PDA

View Full Version : Got a Real-World Weapon, Armor or Tactics Question? Mk. XXVII



Pages : [1] 2 3 4 5 6

Brother Oni
2018-10-16, 06:42 AM
Real World Weapon, Armour and Tactics Thread XXVII

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

A few rules for this thread:


This thread is for asking questions about how weapons, armour and tactics really work. As such, it's not going to include game rule statistics. If you have such a question, especially if it stems from an answer or question in this thread, feel free to start a new thread and include a link back to here. If you do ask a rule question here, you'll be asked to move it elsewhere, and then we'll be happy to help out with it.
Any weapon or time period is open for questions. Medieval and ancient warfare questions seem to predominate, but since there are many games set in other periods as well, feel free to ask about any weapon. This includes futuristic ones - but be aware that these will be likely assessed according to their real life feasibility. Thus, phasers, for example, will be talked about in real-world science and physics terms rather than the Star Trek canon. If you want to discuss a fictional weapon from a particular source according to the canonical explanation, please start a new thread for it.
Please try to cite your claims if possible. If you know of a citation for a particular piece of information, please include it. However, everyone should be aware that sometimes even the experts don't agree, so it's quite possible to have two conflicting answers to the same question. This isn't a problem; the asker of the question can examine the information and decide which side to go with. The purpose of the thread is to provide as much information as possible. Debates are fine, but be sure to keep it a friendly debate (even if the experts can't!).
No modern real-world political discussion. As the great Carl von Clausevitz once said, "War is merely the continuation of policy by other means," so politics and war are heavily intertwined. However, politics are a big hot-button issue and one banned on these boards, so avoid political analysis if at all possible (this thread is primarily about military hardware and tactics). There's more leeway on this for anything prior to about 1800, but be very careful with all of it, and anything past 1900 is surely not open for analysis (These are arbitrary dates but any dates would be, and these are felt to be reasonable).
No graphic descriptions. War is violent, dirty, and horrific, and anyone discussing it should be keenly aware of that. However, on this board graphic descriptions of violence (or sexuality) are not allowed, so please avoid them.
A few additional comments following the premature demise of the last thread: Words from Roland St. Jude (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=23417769&postcount=794).

With that done, have at and enjoy yourselves!

Thread I (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?24294-Got-A-Weapon-or-Armor-Question)
Thread III (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?21318-Got-a-Real-World-Weapon-or-Armor-Question-III)
Thread IV (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?18302-Got-a-Real-World-Weapon-or-Armor-Question-Mk-IV)
Thread V (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?80863-Got-a-Real-World-Weapon-or-Armor-Question-Mk-V)
Thread VI (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?124683-Got-a-Real-World-Weapon-or-Armor-Question-Mk-VI)
Thread VII (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?168432-Got-a-Real-World-Weapon-or-Armor-Question-Mk-VII)
Thread VIII (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?192911-Got-a-Real-World-Weapon-or-Armor-Question-Mk-VIII)
Thread IX (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?217159-Got-a-Real-World-Weapon-or-Armor-Question-Mk-IX)
Thread X (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?238042-Got-a-Real-World-Weapons-or-Armour-Question-Mk-X)
Thread XI (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?255453-Got-a-Real-World-Weapons-or-Armour-Question-Mk-XI)
Thread XII (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?282471-Got-a-Real-World-Weapons-or-Armour-Question-Mk-XII)
Thread XIII (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?308462-Got-a-Real-World-Weapons-or-Armour-Question-Mk-XIII)
Thread XIV (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?327994-Got-a-Real-World-Weapon-or-Armor-Question-Mk-XIV)
Thread XV (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?347806-Got-a-Real-World-Weapon-or-Armour-Question-Mk-XV)
Thread XVI (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?371623-Got-a-Real-World-Weapon-Armor-or-Tactics-Question-Mk-XVI)
Thread XVII (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?392804-Got-a-Real-World-Weapon-Armor-or-Tactics-Question-Mk-XVII)
Thread XVIII (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?421723-Got-a-Real-World-Weapon-Armor-or-Tactics-Question-Mk-XVIII)
Thread XIX (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?454083-Got-a-Real-World-Weapon-Armor-or-Tactics-Question-Mk-XIX)
Thread XX (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?480058-Got-a-Real-World-Weapon-Armor-or-Tactics-Question-Mk-XX)
Thread XXI (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?493127-Got-a-Real-World-Weapon-Armor-or-Tactics-Question-Mk-XXI)
Thread XXII (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?503643-Got-a-Real-World-Weapon-Armor-or-Tactics-Question-Mk-XXII)
Thread XXIII (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?518251-Got-a-Real-World-Weapon-Armor-or-Tactics-Question-Mk-XXIII)
Thread XXIV (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?532903-Got-a-Real-World-Weapon-Armor-or-Tactics-Question-Mk-XXIV)
Thread XXV (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?548448-Got-a-Real-World-Weapon-Armor-or-Tactics-Question-Mk-XXV)
Thread XXVI (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?564037-Got-a-Real-World-Weapon-Armor-or-Tactics-Question-Mk-XXVI)

gkathellar
2018-10-16, 07:10 AM
iiiiiit's baaaaack :smallbiggrin:

Are there cases of concepts analogous (even roughly) to qi/ki/chi/jin/jing/internal power/whocares/etc appearing in the historical literature on Western martial arts? If so, what are these concepts like and what European cultural concepts do they relate to?

Carl
2018-10-16, 10:38 AM
Yay, i have to admit between missing the previous threads whatever it was and the long lock for review i was starting to get really worried.

Thiel
2018-10-16, 10:58 AM
Are there cases of concepts analogous (even roughly) to qi/ki/chi/jin/jing/internal power/whocares/etc appearing in the historical literature on Western martial arts? If so, what are these concepts like and what European cultural concepts do they relate to?

I've never heard of it and given the world view of the Abrahamic religions I wouldn't expect there to be. Chi etc. only seem to exist as a martial concept in cultures that view god/enlightenment/etc. as an internal thing, to some degree. Enlightenment comes from within and so on.

In Christianity, on the other hand, enlightenment comes from God, and though man was made by god we are separate from him. The prophets didn't sit down under a tree for a good hard think, they encountered angels or burning bushes.

The Jack
2018-10-16, 11:26 AM
I too am very interested in this chi question. If I were to write a fantasy setting, it wouldn't make sense for Europeans to not be copying the whacky chi powers of East Asia, were they so powerful.

I'm sure there's something there for Hermetic theory/Gnostic thought, but I don't know enough about either of them to say for sure.


I've been reading some... I think it was called Xianxia, where everyone cultivates chi for superpowers. Demon beasts, disembodied masters and alchemical pills... They really use these ideas over and over again, so I'm wondering where it's all from, and if Europe has any equivalents... but I think it's the wrong thread.


I had my own question i really wanted to ask while this thread was locked... but it's been locked for so long that I forgot!

Clistenes
2018-10-16, 02:20 PM
I too am very interested in this chi question. If I were to write a fantasy setting, it wouldn't make sense for Europeans to not be copying the whacky chi powers of East Asia, were they so powerful.

I'm sure there's something there for Hermetic theory/Gnostic thought, but I don't know enough about either of them to say for sure.


I've been reading some... I think it was called Xianxia, where everyone cultivates chi for superpowers. Demon beasts, disembodied masters and alchemical pills... They really use these ideas over and over again, so I'm wondering where it's all from, and if Europe has any equivalents... but I think it's the wrong thread.


I had my own question i really wanted to ask while this thread was locked... but it's been locked for so long that I forgot!

Those ideas come from what is called "Practical Taoism". Taoism (probably) started as a life phylosophy... it was all about how you perceived the universe and lived your life. However, it got mixed with religious ideas, theories about how the human body worked, alchemical and medical attempts to prolong life... and eventually it developed into a group of sects based around the teachings of supposed immortal elders. Said sects gained a lot of power, becoming close to being the official imperial religion (they have been compared to Christianism during the late Roman Empire), before Confucianism gained the ideologic battle and became the mainstream political doctrine, while traditional chinese religion and Buddhism recovered influence in the religious front...

Those Taoist sects revered divinized sages, but what they offered to its adherents were a set of practices that supposedly helped the followers to prolong their lives, and if they were good enough, become divine spirits after death, of even living gods before death.

At the beginning those sects were focused on the creation of secret pills and elixirs that allowed followers to achieve longevity and immortality, but at later stages they shifted to meditative practices, breathing exercises, sexual techniques, special diets, magical rites and physical exercises, and they (mostly) changed from powerful religious-political movements into private esoteric practices that educated people discreetly practiced at home (well, martial artists, physicians, priests, exorcists... etc., tended to be quite public about it, since it helped their credibility...).

Thiel
2018-10-16, 03:56 PM
I have a question that's tangentially related to this thread. Is there any good nautical fiction out there that takes place during the rise of steam? 1830ish to 1880ish?

DeTess
2018-10-16, 04:09 PM
Something I've seen pop up in fantasy literature now and again is the concept of 'sword-and-bows', a type of infantry that would be trained in both a melee weapon and a ranged weapon. I know the Roman legionaries used javelins as ranged weapons, but I'm wondering if there was any established military doctrine that used troops equally proficient at a main ranged weapon (like a bow or crossbow) and a melee weapon.

Clistenes
2018-10-16, 04:35 PM
Something I've seen pop up in fantasy literature now and again is the concept of 'sword-and-bows', a type of infantry that would be trained in both a melee weapon and a ranged weapon. I know the Roman legionaries used javelins as ranged weapons, but I'm wondering if there was any established military doctrine that used troops equally proficient at a main ranged weapon (like a bow or crossbow) and a melee weapon.

The ancient Persian 10,000 Immortals (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immortals_(Achaemenid_Empire)), maybe...?

ExLibrisMortis
2018-10-16, 07:47 PM
What kind of resources does a war elephant take up? How many horses, roughly, would you be able to bring on campaign instead of an elephant? Can you feed elephants through grazing/browsing alone, if time and terrain permit?

(Inspired by Civ5, where certain civilizations spend entire eras employing only elephants as cavalry :smalltongue:.)

gkathellar
2018-10-16, 08:17 PM
Something I've seen pop up in fantasy literature now and again is the concept of 'sword-and-bows', a type of infantry that would be trained in both a melee weapon and a ranged weapon. I know the Roman legionaries used javelins as ranged weapons, but I'm wondering if there was any established military doctrine that used troops equally proficient at a main ranged weapon (like a bow or crossbow) and a melee weapon.

I believe it was mentioned in a prior thread that Philip II of Macedonia trained the main body of his force in both javelin and long spear, allowing his troops to shift from dense formation fighting to skirmishing as needed. It helped that many of his soldiers would have already been familiar with the javelin from their day-to-day lives, and by Alexander's era, I believe they'd abandoned the matter.

It also wouldn't have been terribly unusual for heavy infantry or especially heavy cavalry in the High Medieval/Renaissance to carry a small crossbow, or a brace of pistols. It's hard to say they would've been equally proficient, but there's some interesting stuff in military manuals depicting the use of long and short firearms at close range against melee weapons.

Mendicant
2018-10-16, 08:20 PM
Something I've seen pop up in fantasy literature now and again is the concept of 'sword-and-bows', a type of infantry that would be trained in both a melee weapon and a ranged weapon. I know the Roman legionaries used javelins as ranged weapons, but I'm wondering if there was any established military doctrine that used troops equally proficient at a main ranged weapon (like a bow or crossbow) and a melee weapon.

For the most part I don't think this would be the case, as line infantry were generally spear or polearm-equipped and that's just not a convenient combination with a bow or a brace of javelins or whatever.

The only frequent exception to this rule I can think of are various cavalry who could more conveniently carry a variety of weapons. Cataphracts, samurai, a lot of noble cavalry in central asia and probably other formations all operated as multi-role cavalry at various points in their history.

InvisibleBison
2018-10-16, 10:26 PM
What kind of resources does a war elephant take up? How many horses, roughly, would you be able to bring on campaign instead of an elephant? Can you feed elephants through grazing/browsing alone, if time and terrain permit?

(Inspired by Civ5, where certain civilizations spend entire eras employing only elephants as cavalry :smalltongue:.)

Elephant need about 200 to 600 pounds of food each day; horses need about ten to twenty pounds. Thus, one elephant eats as much as 10 to 60 horses. And letting your elephants subsist off of grazing is probably impossible - wild elephants spend 12 to 18 hours each day feeding.

snowblizz
2018-10-17, 04:02 AM
I have a question that's tangentially related to this thread. Is there any good nautical fiction out there that takes place during the rise of steam? 1830ish to 1880ish?
I suspect it's unlikely there's much. For the following reason, it was a transitional period with little proper nautical warfare. The period after Napoleonic wars were sort of peaceful (in relation to the immediately preceding and following periods). Despite the Crimean, ACW and Franco-Prussian wars. At least in a naval sense. Only the ACW and Crimean war had naval action of any note and a lot of it isn't going to be the type that really draws in good writing. Basically, we are in a period that's kinda passed over as boring between "men of iron, ships of wood" to "men of iron, ships of steel". The two capstones of Napoleonic wars and WW1 kinda steals the show. BEfore we get into dreadnaughts proper I don't think the Royal Navy's "transitional" battleships really got into a proper scrap at all. In the Crimean war they mostly shelled coastal fortifications and supported naval landings. The Russian Imperial fleet avoiding to sail out and meet their vastly overpowered opponent.

And the ACW, which I think might be the best bet for backdrop you don't really have much of steamships featuring. In a recognisable role at least. Basically it's ironclads and proper naval blockaders vs blockade runners stealing the limelight.


Something I've seen pop up in fantasy literature now and again is the concept of 'sword-and-bows', a type of infantry that would be trained in both a melee weapon and a ranged weapon. I know the Roman legionaries used javelins as ranged weapons, but I'm wondering if there was any established military doctrine that used troops equally proficient at a main ranged weapon (like a bow or crossbow) and a melee weapon.

Yes and no. Truth is most ranged specialists would be fairly proficient with meleeweapons. Say Genuese mercenary crossbowmen. The problem comes in that you can't use 2 main weapons and the same time even if you brought them. So either you are a bowman or you are a spearman in the fight. You can swap over, but that probably means you are tripping over both, so you pick one role at a time. Then the question becomes maybe it's worth it to just have a second dude using that bow of yours all the time. Bonus, he doesn't have to be as trained and equipped as you. And we have the military logic of taking 2 men to do 2 jobs well instead of 1 half-assing both.

Not that there weren't attempts to work with the idea. One of my favourites is the English attempt at longbow pikers in the late 1500s/early 1600s despite the bow being at least several decades past general military relevance (for them). Even the training manual picture looks awkward. What it comes back to is what I mentioned above, you can be trained to use both weapons, and exampels certianly exist of such, but you can really use them at the same time which means we are back to the 2 man 2 jobs. Eg Immortals if they were so trained would be picking one role to do, and depending on circumstances and equipment allowing he'd fill other role. But I also tihnk it'd be mor elike the Macedon troops, they'd pick for the day what their job was gonna be not mid-fight moving from "job" to another in some kdin of movie hero gung-ho Legolas/Aragorn hybrid.

Now as mentioned many ancient and nto so ancient types of cavalry came equipped with the kitchensink. That's because cavalry can have a place to store extra weapons and they can more easily switch their role due to being able to ride away with the horse to "regroup". Shoot arrows, stow bow, charge with lance, retreat if necessarily, swap to bow, shoot again works better.


I too am very interested in this chi question. If I were to write a fantasy setting, it wouldn't make sense for Europeans to not be copying the whacky chi powers of East Asia, were they so powerful.

Technically a fantasy setting shouldn't have Europeans :D.
In the Latin context though, I think IRL part of it is religious. Without going too much into RL things like chi etc etc skirts close to sorcery or magic which would be a big no no. On the Latin side you would more likely describe it as protected by god/saints/etc or being empowered by the divine. I think there's a number of such instances in the litterature.

Kiero
2018-10-17, 05:21 AM
The ancient Persian 10,000 Immortals (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immortals_(Achaemenid_Empire)), maybe...?

I thought the Immortals were armed with spear-and-bow, just like the regular Sparabara?

Kretan archers (much prized by Alexander and the Successors) were usually sword-armed.

Brother Oni
2018-10-17, 07:30 AM
I have a question that's tangentially related to this thread. Is there any good nautical fiction out there that takes place during the rise of steam? 1830ish to 1880ish?

Further to snowblizz's comments, there's a couple of major engagements I can think of in the right sort of time period is the 1904 - 1905 Russo-Japanese War (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Japanese_War), specifically the Battle of Port Arthur (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Port_Arthur). Unfortunately, the nature of the two protagonists means there's probably very little in the way of historical fiction in English.

A quick google check gives me Clouds above the Hill by Shiba Ryotaro, which has been translated into English - all the other books seem to be much drier military history type books or are focused on other events happening at the same time.

Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nautical_fiction#Late_19th_century) indicates there's a number of books, but they don't seem to be very focused on the rise of the steam ship.


There's a number of books on the Opium Wars (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opium_Wars), but the Chinese weren't able to put up much of a fight (especially navally) against multiple Western powers. Additionally, all the books I know of, are not concerned with the naval aspect.

Similarly, four of the ships in Admiral Perry's fleet that issued the ultimatum to Japan to open up (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perry_Expedition) were steam frigates or steam paddle ships, but there's very little in the way of 'naval' fiction regarding this (almost everything is focused on the Bakumatsu and the Boshin wars).

Kiero
2018-10-17, 08:58 AM
I have a question that's tangentially related to this thread. Is there any good nautical fiction out there that takes place during the rise of steam? 1830ish to 1880ish?

It's mostly focused on the mechanics of the Arctic expedition, rather than the fact that they're aboard ship, but the recent TV show The Terror (based upon a book by Dan Simmons) is set in the mid- to late-1840s and features steam-and-sail ships.


I believe it was mentioned in a prior thread that Philip II of Macedonia trained the main body of his force in both javelin and long spear, allowing his troops to shift from dense formation fighting to skirmishing as needed. It helped that many of his soldiers would have already been familiar with the javelin from their day-to-day lives, and by Alexander's era, I believe they'd abandoned the matter.

Yep, Philip's phalangites were dual-trained, which meant they were capable of performing the usual camp/garrison and patrol tasks outside of formal battles, and could be mobilised as skirmishers.

It was indeed abandoned after Alexander used up all those veterans, because it's expensive and time-consuming to do so, and they had lots of subject peoples to draw upon for their light infantry needs. It's notable that over the same period of specialisation of phalangites as solely heavy infantry that their equipment got heavier (more body armour) and their pikes lengthened as well.


For the most part I don't think this would be the case, as line infantry were generally spear or polearm-equipped and that's just not a convenient combination with a bow or a brace of javelins or whatever.

The only frequent exception to this rule I can think of are various cavalry who could more conveniently carry a variety of weapons. Cataphracts, samurai, a lot of noble cavalry in central asia and probably other formations all operated as multi-role cavalry at various points in their history.

Spears and javelins work just fine together. There's evidence the classical hoplite carried a javelin as well as a spear, and the Celtic influence on warfare in antiquity was such that everyone used javelins, as long as they weren't carrying a pike. As above, even pikemen might use a javelin when they weren't standing in the phalanx.

The classic steppe horseman's panoply of the Skythians and other central Asian peoples was bow, javelins and dagger(s). To which a heavier cavalryman might add a lance and mace/axe/kopis.


Elephant need about 200 to 600 pounds of food each day; horses need about ten to twenty pounds. Thus, one elephant eats as much as 10 to 60 horses. And letting your elephants subsist of grazing is probably impossible - wild elephants spend 12 to 18 hours each day feeding.

There was an old Indian proverb about a wise king who curtailed the ambitions of a pushy subordinate by granting him the gift of an elephant. It would be bad form not to care for the king's gift, so the underling was impoverished by the act of maintaining the beast.

Needless to say, you needed to be fabulously wealthy to be able to keep a stable of war elephants.

Willie the Duck
2018-10-17, 09:10 AM
Something I've seen pop up in fantasy literature now and again is the concept of 'sword-and-bows', a type of infantry that would be trained in both a melee weapon and a ranged weapon. I know the Roman legionaries used javelins as ranged weapons, but I'm wondering if there was any established military doctrine that used troops equally proficient at a main ranged weapon (like a bow or crossbow) and a melee weapon.

Proficient? For sure. Take the ever-talked-about samurai--bow plus polearm plus sword training. Use all on the same battlefield? Unlikely at best. As mentioned by others, you can't use more than one at a time, and unless you have a horse, you really can't carry most main ranged weapons along with anything other than a hanger-sized sword or the like very easily (a recurve bow worn on the hip could work with a spear in hand perhaps, that's about it). Particularly during that majority of history where a shield was a really important thing to have if you can wing it.


And we have the military logic of taking 2 men to do 2 jobs well instead of 1 half-assing both.
...
Now as mentioned many ancient and nto so ancient types of cavalry came equipped with the kitchensink. That's because cavalry can have a place to store extra weapons and they can more easily switch their role due to being able to ride away with the horse to "regroup". Shoot arrows, stow bow, charge with lance, retreat if necessarily, swap to bow, shoot again works better.

Very much on both of these.

Mike_G
2018-10-17, 09:39 AM
Something I've seen pop up in fantasy literature now and again is the concept of 'sword-and-bows', a type of infantry that would be trained in both a melee weapon and a ranged weapon. I know the Roman legionaries used javelins as ranged weapons, but I'm wondering if there was any established military doctrine that used troops equally proficient at a main ranged weapon (like a bow or crossbow) and a melee weapon.

Let's not forget the English archers at Agincourt.

They were primarily missile troops, but had melee weapons and did join the melee after the main lines had joined and they'd shot all their arrows. Most soldiers would carry a sword or some other melee weapon, because sometimes the enemy get too close for your bow.

Most infantry would be considered to be primarily one or the other, and used as such. Archers fighting in melee was the exception, not the rule. As others have noted, cavalry often had a bow and melee weapons, but it's a lot easier to carry more gear when you're mounted.

This is what made the bayonet catch on. Now every infantryman could function as a spearman and a gunner.

Kiero
2018-10-17, 09:58 AM
Let's not forget the English archers at Agincourt.

They were primarily missile troops, but had melee weapons and did join the melee after the main lines had joined and they'd shot all their arrows. Most soldiers would carry a sword or some other melee weapon, because sometimes the enemy get too close for your bow.

Most infantry would be considered to be primarily one or the other, and used as such. Archers fighting in melee was the exception, not the rule. As others have noted, cavalry often had a bow and melee weapons, but it's a lot easier to carry more gear when you're mounted.

This is what made the bayonet catch on. Now every infantryman could function as a spearman and a gunner.

Depends on the missile weapon. As mentioned, in antiquity the javelin was ubiquitous for all grades of infantry, carrying one or two wasn't a big deal. Late Republican Roman legionaries often carried a sling, which took up negligible space amongst their other gear.

One thing about the bayonet, a spear is a better weapon in every respect than a musket/rifle with bayonet attached. However, the advantage of the bayonet is that you don't have to carry anything extra, and as long as you're not fighting people with spears, it doesn't matter that the spear is a better weapon.

Brother Oni
2018-10-17, 09:59 AM
Proficient? For sure. Take the ever-talked-about samurai--bow plus polearm plus sword training. Use all on the same battlefield? Unlikely at best. As mentioned by others, you can't use more than one at a time, and unless you have a horse, you really can't carry most main ranged weapons along with anything other than a hanger-sized sword or the like very easily (a recurve bow worn on the hip could work with a spear in hand perhaps, that's about it).

I'd disagree with the unlikeness of 'use all at the same time' and chalk it more up to differences in military culture. The Mongol light cavalry were both bow and sword armed and would often go for flanking attacks once the enemy had been pulled in and had been counter-charged by the Mongol heavy cavalry.

Details are a bit sketchy this far back in the Muromachi period (~14th-16th Century), but chokuto and the straight tachi (大刀) were one handed, single edged short swords that were used with bows at the same time. The clearest example I can find is from the anime Mononoke Hime, with the character A****aka.

https://orig00.deviantart.net/0219/f/2015/301/4/b/asg276u7s_by_yellowflash1234-d9epzdr.jpg

The sword itself has a ring on the pommel that allowed to be held while drawing the bow. The sword that A****aka uses is most likely derived from much older Chinese dao (single edged blades).

http://www.ycgf.org/images/F-2_3HanDao.jpg

You can even hold a shield while shooting with a bow: this was more typically found with more central European archery (Scythian/Hungarian/Turkish archery) - link (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MG5xkbUxXrg).
Edit: While searching, I found this video of someone with an axe ready while shooting: link (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30GfKHdtzEk).

From a technical standpoint, he's using a three-under draw (he's using the index, middle and ring finger to draw the bow and all three are under the arrow) in contrast to the more typical thumb draw of horse archery. This leaves the rest of his drawing hand free for a light weapon nestled in the crook of the thumb.
That said, I'm not familiar with Hungarian archery techniques, so I'll have to do some more research.

Vinyadan
2018-10-17, 12:25 PM
I have a question that's tangentially related to this thread. Is there any good nautical fiction out there that takes place during the rise of steam? 1830ish to 1880ish?

Sandokan? The advent of steam is described as a big deal that would sink that model of piracy, and there are some pirates vs steam engagements in The Tigers of Mompracem.

Willie the Duck
2018-10-17, 12:37 PM
I'd disagree with the unlikeness of 'use all at the same time' and chalk it more up to differences in military culture. The Mongol light cavalry were both bow and sword armed and would often go for flanking attacks once the enemy had been pulled in and had been counter-charged by the Mongol heavy cavalry.

Chalk that one up to difference in word usage, but that's not what I would call using them at the same time. Yes, these example are great examples of genuine switch-hitters, and the closer you can have everything to being ready at the same time, the better. These examples are cases of where that was clearly made a priority, and I'm sure the requisite opportunity-costs were carefully weighed.

Brother Oni
2018-10-17, 01:05 PM
Chalk that one up to difference in word usage, but that's not what I would call using them at the same time. Yes, these example are great examples of genuine switch-hitters, and the closer you can have everything to being ready at the same time, the better. These examples are cases of where that was clearly made a priority, and I'm sure the requisite opportunity-costs were carefully weighed.

So your classification of 'at the same time' is that they must be dual wielding a ranged and melee weapon at the same time? Would soldiers with non-plug bayonets and rifles count (ie fitting the bayonet does not restrict the weapon from firing)?

The only thing I can think of that clearly meets your criteria is before the mass introduction of cased ammunition and soldiers went into battle with a pistol and a sword, eg late age of sail era combatants (pirates, officers, etc) or American Civil War Officers armed with percussion cap revolvers and sabres.

Mike_G
2018-10-17, 01:54 PM
Depends on the missile weapon. As mentioned, in antiquity the javelin was ubiquitous for all grades of infantry, carrying one or two wasn't a big deal. Late Republican Roman legionaries often carried a sling, which took up negligible space amongst their other gear.

One thing about the bayonet, a spear is a better weapon in every respect than a musket/rifle with bayonet attached. However, the advantage of the bayonet is that you don't have to carry anything extra, and as long as you're not fighting people with spears, it doesn't matter that the spear is a better weapon.

I'm not arguing that the bayonet is equal to or better than the spear. But I do think 100 men with bayonets on their muskets beat 50 musketeers and 50 spearmen every day and twice on Sunday.

The bayonet can be used in melee, and can be used to present to hold off cavalry if the infantry hold steady. So it does the spear's job, maybe not as well, but the increase in firepower by having every infantryman now able to shoot is a huge advantage over the old pike and shot formations where only a fraction of the men could shoot.

Willie the Duck
2018-10-17, 02:40 PM
So your classification of 'at the same time' is that they must be dual wielding a ranged and melee weapon at the same time? Would soldiers with non-plug bayonets and rifles count (ie fitting the bayonet does not restrict the weapon from firing)?

The only thing I can think of that clearly meets your criteria is before the mass introduction of cased ammunition and soldiers went into battle with a pistol and a sword, eg late age of sail era combatants (pirates, officers, etc) or American Civil War Officers armed with percussion cap revolvers and sabres.

Nothing is necessarily supposed to meet the criteria. You generally can't use a dedicated ranged weapon and melee weapon at the same time. That was the point. That's one reason (along with carrying, and the challenges of switching between--although your examples do point out ways of addressing the switching aspect) that most militaries don't focus heavily on having troops who do both.

ExLibrisMortis
2018-10-17, 02:53 PM
Elephant need about 200 to 600 pounds of food each day; horses need about ten to twenty pounds. Thus, one elephant eats as much as 10 to 60 horses. And letting your elephants subsist off of grazing is probably impossible - wild elephants spend 12 to 18 hours each day feeding.
Yikes. That's really expensive. Thanks for the answer.

(Oh, and this cracked me up: D&D 5th edition has a listed price for an elephant (200 gp) which is lower than the price for a war horse (400 gp), and it's no harder to armour, train, or ride!)

Kiero
2018-10-17, 02:54 PM
I'm not arguing that the bayonet is equal to or better than the spear. But I do think 100 men with bayonets on their muskets beat 50 musketeers and 50 spearmen every day and twice on Sunday.

The bayonet can be used in melee, and can be used to present to hold off cavalry if the infantry hold steady. So it does the spear's job, maybe not as well, but the increase in firepower by having every infantryman now able to shoot is a huge advantage over the old pike and shot formations where only a fraction of the men could shoot.

Oh absolutely, it's a dedicated weapon v multipurpose weapon thing. The spear is better at being a spear; the bayonet-tipped rifle is a poor spear but better than no melee weapon at all, without all the additional weight and hassle of a second weapon. That's why it's persisted so long, it doesn't have to be as good as a spear for the most part, just good enough.

Put those riflemen against an equal number of dedicated spearmen, especially if they're out of ammo, and it's a different story. Such as the battle of Isandlwana (though that did have other extenuating circumstances).

gkathellar
2018-10-17, 03:12 PM
Elephant need about 200 to 600 pounds of food each day; horses need about ten to twenty pounds. Thus, one elephant eats as much as 10 to 60 horses. And letting your elephants subsist off of grazing is probably impossible - wild elephants spend 12 to 18 hours each day feeding.

Is that for African or Indian elephants?

Mike_G
2018-10-17, 03:16 PM
Oh absolutely, it's a dedicated weapon v multipurpose weapon thing. The spear is better at being a spear; the bayonet-tipped rifle is a poor spear but better than no melee weapon at all, without all the additional weight and hassle of a second weapon. That's why it's persisted so long, it doesn't have to be as good as a spear for the most part, just good enough.

Put those riflemen against an equal number of dedicated spearmen, especially if they're out of ammo, and it's a different story. Such as the battle of Isandlwana (though that did have other extenuating circumstances).

Didn't work out so bad at Rourke's Drift or Ulundi.

Spears beat bayonets in melee, maybe. But good luck getting to melee if you're facing rifles. Every once in a while, there's an upset, where a melee- specialized force beats musketeers, or more rarely, riflemen. But those are the exception. For every Isadlwana there are a bunch of Omdurmans.

Vinyadan
2018-10-17, 03:53 PM
Is that for African or Indian elephants?

Is it a European swallow or an African swallow?

I don't know if the Highland charge fits the bill for dual wielding.

Clistenes
2018-10-17, 04:06 PM
I thought the Immortals were armed with spear-and-bow, just like the regular Sparabara?

Contemporary art shows them armed with bow, spear, shield and sword. They probably didn't carry both all the time, but they probably were supposed to at least be able to use both when needed...

Being an elite unit, they probably had servants and beasts of burden to carry the equiptment they weren't using at the moment...

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fa/Persian_warriors_from_Berlin_Museum.jpg
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/29/Persepolis_Apadana_noerdliche_Treppe_Detail.jpg
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/71/NAMABG-Colored_Alexander_Sarcophagus_1_retouched.JPG


Also, I think at the time of Marathon the favourite Persian tactic was to have a line of shield and spear soldiers protect several lines of archers, so it would make sense to train an elite unit to be able to use both weapons and fill the gaps when needed...

Ottoman Janissaries were elite infantry soldiers trained in the use of sword, axe, polearm, arquebuss and bow.

XVI century's Spanish arquebussiers were expected to be able to switch to shield and sword when required too.

Almogavar skirmishers were armed with javelins and short swords, and were expected to use both every time...

InvisibleBison
2018-10-17, 04:30 PM
Is that for African or Indian elephants?

Both, I think. Most of the sources I based that on didn't specify which kind they were discussing, and the source that specifically discussed Indian elephants gave a higher amount than the one that specifically mentioned African elephants.

snowblizz
2018-10-18, 03:26 AM
Both, I think. Most of the sources I based that on didn't specify which kind they were discussing, and the source that specifically discussed Indian elephants gave a higher amount than the one that specifically mentioned African elephants.

What kinda of sources? You don't really tame and keep the savannah elephant (it's just too difficult). The north african forest elephant was a fair bit smaller (than the Indian and savannah version) and used closer to the mediterranean (they also ran out). I'd wager the majority of war elephants would be of the Indian variety. Even some of the Successors got Indian elepahnts, bought and gifted.


Some pictures of what English writers were thinking about in a pike/bowman can be found here: https://leatherworkingreverendsmusings.wordpress.com/2012/11/23/the-double-armed-man/
Apparently there's a "device" connecting the bow and pike, that was actually news to me.

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-AFd1PNKb7Wk/TzKxYLS4nBI/AAAAAAAAEEc/TzJ1yfkiU0g/s1600/double-armed_man%5B1%5D.jpg

There have been examples of trying to combine the musket and pike too, with the pike functioning as a musket rest.

None of these caught on. Not even the idea that musketeers could use their rests to create spanish riders to protect from cavalry. Usually it seems it foundered on the men getting rid of said pieces while marching (as they did with armour and pikes even).

I mention this to give some insight into the problem of kitchensinking infantry.

Brother Oni
2018-10-18, 06:38 AM
Some pictures of what English writers were thinking about in a pike/bowman can be found here: https://leatherworkingreverendsmusings.wordpress.com/2012/11/23/the-double-armed-man/
Apparently there's a "device" connecting the bow and pike, that was actually news to me.

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-AFd1PNKb7Wk/TzKxYLS4nBI/AAAAAAAAEEc/TzJ1yfkiU0g/s1600/double-armed_man%5B1%5D.jpg

There have been examples of trying to combine the musket and pike too, with the pike functioning as a musket rest.

That reminds me of the Renaissance era French and Italian duelling daggers which had a built in flintlock. I didn't mention them before as they weren't typically found on the battlefield:

https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5b49f1c8f407b483674230b5/5b5d03286d2a73ec3d14f681/5b5d038c5ebcd55a79cf35e1/1532998141833/?format=300w
https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5b49f1c8f407b483674230b5/5b5d03286d2a73ec3d14f681/5b5f9c28aa4a9979973a9d44/1532992567300/22-1204_1_WEB.jpg?format=750w

I have a replica in the same style of the second dagger. In my opinion, after it had been fired, it would be pretty much used exclusively for off hand parrying or stabbing as the weight isn't well distributed and the handling isn't great.


The axe flintlock that's been on this thread before was apparently used for naval boarding actions:
https://southernswords.co.uk/media/catalog/product/cache/1/image/9df78eab33525d08d6e5fb8d27136e95/g/1/g1010.jpg

PixelKirby
2018-10-18, 07:13 AM
This has probably been asked before, but could I ask what, in your opinion/s, are the best way to beat a Roman phalanx and/or testudo?

As well, on rougher/muddier terrain which is often used to defeat certain strategies, what units or formations are good?

(Made an account just to ask!)

Aneurin
2018-10-18, 09:18 AM
This has probably been asked before, but could I ask what, in your opinion/s, are the best way to beat a Roman phalanx and/or testudo?

As well, on rougher/muddier terrain which is often used to defeat certain strategies, what units or formations are good?

(Made an account just to ask!)

For the phalanx, the traditional approach as I understand it is either you push them up against another phalanx (ideally, one larger, better trained, better equipped and more veteran) and wait until one side breaks. Meanwhile you try to push skirmishers around the flanks and the rear of the formation to make whoever's fighting in it get nervous and, if at all possibly, start taking fire where their shields can't protect them without giving up their cohesion.

Alternatively, you could try to push past the spear points and stay too close for the spears to be used effectively - but that doesn't work well against deep formations which is probably why phalanxes were deep formations whenever possible.

A general would want to wear down an enemy phalanx before engaging it - the tireder the enemy phalanx is, the less likely it is to hold up in the shoving match of phalanx combat. Anything that can disrupt the phalanx is also good, though you'd have to be quick on your toes to exploit a break in ranks before it can close back up. A phalanx will tend to hold out as long as its nerve does - so anything that can undermine that is wonderful, so that covers your pre-battle taunting, picking off officers, throwing pots of hornets and snakes at them, and chasing off supporting troops as well as a lot of pre-battle rumour mongering, and keeping them awake all night with raids and alarms. But, then, that's really the goal in every battle - defeat the enemy before they ever take to the field.


The testudo is much easier to beat, because it isn't really a fighting formation. I mean, look at it. How do you fight like that? When half the soldiers are busy holding a shield over everyone's head and trying not to push anyone else out of line? It's excellent protection from missile fire, no doubt, which is why it was used in sieges, but if someone gets pulled out of position, it's got to be really difficult to get another shield in position to cover where they were. Hit them with axemen and the testudo is in trouble, as the axemen just use their axes to drag the shields out and then their friend kills its holder.

Alternatively, hit it with heavy weapons - ballista and similar weapons will give whoever's inside a very bad time and wear them down with heavy impacts, even if it doesn't breach the formation. By the time the testudo breaks into a more combat-capable formation everyone in it will (hopefully) be exhausted and no use in a fight.

Epimethee
2018-10-18, 09:26 AM
This has probably been asked before, but could I ask what, in your opinion/s, are the best way to beat a Roman phalanx and/or testudo?

As well, on rougher/muddier terrain which is often used to defeat certain strategies, what units or formations are good?

(Made an account just to ask!)

That’s a vaste and huge question, even more difficult to answer because of the scale of time involved.

One thing not to forget is that Rome was particulary efficient in making allies, the most striking example would be Caesar, with his multiple gallic friends like Diviciacos and the german mercenaries. Rome was able to win a lot of ground dividing to conquer.

Rome lost a few battles but was able to wage war nevertheless. Defeating a legion, even an army, could draw a fierce response from the Urbs, and starting a long term campaign. Here the Equipment and training of the legion come in full effect. The fastness of construction of their fortifications would be a huge advantage.

With that in mind, there is a lot to consider. The most obvious battles would be of course those won by Hannibal. Cannae is still the textbook exemple of outmaneuvring a fixed foe. If you can pin the huge mass of men, you can move on the flanks or on the rear and it is one way to dispose of the legion in ranged battle.

The battle of Pharsale (and the civil war in general) may offer another good example. Caesar would also use is infantry to fix the adversary and win by using some troops on the flank.

Trasimene is an ambush of amazing scale. Some of the worst defeat of the legion would come this way. A marching Roman army is far less efficient. The battle of the Teutoburg forest may be the most striking example.

I’m more foggy about that but the wars between the Romans and the Parthians and the Seleucides may offer you some insight about the use of cavalry and space against a legion.

Also welcome!

PixelKirby
2018-10-18, 09:39 AM
Thanks to both of you, I’ll be sure to look into mentioned battles.

Kiero
2018-10-18, 10:00 AM
This has probably been asked before, but could I ask what, in your opinion/s, are the best way to beat a Roman phalanx and/or testudo?

As well, on rougher/muddier terrain which is often used to defeat certain strategies, what units or formations are good?

(Made an account just to ask!)

The Roman phalanx was defeated repeatedly by the fast-moving Celts and Samnites, which is what led to the adoption of the more flexible manipular system.

The testudo is a specific tactic to defend against missiles, it's not very useful outside a handful of situations, like attacking a gate.

Don't be mislead into believing the Romans did everything with the legions alone, they didn't. They were always supposed by their allies, the socii, who made up half of their force. Some readings of the accounts of battles suggest the allies may even have done most of the fighting, though that's dubious.

Brother Oni
2018-10-18, 10:04 AM
I’m more foggy about that but the wars between the Romans and the Parthians and the Seleucides may offer you some insight about the use of cavalry and space against a legion.

Traditionally the Romans had issues when facing up against mobile, cavalry heavy armies, particularly those with heavy draw composite bows like the Parthians as they could penetrate Roman shields. If I recall correctly, Parthians basically shot up Roman phalanxes at will until the Roman cavalry auxiliaries chased them off and even then the Roman cavalry got shot up via Parthian archery techniques (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parthian_shot).

The Jack
2018-10-18, 10:07 AM
Older guns seem to have often had polygonal barrels, rather than round ones. Why is that and why did it stop? It looks really nice...

I'm not talking about rifling.

https://www.rockislandauction.com/html/dev_cdn/62/127.jpg
https://i2.wp.com/guntoters.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/1851_Colt_Navy.jpg

Brother Oni
2018-10-18, 10:31 AM
Older guns seem to have often had polygonal barrels, rather than round ones. Why is that and why did it stop? It looks really nice...

Mechanical stresses from containing the controlled explosion of the charge means that the barrel needs to be as strong as possible. However making the biggest strongest shape possible has to be balanced against weapon weight and cost (the more material in the barrel, the more expensive the weapon).

A cylinder is the most efficient shape possible (even thickness of the barrel to contain the charge going off), but manufacturing techniques hadn't caught up to make perfectly even and symmetrical barrels - uneven barrels tended to fracture along stress points which is bad for the weapon user/crews if that happened in combat or worse, during firing.

The next optimal shape in terms of material usage/strength gained is a hexagon. It's also very easy to make, since you can hammer a barrel against a flat surface quite easily or otherwise cast it as such. The hexagon is also a very strong geometric shape and is found very commonly in nature:

http://static.nautil.us/8824_801a089759389ea9fa5f77ecc339f4be.png
https://keyassets.timeincuk.net/inspirewp/live/wp-content/uploads/sites/8/2017/03/hex1-630x400.jpg
Whether weapon makers came across the hexagon via their own processes, took inspiration from nature, or simply liked the look, is up for debate.

Octagons are also popular as they retain most of the strength/material efficiency of a hexagon, but now also give you more surface area to fit external components to (like the foresight) or to ensure the fit of the barrel to the rest of the receiver/stock/weapon.

As manufacturing techniques improved (either from improved technology, improved availability or better economics eg Colt upgrading their manufacturing line), manufacturers could start cutting back on costs without compromising weapon performance/safety and started making circular barrels again.

Kiero
2018-10-18, 10:43 AM
Traditionally the Romans had issues when facing up against mobile, cavalry heavy armies, particularly those with heavy draw composite bows like the Parthians as they could penetrate Roman shields. If I recall correctly, Parthians basically shot up Roman phalanxes at will until the Roman cavalry auxiliaries chased them off and even then the Roman cavalry got shot up via Parthian archery techniques (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parthian_shot).

Not an interpretation of the battle of Carrhae I recognise. The Parthians drove off the Roman cavalry and their horsearchers forced the Roman infantry to stay on station, shields ready, all day long. The arrows were galling, rather than deadly, for the most part. Then their cataphracts were able to harass and ride down the exhausted legionaries when they tried to make for a village to hole up.

Gnoman
2018-10-18, 02:42 PM
There are many ways to defeat a phalanx, but they all fall into two categories.



The first category is simply "a better phalanx", which can take multiple forms. Some classical examples include making the phalanx larger, making it smaller, providing longer spears, or providing lots and lots of javelins to soften up the enemy before the clash.


The second category centers on exploiting the phalanx's great weakness - it is an inflexible formation with very limited tactical mobility. This also takes many, many forms. Alexander compensated by supplementing his phalanxes with extremely good cavalry - he'd pin down the enemy with his own phalanxes, then use his cavalry to outflank them. Other classical solutions were artillery bombardment (the cumbersome nature of early catapults and ballista made their use as field artillery difficult, but they were used that way at times), foot skirmishers using sling and javelin, light harassment cavalry, or the Roman legion (which divided the phalanx into a lot of miniature phalanxes that were trained for independent maneuver). Use of terrain also helped a great deal - the phalanx worked best on mostly-flat ground, so luring (or forcing) the phalanx to fight on very uneven terrain greatly hurt the cohesion that was central to the phalanx's power.

Kiero
2018-10-18, 02:57 PM
Alexander's phalanx was a good deal more flexible than that of his Successors. His father trained a professional force who could be mobilised as heavy infantry or skirmishers as required. He also had lots of allied troops able to fill other roles besides cavalry, like his Thracian light infantry (particularly the likes of the Agrianians).

Brother Oni
2018-10-18, 03:30 PM
Not an interpretation of the battle of Carrhae I recognise. The Parthians drove off the Roman cavalry and their horsearchers forced the Roman infantry to stay on station, shields ready, all day long. The arrows were galling, rather than deadly, for the most part. Then their cataphracts were able to harass and ride down the exhausted legionaries when they tried to make for a village to hole up.

I stand corrected - my knowledge of Roman warfare is limited. :smallredface:

InvisibleBison
2018-10-18, 04:14 PM
What kinda of sources? You don't really tame and keep the savannah elephant (it's just too difficult). The north african forest elephant was a fair bit smaller (than the Indian and savannah version) and used closer to the mediterranean (they also ran out). I'd wager the majority of war elephants would be of the Indian variety. Even some of the Successors got Indian elepahnts, bought and gifted.

I was mostly looking at zoo websites, not anything historical. That being said, I'd be surprised if historical war elephants didn't fall into the range of food estimates I mentioned, given how broad it was.

Kiero
2018-10-18, 05:19 PM
I stand corrected - my knowledge of Roman warfare is limited. :smallredface:

Not to worry, it's one of those frequently remembered wrongly as "horse archers beat legions in straight fight", when the reality was very different. The Surenas who led the Parthians had also prepared for a very long archery segment, bringing up lots of extra arrows ahead of the battle. Under normal circumstances, after exhausting their ammo, the Parthians would have retreated and prepared for the next battle, slowly bleeding the Romans while drawing them ever further from their supply depots. All the while constantly raiding those supply lines and picking off stragglers.

Incanur
2018-10-18, 10:07 PM
Something I've seen pop up in fantasy literature now and again is the concept of 'sword-and-bows', a type of infantry that would be trained in both a melee weapon and a ranged weapon. I know the Roman legionaries used javelins as ranged weapons, but I'm wondering if there was any established military doctrine that used troops equally proficient at a main ranged weapon (like a bow or crossbow) and a melee weapon.

As other folks have mentioned, this was most common with cavalry. For centuries, from the Middle East to Japan, elite mounted warriors equipped themselves with bows, swords, armor, maces, and sometimes even two-handed weapons (including the flail (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyeongon) in Korea).

Infantry troops with ranged weapons were almost always supposed to have some ability to engage in melee combat, but this could be rather limited. Archers & similar rarely wore the armor needed to stand up to well-equipped heavy infantry, though in certain cases they wore considerable armor. Crossbowers in Tang China resorted to close combat according to a Song-era manual. As noted by others, English archers effectively fought up close in multiple battles.

However, it's fundamentally challenging to equip archers, crossbowers, etc. with enough armor & with a large melee weapon. Without those two elements, they can't be too close to dedicated heavy infantry. English archers did at least have access to two-handed weapons, sometimes scavenged from vanquished foes & sometimes perhaps somehow carried by the archers. English archers wore varying amounts of armor, with the fabric jack plus steel cap perhaps being the most common kit.

A 1562 manual by Henry Barrett assigns archers "a maule of leade with a pyke of five inches longe, well stieled, sett in a staff of fyve foote of lengthe with a hooke at his gyrdell to take of and mayntayne the fighte as oure elders have donn, with handye stroaks." Carrying a 5.5+ft polearm at one's belt seems awkward, but I guess they managed.

In theory, you could equip infantry with bows they carried on their sides in cases/holsters as well as staff weapons they carried in their hands. Qing armies sometimes equipped soldiers with both guns & bows in this fashion. I don't know of any historical example of this with melee weapons, but it should work.

My in own fantasy setting, the best archers use big-ear (Manchu-style) bows plus stakes that double as spears when needed.

Kiero
2018-10-19, 03:07 AM
Another historical archer-swordsman were the Rajputs (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rajput), before they adopted the musket/rifle.

The Jack
2018-10-19, 06:04 AM
As other folks have mentioned, this was most common with cavalry. For centuries, from the Middle East to Japan, elite mounted warriors equipped themselves with bows, swords, armor, maces, and sometimes even two-handed weapons (including the flail (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyeongon) in Korea).

I think this might be misleading for japan at least.

I don't know about the rest, but in japan, the samurai fuedal system had more in common with the western system than not... meaning lower ranking samurai would be training for everything they'd use in war, for all the days they weren't at war, and unlike most european knights, thought of the bow as a weaponof war for the elite, at least for a time.

During this period, they were crazy. There's that pre-mongol era where an honourable fight would be an archery starting round followed by a sword fight, and then there's the post mongol era where the bow was still primary and the sword was secondary... and few used polearms on horseback, the absolute madmen. The swords of this era are specialised for horseback use, but it's not really the best use of a horse to go in close like that, most of the time. You'd lose, or risk the horse too much, unless your enemy was routing, very ill equiped, or an honourable samurai who's into dueling. You'd very much be a horse archer first and another kind of cavalry in a distant second.

You get to the sengoku period and the world becomes normal again; Polearms beat out the bow on horseback, the bow becomes a predominantly foot weapon, guns all round. You can probably chalk this up to larger armies and better armour. But mounted archery becomes a hunting/sport thing with an honourable past, and in war it's largely obsolete. So whilst the samurai still practice mounted archery, it's more for fun/because they've got too much free time on their hands.

European knights were practiced with bows/crossbows for mostly sport/hunting, and mostly didn't use those weapons on the battlefield (there's exceptions) Again, they had one job; their roll in society was to fight, and learn all the weapons. Peacetime Life was a series of martial arts lessons.

Epimethee
2018-10-19, 08:52 AM
About sword and bow, i find interesting how the focus here is on tactical concepts. I agree with most of them but i think the way a warrior was understood by a society is also relevant.

That’s again a huge subject as societies havé obviously specific ideologies. They tend to put an emphasis in sources upon one kind of combat or warriors, like the greeks who made their skirmishers more or less disapear in their writtings.
Also as sword was the first tool invented only for war, it is as much a mark of status as a weapon.

In this sense, the fact that the sword is dependant of a huge techological frame, the invention of metalurgy, may also be interesting to think about how war became a specific activity and how it is entangled with the societies that produce it. But that’s another discussion !

One thing is important to watch because it is as much true as problematic is that the more complex a society grow, the more likely it is to have a specialization in its forces.
Roughly speaking tribals warriors were expected to fulfill more fighting roles than the fighters of a Roman legion. (And even then the legion is original in the way they used the pilum to resolve this problem between long and close range.)

The fact that horses help perform more tasks is relevant and related but only in a way. In some documented cases in northern america some people would revert to nomadism because the horse would give them an incentive in war and commerce.

But the presence of horse would not lead automatically to polyvalent forces. Parthians for example had heavy and light cavalry intended to fight together an fullfiling specifics roles on the battlefield. Mongols on the other Hand were expected to be able to fight alone in some cases and to fill more than one role in the battlefield or during the course of a campaign. As much as the forces would specialize through the rise of mongol empire, the Core of tribes in the Altaï would still more or less practice bows and close combat.

The case of the chariot of war is in this sense interesting in martial societies like acheans or celts : the Heavy warriors were expected to fight at close range but also to give support fire. The fighting unit in this case would be the chariot itself and the driver would often be instrumental in the fight.

Of course war chariots would only made for a fraction of the forces. And the fighter would often fight on foot. Also the war Leaders would use a significant part of the local ressources, as numerous tumbs across Europe made it clear.
But still the warrior was expected to fulfill every aspect of the Art of war.

Note that this concepts can live at the same time than more complex armies. In the Heike monogatari, the archetypal death of a samouraï is described more or less always in the same way: the warrior use all his arrows then a long sword Till it break and then a long knife or close combat weapon. Then he die.

So again, as much as you need to choose the actual weapon to use in a fight, what equipment you are trained to use is related to cultural considerations about the role of Warriors.

Kiero
2018-10-19, 09:39 AM
Chariots were primarily intended as "battle taxis", not as precursor to cavalry. The noble would ride to the fight, dismount and fight, then get back on his vehicle to flee or move to the next crisis point.

Brother Oni
2018-10-19, 02:03 PM
You get to the sengoku period and the world becomes normal again; Polearms beat out the bow on horseback, the bow becomes a predominantly foot weapon, guns all round. You can probably chalk this up to larger armies and better armour.

Initially matchlocks were only adopted en-masse by Oda Nobunaga, but it wasn't really until the Battle of Nagashino where Oda used recognisably modern firearms tactics (wooden stockades for protection and an early version of countermarching) to comprehensively defeat the Takeda cavalry that cemented the place of firearms in Japanese warfare.

It's only after Nagashino that Nanban gusoku (western style metal cuirass) began becoming popular (they were originally regarded as a curiosity sold by the Portuguese and other Western traders). Tameshi gusoku (Nanban gusoku sold with a pistol dent intact as evidence of its proofing) also started appearing about then, so better armour technically post-dated the mass adoption of firearms.

The Jack
2018-10-19, 06:57 PM
you're confusing best with better. Even without the adoption of nanban armours the japanese were moving towards simpler steel munition armours and away from the more complicated armours of earlier wars. Ashigaru were decently armoured and so horse archery in war likely turned into a risky indulgence.

Epimethee
2018-10-19, 07:07 PM
Chariots were primarily intended as "battle taxis", not as precursor to cavalry. The noble would ride to the fight, dismount and fight, then get back on his vehicle to flee or move to the next crisis point.

Yes and no, depend of what you call cavalry as a lot of mounted fighters would actually often dismount to fight like the chasseur à cheval of the imperial guard or the North american cavalry of the XIX century.

Also i think the named drivers in greek mythology like Iolaos, the driver of Herakles, show how they were intended to take an active part in battle.
The same could be said of Laeg, the driver of Cuchulainn.

I agree and said that the fighter was mostly intended to fight on foot but the chariot was also a weapon platform where javelin and bows were often used. And this in my opinion is tied with the warrior ideology.

rrgg
2018-10-19, 10:42 PM
However, it's fundamentally challenging to equip archers, crossbowers, etc. with enough armor & with a large melee weapon. Without those two elements, they can't be too close to dedicated heavy infantry. English archers did at least have access to two-handed weapons, sometimes scavenged from vanquished foes & sometimes perhaps somehow carried by the archers. English archers wore varying amounts of armor, with the fabric jack plus steel cap perhaps being the most common kit.


It's probably worth noting that this was still relative though. Sutcliffe for example thought that an english archer wearing mail or a jack of plate was still much better suited for melee combat than an arquebusier or musketeer who typically wore no armor at all.

Whether a later musketeer with no armor and a bayonet could be considered better equipped for melee than an archer wearing a jack of plate and a sword I'm still not so sure.

One other option is that while it's hard to carry a ranged weapon and a polearm at the same time, you do sometimes see during a siege that the defenders will try to store pikes, halberds, targets, etc. near breaches or trenches where the enemy is likely to assault. The intention being that the defenders can therefore fight with their muskets first then drop them and pick up the better melee weapons as the enemy gets close.

Brother Oni
2018-10-20, 02:13 AM
you're confusing best with better. Even without the adoption of nanban armours the japanese were moving towards simpler steel munition armours and away from the more complicated armours of earlier wars. Ashigaru were decently armoured and so horse archery in war likely turned into a risky indulgence.

Unless you meant pre-Heian armours, do-maru armour made from kozane (scales) was the standard armour for infantry from the 12th Century Genpei War onwards, while the o-yoroi was typically worn by cavalry. The o-yoroi was modernised slightly to become more manoeuvrable after the Mongol Invasion in the 13th Century, but it wasn't until the arrival of matchlocks with the Portuguese in 1543 that the shift from the various kozane style armours to lamellar tosei gusoku happened.
Tosei gusoku (当世具足) literally means 'modern armour'.

Pre-Sengoku ashigaru armour depended on the period and the clan in question - some were armoured, some weren't. The recognisable Sengoku era ashigaru armour (simple banded hara-ate torso armour, conical jingasa helmet, etc) wasn't introduced until the 15th Century, making the effectiveness of horse archery variable before the Sengoku era. From what I understand, during the Kamakura period (12th-14th Century), mounted archery practice for samurai seemed to be compulsory much like archery practice was in contemporary England.

Basically I'm disputing your claim that the mass adoption of firearms was due to better armour, when the better armour (both tosei and nanban gusoku) was developed due to the adoption of firearms.

The Jack
2018-10-20, 05:24 AM
No I didn't make that claim. I may have mentioned guns at the wrong point though.
I'm suggesting that mounted archery declined against better armoured infantry and better armoured foot archers.

Epimethee
2018-10-21, 03:11 AM
Still about the chariot...

So I went back to some sources and I made some quick assumption based on half remembered readings.

I still stand by my general depiction but...

First they were three main tactical use of the chariot, as a charging force, as a weapon platform and as a transport of chiefs or warriors.

Then I did not mention the organized and more or less centralized societies like Sumer or Egypt.

So for more precision, the early battlewagons, four-wheeled like in Sumer, were armed with Javelin and some contact weapons. The wagon would charge the ennemies and panic them, throwing the javelins in closing them then engaging with axes or sicles sword.

By the late Bronze Age, the bow would become the main weapon but I'm not sure how it will affect the tactics.

Some two-wheelers would exist but they seem to be mostly not equipped with weapons.

In fact some technical developments were necessary around the second millenium BC to lighten the chariot, mainly steam bent wood technics. The most famous example is the Egyptian chariot.

The crew of two men would consist of an shield-bearer as charioteer and a lightly equipped warrior, using a bow, some short spears and the khopesh.

The bow cas were placed to fit the hand of the warrior. Also relevant to the idea of elite warriors is the fact that those fighters were actually organized as an elite not only in the army but in the Egyptian society.

The Egyptians were mostly using their javelins and arrows, and preventing contact as much as possible. They were intended as weapon platform. But the runners, infantry intending to follow the chariots, would also be integral in his use. They would shield the chariots, achieve the fallen adversaries or engage their disorganized forces.

The hittites on the other hand would use a thrusting spear and charge the opposing forces. At least according to some. With three men, it was mostly a fighting platform and some argue it would not really charge but go to close combat with lighter forces.

At first it would use arrows but the spear and the third man was added by the time of Quaddesh. At this point the battle would often dissolve in a kind of melee with some chariots stopped and some still rolling, thus putting an emphasis on close combat weapons.

minorant chariots would also use a thrusting spear. There is engraving of the use of bows but in hunting scene, so it seem not to have been used in war. By the time of the acheans, the picture is less clear. There is no evidence of its use in actual combat. It my have been a taxi or a commanding platform.

The mythological sources are unclear and may refer more to hunting scenes than war. And that's my bad. I draw too much upon those memories.

Celtics chariot are a special problem, as they were used for quite some time. But they have a composite armament of javelin, thrusting spears and close combat weapons. They seem to have been used accordingly in various roles. They were also war-taxis and commanding platforms.

Still, the Halstatt princes show the great cultural importance of those warriors, their richness and status.

As limited by terrain as it was, the charriot would actually see a lot of different uses.

Gideon Falcon
2018-10-21, 03:41 AM
So there's a story I'm working on that involves a rebellion against a tyrant with an army of golden soldiers- not D&D style of a specific type, more like unintelligent warforged. They're basically suits of armor with some ceramic part mixed in for the magical purpose of the clay.

The big question I have is about weapon choice and style for the rebels. As far as I can imagine, blunt weapons would be about the only effective option to fight them, since I don't know of any melee piercing or cutting weapons that could reliably penetrate thick armor plating, especially with clay reinforcing in place of flesh - not to mention the lack of blood or vital organs.

The problem is, I feel like blunt weapons can be really restrictive on fighting style- every attack needs a large swing to build up force. Hammers and maces and such are pretty similar to my knowledge in this way. In fact, the only blunt weapon I can really see used with much skill is a staff - again, something that might not be able to reliably damage a construct.

Does anybody know more about this that might be able to dispel my misconceptions or offer suggestions on how to work around it?

KiwiQuest
2018-10-21, 04:27 AM
You could look at two-handed flails. While I don’t know if it satisfies your requirement for skill involved, it would fit nicely into a theme with rebels (farmers) using tools they’re vaguely familiar with, and the two handed flail creates a lot of force on impact. The Hussites fielded peasant foot soldiers with flails during the late middle ages, you could look into that if you like. I could see a team of rebels, some working with shields and picks and some with flails, working together to take down a mindless golem/warforged.

Kiero
2018-10-21, 05:35 AM
A slight aside on the chariot, the Persians, despite being known as peerless horsemen, were charioteers. Persian kings rode into battle on a chariot, not on horseback, and when they originally invaded the Iranian Plateau, it was as a mob of charioteers, not herds of horsemen.

Brother Oni
2018-10-21, 05:57 AM
First they were three main tactical use of the chariot, as a charging force, as a weapon platform and as a transport of chiefs or warriors.

The Spring and Autumn period of China (11th - 3rd Century BC) made good use of chariots for all three purposes you've listed, although they generally weren't used as battle taxis.

They were 2-4 horse pulled, with a crew of at least 3 - driver, close protection guy armed with a ge (dagger-axe early polearm) and 1 or more archers/crossbowmen. They were also often used by officers and generals as command platforms since they could get about the battlefield more quickly plus the commander could focus more on the battle than on horseback.

The chariot improved (lighter materials, more efficient design, horses getting armoured, the ge getting upgraded to a ji or halberd) as the Spring and Autumn period progresses, with them reaching their zenith of design and usage during the Warring States period (5th - 3rd Century BC), although their use persisted until the later Three Kingdoms (~3rd century AD).

From the depictions in the Terracotta army, the 3rd Century BC Qin kingdom (later dynasty) used 3-4 horse chariots, delineated into 4 separate roles: common, command, superior and assistant. The general of the army rode in the command chariot while the more senior officers rode in the superior. These two chariots types were supported by the assistant chariots while the common chariot was the rank and file.
They generally had 3-4 men per chariot, with the commanders taking one of the archer/crossbowmen slots.

You can tell this one is for the officers because of the umbrella. :p
https://data.travelchinaguide.com/photo/2012/06110127.jpg

Note that the Terracotta Army chariots are 1:2 scale models of the real things. The driver was generally a very big bloke and well armoured.

Their deployment varied - the Western Zhou (11th -8th Century BC) used chariots as a tactical unit of 10 men per chariot, 5 riding and 5 infantry, called a duì (隊/队) or squadron. Five squadrons made up a zhengpian (正偏), four zhengpian formed a shī (师) or division and five divisions were known as a jun (军) or army.

Vinyadan
2018-10-21, 12:28 PM
So there's a story I'm working on that involves a rebellion against a tyrant with an army of golden soldiers- not D&D style of a specific type, more like unintelligent warforged. They're basically suits of armor with some ceramic part mixed in for the magical purpose of the clay.

The big question I have is about weapon choice and style for the rebels. As far as I can imagine, blunt weapons would be about the only effective option to fight them, since I don't know of any melee piercing or cutting weapons that could reliably penetrate thick armor plating, especially with clay reinforcing in place of flesh - not to mention the lack of blood or vital organs.

The problem is, I feel like blunt weapons can be really restrictive on fighting style- every attack needs a large swing to build up force. Hammers and maces and such are pretty similar to my knowledge in this way. In fact, the only blunt weapon I can really see used with much skill is a staff - again, something that might not be able to reliably damage a construct.

Does anybody know more about this that might be able to dispel my misconceptions or offer suggestions on how to work around it?

I think that piercing weapons would be a lot better than blunt weapons. I can think of a few kinds: estocs, which are swords projected to exclusively hit with the point and to penetrate armour; rondel daggers (actually mostly used to hit the least defended spots); spiked warhammers; bills; lances to be used from horseback; halberds; crossbows. You can also jump the enemies, throw them to the ground, immobilize them, and drive a spike into their armour with a maul. But the question, of course, is how thick the armour is, of which kind, and of which material. I mean, do these monsters have weak spots to allow for movement, or are they made of magical gold that can be as elastic as human skin?

By the way, I remember that, some time ago, I posted an image of a hunting party, I think from the xvi century, and someone observed that there was a guy half-swording a bear. Apparently, it was fashionable to hunt with estocs, which often were used while half-swording. An adjutant would then strike the bear with a spear to make sure it died before it could kill the swordsman. later, to avoid overpenetration and keep the beast at a distance, hunting estocs were developed, resembling boar spears. http://www.swordforum.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=33549&stc=1&d=1108244493

The Jack
2018-10-21, 02:41 PM
DnD's whole animated armour/skeletons are vulnerable to bashing thing is really quite misleading utter bollocks. Especially when blunt damage would just knock pieces off, whilst more precise damage would destroy those pieces.

Slashing weapons would be bad against animated armour, ballistic weapons tend to fair worse against armour because there's less to keep them going in the same direction. But against your golden warriors... just don't slash, and anything will work.
Maces/Hammers are a lot of wrist movement. They're not as simple as you'd think.

gkathellar
2018-10-21, 04:18 PM
The mythological sources are unclear and may refer more to hunting scenes than war. And that's my bad. I draw too much upon those memories.

The chariot shows up all over the place in Hindu narratives, notably in the Bhagavad Gita, where Prince Arjuna rides one into battle with bow in hand, and the god Krishna makes an appearance as his charioteer. The chariot in general was pretty heavily used in India, which makes sense given the links between Persian and Aryan-Indian cultures.


The problem is, I feel like blunt weapons can be really restrictive on fighting style- every attack needs a large swing to build up force. Hammers and maces and such are pretty similar to my knowledge in this way. In fact, the only blunt weapon I can really see used with much skill is a staff - again, something that might not be able to reliably damage a construct.

A big part of the technique of any bludgeoning weapon (any weapon, really, and even the empty hand) involves shortening the swing and generating more torque with less apparent movement. The feet, ankles, knees, hips, back, ribs, shoulder, elbow, wrist and fingers can all be used to generate power, and with skill, all can be used at the same time as part of a relatively small stroke. Even big strikes require serious technique to maximize their effectiveness, as a long, undisciplined swing may actually lose power through inefficiencies in the movement. The shape of the the actual war hammer (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_hammer) in particular lends itself to a skilled user who knows how to bring their energy to a fine point.

Every weapon can be used with skill: timing, footwork, awareness, and power generation are universal and fencing is only one (if probably the most robust) way those attributes are demonstrated. A sword or a light polearm gives you far more options than a heavy weapon, which means to fight well with a heavy weapon your fundamentals needs to be that much better (and to be clear, in an unarmored duel between two fighters of similar ability the sword or light polearm will probably win). One-handed mace or hammer is also almost always going to be accompanied by a shield, which provides a whole body of techniques on its own.

And then of course you have stuff like the meteor hammer (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meteor_hammer), which isn't exactly a practical battlefield weapon but jeez can you imagine getting hit by one of those things?


DnD's whole animated armour/skeletons are vulnerable to bashing thing is really quite misleading utter bollocks. Especially when blunt damage would just knock pieces off, whilst more precise damage would destroy those pieces.

It would really depend on how durable the target is and what sort of arbitrary rules they follow. For the most part I agree: if an animated skeleton is just regular bone being held together at the joints by plastic wizard glue, you may as well just take an axe to it. As has been amply demonstrated in archaeological findings, bones do poorly against a steel edge and a stout swordarm. But what does killing a skeleton or a suit or animated armor even consist of? As soon as we get beyond, "you whack it until its health pebbles run out," we get into all sorts of stupid questions.

rrgg
2018-10-21, 06:54 PM
So there's a story I'm working on that involves a rebellion against a tyrant with an army of golden soldiers- not D&D style of a specific type, more like unintelligent warforged. They're basically suits of armor with some ceramic part mixed in for the magical purpose of the clay.

The big question I have is about weapon choice and style for the rebels. As far as I can imagine, blunt weapons would be about the only effective option to fight them, since I don't know of any melee piercing or cutting weapons that could reliably penetrate thick armor plating, especially with clay reinforcing in place of flesh - not to mention the lack of blood or vital organs.

The problem is, I feel like blunt weapons can be really restrictive on fighting style- every attack needs a large swing to build up force. Hammers and maces and such are pretty similar to my knowledge in this way. In fact, the only blunt weapon I can really see used with much skill is a staff - again, something that might not be able to reliably damage a construct.

Does anybody know more about this that might be able to dispel my misconceptions or offer suggestions on how to work around it?

I'm not sure that being limited to blunt damage is really going to change fighting style all that much. You will need to make sure that all the weapons you use have a pretty solid construction and that you make sure to put a good amount of power in each strike instead of going for a quick kill with cheeky thrusts at an enemy's unarmored parts. Although in battles involving many soldiers most wouldn't have much leisure time to concentrate on aiming where an enemy is unarmored anyways, and as a result battle often did involve some degree of repeatedly hitting the enemy on their armor really hard in the hopes that the build up of bruises and exhastion eventually causes them to give up. Hence why George Silver recommends "weapons of weight" in mixed melees instead of his half pike or forest bill.

It's generally not as much use in a duel where the aim is to kill the other person, but a two-handed thrust with a blunt sledgehammer or axe can absolutely be used to knock someone onto their but. Similarly, long, sturdy spears or an equivalent blunt staff should still be useful for knocking an enemy back or holding him in place. If the polearm has forking or hooking elements at the end it can be used the same way, or to catch an enemy's weapon or limbs, to trip the enemy, or even to "teare armor" like di Grassi mentions.

A blunt lance can still be somewhat useful on horseback as well, bernardino de Mendoza stated that once a lancer had broken his lance in combat, he could continue using the blunt end of the broken lance to unhorse opponents a couple more times. Trying to push opponents off their horse may have been the way a very stiff arming sword or estoc would be used from horseback as well if the point proved unable to penetrate the opponent's armor. From John Cruso's description of how 17th century cuirassiers should fight with their swords:

". . . to place the pummell of it upon his right thigh, and so with his right hand to direct or raise the point to his mark, higher or lower as occasion serveth: either at the bellie of the adverse horse-man (about the pummell of the saddle) or at his arm pits, or his throat, where if it pierce not, (as it is very like it will not fail, by slipping under the casque) yet meeting with a stay in that part of the bodie, where a man is very weak, and having a sword of a very stiffe blade, (as afore-said) it will doubtlesse unhorse him. Being past his enemie, he is to make a back-blow at him, aiming to cut the buckle of his pouldron, whereby he disarmeth one of his arms, &c."

Also, as the last part mentions, many suits plate armor still included various leather straps which could be cut by a slash from the back or by a sharp blade that managed to work its way between the plates. Similary, repeated strong blows with something like a mace or hammer could sometimes cause pins or other fastenings to break, allowing pieces of armor to suddenly come lose or fall off.

SleepyShadow
2018-10-21, 11:18 PM
Hey, glad to see you guys got the thread back up :smallsmile:

So I had a question about naval tactics. Specifically, My D&D players have decided to go gallivanting off into the wonderful world of nautical exploration and naval combat. However, this the same campaign I was asking about last time (aliens with WWI-era tech invading the world), so this is quite problematic. My question is whether or not there would be anything the PCs could do with their 1690s-esque fortified Galleass against something akin to a Derfflinger class battlecruiser.

I'm fairly sure the galleass is just toast in a straight on gunfight, but I was wondering if there was some sort of unconventional tactic that could be used to overcome the battlecruiser. Would boarding be an option, maybe?

Mr Beer
2018-10-22, 12:40 AM
Ship to ship, about as much chance as a child in a rowboat armed with a peashooter would have against the galleass. The disparity is vast.

As a delivery mechanism for the PCs, either trickery or sailing over when the cruiser is moored at night might work.

Thiel
2018-10-22, 12:58 AM
The only option I can think of that doesn't start with the PCs dieing from gun fire is if they infiltrate it by stealth.
The Derfflinger really only need to score one hit with its lightest gun to completely destroy their galeass and it can can hit them at ranges where they can barely see it.
Boarding doesn't seem like a good idea either since the Derfflinger has a crew of 1100 and a hefty selection of rifles, pistols and machine guns to arm them. Depending on the details of the setting they might also have SMGs and handgrenades.

Brother Oni
2018-10-22, 06:27 AM
I'm fairly sure the galleass is just toast in a straight on gunfight, but I was wondering if there was some sort of unconventional tactic that could be used to overcome the battlecruiser. Would boarding be an option, maybe?

The only thing I can think of is the PCs force the BC to chase them, then lead the BC over unfamiliar shallow waters where the shallower draft of their galleass (on average 12 - 15 ft or 4 - 5 m) can pass, but the much deeper draft of the BC (9.2 m) can't.

The optimal clever plan would be to do this in a tidal zone while the tide is going out, so the BC can initially enter, but is then trapped or runs aground in the shoals as the tide recedes. In a typical fantasy setting, this would be even better if done at night if the PCs have night vision, while the BC is limited to their electric spot lights.

The trick is then finding a suitable trap location and getting the BC to chase them while wanting them intact - maybe they've just snuck on the BC, kidnapped some critical hostages or stolen some mission critical items/equipment and fled (although not fleeing too hard)?

Lapak
2018-10-22, 08:10 AM
Yeah, there is a reason that the great European naval powers were able to push even China and Japan around for a while - the advantages of technological superiority are greatly magnified in naval combat. On the ground you can use the terrain to try to mitigate the advantage: constrain mobility, make use of cover, attack supply lines rather than the main force, and so on - but a more-advanced ship defines the terrain. It provides mobility, it IS cover, it is its own supply line, etc. Direct confrontation is not going to end well, and in that situation I would be looking to attack it at one more remove: hit its fuel supply dumps when it is away, figure out a way to mine likely approaches, anything but 'attack the ship itself.'

Gideon Falcon
2018-10-22, 08:43 AM
Thanks a ton, you gave me some great ideas. I think I can figure things out much better now.

VoxRationis
2018-10-22, 08:52 AM
So how does command of an army (one of the 19th century, in particular) actually get accomplished? I've heard vague references to drums and bugles, but I'm not sure on the particulars. How much detail can you get in orders given by musical cues? How many distinct rhythms would soldiers be trained to memorize? Would those be army-specific? Would learning the meaning of enemy musical signals be an important piece of intelligence? At what point does command consist of an officer shouting things? I presume orders were sent to individual tactical units by runners or riders coming from the position of command staff. Was it common for such orders to be intercepted, or for message-bearers to be killed by random fire if trying to reach a unit on the front lines?

Vinyadan
2018-10-22, 11:37 AM
War and Peace has a bit of everything. There is a scene in which message bearers have to run from one side to the other of the front line. It is a dangerous job, and one messenger actually doesn't carry out the order because of fear. They aren't just anyone, iirc, they are aides to the command staff, some of them young nobles. There also is a scene in which prince Alexei takes the flag and attacks the enemy in an effort to rally others behind him.

There is a story in Cuore in which a young drummer is sent as a messenger by the Italians during the Wars of Independence, and he gets shot by the Austrians and loses a leg.

I think that drums were most important to have people march at the same pace, and that trumpets were used to give general information (wake up, go to sleep, charge now), but details were given by officers, and much went by imitation of your neighbor, or from hearing what lower officiers repeated. Flags were an important visual clue about where you were supposed to be.

About battling a battlecruiser, I think that you need to build a wooden alpaca, stuff it with mashed potatoes, and spray the potatoes with some terribly infective and dangerous disease, like, I don't know, smallpox or ebola. Then pretend to be a group of natives and send the alpaca as a sign of submission.

Clistenes
2018-10-22, 11:46 AM
About battling a battlecruiser, I think that you need to build a wooden alpaca, stuff it with mashed potatoes, and spray the potatoes with some terribly infective and dangerous disease, like, I don't know, smallpox or ebola. Then pretend to be a group of natives and send the alpaca as a sign of submission.

As ridiculous as it sounds... that may work!

Mr Beer
2018-10-22, 05:30 PM
The ole' "pox-ridden mashed potatoes in a wooden alpaca trick" huh? Well it is a fantasy world so maybe the not-Germans haven't heard of this one.

SleepyShadow
2018-10-22, 05:47 PM
Thanks to everyone for the feedback!


The only option I can think of that doesn't start with the PCs dieing from gun fire is if they infiltrate it by stealth.
The Derfflinger really only need to score one hit with its lightest gun to completely destroy their galeass and it can can hit them at ranges where they can barely see it.
Boarding doesn't seem like a good idea either since the Derfflinger has a crew of 1100 and a hefty selection of rifles, pistols and machine guns to arm them. Depending on the details of the setting they might also have SMGs and handgrenades.

The battlecruiser crew doesn't have SMGs available, and I've always figured magical explosives like fireball are roughly equivalent to a hand grenade and so can be negated when weighed against each other. Crew size was something I hadn't considered, though. I think the PCs have a crew of about fifty sailors.


The only thing I can think of is the PCs force the BC to chase them, then lead the BC over unfamiliar shallow waters where the shallower draft of their galleass (on average 12 - 15 ft or 4 - 5 m) can pass, but the much deeper draft of the BC (9.2 m) can't.

The optimal clever plan would be to do this in a tidal zone while the tide is going out, so the BC can initially enter, but is then trapped or runs aground in the shoals as the tide recedes. In a typical fantasy setting, this would be even better if done at night if the PCs have night vision, while the BC is limited to their electric spot lights.

The trick is then finding a suitable trap location and getting the BC to chase them while wanting them intact - maybe they've just snuck on the BC, kidnapped some critical hostages or stolen some mission critical items/equipment and fled (although not fleeing too hard)?

That's a great idea. I'll definitely give the players a couple available reasons why the battlecruiser wouldn't immediately blow them up. I just hope the players go for it ...


About battling a battlecruiser, I think that you need to build a wooden alpaca, stuff it with mashed potatoes, and spray the potatoes with some terribly infective and dangerous disease, like, I don't know, smallpox or ebola. Then pretend to be a group of natives and send the alpaca as a sign of submission.

Knowing my players, they might very well come up with something like this. They've done weirder things.

Epimethee
2018-10-23, 03:44 AM
Thanks Brother Oni, Kiero and gkathellar. I could not hope to be exhaustive and you gave some great follow-up.

I think you could had a few things, the first is administered societies could and would use those technologies and it point to the fact that it was an expansive and complex achievement.
I would like to read, Brother, some informations about the social classes of Chinese charioteers, how they were integrated in the Chinese society.
In most administered societies, they would make for a special elite, a kind of chivalry or a cast of professional soldiers. I would like to ear some Chinese specifics.

In a way, this elite ties with the Halstattians princes or the achaeans leaders. You have a prestigious weapon that is central to the representation of chiefs or warriors. The relative effort involved would make the chariot an important artefact, as compounded by its presence in halstattians graves.
And as may also be deduced by its depiction in greek mythology, or in the Iliad were it is the vehicle of heroes.
And of course Indian gods are not the only ones using chariots.

And then it makes me wonder how much the terror of a charge by chariots could be provoked in a small part by this special status. A bit, to compare the incomparable, like how much the tank is shrouded in awe. As much as drilled infantry had in most cases contained the tanks, its single presence may easily disband troops, especially untested soldiers.

Still, the last part is a guess...




SleepyShadow I like your setting and may be tempted to give it my own spin one day. I may or may not have taken a few notes. I hope you won't mind and take it as a compliment. Thanks for the idea.

Also I second Brother Oni. The situation is not exactly the same but the famous actions of Stephen Decatur and the USS Philadelphia may give you some ideas.

About the relative size of crews, again with a grain of salt, the boarding of the Kent by Robert Surcouf saw about a hundred privateers against an English crew of around 450, including some 300 soldiers. In the small and cramped quarters of a ship the relative size may be less of a problem than in open field, but you need seasoned fighters with a huge moral to hope to achieve something like that.

A last thing to consider would be the system of detection of the ship. Radar and other means would be inexistant, even with electric spot lights the lines of vision would be limited. So a boarding action under the cover of darkness or fog is not totally outside the realm of possibilities.

It would still be a huge achievement and certainly involve a lot of little ships. It is also a bit desperate but desperate measures are the only option here.



And finally, for the way an army was commanded, you may look at the organisation of the French army under Napoleon, and about the chief of Staff Berthier.

Napoleon established an "Etat-Major General" to centralize is orders. Berthier was the "Major Général", the second in command of the army, after the Emperor himself.
They were three main parts. The "cabinet du major général", with four offices, an executive office, an office tasked with assessing the movement of troops, an accounting and of course Intelligence assessment.

The second part, "l'état major particulier du major général" were the "aides de camp du major général" were tasked with taking written orders to the chiefs of armies. It was a difficult but prestigious task, as the distance was huge and ennemies were often present.

Then you would have "l'état major de l'armée", with more administrative tasks.

It was in effect a huge machine, well organized and efficient. Napoleon would centralize a lot of decision making, and the messengers were part of a special corps, with accommodations inside the empire.
As an aside, Napoleon would also be hugely influential in the creation of an efficient postal system, even in favoring the "poste aux armées", who delivered mail to the troops.
It was also one of the thing who was influential in the transfer of money by mail order as Napoleon would enforce strict rules and promote the system.

Still the main way of providing order was by mail, or by frequently giving personnel orders. Napoleon was very mobile in a given campaign and took regular meeting with the officers. He tended also to have his troops relatively concentrated and with a clear goal for a given campaign. He was also seconded by brilliant and efficient officers, at least till the campaign of Russia. He really needed them to execute his campaign plans. The Maréchaux (plural of Maréchal) were used to translate his orders.

But tactical orders were sometime harder to give. The drums and others musical instrument could only give a few predetermined orders. Charge, stand, fire, retreat... The chain of command was hugely dependent of the officers, and even more of the field officers and sergeant. The officers of Napoleon would often give order in the middle of the line, even the Maréchaux and high ranking officers. The casualties were huge among theirs ranks and it goes a long way to explain the decreasing quality of the French army after 1814.

snowblizz
2018-10-23, 04:11 AM
Well Epimethee stole most of what I was writing as I was doing it so am not gonna repeat myself.

I will mention some examples on how important personal/written orders were.

General Lee was considered an exceptional general but gave rather vague orders to division commanders. This worked in the earlier parts when he had very good commanders who understood him and could make good decision absed on the orders.

I've seen it argued that e.g. the Battle of Gettysburg was in part last by the lack of a key subordinate division/corps commander (General Jackson) who was killed earlier in a friendly fire incident.

There are plenty of cases of lsot, intercepted orders and messengers. Also from the ACW they found orders from Lee to one commander once, but the union leaders were so inept they could not take advantage of this. One of those "woulda shortened the war by years" moments IIRC.

The famous charge of the Light Brigade is another example of bungled orders on a vague note/message.

The 19th century in general (ha) saw armies swell to sizes were it becomes impractical and difficult to effectively command at a distance. Riders and orders can only do so much.

Even WW1 used still dispatches as radio wasn't properly in use and telephone lines got cut. And on a campaign it's uncertian you could use such anyway. In the ACW they sent orders by telegraph too but such coudl be tapped, intercepted and the lines only go certain places (following railroads, which armies did too made them at least somewhat useful).


I once read an article in a wargaming magazine where they played the game not in the usual manner where commanders have a "godlike vision" of the field. But with subcommanders at the tables moving units and overall commanders in another room writing orders on actual notes to be passed along.

Musical orders just wouldn't work on a rela battlefield, not for any distance. At the sharp end it's officers telling the men what to do. But for the soldiers it's going to be rather straight forwards anyway. Usually quite literally. The men do not ahve to worry about doing flanking and such, they worry about going the way they are pointed and by those guys 50m in front of them shooting.

Brother Oni
2018-10-23, 07:43 AM
I think you could had a few things, the first is administered societies could and would use those technologies and it point to the fact that it was an expansive and complex achievement.
I would like to read, Brother, some informations about the social classes of Chinese charioteers, how they were integrated in the Chinese society.
In most administered societies, they would make for a special elite, a kind of chivalry or a cast of professional soldiers. I would like to ear some Chinese specifics.


In which time period are you interested in? Spring and Autumn period to the Han Dynasty covers approximately 1400 years.

Generally speaking though, Chinese culture significantly differs from more western cultures where warrior elites aren't as highly valued as the administrators who actually ensure the smooth running of the bureaucracy of the kingdom/empire. There's a Chinese saying "You don't use good iron to make nails; you don't make good men into soldiers".


About the relative size of crews, again with a grain of salt, the boarding of the Kent by Robert Surcouf saw about a hundred privateers against an English crew of around 450, including some 300 soldiers. In the small and cramped quarters of a ship the relative size may be less of a problem than in open field, but you need seasoned fighters with a huge moral to hope to achieve something like that.

A couple things here that would differ from Robert Surcouf's example:

The ~1100 crew compliment of a Derflinger class BC doesn't include marines or other troops it may be carrying, resulting in a much bigger force disparity.
Assuming three watches, that's only ~370 people on duty at any one time, 370 on standby which could be mobilised in fairly short order and 370 asleep/resting who would take longer to prepare. If the PCs are quick and quiet, they would be facing far fewer people than expected.
A WW1 era BC has steel bulkheads which can be locked to contain flooding, but also do an excellent job of limiting the movement of hostile boarders. If the PCs start doing too well, they could find themselves locked into a few compartments while the ship reorganises itself and get some heavy ordanance in place.
A WW1 BC is a maze in comparison to a 18th Century ship - getting lost is a real issue, not to mention you can get outflanked very easily.



I once read an article in a wargaming magazine where they played the game not in the usual manner where commanders have a "godlike vision" of the field. But with subcommanders at the tables moving units and overall commanders in another room writing orders on actual notes to be passed along.

There was a series called Time Commanders (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_Commanders) on the BBC which did this with a modified version of the Rome Total War engine. The players took the part of the generals and officers/runners, with the generals staying at a grand strategy table with physical tokens to represent troops, and the runners passing on orders to staff in another room (who moved the troops around in the game) and relaying back what they could see on the screens.

More than one team became a cropper when incorrect information was fed back or wasn't updated correctly on the general's strategy table, resulting in conflicting orders being given or the generals unable to react quickly enough to changing circumstances on the battlefield. In particular, I remember one team losing in part due to one of the runners getting frustrated at the slow speed and poor judgement of the generals and started giving his own orders instead to the troops he was responsible for.

Vinyadan
2018-10-23, 12:10 PM
In unrelated news, a research effort to map the increase of water level at the end of the ice ages has ended up finding more than 40 shipwrecks, from ancient Greek to Byzantine, to Genoese to Venetian, to Ottoman to Cossack, all in the Bulgarian waters of the Black Sea. The most recent news is that they have found an amazingly well preserved merchant ship from the fourth century BC, of a kind until now known only by ancient descriptions and depictions. https://www.southampton.ac.uk/humanities/news/2016/10/10-black-sea.page

https://www.google.it/amp/s/www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/10/23/worlds-oldest-intact-shipwreck-discovered-black-sea/amp/

In a different article, I read that it even still has its boats!

Clistenes
2018-10-23, 03:53 PM
The ole' "pox-ridden mashed potatoes in a wooden alpaca trick" huh? Well it is a fantasy world so maybe the not-Germans haven't heard of this one.

It's ridiculous enough that they may laugh at it as a quait, ridiculous custom of the unwashed savages, and actually try the mashed potatoes!

Plus, while they may suspect poison, they probably think biological warfare is beyond those primitives... So they may feed it to a dog or pig or whatever and judge it safe if the animal doesn't get sick within a day...

Just look at this face! Who could suspect anything evil coming from this?:


https://cf.shopee.com.my/file/641db9512762190b366185d4a77cc88fhttps://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/oMgAAOSwzrNa-qVC/s-l640.jpghttps://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/41bocfgOVPL._SX425_.jpghttps://c.allegroimg.com/s512/03ffdc/fb7b003c4cfb86142ec29b87f91chttps://i.etsystatic.com/5678681/r/il/595484/592888492/il_1140xN.592888492_hrby.jpghttps://my-live.slatic.net/original/1de7bbd14353aa463763cf1056433830.jpg

The Jack
2018-10-23, 06:27 PM
I think spells like fireball really question ironclads and big ships.

Like, the aim of those spells are perfect, you could fire them into a gun barrel and watch the whole thing blow up.

Then again, fireball invalidates castles, rules as is, so...
But then also.... WWI tech really is overwhelming, but guns don't do much more damage than medieval weaponry, so in a world where a human can have so many d10s, is it really so much of an advantage?

SleepyShadow
2018-10-23, 08:21 PM
SleepyShadow I like your setting and may be tempted to give it my own spin one day. I may or may not have taken a few notes. I hope you won't mind and take it as a compliment. Thanks for the idea.

Also I second Brother Oni. The situation is not exactly the same but the famous actions of Stephen Decatur and the USS Philadelphia may give you some ideas.

About the relative size of crews, again with a grain of salt, the boarding of the Kent by Robert Surcouf saw about a hundred privateers against an English crew of around 450, including some 300 soldiers. In the small and cramped quarters of a ship the relative size may be less of a problem than in open field, but you need seasoned fighters with a huge moral to hope to achieve something like that.

A last thing to consider would be the system of detection of the ship. Radar and other means would be inexistant, even with electric spot lights the lines of vision would be limited. So a boarding action under the cover of darkness or fog is not totally outside the realm of possibilities.

It would still be a huge achievement and certainly involve a lot of little ships. It is also a bit desperate but desperate measures are the only option here.

I'm glad you like the setting :smallbiggrin: As for the detection system, the Ragesians (the aliens) don't have anything more than two spotlights port and starboard, and one fore and aft. Would it be possible for the PCs to swim up to the ship at night? Then again, subtlety is not exactly my group's specialty.


A couple things here that would differ from Robert Surcouf's example:

The ~1100 crew compliment of a Derflinger class BC doesn't include marines or other troops it may be carrying, resulting in a much bigger force disparity.
Assuming three watches, that's only ~370 people on duty at any one time, 370 on standby which could be mobilised in fairly short order and 370 asleep/resting who would take longer to prepare. If the PCs are quick and quiet, they would be facing far fewer people than expected.
A WW1 era BC has steel bulkheads which can be locked to contain flooding, but also do an excellent job of limiting the movement of hostile boarders. If the PCs start doing too well, they could find themselves locked into a few compartments while the ship reorganises itself and get some heavy ordanance in place.
A WW1 BC is a maze in comparison to a 18th Century ship - getting lost is a real issue, not to mention you can get outflanked very easily.



The ship would be running with a skeleton crew, since they don't really have soldiers to spare. I hadn't thought of the bulkheads, though. That would add a really interesting aspect to combat aboard the ship. Thanks for the idea :smallsmile:


It's ridiculous enough that they may laugh at it as a quait, ridiculous custom of the unwashed savages, and actually try the mashed potatoes!

Plus, while they may suspect poison, they probably think biological warfare is beyond those primitives... So they may feed it to a dog or pig or whatever and judge it safe if the animal doesn't get sick within a day...

Poisoned food would actually work really well. The invaders are getting a little desperate for resources. Maintaining their army while also moving their civilians into conquered areas has been draining their resources way ahead of schedule. Tainted tribute food might be a trick that could work several times if the PCs are careful about it.


I think spells like fireball really question ironclads and big ships.

Like, the aim of those spells are perfect, you could fire them into a gun barrel and watch the whole thing blow up.

Then again, fireball invalidates castles, rules as is, so...
But then also.... WWI tech really is overwhelming, but guns don't do much more damage than medieval weaponry, so in a world where a human can have so many d10s, is it really so much of an advantage?

Maybe not against PCs (although the rifles do 2d10 or 2d12 depending on caliber), but overwhelming tech certainly gives the invaders an edge army-to-army.

Lapak
2018-10-23, 08:25 PM
I think spells like fireball really question ironclads and big ships.

Like, the aim of those spells are perfect, you could fire them into a gun barrel and watch the whole thing blow up.

Then again, fireball invalidates castles, rules as is, so...
But then also.... WWI tech really is overwhelming, but guns don't do much more damage than medieval weaponry, so in a world where a human can have so many d10s, is it really so much of an advantage?I have to question the 'perfect aim' bit. Line of Effect is blocked if a gap in a barrier is less than 1 foot square; that strongly implies that you can't toss a Fireball down a cannon barrel.

The Jack
2018-10-23, 08:36 PM
I have to question the 'perfect aim' bit. Line of Effect is blocked if a gap in a barrier is less than 1 foot square; that strongly implies that you can't toss a Fireball down a cannon barrel.

It is?

Well, Many guns aren't longer than that 20ft radius and the fireball goes around corners. It still doesn't look good.



skeleton crew
I still think the Rags'd be mad to not recruit others to do their work for them, or at least to build or summon a few things that could work for them. Animated armour but with a machinegun.... sounds like a perfect warrior.


Maybe not against pcs
Veterans, knights and others still have more than they need for health. More-monster enemies could take it too.

Mr Beer
2018-10-23, 10:26 PM
I think spells like fireball really question ironclads and big ships.

Like, the aim of those spells are perfect, you could fire them into a gun barrel and watch the whole thing blow up.

20' radius explosion 150' range 8d6 damage (or 8 shortsword hits)

An example ironclad weapon:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RBL_7_inch_Armstrong_gun

- maximum range 3200 metres (7500 feet)
- shell weighs 40 to 50 kilos at velocity of 340 m/s...damage unknown but I think exceeds 8 shortswords

If we're talking about the WWI battlecruiser, it's armaments are far more powerful again.

Epimethee
2018-10-24, 05:00 AM
You may be really fast here. That's a lot of interesting things and I want to add quite a few things.

So...

Snowblizz said a few things about American Civil War and communication (I was almost certain somebody would talk about that.) I agree with all that, but I want to emphasis how much war in XIX century was a changing landscape. The Civil War is actually quite an interesting laboratory as European tactical conceptions inherited from the Napoleonian Wars would clash with the dangerous wonders of technology.
Trains and telegraph are only a part of the picture. Basically, the second half of the XIX century till the end of the first world war is a time of increasing change in the technological landscape. The French navy would install the first wireless communication system on her ship in 1899 for example.

Also I think the military music had a little tactical role, a bit like the flag, and their use in battle would decrease and disappear around the same time.

The music was important to give a rhythm of march, to give short orders and also, like a flag, as a kind or rallying point. Of course, the range is really short and the fonctions limited.
But all those things would be relatively important at company and platoon level for forces who would march in ranks and files.


About wargames, you may be referring to the younger Reiswitz, one of the first inventor of wargames independent of chess. (After the experimentations of Hellwig and Venturini around 1780-1810 and then his own father who made that (http://seann-mcanally.blogspot.com/2014/01/random-cool-stuff-3-kriegspiel-table.html): http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-9bCLCmJRLsg/UtgkDXxED2I/AAAAAAAABMw/5KwG29MNnSI/s1600/1345731682071.jpg

Reiswitz son was addressing the problem of uncertainty of war and wanted to weave it in its game. As such, every player would give written orders to the umpire, whose decisions would be final and who was tasked with moving the units, deciding the advantages and disadvantages and so on. The only units on the table would be those both players were aware of.

The guy was also responsible for the introduction of dices and the use of probability in wargames, also with the intent of simulating the uncertainty of war.



To Brother Oni, about Chinese charioteers. As you fancy and see fit to do. I only read a fews things on Chinese armies and society, mostly a few ospreys books, some classical stuff and a few articles.
So maybe you could start with a kind of beginning, when did the chariot appear, in which social context, how would charioteers be considered? How the administration was structured around chariots? Who was the administrator in charge?
The subject is huge and I don't know how I would attack it, so really, as you see fit would be the best.

Thanks also for the caveat on the Surcouf example. Just a quick note: as much as getting lost is an issue, the maze that is a modern battleship may also help a small group of players, or a team of special forces. I'm not sure how ancient peoples would react in the context of the shaft of the propeller but players may be creative.


Vinyadan, I saw that and it's amazing!



SleepyShadow, about spots, I think you are a bit soft on the lights part. They would have of course only a few main spots, but quite a lot of secondary ones, relatively powerful. For example, if you have to lift a lifeboat at night the main spot was not practical. Also the mounted self defense weapons would often incorporate one.

Also don't forget the battleships would still have masts were the main spot could be positioned.

And then I wonder when were illuminating obus used by battleships?

Finally reaching a battleship at night by swimming is not totally outside the realm of possibilities.

snowblizz
2018-10-24, 06:32 AM
About wargames, you may be referring to the younger Reiswitz, one of the first inventor of wargames independent of chess. (After the experimentations of Hellwig and Venturini around 1780-1810 and then his own father who made that (http://seann-mcanally.blogspot.com/2014/01/random-cool-stuff-3-kriegspiel-table.html): http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-9bCLCmJRLsg/UtgkDXxED2I/AAAAAAAABMw/5KwG29MNnSI/s1600/1345731682071.jpg


No it was a battle report in Wargames Illustrated couple years back. The thing Brother Oni talks about was slightly different I've seen it and some similar programmes on tv. Mostly those programmes ar emore informative than exploratory/speculative. So they used Total War to get good animations.

I've also read an funny one where generals only got to see the field through webcams at the level of the miniature soldiers. So things like moving along a forest road with troops became as tense as it would have bene in real life (well again, sort of) as you could only see a tunnel forwards with a bit of light at the end when far away.


Both of these are attempts to reach the holy grail of wargmaing. To wargame in conditions that are approximate to the field of batttle to avoid the "god perspective". Generally friction in command is addressed by rolling dice to add some uncetainty but it's very difficult to impose a fog of war. E.g. people knowing which battel they ar epalying sort of invalidates the actual circumstances.

It's probably tangentially connected to the discussion in this thread. Since similar real world constraints apply eg to weapons discussions. Training for weapons have the issues too and is why olympic fencing IMO is so removed from actual fencing.

One of my pet peeves of wargaming is when you create a rules set and play it out, success is determined by whther you achieved hisotrical results. Results that would not result if the actual participants had the knowledge the reenactors had.



I think spells like fireball really question ironclads and big ships.

Like, the aim of those spells are perfect, you could fire them into a gun barrel and watch the whole thing blow up.

Unlikely IMO. What are cannons? Strong metal tubes designed to contain an explosion so you project the projectile out. Odds are the only thing you do is set of the charge and launch the projectile.
And that's a good old fashioned one. When moving into more modern context mere fire won't necessarily set the charges off. Some explosives only react to very specific shocks to get them started.

Depending on target, I would posit targeting smokestacks and get the fireball down into the boiler room would be much worse for the ship. Ideally ofc setting off the magazine but only if your ship is crewed by british ww1 sailors. (One reason for the great losses at Jutland and Dogger bank in WW1 was that the british apparently kept charges stacked on deck to fire faster and had not closed the blast doors. And boy did that blow up in their faces.

SleepyShadow
2018-10-24, 07:56 AM
I still think the Rags'd be mad to not recruit others to do their work for them, or at least to build or summon a few things that could work for them. Animated armour but with a machinegun.... sounds like a perfect warrior.

They've got plenty of local recruits to fill in as ground troops, but it'd be unlikely they'd trust goblins and such to handle important machinery like battlecruisers and biplanes. Maybe some local lizardfolk aboard the ship to act as marines. Animated armour though, that's a great idea. I'm sure my players won't appreciate it :smallamused:


SleepyShadow, about spots, I think you are a bit soft on the lights part. They would have of course only a few main spots, but quite a lot of secondary ones, relatively powerful. For example, if you have to lift a lifeboat at night the main spot was not practical. Also the mounted self defense weapons would often incorporate one.

Also don't forget the battleships would still have masts were the main spot could be positioned.

And then I wonder when were illuminating obus used by battleships?

Finally reaching a battleship at night by swimming is not totally outside the realm of possibilities.

Good point. I hadn't considered weapon mounted lights. Thank you for pointing it out. The Ragesians always seem to have more advantages than I think they do lol

The Jack
2018-10-24, 08:25 AM
I was wondering that, since it goes around corners, it'd basically get all the ammo. secondary weapons like belt fed AA guns would make a mess. Lightning may also also a choice, as it apparently ignites objects.

Other ways I'd be interesed in trying to take down a WWI ship with DnD magic.
Enlisting a sea monster
Send in spooky skeletons through the waters and up the ship.
Fog and illusion magic to get ships in real close for boarding. Night raids'n underhanded spec ops style stuff is great, so players could do that stuff. Fly onto the ship in stealth, murder everyone.


What did you end up going with for the invasion plan?

Clistenes
2018-10-24, 11:35 AM
I was wondering that, since it goes around corners, it'd basically get all the ammo. secondary weapons like belt fed AA guns would make a mess. Lightning may also also a choice, as it apparently ignites objects.

Other ways I'd be interesed in trying to take down a WWI ship with DnD magic.
Enlisting a sea monster
Send in spooky skeletons through the waters and up the ship.
Fog and illusion magic to get ships in real close for boarding. Night raids'n underhanded spec ops style stuff is great, so players could do that stuff. Fly onto the ship in stealth, murder everyone.


What did you end up going with for the invasion plan?

If magic is allowed, a single 3.5e Wraith would do short work of a crew without magical weapons. It would turn its victims into Wraiths, who would in turn do the same to others...

A 5e Wraith wouldn't be as unstoppable, but if it fights cleverly it could infiltrate the ship and use hit-and-runs tactics to turn the crew into Specters one by one and send them against the rest of the crewmen...

Epimethee
2018-10-25, 09:54 AM
You know, I think the history of wargame can teach us a few things about the history of war. But we have first to agree to dodge an age old conversation about the effectiveness of training versus actual experience of war: wargames as used today in the military are not really intended to train the combat skills of a unit. They are more about the intangible things, like the reaction of the chain of command, the tactical and strategical strategical dispositions of the troops, on the terrain and in relation to the doctrine, intendancy as in use of ressources, and so on.

I’m of the opinion that, in the course of war, such skills are more important than the actual fighting skills, be it the «*hardness*» of the fighter or the superiority of material. The battle, as in the tactical victory, may only be decisive if it is followed, I mean if the operational aim is clear and it pursues a coherent and achievable strategical goal and if the troops are actually able to perform it.

That’s especially relevant for contemporary warfare so I don’t want to give historical example as I think everybody would have some self explanatory illustration of my last point in mind.

So to go back to history, the idea of modern wargame is in my opinion connected with the growing importance of science as an actual tool of war, or maybe with strategy as a science.

I make a distinction between the first wargames, the Prussian kriegspiele, and the old games more or less inspired by chess. They were actually some games that tried to change chess in early modern time, adding artillery or other pieces with different movement on the board, or changing the board, or other esoteric rules. They were all more or less theoretical abstraction about was, taken mostly from a perspective of high strategical concepts and the fight between troops would take place according to a convention, mostly the active piece would take an opponent.

But the first kriegspiele departed from this by implementing first an actual terrain, and then some granularity with the use of statistics and probability. They were aimed at simulation and this mere idea is important because it is a key to understand mentalities and particularly how the perception of war would change in the XIX century. I think it is relevant to a few things we are discussing here.

For my argument, I should develop the importance for warfare of the sciences I just talked about. Cartography is the most evident, as it would give a huge advantage in the preparation of an offensive or a campaign. It is far easier to give orders on a conventional map than related to some landmarks.
With the help of some other technologies, better communications, quicker transports, longer range of fire, the map is more and more the most relevant battlefield, expanding the frontline and leading to the development of the operational art in the XX century. Even more so with the invention of aviation, then radars and aircraft carriers, think for example of the literal siege of Rabaul by the Air Force in WWII.

But statistics and probability are of huge importance too (and their history is quite fascinating but outside the scope of this thread). Prior to Resiwitz, I don’t remember the name of the guys but some studies of weapons and troops were already made to assess their effectiveness statistically. (Reiswitz the Younger published his book in 1824 if my memory desserve me correctly). Even the hasard and thus the uncertainty of war may theoretically be accounted using probabilities.

It gives a kind of objectivity to the assessment of a weapon (a tradition proudly carried today) and in my opinion it is one of the mental turning point in the industrialization of war. Of course, it is what make possible the games we all played, from wargames to roleplaying game, offering a basis to relate every unit then character on play. But the influence of statistics in the concept of war and thus in its conduct is also significant. By this point the art of operations is growing stronger, his importance more and more conceptualized.

That’s again a huge subject, tying with the quicks changes of XIX century and one of the objects that fascinate me in this essential century.
Also I think, from the point of view of the gamer, how quickly some question, granularity versus playability, simulation versus access, and a lot of the abstractions that are still relevant in the discussion around wargame and RPG are relevant from the beginning.



For something completely different, I went to a conference this week by Guillaume Reich, an archeologist who worked on the weapons of La Tène, studying the actual weapons found on the site and the traces that were left on them. That’s a huge thesis, an impressive achievement that should be published soon. So maybe in one or two years.
He use traceology, forensic studies and reenactment. It is really methodical, he used for example samples of swords he made himself and a guillotine to multiply the blows on the blade with different forces and then studied the traces on both the replica and the original sword.

The work is huge and may constitute a reference for Celtic combat. The presentation was sadly a bit short to really dig on the specifics. He had obviously things to say on the equipment, the tactical formations, the use of weapons.
For example, he was able to speculate why the scabbard was on the right. The fighter would take the sword from the right hand with the palm of the hand facing outside. Then he would draw the weapon and the scabbard would help the movement, permitting to land an actual blow.
This way of drawing a sword would also not be impeded by the shield.
This is one of the hint who point to the development of phalanges of Celtic warriors, albeit in less close order than the greeks or romans ones. 
 The need for place could also explain the movement of Celtic warriors, for example in the battle of Cannae were they would retreat to form the famous crescent were the romans forces would advance to be exterminated.

But one of the most startling conclusion is that almost every trace on the sword found in La Tène was coherent with destructions in combat. The bended sword could be obtained easily: three blow from a horse could result in a sword bended first to the right, then linear then bended to the left. 
 A few blows could destroy a shield. 
 A sword inserted in a shield could become twisted like a corkscrew.
Even the scabbard, no bigger than 5mm of iron, could bend after the fighter tripped, encircling is leg completely in some cases.

I think it is quite enlightening on the solidity of the Celtics weapons. But the work is really impressive and I wait for the book as the guy has clearly a lot to say.

Also, he spoke of a collective problem, but the actual interpretation of the site of La Then is a kind of ritual trophy of weapons. The weapons would probably (barring some few exceptions) destroyed by actual battles and were not deposed in the water but probably exposed on two bridges (the fact that the datation of the bridges is far for clear and seem to point to two different time of construction just add to the problem). They seem to have fallen in the lake with the natural destruction of the place.

Still he is really careful in his conclusions and is work is really methodical so I will try to update you as soon as something is available.

Mendicant
2018-10-26, 10:17 PM
What is a reasonable time frame to perform basic trauma care for a injuries that are, for lack of a better term, not superficial but not catastrophic? I know this is a broad question but I'm having a hard time narrowing it. I'm trying to get a feel for treatment that goes beyond emergency first aid but that isn't hours of touch-and-go surgery, for instance stitching and bandaging a non-lethal wound or setting a bone.

Mike_G
2018-10-27, 09:39 AM
What is a reasonable time frame to perform basic trauma care for a injuries that are, for lack of a better term, not superficial but not catastrophic? I know this is a broad question but I'm having a hard time narrowing it. I'm trying to get a feel for treatment that goes beyond emergency first aid but that isn't hours of touch-and-go surgery, for instance stitching and bandaging a non-lethal wound or setting a bone.

I'm a paramedic, and I worked as a tech in an orthopedic office and and ER.

Packing a wound to stop bleeding or applying a tourniquet takes less than a minute. Clamping an artery takes under a minute. Any "stop the bleeding, this guy is dying" stuff has to take less than a minute.

For more involved trauma care, stitches would take a few minutes. Setting a bone (without figuring time for x-rays before and after, to check the alignment) takes a few minutes, but plaster casts take around half an hour to dry. If you are setting the bone and just using a rigid splint, like five minutes, but they won't be able to do much. Modern fiberglass cast/splint material hardens in a few minutes.

I assume you're talking about actual time to do the procedure. In a hospital, where you need the doctor to assess the injury and give orders, then you wait for x-ray, then the doctor looks at the x-ray, then he orders the tech to splint or cast the injury, then he rechecks and maybe orders a follow up x-ray, you're looking at hours.

Vinyadan
2018-10-27, 09:48 AM
What is a reasonable time frame to perform basic trauma care for a injuries that are, for lack of a better term, not superficial but not catastrophic? I know this is a broad question but I'm having a hard time narrowing it. I'm trying to get a feel for treatment that goes beyond emergency first aid but that isn't hours of touch-and-go surgery, for instance stitching and bandaging a non-lethal wound or setting a bone.

For setting a bone, you have Cato Maior (died 149 BC). However, I think he actually described the bone setting as a healing ritual, complete with invocations.

Edit: I can't believe how hard I misunderstood your question XD

Mendicant
2018-10-27, 12:30 PM
Packing a wound to stop bleeding or applying a tourniquet takes less than a
For more involved trauma care, stitches would take a few minutes. Setting a bone (without figuring time for x-rays before and after, to check the alignment) takes a few minutes, but plaster casts take around half an hour to dry. If you are setting the bone and just using a rigid splint, like five minutes, but they won't be able to do much. Modern fiberglass cast/splint material hardens in a few minutes.


Yeah this is what I'm looking for, thanks. I've got an idea of time frames for immediate interventions like tourniquets from my time in the military; I wanted a better idea of what a "moderate" injury's more end-stage treatment looks like, specifically the procedure itself. (Modern hospital time frames are useful too, but this is mostly for creating somewhat plausible gameplay using the tropey single medic, like Curtis Hoyle/Claire Temple patching up a superhero or an adventuring party's healer working on the fighter.)

gkathellar
2018-10-27, 12:59 PM
There are also minor complicating factors that can emerge and draw things out in a civilian/hospital setting - the last time my partner got stitches, her anesthetic kept wearing off and having to be reapplied, so it took 20-30 minutes. But that’s still nothing compared to ER triage, which can take many, many hours and involve repeated interviews for anything that’s not immediately life-threatening.

SleepyShadow
2018-10-27, 01:23 PM
I was wondering that, since it goes around corners, it'd basically get all the ammo. secondary weapons like belt fed AA guns would make a mess. Lightning may also also a choice, as it apparently ignites objects.

Other ways I'd be interesed in trying to take down a WWI ship with DnD magic.
Enlisting a sea monster
Send in spooky skeletons through the waters and up the ship.
Fog and illusion magic to get ships in real close for boarding. Night raids'n underhanded spec ops style stuff is great, so players could do that stuff. Fly onto the ship in stealth, murder everyone.


What did you end up going with for the invasion plan?

Stuff like stinking cloud and cloudkill could work to take out a ship's crew pretty well if you can get your wizard close enough. Precise placement of chemical weapons :smallamused:

As for the Ragesian invasion plan? By and large what you guys had suggested before. They landed at Kosuta No Ken, told the locals they were descendants of the divine, and promised to lead the country to greatness if handed the political reigns. A majority (but not all) of the locals thought this idea was swell, and the Ragesians took charge without much bloodshed. Now they've got an army of Kenjin warriors headed over to Sterich to secure a solid mainland base, and hired an army of shadar-kai mercenaries to pressure more important locations like Meltis (the gnome country). The Ragesians are focused mainly on getting their civilians integrated with the Kenjin, and they're only going to do naval and aerial raids as long as they have a steady supply of locals to do the ground fighting for them.


If magic is allowed, a single 3.5e Wraith would do short work of a crew without magical weapons. It would turn its victims into Wraiths, who would in turn do the same to others...

A 5e Wraith wouldn't be as unstoppable, but if it fights cleverly it could infiltrate the ship and use hit-and-runs tactics to turn the crew into Specters one by one and send them against the rest of the crewmen...

None of the PCs are necromancers, but that idea would work quite well. Only the officers have magic weapons, and they'd be hard pressed to fight off a few hundred wraiths :smalltongue:

snowblizz
2018-10-29, 03:38 AM
Yeah this is what I'm looking for, thanks. I've got an idea of time frames for immediate interventions like tourniquets from my time in the military; I wanted a better idea of what a "moderate" injury's more end-stage treatment looks like, specifically the procedure itself. (Modern hospital time frames are useful too, but this is mostly for creating somewhat plausible gameplay using the tropey single medic, like Curtis Hoyle/Claire Temple patching up a superhero or an adventuring party's healer working on the fighter.)

Some days ago I saw a WW2 documentary where they did an appendectomy onboard a submarine using a very limited set of medical tools (the retractors were a pair of bent spoons) under less than ideal circumstances by an apotechary/corpsman or some such. I think it took them 1-2 hours. Most of that was finding a small bleed. It was scheduled to take like 30m and the patient actually started coming through while the man doing the operation searched for the bleeding. Just as they were about to give and hope for the best they actually found it. The patient survived even though the submarine was dodging depthcharges not long after.

BlacKnight
2018-10-30, 04:41 AM
How common it was for ancient/medieval cities to extend outside the walls ?
Was it possible to have a majority of the urban population living outside the walls ?

Also there was a minimum distance from the walls that buildings outside had to keep, for defensive reasons ?

snowblizz
2018-10-30, 04:41 AM
Some oddity I ran into in antoher thread.

A lietenant-general outranks a major-general but a major outranks a lietenant. One of things that always "bothers" me when I notice.

It's like it's based off how much the other rank "discounts" the full rank (in this case general). So would a general-general be a private :D.
Anyone got a good explanation?

And didn't sergeant-majors be quite higly ranked officers.

Kiero
2018-10-30, 04:47 AM
How common it was for ancient/medieval cities to extend outside the walls ?
Was it possible to have a majority of the urban population living outside the walls ?

Also there was a minimum distance from the walls that buildings outside had to keep, for defensive reasons ?

In antiquity, very common. Rome outgrew the Servian walls that had originally encompassed the city, they became little more than a boundary called the pomerium. It sprawled in every direction beyond them.

Many cities didn't have a defensible core at all, but if they did, that might be a citadel on high ground. That wouldn't be where people lived, it was solely a last ditch stronghold to retreat to.


A lietenant-general outranks a major-general but a major outranks a lietenant. One of things that always "bothers" me when I notice.

It's like it's based off how much the other rank "discounts" the full rank (in this case general). So would a general-general be a private :D.
Anyone got a good explanation?

And didn't sergeant-majors be quite higly ranked officers.

It's because the titles have been truncated. They were originally sergeant-major-general, lieutenant-general and captain-general. The sergeant and captain prefixes were dropped.

snowblizz
2018-10-30, 04:57 AM
How common it was for ancient/medieval cities to extend outside the walls ?
Was it possible to have a majority of the urban population living outside the walls ?

Also there was a minimum distance from the walls that buildings outside had to keep, for defensive reasons ?

Very common. But also it would be very common for cities to then extend citywalls around this "new city". Sometimes growing and ambitious cities built citywalls with room to spare. I think it was Florens who completed one such abitious project to meet foreseen population growth somewhere around the early 1350s.... DUN DUN DUUUNH

However common doesn't mean they all did. Some were constrained by geography or laws (tihnk royal charters). So the city couldn't extend power outside it's citywalls and thus grown beyond it.

I would doubt there are many cases where a majority of the city lived outside citywalls because there were important implications inherent.

Again some towns would enforce certian rules as to building around them, for e.g. security reasons, but many towns had dwellings built very close. Now it also meant that in case of danger a town would torch it's suburbs to deny them to the enemy. Hence why you kinda wanted to live inside the walls (which might have been a requirement for citizenship e.g.). So basically I think they'd avoid construction too close to the citywalls in most cases. Where geography already didn't constrain it.

And ofc a town was also better served by being surrounded by farms that supplied it with produce.

Now a lot of this is going to depend on town/country laws, the relative power of town/countryside any outside power ie royal/noble/church etc etc etc. Some towns controlled substantila hinterlands around them, others lost their power outside the city gates.

Kiero
2018-10-30, 07:09 AM
And ofc a town was also better served by being surrounded by farms that supplied it with produce.

Now a lot of this is going to depend on town/country laws, the relative power of town/countryside any outside power ie royal/noble/church etc etc etc. Some towns controlled substantila hinterlands around them, others lost their power outside the city gates.

The ancient Greeks called this necessary area the chora, and every city had one, of farms that supported their most immediate need for food.

Willie the Duck
2018-10-30, 07:32 AM
The ancient Greeks called this necessary area the chora, and every city had one, of farms that supported their most immediate need for food.

Olive trees take a long time to grow, at least compared to wheat or the like. If you grow grain and the enemy army comes and scares off your farmers and burns/takes/prevents the farming of this year's crops, hopefully you had grain in storage and can farm next year. If they come and chop down your olive groves--pretty much game over. This made strategic control of immediate food land really important.

Mendicant
2018-10-30, 11:52 AM
Following on Kiero's point, the extent of a city had a lot to do with what kind of polity it was part of. Rome was part of a massive empire with a strong standing army, and security concerns took a back seat to growth for much of its history. Many of the cities of the middle ages had much more tenuous security, and tended to be fairly compact and to re-enclose themselves if they outgrew their walls. Norbert Schoenauer draws a distinction between the compactness of Rothenburg and Dubrovnik, which were compact and well-fortified, with Salisbury, which was safer and more spread out.

Variance in population growth was a big factor as well. The black death was already alluded to; the fall of the Roman empire is another period in which urban populations declined quickly. The populations of cities didn't just retreat inside their walls, in Nimes and Arles they actually built fortified towns inside their repurposed ampitheaters Fallout-4 style.

Kiero
2018-10-30, 12:21 PM
Even before Rome's overseas empire, it was relatively secure within Italy, which was secured by the 3rd century BC from the Po south.

Willie the Duck
2018-10-30, 12:35 PM
Norbert Schoenauer draws a distinction between the compactness of Rothenburg and Dubrovnik, which were compact and well-fortified, with Salisbury, which was safer and more spread out.

That sounds read-worthy. Do you remember the work?

Tobtor
2018-10-30, 02:49 PM
How common it was for ancient/medieval cities to extend outside the walls ?
Was it possible to have a majority of the urban population living outside the walls ?

Also there was a minimum distance from the walls that buildings outside had to keep, for defensive reasons ?

Hmm I will try to give you an answer for medieval cities, and I generally disagree with for instance snowblizz "Very common", stance.

First I will distinguish between the city extending beyond the walls, and smaller suburb-villages appearing/growing around the city.

The first was generally not very common. While you can certainly find examples (especially in the late period when some walls might be obsolete due to canons), the general trend is to keep the city within the confines of the wall.

One of the reasons is (as you allude to) is that if you have large masses of buildings close to the wall, you are effectively giving an enemy cover in case of sieges (even if you torch the houses in that case).

But a second and more important reason is regulation and taxes: In the case of territorial towns (where the town acknowledged a feudal overlord such as a duke or king, even if they had extensive liberal rights) as snowblizz mentions there could be royal charters limiting all trade to within the city walls. Also quite frequently town rules only applied within the city walls (both for many free cities and territorial towns). This would highly limit the purpose of extending the town beyond the walls.
The reason is not only a question of claiming power, but more so on trade regulation and taxes. This is why similar rules applied for many free towns (such as the Hanse towns in northern Germany). Taxation in a medieval world is hard, and taxation of trade is even harder. Thus it was important to keep the trade in specific places (towns or specialised market places). This was in the towns interest as well, as they did not want competition from outside their limits. If all trade happened in clearly delimited space (within the city wall) then you could make sure the correct taxation had been made, by checking imports/exports.

The guilds can also control membership much better if all commerce happens IN the city, than if they have non-guildmembers of their profession living right outside their jurisdiction (outside the town wall).

This I think is backed up by most medieval maps I have seen of cities, as well as my knowledge from excavations indicate that city activity drop off REALLY quickly outside the walls. Most of the time the building of a new wall (or extending and existing wall) predates intensive use of new areas of the town, again supporting a "within" wall city as the norm.

Making town walls too large have been mentioned, and this certainly happened. One reason is of course to plan for expansion. Another reason is to have space for stuff like cattle markets, or even small scale farming to secure town resources in the case of sieges.

http://www.earthlymission.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/maps-of-medieval-cities-brugge.jpg

http://www.earthlymission.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/maps-of-medieval-cities-hamburg-1572.jpg

That said, there are of course exceptions. But I will argue that (at least before the 15th century) most towns would have 95-100% of their CITY area inside the walls.

Then it is true that some of the city states owned extensive farmlands around the city and here would be villages where the town rights (freedom from serfdom, judged by city courts etc) would be extended, but rarely would there be trade or commerce in any extend in these villages (at least not officially... but they where likely prime candidates for illegal trade). There might of course be inns and taverns, or sometimes storehouses etc.

This is also sometimes seen just around city gates, and would be the prime exception from my description above.

In some towns you see large monasteries close to the city (so they can live off the wealth of the city/receive donations etc. but at the same time live more secluded and and without ever being in danger of getting mixed up in city courts).

So most towns would stay mainly within its city wall, with just minor activity outside the walls. The just around the city you would see relatively large and wealthy villages and monastaries. Sometimes the villages would be part of city "jurisdiction" and sometimes not. But they are rarely "city-like". That is they have little trade and commerce etc.

Of course there are exceptions, and I think some might quote many examples of exceptions, but I think they would be exceptions. At least during both the early and high middle ages, though as you get toward the end of the 15th century many changes occur and I am unsure to what degree this affects towns, though most does seem to stay within the walls (or at least having the vast majority of people of the individual city doing so).

ExLibrisMortis
2018-10-30, 04:54 PM
That's very insightful, Tobtor, thank you :smallsmile:.

Do you think it would be acceptable, from a medieval (city) lawmaker's perspective, to have a semi-permanent non-citizen community of labourers outside the city walls? Essentially a group of people who do not enjoy the protection of the city, but who are permitted to stay around for day labour and such, with the understanding that they'll be forced to flee in the case of siege?

Gnoman
2018-10-30, 11:21 PM
Some oddity I ran into in antoher thread.

A lietenant-general outranks a major-general but a major outranks a lietenant. One of things that always "bothers" me when I notice.

It's like it's based off how much the other rank "discounts" the full rank (in this case general). So would a general-general be a private :D.
Anyone got a good explanation?

And didn't sergeant-majors be quite higly ranked officers.

Very crude explanation, which is probably only roughly accurate - this is a condensing of about 500 years worth of organizational evolution.

In the earliest stages of the modern rank system, you had groups of men under the command of "captains". These Captains could only be in once place at a time, and needed people to give orders in the places that they could not be. Thus, they appointed officers to tenant their men in lieu of them - lieutenants.

As armies got bigger, it became clear that somebody had to give direction to all of these captains running around. Thus, the rank of "Captain General" - generally the supreme military commander of a nation - arose. Like regular captains, they needed to delegate, and this eventually resulted in the rank of Captain General Lieutenant.

At the same time, the nobility had armed bodyguards and retainers known as Sergeants-At-Arms. These were also used for delegation, gradually resulting in the rank of Sergeant Major - who acted above the Captains but below the Generals Lieutenant. Regular sergeants served as infantry commanders, which is where the modern non-commissioned rank comes from.

This still wound up being too inflexible, and the rank of Column Leader - Colonel (from the Italian for Column) was created, along with the rank of Column Leader Lieutenant, or Lieutenant Colonel. To manage the Colonels when they got too many for the Captains General to herd even with their Lieutenants, the ranks of Sergeant Major General and Brigadier were instituted.

Eventually, the "Captain" and "Sergeant" bits got axed as addons, leaving the rough rank structure used today.

Mendicant
2018-10-31, 12:53 AM
That sounds read-worthy. Do you remember the work?

6,000 Years of Housing by Norbert Schoenauer
W. W. Norton

It's a great reference. 474 big pages with at least one illustration or plan on almost every day one of them. Covers an immense range of history and basically the entire world. It's an unbeatable reference for someone trying to develop historically plausible towns.

snowblizz
2018-10-31, 04:27 AM
That's very insightful, Tobtor, thank you :smallsmile:.

Do you think it would be acceptable, from a medieval (city) lawmaker's perspective, to have a semi-permanent non-citizen community of labourers outside the city walls? Essentially a group of people who do not enjoy the protection of the city, but who are permitted to stay around for day labour and such, with the understanding that they'll be forced to flee in the case of siege?

I find myself slightly sceptical to the idea. Societies right up to modern times liked to know where people were, where they were supposed to be and what they were up to.
Semi-permanent non-citizen was about the dirtiest two words city socities knew.:smallamused:
Any travellers would be viewed suspiciously and should be able to account for themselves. Which is why we get certain "markers" for pilgrims, journeyman systems are tightly regulated etc. Same goes for of itinerant worker or the absolutely worst case entertainers. These societies had very little ability to enforce rule of law on people who could just move on (and heck that problem exists to this day, but don't ask about that) so tended to take a very bleak view on such. Basically itinerant workers were only just tolerated for much of history for jobs absolutely noone wanted and for those who just could not be fit in to "normal" society. As always exceptions apply.

If you have a market for jobs like that then a city is likely able to provide it's own non-citizen labourers from amongst the poor (likely absorbing populace into the city). Some cities had a large class of these people, again IIRC Florens, and other Italian cities that had a lot of manufacturing.

Any such preexisting elements will ofc also vehemently oppose the competition from outside source ("they took our jobs!").

Clistenes
2018-10-31, 03:57 PM
I find myself slightly sceptical to the idea. Societies right up to modern times liked to know where people were, where they were supposed to be and what they were up to.
Semi-permanent non-citizen was about the dirtiest two words city socities knew.:smallamused:
Any travellers would be viewed suspiciously and should be able to account for themselves. Which is why we get certain "markers" for pilgrims, journeyman systems are tightly regulated etc. Same goes for of itinerant worker or the absolutely worst case entertainers. These societies had very little ability to enforce rule of law on people who could just move on (and heck that problem exists to this day, but don't ask about that) so tended to take a very bleak view on such. Basically itinerant workers were only just tolerated for much of history for jobs absolutely noone wanted and for those who just could not be fit in to "normal" society. As always exceptions apply.

If you have a market for jobs like that then a city is likely able to provide it's own non-citizen labourers from amongst the poor (likely absorbing populace into the city). Some cities had a large class of these people, again IIRC Florens, and other Italian cities that had a lot of manufacturing.

Any such preexisting elements will ofc also vehemently oppose the competition from outside source ("they took our jobs!").

During the XVI and XVII century, japanese and chinese merchants weren't allowed to dwell within Manila city walls, and had their own well-organized districts out of them. Those japanese and chinese immigrants who either converted to Catholicism or married and started a family were allowed to purchase or build a house inside the city walls.

The reason was, many of these merchants were former pirates, slavers and smugglers, and they weren't trusted. However, converts were considered inherently more trustworthy because religion. As for married men, they were expected to care more for the future of Manila, since that was the home of their children, plus family men were thought to care more for stability and security and to avoid danger and travel, hence, they were less likely to commit crimes...

snowblizz
2018-11-01, 03:40 AM
During the XVI and XVII century, japanese and chinese merchants weren't allowed to dwell within Manila city walls, and had their own well-organized districts out of them. Those japanese and chinese immigrants who either converted to Catholicism or married and started a family were allowed to purchase or build a house inside the city walls.

The reason was, many of these merchants were former pirates, slavers and smugglers, and they weren't trusted. However, converts were considered inherently more trustworthy because religion. As for married men, they were expected to care more for the future of Manila, since that was the home of their children, plus family men were thought to care more for stability and security and to avoid danger and travel, hence, they were less likely to commit crimes...
That is one common way how you deal with foreigners you just can't do without.

Merchants usually fall under the got a semi/okay reason to be here. In a lot of such cases traders also formed "colonies" sort of, which tended to be integrated into the city somehow. Like the Hanse in London who had their own gate to defend. Jews in medieaval cities also formed a sort separate-but-ok-under-certain-circumstances population not quite part of the city but not totally separate either. In these cases would be common for the communities to share liabilities of one of the group. Because 1) they police themselves, and 2) recompense can be extracted evne if the culprit skips town.

Basically try and locally invest people into the town to "buy-in" to the city rules if they are going to be a more permanent fixture.

The problem with a reserve labour pool is that it is a likely source of unrest.

BlacKnight
2018-11-01, 04:50 AM
Wow, thanks for the detailed answers !
The legal matters are very interesting. I wonder how things worked in the Roman Empire.
Was immigration more free and common ? I suppose yes, but on the other side I don't know how they could police themselves more efficiently.
If someone from Minor Asia arrived in a big Italian city would he have been forbidden from inhabiting in the city center ? But if he committed a crime and then escaped to Gaul ?

Tobtor
2018-11-01, 11:33 AM
That's very insightful, Tobtor, thank you :smallsmile:.

Do you think it would be acceptable, from a medieval (city) lawmaker's perspective, to have a semi-permanent non-citizen community of labourers outside the city walls? Essentially a group of people who do not enjoy the protection of the city, but who are permitted to stay around for day labour and such, with the understanding that they'll be forced to flee in the case of siege?

I agree on the answers of snowblizz.

In general a (medieval European) city would want to have the labour adhere to city laws, since they need to be under some jurisdiction. If they wher enot uder the city, then they would be under a noble (or the church) which means two things: any fine they pay is not paid to the city, any punishment in form of forced labour goes to someone else etc, 2. said other authority will be their "lord" giving that authority influence over city labour-force is unwelcome.

You could imagine a situation where a (very) powerful noble enforce such a situation, but the city would in general try to go around that by getting their own workforce.

If what is wished for (for story purposes I assume) is a lower class living outside the city proper, that is possible. You could make a city with some area around the walls officially part of the city (such as beforementioned villages), but just with work force living there.
Alternatively: As many cities are on rivers/coast, it could be that the main city was on an island (just off the coast or in the middle of the river) with a poorly defended "new" town on the mainland, with a very poor wall (perhaps just a dike)where the lower classes lived. They would still have to be subjected to city law, but was perhaps not citizens (there is a clear distinction between citizens and population in a city, but they are all under the city law).

Lemmy
2018-11-07, 05:14 PM
This is a somewhat silly question...

But in a medieval-ish fort or castle... Where were located the toilets that the soldiers used? Where did they bathe/wash themselves?

Pauly
2018-11-07, 11:50 PM
Wow, thanks for the detailed answers !
The legal matters are very interesting. I wonder how things worked in the Roman Empire.
Was immigration more free and common ? I suppose yes, but on the other side I don't know how they could police themselves more efficiently.
If someone from Minor Asia arrived in a big Italian city would he have been forbidden from inhabiting in the city center ? But if he committed a crime and then escaped to Gaul ?

The answer is that, similar to the British empire before ~1950, they were Roman citizens first and geographical location second. Immigration was common for occupations that required travel (merchants, soldiers, sailors, teachers, priests) but not common for normal workers.

As for crime it was similar to anywhere else in the pre-radio transmission world. If you escaped to a new area and didn’t draw attention to yourself you were basically safe. You probably were safe if you made it to the next city unless you had done something that made someone very important want to hunt you down.

Mendicant
2018-11-08, 12:30 AM
This is a somewhat silly question...

But in a medieval-ish fort or castle... Where were located the toilets that the soldiers used? Where did they bathe/wash themselves?

Many castles had toilet chutes cut into the walls for the use of some denizens. Others in the castle likely used a cesspit. These would have been unsealed generally, allowing gasses to escape, and then occasionally mixed with straw and cleaned out by a gong farmer. The mixture would be shipped out and used as fertilizer.

snowblizz
2018-11-08, 04:44 AM
This is a somewhat silly question...

But in a medieval-ish fort or castle... Where were located the toilets that the soldiers used? Where did they bathe/wash themselves?

The "privy" was originally a small structure placed inside or by/ontop the outerwall with a hole leading out. It wasn't that uncommon really from what I gather. Preferrably it would be over a moat or towards the river/water. Whatever counts as the backside (pun somewhat intended) of your castle.

Yes at least once a castle (English one in France) fell because the enemy (the French) managed to infiltrate the crapchute.

You washed in a bathhouse. No not a big Roman spa. Sort of like the lockerroom at a sportsclub. Or maybe in your private apartments if important enough to get/have those, it kinda depended.

I just read a book about the Teutonic order and they built quite comfortable castles with amenities to make their lives a bit more bearable.

Not all castles would be equally well equipped of course.

PersonMan
2018-11-09, 03:42 AM
A question for a modern context - if, due to production issues, the number of tanks available to an invading force has been attrited down far below its original number, to the point that only (relatively speaking) a handful are left, what 'workarounds' would there be to try and solve the issue?

Additionally, assuming the same production problems mean that the numbers of other vehicles are insufficient, would it make sense to, using vehicles seized from the occupied territory it controls, the invading force tried to quickly mass-produce a large number of lightly-armored vehicles, basically technicals? They would presumably not be good for direct combat with a properly-equipped opposing force, but could they pick up the slack in other areas?

Pauly
2018-11-09, 04:01 AM
A question for a modern context - if, due to production issues, the number of tanks available to an invading force has been attrited down far below its original number, to the point that only (relatively speaking) a handful are left, what 'workarounds' would there be to try and solve the issue?

Additionally, assuming the same production problems mean that the numbers of other vehicles are insufficient, would it make sense to, using vehicles seized from the occupied territory it controls, the invading force tried to quickly mass-produce a large number of lightly-armored vehicles, basically technicals? They would presumably not be good for direct combat with a properly-equipped opposing force, but could they pick up the slack in other areas?

The easiest thing to do is to look at what the Germans did in WW2.

In situations where numbers of tanks were depleyed they were withdrawn from the frontline, and nursed back to critical strength. If the situation was totally desperate they would be held as a last ace in the hole either in attack or defence.

For the production not keeping up with demand:
- Integrate captured vehicles into your forces. This is only really viable if you have also captured production facilities.
- Produce casemated assault guns/tank destroyers built on the chassis of existing tanks. I don’t know about modern era but in WW2 AFV production it is the turret ring that was the most difficult to produce, which is why only the US produced turreted tank destroyers and why the Germans built so many Stugs.
- produce ‘technicals’ on the chassis of your equivalent of half tracks.
- produce improved infantry anti-tank weapons and anti-tank guns.
- develop infantry anti-tank doctrines that give your infantry enhanced ability to take on armour.
- use your airforce to off set your relative lack of armour.

Britain, Japan, the USSR and Italy all did these activities to some degree or another, but teh Germans were the masters.

snowblizz
2018-11-09, 04:32 AM
For the production not keeping up with demand:
- Integrate captured vehicles into your forces. This is only really viable if you have also captured production facilities.

The Finnish army in WW2 used a lot of captured Soviet tanks despite not being anywhere near the actual production facilities.

WW2 vehicles are ofc orders of magnitude simpler than a modern MBT. Though eg in the middle east ISIS used a lot of captured American equipment they had taken from Iraqi forces.

ISIS also produced a range of armoured vehicles based on civilian vehicles (and yes it totally looked like some Mad Max 40k Ork hybrids) so there are more ideas there. A previous iteration of the thread had links to pictures.

I agree with the idea that you would withdraw and concentrate what strength you had. That's also what the Germans grudingly did. Concentrating good forces into "firefighter task forces" to send to critical points.


A question for a modern context - if, due to production issues, the number of tanks available to an invading force has been attrited down far below its original number, to the point that only (relatively speaking) a handful are left, what 'workarounds' would there be to try and solve the issue?

Additionally, assuming the same production problems mean that the numbers of other vehicles are insufficient, would it make sense to, using vehicles seized from the occupied territory it controls, the invading force tried to quickly mass-produce a large number of lightly-armored vehicles, basically technicals? They would presumably not be good for direct combat with a properly-equipped opposing force, but could they pick up the slack in other areas?

Honestly. The answer is in my opinion: draw upon the vast strategic reserve of tank overproduction you did for political reasons. And then dip into the stores of previous generation tanks mothballed somewhere.

No modern army relies on actual tank production to keep numbers up. And no modern army is mentally equipped to stat making use of technicals.

I'm also having trouble imagining a scenario where you lose so many tanks and aren't consequently just losing. If you are invading something this is the point where you stop and go "well, that's not working at all, we need to do something else" not start welding armour on pickups to keep an offensive going because clearly you are totally failing at that. So rather then your workaround is one of strategy and tactics not vehicular.
Also as you acknowledge "technicals" won't directly replace tanks. But tanks only do tank jobs. You can't free up slack as there is none. Civillian trucks/cars can move men and materiel, but tanks are not involved here. Presumably improvised technicals could do jobs normally associated with light military vehicles but then we are back to the problem of "we are clearly losing the war following this strategy so a improvised bandaid isn't going to be fixing our deep strategic mistake".

So in short, no it wouldn't. Improvised vehicles are the choice of the irregular and desperate mainly. Any fight that takes out your tanks in droves is not gonna be solved with technicals.

PersonMan
2018-11-09, 05:00 AM
The easiest thing to do is to look at what the Germans did in WW2. [...]

Thanks for the info!


Honestly. The answer is in my opinion: draw upon the vast strategic reserve of tank overproduction you did for political reasons. And then dip into the stores of previous generation tanks mothballed somewhere.

Oh, that's something I hadn't considered; I'll work that into the scenario as a factor, thanks for mentioning it!


No modern army relies on actual tank production to keep numbers up. And no modern army is mentally equipped to stat making use of technicals.

Mentally equipped? What exactly do you mean by that?


I'm also having trouble imagining a scenario where you lose so many tanks and aren't consequently just losing. If you are invading something this is the point where you stop and go "well, that's not working at all, we need to do something else" not start welding armour on pickups to keep an offensive going because clearly you are totally failing at that. So rather then your workaround is one of strategy and tactics not vehicular.

Oh, they're definitely losing. I should clarify - the technicals aren't meant to be a solution, but rather a symptom of the problems plaguing the invading force, a stopgap set up by lower-level leadership.


Presumably improvised technicals could do jobs normally associated with light military vehicles but then we are back to the problem of "we are clearly losing the war following this strategy so a improvised bandaid isn't going to be fixing our deep strategic mistake".

That was the idea, yeah - that you replace lighter vehicles with these makeshift ones and divert the saved resources into more tanks.


So in short, no it wouldn't. Improvised vehicles are the choice of the irregular and desperate mainly. Any fight that takes out your tanks in droves is not gonna be solved with technicals.

Would they potentially be of use, say, in providing more light vehicles for infantry to use on the defensive?

A bit more context: the idea is that the invading force has significant early successes, but is already overstretched at the beginning and then "suddenly" runs into major issues when after a few major meat-grinder battles they find themselves unable to keep pushing forwards.

At this point the strategic leadership is in shambles (and can't effectively be replaced, due to a massive political crisis) and measures like "weld armor plates onto trucks" are measures taken by lower-level leadership in an increasingly desperate situation. So the technicals are less a strategic solution and more an attempt by local commanders to try and mitigate a problem they can't actually solve.

Pauly
2018-11-09, 07:51 AM
Thanks for the info!



Oh, that's something I hadn't considered; I'll work that into the scenario as a factor, thanks for mentioning it!



Mentally equipped? What exactly do you mean by that?



Oh, they're definitely losing. I should clarify - the technicals aren't meant to be a solution, but rather a symptom of the problems plaguing the invading force, a stopgap set up by lower-level leadership.



That was the idea, yeah - that you replace lighter vehicles with these makeshift ones and divert the saved resources into more tanks.



Would they potentially be of use, say, in providing more light vehicles for infantry to use on the defensive?

A bit more context: the idea is that the invading force has significant early successes, but is already overstretched at the beginning and then "suddenly" runs into major issues when after a few major meat-grinder battles they find themselves unable to keep pushing forwards.

At this point the strategic leadership is in shambles (and can't effectively be replaced, due to a massive political crisis) and measures like "weld armor plates onto trucks" are measures taken by lower-level leadership in an increasingly desperate situation. So the technicals are less a strategic solution and more an attempt by local commanders to try and mitigate a problem they can't actually solve.

A lot of the strategic overproduction is due to a need to keep skilled technicians employed, not lost to the civilian job market. It takes a very long time to train a skilled armor welder, for example, and to keep that person employed and available for potential war production you need to keep making tanks.

Pressing captured tanks into service depends a lot on how much you captured. The Finns were able to keep a small number of KV-1s and T-34s in service because they devoted a lot of resources to maintenance and scavenging of parts. The Germans on the other hand deployed roughly 400 captured T-34s, but at a lower level of serviceability. The Australians pressed a number of captured M11/39s and M13/40s captured from the Italians into service, but that was 9nly for a short time.

DerKommissar
2018-11-09, 08:26 AM
I just read the zonbie survival guide and its a partly hilarious, partly enraging compilation of debunked myths (world war z was actually a good read, but the survival guide is just so bad...). Anyways it mentions shark suits as possible armor and it got me thinking:

How do those compare to historical mail armor?

snowblizz
2018-11-09, 08:59 AM
Mentally equipped? What exactly do you mean by that?

Basically modern armies are not exactly flexible and creative on the strategic layer. They have policies. Training. Insurance procedures (the US army paid troops to keep helmets on to reduce insurance dues!). As you say it would be the lower levels that does it but it will be haphazard and might run into issues of bureaucratic nature. What form do you use to requisition the use of the SAW on a Toyota flatbed. Who is gonna put their neck out to authorize that?

Basically the "we trained to fight the last war" problem.

Now it has happened for sure. During the Vietnam war they improvised a fighting platform out of APC:s "in-theatre". IIRC the modifications were improved and authorized later stateside and formed an upgrade kit for new APCs being made.

The Normandie hedge cutters were a "grunt idea".

What I'm sorta trying to get at is perhaps the difference between the US and UK ww2 armies. The former only used Shermans becasue damit Shermans. The latter used Hobart's funnies because they knew they needed specialised equipment for specialised jobs. That sorta showcases a difference in "flexible thinking" on the higher levels that can limit improvising.

Clistenes
2018-11-09, 06:42 PM
The answer is that, similar to the British empire before ~1950, they were Roman citizens first and geographical location second. Immigration was common for occupations that required travel (merchants, soldiers, sailors, teachers, priests) but not common for normal workers.

As for crime it was similar to anywhere else in the pre-radio transmission world. If you escaped to a new area and didn’t draw attention to yourself you were basically safe. You probably were safe if you made it to the next city unless you had done something that made someone very important want to hunt you down.

I have read that, during the Edo period, it was easy to dodge the lawkeepers: Change your name, clothing and hairdo, move to a different place (within Edo itself, moving to a different part of the city was often enough) and you were reasonably safe...

The real problem was to find a new place to live while lacking connections and papers. Society was organized as a web of interconnected, mostly self-governing families, villages and guilds, overseen by the daimyo and/or shogun's bureoucracy (the villages and guilds took care of themselves, the bureaocracy dealt with the heads of the groups, not with the individuals within each group). A stranger who wouldn't be taken in by somebody into their group was an outcast, and was considered an outlaw by default...

Gnoman
2018-11-09, 08:34 PM
The easiest thing to do is to look at what the Germans did in WW2.

- Produce casemated assault guns/tank destroyers built on the chassis of existing tanks. I don’t know about modern era but in WW2 AFV production it is the turret ring that was the most difficult to produce, which is why only the US produced turreted tank destroyers and why the Germans built so many Stugs.

This isn't quite accurate. The reason for casemated assault guns is not "turret rings are hard to build", it is "this way we don't have to build a hull and a turret" combined with "we can fit much bigger gun casemated into the hull than we can put on a turret for a given vehicle size" and "we have huge stockpiles of parts and equipment for this obsolete tank chassis we've retired as a tank".

The turreted US tank destroyers are due to an oddity in WWII US doctrine. Analysis of the Polish and French campaigns resulted in the belief that armor would always break through, because the attacker could always choose a point where the defender had insufficient AT guns and punch cleanly through. The doctrinal solution for this was to produce (relatively) high speed, lightly-armored vehicles mounting the best AT guns available, to intercept and destroy the armored breakthrough. Turrets were needed for this purpose because it was not possible to pre-position them in a perfect spot.


In practice, armor didn't have nearly as easy a time as US planners thought it would.

Pauly
2018-11-09, 08:38 PM
I have read that, during the Edo period, it was easy to dodge the lawkeepers: Change your name, clothing and hairdo, move to a different place (within Edo itself, moving to a different part of the city was often enough) and you were reasonably safe...

The real problem was to find a new place to live while lacking connections and papers. Society was organized as a web of interconnected, mostly self-governing families, villages and guilds, overseen by the daimyo and/or shogun's bureoucracy (the villages and guilds took care of themselves, the bureaocracy dealt with the heads of the groups, not with the individuals within each group). A stranger who wouldn't be taken in by somebody into their group was an outcast, and was considered an outlaw by default...

That question depends a lot on tne society. Japan is a very tight society full of mutual obligations and little travel, plus in Edo era Japan there was a tight level of government control.

Roman and British societies for example were more open and had less tight government control. Mobility to big cities was fairly common but movement to small villages much less so.

In colonies, remember Rome did have colonies too, like Austalia or Canada immigration and mixing in of new people was the norm.

Pauly
2018-11-09, 08:41 PM
This isn't quite accurate. The reason for casemated assault guns is not "turret rings are hard to build", it is "this way we don't have to build a hull and a turret" combined with "we can fit much bigger gun casemated into the hull than we can put on a turret for a given vehicle size" and "we have huge stockpiles of parts and equipment for this obsolete tank chassis we've retired as a tank".

The turreted US tank destroyers are due to an oddity in WWII US doctrine. Analysis of the Polish and French campaigns resulted in the belief that armor would always break through, because the attacker could always choose a point where the defender had insufficient AT guns and punch cleanly through. The doctrinal solution for this was to produce (relatively) high speed, lightly-armored vehicles mounting the best AT guns available, to intercept and destroy the armored breakthrough. Turrets were needed for this purpose because it was not possible to pre-position them in a perfect spot.


In practice, armor didn't have nearly as easy a time as US planners thought it would.

The reason why turret production was slower than hull production was primarily due to the difficulty in engineering turret rings. The French were unable to build large turret rings and were forced to build one man turrets - they knew one man turrets were bad but they had no other choice.

rrgg
2018-11-10, 01:50 AM
If anyone's interested, the chieftain has a pretty good video on the history of the us tank destroyer doctrine.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ho8TU_JpoI

Storm Bringer
2018-11-10, 10:55 PM
With proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children,
England mourns for her dead across the sea.
Flesh of her flesh they were, spirit of her spirit,
Fallen in the cause of the free.

Solemn the drums thrill: Death august and royal
Sings sorrow up into immortal spheres.
There is music in the midst of desolation
And a glory that shines upon our tears.

They went with songs to the battle, they were young,
Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted,
They fell with their faces to the foe.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.

They mingle not with their laughing comrades again;
They sit no more at familiar tables of home;
They have no lot in our labour of the day-time;
They sleep beyond England's foam.

But where our desires are and our hopes profound,
Felt as a well-spring that is hidden from sight,
To the innermost heart of their own land they are known
As the stars are known to the Night;

As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust,
Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain,
As the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness,
To the end, to the end, they remain.

For the Fallen, a Poem by Robert Laurence Binyon (1869-1943), published in The Times newspaper on 21 September 1914.


100 years ago today, on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, in the Year of our Lord 1918, the Armistice that ended WW1 came into effect. the fighting continued in some areas literally up to the minute, as the allies attempted to put themselves into the best position for the upcoming negotiations. The German high command at the time still harboured hopes of renewing the war if the terms of peace were too harsh, and the allies knew this, hence the seemingly pointless advances at the last hour. thankfully. the Armistice held as the economic pressure on the Germans dashed any hopes they had, and forced them to accept terms at almost any cost.


The part in bold is spoken at the Act of Remembrance, all across the UK, at 11am today, just before the bugler calls Last Post to start the two minutes silence. People all across the UK have been wearing a poppy (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remembrance_poppy) for weeks now, due to the Poppy Appeal, a veterans charity set up after ww1. The poppy was chosen as their symbol as the flower grows well on disturbed ground, and was among the first plants to recolonise the mud-churned battlefields of ww1.

While Remembrance Sunday is a UK holiday to remember our own war dead, we have always welcomed those who wish to honour their own. Joint services between the British and Germans were a common fixture in the British garrison on Germany, as we separate the German people form the National Socialist Government that drove their country into the ground (although, the allies had a hand in that as well, unfortunately, see below).


as such, I would extend that invitation to the Playground, to remember those, in the words of the Kohima Epitaph:

When you go home, tell them of us and say,
For your tomorrow, we gave our today

Whatever nationality, and indeed whatever occupation, for a person can serve as a civilian firefighter or a nurse just as much as a tank driver.

Lest we forget.

LCpl Bradley, Royal Corps of Signals, British Army.



to expand on what I said about it being partly the allies fault, the allies declared quite early on that they would accept no terms, no conditions on any surrender form Germany, it had to be unconditional. their intent was to avoid the development of another "stab in the back" myth, where some Germans in the interwar period convinced themselves that the German army in ww1 was not defeated on the battlefield, but by weak willed civilians, power hunger politicians and fifth columnists at home disrupting the home front and then brining down the government. Part of this was the fact that the Armistice of 1918 was a conditional, temporary armistice, as one would expect between equals, as did the stylings of the Treaty of Versailles, which while strictly pro-forma, still overserved the usual niceties given to a sovereign power .

The "stab in the back" isn't true, the German Army was soundly beaten, and it wasn't going to be able to stop the allies pushing onto German soil (the front lines were almost, but not quite, at the German border at the Armistice), but it was widely repeated and believed in Germany pre ww2

Thus, this time around the allies wanted to avoid anything that could be latched onto as a similar "proof" this time around. they wanted to make clear that Germany was beaten, and would have no say in whatever terms they chose to impose.


Unfortunately, what this gave the Germans propagandists was proof that the allies were out to destroy the Germans as a nation and as a people, and that the German people were fighting not just for Hitler, but for their very way of life and values. The higher ups also realised that since Hitler would never agree to such terms, they were effectively no terms at all, and thus a death sentence to Germany. This was part of the reason the Germans carried on fighting in 1945, when it was clear to all the war was lost, because as they say it, their was no other option, no alternative.

Considering what happened after the war, with the country being split in twain, turned into occupied territory and (in the soviet part) looted to rebuild the victors, one could argue the German propagandists were telling the truth when they said it was a war to eradicate Germany,

Pauly
2018-11-12, 08:36 PM
If anyone's interested, the chieftain has a pretty good video on the history of the us tank destroyer doctrine.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ho8TU_JpoI

Here is the Field Manual he referenced in the talk
http://www.lonesentry.com/manuals/fm18-5-tank-destroyer/index.html

A Cliff’s notes version of how the other nations solved the problem
USSR - “we need bigger guns” developed the SU-85 and SU-100 on the T-34 chassis. Anti-Tank platforms were mixed in with the tanks in assault to deal with German counter-attacks. NB the ISU-122 and ISU-152 in Soviet doctrine were Heavy Assault Guns designed to destroy fortifications, their anti-tank capacity was an added bonus not an intended design capacity.
British “tip and run” take a few well aimed shots from ambush then scoot. Derived from their experience with portees and Deacons in the Western desert.
Germany “give me what you’ve got and I’ll make it work”. Heavy platforms such as jagdpanzers tended to duke it out, light platforms like Marders tended to move after the initial volley. Vehicles like the Hornisse relied on long range sniping from beyond effect reply range.

PandaPhobia
2018-11-15, 04:59 PM
iiiiiit's baaaaack :smallbiggrin:

Are there cases of concepts analogous (even roughly) to qi/ki/chi/jin/jing/internal power/whocares/etc appearing in the historical literature on Western martial arts? If so, what are these concepts like and what European cultural concepts do they relate to?

A lot of Celtic religions in Scotland and Ireland had something similar to this, with animism being a powerful force in the world, and druids being able to harness the natural energy and make deals with supernatural creatures.

Clistenes
2018-11-15, 05:16 PM
A lot of Celtic religions in Scotland and Ireland had something similar to this, with animism being a powerful force in the world, and druids being able to harness the natural energy and make deals with supernatural creatures.

You have to take into account that a lot of what we know about Celtic culture and beliefs was embellished by XIX century scholars. And even before that, ancient Celtic beliefs and religion were filtered through centuries of Christianity...

Lemmy
2018-11-15, 05:17 PM
I'd just like to thank you all for your replies. I really appreciate your continued effort to answer our questions. :smallsmile:

The Jack
2018-11-15, 05:46 PM
Got a morbid question regarding flamethrowers and WP;
how long do these substances usually burn for when they hit a person

TheYell
2018-11-15, 05:56 PM
A Bing search of "how long does Napalm burn" produced the following answer


Conventional napalm burns for 15-30 seconds, whereas napalm B burns for up to 10 minutes. Napalm B provided the United States with an incendiary substance with enhanced stability and controllability and, as such, became the weapon of choice during the Vietnam War.

TheYell
2018-11-15, 05:57 PM
This came up in the Homebrew thread.

In your opinion is the Zulu cowhide shield comparable to a European heavy shield? Inferior? Superior?

Pauly
2018-11-15, 06:42 PM
This came up in the Homebrew thread.

In your opinion is the Zulu cowhide shield comparable to a European heavy shield? Inferior? Superior?

The zulu shield is designed to be carried long distances on foot by unarmored warriors and fight against opponents without significant ranged weaponry.

The European heavy shield was used over 2000 years in vastly different tactical and technological eras. However generally it was designed to be carried on the battlefield by armored warriors in environments which had significant amounts of ranged weaponry.

If I’m fighting in Africa with African technology then I’d prefer the zulu shield. If I’m fighting in Europe with European technology then I’d prefer the European shield.

Pauly
2018-11-15, 06:55 PM
Got a morbid question regarding flamethrowers and WP;
how long do these substances usually burn for when they hit a person

One very important thing to note about flamethrowers is that their effective range is far shorter than most people think.

Man carried flamethrowers in WW2 had an effective range of 10 meters. Vehicle mounted flamethrowers, with the exception of the ‘crocodile’, had effective ranges of 20 to 30 meters. When the US Army tried flamethrowers mounted on Sherman tanks in the ETO most units dismounted them and re-installed the bow machine gun because of range issues.

Whilst it was possible to shoot further, at longer ranges it was extremely difficult to hold the jet of fuel on a small target. flamethrowers generally require for a sustained 2 or 3 second burst on target to be effective.

gkathellar
2018-11-15, 07:11 PM
This came up in the Homebrew thread.

In your opinion is the Zulu cowhide shield comparable to a European heavy shield? Inferior? Superior?

Well ... which heavy shield? Shields varied tremendously by time and place in both material composition and design. Do you have something in particular in mind?

Clistenes
2018-11-15, 08:17 PM
This came up in the Homebrew thread.

In your opinion is the Zulu cowhide shield comparable to a European heavy shield? Inferior? Superior?

I just want to point that leather and hide shields were quite common around Europe for as long as shields were in use, from the micenic great shields described in the Illiad, to the adargas still in use by Spanish cavalry soldiers in America as late as the XVIII century...

Brother Oni
2018-11-16, 09:50 AM
Got a morbid question regarding flamethrowers and WP;
how long do these substances usually burn for when they hit a person

For flamethrowers, it depends on what the fuel is.


Commercial flamethrowers use gas (typically propane), so fuel burn time on a target is pretty much non-existent.
WW1 era flamethrowers used fuel/diesel oils or petroleum, so a few moments, depending on the level of splash of unburnt material.
Later WW2 era and subsequent era flamethrowers later used napalm variants - as TheYell mentioned, these burn for 15-30 seconds and up to 10 minutes for Napalm B. The primary differentiation is that these have various 'thickening' agents which increase the 'stickness' of the napalm, thus improving their effectiveness on personnel. Some napalm variants incorporate an oxidiser, allowing the napalm to burn independently of atmospheric oxygen (eg underwater) - I don't have a lot of information on these types, presumably because they're a military secret.


This is not discounting the effects of the flamethrower causing ignition of anything flammable of the target (clothing, flesh, etc). In these cases, burn time can be fairly significant - observations of cremations indicate that after about 10 - 20 minutes, the majority of external soft tissue can no longer be seen and internal organs are visible, so I'd ballpark it as fuel burn time, extended up to around 10 minutes if the person is turned into a human candle*.

*I mean this literally, as the person's body fat will liquefy and burn while the rest of the body/clothing will act as a wick.

There's two different uses of white phosphorus: as a component of incendiary rounds and as (primarily) smoke generation.


WP as part of incendiary rounds will burn until all the material is spent, so burn time is dependent on how much material there is and what it's reacting with (human tissue and fluids often isn't that great). Note that WP will re-ignite on exposure to atmospheric oxygen after quenching attempts (eg water has evaporated off), so it's tricky to extinguish.
WP used in smoke is actually phosphorus pentoxide. While hot, this doesn't have an incendiary effect - however the phosphorus pentoxide readily dissolves in water to form phosphoric acid which causes chemical burns. This includes the moisture found on soft wet tissues like the eye and the lungs.


The burn time (incendiary and chemical) for both types of WP is dependent on how much there is to burn. With the incendiary type, the above mentioned human candle effect will also be a possibility, although much reduced compared to a flamethrower.

TheYell
2018-11-16, 10:31 AM
One very important thing to note about flamethrowers is that their effective range is far shorter than most people think.

I understand the Soviets had some sort of gel bomb thrower that didn't ignite until it burst on target, so that had a range of several hundred meters.

Pauly
2018-11-16, 07:40 PM
I understand the Soviets had some sort of gel bomb thrower that didn't ignite until it burst on target, so that had a range of several hundred meters.

I don’t do modern stuff, but I’ve never read about that being used in WW2. They did use molotov cocktails extensively but the ones I’m aware of were hand thrown, so hand grenade range.

Edit:
You learn something new every day
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ampulomet

Brother Oni
2018-11-17, 03:39 AM
Edit:
You learn something new every day
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ampulomet

For reference to the earlier burn times, the ampulomet fired a 125mm calibre spherical glass ball weighing 1.5kg.

Assuming regular soda lime glass bottle wall thickness of 2.8mm thickness, you end up with ~1.2kg charge of 80/20 phosphorus/sulphur* which burns for up to 3 minutes.

*There's a liquid carrier agent somewhere in that mixture as the article references the burning liquid seeping through grills and visions slots - both sulphur and phosphorus are solids at standard RTP, so there's some shenanigans going on.

Found some more information on the weapon and its variants while I was trying to look up the details for the KS charge: link (https://forum.cartridgecollectors.org/t/soviet-fireball-gun-ammo/7438/24).
There was some WW2 footage of it in action around Stalingrad, but those particular videos are missing from youtube.

Pauly
2018-11-17, 08:46 AM
For reference to the earlier burn times, the ampulomet fired a 125mm calibre spherical glass ball weighing 1.5kg.

Assuming regular soda lime glass bottle wall thickness of 2.8mm thickness, you end up with ~1.2kg charge of 80/20 phosphorus/sulphur* which burns for up to 3 minutes.

*There's a liquid carrier agent somewhere in that mixture as the article references the burning liquid seeping through grills and visions slots - both sulphur and phosphorus are solids at standard RTP, so there's some shenanigans going on.

Found some more information on the weapon and its variants while I was trying to look up the details for the KS charge: link (https://forum.cartridgecollectors.org/t/soviet-fireball-gun-ammo/7438/24).
There was some WW2 footage of it in action around Stalingrad, but those particular videos are missing from youtube.

I’m not convinced by Wikipedia’s claim of seeping through grills and vision slots.
I’ve read the British reports evaluating combat effectiveness of flamethrowers after WW2. Their evaluation was that for an incendiary to have effect on an enclosed AFVnyou needed to land the incendiary device/flamethrower jet on the back deck of the tank and it was oxygen starvation that killed the mobility and then allowed the fire to affect the engine. Hitting vertical surfaces with an incendiary did no good, and a crew trained to know what was happening wouldn’t panic and abandon the tank if the fire wasn’t on the engine deck. The British army’s conclusion was that using incendiary devices was a technically possible but practically very improbable way of defeating AFVs.

Having said that Wikipedia’s claim sounds plausible enough to be used by Hollywood or Commando Comics.

jayem
2018-11-17, 09:42 AM
*There's a liquid carrier agent somewhere in that mixture as the article references the burning liquid seeping through grills and visions slots - both sulphur and phosphorus are solids at standard RTP, so there's some shenanigans going on.

The burning liquid probably isn't at RTP (phosphorus melts at 45 and sulphur at 115). So it could be that the shenanigans is to do with the reaction involved.

(Alternatively the article could confuse two varieties-maybe there was also a more classic molotov style varient, we have the carrier agent theory, given the weather perhaps just ambient water could be an external carrier agent, or the whole thing could be a translation/misunderstanding for powder by soldiers having enough on their plate)

Pauly
2018-11-18, 04:02 AM
The burning liquid probably isn't at RTP (phosphorus melts at 45 and sulphur at 115). So it could be that the shenanigans is to do with the reaction involved.

(Alternatively the article could confuse two varieties-maybe there was also a more classic molotov style varient, we have the carrier agent theory, given the weather perhaps just ambient water could be an external carrier agent, or the whole thing could be a translation/misunderstanding for powder by soldiers having enough on their plate)

I suspect it comes from a translation of the field manual. The intent is to give your troops a much faith in their weapon as possible, not a realistic assessment of the weapon.

The Jack
2018-11-18, 07:31 AM
Wouldnt shield+sword be really good against alongsword? I was reading a historical on mongol invasions of japan and i noticed the mongols were bigger on shields.

gkathellar
2018-11-18, 08:09 AM
Wouldnt shield+sword be really good against alongsword? I was reading a historical on mongol invasions of japan and i noticed the mongols were bigger on shields.

Sword-and-shield is pretty good against a lot of things, but exactly how good depends on the type of shield. It's not particularly effective or ineffective against longsword, generally speaking, although the two tended to occupy different battlefields because of evolutions in armor technology.

If the Mongols particularly favored the shield, it's probably because they also favored the lance and cavalry saber. I've never been entirely clear on why the Japanese did not use the shield, but they pretty much didn't.

Brother Oni
2018-11-18, 12:19 PM
I was reading a historical on mongol invasions of japan and i noticed the mongols were bigger on shields.

The Mongols were bigger on shields mainly because the Chinese used a significantly larger variety of missile weapons, from fire lances, exploding arrows and incendiary weapons - the Huolongjing (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huolongjing) (Fire Dragon Manual) includes documentation of gunpowder weapons which pre-dates the Yuan Dynasty, even though the text itself is from the early Ming Dynasty.


If the Mongols particularly favored the shield, it's probably because they also favored the lance and cavalry saber. I've never been entirely clear on why the Japanese did not use the shield, but they pretty much didn't.

They did use the shield, both hand held ones (tedate) and larger ones (tate). Annoyingly, they don't differentiate between pavise type shields and the larger static field defence types (tate is used for both types).

https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Tn_tRyuAccQ/Wi7JFssx4II/AAAAAAAAAd8/yfQ2861FtZQ26Y95bqsIVWNGcBfa7tTPwCLcBGAs/s1600/dettaglio.jpg

https://qph.fs.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-6bd0761e903e0dd181af69dcc97f1a71

There's another famous picture of a Japanese shield, but the link is getting nuked by the profanity filter:
upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9f/Illustrated_Story_of_Night_Attack_on_Yo****sune%27 s_Residence_At_Horikawa%2C_16th_Century_2.jpg


Note that the shields on the left are being worn by some poor conscript as they retreat.https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d7/Samurai_using_shields_%28tate%29.jpg

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/3c/Ashigaru_using_shields_%28tate%29.jpg/800px-Ashigaru_using_shields_%28tate%29.jpg

https://qph.fs.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-61c56a972fd895fc8fac76e542bad7e0-c


However the samurai were initially horse archers, which makes the use of a large shield difficult. The western solution was to use smaller shields - the samurai moved them up to their shoulders instead:

https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-dNimHWB9w00/WjgbVuDlhRI/AAAAAAAAAgA/xqS_ANqUCrwKA8C5LXJZAAMpI1nnMAxpACLcBGAs/s1600/187798218_org.v1513501344.jpg
http://archive.asia.si.edu/encompassingtheglobe/googleearth/graphics/japan/els2007.2.102.jpg


That said, hand shields still persisted as seen in this Edo era text:
https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-qFpqYkTWAn8/WjVY9thCITI/AAAAAAAAAes/IlB4qRCUVcMG6D_4Sghtmehe7UYWlo8kwCLcBGAs/s1600/shield%2Bfrom%2B%25E6%25AD%25A6%25E9%2581%2593%25E 8%2597%259D%25E8%25A1%2593%25E7%25A7%2598%25E5%258 2%25B3%25E5%259C%2596%25E6%259C%2583.%2B%255B1%255 D.jpg

Pauly
2018-11-18, 06:52 PM
Wouldnt shield+sword be really good against alongsword? I was reading a historical on mongol invasions of japan and i noticed the mongols were bigger on shields.

Matt Easton (Scholagladiatoria), Lindybeige, Shadiversity and Metatron all cover this from different angles on youtube.

The first thing is that swords historically were sidearms. The backup weapon you use after your prinary weapon is no longer useful.

Both the Mongols and the Samurai of this time were mounted archers, so the important historical point of comparison is recurve bows -v- long bows.
I have heard that for the Samurai of this era being called a great swordsman was actually an insult, because it implied you were bad at archery.

The Jack
2018-11-19, 01:23 AM
Not just samurai, the other warriors too favoured two handed swords.
And yes, i know swords are sidearms, but polearms are terrible against shields and two handers in general probably arent ideal. shields are also very effective versus arrows...
It just seems favourable to a society with many shields to fight society with few, at least before armour got good.

Pauly
2018-11-19, 02:34 AM
Not just samurai, the other warriors too favoured two handed swords.
And yes, i know swords are sidearms, but polearms are terrible against shields and two handers in general probably arent ideal. shields are also very effective versus arrows...
It just seems favourable to a society with many shields to fight society with few, at least before armour got good.

OK let’s try to unpack some assumptions.

Generally speaking in the pre-gunpowder era shields were used by almost everybody because:
- they protected against missile fire and melee weapons
- they were cheaper and easier to make than armor

In this case your sidearm will be a one handed weapon. Swords were probably the most common sidearm. I believe this was because they have a better ability to parry than say a mace, axe or warhammer

If shields weren’t used it was almost always because of one or two of 3 things applied.
1- The warrior was expendable. Poorly trained levies for example.
2- The warrior’s main weapon requires 2 free hands to use. Archers are the most common example, but medieval halberdiers pikemen and billmen are other examples. Dacian falxmen are another example from the classical era. However there are examples of warriors using two handed weapons with a shield such as Macedonian pikemen or Anglo Saxon Huscarls.
3- The warrior’s level of armor had developed to a point where handheld shields were superfluous (late medieval plate armour, samurai armor for example).

In these cases it was quite common for the sidearm to either be a two handed sword or something very simple like a dagger.

As to the original question about which option gives the advantage. Firstly it is your main weapon that gives the advantage, so arguing about who has the best sword is like evaluating WW1 rifles on the basis of which one has the best bayonet. Secondly it depends on the technology level and availability of armor. Thirdly it depends on sword design and it’s ability to defeat armor.

For most of history sword and shield would beat 2 handed swords, but the most iconic swords from history are probably the European longsword and Japanese katana.

Willie the Duck
2018-11-19, 08:55 AM
In this case your sidearm will be a one handed weapon. Swords were probably the most common sidearm. I believe this was because they have a better ability to parry than say a mace, axe or warhammer

If you have a shield, parrying is a lessor concern (one will not how basket hilts and the like came to prominence after shields started to fade). I would guess that the main reason for the prominence of swords as sidearms is due to their ease of being carried and drawn, along with shield and primary armament (how those maul-wielding archers ever moved around with both maul and bow, I'll never know).

gkathellar
2018-11-19, 02:17 PM
The Mongols were bigger on shields mainly because the Chinese used a significantly larger variety of missile weapons, from fire lances, exploding arrows and incendiary weapons - the Huolongjing (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huolongjing) (Fire Dragon Manual) includes documentation of gunpowder weapons which pre-dates the Yuan Dynasty, even though the text itself is from the early Ming Dynasty.



They did use the shield, both hand held ones (tedate) and larger ones (tate). Annoyingly, they don't differentiate between pavise type shields and the larger static field defence types (tate is used for both types).

https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Tn_tRyuAccQ/Wi7JFssx4II/AAAAAAAAAd8/yfQ2861FtZQ26Y95bqsIVWNGcBfa7tTPwCLcBGAs/s1600/dettaglio.jpg

https://qph.fs.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-6bd0761e903e0dd181af69dcc97f1a71

There's another famous picture of a Japanese shield, but the link is getting nuked by the profanity filter:
upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9f/Illustrated_Story_of_Night_Attack_on_Yo****sune%27 s_Residence_At_Horikawa%2C_16th_Century_2.jpg


Note that the shields on the left are being worn by some poor conscript as they retreat.https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d7/Samurai_using_shields_%28tate%29.jpg

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/3c/Ashigaru_using_shields_%28tate%29.jpg/800px-Ashigaru_using_shields_%28tate%29.jpg

https://qph.fs.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-61c56a972fd895fc8fac76e542bad7e0-c


However the samurai were initially horse archers, which makes the use of a large shield difficult. The western solution was to use smaller shields - the samurai moved them up to their shoulders instead:

https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-dNimHWB9w00/WjgbVuDlhRI/AAAAAAAAAgA/xqS_ANqUCrwKA8C5LXJZAAMpI1nnMAxpACLcBGAs/s1600/187798218_org.v1513501344.jpg
http://archive.asia.si.edu/encompassingtheglobe/googleearth/graphics/japan/els2007.2.102.jpg


That said, hand shields still persisted as seen in this Edo era text:
https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-qFpqYkTWAn8/WjVY9thCITI/AAAAAAAAAes/IlB4qRCUVcMG6D_4Sghtmehe7UYWlo8kwCLcBGAs/s1600/shield%2Bfrom%2B%25E6%25AD%25A6%25E9%2581%2593%25E 8%2597%259D%25E8%25A1%2593%25E7%25A7%2598%25E5%258 2%25B3%25E5%259C%2596%25E6%259C%2583.%2B%255B1%255 D.jpg

That's surprising! Do you know if any of the extant schools of samurai martial arts (koryu, I mean) preserve shield-fighting traditions or techniques?

Brother Oni
2018-11-19, 04:33 PM
That's surprising! Do you know if any of the extant schools of samurai martial arts (koryu, I mean) preserve shield-fighting traditions or techniques?

From what I can dig up, there are some schools which still teach tedate techniques - Tenshin Ryu (天心流) is a style that keeps being mentioned, but there are several schools which claim the name, some are not authentic to put it mildly (Tenshin Ryu Hyouho apparently is a big offender, although my Japanese isn't very good and google translate only gets so far).

However their shields are basically buckler size:

https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-obqHfYPVr_M/Wjg38Q0DPXI/AAAAAAAAAgs/F3sjMxT1GqkrakB-YcDf-n-Hb0BEvkfOwCLcBGAs/s320/edo.jpg

The Jack
2018-11-25, 12:30 AM
Aside from the throwing knives, ultra incompetent and expendable redcoats typical of the genre, and of course specific people and other narrative contrivances, how well does Frontier work as a historical?



and

Are there any examples of the Japanese using wheellocks or other contemporary designs during the sengoku period? They were obviously very fond of matchlocks, and It'd seem strange that there wasn't at least one wealthy samurai who acquired a more elite firearm mechanism.

Brother Oni
2018-11-25, 04:39 AM
Are there any examples of the Japanese using wheellocks or other contemporary designs during the sengoku period? They were obviously very fond of matchlocks, and It'd seem strange that there wasn't at least one wealthy samurai who acquired a more elite firearm mechanism.

I can't find any information on other domestically produced firing mechanisms during the Sengoku era. That isn't to say that an individual samurai could have purchased a wheellock from the Dutch or Portugese, just that I can't any information on any domestically produced wheellocks from the Sengoku period.

It's worth noting that after the first initial years of their introduction, nearly all matchlocks (tanegashima) were domestically produced; some sources claim that the Japanese produced more matchlocks (in absolute numbers) than any European country. It was only the things that smiths couldn't produce or were not cost effective to produce (eg cuirass formed from a single steel plate for nanban gusoku) that were imported.

Flintlocks and other mechanisms started appearing during the tail end of the Edo period, but it wasn't until Admiral Perry showed up that contemporary weapons showed up. The Last Samurai reflects the rapid modernisation fairly well - Government troops were initially equipped with either antiquated tanegashima or flintlocks derived from a German design (lumped under the catch all term Gewehr), and gatling guns and Minie rifles showed up during the Boshin War.

Pauly
2018-11-25, 05:17 AM
Aside from the throwing knives, ultra incompetent and expendable redcoats typical of the genre, and of course specific people and other narrative contrivances, how well does Frontier work as a historical?



and

Are there any examples of the Japanese using wheellocks or other contemporary designs during the sengoku period? They were obviously very fond of matchlocks, and It'd seem strange that there wasn't at least one wealthy samurai who acquired a more elite firearm mechanism.

I haven’t had “Frontier” come up in any comments from any of my friends, which is kind of worrying snce that is an era we are all interested in. It isn’t necessarily an indication of poor quality, but I would have expected one of us to have heard about it if it was good. I will see if I can find an episode or two to watch on line.

I’ve been through a lot of Japanese museums and antique arms dealer’s shops. For the Sengoku period it’s matchlocks all the way down. I do not recall seeing any wheel locks, and there are only a very few flintlocks.

Clistenes
2018-11-25, 06:39 AM
About Tanegashima (japanese firearms), for what I have read:

During the Edo period there weren't any wars, either external or internal, save some very small acts of rebellion, police forces didn't use firearms at all, nor were they used for hunting... so firearms basically weren't used at all from the middle of the XVII century to the middle of the XIX century...

The Tokugawa, however, wanted to keep a force of gunmen just in case they needed to repel a foreign invasion, so they kept a large number of artisans and low-level samurai families who were paid to keep producing firearms and training with them...

The problem is, these people never actually used these weapons in combat. They were paid to look like they were skilled in the use of firearms... Hence the crafting of firearms became sort of like the forging of swords in today's Japan... a tradition and art that is passed unchanged from father to son; they endeavored to make badass-looking, beautiful, big ass matchlock muskets rather than efficient firearms, because they were never intended to be used, but rather to be eye-pleasing to keep a daimyo or shogun or high ranking officer happy...

As for the families of hereditary gunmen, they focused on training to fire quickly, accurately and elegantly heavy big bore tripod-supported matchlock muskets as a sort of exhibition art. Their aim was to show off in front of their superiors, who would say: "wow! look at that guy, he is able to fire a musket the size of a cannon! and look how fast he loads it!..." (something like this, but trying to look badass while doing it... (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Aa0cGvq2Lg)) The gunmen didn't want more efficient, cheaper to produce, easier to use firearms, because, if you could just recruit some peasant, train him to use a gun for several weeks and send him to the battlefield, then their gunner families who spent generations training their whole lives in the use of antiquated firearms where useless and out of their job...

It didn't help that the Japanese weren't keenly aware of the evolution of foreign technologies... they mostly copied Chinese and European technologies, but Chinese technology evolved at such a glacial pace that the Japanese weren't even able to perceive such evolution... as far as they were concerned, the Chinese always had cool stuff. As for Europeans, they copied and adopted their technologies during a very short span of time, so they hadn't lived through the development of such technologies, they weren't aware of it... so as far as they were concerned, the Namban (Europeans) always had those technologies and would never develop anything new...

Of course, there were people in Japan who were aware of foreign scientific and technological advancement, but they were a tiny elite minority. And there were Japanese who were trying to improve their own crafts and techniques, but even those weren't aware of the pace the world outside of Japan was changing... they were aware of concrete technological advancements within Japan, but not of the world as a whole becoming more technologically sophisticated over time...

Kiero
2018-11-25, 01:10 PM
Aside from the throwing knives, ultra incompetent and expendable redcoats typical of the genre, and of course specific people and other narrative contrivances, how well does Frontier work as a historical?

It's a reasonable TV facsimile of the tensions involved in Canada at the time, from what I understand. The Hudson's Bay Company was a real entity, which as a company operating under royal charter (like the Honourable East India Company) had broad powers. It still exists to this day, and alongside the Post Office must be one of the oldest companies in the world.

rrgg
2018-11-25, 07:23 PM
and

Are there any examples of the Japanese using wheellocks or other contemporary designs during the sengoku period? They were obviously very fond of matchlocks, and It'd seem strange that there wasn't at least one wealthy samurai who acquired a more elite firearm mechanism.

It's probably worth noting that even in europe matchlocks were generally considered more reliable than flintlocks and wheellocks up until around 1700 or so. During this period you primarily see flintlocks showing up only on smaller caliber weapons like pistols, carbines, and half-muskets that are meant to be used on horseback or meant to provide a lot of mobility to light skirmishers, while full-bore infantry muskets continued to be preferred with matchlocks. For example flintlocks soon became extremely popular in the americas during the 1600s among both colonists and natives, but this seems to be mainly because they didn't require large amounts of matchcord to be continually supplied from europe and because you didn't have to worry about the sight or smell of a burnt match giving you away during hunting or ambush warfare.

Wheellocks are sort of another oddity and don't seem to have gained popularity outside of europe. They were considered more reliable than snaphaunces at the time but were also pretty expensive and delicate. To supply wheellock pistols and carbines to cavalry in large numbers then you'll need a very large and efficient industry set up that can produce them cheaply enough, and you'll likely even need to have specialists following the army around at all times in order to provide replacement parts and make repairs as needed. The thinking is that since europe already had a pretty large mechanical clock-making industry that had a lot of experience making coiled springs and fairly high-precision metal components it was the only place where wheellocks were really feasible as a military weapon. I think Bert Hall notes that in addition during the 1530s-40s a new technique was developed for making the high-precision steel wheels needed for wheellocks much cheaper, which is part of what influenced their rapidly growing popularity.

One other possible factor is the fact that europeans didn't really have much of a strong horse archery tradition, and one of the main driving forces behind the development and growing popularity of improved wheellocks and snaphaunces seems to have been figuring out a way to make guns more effective from horseback. By the second half of the 16th century, Sir John Smythe claimed that many turkish horsemen in eastern europe would carry both a bow and an arquebus at the same time so that they could switch back and forth as needed. However ottoman cavalry don't seem to have started carrying pistols and carbines in large numbers like western cavalry until the late 17th century when much cheaper and more reliable flintlocks were available. By this time however Japan and China were already entering a long period of relative peace and isolation.

fusilier
2018-11-26, 01:16 PM
It's probably worth noting that even in europe matchlocks were generally considered more reliable than flintlocks and wheellocks up until around 1700 or so. During this period you primarily see flintlocks showing up only on smaller caliber weapons like pistols, carbines, and half-muskets that are meant to be used on horseback or meant to provide a lot of mobility to light skirmishers, while full-bore infantry muskets continued to be preferred with matchlocks. For example flintlocks soon became extremely popular in the americas during the 1600s among both colonists and natives, but this seems to be mainly because they didn't require large amounts of matchcord to be continually supplied from europe and because you didn't have to worry about the sight or smell of a burnt match giving you away during hunting or ambush warfare.

I would like to point out two additional factors. Matchlocks were simple and inexpensive. I suspect that was one reason why they held on for so long in European armies.

Firelocks (wheellocks and flintlocks) were preferred for use at sea, as matchlocks were more susceptible to the spray. That's not to say that matchlocks were useless at sea, they were used quite widely for a long time. I suspect that the increased use of firelocks at sea, was part of the reason you see a greater proportion of them in the colonies than in Europe, as those were the kinds of weapons that were transported. Interestingly, the Spanish authorized the use of crossbows on Galleons traveling to the Americas, for long after they were no longer acceptable for those operating in Europe. I suspect this was because, while considered an inferior weapon, they were more reliable at sea than a matchlock, and were thought to be "sufficient" protection in the Americas (at least in the mid 1500s when there was little other European competition).

Pauly
2018-11-26, 07:18 PM
I would like to point out two additional factors. Matchlocks were simple and inexpensive. I suspect that was one reason why they held on for so long in European armies.

Firelocks (wheellocks and flintlocks) were preferred for use at sea, as matchlocks were more susceptible to the spray. That's not to say that matchlocks were useless at sea, they were used quite widely for a long time. I suspect that the increased use of firelocks at sea, was part of the reason you see a greater proportion of them in the colonies than in Europe, as those were the kinds of weapons that were transported. Interestingly, the Spanish authorized the use of crossbows on Galleons traveling to the Americas, for long after they were no longer acceptable for those operating in Europe. I suspect this was because, while considered an inferior weapon, they were more reliable at sea than a matchlock, and were thought to be "sufficient" protection in the Americas (at least in the mid 1500s when there was little other European competition).

With regards to Spain and colonial powers in general.
- Weapons systems sent to colonies needed to be self sustaining. In the early Spanish era all powder and shot had to be transported. Whereas crossbows strings and bolts could be manufactured locally.
- In later periods when manufacturing had increased significantly powder and shot were still shipped because if the colonists had a source of locally produced firearms they would be harder to control if they rebelled.
- In still later periods when the colonies did have their own arms industries the colonial powers only allowed previous generation technology to be made in the colony for use by colonial (i.e. non-European) troops. The colonial power was, theoretically at least, always one generation of technology ahead of the natives of the colony.

rrgg
2018-11-27, 06:38 PM
I would like to point out two additional factors. Matchlocks were simple and inexpensive. I suspect that was one reason why they held on for so long in European armies.

Firelocks (wheellocks and flintlocks) were preferred for use at sea, as matchlocks were more susceptible to the spray. That's not to say that matchlocks were useless at sea, they were used quite widely for a long time. I suspect that the increased use of firelocks at sea, was part of the reason you see a greater proportion of them in the colonies than in Europe, as those were the kinds of weapons that were transported. Interestingly, the Spanish authorized the use of crossbows on Galleons traveling to the Americas, for long after they were no longer acceptable for those operating in Europe. I suspect this was because, while considered an inferior weapon, they were more reliable at sea than a matchlock, and were thought to be "sufficient" protection in the Americas (at least in the mid 1500s when there was little other European competition).

That's a good point. Firelocks do seem to have gained a reputation for being less hindered by wet weather. In 1594 you had Sutcliffe "In rainie weather they [muskets and calivers] cannot doe almost anie service. Yet some say, that at Rocheabeille firelockes did I know not what service in the raine." Another advantage sometimes mentioned later on was in very windy weather, since a flintlock was a bit more immediate it was usually a bit more likely to ignite the powder in the pan without it being blown away.

That said I've heard some reenactors claim to have had an opposite experience, which was that if you had a matchlock then even if the powder in the pan was slightly damp, if you held the match down for a couple of seconds the heat would sometimes still dry the powder out enough to let it ignite anyways. Period treatises do bring up a number of techniques for soldiers to use to keep their matches lit during rainy weather such as keeping the match under their coats or under their armpits or attaching little metal caps to each end of the matchcord that were supposed to keep it from going out. A lot of them also include instructions for how to make wet weather firestarters that you were supposed to seal in a very dry, airtight clay container that you could later open back up and then either splash water or spit on them to make them immediately ignite. Though those sound a little dangerous to me.

Another big advantage of flintlocks of course was that they were considered much safer. For instance you have soldiers armed with flintlocks start being assigned to guard the artillery or barrels of gunpowder.

Regarding firearms in the Americas. I'm a bit less familiar with the spanish than with the English colonies, but Peterson's Arms and Armor in Colonial America and Silverman's Thundersticks Do seem to indicate a pretty strong preference for flintlocks in north america throughout most of the 1600s. Native Americans definitely preferred to trade for flintlocks instead of matchlocks, but even among the settlers it seems that a lot of the matchlocks that were brought over started being converted into flintlocks of some sort pretty early on. The 1624-25 jamestown census counted a total of more than 1000 firearms among virginian colonists at the time but only about 50 were still labeled as matchlocks. The preference for flintlocks though may also have had to do with a preference for lighter, more portable firearms without rests that would have been easier to carry around and skirmish with in the dense forests of new england.

The list of arms planned for a 1626 voyage to Massachusetts included:


8o bastard musketts, with snaphances, 4 ffote in the barrill, without rests;

10 ffull musketts, 4 foote barrill, with matchlocks and rests;

06 longe ffowlinge peeces, with muskett boare, 6 ffoote long, 1/2;

4 longe ffowlinge peeces, with bastard muskett boare, 5 1/2 ffoote longe;

Anyways, there definitely some in europe who started suggesting a switch to firelocks entirely as the 17th century went on. For example Roger Boyle gave a pretty good list of what he thought the firelock's advantages were (https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo/A53478.0001.001?rgn=subject;view=toc;q1=Military+a rt+and+science+--++Early+works+to+1800). The general assumption that matchlocks were much more reliable overall does seem to stuck around pretty strongly though, here's an even later source (https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo/A42527.0001.001/1:9.1.2.2?rgn=div4;view=fulltext;q1=Military+art+a nd+science+--++Early+works+to+1800) which again claims that flintlocks were more likely to misfire. Something curious about Sir James Turner's 1671 "Pallas Armata" is that he recommends soldiers be given muskets which can be converted into flintlocks for when they need to sneak around at night or carry out ambushes, then converted back to matchlocks the rest of the time. Though he doesn't actually get into an argument about matchlocks vs flintlocks, elsewhere he seems to assume that his audience will consider the idea that flintlocks can completely replace matchlocks ridiculous. In his responses to Master Lupton's book against the pike, one of the arguments was that many convoys now aren't accompanied by any pikemen at all, to which Turner retorts: "Many great Convoys are composed only of Firelocks, or Fusees, I hope Master Lupton will not thence infer that Musquets are useless."

rrgg
2018-11-27, 07:15 PM
On a somewhat related note. Something I've been noticing lately is that a lot of 17th and even 16th century authors really didn't like the use of bandoliers (such as the hanging "twelve apostles" containing premeasured gunpowder charges). The preferred method of loading gunpowder in the late 16th century, particularly among those who had experience with the spanish army, seems to have instead been to use a double-action flask where the spout was the correct size to measure out one charge of gunpowder with two switches, so you'd press one switch to let the spout fill up with gunpowder and then press the other one to let the powder fall out the spout into the barrel of your gun.

The two biggest complaints about the use of bandoliers that seem to come up are that they were apparently harder to keep dry than a single flask or a leather box filled with paper cartridges, and it was apparently pretty easy for at least one of the many hanging charges have it's lid come loose while moving about and cover the wearer with loose powder, which could then be accidentally ignited by a lit match. They also tended to make a lot of noise while moving which could apparently be a problem for skirmishing or sneaking around.

William garrard in 1587 claimed that bandoliers tended to be more common among the dutch then the spanish, and while he personally preferred flasks, both were at least better than soldiers carrying loose powder around in their coat pockets, like some english troops tended to do at the time:


And therefore those Souldiers which in our time haue bene for the most part leuied in the lowe Countries, especiallie those of Artoyes and Henault, called by the generall name of Wallownes, haue vsed to hange about their neckes, vppon a Baudricke or bor∣der, or at their girdles certaine Pypes which they call Charges, of Copper and Tyn made with couers, which they thinke in skirmish to be the most readiest way. But the Spaniard dispising that order, doth altogether vse his flaske.

The French man, both charge and flaske. But some of our English nation, their pocket, which in respect of the danger of the sparkes of their Match, the vncertaine charge, the expence and spoile of Pouder, the dis∣commodity of wette, I account more apt for the show of a triumph and wanton skirmish before Ladyes and Gentlewomen, then fit for the field, in a day of seruice in the face of the Enemye: and in like sort the charge which either doth shed and loose his Pouder whilest a Souldier doth tra∣uerse hys ground, or else is so cloddered and rammed together, that he shall be forced sometimes to fayle of halfe his charge. Therefore I con∣clude with the Spaniard, that a good Flaske is that which is most warlike and ready in seruice without the curious helpe of any extraordi∣nary inuention.

So I'm not sure exactly why bandoliers stuck around for so long. I assume they were relatively inexpensive and easier to replace compared to a double action flask. It could also have to do with a lot of european armies copying things from the dutch during the early 17th century.

fusilier
2018-11-28, 01:21 PM
On a somewhat related note. Something I've been noticing lately is that a lot of 17th and even 16th century authors really didn't like the use of bandoliers (such as the hanging "twelve apostles" containing premeasured gunpowder charges). The preferred method of loading gunpowder in the late 16th century, particularly among those who had experience with the spanish army, seems to have instead been to use a double-action flask where the spout was the correct size to measure out one charge of gunpowder with two switches, so you'd press one switch to let the spout fill up with gunpowder and then press the other one to let the powder fall out the spout into the barrel of your gun.

. . .

So I'm not sure exactly why bandoliers stuck around for so long. I assume they were relatively inexpensive and easier to replace compared to a double action flask. It could also have to do with a lot of european armies copying things from the dutch during the early 17th century.

I use a flask with a single valve at the base, and cover the top spout with my finger to get a "consistent" charge. I say "consistent" in quotes, because the valve action is not always perfect, and sometimes I have to try it a second time to get a full measure.

I suspect that the apostles were considered quicker, by those that used them. But I've always looked at it as a personal option. De Gheyn's manual depicts the Arquebusier with a flask, and the Musketeer with apostles. It could be that those equipped with a flask expected to do more shooting.

As for safety -- I can't really say. The apostles are carried across the body, and there may be a greater chance of a piece of hot ash finding one, and some powder dust, igniting it? On the other hand the powder flask is basically a grenade that you wear on your hip -- or when loading hold at about eye level. Some reenactment groups don't allow their members to load directly from a flask, for fear of the musket "cooking off" when loading, and blowing up the flask.

fusilier
2018-11-28, 01:56 PM
That's a good point. Firelocks do seem to have gained a reputation for being less hindered by wet weather. In 1594 you had Sutcliffe "In rainie weather they [muskets and calivers] cannot doe almost anie service. Yet some say, that at Rocheabeille firelockes did I know not what service in the raine." Another advantage sometimes mentioned later on was in very windy weather, since a flintlock was a bit more immediate it was usually a bit more likely to ignite the powder in the pan without it being blown away.

That said I've heard some reenactors claim to have had an opposite experience, which was that if you had a matchlock then even if the powder in the pan was slightly damp, if you held the match down for a couple of seconds the heat would sometimes still dry the powder out enough to let it ignite anyways. Period treatises do bring up a number of techniques for soldiers to use to keep their matches lit during rainy weather such as keeping the match under their coats or under their armpits or attaching little metal caps to each end of the matchcord that were supposed to keep it from going out. A lot of them also include instructions for how to make wet weather firestarters that you were supposed to seal in a very dry, airtight clay container that you could later open back up and then either splash water or spit on them to make them immediately ignite. Though those sound a little dangerous to me.

Another big advantage of flintlocks of course was that they were considered much safer. For instance you have soldiers armed with flintlocks start being assigned to guard the artillery or barrels of gunpowder.

Regarding firearms in the Americas. I'm a bit less familiar with the spanish than with the English colonies, but Peterson's Arms and Armor in Colonial America and Silverman's Thundersticks Do seem to indicate a pretty strong preference for flintlocks in north america throughout most of the 1600s. Native Americans definitely preferred to trade for flintlocks instead of matchlocks, but even among the settlers it seems that a lot of the matchlocks that were brought over started being converted into flintlocks of some sort pretty early on. The 1624-25 jamestown census counted a total of more than 1000 firearms among virginian colonists at the time but only about 50 were still labeled as matchlocks. The preference for flintlocks though may also have had to do with a preference for lighter, more portable firearms without rests that would have been easier to carry around and skirmish with in the dense forests of new england.

The list of arms planned for a 1626 voyage to Massachusetts included:



Anyways, there definitely some in europe who started suggesting a switch to firelocks entirely as the 17th century went on. For example Roger Boyle gave a pretty good list of what he thought the firelock's advantages were (https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo/A53478.0001.001?rgn=subject;view=toc;q1=Military+a rt+and+science+--++Early+works+to+1800). The general assumption that matchlocks were much more reliable overall does seem to stuck around pretty strongly though, here's an even later source (https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo/A42527.0001.001/1:9.1.2.2?rgn=div4;view=fulltext;q1=Military+art+a nd+science+--++Early+works+to+1800) which again claims that flintlocks were more likely to misfire. Something curious about Sir James Turner's 1671 "Pallas Armata" is that he recommends soldiers be given muskets which can be converted into flintlocks for when they need to sneak around at night or carry out ambushes, then converted back to matchlocks the rest of the time. Though he doesn't actually get into an argument about matchlocks vs flintlocks, elsewhere he seems to assume that his audience will consider the idea that flintlocks can completely replace matchlocks ridiculous. In his responses to Master Lupton's book against the pike, one of the arguments was that many convoys now aren't accompanied by any pikemen at all, to which Turner retorts: "Many great Convoys are composed only of Firelocks, or Fusees, I hope Master Lupton will not thence infer that Musquets are useless."

I believe that one of the reasons flintlocks took a while to replace matchlocks was that they were more complicated, and the technology needed to mature to the point where it was easy to mass produce reliable flintlocks.

That said, when something goes wrong with a flintlock, it can take some time to correct it. A flint might need to be re-knapped, or replaced, or sometimes simply adjusted in the jaws. Any of those can take some time. Which in the heat of battle, where a weapon is being fired frequently, could be a problem. I've also had strange problems with flintlocks, even with a weapon that is usually very reliable. One time, I think my frizzen had attracted some humidity and wasn't sparking correctly -- it was a very strange problem. (Frizzens have to be tempered just right, ideally made out of a high carbon material, and the striking surface needs a certain amount of roughness -- another technological factor that has to be mastered for reliability and consistency).

I have seen weapons that had a kind of double lock, with both flintlock and matchlock mechanism operating on the same priming pan.

Regarding holding the match against damp powder: I've never tried that myself, but it makes sense. But if your powder is getting wet the situation is already bad. For both a matchlock and a flintlock, getting wet powder while loading is a similar problem. However, the matchlock will suffer more if firing in the rain, because the pan is open and exposed to the weather for longer. There are techniques to try to shield the pan from the rain when loading, but they aren't really applicable when firing. (During the Siege of Malta, the knights kept crossbows on hand, to repel attacks in the rain)

In strong winds, I suspect a flintlock will have an advantage. Interestingly, the maker of my replica matchlock told me that in windy conditions, he uses coarser powder in the priming pan! This slows the ignition time, but makes it less likely for the powder to blow away. I could imagine for a soldier that could be difficult to plan for.

Having burning matchcords around powder wagons is an understandable danger! So it's not surprising that as firelocks became more available those guards were issued with such weapons.

Regarding Spanish colonies in the Americas, keep in mind the Spanish had a presence in the area a hundred years before the English, so many of the reports refer to an earlier time period. Nevertheless, most depictions of weapons used during King Phillips War show matchlocks, don't they? While there may have been an early preference for firelocks, it's possible that as numbers increased, it was cheaper to equip militia with matchlocks?

In New Mexico, Onate's expedition of 1598 included two miquelet lock weapons, which is a fairly early date for such a weapon (a miquelet lock is a kind of early flintlock). However, I believe even during De Vargas's reconquest a hundred years later, most were armed with matchlocks. Certainly old armor persisted in New Mexico (people still find bits of chainmail), although New Mexico's remoteness probably means that it was even more behind the times than other areas of New Spain.

I think there are many good reasons why the flintlock replaced the matchlock, but, like any change in technology, there are situations and conditions where the matchlock might have an advantage.

rs2excelsior
2018-11-28, 11:38 PM
So, I have something else I'd like to pick the thread's collective brain about: ancient Mesopotamian warfare. Most information that I've found readily available about the nitty-gritty of this era of warfare has been fairly sparse. I've picked up that the spear, bow, javelin, and chariot were common weapons, and that the Assyrians were the first to form a professional, year-round army instead of campaigning only in summer with (mostly) farmers as soldiers, and that the Assyrians were particularly adept at breaching and storming cities. But the details--how armies were raised and organized under either system, how they actually performed on the field, are lacking. Most useful information I've found has come from this (https://www.ancient.eu/Assyrian_Warfare/) site, which focuses on the professional Assyrian armies.

So, regarding the non-professional armies of the regions: you've got part-time soldiers who campaign in between planting and harvest. That strikes me as being quite similar to the Greek hoplites, or pre-Marian Republican Rome. Would it be reasonable to draw parallels between these systems? I.e. a citizen-soldiery, where certain rights were linked to being able to serve in the army on campaign and provide suitable equipment for yourself, with the equipment requirements depending on status and/or wealth. It certainly seems like that is a valid comparison, but I realize most people (myself included) have a tendency to make anachronistic assumptions about the past based on more familiar, more recent history. Regardless, I would assume these types of armies would be comparatively poorly-trained and led in most cases.

Regarding the later, professional, Assyrian armies, there seem to have been fairly well organized--not sure to what degree, however. How would an Assyrian army have compared in terms of standard organization and training to, say, a late Republican/early Imperial Roman legion? Along these lines, I've found this quote (sourced from the same site as I referenced earlier):


He would have seen, in the centre of the formation, the main body of infantry, compact phalanxes of spearmen, their weapon points glittering in the sun, each arranged in ten files of twenty ranks. He would have marvelled – and perhaps trembled – at the discipline and precision of their maneuvering, a contrast to the relatively freewheeling manner of previous armies, for the reforms had introduced a highly developed and effective command structure. Infantrymen fought in squads of ten, each headed by an NCO, and grouped into companies of five to twenty squads under the command of a Captain.

Aside from the anachronistic terminology this strikes me as being quite similar to the Roman system (contubernia and centuries). It also implies that the Assyrian armies were rather well disciplined, and other armies of the time were not. The phalanx depth seems quite deep--I was under the impression that six to ten was about standard for, say, Greek phalanxes and deeper formations were considered unusual when they were used.

Was the concept of a professional army taken up by other states of the area around the time? In between times of Assyrian ascendancy, did other Mesopotamian kingdoms such as Babylon begin to incorporate elements of this system? Did the later Assyrian empires revive the idea of a professional army?

Regarding siege warfare--short campaign seasons of no more than a few months seem to imply a city would be taken by storm or not at all. There really isn't time to invest in a long siege when you have to let the army go home in time for harvest. On the flip side, once you'd beaten the army you could negotiate terms based on the threat of burning the fields that would supply the city, or actually carry out the threat and watch them starve during the winter. Even Assyrian siege techniques seem to focus around storm rather than investing a city. Did the Assyrians make use of long-term sieges, even just as a mean to soften up the defenders before an assault?

More generally: was there a concept of warrior nobility (landed or not) at this time? If soldiers were expected to bring their own equipment, I can't imagine the person who brings a chariot with horses, a driver, and an assistant wouldn't be regarded as higher up than someone who brings a shield, spear, and helmet.

I realize these questions are reaching back to near the beginning of our recorded history, so there might not really be concrete answers to a lot of these. But any information you do have, or good sources I could look into myself, I'd appreciate. Thanks!

jayem
2018-11-29, 03:43 AM
...
Regarding siege warfare--short campaign seasons of no more than a few months seem to imply a city would be taken by storm or not at all. There really isn't time to invest in a long siege when you have to let the army go home in time for harvest. On the flip side, once you'd beaten the army you could negotiate terms based on the threat of burning the fields that would supply the city, or actually carry out the threat and watch them starve during the winter. Even Assyrian siege techniques seem to focus around storm rather than investing a city. Did the Assyrians make use of long-term sieges, even just as a mean to soften up the defenders before an assault?

More generally: was there a concept of warrior nobility (landed or not) at this time? If soldiers were expected to bring their own equipment, I can't imagine the person who brings a chariot with horses, a driver, and an assistant wouldn't be regarded as higher up than someone who brings a shield, spear, and helmet.

I realize these questions are reaching back to near the beginning of our recorded history, so there might not really be concrete answers to a lot of these. But any information you do have, or good sources I could look into myself, I'd appreciate. Thanks!

The book of kings/chronicles [as in the biblical/torah, so any discussion (e.g. about normalcy and reliability) would get awkward quickly] does describe situations where they separately the Israeli's and Judean's capitals are surrounded by the Assyrians and have run out on food. Which suggests that it was at least a thing that they expected the Assyrian's to be able and willing to do. There's also at least some kind of (10s, 100s, etc...)/officer structure described at various for earlier points for said non-superpower.

rogoxekos
2018-11-29, 06:52 AM
Best ever got

gkathellar
2018-11-29, 06:54 AM
So, regarding the non-professional armies of the regions: you've got part-time soldiers who campaign in between planting and harvest. That strikes me as being quite similar to the Greek hoplites, or pre-Marian Republican Rome. Would it be reasonable to draw parallels between these systems? I.e. a citizen-soldiery, where certain rights were linked to being able to serve in the army on campaign and provide suitable equipment for yourself, with the equipment requirements depending on status and/or wealth.

I'd hesitate to assume that. Armies of part-timers who campaigned in between harvests were commonplace throughout history. Even serfdom contracts sometimes included stipulations to that effect.

Kiero
2018-11-29, 05:52 PM
Was the concept of a professional army taken up by other states of the area around the time? In between times of Assyrian ascendancy, did other Mesopotamian kingdoms such as Babylon begin to incorporate elements of this system? Did the later Assyrian empires revive the idea of a professional army?

For the most part, no. The reason is very simple: cost. Professional armies are exceptionally expensive, keeping men in harness all year round means you have to pay them, and they are not doing other productive (and tax revenue-raising) things while they are there.

Philip II of Makedon created a professional force, turning a levy rabble into a proper army that could beat his Greek neighbours. He could only afford to do that because early in his reign, he discovered gold mines, and funnelled all that new wealth into reforming his military.

Mendicant
2018-12-02, 08:03 PM
I have a question about a homebrew weapon. The dueling spike or fighting spike is essentially a wrought-iron spike. It has a square cross section about three quarters of an inch thick at the base, tapering to a point, and the hand is protected by something between a basket hilt and a very small buckler.

The weapon has a cultural application independant of its utility in normal combat--duels are pretty normal, and the main weapon are cudgels. Usually you pair the cudgel with a small shield, but the option to request a spike instead is always present and indicates you want to fight to the death. (The duels are all officially "to the death" but cudgel and shield only very rarely ends with a fatality.)

In a duel with spikes, the spikes perform a dual role as offhand defensive weapon/finishing weapon.

Somebody who openly carries around a spike in this culture is advertising their readiness to murder, and people tend to avoid them and view such individuals with contempt.

How viable would this be as a more general-purpose defensive weapon in the same niche as a buckler or maine gauche? It'd be heavier than a dagger, but to my mind the spike would require less care in how it met attacks and would be more effective if you wanted to punch through mail when on the offensive.

Mr Beer
2018-12-02, 09:31 PM
How long is this spike? Does it have a handle? Sounds a bit like a heavy stiletto.

Also, why do people duel with spikes instead of knives? Cultural I guess but knives tend to be ubiquitous in low tech environments so it seems a bit odd.

Mike_G
2018-12-02, 10:02 PM
Wrought iron isn't very strong, so the spike runs the risk of snapping near the tip when facing steel weapons or armor.

It's kind of a heavy dagger that can't cut, or a very short epee.

So, yeah, you could fight with it, but it's more or less just a worse version of a main gauche.

Pauly
2018-12-02, 10:35 PM
I have a question about a homebrew weapon. The dueling spike or fighting spike is essentially a wrought-iron spike. It has a square cross section about three quarters of an inch thick at the base, tapering to a point, and the hand is protected by something between a basket hilt and a very small buckler.

The weapon has a cultural application independant of its utility in normal combat--duels are pretty normal, and the main weapon are cudgels. Usually you pair the cudgel with a small shield, but the option to request a spike instead is always present and indicates you want to fight to the death. (The duels are all officially "to the death" but cudgel and shield only very rarely ends with a fatality.)

In a duel with spikes, the spikes perform a dual role as offhand defensive weapon/finishing weapon.

Somebody who openly carries around a spike in this culture is advertising their readiness to murder, and people tend to avoid them and view such individuals with contempt.

How viable would this be as a more general-purpose defensive weapon in the same niche as a buckler or maine gauche? It'd be heavier than a dagger, but to my mind the spike would require less care in how it met attacks and would be more effective if you wanted to punch through mail when on the offensive.

Basically what you’re describing sounds to be like a jitte sharpened to a point, or a main gauche with an estoc blade profile.

Historically the jitte was mostly used without a point. Originally it was a non-lethal weapon used by the shogun’s guards, because the carrying of swords close to the shogun was banned. In wider use it was then became a non-lethal weapon for police and government inspectors. There are some spiked versions which indicate that in some situations the non-lethal part was optional. In either case it was used as the main weapon of a government officer doing his duty.

There are some example of main gauche daggers built with a spike rather than a blade. Conjecture is that it was done either for reducing cost or for penetrating mail armor like a rondel dagger. In this situation it was primarily an off-hand parrying weapon, but it might become your main weapon if you were ambushed in an alley.

Mendicant
2018-12-02, 11:57 PM
How long is this spike? Does it have a handle? Sounds a bit like a heavy stiletto.

Also, why do people duel with spikes instead of knives? Cultural I guess but knives tend to be ubiquitous in low tech environments so it seems a bit odd.

It is a lot like a heavy stilletto, except with a much more significant hand guard and meant to fill a defensive/parrying role for ~90% of the fight.

I'm trying to steer clear of knives and daggers for a couple reasons. A knife isn't typically a formal dueling weapon for a lot of reasons, and wouldn't be much of a defensive complement to a main-hand weapon. Probably more important for my purposes is that it's just not much as a cultural signifier for a dangerous ne'er-do-well--just about everybody in this particular culture carries a knife on them as a matter of course. I've seen some stuff about carrying a buckler having that sort of connotation during the renaissance, and I'm trying to translate that into a setting where having a whole set of weapon on you or your horse is quite normal.

gkathellar
2018-12-03, 05:12 AM
May I recommend the Bowie knife? Not only is it better suited to defense than your average knife, it’s pretty distinctive and clearly intended for, how can I put this gently? Trouble.

Alternately there’s the regrettably-named smatchet (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smatchet), which is unmistakeable and meant for the sole purpose of separating enemy combatants from their lives.

Brother Oni
2018-12-03, 07:53 AM
How viable would this be as a more general-purpose defensive weapon in the same niche as a buckler or maine gauche? It'd be heavier than a dagger, but to my mind the spike would require less care in how it met attacks and would be more effective if you wanted to punch through mail when on the offensive.

Sounds very much like a push dagger with additional hand protection.

There's spiked gauntlets, which has found use in a variety of situations from Roman gladiatorial combat to WW1 trench warfare.
http://www.warriorsandlegends.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/cestus-gladiator-2.jpg
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/86/Collections_of_the_Imperial_War_Museum_Q30161.jpg/451px-Collections_of_the_Imperial_War_Museum_Q30161.jpg

There's various sword gauntlets which either locked around the sword or had an integrated blade/spike. The clearest example I can find is the Indian pata (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pata_(sword)), although it's too long compared to your homebrew weapon.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/18/Pata-1-Archit-Patel.jpg

The Indian katar (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katar_(dagger)) is probably too blade-y for you, although it's shorter.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f5/Ornamental_katar.jpg

There are also shields with spike on the centre boss for additional offensive capabilities. This also ranges from larger shields to bucklers and there are a number of mentions of its use in fencing manuals like the 'Gladiatoria' Fechtbuch (Manuscript 5878): (Arma link (http://www.thearma.org/essays/SwordandBucklerP3.htm#.XAUmbeRLGUl)).
http://www.thearma.org/essays/SandB/Gladiatoria112.jpg


So in terms of its practicality, your fighting spike sounds like a perfectly viable weapon and there are multiple sources that will also tell you how to use them too!

Unfortunately, I couldn't tell you how it compares to a buckler or a main gauche as I don't do that style of fencing, although some others here do.

Martin Greywolf
2018-12-03, 10:10 AM
There are also shields with spike on the centre boss for additional offensive capabilities. This also ranges from larger shields to bucklers and there are a number of mentions of its use in fencing manuals like the 'Gladiatoria' Fechtbuch (Manuscript 5878):


I highly doubt those spikes are meant for offense - I mean, sure, if you can smackstab a guy in the face then by all means, but your primary weapon will always be the sword. It's longer, and... that's pretty much all the reason you need. The spike is IMO a defensive trapping tool, it stops what would be a glancing blow that bounces off in its tracks, and that can be very useful with bucklers, especially all-steel ones.



So in terms of its practicality, your fighting spike sounds like a perfectly viable weapon and there are multiple sources that will also tell you how to use them too!

Unfortunately, I couldn't tell you how it compares to a buckler or a main gauche as I don't do that style of fencing, although some others here do.

Buckler and dagger are almost non-interchangeable, I tried to figure out I.33 based style with a dagger and it... didn't work. Every single position had to be either changed or abandoned. And something like Bolognese style where you use buckler more statically to hide behind? No dice.

With this spike, it really depends on how it's made. Unless it has a centre grip, it will not perform as well as a buckler would (rotating it is a big part of using it) in bucklery roles, but added spike turns it into those Gladiatoria bucklers in a way. Personally, unless it's patel-like covering for the whole forearm, I'd stay away from it, but this is supposed to be a duel weapon, so many things will fly on basis of tradition.

I'd decalre it usable but not ideal.

On a related note, there's this supposedly Hungarian buckler in Gladiatoria:

http://www.thearma.org/Manuals/Gladiatoria/113.jpg

I say supposedly because there is no trace of the bugger anywhere in actual (former) Hungary, either as a find or in iconography, so it's probably a misinterpretation of some thing or other. It is somewhat similar to the weapon we're talking about here and Gladiatoria folks thought it is workable, so it may be the best of both worlds.

gkathellar
2018-12-03, 11:52 AM
Given katars/punch daggers have been mentioned, this old BBC documentary on Kalaripayattu (https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Dmt0WTZfKI0) may be of some use. While most of it is probably irrelevant, there is some footage of actual katar-fencing from 27:15-28:20 and then from 37:45 to the end.

The Jack
2018-12-06, 12:22 AM
Javelins tended to be more powerful than bows/crossbows, right? I know they'd be dependent on user strength, but given fit equally fit shooters

It strikes me as weird that in dnd, throwing weapons are worse for damage, and that there's no martial versions of throwing weapons. I can understand heavy crossbows being more powerful, but theyre about equal to shortbows. I'm assuming this is a gameplay decision that had little baring in reality.

Gnoman
2018-12-06, 12:59 AM
Javelins tended to be more powerful than bows/crossbows, right?

On what, precisely, do you base this assumption?


Both bows and crossbows are energy-storing devices. This means that your total energy when you loose your projectile will be greater than you can exert at any given time, because you put that energy in over time. Crossbows are (if the design is good enough) far better storage devices because they can be loaded with mechanical advantage devices (cranks or levers) and include a trigger - meaning that the total energy in the crossbow is not limited by your own ability to hold back the bowstring.

Javelins have no energy storage. Only the energy that you can impart at the exact instant of throwing will transfer.


Javelins do tend to be heavier by a significant amount, which has beneficial effects for velocity retention and impact effect, and they can be thrown with a full-body motion that puts more of your body's muscle energy into the throw, but this is not necessarily enough to offset the storage of the other weapons.

Pauly
2018-12-06, 03:10 AM
Javelins tended to be more powerful than bows/crossbows, right? I know they'd be dependent on user strength, but given fit equally fit shooters

It strikes me as weird that in dnd, throwing weapons are worse for damage, and that there's no martial versions of throwing weapons. I can understand heavy crossbows being more powerful, but theyre about equal to shortbows. I'm assuming this is a gameplay decision that had little baring in reality.

DnD and historical combat are like honey and engine oil. They may look the same but are totally different things.

Historical accounts suggest that javelins (and thrown axes like the francisca) did substantially more damage than arrows if they hit. However against that is that effective range appears to be very short, 10 to 20 meters or so. Most javelin users only carried 2 or 3 javelins, and the final one may have been kept to use as a short spear.

Also the javelin was obsolete or almost obsolete in European warfare by the late medieval period, and DnD combat rules are based around late medieval European combat asumptions.

Clistenes
2018-12-06, 11:43 AM
On what, precisely, do you base this assumption?


Both bows and crossbows are energy-storing devices. This means that your total energy when you loose your projectile will be greater than you can exert at any given time, because you put that energy in over time. Crossbows are (if the design is good enough) far better storage devices because they can be loaded with mechanical advantage devices (cranks or levers) and include a trigger - meaning that the total energy in the crossbow is not limited by your own ability to hold back the bowstring.

Javelins have no energy storage. Only the energy that you can impart at the exact instant of throwing will transfer.


Javelins do tend to be heavier by a significant amount, which has beneficial effects for velocity retention and impact effect, and they can be thrown with a full-body motion that puts more of your body's muscle energy into the throw, but this is not necessarily enough to offset the storage of the other weapons.

The kinetic energy carried by a projectile depends on two factors: weight of the projectile and its speed (kinetic energy = half of mass times velocity squared).

The javelin is way heavier, the arrow and bolt are faster.

The bow stores energy, but its advantage isn't that it releases more energy, but that it releases it faster. If you try to shoot a javelin with a bow, it won't go far; the bow can't store enough energy to effectively throw the javelin...

On the other hand, it can throw a lighter projectile like an arrow way faster than your arm could do on its own. Since the arrow goes faster, and its relative friction isn't so different from the javelin, it reaches way further.

The closer the foe, the most effective the javelin is, since it carries more of its original energy. The further the foe, the slower javelin loses more of its energy due to friction and become less effective.

Gnoman
2018-12-06, 04:30 PM
The kinetic energy carried by a projectile depends on two factors: weight of the projectile and its speed (kinetic energy = half of mass times velocity squared).

The javelin is way heavier, the arrow and bolt are faster.

The bow stores energy, but its advantage isn't that it releases more energy, but that it releases it faster. If you try to shoot a javelin with a bow, it won't go far; the bow can't store enough energy to effectively throw the javelin...

On the other hand, it can throw a lighter projectile like an arrow way faster than your arm could do on its own. Since the arrow goes faster, and its relative friction isn't so different from the javelin, it reaches way further.

The closer the foe, the most effective the javelin is, since it carries more of its original energy. The further the foe, the slower javelin loses more of its energy due to friction and become less effective.

All good points. I shouldn't post when I need sleep - I tend to oversimplify and misexplain things.

Mr Beer
2018-12-06, 05:10 PM
It strikes me as weird that in dnd

D&D doesn't try to be a simulationist type system so it's not worth worrying about. Balancing various weapon choices is a way higher priority in D&D than realism.

gkathellar
2018-12-06, 05:10 PM
I'm assuming this is a gameplay decision that had little baring in reality.

That, or it simply followed from whatever vague and unresearched intuitions the writer had about how things should work.

However, bear in mind that in reality, taking a direct hit from any of these weapons has a good chance of causing immediate incapacitation and imminent death. "1d6 damage vs. 1d8 damage" is already so divorced from reality as a concept that the question of whether it's correct almost misses the point. This is without even getting into the vagaries of terms like "short bow" when viewed in a cross-cultural context.

The Jack
2018-12-06, 06:53 PM
That wasn't a very good post of mine. I wrote it when tired. I know DnD and rpgs in general hold different damage conventions to reality.

Still, Javelins are really cool. I did imagi e the upper end of crossbows would exceed them in power. When did they stop being used in european warfare?

Pauly
2018-12-07, 02:09 AM
That wasn't a very good post of mine. I wrote it when tired. I know DnD and rpgs in general hold different damage conventions to reality.

Still, Javelins are really cool. I did imagi e the upper end of crossbows would exceed them in power. When did they stop being used in european warfare?

Javelins replaced bows when armor developed that was proof against simple shortbows. So in Europe this is associated with the classical greek era. Yes bows continued in use, but more as auxiliary weapon or as a skirmishing weapon, not a main weapon. The advent of lances and development of armor/shield that could resist the shock of a lance is when javelin use declined.

Bows replaced javelins when they developed mechanical advantage (composite bows, ratcheted crossbows, powerful longbows) that allowed them to store more energy. In Europe this, broadly speaking, started around 1200. In mountainous and boggy areas, such as Spain and Ireland, javelins continued in use for longer than other areas.

Kiero
2018-12-07, 02:09 AM
That wasn't a very good post of mine. I wrote it when tired. I know DnD and rpgs in general hold different damage conventions to reality.

Still, Javelins are really cool. I did imagi e the upper end of crossbows would exceed them in power. When did they stop being used in european warfare?

Europe where? The javelin persisted longer in Spain, for example, than most other parts of Europe.

Martin Greywolf
2018-12-07, 09:43 AM
First of all, stop using basic physics, this does not work. Kinetic energy is nice, but pointless because effect on target is based on much more than that. For one, you have momentum, then there's how different materials react to impact, i.e. how springy they are and how much energy is converted into deformation. Simple models of how these things interact use four dimensional matrices, so unless you have a dissertation based around this, any physics you pull out are irrelevant.

Tod of Todd's stuff once reportedly sat down with a mechanics professor and they ended up with agreeing that how a crossbow works is so unbelievably complicated a proper model could definitely get you a bachelor's degree thesis at the very least.

People tend to throw around kinetic energy because it's used for bullets, but bullets are 1) a lot more uniform and 2) not arrows or javelins.

Javelins going out of style because of bows catching up in power doesn't make much sense. First off, there's much arguing over wheter the bows actually did get stronger or how much, replicas of some pre-Roman nomadic bows have draw weight of somewhere around 120 lbs. I'd say that bows did get stronger on average, but maybe by not as much and it depended on the area. Also keep in mind you usually don't want to have as strong a bow as possible, you want is as weak as possible while still killing a guy - if few people have full mail armor and/or shields, there's little point in ramping up your bow draw weight.

The real reason is logistical, IMO. Javelins are much easier to make and much harder to carry - you can lug around maybe a dozen or so, while you can pack away a good 30 - 60 bolts or arrows. But, bows and arrows are a lot fiddlier to make, since they need to have wee little fletching and heads, and need a bone insert in their nock, and specifically shaped shafts and so on. Once you have enough fletchers (which takes people away from making food, so you need a decently sized kingdom), it makes a lot more sense to arm all of your ranged troops with bows.

There are some javelins that have a very fancy fletching too, but those are the exception rather than the norm as far as I can tell.

Lastly, let's not forget that bows and javelins did coexist in the same armies, since their roles are slightly different - javelins are short range harrasement, ideally before a melee, bows are for long range. Thing is, while bows can sort of fit into the short range harrasement role, javelins very much can't hit a guy a hundred meters away effectively. Okay, there was a grand total of one guy that made a throw in Olympic javelin that was over 100m mark in 1984, but still.

Willie the Duck
2018-12-07, 12:41 PM
People tend to throw around kinetic energy because it's used for bullets, but bullets are 1) a lot more uniform and 2) not arrows or javelins.

Kinetic energy isn't even that good for bullets. That's why it almost always comes along with a bunch of qualifiers (like 'stopping power').

The Jack
2018-12-07, 02:05 PM
Ignoring the mount itself and the equipment on the mount, how did cavalry generally differ from infantry in equipment from the early medieval to the reianssance? I know thats a sweeping question, but we don't really need to cover how cavlalry/infantry evolved or that cavalry was generally wealthier.
More leg armour, a preference for one handed weaponry with exceptions, and maybe spurs, a general trend for longer/curved swords. What else?

Side question; in cities big enough for propper policing, how did medieval/renaisance guards differ from soldiers?

gkathellar
2018-12-07, 02:44 PM
Also keep in mind you usually don't want to have as strong a bow as possible, you want is as weak as possible while still killing a guy - if few people have full mail armor and/or shields, there's little point in ramping up your bow draw weight.

QFT. This sentence should be required reading for military studies. And martial arts. And life.

It's an important point with broad implications is what I'm saying.

rrgg
2018-12-07, 03:39 PM
Kinetic Energy can be useful for estimating armor penetration assuming a similarly shaped projectile. It's the value Alan Williams focuses on in Knight and the Blast Furnace.

Regarding javelins or other throwing weapons the main thing to remember is that the energy efficiency drops off dramatically as the weight decreases, generally much more than with a bow. A strong thrower could theoretically put quite a lot of energy into a javelin throw, but that's with one weighing maybe 2-5 lbs., basically a just thrusting spear, and it's going to be traveling so slowly that he'll have a hard time throwing it more than 20-30 yards or so. With a very light javelin or a dart weighing just a few ounces he might be able to throw it much faster and farther, maybe 100 yards, but it's not going to have much kinetic energy.

Here's a video from Skallagrim that sort of demonstrates the difference: https://youtu.be/eMVgpYenYcg?t=454

Anyways, what I suspect lead to the declining popularity of throwing weapons at the end of the middle ages had a lot to do with the improving effectiveness and availability of body armor. If you were to fight someone who has a spear and shield with a two-handed polearm, even if you can outreach and overpower him, you always have to watch out for him suddenly deciding to chuck his heavy spear point-blank into your chest. If you don't actually have armor thick enough to stop that, then you're probably better off sticking to 1-handed weapons and a large, lightweight shield you can use for deflection.

Clistenes
2018-12-07, 04:08 PM
First of all, stop using basic physics, this does not work. Kinetic energy is nice, but pointless because effect on target is based on much more than that. For one, you have momentum, then there's how different materials react to impact, i.e. how springy they are and how much energy is converted into deformation. Simple models of how these things interact use four dimensional matrices, so unless you have a dissertation based around this, any physics you pull out are irrelevant.

Tod of Todd's stuff once reportedly sat down with a mechanics professor and they ended up with agreeing that how a crossbow works is so unbelievably complicated a proper model could definitely get you a bachelor's degree thesis at the very least.

People tend to throw around kinetic energy because it's used for bullets, but bullets are 1) a lot more uniform and 2) not arrows or javelins.

Javelins going out of style because of bows catching up in power doesn't make much sense. First off, there's much arguing over wheter the bows actually did get stronger or how much, replicas of some pre-Roman nomadic bows have draw weight of somewhere around 120 lbs. I'd say that bows did get stronger on average, but maybe by not as much and it depended on the area. Also keep in mind you usually don't want to have as strong a bow as possible, you want is as weak as possible while still killing a guy - if few people have full mail armor and/or shields, there's little point in ramping up your bow draw weight.

The real reason is logistical, IMO. Javelins are much easier to make and much harder to carry - you can lug around maybe a dozen or so, while you can pack away a good 30 - 60 bolts or arrows. But, bows and arrows are a lot fiddlier to make, since they need to have wee little fletching and heads, and need a bone insert in their nock, and specifically shaped shafts and so on. Once you have enough fletchers (which takes people away from making food, so you need a decently sized kingdom), it makes a lot more sense to arm all of your ranged troops with bows.

There are some javelins that have a very fancy fletching too, but those are the exception rather than the norm as far as I can tell.

Lastly, let's not forget that bows and javelins did coexist in the same armies, since their roles are slightly different - javelins are short range harrasement, ideally before a melee, bows are for long range. Thing is, while bows can sort of fit into the short range harrasement role, javelins very much can't hit a guy a hundred meters away effectively. Okay, there was a grand total of one guy that made a throw in Olympic javelin that was over 100m mark in 1984, but still.

While properly explaining how projectile weapons work would be very complicated, explaining what they actually do isn't that complicated. The bow shoots a lighter projectile, but it does it faster than you arm could do. The slower javelin slows down and loses its momentum before the arrow does, so its effective range is shorter. The arrow is less damaging at short range, but its effectiveness remains for longer ranges.

And the reason behind that is simple: The javelin is heavier, but slower. The arrow is lighter, but faster. The bow won't allow you to throw heavier objects, but its allow you to shoot light objects faster...

And then you have heavy arbalests, which are a completely different kind of beast...


Kinetic Energy can be useful for estimating armor penetration assuming a similarly shaped projectile. It's the value Alan Williams focuses on in Knight and the Blast Furnace.

Regarding javelins or other throwing weapons the main thing to remember is that the energy efficiency drops off dramatically as the weight decreases, generally much more than with a bow. A strong thrower could theoretically put quite a lot of energy into a javelin throw, but that's with one weighing maybe 2-5 lbs., basically a just thrusting spear, and it's going to be traveling so slowly that he'll have a hard time throwing it more than 20-30 yards or so. With a very light javelin or a dart weighing just a few ounces he might be able to throw it much faster and farther, maybe 100 yards, but it's not going to have much kinetic energy.

There is a limit to how heavy an object you can throw with you arm. There is also a limit to how fast you can move your arm (and hence, how fast you can throw a projectile). If you increase weight, you reduce the speed, within these limits, and Vice Versa. The javelin tries to find a sweet spot that maximizes the effect.

Vinyadan
2018-12-07, 05:07 PM
QFT. This sentence should be required reading for military studies. And martial arts. And life.

It's an important point with broad implications is what I'm saying.

A modern comparison would be with the passage from full-powered to intermediate ammo. You lose power, but you gain better control, and having a gun that can hit beyond 700 meter doesn't make much sense if you are handling an assault rifle in urban or forest environment.

rrgg
2018-12-07, 06:00 PM
QFT. This sentence should be required reading for military studies. And martial arts. And life.

It's an important point with broad implications is what I'm saying.

Well, it does have its exceptions. For instance, throughout the early modern period even after armor largely fell out of use, military experts seem to have remained convinced that anything less than a long-barreled musket firing a 1+ ounce lead ball and loaded with enough powder to nearly dislocate the shooter's shoulder with each shot just wouldn't be able to kill people good enough. Even during the Napoleonic Wars you had the observations of Sir Charles Bell and a whole bunch of people really interested in the fact that the english muskets would shatter bones into slightly smaller pieces on average than the french muskets would.

Kiero
2018-12-07, 06:20 PM
Lastly, let's not forget that bows and javelins did coexist in the same armies, since their roles are slightly different - javelins are short range harrasement, ideally before a melee, bows are for long range. Thing is, while bows can sort of fit into the short range harrasement role, javelins very much can't hit a guy a hundred meters away effectively. Okay, there was a grand total of one guy that made a throw in Olympic javelin that was over 100m mark in 1984, but still.

Not just in the same army, as part of the panoply of the same unit. The basic loadout of a Skythian-style rider in antiquity was a bow, a pair of javelins and an akinakes (a long knife) or two. A richer lord who could afford armour might add a spear and a mace or saddle axe. If amongst the richest who could afford heavy armour and barding for his horse, he might have a lance and a longer-bladed sword.

Also this discussion appears to be overlooking the fact that there were several variations of commonly-used javelin. In antiquity the akontio was a light javelin, designed for distance flight primary. Too flimsy to be used as a spear, there was also the danger of it breaking after use, because it was very thin. The longche was a heavy hunting javelin, which was robust enough to double up as a spear if need be. The Roman pila and Iberian soliferrum were very heavy javelins with either a long iron shank, or even made entirely out of iron. Not great spears, but they would do a lot more harm than a light javelin. Around the Black Sea some favoured a very heavy, barbed javelin.

All the heavier ones have shorter ranges than the light ones, but obviously the trade-off is in the harm if they hit.

Yora
2018-12-08, 10:15 AM
I got an Armored Vehicle Question:

Why did the German Army in World War 2 produce both the Sturmgeschütz IV and the Jagdpanzer IV. Both use the Panzer IV chasis, with the same engine, and initially the same gun. That seems rather redundant.

I did find out that the StuG IV was produced because the StuG III factory was badly damaged, and the factory that took over for it only had production lines for Panzer IV chasis but not Panzer III chasis. But the Jagdpanzer IV seems to have already started production at that time.

Where they unable to wait for new Jagdpanzer production lines being set up and StuG IV was the compromise they could get at such short notice? I imagine in 1944, building more Jagdpanzer facilities would have been difficult, which could explain why StuG IV production continued for the rest of the war. Would make sense to me, or does it have any performance reasons why they would have wanted to have both in production?

Max_Killjoy
2018-12-08, 11:04 AM
I got an Armored Vehicle Question:

Why did the German Army in World War 2 produce both the Sturmgeschütz IV and the Jagdpanzer IV. Both use the Panzer IV chasis, with the same engine, and initially the same gun. That seems rather redundant.

I did find out that the StuG IV was produced because the StuG III factory was badly damaged, and the factory that took over for it only had production lines for Panzer IV chasis but not Panzer III chasis. But the Jagdpanzer IV seems to have already started production at that time.

Where they unable to wait for new Jagdpanzer production lines being set up and StuG IV was the compromise they could get at such short notice? I imagine in 1944, building more Jagdpanzer facilities would have been difficult, which could explain why StuG IV production continued for the rest of the war. Would make sense to me, or does it have any performance reasons why they would have wanted to have both in production?

For starters, the StuG was an assault gun (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assault_gun), while the Jagd was a tank destroyer (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tank_destroyer), at least in intent.

The arms industry in that state at that time was also highly convoluted and political, meaning that designs that looked quite similar were often being developed, built, and fielded in parallel.

Storm Bringer
2018-12-08, 01:09 PM
I got an Armored Vehicle Question:

Why did the German Army in World War 2 produce both the Sturmgeschütz IV and the Jagdpanzer IV. Both use the Panzer IV chasis, with the same engine, and initially the same gun. That seems rather redundant.

I did find out that the StuG IV was produced because the StuG III factory was badly damaged, and the factory that took over for it only had production lines for Panzer IV chasis but not Panzer III chasis. But the Jagdpanzer IV seems to have already started production at that time.

Where they unable to wait for new Jagdpanzer production lines being set up and StuG IV was the compromise they could get at such short notice? I imagine in 1944, building more Jagdpanzer facilities would have been difficult, which could explain why StuG IV production continued for the rest of the war. Would make sense to me, or does it have any performance reasons why they would have wanted to have both in production?


too add to Max_Killjoy's comment, the STUG IV was a (relatively) minor modification to the existing PzKpfw IV hull, with the STUG III superstructure smacked onto it, while the Jadgpanzer IV was effectively a new vehicle above the lower hull, with new, sloped armour plates. It would be much, much easier to convert a panzer IV line to make STUG IVs than to make Jadgpanzer IV, as the STUG line could reuse a lot more of the existing panzer IV machine tools and Production workers in the same or only slightly modied ways, thus getting the STUG into production quicker and upto to speed sooner as well.



That, and they were being built by Krupp, who made the Panzer IV, not Daimler-Benz, who made the Panzer III. That seems like it shouldn't matter, but the whole Third Reich was riven with empire building form the highest levels down, actively encouraged by Hitler (a classic "divide and conquer" strategy, by setting his underlings at each others throats he creates a situation where their is a constant need for him to intervene in disputes, and thus make himself indispensable). this, combined with a"Winner takes all" approach to equipment purchasing, where the winning designer got all the spoils and the losers got nothing, lead to multiple, mutually incompatible designs getting produced to satisfy the various parties.

The Americans approached this very differently, with the government striving to standardise on as few different pieces of equipment for a given task as possible, and then giving all the companies contracts to produce the winning design (so they still made money and stayed in business even if their design flopped). They also sometimes brought the second best design into service, in case of a hidden flaw or other problem with the winner (The B-17 and B-24 are examples of this duel approach, as is the p39/p40, the p47 &p51, etc)

This is why the US only had one light tank (the M3/M5 stuart), two medium tanks (the M3 as a stopgap, then the M4 Sherman), one rifle (the M1 Garand), etc, while the brits and germans might have two or three designs in the same categories.

Pauly
2018-12-08, 07:49 PM
There’s a big problem of perspective in the assauly gun -v- tank destroyer assessment.

Modern assessment has a lot to do of putting AFVs in matchups against one another. World of Tanks, Warthunder, (online) Flames of war (miniatures wargames) for example.

However irl assault guns were designed to take out targets such as pillboxes and ATGs and TDs were designed to take out tanks.

For example the Soviet ISU122 ansd ISU152 are treated as heavy tank destroyers and modern authors make a big deal of their different boom sticks. Yet in Soviet doctrine they were both “Heavy Assault Guns” and they were treated as being functionally identical.

Max_Killjoy
2018-12-09, 01:24 AM
There’s a big problem of perspective in the assauly gun -v- tank destroyer assessment.

Modern assessment has a lot to do of putting AFVs in matchups against one another. World of Tanks, Warthunder, (online) Flames of war (miniatures wargames) for example.

However irl assault guns were designed to take out targets such as pillboxes and ATGs and TDs were designed to take out tanks.


That's why I linked to the articles, so that the different intended purposes of the two vehicles being asked about could be looked at.

Pauly
2018-12-09, 03:08 AM
That's why I linked to the articles, so that the different intended purposes of the two vehicles being asked about could be looked at.

I was giving some context ad to why modern audiences find the difference confusing. A bit like how RPGs have completely screwed up a lot of perceptions of armor

snowblizz
2018-12-10, 06:49 AM
For example the Soviet ISU122 ansd ISU152 are treated as heavy tank destroyers and modern authors make a big deal of their different boom sticks. Yet in Soviet doctrine they were both “Heavy Assault Guns” and they were treated as being functionally identical.

Also a case of "we have these heavy guns, now we need to put them onto something" IIRC. Where they had thousands of 122 and 152 mm guns (I think slightly obsolete pieces) to turn into assault guns? And I believe in actual battlefield effect they were more or less the same. At the ranges an assualt gun operates and the targets it hits a 122 makes as much of a boom as 152 does.


It's kind of funny how the purportedly ultra-capitalist Americans worked more on centralized and socialist principles whereas the purportedly centralist and socialist N-word Germany worked much more with a decentralised and individualistic (in some measures) way (ad-hoc and hap-hazard may be better words).

The former is naturally a much more resource efficient way to conduct a war-effort. Although the "flexibility" of the latter system did I'd almost want say help in the later stages when you have scrougne something up. Although as badly as the German economic system was ordered for warproduction I'm not confident in saying anything really helped.

ExLibrisMortis
2018-12-10, 12:58 PM
[...] the purportedly centralist and socialist N-word Germany [...]
Centralist perhaps, but never socialist (not even purportedly). The name "national socialism" was chosen opportunistically (for framing reasons) and has approximately nothing to do with what policies they supported.

gkathellar
2018-12-10, 01:17 PM
It's kind of funny how the purportedly ultra-capitalist Americans worked more on centralized and socialist principles

In fact the US government built and owned the overwhelming majority of its own WW2 production facilities, while tapping existing industrial corporations mostly for their alleged expertise in designing and running factories. At war’s end, Congress granted the overwhelming majority of these facilities to private interests as gifts, on the general premise that it was inappropriate for the federal government to own the majority of the nation’s manufacturing capacity.

In general, all the major participants in WW2 had what were effectively command economies, primarily differentiated in how efficient and centralized they were. You could make a case that Japan’s zaibatsu represented true state capitalism, but the results were the same in practice.

Pauly
2018-12-10, 07:00 PM
Also a case of "we have these heavy guns, now we need to put them onto something" IIRC. Where they had thousands of 122 and 152 mm guns (I think slightly obsolete pieces) to turn into assault guns? And I believe in actual battlefield effect they were more or less the same. At the ranges an assualt gun operates and the targets it hits a 122 makes as much of a boom as 152 does.


It's kind of funny how the purportedly ultra-capitalist Americans worked more on centralized and socialist principles whereas the purportedly centralist and socialist N-word Germany worked much more with a decentralised and individualistic (in some measures) way (ad-hoc and hap-hazard may be better words).

The former is naturally a much more resource efficient way to conduct a war-effort. Although the "flexibility" of the latter system did I'd almost want say help in the later stages when you have scrougne something up. Although as badly as the German economic system was ordered for warproduction I'm not confident in saying anything really helped.

American planners made a decision to plan for an overseas war without the ability to refit in the home factories.
German planners assumed there would not be an extended war and were forced to make ad hoc decisions to ncrease production when an extended war came about. The military was forced to adopt what could be produced.

Neither situation has anything to do with capitalism or socialism.

LudicSavant
2018-12-10, 07:14 PM
I've been looking for info about the sort of armor marine / naval warriors would wear. Any experts care to weigh in?

Pauly
2018-12-10, 07:23 PM
I've been looking for info about the sort of armor marine / naval warriors would wear. Any experts care to weigh in?

When and where?

The most usual answer through history is that they used standard infantry equipment that had been adapted for exposure to salt water.

Kiero
2018-12-11, 03:13 AM
I've been looking for info about the sort of armor marine / naval warriors would wear. Any experts care to weigh in?

As Pauly said, where and when?

Here's something I wrote earlier about Ptolemaic (and Hellenistic) marines - for eastern Mediterranean 3rd to 1st century BC:


Early Ptolemaic marines would probably have been like Athenian ones, given that was a relatively successful model for a good century or more. That would mean a mixture of hoplites (ie heavy spearmen with big shields - if they went overboard in armour, they drowned) and archers (often steppe peoples like Skythians - composite bows and long daggers, armour was rare).

However, as time went on, they tended to recruit their sailors and marines from southern Anatolia and the Aegean islands. Karians and Pisidians, along with Cypriots, Kretans and Rhodians. They all preferred lighter panoplies; helmets and smaller shields (pelte, small thureoi), some might have textile body armour (but not universal as with hoplites), with missile weapons (javelins mostly, but possibly bows for the Kretans, slings for the Rhodians) and swords for backup. Those javelins might include some heavier, dual-purpose ones like the longche, which was robust enough to be used as a spear as well as balanced for throwing.

Some of the reasons for the shift were the Ptolemaioi's problems with getting Greek manpower (since they didn't hold the mainland, only some islands, and got most of their Greeks as mercenaries) and the general increase in the size of marine complements. In the era of Athenian dominance, the primary naval platform was the trieres/trireme, which had limited space on deck (if it was aphract, then it didn't have much of a deck beyond a central board for the sailors to get about). Their complement tended to be just over a dozen, weighted primarily towards hoplites for defense against boarding. The oarsmen were always a potential emergency reserve of makeshift marines, since they outnumbered dedicated marines tenfold, and that's probably where the Athenian skirmishers at the battle of Sphacteria came from. Give them some javelins and you have a force of light infantry. That was a risky move, though, since they were also your motive force.

However, following Demetrios Poliorketes success at the battle of Salamis in 306BC, which was mostly due to his much heavier battle line, the standard battleship moved to the penteres/quinquireme, which not only had more oarsmen, but much more deck space. Their marine complements were 30-40 men each along with the addition of ship-board artillery. For a power already struggling to find Greeks to fill it's army and administration, using them for marines as well was too much of a stretch. Thus the employment of coastal peoples from lands they controlled in southern Anatolia.

Not sure about artillery, it doesn't seem to have been given much time even in the books I've read about Demetrios Poliorketes and his siege of Rhodes, for example. The ammunition used by some of them them (all-iron bolts) must have been ruinously expensive.

Romans simply deployed legionaries to their ships and treated them like mobile battle platforms, preferring to board enemy vessels.

Clistenes
2018-12-11, 06:54 AM
I've been looking for info about the sort of armor marine / naval warriors would wear. Any experts care to weigh in?

I have read that some Spanish marines from the XVI-XVII centuries modified their cuirasses so they could remove them unfasting a single buckle. They also used swords that were shorter than infantry's. They favoured half-pikes (spears) over halberds, it seems. Sailors and corsairs seemed fond of short, heavy machete-like falchions...

For long voyages they took crossbows with them, jus in case they ran short of gunpowder and ammo...

Pauly
2018-12-11, 09:34 AM
Some more generalities:
- marines were not expected to undertake long campaigns. So they didn’t have seige engines or artillery or supply trains. It was a case of relying on what support their ship could provide.
- their role was primarily ship defense, although shore raiding and shore security were important considerations.
- in eras where ship to ship boarding took place they were often used in boarding parties.

The USMC is not filling the traditional role of “marine” as it is traditionally understood, unlike the Royal Marines.

Mike_G
2018-12-11, 04:40 PM
Some more generalities:
- marines were not expected to undertake long campaigns. So they didn’t have seige engines or artillery or supply trains. It was a case of relying on what support their ship could provide.
- their role was primarily ship defense, although shore raiding and shore security were important considerations.
- in eras where ship to ship boarding took place they were often used in boarding parties.

The USMC is not filling the traditional role of “marine” as it is traditionally understood, unlike the Royal Marines.

The role of the US Marines changed in WWI. Prior to that, they were used as you describe. Boarding actions, shore raiding, etc. Often small Marine units would be part of an army, such as at the battles of Trenton and New Orleans or the storming of Chapultapec in Mexico, but it was almost always a small company of Marines in a large army under control of an Army general.

In WWI, the US fielded a Marine Brigade of several regiments. Then in WWII, Marines fought in Division strength in the Pacific, and have operated as a major land force in every conflict since.

Protato
2018-12-14, 12:17 AM
I'm wondering, for the sake of a game I might want to run, what might a World War III look like in the context of the following scenario? A very conservative, hawkish U.S allies with Russia in the mid 2010s or early 2020s and takes some of NATO with them to form a new alliance, lets call them the Euro-America Confederation, with the rest of NATO taking up arms against this new alliance. One of the nations in this war is a fictional nation in Europe called Aclien about the size of Great Britain with less influence, but with a considerable amount of public works and a military with reasonably modern equipment, much of it locally manufactured Cold War tech that's been modernized. The military's size isn't enormous but is meant to function mainly as a defensive force, with few weapons suited for invasion or large-scale bombing campaigns.

In such a situation, what might a good reason for invading Aclien, and what would the rest of the world be doing? Who would still be with NATO and who would be part of the EAC? Where would China and India be in all this? Additionally, I'm thinking of a reason for Russia to occupy a city and right now my reasoning for a battle being waged is a radio tower. If Russia can take the radio tower it takes away both a military resource and a civilian one, plus it allows for propaganda and military orders to be more easily spread in the nation they're invading. I don't know if the defenders would rather hold onto it or if its worth destroying even at the cost of infrastructure and rebuilding, plus depriving one's own forces of such an asset, however.

snowblizz
2018-12-14, 04:10 AM
Oh this is gonna be skirting real world politics something fierce!

Without the USA there's no NATO. Effectively. I would chose to consider it what exists as an idea already. The EU as a military alliance. Which comes from exactly that idea, to balance out overbearing US interest against Russian aggression.


very conservative, hawkish U.S allies with Russia in the mid 2010s or early 2020s and takes some of NATO with them to form a new alliance
That's sort of a strategic gameover in Europe though. There's no winning that that's not nuclear and everybody loses.

It's also not a World War since one side of participants has no real world connections that matters.




In such a situation, what might a good reason for invading Aclien, and what would the rest of the world be doing?
There is no good reason to invade other countries (not that the bad reason are exactly stopping anyone). The world would do what it does right now when such things happens. Pee and moan about it and not a fat lot else. Unless a superpower sees self interest. But you've put the meaningful ones on the same side.

The logic of a world war in the 1940s and one now are massively different. It's really not possible to try and reenact a WW2 with modern equipment which it sounds like you are trying to do.


Who would still be with NATO and who would be part of the EAC?
You've just invented a new country in Europe which completely and irrevocably throws off any semblance of real world parallells.
So anything you like. Might as well do dragons and magic.

There's so many things sprouting off this. Where is it? What country(ies) does now not exist? How did that change Europe in the preceding 500 years?



Where would China and India be in all this?
Who knows. My guess, nowhere near it. Why would they care. They are most definitely not going to get involved.



Additionally, I'm thinking of a reason for Russia to occupy a city

They don't need a reason. Has been proven on multiple occasions.

Also a lot of the question from earlier apply. Where is this city in relation to anything else?


If Russia can take the radio tower it takes away both a military resource and a civilian one, plus it allows for propaganda and military orders to be more easily spread in the nation they're invading. I don't know if the defenders would rather hold onto it or if its worth destroying even at the cost of infrastructure and rebuilding, plus depriving one's own forces of such an asset, however.
Who cares about radio towers in 2020? If you use radio communications you most definitely do not need (or want) some civilian tower to do so. The only thing it accomplishes is there's now no talk radio shows or easylistening pop channels.

Clistenes
2018-12-14, 05:18 AM
Who cares about radio towers in 2020? If you use radio communications you most definitely do not need (or want) some civilian tower to do so. The only thing it accomplishes is there's now no talk radio shows or easylistening pop channels.

Analogic radio is harder to block than other mass media communication tech. You can transmite from other countries and receive the signal with a receptor a child could build with stuff he picked from trascans...

That said, taking a radio tower in a single city would be useless if the rest of the country's infraestructures work normally...

Kaptin Keen
2018-12-14, 06:54 AM
I'm wondering, for the sake of a game I might want to run, what might a World War III look like in the context of the following scenario? A very conservative, hawkish U.S allies with Russia in the mid 2010s or early 2020s and takes some of NATO with them to form a new alliance, lets call them the Euro-America Confederation, with the rest of NATO taking up arms against this new alliance. One of the nations in this war is a fictional nation in Europe called Aclien about the size of Great Britain with less influence, but with a considerable amount of public works and a military with reasonably modern equipment, much of it locally manufactured Cold War tech that's been modernized. The military's size isn't enormous but is meant to function mainly as a defensive force, with few weapons suited for invasion or large-scale bombing campaigns.

In such a situation, what might a good reason for invading Aclien, and what would the rest of the world be doing? Who would still be with NATO and who would be part of the EAC? Where would China and India be in all this? Additionally, I'm thinking of a reason for Russia to occupy a city and right now my reasoning for a battle being waged is a radio tower. If Russia can take the radio tower it takes away both a military resource and a civilian one, plus it allows for propaganda and military orders to be more easily spread in the nation they're invading. I don't know if the defenders would rather hold onto it or if its worth destroying even at the cost of infrastructure and rebuilding, plus depriving one's own forces of such an asset, however.

By my estimate, Europe could easily fight off Russia. Europe might conceivably achieve a stalemate against the US - it would never win, but might make invasion too costly for the US to win either.

However, a divided europe against America, Russia and the rest of Europe is no contest at all: That just get's steamrolled.

So for me, to make your scenario believable, you need - at least - to break up the US. A post-future-civil-war US, with only blue or red states, allied with Russia and the UK (let's be honest, they're the only ones who would) just might be slightly challenged by a European (+Turkey, maybe) Alliance.

Why invade Aclien? As a beach head, to hit vital infrastructure (production, ports, airfields?), because it's the weakest link in the chain?

snowblizz
2018-12-14, 06:57 AM
Analogic radio is harder to block than other mass media communication tech. You can transmite from other countries and receive the signal with a receptor a child could build with stuff he picked from trascans...

That said, taking a radio tower in a single city would be useless if the rest of the country's infraestructures work normally...

Yes but if you are an invading military you have your own communications network with you and not expecting to rely on existing radio towers you may or may not be able to hook up to, but the enemy most assuredly has better access to. It'd be like capturing a city's telepone exchange and using it to rely your orders. Sure now you got tele communication, but the defenders are likely already got the wiretaps in that system placed.

Similarly a defending military would not be building their communications on the availability on civilian infrastructure.

Basically only the defending civilian populations would be the ones actually having a use for a radio tower. It's of little value to an invader to capture beyond talking to the populace just occupied. It'd be saying the military objective of capturing a radio tower is to talk to the captured population we don't have until we capture the radio tower.

It really sounds like trying to refight WW2 with WW2 era assumptions just with modern tanks.

Brother Oni
2018-12-14, 07:29 AM
Analogic radio is harder to block than other mass media communication tech. You can transmite from other countries and receive the signal with a receptor a child could build with stuff he picked from trascans...

I half remember an anecdote regarding this from the 80s, where a country was at war and the government controlled all the broadcast stations, so the only way the rebels could get accurate information was from the BBC World Service news being broadcast from a neutral country.

I want to say it was the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, but I vaguely remember the transmitters being in Thailand, so possibly a SE Asia conflict?

Thiel
2018-12-14, 08:02 AM
Analogic radio is harder to block than other mass media communication tech. You can transmite from other countries and receive the signal with a receptor a child could build with stuff he picked from trascans...
Chuck a bomb at it then. No more radio tower and no need to engage in costly urban combat.

Protato
2018-12-14, 10:42 AM
From the sounds of it, a radio tower may be a poor objective. I'm wondering, what else might be a good choice? Perhaps some sort of mineral mines? Urban warfare is very costly, especially if its two national armies and not a national army versus a militia, so I need something that can justify the sheer cost of such an operation. In the backstory, I think I'd also make the U.S split into two nations, rather than just one at this point, as a truly united United States versus pretty much anyone would be a fiasco for basically the whole world. Additionally, I'm not wanting for there to be a nuclear war. In this setting, it'd be less Fallout and more Threads if one were to occur and I'm hoping what I've written wouldn't result in nuclear war, because then there's basically no setting.

ExLibrisMortis
2018-12-14, 11:09 AM
If you want military targets, I imagine airfields, harbours, weapon depots, and missile silos are good objectives.
If the target must be civilian, you could take over internet infrastructure, but I'm not certain how effective that would be, given that the internet is rather decentralized. At best, you could slow down or prevent unwanted information spreading via social media or news websites, which might help you win a propoganda war, but that's a different matter.

Brother Oni
2018-12-14, 12:10 PM
If the target must be civilian, you could take over internet infrastructure, but I'm not certain how effective that would be, given that the internet is rather decentralized. At best, you could slow down or prevent unwanted information spreading via social media or news websites, which might help you win a propoganda war, but that's a different matter.

While the internet is decentralised, access to the internet is not - if all your data goes through a few routers, then control of those routers will let you effectively shutdown internet access at will (e.g. the Great Firewall of China). In a similar vein, mobile phone towers - why bother trying to jam a large area when you can simply disable everybody's coverage by controlling a few key sites.

Given the average technological capability of the general populace, simply disabling DNS access will cripple most people - I type in www.google.com rather than 216.58.206.100.

gkathellar
2018-12-15, 11:54 AM
What does field treatment for an arrow-wound look like? A real combat arrow with barbs and the works, still in the target and fully intact when the medic reaches them. What steps does the medic take, immediately and over relatively the short term? What changes if they know that hospitalization may not be available for several hours?

I'm equally interested in modern answers and period ones, if anyone here happens to know anything about medieval battlefield medicine.

Obviously this is going to vary quite a bit depending on where the arrow hit, so for the sake of simplicity let's assume no major arteries or organs have been penetrated (although if anyone feels able to go into that, I'd appreciate it even more).

Thanks.

Kaptin Keen
2018-12-15, 03:34 PM
I'm wondering, what else might be a good choice? Perhaps some sort of mineral mines?

How about some sort of internet infrastructure? My country, Denmark, has an unusually high number of really really huge data centers. Those might not be much of a military objective - I simply don't know enough to be sure - but for modern information warfare, any chance to spread misinformation and fake news from seemingly legit sources might be well worth it.

Otherwise, all the traditional objectives apply: Ports, airfields, production, roads, rivers, passes and bridges.

Um. Fuel storage, by the way. Warfare consumes ludicrous amounts of fuel. Crude oil goes to refineries, where it is stored in the kinds of quantities that could keep an army of tanks rolling. You don't just roll your tank regiment down to the local Shell station to filler'up. Well not generally. Especially not if what you're driving is an Abrams =)

Kiero
2018-12-15, 05:11 PM
How about some sort of internet infrastructure? My country, Denmark, has an unusually high number of really really huge data centers. Those might not be much of a military objective - I simply don't know enough to be sure - but for modern information warfare, any chance to spread misinformation and fake news from seemingly legit sources might be well worth it.


Surely they've all got disaster recovery procedures in place such that (for example) dropping a big bomb on one of them won't cause the loss of all the data and processing power there? As in they'd fail over to another location some distance away?

Mike_G
2018-12-15, 07:35 PM
What does field treatment for an arrow-wound look like? A real combat arrow with barbs and the works, still in the target and fully intact when the medic reaches them. What steps does the medic take, immediately and over relatively the short term? What changes if they know that hospitalization may not be available for several hours?

I'm equally interested in modern answers and period ones, if anyone here happens to know anything about medieval battlefield medicine.

Obviously this is going to vary quite a bit depending on where the arrow hit, so for the sake of simplicity let's assume no major arteries or organs have been penetrated (although if anyone feels able to go into that, I'd appreciate it even more).

Thanks.

In a modern field medic situation, if all depend on where the arrow is. In general, we woudln't pull it out in the field. That's a surgery thing back at the hospital/aid station. Pulling it out might just make the wound worse. We generally don't remove impaled objects of any kind if we can avoid it.

Immediate first aid would be to stabilize the arrow by bandaging around it so it wouldn't move, maybe cutting the excess shaft off to make it more feasible to move the patient without two feet of arrow jutting out of them. Then it's just bleeding control, maybe pain control. I'd want to immobilize the area of the wound, so the patient wouldn't move and make the arrow shift in the body, so splint a limb or what have you.

Then start an IV for volume replacement and eventually anitbiotics, and evacuate the patient to advanced care.

Actually removing an arrow is messy. You can push it though, if the barb is out the other side or very near the skin on the other side, which is less damaging than pulling it back the way iot came, or you can use special tools that go in along the shaft and hold the wound away from the barbs so you can pull it out. Then it's just bleeding control and infection control.

Pauly
2018-12-16, 12:17 AM
What does field treatment for an arrow-wound look like? A real combat arrow with barbs and the works, still in the target and fully intact when the medic reaches them. What steps does the medic take, immediately and over relatively the short term? What changes if they know that hospitalization may not be available for several hours?

I'm equally interested in modern answers and period ones, if anyone here happens to know anything about medieval battlefield medicine.

Obviously this is going to vary quite a bit depending on where the arrow hit, so for the sake of simplicity let's assume no major arteries or organs have been penetrated (although if anyone feels able to go into that, I'd appreciate it even more).

Thanks.

War arrows generally did not gave barbed tips. Barbed tips were for hunting.

War arrows usually had a variation on the”bodkin” tip. A pyramidical or cone shape designed to penetrate armor.

Broad head type arrows, including those with barbed tips, cause more bleeding as they have a bigger entry wound. They were not used much in warfare because they spread their force over a wider area and were less able to penetrate armor, especially metallic armor.

Kaptin Keen
2018-12-16, 01:48 PM
Surely they've all got disaster recovery procedures in place such that (for example) dropping a big bomb on one of them won't cause the loss of all the data and processing power there? As in they'd fail over to another location some distance away?

I'm sure they do. They're owned by Google, Apple and Facebook, after all. I'm sure they've got a sufficiently global mindset. But I didn't have their destruction in mind. Controlling the data (covertly, if at all possible) would be way more interesting than destroying it.

Yora
2018-12-16, 03:29 PM
Then it's just bleeding control and infection control.

Which pre-20th century is the really difficult part. Deep piercing wounds are among the most difficult to stop bleeding, and the mortality rate from nonlethal wounds that got infected was staggering.

Brother Oni
2018-12-16, 03:49 PM
Immediate first aid would be to stabilize the arrow by bandaging around it so it wouldn't move, maybe cutting the excess shaft off to make it more feasible to move the patient without two feet of arrow jutting out of them.

Minor comment here - if there's two feet of arrow sticking out of the casualty, that means there's at least a foot of arrow inside him, so as Mike_G said, pulling it out in the field is a very bad idea.


The Mongols used to wear silk vest under their armour, so that if they were hit by an arrow that penetrated, it would still injure them but wouldn't pierce the silk and that would end up embedded in the wound with the arrow head. That meant by carefully pulling on the rest of the silk garment, you could pull the arrow out without much additional damage.

At the Battle of Shrewsbury in 1403, the 16yr old Prince Henry (the future King Henry V) was hit by an arrow to the face below his right eye to 'a depth of six inches'. Eventually John Bradmore, a London surgeon, figured out a way to get the arrow out - while treating the wound with honey as an antiseptic, he gradually enlarged the wound with small probes, then with a specially made pair of tongs and a small screw running through the tongs and the socket of the arrow, he wiggled and pulled the arrow head out.
The entire process took about a week and since this was before the invention of pain relief, it must have been agony.

Finally the arrow was removed and the wound cleaned out with white wine, and wads of flax soaked in bread sops, barley honey and turpentine oil.

Prince Henry obviously survived the process, although he was left with a large scar.


This paper discusses various 19th Century methods for arrow removal in quite some depth (Treatment of Arrow Wounds: A Review, Shereen et al (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5999391/)).

Martin Greywolf
2018-12-17, 05:06 AM
War arrows generally did not gave barbed tips. Barbed tips were for hunting.

War arrows usually had a variation on the”bodkin” tip. A pyramidical or cone shape designed to penetrate armor.

Broad head type arrows, including those with barbed tips, cause more bleeding as they have a bigger entry wound. They were not used much in warfare because they spread their force over a wider area and were less able to penetrate armor, especially metallic armor.

This is not true at all. The war arrow has a very wide variety of heads, even against armor, it's not so simple as broad vs narrow. There is a specific type of broad arrowhead with barbs meant to punch through chain mail (we think - it does that really well and was found in military arrow caches).

A nice overview that's not too in-depth can be found here (https://www.longbow-archers.com/arrowheads.html).

snowblizz
2018-12-17, 05:52 AM
If the target must be civilian, you could take over internet infrastructure, but I'm not certain how effective that would be, given that the internet is rather decentralized.
The Internet is only decentralized in the context that information can be routed through the network in any configuration. It's highly resistent to random disturbance. It is however highly vulnerable to direct and deliberate action. Since most information passes through a small number of key points. These are local, national and international.

As Brother Oni notes. Which is why we can see on the news how "Internet/social media/whatever was shut down in country XXX".


However, you don't really need to control physical space for this. Nor for data access. Which ofc is the whole deal with the "hybrid-warfare" thing.

LudicSavant
2018-12-17, 07:13 AM
When and where?

The most usual answer through history is that they used standard infantry equipment that had been adapted for exposure to salt water.

Answers from just about anywhere throughout antiquity would be of interest to me. Though I'm particularly curious if plate armor was ever used aboard naval vessels, contrary to the pop culture idea that "it'd be avoided since you'd sink."

How might they be adapted for exposure to salt water?

Kiero
2018-12-17, 08:38 AM
Answers from just about anywhere throughout antiquity would be of interest to me. Though I'm particularly curious if plate armor was ever used aboard naval vessels, contrary to the pop culture idea that "it'd be avoided since you'd sink."

How might they be adapted for exposure to salt water?

I gave you a lengthy answer (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=23562934&postcount=223) covering several centuries of antiquity, for the Mediterranean at least.

If a heavily-armoured marine went overboard, they drowned. But then if a ship was badly damaged in battle or a storm, everyone aboard drowned anyway. Surviving the fight against enemy marines was more important than the risk of drowning if you fell in the drink.

The easiest adaptation to salt water exposure is to use bronze, rather than iron/steel. That's why ships rams were made of bronze, and continued to be even after steel became ubiquitous.

LudicSavant
2018-12-17, 08:51 AM
Thanks for the answer, Kiero!


Surviving the fight against enemy marines was more important than the risk of drowning if you fell in the drink. Yeah, that was exactly the thought I had that made me suspicious of the pop culture idea that you wouldn't wear armor due to swimming concerns.

The Jack
2018-12-17, 11:34 AM
You can swim in armour if you're fit enough. It makes it a lot more exhausting since you're perpetually battling sinking, but i have seen people wear mail into lakes.

The open ocean is an entirely different kettle of fish. freezing cold waters, currents and whatnot. If you're wearing armour and land in the drink, you might be alright if you can swim to a lifeline in maybe ten seconds or so.