its pulleys; the bow arms themselves move so very little that far more of the energy that you expended drawing the bow is transferred to the arrow upon release.

DrewID

[wolflance]

Bolts around that weight are historical: there's one listed in the book A Deadly Art. Edit: Actually, it was only 177g. However, at 23lbs, over 4ft long, and nearly 5ft across, that's a rather awkward weapon. I'm not sure it could be effectively shot without something to prop it on. (Later target crossbows (https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/33744) of similar or even greater weight apparently were shot from a standing position with any rest or prop, but they're more compact.)
Wait, is the bolt 177g, or 23 lbs????? Both are much heavier than the heaviest one I am aware of previously. Are these bolts meant to be shot from handheld crossbow like the one Tod tested?

It also brings into question on why others didn't test on heavier bolts.



Accounts of great crossbows shooting through multiple people go back well into the medieval period.

I do love the idea of big honking crossbows used as nongunpowder muskets for a fantasy setting. It might be possible with that design: 488 J would defeat most plate armor at close range. The width of the prod would make concentrated shooting formations a lot harder, though.

Additionally note that this crossbow isn't very efficient. The best historical crossbows might have performed much better. There are steel crossbows today (not historical designs) that look to have the same or better efficiency (38%) at higher velocity (71 m/s or 233 fps). And Ralph Payne-Gallwey's refurbished 15th-century crossbow probably performed even better if it really shot 440-460 yards.
It also likely depend on the quality of the plate. The recent NOVA documentary plate can probably resist it.

Come to think of it, maybe the advanced quenching / heat treatment was/is the major factor that makes full plates to appear so invincible...




It really isn't good if you compare it to Adam Karpowicz's Turkish bow tests (https://web.archive.org/web/20060303115738/http://www.atarn.org/islamic/akarpowicz/turkish_bow_tests.htm). His 136lb bow managed about 141 J at 210fps.

With both simple wooden and composite bows there's a wide range of performance based on quality. An excellent self bow will perform better than a poor composite bow.
Agreed on this one.

[RifleAvenger]

Hello all. I know next to nothing about guns. I'm looking to add a bit of flavor to a game I'm preparing, near modern in setting, where the players are essentially a supernatural SWAT team. What kind of real life guns and equipment would resemble standard issue for this organization?

Looking for things that support customization (types of ammo, etc.) to be adaptable to fighting both other humans and different supernaturals, handles well in confined spaces and CQB (indoors, urban, thick forests, cave systems, often at less than 100 yards), and has some stopping power behind it (some of the stuff they fight still has quite a bit of mass even after the "DR" is dealt with). Would enjoy suggestions on at least a handgun and a combat rifle model.

I apologize if this is a stupid question.

[wolflance]

We can't known for sure - not a lot of field handbooks left from 15th century - but that arrow resupply? It was most likely done, and very efficiently at that. If we go to 100 years war again, most of the battles where archers had their day were defensive in nature - English had enough time to set up defensive fortifications. That means it is very likely they set up carts/barrels of arrows at regular intervals among their archer positions.
It should be noted that during 17th century Toshiya contests, individual participants sometimes shot over 10,000 arrows over the course of 24 hours.

While it is implied that the bows they used for the contest were weaker than traditional Japanese warbow, they still appears to be fairly powerful, able to propell an arrow to a range of 120m consistently without requiring arching shot.



I can give you some personal recollection on this. See, one day we made a ballista. Starting like that, you know this story is gonna be good.

We didn't do any speed tests, mostly on account of not having the equipment, but we did find out one very important thing - the lighter the bolt, the worse it was, in a way that was really remarkable. We made a few bolts from really light wood, and those had a range of maybe 30-50 meters, even with fins - we used those against other armored people after adding padding to the top.


http://galahad.sk/img_loader.php?img=nBnLuEOMw81ft92a9dmchW2ahtGdqjG ItAkbq5xdalFNWAJMvMXfnFxbjlSYqjXfsF2fvUmbyVGdu92a

What we discovered, though, was that once you loaded something heavier, like, say, a brick, the performance improved dramatically. Said brick flew over a line of trees and into the middle of a river (don't worry, we checked both for people beforehand), achieving a distance of 60-100 meters.

The reason for this is, I think, that the bow itself has a max speed at which it straightens out, and this speed depends mostly on material, steel seems to be a lot slower than wood. However, the maximum weight that can be dragged depends on raw poundage, which in the end means that a crossbow maxes out the speed it can achieve faster, but can get heavier projectiles up to it. Which is a pretty good property for armor piercing weapon when we're talking about plate and mail.

Which makes the absence of all metal bolts rather curious, but I wonder if that isn't related to them being metal and therefore very meltable if you need that extra bit of iron, while the small wooden bolt heads are usually not worth the trouble.
Wowww, this is indeed good...well, aren't shooting something that light more akin to dry-firing your ballista? This can't be good for your ballista prod...

A metal bolt of the same weight as its wooden counterpart probably will be much thinner, making it too thin to fit into the crossbow groove. OTOH, something the same size as a wooden bolt, but made of metal, is probably too heavy? (I am not sure if metal bolt really doesnt exist though, just my guessing)

[Storm Bringer]

Hello all. I know next to nothing about guns. I'm looking to add a bit of flavor to a game I'm preparing, near modern in setting, where the players are essentially a supernatural SWAT team. What kind of real life guns and equipment would resemble standard issue for this organization?

Looking for things that support customization (types of ammo, etc.) to be adaptable to fighting both other humans and different supernaturals, handles well in confined spaces and CQB (indoors, urban, thick forests, cave systems, often at less than 100 yards), and has some stopping power behind it (some of the stuff they fight still has quite a bit of mass even after the "DR" is dealt with). Would enjoy suggestions on at least a handgun and a combat rifle model.

I apologize if this is a stupid question.

most real life swat teams use M-16/M4 variants, normally the semi-only civilian types. police snipers elements tend to use conventional bolt action rifles (Remington 700, M-40. etc). semi auto shotguns like the Benelli M4 are often carried by one or two members of a team.

A huge range of pistols are used, mostly 9mm types like the Glock 17, Beretta m92/M9 ect.

beyond that, its really a matter of what your facing this mission, as a lot of the loadout can be altered for the job in hand,

[snowblizz]

most real life swat teams use M-16/M4 variants, normally the semi-only civilian types. police snipers elements tend to use conventional bolt action rifles (Remington 700, M-40. etc). semi auto shotguns like the Benelli M4 are often carried by one or two members of a team.

A huge range of pistols are used, mostly 9mm types like the Glock 17, Beretta m92/M9 ect.

beyond that, its really a matter of what your facing this mission, as a lot of the loadout can be altered for the job in hand,

I've heard/read the MP5 is one of the more popular police tacticla unit wepaons too. Wiki says it's the most widely used in SWAT teams in the US. Most will be using a weapon with some kind of bullpop design due to compactness.
You want a good, semi/automatic weapon but one that's not too powerful so that most bullets will stay in target and not pass through people and walls. I believe this is one reason for the 9mm MP5 being so popular. Though some heavier battelfield grade rifles have been added in case of armoured resistance.
If I understood it right a 9mm is larger than the 5.56mm round but slower, so you could have more room for specilised ammunition vs supernatural things.

[Blackhawk748]

Hello all. I know next to nothing about guns. I'm looking to add a bit of flavor to a game I'm preparing, near modern in setting, where the players are essentially a supernatural SWAT team. What kind of real life guns and equipment would resemble standard issue for this organization?

Looking for things that support customization (types of ammo, etc.) to be adaptable to fighting both other humans and different supernaturals, handles well in confined spaces and CQB (indoors, urban, thick forests, cave systems, often at less than 100 yards), and has some stopping power behind it (some of the stuff they fight still has quite a bit of mass even after the "DR" is dealt with). Would enjoy suggestions on at least a handgun and a combat rifle model.

I apologize if this is a stupid question.

Go with the P90. Large magazine, compact design, plenty of stopping power.

[Mr Beer]

Hello all. I know next to nothing about guns. I'm looking to add a bit of flavor to a game I'm preparing, near modern in setting, where the players are essentially a supernatural SWAT team. What kind of real life guns and equipment would resemble standard issue for this organization?

Looking for things that support customization (types of ammo, etc.) to be adaptable to fighting both other humans and different supernaturals, handles well in confined spaces and CQB (indoors, urban, thick forests, cave systems, often at less than 100 yards), and has some stopping power behind it (some of the stuff they fight still has quite a bit of mass even after the "DR" is dealt with). Would enjoy suggestions on at least a handgun and a combat rifle model.

I apologize if this is a stupid question.

Compact rifles or submachine guns are used in buildings as mentioned above. I think backup pistols are a good idea. In real life, someone will overwatch with a rifle so as to snipe foes, in game that is boring for that player so maybe have an NPC do it or skip this.

Given you are fighting supernatural creatures, someone on the team may well be using shotguns. Reason is that the large capacity of a 12 gauge slug and the nature of a smooth barrel allows for a huge variety of ammunition. A shotgun is inferior to a rifle for fighting (I believe, which is why urban assault teams use rifles) but your shot gunner might have loads like heavy shot suspended in holy water gel, hollow point solid slug cast in silver, dragons breath rounds, two slugs connected with chain to decapitate foes etc. etc.

The GURPS supplements Monsters Hunters which are a setting entirely on this topic, make a lot of use of monsters that are bullet resistant. Consequently you generally need someone who has a big sword. This is a mechanic you might consider using as well, it means sword guy is inferior to gun guys a lot of the time but when your monster laughs at most bullets, sword guy is invaluable.

On that note, everyone should have a back up knife or other melee weapon.

Grenades are very popular with soldiers that have to clear houses but generally they are frowned upon in urban areas. It depends what kind of leeway your monsters hunters have. If they are allowed grenades, they will use them.

[Haighus]

I thought urban clearance teams brought a shotgun not so much for combat, but as a universal key :D so they would likely have a shotgun anyway? Ideally with frangible ammo at least for blowing out locks and hinges, plus crazy monster hunter types.

[rrgg]

Lately I've once again been think about how different melee weapons compare, particularly for unarmored single combat.

Of historical sources, George Silver (http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/paradoxes.html) provided the clearest and most comprehensive weapon hierarchy.

Writing a couple decades later, Joseph Swetnam vehemently disagreed with his assignment of the short sword (baskhilt or backsword) against the long rapier, instead assigning odds to the latter. However, despite technique differences, Swetnam like Silver gave the staff (7-8ft for Swetnam, 8-9ft for Silver, with a sharp point for both) the advantage against most or all other weapons.

Almost a hundred years earlier in 1531, Antonio Manciolino offered the general principle that longer weapons trump shorter ones, specifically recommending the partisan over the two-handed sword and the lancia (12-14ft or so) over the spiedo (8ft or so).

The idea that staff weapons have the advantage against swords and the like comes up in a wide variety of sources.

Then you get Donald McBane (http://www.aboutscotland.com/theroyalscots/histmcbane.html), an experienced fighter who argued for the superiority of the smallsword over the broadsword and gave advice for how to defeat broadsword and targe with smallsword alone. And various other authors across the 18th and 19th centuries argued for the smallsword's advantage against broadsword (https://smallswordproject.com/2016/10/30/the-duke-of-wellington-on-the-supremacy-of-the-smallsword/), sabre, etc. Others disagreed. Folks argued endless about the merits of thrusting vs. cutting. And so on.

Note that 18th/19th century swords were generally shorter and lighter than 16th-century swords: Silver thought a 37-40in blade made for a short sword while 18th/19th-century smallswords, broadswords, and sabres tended to have 30-33in blades. Silver's method was revived in the hopes of military use at the end of the 19th century, but I don't know that anybody was using it was blades quite as long as he recommended. (The most famous modern Silverists, the Stoccata folks, use a conservative interpretation of Silver's measuring position and thus use slightly short blades than Silver specified.)

I've been YouTube commenting back and forth with Nick Thomas about this subject. A skilled fencer, he claims that the longsword has no advantage over the sabre for unarmored single combat. From my 16th-century perspective and Silverist perspective, this seems bizarre. Silver didn't even take weapons like the sabre seriously, lumping them into the broad category of weapons shorter than perfect length. Similar swords existed in the 16th century, like the messer, but they didn't get too much attention in either the civilian or military context. What was everybody doing with those longswords and single-handed swords with 36+in blades if a glorified messer/falchion would serve just as well?

From an RPG perspective, as I mentioned to Nick, if the longsword and sabre are even in an unarmored duel then the sabre is better for that purpose because is less of an encumbrance, both shorter and lighter. That's possible, but seems odd. It's this dynamic, as well as evidence from 21st-century sparring, that's really been making me doubt Silver's claim that the longsword has the advantage over the sword and target. A target (rotella/rodela) is bulky and heavy (6-9lbs). It's considerably more trouble than wearing a somewhat heavier sword with a somewhat longer handle.

In Silver's system, the longsword seems a bit overpowered. Even sword & buckler, which Silver says the longsword also beats, strikes me as a little more trouble to wear than a longsword, though it's close. The target here functions strictly as a weapon for the field, for fighting in formation and/or in armor.

By contrast, in contemporary sparring, sword & shield usually looks to have significant odds over the longsword. Sometimes this combination even appears competitive with staff weapons, though of course those are harder to simulate safely.

From a balance perspective, aligning advantage with difficulty of carry makes a lot of sense. Obviously this only goes so far if we want to match reality: a 50lb bag of manure doesn't beat a dagger. But for widely used weapons, I think it's got some merit. I remain deeply skeptical that sabres and smallswords are just as good as any other sword. I suspect they're optimized for both martial effectiveness and convenience. The same goes for the katana.

As an extreme example of the it-comes-down-to-skill position, Tom Leoni, an excellent fencer, years ago argued that halberd vs. dagger was an even fight. It's all a bit vexing and confusing.

You've made a lot of good points, thanks!

I agree that Silver's hierarchy probably isn't concrete. You can find plenty of dissenting opinions and examples where it doesn't really fit. Although as far as shields go at least, they are heavier and less convenient but they might be more useful if you are expecting to face a lot of missile weapons. If you wear a breastplate it's only going to protect your chest from missiles, but even with a small shield you can protect almost your entire body as long as you're paying attention and the enemy isn't shooting too many arrows at once.

I wonder if another way of looking at it is weapons cycling through various "metas" depending on the time period and culture, in other words some weapons become more effective just because they are more popular and thus people are more familiar with handling them and the techniques involved with them? From a gaming perspective it might make sense to have the weapons strengths fit into the theme. For instance if the game is set in 1066, imperial rome, or 1490 iberia you might want to make sword&shield stronger, if the game is set in sengoku japan or 1599 Silver's backyard you might want to make two handed swords a bit stronger.

On the larger scale, one thing I've noticed is that while some early modern military treatises distinguish somewhat between shorter, heavier halberds that are better for a pell mell and longer, lighter halberds that are better for skirmishing, most seem to consider all the "short weapons" (halberds, bills, partisans, battleaxes, longswords, sword&shield) more or less interchangeable. William Garrard even suggested that lightly armored pikemen could be mingled in with the skirmishers to serve essentially the same role as John Smythe's "extraordinary halberders".

At Ravenna in 1512, Spanish targeteers managed to make their way inside a formation of landsknects armed with pikes and halberds, inflicting massive casualties. One year later at Flodden English billmen badly defeated Scottish pikemen who were well-armored and many of whom were carrying swords and targets for close combat.

The specific weapon being used probably plays a relatively minor role.

[Mr Beer]

I thought urban clearance teams brought a shotgun not so much for combat, but as a universal key :D so they would likely have a shotgun anyway? Ideally with frangible ammo at least for blowing out locks and hinges, plus crazy monster hunter types.

Yeah I forgot that, shotguns are used to open locks as well, I think they have a special round for it. My main point with shotguns is that fighting weird monsters gives the GM a chance to make all kinds of crazy rounds useful, which I think makes for more interesting combats.

Monster vulnerabilities also give the team boffin an important role, researching exactly what type of greeblie they are up against. If it's werewolves, everyone loads up with silver; vampires might require incendiary ammo; wraiths need holy water grenades etc. Otherwise everyone just turns up with the same weapons and specialisations, 4 guys with indentical carbines and flak jackets can get boring.

Another thing is armour, if monsters don't have guns, bullet resistant vests might be less important but stab-proof vests suddenly become very useful. Maybe everyone gets supplied with torso armour + helmet (with comm gear built in). Torso armour is resistant to knives, pistol ammo and fire (lots of monsters are fought with fire) and might have a special weave in it, say silver, so werewolves are put off clawing the team.

[Haighus]

Yeah I forgot that, shotguns are used to open locks as well, I think they have a special round for it. My main point with shotguns is that fighting weird monsters gives the GM a chance to make all kinds of crazy rounds useful, which I think makes for more interesting combats.

That is the frangible rounds :) They fragment upon hitting the lock and have really poor penetration once they've hit it, so they have reduced lethality to anyone on the other side.

[rrgg]

Indeed, I can't find one either, and even the modern ones appear to be suggestions more than anything.

However, there's one crossbow test that shows incredible power (488 joule!) because they tested with a significantly heavier bolt. I am not sure if bolts that heavy are historical though, medieval bolts tend to be fairly light as far as I am aware.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nY2untEwCnU


Although the comments in that video indicate that this performance is surprisingly poor, I personally think that it is quite good. Maybe the bow can shoot with greater joules if he switched to a heavier arrow, but then the range will likely suffers.

This is true. Generally the heavier a projectile is the more kinetic energy it will have after being shot from the bow until it nears 100% efficiency. I suspect many of the modern reproduction crossbows which seem to be under performing would have no problem peircing armor at close range if loaded with a thick, heavy bolt made of solid iron or lead. The problem is that this sacrifices a lot of velocity.

With less velocity you not only get less range but it becomes much harder to aim as you have to account for a much more pronounced trajectory and lead a moving target by much more. Against an animate target such as a human who is moving unpredictably or can see your arrow in flight hitting at range can become practically impossible.

If the kinetic energy of medieval crossbows did underperform so much even with military bolts I suspect that the idea was to instead maximize the initial velocity to improve accuracy and make it easier to snipe someone in a skirmish while still doing a resonable amount of damage.

At the far end of the spectrum you have various "stone crossbows" which were an increasingly popular hunting/sporting weapons which were made to shoot a small bullet made of clay or stone. The poor aerodynamics of a round ball meant the maximum range was limited and it wasn't considered very leathal against humans or large game, but the initial velocity was very high with a very straight trajectory, meaning that a good shot could pull off stunts such as striking a playing card at 50 yards or even killing a bird in mid-flight.

[Incanur]

Although as far as shields go at least, they are heavier and less convenient but they might be more useful if you are expecting to face a lot of missile weapons.

Yes, for my own system that was always the balancing factor I was assuming, that a medium shield (target) or large shield is better against missile weapons than anything else. I'm not sure that's enough and, as previously mention, there's a fair amount of evidence from contemporary sword & target has the advantage against longsword.


From a gaming perspective it might make sense to have the weapons strengths fit into the theme. For instance if the game is set in 1066, imperial rome, or 1490 iberia you might want to make sword&shield stronger, if the game is set in sengoku japan or 1599 Silver's backyard you might want to make two handed swords a bit stronger.

For resolving ambiguous questions of advantage, I'd absolutely recommend this approach. Just don't get carried away and make the dagger actually a match for a halberd for single combat in the open.


On the larger scale, one thing I've noticed is that while some early modern military treatises distinguish somewhat between shorter, heavier halberds that are better for a pell mell and longer, lighter halberds that are better for skirmishing, most seem to consider all the "short weapons" (halberds, bills, partisans, battleaxes, longswords, sword&shield) more or less interchangeable.

Various 16th-century military authors did claim targetiers were better than halberdiers, while others at least implicitly favored halberdiers. And except for partisans, those are all weapons considered the best for field: halberd/bill/battleaxe, sword & target, longsword. And I don't of any 16th-century armies that used partisans in large numbers. Raimond de Fourquevaux said they weren't so good against armored troops and that he'd tolerate a few partisans among halberdiers.


The specific weapon being used probably plays a relatively minor role.

I agree, but only within that small set of good battlefield weapons. In a committed infantry melee, short halberd or sword & target strike me as the best; I'd guess the former. There probably isn't a big different between long halberds, short ones, sword & target, and large longswords as far as heavy infantry goes. The question of short weapons against pike gets more complicated.

In any case, the range of successful weapons and troops didn't extend indefinitely. You didn't see units with bat'leths or meteor hammers or rocks in socks or simple wooden clubs winning infantry melees. (Okay, you do have some examples of units with simple wooden clubs doing well in antiquity. That doesn't extend to 15th century or 16th century as far as I know.)

Across the world in the 15th/16th century, rather few weapons dominated militarily:

Pikes
Bows
Handheld firearms (arquebus, musket, handgonne, etc.)
Lances
Crossbows
Single-handed swords (arming swords, sabers, backswords, broadswords, etc.)
Shields
Shorter spears
Two-handed swords (some sidearms, some primary weapons)
Halberds/bills/pollaxes
Long cutting polearms (partisans, glaives, naginata, etc.)
Shorter single-handed swords (baselards, katzbalger, wakizashi, cutlass, etc.)
Short impact weapons (maces, hammers, axes)
Javelins
Daggers

The details could vary a lot, but many fundamentals remained about the same.

[Martin Greywolf]

Wowww, this is indeed good...well, aren't shooting something that light more akin to dry-firing your ballista? This can't be good for your ballista prod...


Perhaps, but once the ballista was built, we faced a problem of what the hell do we do with it? We can't exactly put it into our archery range for the civilians, not only do you need to know how to use it more than a bow, there is no way to make it safe at 30 meters if you are firing proper ammo. So we used it when we could, and if we have to replace a bit of it, so be it.



A metal bolt of the same weight as its wooden counterpart probably will be much thinner, making it too thin to fit into the crossbow groove. OTOH, something the same size as a wooden bolt, but made of metal, is probably too heavy? (I am not sure if metal bolt really doesnt exist though, just my guessing)

The short answer is we have no idea since we never tried. And to answer the questions that were brought up in this discussion, we'd need a far more powerful ballista, something like a few thousand pounds. That may actually need really heavy bolts to shine.

As for aerodynamics, well, yeah, they'd be different, so the bolt shape would have to be changed.

All I can conclude in the end is that, when it comes to high poundage crossbows, standard weight bolts might be underperforming a lot. To know if that is the case, we'd need to test it, and I don't think there's any authentic replica crossbow around with that kind of poundage.

[snowblizz]

Something I ponder occasionally. What would happen if a very early and late medieval(ish) army met in battle. Say a combination of both sides of Hastings (so we have a reasonable mix of troops) vs their descendents at the height of the War of the Roses. Just to keep it in the family. We'll imagine a typical kitchensink "medieval" world to make it happen and naturally exclude firearms because *everyone* knows they did not exist then.:smallbiggrin:

Obviously the, let's call them Anglo-Normans, are totally hosed (shields, spears and chainmail against a fairly well equipped plate army). But is there some force numbers or various strengths where it could at least be something of a fight? Would the later longbows massacre the early army outright? Could their archery meaningfully contribute at all? How would a pollaxe armed force break a shield-wall? Anything else interesting you can think of such a confrontation? (Other than this is so unhistorical and can't have platearmour without guns and waaah waah waah) Or is it just not feasible at all there's a decent but doomed battle?

[gkathellar]

I thought urban clearance teams brought a shotgun not so much for combat, but as a universal key :D so they would likely have a shotgun anyway? Ideally with frangible ammo at least for blowing out locks and hinges, plus crazy monster hunter types.

One issue that arises with shotguns in inhabited areas is their potential for collateral damage. Using them around civilians, especially hostages, can be disastrous (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attica_Prison_riot#Retaking_of_the_prison_and_reta liation).

However, it's also worth noting that structurally, a shotgun will do a great job of accommodating disparate ammunition types. If you're going the whole supernatural SWAT angle, this could be important - one big monster trope is harming them with special materials like silver or pure iron, so this could be a worthwhile advantage.

Shotguns also might be very useful for dealing with supernaturally fast targets, due to the scatter effect. Not so sure about that, but it occurs to me as a possibility. Maybe someone else here can address it.

[Haighus]

One issue that arises with shotguns in inhabited areas is their potential for collateral damage. Using them around civilians, especially hostages, can be disastrous (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attica_Prison_riot#Retaking_of_the_prison_and_reta liation).



I thought that special breaching ammuntion was used for door clearance, that was designed to minimise that risk. Not to mention that prison riot looks like an all-round terribly managed situation, and quite different from typical breach and clear operations.

[Incanur]

Obviously the, let's call them Anglo-Normans, are totally hosed (shields, spears and chainmail against a fairly well equipped plate army). But is there some force numbers or various strengths where it could at least be something of a fight?

If the Anglo-Normans have a significant numerical advantage, decent leadership, and the battle happens in terrain suitable for leveraging those numbers, sure.


Would the later longbows massacre the early army outright?

I strongly doubt this. If handled by a decent commander, however, it would presumably enable the English to compel the Anglo-Normans to either advance and attack (as French armies did various times) or to retreat, in bother cases in some disorder. It probably wouldn't be good for the Anglo-Normans to just sit there and let the English shoot all their arrows at them, and it's unlikely they could win an archery duel (see below).


Could their archery meaningfully contribute at all?

Remember that there's little clear technical superiority here. Norman archers probably used broadly similar bows and arrows to mid-15th-century English archers. The latter were rather more famous for their archery and put more focus on it institutionally, but we don't have concrete evidence that their bows were dramatically stronger or anything like that.

I suspect Norman archers and crossbowers could contribute, but that, like so many missile forces opposed to 15th-century English archers, they'd lose the contest with English archers. War-of-the-Roses-era English armies additionally tended to be much heavier on the archers than this combined Anglo-Norman force. (The Normans had maybe a quarter of their troops as archers or crossbowers, and the Anglo-Saxons had basically none.) English archers would therefore most likely trump their counterparts both in numbers and in quality.


How would a pollaxe armed force break a shield-wall?

If necessary, probably just by walking up and giving blow at the head and thrust at the face. Mid-15th-century English dismounted men-at-arms in white harness would be all but invulnerable to Anglo-Norman weapons, and many had experience in extended melees. By contrast, pollaxe blows and thrusts would be dangerous to even the best equipped Anglo-Norman troops. The Anglo-Normans could potentially beat dismounted men-at-arms into submission with axe blows, knock them over with shield bashes, and/or grapple them, but such tactics would be unlikely to succeed without significant numerical advantage.

Honestly, I'm not sure there's any close-combat heavy infantry from any time or place I'd rate above mid-15th-century dismounted English men-at-arms for a straight melee. You could argue that a well-armored Swiss force of pikers and halberdiers that went heavy on the latter would do better or that some other nation's dismounted men-at-arms were superior, but that's about it.

Lighter English troops would do less well against a Norman shield wall, but I guess troops in bill, jack, and sallet about evenly matched with the best Anglo-Norman ones in terms of kit.

Note that the English didn't use all that much cavalry in the War of the Roses, but the cavalry they did use seems to have been pretty good.

[gkathellar]

I thought that special breaching ammuntion was used for door clearance, that was designed to minimise that risk. Not to mention that prison riot looks like an all-round terribly managed situation, and quite different from typical breach and clear operations.

Yep. I mentioned it mostly because I remembered it offhand and, because it's worth noting that shotguns have problems when they're employed as weapons in situations where combatants and noncombatants are mixed together.

(Slugs can also avert the collateral damage problem, but a rifled shotgun barrel doesn't do fantastically with most shot, and a smoothbore barrel is less-than-amazing with most slugs.)

[Blackhawk748]

Yep. I mentioned it mostly because I remembered it offhand and, because it's worth noting that shotguns have problems when they're employed as weapons in situations where combatants and noncombatants are mixed together.

(Slugs can also avert the collateral damage problem, but a rifled shotgun barrel doesn't do fantastically with most shot, and a smoothbore barrel is less-than-amazing with most slugs.)

I've never actually had an issue with slugs and my smoothbore. Then again im not using rifled slugs or even hollow points, just what we call "pumpkins". Big hunks of lead that come out the barrel.

[Knaight]

One issue that arises with shotguns in inhabited areas is their potential for collateral damage. Using them around civilians, especially hostages, can be disastrous (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attica_Prison_riot#Retaking_of_the_prison_and_reta liation).

This is true of most firearms - residential walls are generally pretty flimsy, and even if they aren't windows are.

[Gnoman]

The incident linked above had little to do with the police using shotguns and everything to do with the police firing indiscriminately into an area with poor visibility. Despite popular myth, the spread on a shotgun isn't all that wide at most ranges. Much depends on shot type and choke settings, but you'll be able to cover the pattern with your hand at any inter-house distance (which is what the specified scenario suggests), and even in a gymnasium or similar setting a man-sized target will take most of it. Shotguns aren't any worse for collateral damage than any other firearm, and in many cases better, because no individual pellet carries the force of a pistol or rifle bullet.

Is it the best choice if you're concerned about overpenetration? Probably not, as most pistol or intermediate-rifle self-defense rounds are specifically designed for low penetration, but they're not the scythe of doom that most video game or movie shotguns seem to be.

[rrgg]

Yes, for my own system that was always the balancing factor I was assuming, that a medium shield (target) or large shield is better against missile weapons than anything else. I'm not sure that's enough and, as previously mention, there's a fair amount of evidence from contemporary sword & target has the advantage against longsword.

I suppose that's fair enough. I still think I'd keep the results of sword&shield vs longsword pretty close to 50/50 for an early modern duel, all other things being equal. If it were dark ages europe where good armor was rare and everyone with a spear had a pretty powerful close-range missile weapon I think a shield would become much more important.

The other thing I think to keep in mind though is how various weapons might be able to work together as a group and balance out each other's weaknesses. It is true that many military authors seem to have liked targeteers to some degree in close quarters but most still didn't recommend them in very large numbers or didn't really treat them as a necessity. The points in their favor also seem to focus on the defensive role of shields. Di Jacopo stated that if the enemy has many archers you should set against them men fenced with targets to negate the effect. According to William garrard if any targets of proof are available their role should be to lead the column during a march or to go ahead of the shot during a skirmish in order to provide some degree of protection against bullets. There are also remarks about men without shields essentially being "naked" in a melee. Similarly, Silver's praise specific to the sword and target is: "The sword and target leads upon shot, and in troops defends thrusts and blows given by battle axe, halberds, black bill, or two handed swords, far better than can the sword and buckler."

If you were putting together a small party of renaissance adventurers then rather than trying to come up with a single best, most-rounded weapon it's pretty easy to see how you might instead have a targeteer as your tank, a poleaxe as your dps, an extraordinary halberd as your crowd control etc. Even if the targeteer does himself in a duel with a long polearm where he's at a disadvantage, he should be able to hold his own or hold out until help arrives much better than someone with just a longsword could.

Edit: Another compromise might be to have the advantage depend on the quality of the target. For instance say the heavier targets which are used mainly as a primary arm have an advantage over a sidearm-longsword in a duel, but the smaller, lightweight targets made of leather, wood, or wicker which authors say may be easily worn on a pikeman's back are more easily knocked aside and have a slight disadvantage against the longsword.

[Yora]

This is true of most firearms - residential walls are generally pretty flimsy, and even if they aren't windows are.

Depends on where you are. In Europe and urban areas of East Asia walls are almost entirely solid brick or concrete. Not sure if even a .50 BMG goes through that.

[Haighus]

I'm fairly sure .50 goes through brick and breeze blocks*. It would struggle with solid concrete.

Even in Europe, usually only exterior walls are really sturdy- interior walls still tend to allow rifle bullets through easily. So again we are back to 9mm or .45 pistol rounds to reduce overpenetration.

Of course this applies best to houses built in the last century. Older houses often have a more solid construction. Stone houses in particular can have enormously thick internal walls, nearly as thick as the exterior. I grew up in a 17th century stone farmhouse, and the oldest part of the house has stone walls about 18" thick. The internal walls are about 12"!

*I think these are also called cinder blocks. Large hollow concrete bricks that are surprisingly flimsy compared to clay bricks.

[Martin Greywolf]

I suppose that's fair enough. I still think I'd keep the results of sword&shield vs longsword pretty close to 50/50 for an early modern duel, all other things being equal. If it were dark ages europe where good armor was rare and everyone with a spear had a pretty powerful close-range missile weapon I think a shield would become much more important.

Do keep in mind that modern duels aren't fought using sharp weapons, and that introduces artefacts - a sharp sword will thrust into a shield and not slide off, or can be caught once it hacks into the edge of a shield. Stabbing someone through with a sharp sword will also not push the stabee away from you, which is perhaps the greatest inaccuracy we have.



If you were putting together a small party of renaissance adventurers then rather than trying to come up with a single best, most-rounded weapon it's pretty easy to see how you might instead have a targeteer as your tank, a poleaxe as your dps, an extraordinary halberd as your crowd control etc. Even if the targeteer does himself in a duel with a long polearm where he's at a disadvantage, he should be able to hold his own or hold out until help arrives much better than someone with just a longsword could.

There's one important factor you're overlooking here - skill to output ratio. To say it in more words, as your skill with a weapon increases, your performance in a fight will too, but the relationship between these two isn't linear.

In a spear vs a longsword fight, spear is easy to learn, and after becoming proficient with it, you don't become that much better. The techniques - in spear vs longsword context, mind - are mostly focused on getting out of unlikely bad situations (chiefly him getting past your point). Longsword, on the other hand, is really, really hard to do well with - you'd be nigh useless at start, improve a little bit at first, and then hit a quick increase once you figured out basic reactions to binds and attacks.

That means that the advantage gap between noob longsworder and spearman would be enormous, but would keep shrinking. A noob score would be 10-0, while the medium trained could be something like 6-2 with 2 mutual kills and expert score could be 7-3. Well, as an example, I don't think anyone has the exact numbers.

What all this means that, when we look at the advice of especially post-renaissance authors, we should also look at how long were soldiers under their command trained/in service, and keep that in mind when talking about how or why they recommended a weapon.



Edit: Another compromise might be to have the advantage depend on the quality of the target. For instance say the heavier targets which are used mainly as a primary arm have an advantage over a sidearm-longsword in a duel, but the smaller, lightweight targets made of leather, wood, or wicker which authors say may be easily worn on a pikeman's back are more easily knocked aside and have a slight disadvantage against the longsword.

Well, obviously, modern round shield that is several centimeters thick handles very differently than an authentic replica that has 5mm edge, but the question is, how deep do you want to go in a TTRPG?

[Vinyadan]

About shields, in a Lone Wolf novelization, Lone Wolf deals with an enemy bearing a shield chopping his sword into the side of the shield, and then putting all of his strength into turning it like a wheel, breaking the elbow of the enemy.

...so, how likely does it sound?

[wolflance]

There's one important factor you're overlooking here - skill to output ratio. To say it in more words, as your skill with a weapon increases, your performance in a fight will too, but the relationship between these two isn't linear.

In a spear vs a longsword fight, spear is easy to learn, and after becoming proficient with it, you don't become that much better. The techniques - in spear vs longsword context, mind - are mostly focused on getting out of unlikely bad situations (chiefly him getting past your point). Longsword, on the other hand, is really, really hard to do well with - you'd be nigh useless at start, improve a little bit at first, and then hit a quick increase once you figured out basic reactions to binds and attacks.

That means that the advantage gap between noob longsworder and spearman would be enormous, but would keep shrinking. A noob score would be 10-0, while the medium trained could be something like 6-2 with 2 mutual kills and expert score could be 7-3. Well, as an example, I don't think anyone has the exact numbers.

What all this means that, when we look at the advice of especially post-renaissance authors, we should also look at how long were soldiers under their command trained/in service, and keep that in mind when talking about how or why they recommended a weapon.
This reminds me of a Chinese sayings:

『月棍、年刀、一輩子的槍』

Which roughly translates to "(It takes) months (to master a) staff, years (to master a) saber, a lifetime (to master) a spear".

Well, the phrase was taken from a early 20th century novel, but became widely circulated among the martial arts circles, so it must have some rings of truth in it. A spear might be easier to learn and become proficient, but it is really hard to move from "proficient" to "mastery".


About shields, in a Lone Wolf novelization, Lone Wolf deals with an enemy bearing a shield chopping his sword into the side of the shield, and then putting all of his strength into turning it like a wheel, breaking the elbow of the enemy.

...so, how likely does it sound?
If it is a strapped-on shield and Lone Wolf has superhuman strength, possible. But he'd be better to simply grab onto the shield and twist it like a steering wheel.

If it is a center-grip, less so.

[Kiero]

If it is a strapped-on shield and Lone Wolf has superhuman strength, possible. But he'd be better to simply grab onto the shield and twist it like a steering wheel.

If it is a center-grip, less so.

Yeah, if the shield is strapped to someone's arm (such as with the porpax and antilabe arrangement), and you have a free hand you're willing to risk being attacked, you can break it this way.

If it's centre-gripped, you might be able to wrench it out of their hand if you jerk it sharply enough.

[No brains]

Does anyone know when the earliest suits of full armor appear? I'm talking about armor that covers up most of a person's body while leaving the least possible area exposed. No uncovered limbs and complete face covering. I'm led to believe that the middle ages are where full suits of armor become more common, but I also think I remember some Roman cavalry that wore an entire suit of scale armor.

My guess is somewhere a few hundred years within 1000 AD, but I think some aid in terminology and some good examples of full armor might help me. I also know that not all civilizations developed armor at equal rates, so global examples would be welcomed.

[Mr Beer]

About shields, in a Lone Wolf novelization, Lone Wolf deals with an enemy bearing a shield chopping his sword into the side of the shield, and then putting all of his strength into turning it like a wheel, breaking the elbow of the enemy.

...so, how likely does it sound?

It sounds unlikely to me, I think if he's so strong and quick that he can execute this technique, there are probably easier ways to win the fight.

[Vinyadan]

Does anyone know when the earliest suits of full armor appear? I'm talking about armor that covers up most of a person's body while leaving the least possible area exposed. No uncovered limbs and complete face covering. I'm led to believe that the middle ages are where full suits of armor become more common, but I also think I remember some Roman cavalry that wore an entire suit of scale armor.

My guess is somewhere a few hundred years within 1000 AD, but I think some aid in terminology and some good examples of full armor might help me. I also know that not all civilizations developed armor at equal rates, so global examples would be welcomed.

How about the Dacian knights on the Trajan Column?
Or Parthian cataphracts?
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/6a/ParthianCataphract.JPG/800px-ParthianCataphract.JPG

What surprised me a lot is that the typical idea of the hoplites isn't how things always went. There was ankle, foot, arm, and upper leg protection too, they just are much rarer than the pieces in the typical helmet - shield - greaves - bracers combo. I need to verify which rarer pieces existed, but a fully equipped hoplites might have been very close to what you seek.

[Blackhawk748]

Does anyone know when the earliest suits of full armor appear? I'm talking about armor that covers up most of a person's body while leaving the least possible area exposed. No uncovered limbs and complete face covering. I'm led to believe that the middle ages are where full suits of armor become more common, but I also think I remember some Roman cavalry that wore an entire suit of scale armor.

My guess is somewhere a few hundred years within 1000 AD, but I think some aid in terminology and some good examples of full armor might help me. I also know that not all civilizations developed armor at equal rates, so global examples would be welcomed.

I'd say Cataphracts fit your criteria. They, and their horses, where completely covered in chain mail

[Gnoman]

This is a bit of an odd question, but how much metal (in terms of volume) would be found in a typical pop-culture katana, assuming that the grip and such would also be metal?


For context, an NPC I'm working on has patterned herself on certain bits of media she considers "romantic", and one of her powers is the ability to convert any metal into her weapon of choice. If this power comes up in game, I need to know how much metal it needs (and/or how many such swords would be made by converting a metallic obstacle). This power does not change the type of metal, so what she uses will have appropriate weaknesses.

[Kiero]

How about the Dacian knights on the Trajan Column?
Or Parthian cataphracts?
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/6a/ParthianCataphract.JPG/800px-ParthianCataphract.JPG

What surprised me a lot is that the typical idea of the hoplites isn't how things always went. There was ankle, foot, arm, and upper leg protection too, they just are much rarer than the pieces in the typical helmet - shield - greaves - bracers combo. I need to verify which rarer pieces existed, but a fully equipped hoplites might have been very close to what you seek.

Fully-armoured hoplites were an older thing, something that was waning even in the Greco-Persian Wars, as people generally decided mobility was a better guarantee of survival than covering as much of the body as you could. By the time you get to the Hellenistic era, the full panoply is completely gone, even greaves start to be treated as optional.


I'd say Cataphracts fit your criteria. They, and their horses, where completely covered in chain mail

Earlier cataphracts wore full suits of leather-backed-scale. Alexander the Great used some Skythian heavy cavalry, dismounted, as assault troops in one siege.

https://i.pinimg.com/236x/ac/a2/96/aca296ed7d3e678eae2a2410b4f05b00--warriors.jpg

[Vitruviansquid]

Hopefully a simple question: Why do I see some video games refer to medieval heavy infantry as "Squires?" And related to that, what was squiring like in a battle? I was always under the impression that a squire was sort of considered an underage supporter of the knight who was the actual combatant. Total War: Warhammer has a unit called Battle Squires, Heroes of Might and Magic 5 has Squires as heavy infantry as well. In Warlords Battlecry 2, "Squires" were actually an archer unit, if I remember correctly.

Here are my guesses:

1. "Squire" in this context either means or has its meaning mixed with the word "squire" as a relatively prestigious non-knight social position. As I'm aware, "squire" or "esquire" is used in many different ways throughout different times and places, but mostly seemed to be more prestigious than "peasant" or "yeoman." So maybe "Squire" is used to refer to non-knights who were wealthy enough to be equipped well for battle.

2. Squires actually participated in battle as well as supporting the knights. Numbers is a big deal in medieval battles and squires were already probably of an age considered adults to medieval people. Probably if there were not young men of knightly families who were not available to be your squire or did not want to, a knight would hire an adult man to do the same job. Medieval people also don't seem like they'd be that concerned with keeping the young out of battle as modern people would be. They probably wouldn't be as outraged about something like fielding child soldiers, if indeed squires were considered children. The problem with this idea is I don't know how the squire would be able to do his other duties, like be in charge of the knight's spare equipment and horses, while attempting to perform a role on the battlefield. Or maybe the squire wasn't really in charge of holding onto the knight's gear while the knight was fighting - the knight could probably have held onto all the stuff he needs during the battle on his horse... except maybe his spare horse? Or maybe the Squire would've been like a reserve - generally held back from the fight unless it was going to be desperate and all hands were needed, at which point screw the spare horse and gear, he was needed to save the knight's life.

3. Squires followed knights into battle on horseback, where they are close enough to support the knight if needed, but took a less dangerous role (maybe riding behind the knight?). In the games, this can't be represented because the knights are already a unit, and there'd be no point for two mounted units the way the game is set up, or some other good game mechanics related reason. Thus, Squires are retained as the name of a combat unit, but relegated to another role in the games.

4. The games are just sloppy at naming.

[Mike_G]

This is a bit of an odd question, but how much metal (in terms of volume) would be found in a typical pop-culture katana, assuming that the grip and such would also be metal?


For context, an NPC I'm working on has patterned herself on certain bits of media she considers "romantic", and one of her powers is the ability to convert any metal into her weapon of choice. If this power comes up in game, I need to know how much metal it needs (and/or how many such swords would be made by converting a metallic obstacle). This power does not change the type of metal, so what she uses will have appropriate weaknesses.

This would be a lot easier to do by weight than volume.

A katana would be around 2.5-3 lbs. I have no idea how to calculate the volume without a lot of complex math.

[Blackhawk748]

Squire Questions

Squires would totally fight, but probably only the last few years of their apprenticeship, as thats when they'd be physically developed enough to do it.

I don't know why theres an entire unit of Squires, but its possible.

[Vinyadan]

Squire comes from scutarius, ie shield-bearer. So, in theory, it could be a very literal application of etymology. However, I think that fantasy and sci-fi games simply look for cool names. It's like calling a whole squadron "cadets", cadet squadrons do exist, but I don't think that they go to war, but a game might find it cool and go with it for a basic air unit.
So, since squires are supposed to become knights one day, they could get used as a basic unit name in the perspective that it is well known that squires would become better over time, and cease being squires when their training was completed.

[Tobtor]

Squires:

You guesses aren't that bad (especially 1-3). The thing is of course that it changed over time, and systems varied between countries as well. As we are using the word "squire" we should think English medieval and I will take my starting point there.

First off


I was always under the impression that a squire was sort of considered an underage supporter of the knight who was the actual combatant.

Not usually "under age" as you might think. Squires usually became squires at age 12-14 years or there abouts, thus relatively cose to fighting age. Before that they typically served other functions (in some periods they could be a "page", which is more like the servant role you see in most popular fiction). When they become squires their role is to be trainen as a knight. This of course includes combat, as that is the (original) primary role of the knight. Thus in principle any son of a knight or noble would be a squire UNTIL they proved themselves in battle and was knighted (or gained another title through inheritance).

To be able to prove yourself in battle, you clearly needed to fight in battles (at some point doing well in tournaments was enough to be knighted, but tournaments was generally much more violent than in most popular fiction, including large scale mock battles, people tacking prisoner and ransomed for huge sums of money etc). Thus Squires fought in battles, during all periods of interest for medieval time frame (thus close to your guess 3, though younger squires close to suggestion 2, but at some point they was expected to go fully into battle).

This is where it becomes tricky. Because a knight had many obligations, and they grew throughout the medieval period (affording several warhorses, soldiers etc), thus gradually more and more lower class nobles remained squires throughout their lives. You still had to go to war and afford equipment, but the requirements was lower. Thus gradually the "knight class" was divided into those who remained squires and those that where knighted (close to your guess 1).

Thus when we reach Agincourt etc, classic medieval battles quite a lot of the footmen (and also large part of the cavalry) force of "men at arms" would be squires. Squires was thus forming the bulk of the infantry, and thus men at arms become slightly equivalent of Squire (though citizens from towns who could afford armour etc, could also be termed "men at arms", and thus this term is more fluent than squire).

As time goes on knights become rarer and squires become more dominant, so by the late medieval period squires was the absolutely largest group of what people might consider "lower class nobles" (in theory in England "nobles" often refer to only those with a title such as baron, count, duke etc). Mabe something like 20 squires for each knigth (England in the late medieval is not my speciality bu I have seen fingures suggesting as much as 98 of the "knight" class being squires. The squire class then grow into the squire class of landed gentry, which you see in the 17th-20th century (Jane Austen characters such as Mr. Darcy is a squire/esquire).

So if we are talking mid and late medieval squires from England we would typically refer to heavily armed and armoured infantry and sometimes cavalry units as well. I suspect that these would often form units separate from the town oriented heavy infantry (which in England was smaller than for places like Germany, but still a good part of the army), and definitely apart from less armoured infantry. The best and richest would aspire to become knights, but most would be satisfied being squires for their entire life.

This is where the "game versions" of squires come from, and to me it relatively correct (I mean medieval times dint spend as much time defining "units" as a game must, among many squire "units of men at arms" fought knights as well, though they tended to prefer to act as cavalry, and you likely see mixed groups of cavalry of squires/knights as well).

[Yora]

Can anyone tell me something about weapons that were used in Eastern Europe during the 13th and 14th century? There's an interesting cultural merging of central European, Byzantian, and Mongol influences, which probably had some considerable impact on weaponry as well. I know that sabers were used to some extend, which I believe didn't really play any role in Western Europe at that time.


Does anyone know when the earliest suits of full armor appear? I'm talking about armor that covers up most of a person's body while leaving the least possible area exposed. No uncovered limbs and complete face covering. I'm led to believe that the middle ages are where full suits of armor become more common, but I also think I remember some Roman cavalry that wore an entire suit of scale armor.

My guess is somewhere a few hundred years within 1000 AD, but I think some aid in terminology and some good examples of full armor might help me. I also know that not all civilizations developed armor at equal rates, so global examples would be welcomed.

Something that has very much the identifying traits of body plate armor does actually go back all the ways to the Myceneans. While I was in Greece this summer, I had the incedible fortune to be visiting a small local museum near Mycene where they actually had the Dendra Panoply (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dendra_panoply) on display. It's estimated to be about 3400 years old. I think it's the most amazing and important single suit of armor ever found and I was really surprised that it wasn't in the national museum in Athens but in a little town in the countryside.
It's really primitive compared to the plate armor of the late middle ages and it's suspected to have been used by chariot archers who wouldn't have to run around with it. Apparently it didn't catch on and would have been obsolete once charriots disapppeared as a primary form of warfare.

[Tobtor]

Utter bunk. And it's brought up many times in this thread with pricelists and wage earning comparisons. The picture isn't complete but in all examples good armour is available essentially to those who want it.
Really, a better comparison would be with cars in the modern day. There's a huge industry working en masse to produce a car just for you. It's not throw away cheap brand new but there are ways to cut the cost of entry (and having done that, soldiery could be fairly well paying profession, so you'd in reasonable time be able to afford the best). Also there are the massmarket versions and the handmade artisanal cars.

What that guy on youtube is doing is equivalent to looking at Lamborghinis and saying there's no way any normal person can afford a Kia Ceed because cars are clearly too expensive to make.

I agreee, though we need to consider time-frame as well. Most of those prize-lists we have seen in this thread are from the late period, as whenever technology is new, it is less affordable. If we use the car example, if you owned a car in 1900 you where filthy rich, if you owned one in the 1920'ies you were likely still pritty ruch, but if you owned one in 1980'ies onwards, you just needed to be middle class.

There is no doubt that the mass production of armour especially in the 15th century made them more affordable to the "middle class", that does not mean the if we look at the earlier periods armour was not relatively expensive, and used by the richer classes.

Also I think using wages and prize-lists is slightly problematic or at least simplified. Today a used car costs much less than a months wage, and even a new car (Kia CEED in your example) can be bought for a few months earnings. Even poor people in theory gets more a year than a car costs. That does not mean that everybody think a car is cheap. We also need to figure out taxes and all other costs (we must also note that you had no pension plans in the medieval, or health insurance etcs, so you needed larger personal savings to withstand bad periods etc) and then look at expendable earnings, which is much harder to figure out. I would venture the guess though that today (in the modernized world) we have a larger percentage of our salary as expendable than middle class during the medieval (though I agree not as much as popular fiction would suggest).

[Clistenes]

Fully-armoured hoplites were an older thing, something that was waning even in the Greco-Persian Wars, as people generally decided mobility was a better guarantee of survival than covering as much of the body as you could. By the time you get to the Hellenistic era, the full panoply is completely gone, even greaves start to be treated as optional.



Earlier cataphracts wore full suits of leather-backed-scale. Alexander the Great used some Skythian heavy cavalry, dismounted, as assault troops in one siege.

https://i.pinimg.com/236x/ac/a2/96/aca296ed7d3e678eae2a2410b4f05b00--warriors.jpg

The crupellarii (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crupellarius) appeared even later, but their armor seems to be even closer to late medieval full plate than that of cataphracts or hoplites. It seems that crupellarius armor was invented by the Aedui (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aedui), since Tacitus called this kind of armor their "national fashion..."

By the way, when you speak of greek armor similar to full plate, are you speaking of mycenaean armor (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dendra_panoply), or of something from a later age?

[Vitruviansquid]

@Blackhawk, Vinyadan, and Tobtor

Thanks for the answers to my squires question.

So, is it accurate to say that medieval Europeans thought of "knights" separately as both a military rank and a social rank? If your father was a knight, you were said to be born in a knightly family, but until you fulfilled all the requirements for actual knighthood, you were considered a squire, sometimes forever?

[Kiero]

By the way, when you speak of greek armor similar to full plate, are you speaking of mycenaean armor (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dendra_panoply), or of something from a later age?

I don't mean that old, I simply mean a full hoplite panoply of cuirass, greaves, vambraces, upper arm and thigh plates. The sort of thing more common with Ionian Greeks (who were richer) than those from Hellas proper.

[Tobtor]

So, is it accurate to say that medieval Europeans thought of "knights" separately as both a military rank and a social rank? If your father was a knight, you were said to be born in a knightly family, but until you fulfilled all the requirements for actual knighthood, you were considered a squire, sometimes forever?

Yes, at least this is the English version. It varied somewhat across Europe, but then we get into all sorts of linguistic issues of words and translations as well.

The requirements of knighthood varied. Early on basically all squires where knighted (11th-12th century), but later only a minority (1300-onwards). In all cases you had to do something brave/impressive on the battlefield to be knighted. Aftarwards came the social/ecenomical obligations. Early on any knight could knight another knight at will (thus "your" knight could knight you if you where a squire), later on it was reserved for higher nobility (dukes, princes and kings etc). This was a gradual thing.

One issue with many games is that they sometimes depict a 111-th12th century society (classic Arthurian romances (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matter_of_Britain)) with elements from late medieval armies (units of squires, heavy plate armour etc).

[Lemmy]

This would be a lot easier to do by weight than volume.

A katana would be around 2.5-3 lbs. I have no idea how to calculate the volume without a lot of complex math.
Well... You can always simply divide the total mass by the density of whatever metal you use. That gets you the volume.

So if a katana has about 3 lb (about 1360 g) and uses 1060 carbon steel (density of about 7.85 g/cm3)... You'll need around 173,3 cm3 of steel. That's about 10.6 cubic inches.

Then again... I woke up just a few minutes ago with this stupid phone ringing... So someone please check my math for me.

[gkathellar]

Katana are also designed around s really specific structure and material composition. They are not the sword I'd want to shape out of random available metals.


@Blackhawk, Vinyadan, and Tobtor

Thanks for the answers to my squires question.

So, is it accurate to say that medieval Europeans thought of "knights" separately as both a military rank and a social rank? If your father was a knight, you were said to be born in a knightly family, but until you fulfilled all the requirements for actual knighthood, you were considered a squire, sometimes forever?

It really varies a huge amount based on time and place. Knighthood is a common concept all over the world, but its actual meaning and implementation are not consistent even across the European continent.

[Clistenes]

@Blackhawk, Vinyadan, and Tobtor

Thanks for the answers to my squires question.

So, is it accurate to say that medieval Europeans thought of "knights" separately as both a military rank and a social rank? If your father was a knight, you were said to be born in a knightly family, but until you fulfilled all the requirements for actual knighthood, you were considered a squire, sometimes forever?

In Medieval/Renaissance Spain there was a kind of grey zone between true nobility and mere commoners. Being of noble blood granted you juridic and fiscal privileges, and you could enjoy them without having any title (not even squire or knight). Nobility was so strongly associated to those privileges that, in Castile, the name for commoners was pecheros, literally "tax-payers"

People could access those privileges or at least some of them by getting college degrees, jobs as bureoucrats or administrators, or serving the crown. If your family managed to live that way for several generations, people would eventually forget your low class origins and consider you noble by blood...

In some cases, whole villages, towns, cities or even whole regions could be granted those juridic and fiscal privileges, and their inhabitants would be legally considered hidalgos (nobleborn) even if nobody showed them deference or treated them as nobles...

On the other hand, for a long time caballero (knight) was sinonymous to cavalry soldier (caballero literally means "horseman"). Men could become caballeros without becoming nobility (but becoming a caballero would grant you some degree of social respect, which could in turn help to achieve true nobility). The lowest rank among caballeros were the "brown knight" or "villain knights", who were heavy cavalry who served the cities (rather than a lord) or rich peasants who got some fiscal privilege or something else in exchange for military service as cavalry. Some of them were professional raiders who made a living stealing cattle from the muslim or taking prisioners for their ransom. "Brown knights" weren't considered nobility, but they had were socially ranked above commoners, anyways...

During some period of time, rich men in Castile were required to keep a horse, mail and weapons and fight as heavy cavalry, even if they were commoners; they were called caballeros de fortuna, "knights of wealth". Like "brown knights", they weren't considered true nobility. Very soon, they were allowed to pay a special tax to avoid the fighting...

It seems that in Spain being a trained cavalry soldier was often profitable enough that it was worth meeting the material requirements, and they were enough in demand that kings were willing to show some latitude when handing out knightly ranks...

As for true nobility, they were traditionally divided among powerful landholding nobility (magnates, ricoshombres...etc., meaning "big men", "rich men"... etc.) and mere knights who served them. In Aragon's parlament there even were four states (rich, titled nobility, mere knights, churchmen and commoners) rather than three like in the rest of European parlaments (nobility, churchmen and commoners).

If you were from a knightly family, but you weren't a knight, you were still a hidalgo, "nobleborn" and enjoyed certain privileges. Besides, being soldiers, hidalgos could take a few prestigious jobs like college teachers, scholars, medical doctors, lawyers, bureaucrats... etc., without losing their social rank, but they would be demoted to pecheros ("commoners") if the stopped living like nobles and took less prestigious jobs...

During the XVI century the title of caballero became completely divorced from service as heavy cavalry, and became just an honorary title granted by the king to acknowledge valuable service (kind of like the modern British title of Sir). You couldn't be just a knight, you had to be admitted into one of the Knightly Orders (the king was the head of all knightly orders). The knights were the social rank in between mere hidalgos and titled nobility; all they got from being knights was social recognition: They could wear the sigil of their order on their clothes, and use their own coat of arms in their coach, above their door and in other places...

[Yora]

On the other hand, for a long time caballero (knight) was sinonymous to cavalry soldier (caballero literally means "horseman").

In most European languages, I believe. Even back with the Romans, the lower nobles were equites, as chevaliers in French. And German Ritter are riders.

Knight seems to be an exception, simply meaning servant or soldier. I wonder if there is any kind of connection with English knights having a greater preference for fighting on foot rather than on horse, compared to other countries of the time. (A feature of English armor is plates on the back of the legs, which other knights ommited for more comfort while riding.)

[Kiero]

The Greek hippeus was a rider as well.

Note the notion of a supporting retainer is much older than medieval, too. The ancient Greeks had the skeurophoros and hypaspistai (both of which I think meant "shield-bearer"). They could be a slave or a younger family member (nephew, cousin, son, etc) who might also be expected to carry out camp tasks on behalf of the hoplite they were supporting, as well as literally carry their shield on the march.

Republican Roman legionaries (pre-Marius) had slaves who carried their gear and managed their camp, too. One of changes in the "reform" was to banish most of the camp-followers and make the men carry their own gear and do their own chores. Fewer mouths to feed and faster movement on campaign.

[Vinyadan]

Something similar happened in Latin, when miles began meaning knight, instead of soldier.

I think that words meaning "young man" also often transfers to military. So infantry literally means "the boys". It might be both things together.

Italian used to have both cavallaio (someone who worked with horses) and cavaliere (the proper knight, deriving from the same Latin word, but imported from French).

And ancient Greek had hippeus, but it would be interesting to check how Byzantium called the western European knights. Nowadays the word is hippotes.

[Berenger]

Something similar happened in Latin, when miles began meaning knight, instead of soldier.

I think that words meaning "young man" also often transfers to military. So infantry literally means "the boys". It might be both things together.

Huh. The common explanation in germany is that it originally referred to soldiers in the service of infanta (~princess) Isabella Clara Eugenia.

[Vinyadan]

Huh. The common explanation in germany is that it originally referred to soldiers in the service of infanta (~princess) Isabella Clara Eugenia.

Much to my surprise, the first use of German Infanterie we know of was in 1616, which would be the right era. However, there already was the Italian word infanteria in 1388 (meaning footmen), and I think that it makes more sense to assume a loan from Italian to German.
English infantry comes about in the 1570s. French enffanterie 1502, infanterie 1553. Spanish infantería, well, I couldn't find the lemma in the RAE dictionary.

[Brother Oni]

Sorry for the delayed reply. The English Warbow I said before is actually 156 joules (not 160), and is found in "The Old English Warbow, parts 1&2&3" Primitive archer Volume 9, Issue 2 & Volume 9, Issue 4, written by Pip Bickerstaffe.

Unfortunately I don't have original source, although I've read other sources that quote it. (such as this one (https://www.yumpu.com/en/document/view/46067179/english-longbow-testing-the-current-middle-ages))

Looking back, maybe I should treat this as outlier as well?[

Possibly, but the (rapidly becoming infamous) Payne Galloway test of a refurbished historical crossbow reported in excess of 200 J.



I've made a mistake here as well, when I said "recurved", what I meant was "reflexed", in that the bow bends away from the user when unstrung. This allows the bow to be pre-stressed (storing energy) when strung, before it is even drawn.

For the Yumi's performance, I will just copy these quotes from Myarmoury wholesome. Note that the efficiency number is not an estimate, but just a rough outline on why Yumi outperforms longbow (of the same draw weight).

Interesting - I wasn't aware it was possible to monkey around with the force/draw curve to this extent with just natural materials - I've seen it before with fibreglass limbs and the god forsaken monstrosity of wires and cams that is the modern compound bow.

In any case, I believe I'm been proved wrong in that current crossbow reproductions currently exceed bow performance, so I stand corrected. :smallbiggrin:


So if a katana has about 3 lb (about 1360 g) and uses 1060 carbon steel (density of about 7.85 g/cm3)... You'll need around 173,3 cm3 of steel. That's about 10.6 cubic inches.

Taking a katana of 1400g and assuming it's made out of homogeneous 1060 grade carbon steel for sanity's sake, that'd make it 178.3 cm3, so your maths is correct.

This estimate is a on the low side (the hilt, wrappings and other non-metallic gubbins would be lower in density, thus the sword's actual volume would be slightly higher), but it's good enough for government work.

[Martin Greywolf]

So, is it accurate to say that medieval Europeans thought of "knights" separately as both a military rank and a social rank? If your father was a knight, you were said to be born in a knightly family, but until you fulfilled all the requirements for actual knighthood, you were considered a squire, sometimes forever?

Not at all. Your first mistake is assuming there is such a thing as European, or even western European.

In very general term, we can say that there was a demand for men wealthy enough to fight as heavy cavalry, and that these men often were the members of whatever the local ruling class was, and therefore the word knight (or any other version usually derived from horseman) was used to refer to both of these groups, sometimes accurately, at other times less so.

How the ruling class looked like varied immensely over time as well as over regions, Hungary managed to go from zero distinction classes to about 5/6 to 4 to just 3 in about 300 years. Hungary is especially relevant here because it was the first kingdom with a secular knightly order, Order of Saint George (not to be confused with later, and much cooler, Order of the Dragon) - this was more or less a club for military allies of Charles Robert, it's referred to as "Societas militae Sancti Georgii" in orignial texts.

Secondly, meaning of words changes - a knight at first may be just mounted soldier, but look at it after a hundred years, and it may be almost purely social, with a fuzzy period in between. Medieval is a span of 1 000 years, a lot of things can change.

A more accurate statement would be that Anglo-French medieval countries used knight to refer to both social and military role in one person, and thought of anyone who wasn't a knight and fought as one as simply fighting in a knightly fashion, which didn't make him a knight, necessarily.

And we are ignoring the issue of monastic orders here altogether...


Can anyone tell me something about weapons that were used in Eastern Europe during the 13th and 14th century? There's an interesting cultural merging of central European, Byzantian, and Mongol influences, which probably had some considerable impact on weaponry as well. I know that sabers were used to some extend, which I believe didn't really play any role in Western Europe at that time.


Do I spy with my little eye my area of expertise?

Well, first a disclaimer, I mostly go into deep detailed research on Hungary during this period, so all of what I'm saying will apply to it only, unless specified.

General overview

First some context. Hungary was founded by Magyars, who were just another steppe nomad horse archer type of people, but ended up settling in the Pannonia. They made alliance with some of the local Slavic, uh, let's call them counts, mostly those of Great Moravia. After they were defeated at Lechfeld, the portion of Magyars that was into paganism and looting suffered heavy losses, and their christian, settling-inclined opponents became the leaders, with Arpad dynasty at the helm, helped by Hunt and Poznan Slavic houses.

From about 900 to 1 300 AD, Hungary was sporadically at war with Venice, Italy, HRE, Poland, Byzantium, Bulgars, Croatia and Bohemia, all the while being invaded on a regular schedule by steppe nomads. Mercenaries were recruited from all of these countries.

Now, at about 1300 AD, a big change happens - Arpad dynasty dies out and is replaced by Anjou dynasty, and Anjous die out and are replaced by Sigismund of HRE by the end of the century. That means that Hungary starts out as nomad-slavic in terms of army equipment, transitions into western style with Byzantine influences and nomad mercenaries (these were often allowed to settle in Hungary and had their own legal system, the most prominent ones were Cuimans and Siculs), and comes out as Italian with nomad mercenaries during Anjou period, and mixes HRE and Italian influences at about 1400.

Important sources

Photos of frescoes, scans of obscure Russian books with heavy soviet bent, and most gloriously, Chronica Picta. Made in 1340-1380, it has a ton of pictures and is THE source for military equipment at this time, combined with archaeology.

Daggers, axes, swords and shields

Esseentially what is used in the rest of the world, the differences are only cosmetic - slightly different shape of pommel being more common, for example.

https://u.smedata.sk/blog/article/1/39/394491/394491_article_photo_Vf0lK8c0_600x.jpeg?r=27bm

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b8/Zach_Felician_merenylete.jpg

http://manuscriptminiatures.com/media/cache/manuscriptminiatures.com/original/66-40_large.jpg

This next one is especially interesting, not only does it have a ballock dagger and an axe, it also has an action girl.

http://armourinart.com/media/cache/armourinart.com/original/205_large.jpg

http://armourinart.com/media/cache/armourinart.com/original/218_large.jpg

Budget swords

The term for these is long knives, or war knives, and they were just that - longer versions of knives. Proper messers and dussacks start to appear only after 1400. I don't thinka nyone makes replicas of these, and there is only archaeological evidence, scroll down in this pdf (https://is.muni.cz/th/413656/ff_b/Bakalarka__3_.pdf) for a general idea. The early models before 1350 have no side attachments/nagel/sidering.

Armor

Standard issue mail, coat of plates and plate cuirass, legs and arms, as the time went on. One interesting thing to note is that Hungarian heavy cavalry had an unusually high number of horses armored in metal (probably mail), if Venetian travellers are to be believed.

This applies to nomad heavies as well, their lighter armor did often use leather lamellar armor. Steel lamellar was not really used at this time, being replaced by coat of plates.

http://tvnitricka.sk/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/2017_07_05_nitrawa_mag_2_59.jpg

One unusual facet of Hungarian armor is that there were many more nobles who chose to fight in a visor-less helmet, or with just a coif and a crevelliere, which at times was mistaken for them fighting without helmets. This was no longer case by 1400.

The helmet types are mostly Italian, you start with crevelliere and great helmet at 1200 and end with visored bascinet. Other helmets used include, very prominently, kettle hat.

http://www.medievalists.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Charles-I-King-of-Hngary-and-Croatia.jpg

Maces

First significant difference, these were used more often than in the west. Your basic bronze bulava, with sometimes hollowed out head filled with lead.

https://www.curiavitkov.cz/images/zivot/bulavy.jpg

https://www.curiavitkov.cz/images/zivot/bulava-au.jpg

Sabres

Yah. This is the big one. Avars brought sabres to Europe, Magyars brought them again, and they remained a popular weapon in Hungary, going as far as to make hand and a half sabres that you can see in Chronica Picta. There were two general types, cavalry and fencing sabres, with cavalry sabres being cutting beasts with point of balance further from the hilt, often not bothering with a false edge, while the infantry ones had more refined balance and false edge, sometimes raised into what is now known as yelman, sometimes not, and at other times even having a point like arming sword.

The latter - arming sword tip - is best exemplified in so called sabre of Attila or sabre of Charlemange - in reality, it was made in Hungary, likely in 11th century, and was pilfered with the rest of the state treasury during Arpad-Anjou interregnum. Be careful when researching it, Cold Steel made a replica, the original has a band with gems on the grip.


http://i.imgur.com/WOLkLCk.jpg

http://www.swordsviktor.com/shop_seopic/3157/SZ07/SZ07.jpg?time=1504602477

http://www.swordforum.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=67040&stc=1&d=1185111404

We can generalize that the typical magyar sabre, identified by globes at the tips of crossguard, was phased out sometime during 14th century by sabres that had western arming sword hilt designs.

There's a lot more to be said here, and a lot more yet to be researched, but this post is kinda getting out of hand as it is.

Shields

At this point, pretty much exclusively strapped shields of various lengths, at 1200, you may still see kite shields, at 1400, not so much. No real difference from Italy or Germany here. Strapped shields were used possibly as far back as 700, but that's a debate for another time.

Ranged weapons

This will probably surprise everyone, but longbows and crossbows, with crossbows being especially popular in northern slavic region, on account of being rather mountainy. Composite bows were known and used, but that was by the nomad mercenaries, not the Hungarian general population - although various groups of nomads were integrated to that general population to varying degrees.

Summary

Not that different from western Europe, but for sabres and nomad mercenaries. Big reason for this is that Hungary was, from 1000 onward, a western European nation, being vassal or ally of HRE, catholic, participating in the Crusades etc etc.

[Yora]

Interesting how straight those sabers are.


http://armourinart.com/media/cache/armourinart.com/original/205_large.jpg

Fun gruesome fact: At the Battle of Visby, the most common injury on the skeletons are leg injuries, including feet being straight chopped off. Leg protection seems to have been a weakness with militia armor at the time and the Danish knights appear to have been trained to exploit it mercilessly.

[Gnoman]

Katana are also designed around s really specific structure and material composition. They are not the sword I'd want to shape out of random available metals.

It isn't meant to be a smart decision. A core aspect of the group in question (who are antagonistic to my PCs) is that they're very fixated on media rather than reality.

There is a reason for this (spoilered in case one of my players wanders in).

A jaded and bitter janitor got his hands on some real dark magic, and started recruiting vulnerable students at the high school he worked for into what is basically a cult. His "elect disciples" are invested with a small amount of magic through dark rituals, but since they're literally teenagers (and the janitor is something of a manchild himself), they didn't make very smart decisions on how their power manifested.

They are deliberately petty and incompetent as a contrast to much more capable threats down the road.

[HeadlessMermaid]

And ancient Greek had hippeus, but it would be interesting to check how Byzantium called the western European knights. Nowadays the word is hippotes.
The word hippotes was sometimes used, too (it's ancient Greek (http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph?l=i%28ppo%2Fths&la=greek&can=i%28ppo%2Fths0#lexicon), originally meaning driver or rider of horses - not as a separate social or military class, though, except in the Boeotian dialiect where it was a synonym of hippeus).

But more often it was some derivative of the Medieval Latin caballarius (horseman), either directly or via a Romance language from thereabouts, usually Venetian. The spelling varied, and I'm not sure how to transliterate them best, but here goes: καβαλ(λ)άριος (kavallarios), καβα(λ)λάρης (kavallaris), καβελ(λ)άρης (kavellaris).

The similar καβαλιέρης (kavalieris) or καβαλιέρος (kavalieros) sometimes meant knight and sometimes meant squire.

I got all this from the Dictionary of Medieval Vulgar Greek Literature (1100-1669) (http://www.greek-language.gr/greekLang/medieval_greek/em_kriaras/scanned_new/index.html?id=55&lq=sel.188), which is online and searchable (http://www.greek-language.gr/greekLang/medieval_greek/kriaras/index.html), but in Greek, so I don't know how useful it will be to you. Hope that helped. :)

[snowblizz]

I agreee, though we need to consider time-frame as well. Most of those prize-lists we have seen in this thread are from the late period, as whenever technology is new, it is less affordable. If we use the car example, if you owned a car in 1900 you where filthy rich, if you owned one in the 1920'ies you were likely still pritty ruch, but if you owned one in 1980'ies onwards, you just needed to be middle class.


Actually the model T-Ford was launched in 1908 and was purportedly purchasable by his own employees with their salaries.
If you owned a car in 1920 you were most likely 1) american, 2) middleclass and 3) driving a T-Ford. Mass driving started much much sooner than the 1980s. By the 1920s cars were common, though with a heavy slant to america, the social and economic structure of Europe of course was less car-friendly.

[Kiero]

Actually the model T-Ford was launched in 1908 and was purportedly purchasable by his own employees with their salaries.
If you owned a car in 1920 you were most likely 1) american, 2) middleclass and 3) driving a T-Ford. Mass driving started much much sooner than the 1980s. By the 1920s cars were common, though with a heavy slant to america, the social and economic structure of Europe of course was less car-friendly.

Light rail and metropolitan bus services weren't deliberately sabotaged in Europe, either. The conditions in the US that promoted mass ownership of the car weren't entirely benign or naturally occurring, they resulted from industry lobbying of governments.

[Martin Greywolf]

Interesting how straight those sabers are.


Oh, yes, forgot about that one. If you start to research sabres, you'll quickly discover that the international norm for sabres is pretty straight with short edge being there more often than not. The extremely curved ones (some tulwars, kilij, shamshir) are the exception rather than the norm, but just happen to be the more iconic ones - perhaps specifically because of their extreme curve.

It means, among other things, that your arming sword techniques are just as good with a sabre, which I happen to know from experience with I.33 and magyar sabre.

The IMO most likely theory for the curve getting more extreme is specialization - if you have a sabre, you can use push cuts when charging from horseback instead of thrusts - these have the advantage of getting stuck in someone a lot less, and the more pronounced curve is, the easier it is to do. It bears mentioning that Ottoman empire mostly used kilij for their mounted troops, bulk of their foot forces used yatagan. It's actually pretty likely that the yalman portion of kilij was inspired by Hungarian sabres, while the overall shape was taken from the shamshir, which throws off a lot of people who think the Turks brought sabres to Europe.



Fun gruesome fact: At the Battle of Visby, the most common injury on the skeletons are leg injuries, including feet being straight chopped off. Leg protection seems to have been a weakness with militia armor at the time and the Danish knights appear to have been trained to exploit it mercilessly.

Firstly, skeletal injuries can lie. There are a lot of wounds that don't show on skeletons, and fresh post-mortem injuries are, AFAIK, not distinguishable from combat wounds.

That aside, I think that a lot of Visby wounds were dictated by weird mish mash of gear on the loosing side - coat of plates was long past its prime at the time. What I think caused the leg injuries was the use of shields designed to be used with leg armor while not wearing leg armor - while it is interesting to note, it's hardly representative of how fights of properly equipped troops played out.

Also note that the easiest way to defeat a relatively unexperienced opponent with a heater shield is to make a weak cut at his head to make him lift the shield and then go for the legs while he can't see.

[Max_Killjoy]

Light rail and metropolitan bus services weren't deliberately sabotaged in Europe, either. The conditions in the US that promoted mass ownership of the car weren't entirely benign or naturally occurring, they resulted from industry lobbying of governments.

The car still would have had a major advantage in the US -- geography. The US population was more rural and small-town at the time, still is (careful with statistics saying the US population has "gone urban", the US Census Bureau of "urban" is wonky as hell, with as few as 2500 people needed to count an area as "urban" as one example), and the distances are greater; this makes mass transit far less cost-efficient than it is in much of Europe.

[snowblizz]

The car still would have had a major advantage in the US -- geography. The US population was more rural and small-town at the time, still is (careful with statistics saying the US population has "gone urban", the US Census Bureau of "urban" is wonky as hell, with as few as 2500 people needed to count an area as "urban" as one example), and the distances are greater; this makes mass transit far less cost-efficient than it is in much of Europe.

That's likely one of those chicken-egg situations it's going to be hard to prove either way. A lot of developement outside the "core urban areas" were possible due to cars, and as you say geography in that most of the US was sort of "empty". But geography means you do have the option to do large-scale new construction sort of far away from the existing centres. And neither really means you can't have mass transit if you chose to. It existed and was scrapped. It's not impossible to have society built more on mass-transit, except if you play a variety of citybuilders it seems, that are filled with exclusively American thinking little electronic simoleons :smallbiggrin: (take the expensive subway I built you ungrateful little electrons).

It's an interesting dichtonomy (to me, maybe not so much for this thread) how in the US cities are built both to the greatest heights (and thus high density) but also to the least densities. I still remember the wonder looking out from the observationdeck in th eHancock building in Chicago and realising I could see where the dense urban area ends and the car-powered suburban area starts. In comparison from the Eiffel tower the view was all rather homogenous not-super-tall (this is a strictly enforced thing in Paris of course) urban area stretchign beyond the horizon. As usual when you have country that's effectively a continent it's a bit tricky to speak generally. I'm also reminded of my visit to Lima, Peru where there were strong incentives to spread a city low and wide. The traffic there was horrendous.

I guess what am saying is I agree by and large, with the caveat that I don't think mass transit is much more cost-efficient in Europe (in fundamental economic turns), it's more that European society has a bit more willingness to utilize it so the expense/to use equation works better. Geography dictates ultimately what's possible, in the US you can strech your legs a bit, but it's also a conscious decision to do so. Cars provided a means, which segeued nicely into the "american way" I think, whiuch gives us suburbia.

And we should probably not overstate the differences either, there are bands on the US East and West coast of urban devleopment that is as far as I can tell similarly served with mass transit, whereas many parts of most European countries lack most masstransit due to low densities of population outside a few urban centres just like most "fly-over states".

[Lemmy]

Something similar happened in Latin, when miles began meaning knight, instead of soldier.

I think that words meaning "young man" also often transfers to military. So infantry literally means "the boys". It might be both things together.
Wait... What?!

Infantry... Infant...

Holy ****! In hindsight it makes so much sense! But I would have never made that connection if you hadn't mentioned it! :smalleek:

And my mother language is Portuguese, which is derived from Latin!

[Max_Killjoy]

That's likely one of those chicken-egg situations it's going to be hard to prove either way. A lot of developement outside the "core urban areas" were possible due to cars, and as you say geography in that most of the US was sort of "empty". But geography means you do have the option to do large-scale new construction sort of far away from the existing centres. And neither really means you can't have mass transit if you chose to. It existed and was scrapped. It's not impossible to have society built more on mass-transit, except if you play a variety of citybuilders it seems, that are filled with exclusively American thinking little electronic simoleons :smallbiggrin: (take the expensive subway I built you ungrateful little electrons).

It's an interesting dichtonomy (to me, maybe not so much for this thread) how in the US cities are built both to the greatest heights (and thus high density) but also to the least densities. I still remember the wonder looking out from the observationdeck in th eHancock building in Chicago and realising I could see where the dense urban area ends and the car-powered suburban area starts. In comparison from the Eiffel tower the view was all rather homogenous not-super-tall (this is a strictly enforced thing in Paris of course) urban area stretchign beyond the horizon. As usual when you have country that's effectively a continent it's a bit tricky to speak generally. I'm also reminded of my visit to Lima, Peru where there were strong incentives to spread a city low and wide. The traffic there was horrendous.

I guess what am saying is I agree by and large, with the caveat that I don't think mass transit is much more cost-efficient in Europe (in fundamental economic turns), it's more that European society has a bit more willingness to utilize it so the expense/to use equation works better. Geography dictates ultimately what's possible, in the US you can strech your legs a bit, but it's also a conscious decision to do so. Cars provided a means, which segeued nicely into the "american way" I think, whiuch gives us suburbia.

And we should probably not overstate the differences either, there are bands on the US East and West coast of urban devleopment that is as far as I can tell similarly served with mass transit, whereas many parts of most European countries lack most masstransit due to low densities of population outside a few urban centres just like most "fly-over states".

The suburbs as encouraged by post-WW2 policy and the lobbying against intraurban mass transit is an entirely separate issue.

I'm talking about the rural / small town areas far from the urban or suburban sprawl, where plenty of Americans did and do live, and where mass transit (and much of the "new hotness" of ride sharing and autonomous cars and so on) won't work, that existed before the car ever came along. As one example, getting from where I live to where I work will never be covered by mass transit or "ride sharing" or any other service, and we'll be sharing the world with actual science-fiction pipe-dream AIs before self-driving cars can handle the weather and roads here.

[awa]

Does anyone know roughly how far you have good visibility with a torch in say a cave, d&ds 20 feet seems way to high.

[Tobtor]

Actually the model T-Ford was launched in 1908 and was purportedly purchasable by his own employees with their salaries.
If you owned a car in 1920 you were most likely 1) american, 2) middleclass and 3) driving a T-Ford. Mass driving started much much sooner than the 1980s. By the 1920s cars were common, though with a heavy slant to america, the social and economic structure of Europe of course was less car-friendly.

Only partly true. Depends on what you mean by middle class. In the 1910s (leading up to 1920), a car still costs around a whole years salary (before tax). Very few people could in fact afford to spend a whole years salary (before tax, rent, food etc) to buy a car. A new (small) car certainly does not cost the same as an average salary in Denmark today (even with a 100% extra car tax that we have). Today a new car can be bought for less than 1/3 of a years salary (and thats with a 100% car tax.... something I think they do not think they have in america).

I can find the exact statistics, but I think I read that in In 1920 it was still only about 1/10 to 2/10 households who owned a car in America. So the top 15-20% (probably). So not filthy rich, but still not quite middle class. But true, already by the 1930'ies it was much more common (and by the 1950'ies you get that there are more cars than households, but then it is because you have households owning multiple cars).

[Vinyadan]

Does anyone know roughly how far you have good visibility with a torch in say a cave, d&ds 20 feet seems way to high.

I personally hate rl torches, because they blind you with their own light. However, 6 m seems very reasonable to me. If the walls aren't black, they also reflect some light back.

[Yora]

You're not supposed to hold them in front of your face.

[Max_Killjoy]

You're not supposed to hold them in front of your face.

File under, things Hollywood gets wrong. It's standard practice for directors and cinematographers to have the actors hold the torches where it's best for lighting their faces, not where it's best for the character to get illumination of their surroundings and not be blinded.

[Vinyadan]

Eyes have over 180° of field of vision, there aren't many ways to avoid interference. Besides, you also need to be aware of where the fire is. And, if you are in a group, it's difficult not to be blinded by other people's lights.
It's better than nothing, but the fact that the open light hits your eyes diminishes its results.

[Max_Killjoy]

Eyes have over 180° of field of vision, there aren't many ways to avoid interference. Besides, you also need to be aware of where the fire is. And, if you are in a group, it's difficult not to be blinded by other people's lights.
It's better than nothing, but the fact that the open light hits your eyes diminishes its results.

It's still better to hold it more off to the side than right in front of your face.

Of course, better still is a lantern with closeable faces.

[Galloglaich]

@Blackhawk, Vinyadan, and Tobtor

Thanks for the answers to my squires question.

So, is it accurate to say that medieval Europeans thought of "knights" separately as both a military rank and a social rank? If your father was a knight, you were said to be born in a knightly family, but until you fulfilled all the requirements for actual knighthood, you were considered a squire, sometimes forever?

You are kind of conflating knighthood with aristocracy here..

A person could be a knight and also a serf (ministerialis). Or they could be a burgher, a member of the gentry or even a monk (so called brother-knights or ritterbruden for the Germans). There were bandit-knights (knights errant and robber knights or raubritter for the Germans) There even appear to have been some independent peasant knights.

So knighthood, first of all, was something which overlapped unevenly with social estate, which is the closest thing to class that you have in the middle ages. The main issue is that not all those who fought in battle as a knight owned their own horse or armor.

Knighthood was a kind of a separate military caste which gave you certain legal rights on the battlefield and in feudal courts (like the house of a prince or a lesser noble), and within the Church, like the right to carry a sword, the right to wear a knights special belt and gilded or silver spurs, and the right that your word counted as evidence in legal proceedings. Your honor had a certain weight as a knight. Perhaps the most important Chivalric rule was that you are more likely to be captured and ransomed than killed if you are captured (this is especially true in France and Spain where captives were often executed if they appeared to be broke and of low status)

In order to get these rights, many people were knighted who were never even close to a battlefield, including many nobles, even women.

Actual real fighting knights, and people who maybe were kind of part-time military men (such as many nobles and burghers) were typically leaders on the battlefield, of at least a small team of 4-6 cavalry (typically called a lance, or sometimes a gleve or a helm).

Earlier in the middle ages, Carolingian through early High Medieval (say 8th-11th Century) a 'squire' may have been a kind of apprentice knight, but by the High to Late medieval (say 12th-15th Centuries and a bit later) squire (or 'esquire') was effectively the equivalent of a knight, it was just a lower ranking knight.

A higher ranking knight might be a knight-banneret, the commander of a banner or squadron of cavalry, or a 'Captain' often the commander of an entire army (which could be as few as 50 men to as many as 5,000)

The association between nobility and knighthood varied by region, in France for example most knights were nobles or at least gentry, whereas in Germany or Italy there were thousands of burgher knights, probably tens of thousands of ministerial knights (who were technically serfs) and an equal number of knights of somewhat murky background.

Anyone who spent a lot of time fighting as heavy cavalry (as a lancer with some kind of armor at least) had a good chance of being knighted if they survived long enough.

Many nobles, as I said, who never did fight or want to fight, got knighted for the status and convenience of it. Many burghers who got knighted only took on the 'equire' rank so as to have fewer obligations in taxes and the militia.

G

[Galloglaich]

Hopefully a simple question: Why do I see some video games refer to medieval heavy infantry as "Squires?" And related to that, what was squiring like in a battle? I was always under the impression that a squire was sort of considered an underage supporter of the knight who was the actual combatant. Total War: Warhammer has a unit called Battle Squires, Heroes of Might and Magic 5 has Squires as heavy infantry as well. In Warlords Battlecry 2, "Squires" were actually an archer unit, if I remember correctly.

Here are my guesses:



4. The games are just sloppy at naming.

None of that other stuff has to do with actual squires

[Blackhawk748]

The suburbs as encouraged by post-WW2 policy and the lobbying against intraurban mass transit is an entirely separate issue.

I'm talking about the rural / small town areas far from the urban or suburban sprawl, where plenty of Americans did and do live, and where mass transit (and much of the "new hotness" of ride sharing and autonomous cars and so on) won't work, that existed before the car ever came along. As one example, getting from where I live to where I work will never be covered by mass transit or "ride sharing" or any other service, and we'll be sharing the world with actual science-fiction pipe-dream AIs before self-driving cars can handle the weather and roads here.

My God, do you live in the Midwest? Cuz you just described where I live

[LordEntrails]

Does anyone know roughly how far you have good visibility with a torch in say a cave, d&ds 20 feet seems way to high.
I've been in caves. 20 feet is a good number. Even though they say "bright light" it's not like how we light our houses at night. But it is good enough to see what you need.

[Max_Killjoy]

My God, do you live in the Midwest? Cuz you just described where I live


"The Lakes" in my profile refers to the Great Lakes -- in the lake effect zone downwind of Lake Michigan.

The idea of a self-driving car in the next 50 years that can actually handle LIDAR-blinding blowing snow and an all-white environment is laughable.

But not as laughable as the idea of mass transit ever being viable for the rural areas and very small towns I drive through every day to the office and back (I work in the frozen and processed fruit industry, in inventory/production management).

[Blackhawk748]

"The Lakes" in my profile refers to the Great Lakes -- in the lake effect zone downwind of Lake Michigan.

The idea of a self-driving car in the next 50 years that can actually handle LIDAR-blinding blowing snow and an all-white environment is laughable.

But not as laughable as the idea of mass transit ever being viable for the rural areas and very small towns I drive through every day to the office and back (I work in the frozen and processed fruit industry, in inventory/production management).

Ya, i do cheese processing and i live in a town of like 100ish people and our County seat (the biggest "city" in the county) is 3500 people. So i live in nowhere and public transport is not gonna happen.

[Max_Killjoy]

Ya, i do cheese processing and i live in a town of like 100ish people and our County seat (the biggest "city" in the county) is 3500 people. So i live in nowhere and public transport is not gonna happen.



Just goes to show how different places in the same time and same polity can be.

Compare places like where we are, with LA or NYC or Houston... imagine what the differences might have been like before modern communications and transportation.

(Totally not a transparent attempt to make this side-conversation on-topic and relevant, really...)

(E: Also, it just makes me a bit mad when the metrocentric presume that the story of the city and the suburb is the entire history of American transportation, and somehow forget the other 90% of the country.)

[Haighus]

Just goes to show how different places in the same time and same polity can be.

Compare places like where we are, with LA or NYC or Houston... imagine what the differences might have been like before modern communications and transportation.

(Totally not a transparent attempt to make this side-conversation on-topic and relevant, really...)
Travelling was certainly rough! I cycled through Wales a few years back, and to avoid a busy A road we went along a cycle route which used an old coaching road. As in stage coaches. It was cobbled, and was clearly hardwearing enough to be in reasonable condition however many centuries after it was built despite coaching traffic, pedestrians, cyclists and modern farm vehicles. However cycling over it was like riding on a pneumatic hammer! Travelling any significant distance on that stuff would leave you pretty battered, I wouldn't be surprised if old coach drivers had a whole host of odd neuropathies and musculoskeletal issues as a result of constant micro-trauma.

In terms of other communications, I think towns played a much larger role as local hubs for information and resource sharing, as well as seats of power. I don't think it is a coincidence that so many old towns are market towns- having a market meant exerting power over the local populace, but also probably served to unite the local culture.

You can see some of the changes modern communications have made with how dialects and accents are becoming less pronounced and dying out. Most older folk in the UK have an obvious dialect and accent, but this is not being transferred through the generations and you get people like me with a mishmash accent that doesn't come from any one region.

[Vinyadan]

Since we are talking about roads and travel, something which surprised me a lot was that bridges used to be the equivalent of a central square in large cities. So the pont neuf of Paris, which now is just a road, was the centre of life in the city for centuries, with markets, showmen, shops, prostitutes, pickpockets, and a variety of people spending time there. Italy still has a couple such bridges, Rialto in Venice and the Ponte Vecchio in Florence contain shops.
It was very different from what we have now for bridges, with these very long roads, often almost deserted by pedestrians, and quite cold, wet, and windy.


The word hippotes was sometimes used, too (it's ancient Greek (http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph?l=i%28ppo%2Fths&la=greek&can=i%28ppo%2Fths0#lexicon), originally meaning driver or rider of horses - not as a separate social or military class, though, except in the Boeotian dialiect where it was a synonym of hippeus).

But more often it was some derivative of the Medieval Latin caballarius (horseman), either directly or via a Romance language from thereabouts, usually Venetian. The spelling varied, and I'm not sure how to transliterate them best, but here goes: καβαλ(λ)άριος (kavallarios), καβα(λ)λάρης (kavallaris), καβελ(λ)άρης (kavellaris).

The similar καβαλιέρης (kavalieris) or καβαλιέρος (kavalieros) sometimes meant knight and sometimes meant squire.

I got all this from the Dictionary of Medieval Vulgar Greek Literature (1100-1669) (http://www.greek-language.gr/greekLang/medieval_greek/em_kriaras/scanned_new/index.html?id=55&lq=sel.188), which is online and searchable (http://www.greek-language.gr/greekLang/medieval_greek/kriaras/index.html), but in Greek, so I don't know how useful it will be to you. Hope that helped. :)

Thank you very much, both for taking the time and for pointing out this resource! I am almost exclusively trained in ancient Greek (the few modern words I know are those from shampoo bottles), I'll see see if I can use the dictionary a bit.

If I have time I'll try to compare the different versions of the words with the different Italian dialects of the time.

Also, thank you guys for answering the Lone Wolf question!

[Deepbluediver]

(Totally not a transparent attempt to make this side-conversation on-topic and relevant, really...)
Lately I've been thinking that we need a "got a question about anything other than armor and weapons from ancient cultures?" thread.



Travelling was certainly rough!
Lately I was reading about the decline of the Roman Empire (again) and one of the big things they mentioned was a breakdown in trading routes that had criss-crossed the empire during the Pax Romana.
(and also a rise in the use of mercenary aka barbarian armies *cough* totally not an attempt to stay on topic *unconvincing cough*)

[snowblizz]

Lately I've been thinking that we need a "got a question about anything other than armor and weapons from ancient cultures?" thread.
Attempts have been made, they are never as robust as this series of threads.



Lately I was reading about the decline of the Roman Empire (again) and one of the big things they mentioned was a breakdown in trading routes that had criss-crossed the empire during the Pax Romana.
(and also a rise in the use of mercenary aka barbarian armies *cough* totally not an attempt to stay on topic *unconvincing cough*)

To be fair communications and roads have huge implications on real world weapons, armour and tactics questions :smalltongue:. The higher the development level of a nation the more likely it is dependant on tradelinks. In the 1700s mostly for currency but today for just about everything connected to warfare.

A similar issue arose during the so-called "Bronze Age collapse", which isn't still widely understood and near mythical in description by now. But one theory is that the tradenetworks needed to supply civilizations with more diverse goods disappears, etire due to or causing the Collapse.

Even a thing like the availability and ubiquity of cars can be looked on from the perspective of how many raw recruits will be used to motorized vehicles. In WW1 not so many, in WW2 a much higher degree woulda've been able to drive a Jeep with little extra training.

[Haighus]

Attempts have been made, they are never as robust as this series of threads.



To be fair communications and roads have huge implications on real world weapons, armour and tactics questions :smalltongue:. The higher the development level of a nation the more likely it is dependant on tradelinks. In the 1700s mostly for currency but today for just about everything connected to warfare.It has smaller-scale tactical implications too- supposedly a significant amount of the deforestation of medieval North Wales occurred during the English occupation under Edward I, and happened mainly along roads to reduce the risk of ambushes. Prior to this North Wales was still largely untamed wilderness. Here good clear roads were vital to maintaining the campaign.

Another interesting aspect of that campaign was the English building their major castles on the coast, where they could be resupplied by shipping during rebellions and sieges. It is another example of how superior logistics were used to subjugate a hostile population.


A similar issue arose during the so-called "Bronze Age collapse", which isn't still widely understood and near mythical in description by now. But one theory is that the tradenetworks needed to supply civilizations with more diverse goods disappears, etire due to or causing the Collapse.

Even a thing like the availability and ubiquity of cars can be looked on from the perspective of how many raw recruits will be used to motorized vehicles. In WW1 not so many, in WW2 a much higher degree woulda've been able to drive a Jeep with little extra training.Interesting point, although I wonder how much training would be required with the lack of robust standardised driving exams like we have now.

[Kiero]

Another interesting aspect of that campaign was the English building their major castles on the coast, where they could be resupplied by shipping during rebellions and sieges. It is another example of how superior logistics were used to subjugate a hostile population.

The English East India Company (and Dutch and French ones too) did the same thing in their competing conquests of India. Sea power was their strength, so they put their factories/fortresses on the coast and kept them supplied by sea if need be. They always had a beachhead to re-take territory, no matter what happened in the interior.

[Clistenes]

The English East India Company (and Dutch and French ones too) did the same thing in their competing conquests of India. Sea power was their strength, so they put their factories/fortresses on the coast and kept them supplied by sea if need be. They always had a beachhead to re-take territory, no matter what happened in the interior.

The Portuguese and the Spaniards did the same...

[Haighus]

Come to think of it, it is likely a common feature of all thalassocracies from Athens to Srivijaya. Makes absolute sense for maritime Empires and Polities.

I think it is interesting in the Wales example because England at the time was not a thalassocracy.

[Kiero]

The Portuguese and the Spaniards did the same...

Indeed, I was also thinking about the Portuguese, and forgot to include them. I don't think the Spanish were ever in India, were they? They got the Americas in the Treaty of Tordesillas (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Tordesillas), where the Portuguese got the "east".

[gkathellar]

I'm not sure it's a thalassocracy thing as much as it is a prudent way for any nation with a technological or productive advantage to eschew the hazards of land warfare. A lot goes wrong in land wars, just as a matter of course, and when it does, those advantages can end up meaning very little when it does. On the other hand, it's a lot easier to project that kind of power by sea, so long as you have the productive base required to do so. If you're dealing with enemy territory and you can get your supply lines off of the ground, you don't have much excuse not to.

[Max_Killjoy]

Come to think of it, it is likely a common feature of all thalassocracies from Athens to Srivijaya. Makes absolute sense for maritime Empires and Polities.


I was thinking as I read the previous posts that it reminded me of the Greek colonies in the Mediterranean and Black Sea coasts.

[Brother Oni]

Since we are talking about roads and travel, something which surprised me a lot was that bridges used to be the equivalent of a central square in large cities. So the pont neuf of Paris, which now is just a road, was the centre of life in the city for centuries, with markets, showmen, shops, prostitutes, pickpockets, and a variety of people spending time there. Italy still has a couple such bridges, Rialto in Venice and the Ponte Vecchio in Florence contain shops.
It was very different from what we have now for bridges, with these very long roads, often almost deserted by pedestrians, and quite cold, wet, and windy.

Old London Bridge was also quite famous for being virtually a shopping mall back in the day.

While cleaning up my computer, I found a link to this medieval price list (http://medieval.ucdavis.edu/120D/Money.html), which lists the annual rent of 138 shops on London Bridge as 160 pounds and 4 shillings in 1365.

That's a lot of shops to squeeze into 300 yards (~275m):

http://www.historic-uk.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/remains-of-old-medieval-london-bridge.jpg

[Clistenes]

Indeed, I was also thinking about the Portuguese, and forgot to include them. I don't think the Spanish were ever in India, were they? They got the Americas in the Treaty of Tordesillas (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Tordesillas), where the Portuguese got the "east".

Nope, but they followed the same strategy in Africa, the Philippines and America (Mexico and Peru were exceptions because they were already empires and they just had to topple and replace their heads).

[LordEntrails]

Old London Bridge was also quite famous for being virtually a shopping mall back in the day.
Question I have is why? Why were bridges so popular for shops?
- Status? Limited real estate makes it desirable.
- Security? You only have to secure two ends at night etc.
- Refuse disposal meaning the streets weren't 'sloppy'?

[Vinyadan]

- Refuse disposal meaning the streets weren't 'sloppy'?

Yes in the case of Ponte Vecchio. The butchers had to move in there so that they could throw waste directly into the river, instead of dirtying the streets.

[Storm Bringer]

Question I have is why? Why were bridges so popular for shops?
- Status? Limited real estate makes it desirable.
- Security? You only have to secure two ends at night etc.
- Refuse disposal meaning the streets weren't 'sloppy'?

high traffic area. if you can only get across a river at three points inside the city, everyone who wants to cross the river must Pass your shop if your in or on the bridge.

convenient meeting point, for the same reason. "meet me at sundown by the Tower Bridge" is a workable plan in a pre-watch, pre-mobile world. again, this creates footfall and encourages setting up businesses on or near the bridges.


I don't think it is a coincidence that so many old towns are market towns- having a market meant exerting power over the local populace, but also probably served to unite the local culture.


pretty much the only type of town in pre-modern Europe. Generally, you were never more than about 10-15 miles form a market town, where you could go to sell wares or buy supplies. any further, it was too far to make a day-trip to and back, so people would start a new market closer to. since these towns had a greater footfall than the surrounding villages, they could support more specialised industries and traders. every village needed a blacksmith to make horseshoes and fix ploughs and such, but you only needed one apothecary or tailor for several villages, so they would set up in the market town.

[Martin Greywolf]

Question I have is why? Why were bridges so popular for shops?
- Status? Limited real estate makes it desirable.
- Security? You only have to secure two ends at night etc.
- Refuse disposal meaning the streets weren't 'sloppy'?

Location. Bridges are one of the only places you can comfortably cross over a river, so if you happen to have your shop on a bridge, pretty much everyone will have to pass by it. While bridge areas were usually rather pricey, I don't think they were the best anywhere - that would be near the town square (including a town hall and a church or a cathedral), wherever that happened to be.

It's also worth mentioning this only happened in cities that became pretty big, big enough to need two banks of a river (or bank and an island) for living space, smaller cities are almost always on one side only with the bridge serving as an entry point into a gatehouse.



[market towns are] pretty much the only type of town in pre-modern Europe.

Not by a long shot, though they are by far the most common by numbers. Towns can be roughly divided into three categories: market towns, fortress towns and natural resource towns. Since natural resource towns have been discussed, let's start with fortress towns.

Fortress towns aren't built on purpose - very few towns are, really, despite what Civilization taught you. They happen when two things coexist in one place - strategical chokepoint and trade route. Not every town on a trade route is a fortress town, though, to qualify, these places need to be specifically built as a defensive lynchpin in a region. Good examples of these are Constantinople or Belgrade, or on a much smaller scale, towns that are built near castles (Beckov, Nitra, Visegrad). These are very popular in fantasy for obvious reasons, with the chief example being Minas Tirith.

Natural resource towns spring up whenever there is an important resource, and their entire function and fortune are built around it - the most prominent of these are mining towns, but any resource can give birth to one of these. These towns are pretty well defended too, but their primary purpose is to serve as a base to exploit whatever their resource is. If they are important enough, they can give birth to other fortress towns as a consequence, because they attract both trade and conquerors. Hungary used several towns and fortresses during the peak of Ottoman wars just to slow down any attacks on its mining cities - and it worked! The mining cities themselves were besieged only once or twice IIRC, and never with a truly dedicated force.

[Marcus Amakar]

Hi all,

First I'd like to say that I'm a longtime lurker on this thread and it's been a pleasure to find such well-informed and interesting discussion. I'm a novice when it comes to history, and it's nice to not have to take wikipedia at it's word!

Second, I have a question regarding armour weights and costs, for my homebrew quasi-DnD setting/ruleset.
As usual it's anachronistic, but could roughly be described as 1250-1400 Western and Central Europe.
My currency schema is 10 copper pieces to 1 silver piece, 10 silver pieces to a gold piece, and a unskilled labourer can hope to earn about 1 silver piece a day (if work was just for cash).
My armours are: cloth, leather, mail shirt, hide, mail (full body coverage), breastplate, plated mail, half-plate, full plate.

What kind of baseline prices/weights would be appropriate?
Do I need to give anymore information? Is this too anachronistic to conform to realism at all or should I just focus on game balance (which is obviously a topic for another thread)?

Thanks all,
Marcus

[Berenger]

Not by a long shot, though they are by far the most common by numbers. Towns can be roughly divided into three categories: market towns, fortress towns and natural resource towns.

Would monastery towns count as another category?

[Haighus]

Would monastery towns count as another category?

The cynic in me would count that as a resource town :P

[Maquise]

Something I've been wondering: Was the practice of ransoming seen at all in feudal Japan?

[snowblizz]

Indeed, I was also thinking about the Portuguese, and forgot to include them. I don't think the Spanish were ever in India, were they? They got the Americas in the Treaty of Tordesillas (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Tordesillas), where the Portuguese got the "east".
The Spanish monarchy controlled Portugal from 1580-1640 so in a sense yes they were.



Interesting point, although I wonder how much training would be required with the lack of robust standardised driving exams like we have now.
Well most cars have a steering wheel, gearshift, accelerator and breaks. So anyone able to drive a car has a basis to learn how to drive military vehicles driving exams or no.


Come to think of it, it is likely a common feature of all thalassocracies from Athens to Srivijaya. Makes absolute sense for maritime Empires and Polities.

I think it is interesting in the Wales example because England at the time was not a thalassocracy.
I would note that all the listed examples are "invaders". There simply exists no other recourse for the mentioned nations to start projecting influence other than by first creating a foothold. The Wales/England thing works on a similar baseline just in a much smaller scale. It's just that for medieaval England the land route to Wales was equally difficult to cross as the oceasn for the 1700s nations.


I'm not sure it's a thalassocracy thing as much as it is a prudent way for any nation with a technological or productive advantage to eschew the hazards of land warfare. A lot goes wrong in land wars, just as a matter of course, and when it does, those advantages can end up meaning very little when it does. On the other hand, it's a lot easier to project that kind of power by sea, so long as you have the productive base required to do so. If you're dealing with enemy territory and you can get your supply lines off of the ground, you don't have much excuse not to.Exactly. I wouldn't go so far as to say they eschewed land war. It just wasn't an option nor need at the time. We are in a period in the 1500s-1700s when it's enough for most nations to control generation of wealth and that happens primarily through trade. Few places are so naturally endowed they can sit on important land routes and dominate them. E.g. India was domestically powerful enough to resits the invaders until they focused resources and efforts and using the various factions managed to extend influence. It's not really until the 1800s that controlling territory and populations in itself becomes the goal and we see the mad scramble for colonies.

In North America the situation existed with a sort of power vacuum into which colonists moved eventually starting to claim territory. In South America similarly the Spanish found they had the means to control the land and the funds to do so. In contrst to India with relatively powerful indigenous powers. Similarly Africa p


The English East India Company (and Dutch and French ones too) did the same thing in their competing conquests of India. Sea power was their strength, so they put their factories/fortresses on the coast and kept them supplied by sea if need be. They always had a beachhead to re-take territory, no matter what happened in the interior.
It's probably not a conincidence that the initial tradingpost/strongholds were largely commercially organised whereas later on when the states themselves did it it focused more and more on controlling people and places. I woudl say it's largely a question of needs and means. The trading companies were in it for profit and there is only so much wealth you can get before costs become unbearable. The EIC sorta ran into this in India and was subsequently disbanded by the crown.

[wolflance]

Something I've been wondering: Was the practice of ransoming seen at all in feudal Japan?
IMO they sold the captives to the Europeans in exchange of materials used to make gunpowder/musket ball.

At least that's my very limited Sengoku knowledge have taught me.

[Kiero]

The Spanish monarchy controlled Portugal from 1580-1640 so in a sense yes they were.

Good point.


Exactly. I wouldn't go so far as to say they eschewed land war. It just wasn't an option nor need at the time. We are in a period in the 1500s-1700s when it's enough for most nations to control generation of wealth and that happens primarily through trade. Few places are so naturally endowed they can sit on important land routes and dominate them. E.g. India was domestically powerful enough to resits the invaders until they focused resources and efforts and using the various factions managed to extend influence. It's not really until the 1800s that controlling territory and populations in itself becomes the goal and we see the mad scramble for colonies.

In North America the situation existed with a sort of power vacuum into which colonists moved eventually starting to claim territory. In South America similarly the Spanish found they had the means to control the land and the funds to do so. In contrst to India with relatively powerful indigenous powers. Similarly Africa p

The English and French were making territorial acquisitions into the Indian subcontinent before the 1800s - they were fighting each other from the early-1700s with both Indian allies and indeed fielding armies of their own. Though the latter were comprised largely of European officers with native soldiers trained in the European way of fighting. Those proved very effective against native armies, which was part of the reason for their success in taking ground.

The English EIC took hold of a signficant part of India after the victories of Robert Clive, culminating in the battle of Plassey in 1757, when they helped themselves to the Nawab of Bengal's lands. From there it became a gradual extension of British influence as they added further dominions over the next century.


It's probably not a conincidence that the initial tradingpost/strongholds were largely commercially organised whereas later on when the states themselves did it it focused more and more on controlling people and places. I woudl say it's largely a question of needs and means. The trading companies were in it for profit and there is only so much wealth you can get before costs become unbearable. The EIC sorta ran into this in India and was subsequently disbanded by the crown.

Bear in mind John Company didn't surrender India to the British Crown until 1858 - they'd been ruling over a big chunk of it for just over a century by this point. They enjoyed a long period of dominance over India and independence from any government's interference.

[snowblizz]

IMO they sold the captives to the Europeans in exchange of materials used to make gunpowder/musket ball.

At least that's my very limited Sengoku knowledge have taught me.

A form of limited slavery existed yes from time to time, as you say by selling people to various parties, eg selling children and women to brothels. And how the peasants were treated were more or less serfdom. However, for "noble" captives, well, firstly a Samurai would be into the business of taking heads. Literally, to prove to his master he has done something. Defeated foes would take their own lives too to lessen their shame. And defeating someone often meant you killed as much of their family you could get your hands on to avoid future "revenges". As was demonstrated in the Taira vs Minamoto struggle.
Basically it would be rather dishonourable to the captive and his family and dependents to ransom them. So the captive would rather take his life, the family and retainers might as well if situation seemed hopeless or otherwise make a fight of it. There's little incentive to pay for live capture on either side of it.

Basically the European type of semi- or official ransoming did not exist as such in Japan.

[Deepbluediver]

Second, I have a question regarding armour weights and costs, for my homebrew quasi-DnD setting/ruleset.
As usual it's anachronistic, but could roughly be described as 1250-1400 Western and Central Europe.
My currency schema is 10 copper pieces to 1 silver piece, 10 silver pieces to a gold piece, and a unskilled labourer can hope to earn about 1 silver piece a day (if work was just for cash).
My armours are: cloth, leather, mail shirt, hide, mail (full body coverage), breastplate, plated mail, half-plate, full plate.

What kind of baseline prices/weights would be appropriate?
Do I need to give anymore information? Is this too anachronistic to conform to realism at all or should I just focus on game balance (which is obviously a topic for another thread)?
:smallwink:

We were discussing price, and the only real answer is that it's really kinda hard to tell. There are occasional price-lists (someone just linked one a few posts ago), but converting from one currency to another, adjusting for several centuries worth of inflation, and then taking medieval manufacturing techniques into account makes it really hard to put the price in any kind of terms that a modern non-historian can understand. The conclusion I came to was to count armor-crafters as skilled craftsmen, set what I wanted their wage to be, and then make my best-guesstimates for how long armor took to manufacture. Based on historical records, we do know that professional soldiers (i.e. non-peasent conscripts) could afford and did wear lots of armor. It wasn't as finely decorated or custom-fitted like a lot of what you see in museums, but neither was armor so expensive that only the wealthiest could afford it. And in some cases, such as Greece or Rome, non-impoverished citizens often fought in the army and supplied their own equipment, with your position was largely determined by how nice of stuff you could afford.
Another way to think about it might be to equate soldiers to skilled specialists, like a plumber, carpenter, or computer tech. These people need special tools, like a roto-rooter, a set of fine chisels, diagnostic software, etc; estimate about how much of their income such tools require, to purchase and maintain, and then figure out about what a soldier in your setting might earn, and work it backwards from there. I.e. a spear is one week's wages, a sword is 3, better armor might be a month, etc.

Second, what exactly are you picturing "hide" armor as? Again, from earlier discussions, I know that a lot of the D&D named-stuff is pretty nonsensical. If it's just leather-but-thicker, there are issues with that. Historians actually know a lot less about leather armor than metal, because it tends to degrade much faster than metal. Modern tests have had mixed results (there are some cool videos on youtube) and the all-over leather suit as presented by Hollywood probably didn't exist, at least not in that time period. Leather has to get very thick, and therefor heavy, so it was quite early on in history that metallurgy produced metal armor that provided better protection at lighter weight, especially for critical areas such as the chest. Leather was still used frequently as an underlayer, or for areas like wrists and ankle-greaves, for joints, or in combination with other types of armor. Combining different materials for different areas (http://www.epicarmouryunlimited.com/5657-thickbox/black-mercenary-breastplate-for-larping.jpg) that required different levels of protection was fairly common as I understand it.

Now, I'm definitely not saying you can't have leather in your games- I have it in mine and it's a classic fantasy trope, but I went with a method that uses a bit more in the way of abstraction. I've got 2 types of each "weight" or armor (light, medium, heavy), and then I say a lot of stuff is equivalent to another. For example, a solid breastplate over clothing might be "equivalent" to a suit of mail. Just something to think about.

Finally, I have concerns about your currency system. Imagine a society where the only denominations are $1, $10, and $100 bills, and minimum wage is about $1 per hour. Now imagine trying to pay wealthy people, like the CEO of a big company or Rock-star celebrities, in $100 bills. And imagine people trying to buy things like houses, fancy equipment, or sportscars all with hundred-dollar bills. Rich people would have to hire teams of servants just to cart their money around when they go shopping.

I know the 1:10:100 delineation is very popular because it's easy to do the math for, but you might want to consider other materials and/or other value of coinage. For example "Talent" was a unit of money (and also weight, but that's not the relevant bit) in ancient Sumeria and Babylon. A talent was worth 60 minas, and a mina was worth 60 shekels. Plus some sources record other coinage as fractions of a shekel. Also, modern precious-metal prices (are highly volatile, but anyway) have a much larger difference. Last time I checked, the approximate ratios of copper to silver to gold was in the range of 70-80 times as much, i.e. silver was ~75 times as much as copper, gold was ~75 times as much as silver. I don't know what it was historically (and coinage often had problems with debasement) but if you are trying to make your setting "realistic", then I think it's something important to keep in mind.


[I]Edit: Here is my homebrew. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?290667-Simplified-Improved-Armor) There's a bunch of video-game style quality improvements that you're obviously not obligated to follow, and the prices are still based on 3.5's completly bjorked economy, but if you want to see what I did for the basic armor, there it is.

[Blackhawk748]

So I'm planning a Savage World's game where the PCs are WWI soldiers and while they are fighting a temporal rift opens up and dumps out a bunch of Nazis from an alternate future. In this future the SS, Gestapo and the Thule assassinate Hitler and put a puppet in charge. They then go on a bloody rampage fueled by Thule blood magic and wind up conquering the world.

What I'm wondering is, what would Nazis tech look like in the 60s? Also feel free to get a but silly cuz they are using Magitech.

[Max_Killjoy]

So I'm planning a Savage World's game where the PCs are WWI soldiers and while they are fighting a temporal rift opens up and dumps out a bunch of Nazis from an alternate future. In this future the SS, Gestapo and the Thule assassinate Hitler and put a puppet in charge. They then go on a bloody rampage fueled by Thule blood magic and wind up conquering the world.

What I'm wondering is, what would Nazis tech look like in the 60s? Also feel free to get a but silly cuz they are using Magitech.

With magitech and 20 years, I think you want to concentrate on aesthetics and wild extrapolation.

Flying wings, big tanks, etc. Look up "Wunderwaffe", but remember that in real life, much of that stuff was fancifully ahead of the technology of the day or just plain stupid BS nonsense.

Some other links for inspiration:


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amerika_Bomber
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arado_E.555
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horten_Ho_229
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arado_Ar_234
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinkel_He_162
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junkers_Ju_287
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panzerkampfwagen_E-100
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H-class_battleship_proposals
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flettner_Fl_265
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flettner_Fl_282
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fritz_X
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl-Ger%C3%A4t
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun_gun
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FG_42
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturmgewehr_44
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zielger%C3%A4t_1229
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zielger%C3%A4t_1229)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_propaganda -- maybe the most important one to keep in mind, so much of what people "know" about and popular media depiction of the Nazi military is still tainted by wartime propaganda and postwar nonsense.

[Vinyadan]

Did they have an equivalent official to the Roman censors actively looking to remove people from classes they no longer qualified for? More pertinently, even if they did, were they immune to political pressures from impoverished, but still influential families staying their hand?

I think the reality is that mobility would be stymied, both by people working not to fall from their traditional class, but also those higher up the ladder trying to keep those below them down.

I wanted to go back to this, because I think it's interesting. The Greek word for census was timema, and Athens had no censor-like magistrature. Instead, the populace essentially kept watch (which probably wasn't very effective). If someone who lived like a rich man didn't pay what rich people normally had to pay, another citizen could spot the incongruity and start a legal process against him. During this process, there would be an attempt to determine the timema of this person, and have him pay his obligations to the city accordingly.

With the liturgies, things could get weird. These were taxes reserved for the absolutely most wealthy. They comprised payment for the theater festivals, as well as the price of arming triremes. Keeping a trireme manned for a year costed four times the hull, which was given by the city for free (a modern comparison I read recently assumed a price of 4 million £ for the liturgy).
If a citizen thought that he had been ordered to pay, while someone richer than him had been spared the tax, he could start a legal process to get the other person to pay instead of him. If the other one refused, the accuser could request to swap their possessions. At this point, the accuser, now being the richer one, would pay the liturgy.
We know that some requests for antidoses were really made, although we don't know if it ever really came to the swap.

Now, what could be close to a censor was developed in the IV century. Liturgies were now given to groups of people, instead of the single richest. Each of these groups was called symmoria. We know that a diagrapheus was tasked with recording the timema of the people in each symmoria; every symmoria was to have a total of 15 talents. However, it isn't clear if there was a diagrapheus for each symmoria, or if there was a single one for all of them.

About the Athenian cavalry: the war horses could be property of the cavalrymen, or they could get one paid for by the city, if they had none at recruitment. The horseman would need a lot of money anyway: stable, stableman, field servant, horse for the servant, saddle and all needed to ride, and of course armour, spear, sword and javelins. The result was that the families and tutors of the young recruits could actually be against their very costly decision of serving in the cavalry. The cost of being a horseman even became a recurring joke in comedy. Around 430, the city started the gradual introduction of subventions: payment for the food of the horse, and a large initial loan to buy the necessary equipment. This loan would be given back at the end of service. The horses were examined yearly by the city; if they were ill-fed, the horseman would lose the subvention for the food. The city would replace a horse that had been killed in battle, but not one that died due to negligence.

Now, about the old discussion of how free the choice between cavalry and infantry was: it was free, as long as the city had all of the horsemen it needed. If this quota wasn't reached, then the city had lists, with the names of those who would be conscripted. If they were wealthy and able bodied, they had to serve as horsemen.
This also worked backwards. A horseman could be requested to serve as a hoplite in a certain expedition, and be processed if he didn't obey. Such a situation probably wasn't common, but, after 404/403, when Athens had suffered under the Thirty Tyrants, the hippeis were seen with great suspicion and hate for having supported them. So they were trampled over any time it was possible for some fifty years, and those who had served under the Thirty Tyrants lost their subventions.

Athens had 200 mounted archers. At least some of them were Athenian citizens. The son of the famous Alcibiades was one of them. I wanted to point this out, because I thought that they were mercenaries.

[Martin Greywolf]

Would monastery towns count as another category?

Not really. Once you start to look at the issued documents that gifted a land to a monastery, it becomes pretty clear that they had a very, very clear in mind: help establish a certain type of town. Usually, it was a market town - settle a region and you get this nice hill to build a place on and some taxes. It was IIRC Dominicans that were really, really good at this.

The benefit to the king or a noble was a land settled that didn't belong to a noble and therefore endangered him a touch less (though by no means not at all, bishops weren't above throwing on some chain mail and solving disputes mace to face), and it already had a pretty solid system of administration and keeping records. And also gave him some brownie points with the pope.

There are some monasteries that don't quite fit there, but those belong to isolationist orders almost exclusively, and therefore don't have towns spring up near them. I was at the ruins of one such place, and the closest town was 5 km in distance, about 600 meters in elevation and accessible by a gorge that had chains and ladders in the walls to make it accessible to general public without half of them ending up dead on the rocks. Other, safer routes were approximately five times longer.

[Clistenes]

IMO they sold the captives to the Europeans in exchange of materials used to make gunpowder/musket ball.

At least that's my very limited Sengoku knowledge have taught me.

Yes. As a matter of fact, Ieyasu Tokugawa asked the Spanish crown to stop the trade and return the slaves.

Japanese poorest people were used to abandon children they couldn't feed during times of famine, and to sell girls to brothels, so selling kids to foreigners rather than letting them starve to death in the forests or mountains may have be seen as a merciful alternative...

Asian slaves were in high demand in the Philippines. The trade of European and Native American slaves was illegal in the Spanish Empire, with a few exceptions (cannibals could be enslaved, as could non-christian prisioners of war, and sometimes Christian and/or European slaves could be bought from countries under Ottoman rule), because they were subjects of Christian Monarchies (of course, that law was broken very often; the Caribbean Tainos were enslaved to extinction despite the feeble attempts of the Spanish government to stop it... the Taino slaves were needed to extract gold, after all...).

It was illegal to enslave the Philippino natives too. They were considered subjects of the Spanish Crown too (the muslims from Mindanao, Palawan and Sulu who fought against the Spaniards weren't Spanish subjects and could be captured and enslaved).

As for African slaves, it was illegal to bring them to Philippines. During the reign of Philip II of Spain the Spanish government had already realized what a fukked-up society they had allowed to be created in America, and were disgusted by it (but again, they didn't try to reform it because they needed the money from the American colonies), so, in order to assuage his conscience, Philip II tried to make the Philippines a heavily religion-focused slave-free colony...

That means rich people in the Philippines who wanted to buy slaves had to turn to China, Japan and Southeast Asia...

[Vinyadan]

I like how he gave them his name.

"This is my plaaaaaaaace, everybody's happyyyyyyyyy..."

I mean, it's very interesting to see how the dichotomy between being a king and protector with certain duties towards his subjects and also being the head of something that looks a lot like an evil multinational played out.

[Vinyadan]

I would add education to the advantages of having a monastery. They often comprised schools, and could produce people fit for both the merchant's trade and bureaucracy and administration. Women could get an education there, too.

[Clistenes]

I like how he gave them his name.

"This is my plaaaaaaaace, everybody's happyyyyyyyyy..."

I mean, it's very interesting to see how the dichotomy between being a king and protector with certain duties towards his subjects and also being the head of something that looks a lot like an evil multinational played out.

Philip II's problem was that, from his point of view, it was crystal clear that he had been chosen by God to rule the world and reshape it according to Catholic doctrine: He had inherited a huge chunk of Europe and most of America plus a bunch of Asian and African settlements, the spice trade, more silver and gold that had ever been mined in all of Europe, more titles than all the other European kings combined, the best army and navy in the world (at least until the English and the Dutch produced a new generation of warships able to defeat the Spanish navy), subjects who would fanatically follow him to war against heretics and infidels, he had almost complete control of the Church within his territory, and he could order around the Popes most of the time...

It was plain to see that God wanted him to do His work on Earth... wasn't it? Why else would He give him all that?

So, when you honestly believe that you are God's own lieutenant, you just can't give up. You can't accept defeat. You can't accept loss. Not at all. Because, if you have God on your side, you just can't lose. You can only suffer setbacks, not defeat, and those setbacks are just trials you need to overcome in order to prove your resolution...

So Philip II just had to fight every fight. He couldn't say, strike a deal with the Protestants in the Low Countries, and allow them to choose their religion on their own in exchange for peace, or show his Austrian cousin the finger and refuse to help him fight his wars. Or give up on the costly fortresses on the North African coast. Or stop funding the missionary work in East Asia... He felt he had to take every challenge and that he was obliged to win...

But it was too much. He didn't have enough men, enough ships or enough money. He must have felt overwhelmend, against the ropes. Every defeat meant he was failing God as a servant...

So every day he had to face the Trolley Dilemma people around these forums love so much... should he stop evil and misdeeds even if in doing so he weakened his Empire and risked losing the war? Or should he allow those evil and misdeeds in order to keep the fight? He had to make sacrifices, and in his moral scales the European wars weighed a lot more than say the plight of the Peruvian peasants who were forced to leave their homes and go work in the silver mines of Potosí, because human beings are fated to suffer and die anyways, but the war against heretics was a war against Satan himself...

[Gnoman]

So I'm planning a Savage World's game where the PCs are WWI soldiers and while they are fighting a temporal rift opens up and dumps out a bunch of Nazis from an alternate future. In this future the SS, Gestapo and the Thule assassinate Hitler and put a puppet in charge. They then go on a bloody rampage fueled by Thule blood magic and wind up conquering the world.

What I'm wondering is, what would Nazis tech look like in the 60s? Also feel free to get a but silly cuz they are using Magitech.

There are three things important here.

1. Having anything we would recognize as "Nazi" surviving that long would be highly unlikely. That regime was fundamentally unstable, riddled with empire building, and would be almost guaranteed to erupt into civil war once the strongman in charge of it died.

2. Most Nazi equipment was, to put it bluntly, trash. Essentially, their military equipment (with a few major exceptions, the most famous of which include the Me-262, the Type-IX U-Boat, and Mauser 98K rifle) fell into one or two categories. The first category was workable gear that suffered from deep and fundamental flaws. The second category was deep and fundamental flaws with a bit of decent equipment stuck to it.

3. The 1960s were not that far ahead of WWII tech (with the obvious exception of nuclear weapons) OTL, that was with an ongoing arms race and cold war sputtering hot in places. Most small arms were just simple improvements on the previous models, armored vehicles were essentially scaled-up versions of the older ones, and even the aircraft were designs that the engineers of the 1940s would have understood immediately. There were a few new wrinkles with guided missiles, but even those had crude WWII analogs. In a setting where WWII ended in a final victory for the Reich, and where that insane regime somehow managed to hold together, there would be much less need for innovation.


In short, a significant amount of their gear would be nearly or completely identical to WWII stuff, another large portion would be "a drunken moron thought this was kool, unfortunately it was the drunken moron in charge of procurement", and a tiny sliver would be fairly high end. Of course, even WWII gear would be pretty dangerous in a WWI-era fight.

[wolflance]

Yes. As a matter of fact, Ieyasu Tokugawa asked the Spanish crown to stop the trade and return the slaves.

Japanese poorest people were used to abandon children they couldn't feed during times of famine, and to sell girls to brothels, so selling kids to foreigners rather than letting them starve to death in the forests or mountains may have be seen as a merciful alternative...

Asian slaves were in high demand in the Philippines. The trade of European and Native American slaves was illegal in the Spanish Empire, with a few exceptions (cannibals could be enslaved, as could non-christian prisioners of war, and sometimes Christian and/or European slaves could be bought from countries under Ottoman rule), because they were subjects of Christian Monarchies (of course, that law was broken very often; the Caribbean Tainos were enslaved to extinction despite the feeble attempts of the Spanish government to stop it... the Taino slaves were needed to extract gold, after all...).

It was illegal to enslave the Philippino natives too. They were considered subjects of the Spanish Crown too (the muslims from Mindanao, Palawan and Sulu who fought against the Spaniards weren't Spanish subjects and could be captured and enslaved).

As for African slaves, it was illegal to bring them to Philippines. During the reign of Philip II of Spain the Spanish government had already realized what a fukked-up society they had allowed to be created in America, and were disgusted by it (but again, they didn't try to reform it because they needed the money from the American colonies), so, in order to assuage his conscience, Philip II tried to make the Philippines a heavily religion-focused slave-free colony...

That means rich people in the Philippines who wanted to buy slaves had to turn to China, Japan and Southeast Asia...
I remember reading somewhere that there were as much as five hundred thousands women (modern estimate) sold to the Europeans (Portuguese) due to Japan's insane hunger for more gunpowder. I think that modern figure is a bit overblown, although it does illustrate that how brutal the war was, and how
serious the Japanese people were on the matter of getting their hands on more firearms.

Off topic, I came across this interesting article:
http://gunbai-militaryhistory.blogspot.my/2017/12/tate-tedate-japanese-shields.html

It appears that Japanese did use shield after all.

[Blackhawk748]

There are three things important here.

1. Having anything we would recognize as "Nazi" surviving that long would be highly unlikely. That regime was fundamentally unstable, riddled with empire building, and would be almost guaranteed to erupt into civil war once the strongman in charge of it died.

2. Most Nazi equipment was, to put it bluntly, trash. Essentially, their military equipment (with a few major exceptions, the most famous of which include the Me-262, the Type-IX U-Boat, and Mauser 98K rifle) fell into one or two categories. The first category was workable gear that suffered from deep and fundamental flaws. The second category was deep and fundamental flaws with a bit of decent equipment stuck to it.

3. The 1960s were not that far ahead of WWII tech (with the obvious exception of nuclear weapons) OTL, that was with an ongoing arms race and cold war sputtering hot in places. Most small arms were just simple improvements on the previous models, armored vehicles were essentially scaled-up versions of the older ones, and even the aircraft were designs that the engineers of the 1940s would have understood immediately. There were a few new wrinkles with guided missiles, but even those had crude WWII analogs. In a setting where WWII ended in a final victory for the Reich, and where that insane regime somehow managed to hold together, there would be much less need for innovation.


In short, a significant amount of their gear would be nearly or completely identical to WWII stuff, another large portion would be "a drunken moron thought this was kool, unfortunately it was the drunken moron in charge of procurement", and a tiny sliver would be fairly high end. Of course, even WWII gear would be pretty dangerous in a WWI-era fight.

I should probably give more info, though to be fair it was only a basic plan at the time of posting that has now become something.... else.

Anyway, the Nazis remain in control because they figured out this world hopping thing, mostly on accident, and are now running around conquering other world's. ATM they've conquered two world's that are much lower tech and are in the process of conquering a third world, one in which Germany won WWI. The resistance that will help the PCs is from here.

Also this setting is Pulp Fiction as hell, so don't dig to far

[Nargrakhan]

I remember reading somewhere that there were as much as five hundred thousands women (modern estimate) sold to the Europeans (Portuguese) due to Japan's insane hunger for more gunpowder. I think that modern figure is a bit overblown, although it does illustrate that how brutal the war was, and how
serious the Japanese people were on the matter of getting their hands on more firearms.

I don't recall reading about the Japanese trading thousands of slaves for firearms and gunpowder. Is there a source? I'm really curious about it.

The account I remember is Tanegashima buying two or three rifles from Portuguese traders. He hired the best blacksmiths in Japan to reproduce them, but Japan lacked the technology to replicate a certain screw. After a year of failure, he found another Portuguese trader to sell him the blueprints to a machine that could it.

The secret of gunpowder was purchased with the first set of rifles, and Tanegashima forced closely monitored Eta communities -- which Japan had no problem finding or exploiting -- to do the dirty work of it.

When Hideyosh invaded Korea at the twilight of the Senkogu era, he did so with 40,000 rifles and canon pieces. People seem to forget samurai used gunpowder weapons and recognized them as the ultimate fortification weapon. The legendary Miyamoto Musashi wrote about them, pointing out that until you get into close combat, the gun is going to kick your ass every time. Musashi wrote you can least see the arrow coming at you. The bullet? Not so much.

[Marcus Amakar]

Second, what exactly are you picturing "hide" armor as? Again, from earlier discussions, I know that a lot of the D&D named-stuff is pretty nonsensical. If it's just leather-but-thicker, there are issues with that. Historians actually know a lot less about leather armor than metal, because it tends to degrade much faster than metal. Modern tests have had mixed results (there are some cool videos on youtube) and the all-over leather suit as presented by Hollywood probably didn't exist, at least not in that time period. Leather has to get very thick, and therefor heavy, so it was quite early on in history that metallurgy produced metal armor that provided better protection at lighter weight, especially for critical areas such as the chest. Leather was still used frequently as an underlayer, or for areas like wrists and ankle-greaves, for joints, or in combination with other types of armor. Combining different materials for different areas (http://www.epicarmouryunlimited.com/5657-thickbox/black-mercenary-breastplate-for-larping.jpg) that required different levels of protection was fairly common as I understand it.

Now, I'm definitely not saying you can't have leather in your games- I have it in mine and it's a classic fantasy trope, but I went with a method that uses a bit more in the way of abstraction. I've got 2 types of each "weight" or armor (light, medium, heavy), and then I say a lot of stuff is equivalent to another. For example, a solid breastplate over clothing might be "equivalent" to a suit of mail. Just something to think about.

Finally, I have concerns about your currency system. Imagine a society where the only denominations are $1, $10, and $100 bills, and minimum wage is about $1 per hour. Now imagine trying to pay wealthy people, like the CEO of a big company or Rock-star celebrities, in $100 bills. And imagine people trying to buy things like houses, fancy equipment, or sportscars all with hundred-dollar bills. Rich people would have to hire teams of servants just to cart their money around when they go shopping.

I know the 1:10:100 delineation is very popular because it's easy to do the math for, but you might want to consider other materials and/or other value of coinage. For example "Talent" was a unit of money (and also weight, but that's not the relevant bit) in ancient Sumeria and Babylon. A talent was worth 60 minas, and a mina was worth 60 shekels. Plus some sources record other coinage as fractions of a shekel. Also, modern precious-metal prices (are highly volatile, but anyway) have a much larger difference. Last time I checked, the approximate ratios of copper to silver to gold was in the range of 70-80 times as much, i.e. silver was ~75 times as much as copper, gold was ~75 times as much as silver. I don't know what it was historically (and coinage often had problems with debasement) but if you are trying to make your setting "realistic", then I think it's something important to keep in mind.


Edit: Here is my homebrew. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?290667-Simplified-Improved-Armor) There's a bunch of video-game style quality improvements that you're obviously not obligated to follow, and the prices are still based on 3.5's completly bjorked economy, but if you want to see what I did for the basic armor, there it is.

Thank you for the response.

Hide armour isn't leather but thicker in this; Hide armour is leather armour crafted from the hides of magical beasts. While it is thicker and more cumbersome than leather armour, this isn't what causes it to be more protective, it's a supernatural property of the hide.
That said, whilst it is more protective than light armours, a full suit of mail is still better armour; it's usually used by Druids who can't cast spells in metal armour.

The point about my currency system is actually really useful; I didn't look at it like that! How does this sound for a new system:
50 cp = 1 sp
50 sp = 1 gp
Unskilled labourer earns on average 10cp/day (and can save about 10sp a year)
Semi-skilled labourer earns on average 2sp/day (and can save about 3gp a year)
Skilled labourer earns on average 10sp/day (and can save about 20gp a year)

Cloth 10sp
Leather 25sp
Mail shirt 1gp
Hide 40sp
Full mail 3gp
Breastplate 7gp
Plated mail 12gp
Halfplate 25gp
Fullplate 40 gp
Light shield 10sp
Heavy shield 25sp

and for comparison, some weapons:

Spear 25sp
Longsword 4gp
Heavy crossbow 6gp

Thoughts?

[wolflance]

I don't recall reading about the Japanese trading thousands of slaves for firearms and gunpowder. Is there a source? I'm really curious about it.

The account I remember is Tanegashima buying two or three rifles from Portuguese traders. He hired the best blacksmiths in Japan to reproduce them, but Japan lacked the technology to replicate a certain screw. After a year of failure, he found another Portuguese trader to sell him the blueprints to a machine that could it.

The secret of gunpowder was purchased with the first set of rifles, and Tanegashima forced closely monitored Eta communities -- which Japan had no problem finding or exploiting -- to do the dirty work of it.

When Hideyosh invaded Korea at the twilight of the Senkogu era, he did so with 40,000 rifles and canon pieces. People seem to forget samurai used gunpowder weapons and recognized them as the ultimate fortification weapon. The legendary Miyamoto Musashi wrote about them, pointing out that until you get into close combat, the gun is going to kick your ass every time. Musashi wrote you can least see the arrow coming at you. The bullet? Not so much.
Their appetite for gunpowder precisely came from the adoption of matchlock. No, they knew the secret of making gunpowder, they just lacked the material for making them (and lead too, for that matter).

Japan does not produce saltpeter naturally, so the Japanese had to rely on European imports almost entirely (China produce saltpeter naturally and in abundance, but it had a trade ban in place due to Japanese pirates causing troubles). The secret of making saltpeter from poop/urine was apparently unknown to the Japanese until Hongan-ji Kennyo discovered them some time before 1570 (as his bitter enemy Oda Nobunaga monopolized saltpeter import). Even then, it was kept a military secret for a long time, and not until 1580s it became well-known.

So there's about 3~40 years time span that Japanese had to trade slaves etc. for gunpowder. Given how widespread firearm was during the later stage of Sengoku period, the demand must be mind-boggingly high, which drove the price even higher. It is said that at some point a single barrel of black powder could exchange for FIFTY female slaves.

(For comparison, Europeans discovered saltpeter farming around 1388, 121 years after Roger Bacon wrote down that gunpowder formula.)

[gkathellar]

Thank you for the response.

Hide armour isn't leather but thicker in this; Hide armour is leather armour crafted from the hides of magical beasts. While it is thicker and more cumbersome than leather armour, this isn't what causes it to be more protective, it's a supernatural property of the hide.
That said, whilst it is more protective than light armours, a full suit of mail is still better armour; it's usually used by Druids who can't cast spells in metal armour.

The point about my currency system is actually really useful; I didn't look at it like that! How does this sound for a new system:
50 cp = 1 sp
50 sp = 1 gp
Unskilled labourer earns on average 10cp/day (and can save about 10sp a year)
Semi-skilled labourer earns on average 2sp/day (and can save about 3gp a year)
Skilled labourer earns on average 10sp/day (and can save about 20gp a year)

Cloth 10sp
Leather 25sp
Mail shirt 1gp
Hide 40sp
Full mail 3gp
Breastplate 7gp
Plated mail 12gp
Halfplate 25gp
Fullplate 40 gp
Light shield 10sp
Heavy shield 25sp

and for comparison, some weapons:

Spear 25sp
Longsword 4gp
Heavy crossbow 6gp

Thoughts?

It's worth bearing in mind that leather is hide that's been treated so that it smells better and is relatively easy to take care of. The difference is one of thickness and toughness, not really one of composition - skin being skin, as it were. If the idea is that the leather is strengthened by magic, it might make sense to treat it as a material, rather than a discrete type of armor. That way you can rationalize the lower value along a straight metric. There was a good photo of a suit of leather plate posted upthread, easily as bulky as a steel suit, which may be somewhat illustrative.

[Deepbluediver]

There was a good photo of a suit of leather plate posted upthread, easily as bulky as a steel suit, which may be somewhat illustrative.
It's in this post here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=22631112&postcount=946). I don't know how effective something like that would be, but it is a seriously cool picture.

[snowblizz]

I should probably give more info, though to be fair it was only a basic plan at the time of posting that has now become something.... else.

Anyway, the Nazis remain in control because they figured out this world hopping thing, mostly on accident, and are now running around conquering other world's. ATM they've conquered two world's that are much lower tech and are in the process of conquering a third world, one in which Germany won WWI. The resistance that will help the PCs is from here.

Also this setting is Pulp Fiction as hell, so don't dig to far

You should look into the Wolfenstein line of pc games. They are filled with this stuff.

And more particularly, Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus is set in a 1961s America where the Nazis won. That has to be relevant.

[Nargrakhan]

Their appetite for gunpowder precisely came from the adoption of matchlock. No, they knew the secret of making gunpowder, they just lacked the material for making them (and lead too, for that matter).

Japan does not produce saltpeter naturally, so the Japanese had to rely on European imports almost entirely (China produce saltpeter naturally and in abundance, but it had a trade ban in place due to Japanese pirates causing troubles). The secret of making saltpeter from poop/urine was apparently unknown to the Japanese until Hongan-ji Kennyo discovered them some time before 1570 (as his bitter enemy Oda Nobunaga monopolized saltpeter import). Even then, it was kept a military secret for a long time, and not until 1580s it became well-known.

So there's about 3~40 years time span that Japanese had to trade slaves etc. for gunpowder. Given how widespread firearm was during the later stage of Sengoku period, the demand must be mind-boggingly high, which drove the price even higher. It is said that at some point a single barrel of black powder could exchange for FIFTY female slaves.

(For comparison, Europeans discovered saltpeter farming around 1388, 121 years after Roger Bacon wrote down that gunpowder formula.)

Thank you. Your post gave me the info I needed to find more info about it.

https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/ポルトガルの奴隷貿易

Always learning something new on this forum. :smallsmile:

[Blackhawk748]

You should look into the Wolfenstein line of pc games. They are filled with this stuff.

And more particularly, Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus is set in a 1961s America where the Nazis won. That has to be relevant.

I shall, the only Wolfenstein i've played was Return to Castle Wolfenstein and Wolfenstein the New Order

[Kiero]

I wanted to go back to this, because I think it's interesting. The Greek word for census was timema, and Athens had no censor-like magistrature. Instead, the populace essentially kept watch (which probably wasn't very effective). If someone who lived like a rich man didn't pay what rich people normally had to pay, another citizen could spot the incongruity and start a legal process against him. During this process, there would be an attempt to determine the timema of this person, and have him pay his obligations to the city accordingly.

With the liturgies, things could get weird. These were taxes reserved for the absolutely most wealthy. They comprised payment for the theater festivals, as well as the price of arming triremes. Keeping a trireme manned for a year costed four times the hull, which was given by the city for free (a modern comparison I read recently assumed a price of 4 million £ for the liturgy).
If a citizen thought that he had been ordered to pay, while someone richer than him had been spared the tax, he could start a legal process to get the other person to pay instead of him. If the other one refused, the accuser could request to swap their possessions. At this point, the accuser, now being the richer one, would pay the liturgy.
We know that some requests for antidoses were really made, although we don't know if it ever really came to the swap.

Now, what could be close to a censor was developed in the IV century. Liturgies were now given to groups of people, instead of the single richest. Each of these groups was called symmoria. We know that a diagrapheus was tasked with recording the timema of the people in each symmoria; every symmoria was to have a total of 15 talents. However, it isn't clear if there was a diagrapheus for each symmoria, or if there was a single one for all of them.

Agreed, this is an interesting discussion, and possibly a little tangential from the core purpose of the thread since we're talking about society.

I think there's always a danger of reading ancient laws and assuming they were how things went. Societies of the past were hilariously corrupt by our standards, cronyism and graft were the order of the day, the establishment was hugely powerful and often unassailable from outside their own set. That a small number of affluent individuals and their families were able to more than hold their own against the overwhelming majority (in numbers) of the commons demonstrates that.

Laws were a tool for the elites to extend and maintain their power, along with keeping those below them at bay. Liturgies had huge potential for abuse by stacking the assemblies that voted for them with your supporters, and bribing/intimidating them. That meant prestigious liturgies that brought acclaim to your family could be diverted your way, and expensive ones that could be financially ruinous could be placed on your rivals.

Theoretically a citizen could launch a suit against someone wealthy, but who would they get to represent them? More pertinently, would they even be able to get a court to hear their case without the wealthier/more connected accused suborning the judges/jurors? Even if they somehow managed to get a judgement, how would they enforce it? Many ancient societies depended entirely on the social structure via patronage/clientage to maintain order; the way the little person got things done was to enlist their patron to do it on their behalf. But if your patron is allied to the accused and doesn't want to upset their relations, they're going to be motivated to squash your suit.

Again with the diagrapheus - there's huge scope for that person to be corrupted or otherwise co-opted by the people with the most resources to use them to their advantage. That's if it wasn't simply used as a stepping-stone to more senior positions by young aristocrats, or as a retirement sinecure by older ones (I'm not sure who would hold that office).


About the Athenian cavalry: the war horses could be property of the cavalrymen, or they could get one paid for by the city, if they had none at recruitment. The horseman would need a lot of money anyway: stable, stableman, field servant, horse for the servant, saddle and all needed to ride, and of course armour, spear, sword and javelins. The result was that the families and tutors of the young recruits could actually be against their very costly decision of serving in the cavalry. The cost of being a horseman even became a recurring joke in comedy. Around 430, the city started the gradual introduction of subventions: payment for the food of the horse, and a large initial loan to buy the necessary equipment. This loan would be given back at the end of service. The horses were examined yearly by the city; if they were ill-fed, the horseman would lose the subvention for the food. The city would replace a horse that had been killed in battle, but not one that died due to negligence.

Now, about the old discussion of how free the choice between cavalry and infantry was: it was free, as long as the city had all of the horsemen it needed. If this quota wasn't reached, then the city had lists, with the names of those who would be conscripted. If they were wealthy and able bodied, they had to serve as horsemen.
This also worked backwards. A horseman could be requested to serve as a hoplite in a certain expedition, and be processed if he didn't obey. Such a situation probably wasn't common, but, after 404/403, when Athens had suffered under the Thirty Tyrants, the hippeis were seen with great suspicion and hate for having supported them. So they were trampled over any time it was possible for some fifty years, and those who had served under the Thirty Tyrants lost their subventions.

Athens had 200 mounted archers. At least some of them were Athenian citizens. The son of the famous Alcibiades was one of them. I wanted to point this out, because I thought that they were mercenaries.

As above, I read that as the ideal which might in reality be very different. Could an unpopular family secure a subvention on terms that wouldn't be crippling, for example? I'd also note one horse doesn't really make a cavalryman. Maybe in Greek warfare, where cavalry isn't all that important, they could get away with that. But two was the minimum, if you weren't to ride a horse to death. For steppe cultures, they didn't consider a warrior to be a rider unless they had at least four mounts.

Same again the business of being "made" to serve as cavalry. I'd guarantee the most influential families got things their own way. If they wanted to serve as cavalry, they would; if they didn't, it would become someone else's problem.

[Yora]

Interesting find I made: Obstacle course run in full plate, modern soldier kit, and firefighter gear. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAzI1UvlQqw)

I got a recommendation request that someone here might be able to help with. Is there any good source on the history of the Baltic Sea and Eastern Europe region in the Late Middle Ages? I'm particularly interested in the Kalmar Union, Novgorod Republic, and Lithuania.

[Deepbluediver]

Interesting find I made: Obstacle course run in full plate, modern soldier kit, and firefighter gear. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAzI1UvlQqw)
Cool video. I wouldn't have been looking for this if someone else hadn't just brought it up, but one thing it makes apparent is how hard it is to run with plate-armor on your legs in a way that static pictures don't show as obviously. If you didn't have a horse to ride, or thought you might be dismounting it often, some soldiers opted to replace that part of their gear with something more flexible (https://2static2.fjcdn.com/comments/Yeah+that+was+in+18whatever+the+19th+century+plate +_4906b2b6ce1533c2775f38daab83fea2.jpg). (best picture I could find on short notice, sorry; there's a better one upthread)

[Yora]

Someone once ran a test on the energy consumption (by measuring exhaled CO2) for running in plate armor. And running without the leg protection on made a huge difference. All the upper body armor parts are moving at a quite steady velocity as you run, and an object in motion stays in motion unless acted upon by an outside force. It's quite energy efficient and you only have to support the weight and push against air resistance.
It's a completely different situation with the feet, where you are constantly using energy to accelerate and decelerate your feet with all the metal that hangs on them. I don't remember the exact amount, but the amount of additional energy used by having the greaves on was very significant.

As I mentioned a few days back, the most common inury at the Battle of Visby are severe leg and ankle injuries. Numbers I've come across are 70% of all wounds visible on bones, and leg injuries found on 40% of all bodies. The Danish knights seem to have been trained to go for the legs so it would have been a known weakness in the defense. Greaves don't seem like terribly complicated parts of an armor (and you could even make a boot of plates quite easily), so I don't think that leg protection was too expensive to afford. More likely it was seen as not being worth the trouble you get from wearing it.

[Mike_G]

If you are fighting sword and shield, the leg is great target. Feint at his head to make him raise the shield, then hack his near leg. His own shield will block some of his field of vision and make it harder for him to see you change your angle fo attack and do something about it.

And, critically, you have your own shield to defend against his counter. If you are fighting with a single weapon and you go low, he can just counterstrike at your head. He may limp home, but at least he'll have the chance. Double hits are a big concern fighting with a single sword each.

[Galloglaich]

Interesting find I made: Obstacle course run in full plate, modern soldier kit, and firefighter gear. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAzI1UvlQqw)

I got a recommendation request that someone here might be able to help with. Is there any good source on the history of the Baltic Sea and Eastern Europe region in the Late Middle Ages? I'm particularly interested in the Kalmar Union, Novgorod Republic, and Lithuania.

Dude, you are pulling my leg, right?

[snowblizz]

I got a recommendation request that someone here might be able to help with. Is there any good source on the history of the Baltic Sea and Eastern Europe region in the Late Middle Ages? I'm particularly interested in the Kalmar Union, Novgorod Republic, and Lithuania.
There's this guy who posts a lot to this thrtead I could swear had put together something like that, almost a Codex of Medieaval Baltic. If only I could remember the name.


Dude, you are pulling my leg, right?
Maybe G rembers who it was.
:smallbiggrin::smallbiggrin::smallbiggrin::smallbi ggrin:

[Max_Killjoy]

There's this guy who posts a lot to this thread I could swear had put together something like that, almost a Codex of Medieval Baltic. If only I could remember the name.


Maybe G rembers who it was.
:smallbiggrin::smallbiggrin::smallbiggrin::smallbi ggrin:


I ordered that book, and it's great.

[Yora]

While it's called Codex Guide to the medieval Baltic, it actually is about 1450s Danzig. Not what I am actually looking for. I want to know what is going on in Denmark, Sweden, Novgorod, and Lithuania 200 years earlier.

[wolflance]

If you are fighting sword and shield, the leg is great target. Feint at his head to make him raise the shield, then hack his near leg. His own shield will block some of his field of vision and make it harder for him to see you change your angle fo attack and do something about it.

And, critically, you have your own shield to defend against his counter. If you are fighting with a single weapon and you go low, he can just counterstrike at your head. He may limp home, but at least he'll have the chance. Double hits are a big concern fighting with a single sword each.Does this apply to all shields? Won't a large kite shield protect the legs already?

[Knaight]

Does this apply to all shields? Won't a large kite shield protect the legs already?

Somewhat, yes. Broadly speaking though shields are rarely large enough to simultaneously protect the head and the lower legs well, which can make feinting for one then the other particularly effective.

Sword and shield on both sides is one circumstance where this applies, but it's hardly the only one - spear against sword and shield is another major case, particularly if the spear has a long enough tip to cut with. Thrusting to the face then switching to a leg cut can be tricky to defend against, and even if you do it tends to leave you crouched deeply enough that a good spear fighter can take a step back.

With spear I use it mostly in two specific situations. One is at fairly long range, particularly against people building up speed; the change in reach between the high and low angle can often compensate for them closing a bit and gives two good opportunities to strike while also working well for getting to the side of their closing (the shield getting in the way of vision really helps here.

The other is once people are closer than I'd like them to be. Choking up heavily on the spear tends to line it up well for a high thrust (neck, face), and again the difference in angle lines up a good cut to the leg, which also puts your spear in a decent position to try and block while attempting to regain distance. It's still not a great situation to be in, but that particular maneuver has gotten me out of it a fair few times.

[Martin Greywolf]

Somewhat, yes. Broadly speaking though shields are rarely large enough to simultaneously protect the head and the lower legs well, which can make feinting for one then the other particularly effective.


This is a big modern artifact, if you ask me. Historically, I doubt many people bothered with blocking most blows to the head that much for one simple reason - helmets work really, really well. Lean into that blow and it'll do very little.

[Knaight]

This is a big modern artifact, if you ask me. Historically, I doubt many people bothered with blocking most blows to the head that much for one simple reason - helmets work really, really well. Lean into that blow and it'll do very little.

Open faced helmets were ubiquitous enough that this seems unlikely - particularly as all it takes to deal with someone leaning in is dropping your point a bit. Thrusts especially can be changed relatively little, and that's without getting into the question of how the new angle might direct them from helmet to face.

[Deepbluediver]

This is a big modern artifact, if you ask me. Historically, I doubt many people bothered with blocking most blows to the head that much for one simple reason - helmets work really, really well. Lean into that blow and it'll do very little.
Really? It just sounds very counter-intuitive to me that someone would want to tank a lot of blows to the head from a mace or axe, even with a helmet on. Particulary if it's an open-faced helm (https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0941/1252/products/sallat_open_face_archers_helm_medieval_combat_helm et_armour_2048x2048.jpg?v=1473485387).

[gkathellar]

Somewhat, yes. Broadly speaking though shields are rarely large enough to simultaneously protect the head and the lower legs well, which can make feinting for one then the other particularly effective.

Sword and shield on both sides is one circumstance where this applies, but it's hardly the only one - spear against sword and shield is another major case, particularly if the spear has a long enough tip to cut with. Thrusting to the face then switching to a leg cut can be tricky to defend against, and even if you do it tends to leave you crouched deeply enough that a good spear fighter can take a step back.

With spear I use it mostly in two specific situations. One is at fairly long range, particularly against people building up speed; the change in reach between the high and low angle can often compensate for them closing a bit and gives two good opportunities to strike while also working well for getting to the side of their closing (the shield getting in the way of vision really helps here.

The other is once people are closer than I'd like them to be. Choking up heavily on the spear tends to line it up well for a high thrust (neck, face), and again the difference in angle lines up a good cut to the leg, which also puts your spear in a decent position to try and block while attempting to regain distance. It's still not a great situation to be in, but that particular maneuver has gotten me out of it a fair few times.

Yeah, the cool thing about spears is that they can change targets really fast, just as a function of geometry.


This is a big modern artifact, if you ask me. Historically, I doubt many people bothered with blocking most blows to the head that much for one simple reason - helmets work really, really well. Lean into that blow and it'll do very little.

That seems unlikely to me. At the simplest level, nobody trains exclusively for sword-slashes to the helmet - even in fully armored combat, a fighter could reasonably expect all kinds of weapons and techniques that would mess them up even through can on their head, and not all combat is fully armored. A person is going to fight the way they've trained to fight, and if they haven't trained to defend their head, sooner or later they're going to take a pommel or the backswing of a poleaxe or an armored elbow to the brain, and it's going to ruin their day.

Beyond this, as Knaight says, a helmet's fallibility is subject to the limits of its design. Even with closed-face helmets, we have training manuals and diagrams that suggest people trained to stab for the eye-slits. And anyway, helmets can get lost in a melee - torn-off or ruined when things go south. Letting someone get that class to your head and neck in general can be a bad idea, because even if they don't hurt you through the helmet, they may be well-positioned to hurt you in other exciting ways.

[Lemmy]

So, I've been messing around with an armor system that splits armor into breastplate, helmet, vambraces and greaves (for simplicity's sake), which cover head, torso, arms/hands/shoulders and legs/feet protection, respectively.

With that in mind, I'd like to ask you:

How much did armor get in the way of riding a horse, climbing a wall/tree and swimming? And what parts of the armor do you think are the most detrimental to these activities?

[Galloglaich]

While it's called Codex Guide to the medieval Baltic, it actually is about 1450s Danzig. Not what I am actually looking for. I want to know what is going on in Denmark, Sweden, Novgorod, and Lithuania 200 years earlier.

Well I don't know if you have a copy or not - it's centered on Danzig / Gdansk but it covers quite a bit about Lithuania, and a fair amount of Sweden and Novgorod. Not so much about Denmark but a little. There are also a lot of books in the bibliography covering the entire medieval period for that region. If you don't already have a copy PM me and I'll send you for free.

As far as I know, my book is the only serious book which deals with the Late Medieval period in that region in English - if there are others I'd love to find them.

For the earlier period ~ 1250 somebody made this DnD supplement, which I read and thought was pretty well researched. I don't know if it's still available it's no longer on DriveThruRpg for some reason.

https://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/15/15542.phtml

There are two pretty good analysis of the Teutonic Knights / Baltic Crusades,

The Teutonic Knights by William Urban and The Northern Crusades by Eric Christiansen- the latter is I think also available in German and Swedish. Both of these get into the Danish and Swedish Crusaders a little and quite a bit into the Lithuanians, Prussians, Letts, Estonians and other Baltic tribes.

This is the best book I found on Lithuania, "Lithuania Ascending 1295-1345" (
https://www.amazon.com/Lithuania-Ascending-East-Central-1295-1345-Cambridge/dp/1107658764/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1514314617&sr=1-1&keywords=Lithuania+Ascending%3A+A+Pagan+Empire+wit hin+East-Central+Europe%2C+1295-1345) it's a bit limited but that was the best cross-section of readability with accuracy that I could find in English (there isn't much in English). There are also more academic books and articles for a deeper dive.

There is also this book, The Polish-Lithuanian State 1386 - 1795 (https://www.amazon.com/Polish-Lithuanian-1386-1795-History-Central-Europe/dp/0295980931/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1514314740&sr=1-1&keywords=polish+lithuanian+state) though it mostly deals with the Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth, it does get into some of the earlier Lithuanian history.

On the Livonian region and all those other Baltic peoples, there is the History Of the Baltic States (https://www.amazon.com/History-Baltic-Palgrave-Essential-Histories/dp/0230019412/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1514315027&sr=8-1&keywords=history+of+the+baltic+states) though it deals a lot with post-medieval periods, and beyond that I had to find individual histories of specific regions and cities. There is a good one available about Riga.

There is a lot more about them in Polish naturally, and if you can find Jan Dlusgosz transation he is an excellent source. Anneus Sylvio Piccolomini gets into Lithuania a bit in his history of Europe. For the spiritual side of things there are a bunch of books on Lithuanian pagan spirituality - the most famous being the works of Marija Gimbutas (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marija_Gimbutas), though some of this stuff is pretty far out and of questionable academic merit..

I wasn't able to find a single good source on the Nordic Union, as they tend to be divided up between Danish, Swedish and Norwegian histories which don't agree, and histories of Finland. The best source for the Swedish cities generally are the Hanseatic histories. You have to kind of piece all these together like a puzzle.

There are also some good primary sources available for that period and that part of the world, a few of which have been translated into English. The best one by far by my book is the Chronicle of Henry of Livonia. There is a good translation available on Amazon. This was written by a priest who many believe was actually a native Prussian himself, who was also present for a lot of the battles and explained a great deal about the Baltic people who he seemed to know well. There are also some absolutely insane battles and crazy incidents in the book.

https://www.amazon.com/Chronicle-Livonia-Records-Western-Civilization/dp/0231128894

There are a bunch of Chronicles and other literary sources for Novgorod but I've only ever been able to find partial translations into English. This is probably the most complete translation (https://www.amazon.com/Chronicle-Novgorod-1016-1471-Classic-Reprint/dp/133471441X/ref=sr_1_sc_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1514314491&sr=8-1-spell&keywords=chronciles+novgorod) I could find though it's basically just a photocopy scan with no index, and there was also some good tidbits from Novgorod in [this one (https://www.amazon.com/Medieval-Russias-Epics-Chronicles-Tales/dp/0452010861/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1514315261&sr=1-4&keywords=russian+chronicles).

Feel free to message me or post questions here if you have specific queries I do know a bit about Nordic Union, Novgorod and Lithuania. We have other folks here who know Denmark.


G

[Tobtor]

I got a recommendation request that someone here might be able to help with. Is there any good source on the history of the Baltic Sea and Eastern Europe region in the Late Middle Ages? I'm particularly interested in the Kalmar Union, Novgorod Republic, and Lithuania.

What should the source contains? Military history, political history or a more general overview? What languages? Primary or secondary litterature?

Unfortunately most of the books on Denmark and the Kalmar union (that I know of, its not really my main period) is in Danish or Swedish (or sometimes German). Books that spring to mind is swedish "Larsson, Lars-Olof: Kalmarunionens tid. Från drottning Margareta till Kristian II" and Danish "Bøgh, Anders: Sejren i kvindens hånd. Kampen om magten i Norden ca. 1365-89"

There are also some relatively recent books on the military and political background on the "baltic crusades" from a Danish perspective (unfortunately only in Danish I think).

If stuff from the 12th century is also of interest, the last books of Saxos Gesta Danorum is also of relevance (describiogn the early ventures to the baltic region, the conquest of Rügen etc).

[Tobtor]

Somewhat, yes. Broadly speaking though shields are rarely large enough to simultaneously protect the head and the lower legs well, which can make feinting for one then the other particularly effective.

Sword and shield on both sides is one circumstance where this applies, but it's hardly the only one - spear against sword and shield is another major case, particularly if the spear has a long enough tip to cut with. Thrusting to the face then switching to a leg cut can be tricky to defend against, and even if you do it tends to leave you crouched deeply enough that a good spear fighter can take a step back.

I strongly disagree. In fact I would argue that most shields are indeed large enough to do so quite effectively. That is from the shield era. When we get into late medieval targets and bucklers it might be different.

Lets get some numbers. I will assume two fighters on 180cm (fairly large medieval fighters, but not huge or unrealistic, and fits my height so other measurements can be done relatively). This is "straight height" thus fighting height when you bend your knees you get "shorter", lets say 160cm. A scutum could be 105cm (best preserved example), most round shields smaller, but still around 90cm (range from 85-105cm for iron age and Viking age round shields from Scandinavia).

The first thing is that it seem indeed to be too short for covering the 160cm of body (it is only slightly above half the height). And this is indeed true of the shield is hold tight into the body. But of course shields are not, or at least doesn't need to be.

I measured my standard fighting stance and the shield is around 40cm in front of me, extending up to 65-70cm when blocking actively (as I would as shield trust to my head). What does this mean? Well we get into angels. The further a shield is held from you the grater part of you it protects (from a target which originates in a fixed position in front of you).

Imagine a spearman striking at you from three different positions: shoulder high, middle of the body and low positioned spear. He can from each position strike high (yor head) and low (lower leg).

From middle and and low position his strikes to your head will likely have an angle that means it will go over your head, while the strike to your foot can be prevented if you move your front foot a few inches back and/or lower your shield just 5cm (assuming two-handed use of the spear and a 8,5foot spear, more if you are longer from each other and he uses a longer spear, but its still a very narrow room he has to strike for). From the high position, you need to lift your shield and angle it differently, but it doesn't really leave your feet as an open target, as the spear is then difficult to change direction towards the feet without you hitting the ground.

I have tried doing a quick sketch of what I mean (with middle, high and low position of the spear, and high and low thrusts for each version):

https://i.imgur.com/vQUYK3B.jpg

Since we last had the discussion I tried (with larp weapons and a helmet) to do some rounds where head and feet where targets, and if the shieldman moved in fast and used his shield against the spear (focused on the spear-tip, the spearman had no chance (lost like 9/10). Especially if hands where also a target (the spearman would lose his four front fingers quite often), if the hand was not a target the shield/swordman still could go for both body and lower arms.

This is also the experience I get reported from various other larpers, HEMA people (also ones who have tried training duelling spear techniques from the German schools), as well as re-eanctors who uses viking age shields of the correct size. Large shields IS very effective against spears!

The debate whether what is best shield/sword or spear (or staff), is an old one.

That Silver favours staff might be due to several factors unrelated to what is actually best:
First he seems to be very English-centric (like a medieval katana fanboy but with all things English instead).

Second is the way of fighting he is familiar with. While he might discuss un-armoured fencing, but most of the weapon-systems of his day is developed alongside late medieval armour, thus the targets tend to be much smaller then earlier shields. I think he claims to be very good with many weapons (mastered them all or something like that), but in fact he must be said to have trained within a specific training culture promoting a specific way of fighting.

Thirdly a spear/staff is (counter intuitively) a more defensive weapon than a shield/sword combination. Thus maybe the type of fighting he prefers is defensive. And it is true if the shield/swordsman is content with staying at a range he well eventually be defeated by the spearman.

As mentioned when most Viking age re-enactors fight duels the spearman is at a disadvantage against shield/sword (or shield axe etc), though in a line-battle spears are much more valuable. Now this have been argued is due to heads not being targets, but even with heads as targets I think the outcome will be the same (especially if we are talking correct sized shields).

Also I am an archaeologist, and I think historical sources such as Silver are less valuable than what people actually did. And while using the spear alone was certainly done, it only became the primary way of fighting after the introduction of heavy armour. So for the majority of time the spear/shield or hand-weapon/shield (like the Romans) have been the preferred equipment.

Some have in this thread suggested it was mainly about archers/missiles, but even in periods/fighting systems where missile weapons have played a minor role (like late bronze age and early iron age northern Europe where the only missile weapons is spears), people have preferred to use a shield.

Also shield/hand-weapon preferred in single combats (duels, holmgangs etc), though sometimes you see spear/shield. It is very rare before the plate period that people prefer to fight with large two handed spears for single combat, even if weapons choice is free. When a Viking meets another Viking in combat they either bring a javelin/sword/shield, a spear/shield with a secondary weapon (such as a sword or axe), or just a sword/axe and shield. They sometimes meet up with a dane-axe or other poleweapon aside from spears, but they very rarely show up using just a spear or a spear/secondary weapon for backup (you might find examples, and i can find 50 counter examples). It seems to be the least favoured weapon. The same also seem true of early and to some extend high medieval duels and single combats: a shield is also brought to one-on-one fights without missiles, even if a two-handed spear could have been chosen. Thus we must assume they also thought sword/shield was better than two-handed spear. From the sources I have seen (albeit somewhat fewer) this also goes for Greek/Roman periods as well.

Thus for millennia people have preferred to bring shields to both mas fights and single combats, modern re-enactors prefer to bring shields to single combats over having a twohanded spear. And all this I think we should not discount because what some crazy English dude was writing in the 16th century.

When dealing with heavy armoured opponents, I could see many advantages of the spear of a sword/shield (it is heavier thus better at stopping the enemy without having to penetrate the armour, also better at controlling the enemies weapon and getting close with a dagger etc). But just no in any situation were the sword-strike can be lethal.

[Max_Killjoy]

My impression of this ongoing debate is that the sword was held in such high regard for so long that for every element of justifiable "waitaminute", there's also a little element of backlash effect, of over-correcting, to the point where we sometimes see comments about the sword being a useless decoration, more of a symbol than a weapon.

[Tobtor]

My impression of this ongoing debate is that the sword was held in such high regard for so long that for every element of justifiable "waitaminute", there's also a little element of backlash effect, of over-correcting, to the point where we sometimes see comments about the sword being a useless decoration, more of a symbol than a weapon.

I agree. While a sword is not the main battle weapon (the spear is), there must have been a reason why it have gained the status it has in many "old" societies. If it was just a backup-weapon for reserve, it would never have gotten that status. It is true however, that things change toward the late medieval period,. While the sword in this context IS mainly a civilian weapon (because of status and versatility), and a backup weapon in war, earlier periods have it much more prevalent on the battle-field and even more so in skirmishes and single combats (and skirmishes amount to by far the majority of all encounters and I think even deaths in most prehistoric and early historic warfare).

[Mike_G]

Swords are very good weapons.

They are versatile. They are generally light and quick, being better balanced than axes, hammers or maces, and have better reach for the weight when compared to axes or maces or hammers. You can usually cut or thrust, depending on type, but most can do both, and they are easier to defend with than an axe or mace, and often give at least some protection to the hand.

They don't do as well against armor as a mace or hammer, and they lose on reach to a polearm, but swords are still a really good general purpose weapon.

[wolflance]

https://i.imgur.com/vQUYK3B.jpg

The debate whether what is best shield/sword or spear (or staff), is an old one.

(Sorry I steal your artwork and do a terrible paint job over it)

https://i.imgur.com/EyI1hyu.jpg

I will argue that spear length plays a major part in this advantage-disadvantage relation. While a shield the size of Viking shield can close off most attacks from shorter spears with relative ease, a longer spear can attack from much lower angles, forcing the shieldman to move his shield more and in larger movements in order to defend against the attacks, thus making him very susceptible to feint and tip the balance in favor of the spearman. (Despite the increased weight of longer spear, it is still definitely faster than shieldman can manipulate his shield)

The lower angle of attack also means that spear shaft is much harder to grab (since one have to move the hand more or even squat down to catch it), and the spearman is at even greater mechanical advantage to wrestle the spear away from enemy's grip (since he is holding the thicker/heavier end with two hands). More importantly, now he is generally safe from losing fingers.


EDIT: I should have used "narrower angle" instead of "lower angle", oh well.



The further a shield is held from you the grater part of you it protects.
Come to think of it, using longer spear is essentially utilizing the same concept, but in reverse. It is generally easier to increase the length of spear than human arm though.

[Clistenes]

(Sorry I steal your artwork and do a terrible paint job over it)

https://i.imgur.com/EyI1hyu.jpg

I will argue that spear length plays a major part in this advantage-disadvantage relation. While a shield the size of Viking shield can close off most attacks from shorter spears with relative ease, a longer spear can attack from much lower angles, forcing the shieldman to move his shield more and in larger movements in order to defend against the attacks, thus making him very susceptible to feint and tip the balance in favor of the spearman. (Despite the increased weight of longer spear, it is still definitely faster than shieldman can manipulate his shield)

The lower angle of attack also means that spear shaft is much harder to grab (since one have to move the hand more or even squat down to catch it), and the spearman is at even greater mechanical advantage to wrestle the spear away from enemy's grip (since he is holding the thicker/heavier end with two hands). More importantly, now he is generally safe from losing fingers.


Come to think of it, using longer spear is essentially utilizing the same concept, but in reverse. It is generally easier to increase the length of spear than human arm though.

You know, what you two are doing is basically the same thing the fencing masters of La Verdadera Destreza used to do: using geometry to prove the usefulness of a fencing tactic...

[Deepbluediver]

They don't do as well against armor as a mace or hammer, and they lose on reach to a polearm, but swords are still a really good general purpose weapon.
In addition to their performance on the battlefield, I've read a few things that suggest there were other things playing a role as well. I don't know exactly how much any of these factors contributed, but they all seem plausible.

First, I've heard that a sword is more technically difficult to smith than a mace or axe or spear. This obviously raises the price and prestige factor- people want what they can't have.

Second, I've heard that it takes more practice and training to use a sword than other weapons. This again limits who is likely to be using them to professional soldiers and the nobility. This makes them the go-to weapon of choice for artistic representations and they more readily become ensconced in popular culture.

Finally, there's convenience. Unless your to-do list includes "fight a battle", then going about your daily tasks with any kind of polearm in your hand is just silly. A sword or axe can be tucked into or hung from a belt, but I don't know of any simple way to "sheathe" such a weapon, and I'd worry about it poking me in the side or banging me in the legs. A sword, despite its greater length, seems like it would be easier to carry around. And I've read that the reason the main-gauche became a popular "offhand" weapon (leading to many misconceptions about dual-wielding) was because while it's inferior defensively, it's much much easier to carry, draw, and replace than a shield, even a buckler.

So like I said before, there might be lots of little reasons that all gave swords the edge, and while no one thing seems terribly significant all on its own, taken together they add up.



You know, what you two are doing is basically the same thing the fencing masters of La Verdadera Destreza used to do: using geometry to prove the usefulness of a fencing tactic...
So what I'm hearing is, the origins of geeks sitting around, trying to fight battles with math go back much MUCH farther than I realized. :smalltongue:

[gkathellar]

So like I said before, there might be lots of little reasons that all gave swords the edge, and while no one thing seems terribly significant all on its own, taken together they add up.

I think that in general, swords have the advantage of being multipurpose. They're easy to carry, making them suitable for both military and civilian environments. In any given combat setting (save, perhaps, heavily armored combat), most swords are at least okay at most things, and match up at least decently against just about every other weapon. From a training perspective, the skills acquired in swordsmanship are fairly universal, and form a solid grounding for training in other areas of the martial arts.


So what I'm hearing is, the origins of geeks sitting around, trying to fight battles with math go back much MUCH farther than I realized. :smalltongue:

My experience has been that martial arts masters are usually huge nerds of one type or another, yeah.

[Galloglaich]

A sword was excellent for defense, for protecting you from another weapon, this is almost never modeled in RPG's or computer games but

Almost every major fencing manual from the Late Medieval through Early Modern period covers a wide range of weapons from daggers or knives (and unarmed grappling) through pikes and long staves, and most masters had something to say about which was good for what circumstance. I.e. not just George Silver.

http://wiktenauer.com/images/thumb/9/96/Marozzo_29.png/366px-Marozzo_29.png

You also see a lot of judicial combats which start with both sword and spear depicted in many of the German language manuals.

http://academyofarms.com/images/tal_spear.jpg

I don't have time to get into the breakdown but in wide open spaces, long spears were given great 'honor' by the people with the expertise. Even pikes and (equivalent sized) so -called long staves were recommended for use as individual weapons by the fencing masters and this is born out in personal accounts by various figures of the Late Medieval and Early Modern period. For example in his famous autobiography the Italian artist Benvenutto Cellini mentions carrying pikes or lances with him on long journeys in the countryside and even gets in some fights with them.

The geometry demonstrated upthread between swords with shields vs. longer spears matches basically what most fencing masters, from Talhoffer to Marozzo say about such things. Shields had gotten smaller by the 14th Century but they never did truly go out of style and you do see fairly large rotella etc. in fencing manuals, as well as all kinds of other types of shields (Lithuanian style hand-pavise and so on), i.e. not just bucklers.

By the way as an aside, for those of you who do fence, I recommend trying out some of the I.33 buckler techniques, it's eye-opening. The halbshilt technique is extremely effective in defense, at least against another sword.

http://wiktenauer.com/images/thumb/4/47/MS_I.33_02r.jpg/300px-MS_I.33_02r.jpg

Understanding contradictions.

If you are going to understand medieval Europe, you have to learn to be able to grasp the cohabitation of contradictions which seem to, but don't, cancel one another out. The sword was the most important weapon, but it was actually not the main battlefield weapon.

The sword was for personal defense, on the battlefield the sword was the backup to a bunch of other possible weapons, but it was an indispensable backup. That was why it was so prestige. Lances broke, pikes became useless when the enemy got too close, crossbows and hacken-busche couldn't be reloaded in time, even halberd had their limitations.

There isn't a universal consensus, fencing masters did disagree. But the longer weapon usually had prescedence at least in Late Medieval battles. The kind of dynamics between spear and sword&shield (or halberd and sword&shield, bill and sword&shield, partisan vs. sword shield etc.) is well known, but I think most people in the HEMA world now, and most masters did give credit to the longer weapon as having at least initial superiority. Of course it does matter how well everyone involved is trained and so on, and each master had their own opinions.

I also disagree with Tobtor, respectfully, when he says for example that Germanic or Migration Era armies, or armies from the Classical world, didn't rely heavily on missiles. They did - they just used thrown weapons much more than in later eras (though they never went away). The main weapon of the Roman Legion was the Pilum. The Hoplies were heavy spearmen but the peltast were equally important (depending on the specific era). The main weapon of the Franks were the Angon (a pilum, basically) and their Francisca axe, meant for throwing.

https://www.ragweedforge.com/l-h.jpg

Lances were thrown, frequently
Spears of every kind
Javelins (like the pilum and later the angon)
Darts (like the plumbata, the Swiss Arrow and many others)
Axes (like the francesca and later the hurlbat and many others)
Maces, particularly light maces were thrown (particularly in the East)
Slings
and of course, Rocks which should not be underestimated and were used in the open field well into the firearm era.

As for HEMA people, I don't think I am alone in pointing out that the spear used in two hands has serious advantages against the sword with or without a shield. It is true that an experienced sword and shield guy can get a bind on the shield and run up close and kill the spear fighter, but conversely an experienced spear fighter can use the reach of the spear to attack the openings (esp. head or feet as has been noted). A similar dynamic exists between montante and sword & rotella, also well known in HEMA circles.

In fact the (arguably a bit more dangerous) montante was supposed to be used in situations where you were outnumbered. Including specifically when facing multiple rodoleros for example, there are many scenarios in the Iberian fencing manuals which describe this exact situation, such as you can see them drilling here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wd9y4h4Fp4I

Petro Monte says that the Montantante is for "when few must face many"


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8RWLxlzTiM

I am arguing a bit of a 'devils advocate' position here myself because I personally think that swords - in the hand of an experienced fighter, can equal the spear - we did see this historically with the rodoleros for example, but rodoleros had a harder time vs. halberds or montante than vs. pikes.

One of the advantages I think the sword did have, or at least, certain specific systems with certain types of swords, was an almost infinite potential for improvement. Two relative novices, one with a spear and one with a sword and shield, the spear guy wins I think. Move up to intermediate skill level, like a lot of SCA sword and board guys, the shield wins probably. But you move up to Master level and then it doesn't matter as much who has the intiial reach advantage and who can bind and rush.

Hand weapons can be a kind of paper scissors rocks kind of thing. We have such a strong attachment for a sword that we want it to be the be all and end all. That's why in fantasy movies so often you see a cavalry charge with no lances, infantry armies who don't use pikes or halberds or spears... but in the real world, the sword was a secondary weapon. It's just that when your primary weapon is an 18' spear or a one-shot firearm or crossbow, the secondary weapon is really important.

Especially since, regardless of which is best precisely the secondary weapon, the sidearm, the best of which is a sword (at least until the revolver comes around!), gives you a fighting chance and helps you defend yourself.

The medieval world is all about contradictions, you have to learn to embrace them lest you offend the locals!

[wolflance]

As for HEMA people, I don't think I am alone in pointing out that the spear used in two hands has serious advantages against the sword with or without a shield. It is true that an experienced sword and shield guy can get a bind on the shield and run up close and kill the spear fighter, but conversely an experienced spear fighter can use the reach of the spear to attack the openings (esp. head or feet as has been noted). A similar dynamic exists between montante and sword & rotella, also well known in HEMA circles.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8RWLxlzTiM

I am arguing a bit of a 'devils advocate' position here myself because I personally think that swords - in the hand of an experienced fighter, can equal the spear - we did see this historically with the rodoleros for example, but rodoleros had a harder time vs. halberds or montante than vs. pikes.

One of the advantages I think the sword did have, or at least, certain specific systems with certain types of swords, was an almost infinite potential for improvement. Two relative novices, one with a spear and one with a sword and shield, the spear guy wins I think. Move up to intermediate skill level, like a lot of SCA sword and board guys, the shield wins probably. But you move up to Master level and then it doesn't matter as much who has the intiial reach advantage and who can bind and rush.

Hand weapons can be a kind of paper scissors rocks kind of thing. We have such a strong attachment for a sword that we want it to be the be all and end all. That's why in fantasy movies so often you see a cavalry charge with no lances, infantry armies who don't use pikes or halberds or spears... but in the real world, the sword was a secondary weapon. It's just that when your primary weapon is an 18' spear or a one-shot firearm or crossbow, the secondary weapon is really important.

Especially since, regardless of which is best precisely the secondary weapon, the sidearm, the best of which is a sword (at least until the revolver comes around!), gives you a fighting chance and helps you defend yourself.

The medieval world is all about contradictions, you have to learn to embrace them lest you offend the locals!
While I consider myself firmly in the "spear" camp, I don't think buckler can serve as a good simulator of this spear-shield dynamic. I've seen people argue that it's wiser to just use a single sword against spear (so you can grab the spear shaft when chance arise), than using buckler.

Much of what Tobtor wrote is true, as shown in this video. The shield isn't even as large as Viking shield, but it does close off the line of attack from the short spear very effectively. However I also consider the spear way too short, as the spearman is basically threatened/within range of the sword for the entire time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WYKjoosrRRI

[Tobtor]

I will argue that spear length plays a major part in this advantage-disadvantage relation. While a shield the size of Viking shield can close off most attacks from shorter spears with relative ease, a longer spear can attack from much lower angles, forcing the shieldman to move his shield more and in larger movements in order to defend against the attacks, thus making him very susceptible to feint and tip the balance in favor of the spearman. (Despite the increased weight of longer spear, it is still definitely faster than shieldman can manipulate his shield)

Yes of course it does. So does shield size, the size of the fighter, how much he is crouched etc..

I used a spear of a height of 257cm (roughly 8,5feet) for my calculations. I also assumed it was held as we see in late medieval manuscripts (see Gs picture above as well as the ones in spoilers below). I assumed a relatively tall person for medieval perspectives (180cm), and average sized shield, and a normal fighting position. The shield man can duck his head another 5-10cm without loosing the ability to fight at all.

https://www.google.dk/imgres?imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Fqph.ec.quoracdn.net%2F main-qimg-d2deb33193c7d36b65b3f3737fb0be0a-c&imgrefurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.quora.com%2FIs-the-reverse-grip-of-any-practical-use-in-sword-duels&docid=qJRR7AEMJjHfRM&tbnid=xx9Wt-_EgBL_fM%3A&vet=10ahUKEwjPgpDvo6zYAhWODuwKHXzHC2MQMwhiKDIwMg.. i&w=384&h=341&client=firefox-b&bih=927&biw=1920&q=spear%20duels%20medieval&ved=0ahUKEwjPgpDvo6zYAhWODuwKHXzHC2MQMwhiKDIwMg&iact=mrc&uact=8

https://www.google.dk/imgres?imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Fi.pinimg.com%2F736x%2F 04%2F29%2Fbd%2F0429bdcaf5714f8434138ed74e8a0894--boar-spear-medieval-weapons.jpg&imgrefurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.pinterest.com%2Fexplor e%2Fboar-spear%2F&docid=krc487IOWHpBMM&tbnid=r7OTMcbaQpi5wM%3A&vet=10ahUKEwjPgpDvo6zYAhWODuwKHXzHC2MQMwgvKAkwCQ.. i&w=300&h=217&client=firefox-b&bih=927&biw=1920&q=spear%20duels%20medieval&ved=0ahUKEwjPgpDvo6zYAhWODuwKHXzHC2MQMwgvKAkwCQ&iact=mrc&uact=8

And similar pictures. We cant know how exactly the spear was held in earlier periods, but I assumed similar positions, as well as "overhand" balanced position for my tests.

I then measured the "relaxed distance" and a "normal thrust distance", and a "full lunge distance" (by gradually moving the shieldman forward). Only at full lunge (both arms in front of you, both hands slided down to the back end of the spear) the spear thrust forced the shield guy to move the shield more than 5-10cm up or down....

Remember I answered Knaight:


Somewhat, yes. Broadly speaking though shields are rarely large enough to simultaneously protect the head and the lower legs well, which can make feinting for one then the other particularly effective.

When doing a full lunge, you cannot quickly change target from head to foot. Also full lunges are (opposed to normal thrusts) easier to see in advance. In most cases you can move your feet if someone does a full lunge with a spear against them, so you don't need to block the spear (cutting with the spear is also hard when holding both hands at the end of the spear). In all cases getting into a "bind" with a shield against the spear at full lunge distance give you VERY good control of the enemy spear. I also does not seem that is what is happening in the medieval pictures.

Thus is someone makes a feint at your legs you should not move your shield from your upper body (if its a full sized round shield or a scutum type shield), if the spearman is fighting normally and with a 8,5feet spear. He either cannot hit your feet, or has to do a full lunge which is easily avoided or forced into a bind with your shield.


Come to think of it, using longer spear is essentially utilizing the same concept, but in reverse. It is generally easier to increase the length of spear than human arm though.

But it is equally easy to increase the size of the shield, which gives the same effect. It is true if you go with long spears such as sarissa/pikes wich are above 10feet then the dynamic changes.


Much of what Tobtor wrote is true, as shown in this video. The shield isn't even as large as Viking shield, but it does close off the line of attack from the short spear very effectively. However I also consider the spear way too short, as the spearman is basically threatened/within range of the sword for the entire time.

I agree it is a very short spear (though we do see such short spears sometimes). But in percent it is not as much smaller as it should be as the shield. The shield is ridiculously small compared to iron age/early medieval shields. Remember the late medieval period is one of 2-300 years, thus about than a quarter of the period in which round shields where dominant in northern Europe (from roughly 1AD-1100), and before this rectangular shields of Celtic design have the same size.

See the shield Roland has here (and how easily he moves it):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mP7xP0j_Fn8

On spear length:
This varies greatly. We have both the greek sarissa and later pikes which are very long. But baring this, it seem that spears of 8-9feet are usually "long spears", why I used one on this length for my tests and measurements (and also because that what the larp spear I could get a hand on, as head was a target).

[Tobtor]

A sword was excellent for defense, for protecting you from another weapon, this is almost never modeled in RPG's or computer games

I agree. Most games should model weapon defence much better (some like DnD doesnt have it all, some like GURPS have at leats have it).


Almost every major fencing manual from the Late Medieval through Early Modern period covers a wide range of weapons from daggers or knives (and unarmed grappling) through pikes and long staves, and most masters had something to say about which was good for what circumstance. I.e. not just George Silver.

I didnt argue otherwise. It is just that they are all from a period of using plate armour (which changes the dynamic of a fight). Even when they are discussing unarmoured combat the techniques, weapons and shields is from a weapon system that includes relatively "cheap" armour, with very good coverage/defence. Thus how you fight and the traditions are related to this.



You also see a lot of judicial combats which start with both sword and spear depicted in many of the German language manuals.

Which is why I specificallye was talking about iron age/early medieval (and to some extend high medieval) periods. That is pre-plate.


I don't have time to get into the breakdown but in wide open spaces, long spears were given great 'honor' by the people with the expertise. Even pikes and (equivalent sized) so -called long staves were recommended for use as individual weapons by the fencing masters and this is born out in personal accounts by various figures of the Late Medieval and Early Modern period. For example in his famous autobiography the Italian artist Benvenutto Cellini mentions carrying pikes or lances with him on long journeys in the countryside and even gets in some fights with them.

Again I agree. But it all relates to a late medieval world, which is a fraction of the period in which swords, shields and spears co-existed.


The geometry demonstrated upthread between swords with shields vs. longer spears matches basically what most fencing masters, from Talhoffer to Marozzo say about such things. Shields had gotten smaller by the 14th Century but they never did truly go out of style and you do see fairly large rotella etc. in fencing manuals, as well as all kinds of other types of shields (Lithuanian style hand-pavise and so on), i.e. not just bucklers.

Again, no disagreement from here.



[QUOTE]Understanding contradictions.

If you are going to understand medieval Europe, you have to learn to be able to grasp the cohabitation of contradictions which seem to, but don't, cancel one another out. The sword was the most important weapon, but it was actually not the main battlefield weapon.

The sword was for personal defense, on the battlefield the sword was the backup to a bunch of other possible weapons, but it was an indispensable backup. That was why it was so prestige. Lances broke, pikes became useless when the enemy got too close, crossbows and hacken-busche couldn't be reloaded in time, even halberd had their limitations.

First: I dislike how you equate medieval with just the period from 1350-1600. To understand medieval you might as well take the 800-1100 "Carolingian" world into consideration...

But yes, spears/poelarms ARE the main battlefield weapon. I said as much in my post as well. Exception exists (the Romans, while you could argue the pilum, the sword is definitewly the main CLOSE combat weapon, also in battles). But I was specificaæy discussing non-large scale battles, but duels, smaller skirmishes etc, which is much more frequent (and also more important if you want to model an RPG, as large pitched battles are rarely the setting for an RPG).


There isn't a universal consensus, fencing masters did disagree. But the longer weapon usually had prescedence at least in Late Medieval battles. The kind of dynamics between spear and sword&shield (or halberd and sword&shield, bill and sword&shield, partisan vs. sword shield etc.) is well known, but I think most people in the HEMA world now, and most masters did give credit to the longer weapon as having at least initial superiority. Of course it does matter how well everyone involved is trained and so on, and each master had their own opinions.

Again I totally agree, both in late medieval battles and in earlier ones, most systems have focussed on spears. The techniques employed by sword/shield against spear is to get close/within reach (and often making the spearman having to shorten his grip constantly making it more and more awkward). This is VERY impractical dangerous in "line-fighting", mass battles as the spearman will have friends who will kill you if you try (romans with their great dicipline, relatively heavy armour and large shields got away with it though).



I also disagree with Tobtor, respectfully, when he says for example that Germanic or Migration Era armies, or armies from the Classical world, didn't rely heavily on missiles. They did - they just used thrown weapons much more than in later eras (though they never went away). The main weapon of the Roman Legion was the Pilum. The Hoplies were heavy spearmen but the peltast were equally important (depending on the specific era). The main weapon of the Franks were the Angon (a pilum, basically) and their Francisca axe, meant for throwing.

Then it is a good thing I didn't say that!

I said:



Some have in this thread suggested it was mainly about archers/missiles, but even in periods/fighting systems where missile weapons have played a minor role (like late bronze age and early iron age northern Europe where the only missile weapons is spears), people have preferred to use a shield.

I said northern Eurpoope in this context (meaning - not the classical world). Secondly I said late bronze age-early iron age. Which is the period roughly 1200BC-350AD. Around 150-200AD bows begin to play a role. Migration era is later (roughly the following period)

I also noted that they DID have missile weapons "only missile weapons is spears".


Lances were thrown, frequently
Spears of every kind
Javelins (like the pilum and later the angon)

To me thrown lances, spears and javelins are basically the same concept, its mainly a matter of size.


Axes (like the francesca and later the hurlbat and many others)
Maces, particularly light maces were thrown (particularly in the East)

And not in the period/region I was discussing.


Slings
and of course, Rocks which should not be underestimated and were used in the open field well into the firearm era.

These are the only one which could be present, as they are hard to identify archaologically. Though Roman authors does not mention Germanic tribes using them to any great extend to my knowledge.



As for HEMA people, I don't think I am alone in pointing out that the spear used in two hands has serious advantages against the sword with or without a shield. It is true that an experienced sword and shield guy can get a bind on the shield and run up close and kill the spear fighter, but conversely an experienced spear fighter can use the reach of the spear to attack the openings (esp. head or feet as has been noted). A similar dynamic exists between montante and sword & rotella, also well known in HEMA circles.

Without a shield, I am sure you are right. Against a buckler likewise (though the odds for the swordsman might improve a bit). But most HEMA people fight mainly against relatively small shields (and typically have little practise with shields as Matt Easton say in the video posted by wolflance). The ones I met who had tried against larger targets types or even better viking age shields, did recognise it was VERY difficult to get past the shield using the spear techniques suggested from the manuals.


In fact the (arguably a bit more dangerous) montante was supposed to be used in situations where you were outnumbered. Including specifically when facing multiple rodoleros for example, there are many scenarios in the Iberian fencing manuals which describe this exact situation, such as you can see them drilling here
Petro Monte says that the Montantante is for "when few must face many"


I agree. When surrounded having a large cutting/chopping weapon to keep the enemy at bay is essentially your best option (though in the drilling the 5 rodeleros are very passive, but I do think you can do well against 2-3 people (though a single fighter will always be at a disadvantage - but not as much as you might think). I also noted that the spear (in many ways) are very good defensively, due to both reach and the long shaft which can block a lot of stuff. The spear IS a very good weapon. But again I want to note that for troops without a lot of armour it was USUALLY (that is you might find exceptions) it was used with a shield (eg: greek, celtic, roman, germinc, viking, early medieval)


One of the advantages I think the sword did have, or at least, certain specific systems with certain types of swords, was an almost infinite potential for improvement. Two relative novices, one with a spear and one with a sword and shield, the spear guy wins I think. Move up to intermediate skill level, like a lot of SCA sword and board guys, the shield wins probably. But you move up to Master level and then it doesn't matter as much who has the intiial reach advantage and who can bind and rush.

hmm.. I have trained a lot of larp-fighters, and while it is true that if you stick a shield/sword to one guy, and a spear to the other, then the spear might win (due to the fact that most will mainly focus on hitting the other person and no planning ahead, and then reach is king). But after maybe 30minutes I can teach the shield person to get in and deliver blows to hands, arms and body without getting hit. So you do not need to be "SCA" level efficiency to beat the spear.

About the master level thing, I think that is true if you are at buckler and maybe target type shields, but with larger shields I think the shield person keeps the advantage.

Dont ignore what I said about single combats in history: it is very rare (pre late medieval) to show up to a duel or a surprise attack etc. without a shield! If a two handed spear was more efficient (or just as efficient) you would see more people doing so. They would think "hey I need to kill this dude who uses a sword/shield, I should bring my spear!". Sometimes they bring a spear and shield and sword (and quite often throw the spear), but never just a spear. It seem that shield/hand-weapon was preferred over non-shield spear use for millenia (shield/hand weapon and shield spear being another matter completely), should we discard millennia of practise due to what happens in the late medieval where poeple have MUCH better armour (and thus less need for a shield)?



Hand weapons can be a kind of paper scissors rocks kind of thing. We have such a strong attachment for a sword that we want it to be the be all and end all. That's why in fantasy movies so often you see a cavalry charge with no lances, infantry armies who don't use pikes or halberds or spears... but in the real world, the sword was a secondary weapon. It's just that when your primary weapon is an 18' spear or a one-shot firearm or crossbow, the secondary weapon is really important.

Again I very much agree. I also keep noting that on a battlefield spears (and other pole weapons) are king! However, the importance of swords cannot be ascribed to only "civilian" use and as a backup. It was ALSO a very important battlefield weapons (the Romans, etc), ESPECIALLY before the late medieval period.

Sword is ALSO a very effective weapon in one on one combat situations (and smaller skirmishes). From a larp perspective in a 3 on 3 fight I would rather have 3 sword/shield people, than 3 speaman without shields. If we are talking 100 on 100 I would prefer speamen. In both cases I would prefer to have more shields (unless we factor in plate armour as a substitute for shields etc). That is 100spear/shield people would be better than 100 speamen with no shields.
But in a smaller group (again 3 people) having 1 or 2 spearmen and 1 or 2 using a shorter weapon (sword/axe/mace) and shield is even better. When the weight changes and the exact ratio depends on lots of factors like terrain etc.

The problem is that we have many situations to account for. But if the purpose is to model it for an RPG, then we must consider what type of action our players are to get into (and how the armour is etc). If they are to fight battles, they simply NEED a poleweapon or a ranged weapon (bow etc). Here a hand weapon is a nice addition, but not "the essential".

If they are to fight individually or in very small groups they NEED either plate armour or shields. And here a hand weapon should be chosen over a poleweapon (for at least some in the group, having a dedicated speaman miggt be very usefull). You could ideally also equip all your "fighters" with both pole-weapon and sword and hand weapon.

[Kiero]

I also disagree with Tobtor, respectfully, when he says for example that Germanic or Migration Era armies, or armies from the Classical world, didn't rely heavily on missiles. They did - they just used thrown weapons much more than in later eras (though they never went away). The main weapon of the Roman Legion was the Pilum. The Hoplies were heavy spearmen but the peltast were equally important (depending on the specific era). The main weapon of the Franks were the Angon (a pilum, basically) and their Francisca axe, meant for throwing.


Indeed, and there's evidence that hoplites might carry a second, lighter spear (like the longche) to throw in the early part of an engagement, before the clash of bronze. Philip and Alexander's pikemen were dual-trained as javelineers (actually, many were highlanders who used them to hunt), and a portion of them could be told off as peltasts whenever their commander deemed it necessary (such as in sieges).

Move into the Hellenistic era, and everyone had a javelin or two, largely because of the influence of the Celts (at least in Europe). The most common Hellenistic soldier, the thureophoros, had a javelin, spear and sword. The Romans carried on the same trend, though their exposure was to Samnites as well as Celts.


I said northern Eurpoope in this context (meaning - not the classical world). Secondly I said late bronze age-early iron age. Which is the period roughly 1200BC-350AD. Around 150-200AD bows begin to play a role. Migration era is later (roughly the following period)

I also noted that they DID have missile weapons "only missile weapons is spears".

To me thrown lances, spears and javelins are basically the same concept, its mainly a matter of size.


Javelins and spears really aren't "the same thing, but different sizes". Most javelins are far too flimsy to be used as a melee weapon - especially the sort of simple, fire-hardened sticks that often passed as javelins in the north. Many war-spears were poorly weighted for flight and made terrible missile weapons.

There were notable exceptions - the framea was a heavier sort of javelin that could be used for both purposes. But they were exceptions.

[Knaight]

Thus is someone makes a feint at your legs you should not move your shield from your upper body (if its a full sized round shield or a scutum type shield), if the spearman is fighting normally and with a 8,5feet spear. He either cannot hit your feet, or has to do a full lunge which is easily avoided or forced into a bind with your shield.

The feint described was to the face, the two dimensional depiction you're using ignores how shields were routinely rounded (both backwards and such that the line down the center went up and down further than the edges), and most critically the matter of depth of crouch can change for both combatants. The results of this are of shields not protecting every angle at once - which is also attested to by the numerous stab wounds people with shields picked up. That's without getting into the question of the shield being forcibly moved.

I'm not saying that it's an unbeatable technique or anything (what with shields being movable). I'm not even saying that a spear in two hands necessarily has an advantage against a large shield. My claim is simply that a shot to the head routinely opens up the lower leg.

[wolflance]

Yes of course it does. So does shield size, the size of the fighter, how much he is crouched etc..

But it is equally easy to increase the size of the shield, which gives the same effect. It is true if you go with long spears such as sarissa/pikes wich are above 10feet then the dynamic changes.

Indeed, however there's certain limit on how much one can enlarge the size of his shield before it become too heavy/unwieldy to be held with a center-grip away from the body, so there's a trade off in there. Plus larger shield also affect how easy the user can run (i.e. charge the spear).

There's a similar limit on spear too (at some point it will become too long and sluggish), although it isn't as harsh as the shield. One can, for example, increase the length of his spear by 30% (so a 8.5 ft spear become a 11ft...half pike), maybe more, and generally not compromising anything on his combat performance.



I used a spear of a height of 257cm (roughly 8,5feet) for my calculations. I also assumed it was held as we see in late medieval manuscripts (see Gs picture above as well as the ones in spoilers below). I assumed a relatively tall person for medieval perspectives (180cm), and average sized shield, and a normal fighting position. The shield man can duck his head another 5-10cm without loosing the ability to fight at all.
For some reason the pictures (?) in the spoiler tags don't work for me, so I am not too sure about what you are trying to show. The left guy in Galloglaich's picture is wielding his spear as if he is going to wrestle with it, which given the context (armored combat) isn't too surprising. While this is certainly a valid way to hold and use the spear, it does shorten the reach a bit.


Remember I answered Knaight:

When doing a full lunge, you cannot quickly change target from head to foot. Also full lunges are (opposed to normal thrusts) easier to see in advance. In most cases you can move your feet if someone does a full lunge with a spear against them, so you don't need to block the spear (cutting with the spear is also hard when holding both hands at the end of the spear). In all cases getting into a "bind" with a shield against the spear at full lunge distance give you VERY good control of the enemy spear. I also does not seem that is what is happening in the medieval pictures.

Thus is someone makes a feint at your legs you should not move your shield from your upper body (if its a full sized round shield or a scutum type shield), if the spearman is fighting normally and with a 8,5feet spear. He either cannot hit your feet, or has to do a full lunge which is easily avoided or forced into a bind with your shield.
The key purpose of feinting is to confuse the opponent so that he:
1) react against a feint attack, or
2) not reacting against an actual attack.

It's more tied to skill and experience that weapon difference. When it works, it works even with short spear/other weapons (as in the previous video). Spear and other thrusting-based weapons (like rapier) is good for feint because it is harder to predict a point attack compared to an attack that draw a line, and the attack might change target mid-course.

Longer spear allows the user to feint with impunity since he doesn't have to worry about being threatened as he attack, and if it is long enough, force the opponent to react. It also allows more time for the spearman to backstep AND retract his spear at the same time should his opponent charge in. However despite this it IS still possible to charge in and get a good hack at him.



I agree it is a very short spear (though we do see such short spears sometimes). But in percent it is not as much smaller as it should be as the shield. The shield is ridiculously small compared to iron age/early medieval shields. Remember the late medieval period is one of 2-300 years, thus about than a quarter of the period in which round shields where dominant in northern Europe (from roughly 1AD-1100), and before this rectangular shields of Celtic design have the same size.
The spear is ridiculously short not (just) in relation to the shield, but in relation to the sword. There are some instances that the swordsman manage to cut the spearman before he even finish his thrust, or the swordsman simply snipe his left hand.

(but I do agree that such a short spear is still historical)