Got a Real-World Weapon, Armour or Tactics Question? Mk. XXVIII

[halfeye]

With the benefit of hindsight (since it's 2020)... if I wanted to build a commerce raider / cruiser hunter, I think it would look more like a bigger, nastier, faster Deutschland, or a lighter Scharnhorst (WW2), than like the RN battlecruisers -- the latter are overkill and not optimized for those missions (and yes I realize I'm blurring WW1 and WW1 here).

Fast enough to avoid being easily overtaken by fast battleships, armor scheme focused on resisting fire from 8" and 6" guns, armed with a number of 9" to 11" guns to gain range and hitting power over the cruisers while not flinging overkill for merchant targets, with the Deutschland's wide-angle box torpedo tubes to dissuade pursuit, and resilient floatplane handling capacity for scouting.

The battle of the River Plate showed that the Deutschland class weren't armoured to withstand 6 inch gunfire. The Hippers arguably were, at long range anyway.

I think submarines were really the way to go for everybody.


2) Armor and main guns. Basically it comes down to weight. As shells get larger and guns get better, the amount of armor they can penetrate directly or plunging grows faster than any reasonable attempt to protect against equivalent class.

Take the British 15” gun of WWII. At 20k yards, it could punch through nearly 17” of armor, or 33” at a theoretical point blank shot. Plunging fire could go through 7 inches of deck armor.

Now take the Yamamoto, with over 23,000 TONS of armor, the heaviest battleship ever made. Her belt armor was 16 inches, deck was 9”, and armor was nearly a third of her weight. You’ll notice that still wouldn’t have been enough to stop a 15” shell at 20k yards. There comes the point where it just isn’t practical to try to outpace the big guns, and you’re really proofing against improved guns on cruisers.

For a fun way to play with this, try Rule The Waves or RTW 2.

I got into this conundrum by comparing tanks. In late WW2 tanks were just about not gun proof, but you had to be lucky to knock one of the really heavily armoured ones out. Ships just weren't like that, from about ten or maybe twenty years before WW1.

[Max_Killjoy]

The battle of the River Plate showed that the Deutschland class weren't armoured to withstand 6 inch gunfire. The Hippers arguably were, at long range anyway.

I think submarines were really the way to go for everybody.


Prior to nuclear powerplants become practical, the main advantage of the submarine was enemy forces not prepared to hunt submarines. Once facing opposition with the correct tools and tactics, they become the prey rather than the predator most of the time.

The armor issues of the Deutschland class are why I was looking at something between that and the Gneisenau/Scharnhorst.




I got into this conundrum by comparing tanks. In late WW2 tanks were just about not gun proof, but you had to be lucky to knock one of the really heavily armoured ones out. Ships just weren't like that, from about ten or maybe twenty years before WW1.


Tanks really can't carry around 8 to 16 guns of 12" to 18" bore.

(Modern tank guns are still in the 4" to 5" range.)

[fusilier]

I've been thinking about the armour on pre-WW1 to WW2 battleships. There seems to have been something odd going on. The guns went up in size by a lot, and the armour didn't go up to match. Was this stupidity, or was something else going on?

I know in the late 1800's there was a lot of development in the metallurgy used in armor. So the thickness of the armor belt could decrease while retaining a similar level of protection. See the wikipedia entry on Harvey Armor, which gives an idea of how rapidly things were changing:

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

Compound armor gave way to nickel-steel armor, which was superseded by Harvey Armor, which was then replaced with Krupp Armor -- all in about the timespan of a decade!

You may also be interested in a series of articles about American battleships in WW2, posted at Avalanche Press. Avalanche Press makes naval wargames (from the Spanish-American War through WW2), and they often post interesting articles about the development of ships. The starting point in this article is that the American battleships are overrated in their WW2 game, which means there's some discussion of game related stats at the beginning, but then it gets into the details:

http://www.avalanchepress.com/Overrated.php

The third article is not linked from the other two, but may be especially interesting because it is focused on armor:
http://www.avalanchepress.com/overrated3.php

The author discusses the complexity of armor -- different classes of armor were used in different places, and armor was often sloped, etc.

[Gnoman]

Tanks really can't carry around 8 to 16 guns of 12" to 18" bore.

(Modern tank guns are still in the 4" to 5" range.)

The counterpoint to that is that, compared to ships, tanks fight at ludicrously close range. The glacis plate of a Panther tank was the same thickness as the main belt of a Admiral Hipper-class cruiser. A hot 3" gun or an ordinary 3.5" to 4" could get through a Panther at any realistic combat range, while the Hipper-class ships were effectively immune to 6" guns at most combat ranges.

[halfeye]

Modern tank guns are still in the 4" to 5" range.

Not the same sort of system, they're sabot rounds, fired from smooth barrels, and the actual weight of the shot is much reduced, while the KE is increased proportionately.

[Lemmy]

I've been thinking about the armour on pre-WW1 to WW2 battleships. There seems to have been something odd going on. The guns went up in size by a lot, and the armour didn't go up to match. Was this stupidity, or was something else going on?
I can't comment on this specific instance, but in general, once we aren't limited to human strength, it's much, much easier to find efficient ways to deliver lots of energy than it's to find efficient ways to safely absorb and/or deflect energy. i.e.: It's easier to make armor-piercing bullets than it's to make bullet-proof armor (at least with any significant amount of efficiency and practicality).

That's why modern warfare defenses have become more about out-ranging and out-maneuvering the enemy and/or disabling their weapons, rather than withstanding what they throw at you.

So I'm guessing that after a certain point, the amount of armor needed to resist those large caliber projectiles was simply not viable, practical or perhaps even possible to build with the current technology.

[halfeye]

I can't comment on this specific instance, but in general, once we aren't limited to human strength, it's much, much easier to find efficient ways to deliver lots of energy than it's to find efficient ways to safely absorb and/or deflect energy. i.e.: It's easier to make armor-piercing bullets than it's to make bullet-proof armor (at least with any significant amount of efficiency and practicality).

That's why modern warfare defenses have become more about out-ranging and out-maneuvering the enemy and/or disabling their weapons, rather than withstanding what they throw at you.

So I'm guessing that after a certain point, the amount of armor needed to resist those large caliber projectiles was simply not viable, practical or perhaps even possible to build with the current technology.

That sounds mostly reasonable, but my understanding is that that's not how they sold the ships to the public or the sailors.

[Max_Killjoy]

Not the same sort of system, they're sabot rounds, fired from smooth barrels, and the actual weight of the shot is much reduced, while the KE is increased propotionately.

I know.

That doesn't change the comparison I was making.

[halfeye]

I know.

That doesn't change the comparison I was making.

What was that comparison then?

I heard "tanks aren't as big as ships, and not so difficult to destroy" which doesn't seem particularly relevant to what I was trying to say, which was something like "the armour on ships seems relatively weak compared to that of tanks if you take the relative sizes into account".

[Max_Killjoy]

What was that comparison then?

I heard "tanks aren't as big as ships, and not so difficult to destroy" which doesn't seem particularly relevant to what I was trying to say, which was something like "the armour on ships seems relatively weak compared to that of tanks if you take the relative sizes into account".

That a good deal of the difference in how armored they SEEM has to do with what sorts of weapons the armor was being asked to stop.

That the scale of a warship vs a tank is entirely different, too.

[fusilier]

Tank armor and battleship armor:

I'm not sure if this has been mentioned yet, but a ship can take a lot more penetrating hits and not be knocked out, whereas that's not really true for a tank. A lucky shot (usually a plunging one) could take out something critical on a ship, but there's a lot of space on a ship that a good hit will just cause it take on water. Water-tight compartments can mitigate against the spread of the flooding. Engines and magazines are usually put well inside the ship, flanked by fuel bunkers and tanks to help absorb more of the damage before it reaches a critical component.

On a tank, any exploding shell that penetrates the armor has a good chance of knocking out the vehicle (either the engine or the crew). Not always, but the chances are a lot better.

However, I think the kind of armor is an issue too, as clearly there was a lot of development occurring, with newer armor being able to provide the same amount of protection while being thinner and lighter than older armor.

[halfeye]

Tank armor and battleship armor:

I'm not sure if this has been mentioned yet, but a ship can take a lot more penetrating hits and not be knocked out

Like HMS Hood?

[redwizard007]

Like HMS Hood?

A ship that took multiple hits? Yeah three is greater than one so it fits as an example.

[Khedrac]

Like HMS Hood?

Except that HMS Hood was a battlecruiser not a battleship - her armour wasn't expected to be able to hold up under the Bismarck's shells.

A better example might be the Bismarck v HMS Prince of Wales - where one of the shells managed to hole an oil tank when it probably shouldn't have been able to penetrate the armour.

(Note: the Hood and the Prince of Wales were British ships so the British spelling of 'armour' is more appropriate.)

[halfeye]

Except that HMS Hood was a battlecruiser not a battleship - her armour wasn't expected to be able to hold up under the Bismarck's shells.

Look at the displacements:


Hood: 46,680 long tons (47,430 t) deep load

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


Bismark: 41,700 t (41,000 long tons) standard 50,300 t (49,500 long tons) full load

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


Hood's protection accounted for 33% of her displacement, a high proportion by British standards, but less than was usual in contemporary German designs (for example, 36% for the battlecruiser SMS Hindenburg).


A better example might be the Bismarck v HMS Prince of Wales - where one of the shells managed to hole an oil tank when it probably shouldn't have been able to penetrate the armour.

Displacement:


Prince of Wales: 43,786 tons (deep)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Prince_of_Wales_(53)

[KineticDiplomat]

Besides relative power:locomotion requirements, a few things to consider in the tank/ship question line.

1) AFVs are typically very space efficient. It is either a key system, very limited crew space, or armor. Everything else goes outside - whereas you cannot choose to store your rations and lube oil outside the ship. Tanks have no galley, information center, bunk rooms, toilets, brigs, maintenance sections, and so forth. Comparatively speaking, you need a lot less relative space and weight to keep it running, which means not only do you have fewer per capita square inches which need to be armored, the engine has lots of relative horsepower to carry armor as opposed to other stuff.

2) By and large, tank designers can take risks with lots of angles. Thick armor in the narrow frontal arc, far less to the sides and rear, and virtually none on the top or bottom. (The Tiger is the most notable exception. It broke down. A lot)Ship designers could not from a military sense - some version of the broadside or deck is most likely to be hit, requiring covering the vast majority of the ship. And even if didn’t like that militarily, fluid dynamics do not encourage asymmetrical weights.

3) Lots of tank armor is magnified by deliberate sloping and angles. Air resistance is not really a big deal. You can build long angled slopes into the turret and hull design, and be fairly sure shells will strike at a limited series of angles in the vertical.

Ships obviously have to design their hull to actually go through water, can’t angle their decks too much, and might be struck from across a vast array of possible vertical angles. All of which makes it very hard to create weight-efficient armor thickness the same way you do in tanks.

[fusilier]

Like HMS Hood?

Yes, as the very next sentence mentioned -- "A lucky shot (usually a plunging one) could take out something critical on a ship." The HMS Hood, was hit at least twice, at over 16,000 meters, so the shot was probably dropping pretty steeply. The second hit set off the magazine, and destroyed the ship. I was literally thinking of the Hood when I wrote that, but whatever . . .

What percentage of battleships (even if we choose to count the Hood as a battleship), were sunk by one well placed shot, versus what percentage of tanks were knocked out by a single hit?

[AdAstra]

Yes, as the very next sentence mentioned -- "A lucky shot (usually a plunging one) could take out something critical on a ship." The HMS Hood, was hit at least twice, at over 16,000 meters, so the shot was probably dropping pretty steeply. The second hit set off the magazine, and destroyed the ship. I was literally thinking of the Hood when I wrote that, but whatever . . .

What percentage of battleships (even if we choose to count the Hood as a battleship), were sunk by one well placed shot, versus what percentage of tanks were knocked out by a single hit?

Plus, the Hood notably did not use the "all-or-nothing" (if it was essential, you gave it all the armor you could, if it wasn't important or couldn't be armored effectively, use the most basic protection, or at least far lighter stuff) armor scheme used by most battleships of the period, and was hit by plunging fire, which she was particularly vulnerable to (and iirc, slated to be upgraded to fix this before the whole war thing). Enemy gunfire could well mission-kill a battleship(by destroying things like the bridge, fire control, and other mostly-unarmored components), but sinking or even immobilizing typically involved torpedoes or bombs.


Look at the displacements:



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



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

Displacement is not the same as armor. Prince of Whales and Bismarck were shorter ships overall, with slightly less (or about equal, in the case of Bismarck) speed and were significantly more modern than Hood (PoW was commissioned in 1941, Hood in 1920). Hood's main armor belt was only 305-152mm thick vs PoW's 370mm. Hood's deck armor, which is what Bismarck's shells punched through to sink her, was 76mm at it's thickest, and was as little as 19mm thick in places. PoW on the other hand, had 127-152mm deck armor. The Bismarck herself was notably larger than she strictly needed to be due to her armoring scheme (a heavily sloped "turtleback"), which also resulted in her armor's practical thickness being higher than the stated thickness would suggest. And she was still shorter than Hood, though a good deal fatter.

Hood's size and displacement was not for armor, but for speed, as size gave more room for the massive propulsion machinery of the time. Her armor was certainly more on par with that of a battleship, but it had notable weaknesses regardless.

[PersonMan]

So, recently I've been working on a project and I'm at a point where I think all of the general guidelines are good but I'm unsure on the details.

The context: There's a military conflict between nations A and B; the world is at a rough mid-late 1940s tech level with no magic or similar changes that would influence the results here. Nation A is significantly smaller in both population and industry than nation B, but is allied with nation C who will force nation B to divert a portion of their forces to fighting them (nation C is, however, also significantly weaker than nation B in available population/industry). For the last ~7 years there has been an arms race and series of proxy conflict between the A+C block and B+smaller allies, which B has come out on top after, but led to about half a decade of rapid military expansion with a heavy focus on paper strength in nation A. Before tensions cool following the end of the last proxy conflict, a series of events cause an escalation to direct war.

I'm wondering:
What sort of strategy nation A's military would pursue when unburdened by political demands; it seems like a focus on defense and fortification in search of force multiplication is the logical move, is it?
For internal political reasons, nation A's military is in competition with a number of parallel military organizations, which have generally had first pick of recruits (especially officers) and done what they can to secure the most modern equipment for themselves. When it comes time for these organizations (which are organized similar to historical paramilitary groups like the post-war German Freikorps) to participate in the fighting, what kind of problems are likely to arise?
For the same political reasons, nation A has an anemic air force and weak armored force; what would be the best way to utilize these against superior enemy forces?
Finally, would it be correct to expect that deployments of large forces of light infantry to cover sections of the frontline would likely result in their encirclement or disintegration in the face of air-supported armored attacks?

[halfeye]

Yes, as the very next sentence mentioned -- "A lucky shot (usually a plunging one) could take out something critical on a ship." The HMS Hood, was hit at least twice, at over 16,000 meters, so the shot was probably dropping pretty steeply.


In Jurens's opinion, the popular image of plunging shells penetrating Hood's deck armour is inaccurate, as by his estimation the angle of fall of Bismarck's 15-inch shells at the moment of the loss would not have exceeded about 14°, an angle so unfavourable to penetration of horizontal armour that it is actually off the scale of contemporaneous German penetration charts.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Hood#Modern_theories_on_the_sinking


What percentage of battleships (even if we choose to count the Hood as a battleship), were sunk by one well placed shot, versus what percentage of tanks were knocked out by a single hit?

Percentage? do you have a list of "sunk in combat" battleships? warships, destroyers, frigates, corvettes and smaller too were mostly scrapped.

I think Hood should count, there were three hits, but their effects didn't apparently combine. Barham (torpedo, or some idiot smoking in the magazine?), the British battlecruisers at Jutland, they were being fired on by the German battlecruisers so I think that should count.

[fusilier]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Hood#Modern_theories_on_the_sinking



Percentage? do you have a list of "sunk in combat" battleships? warships, destroyers, frigates, corvettes and smaller too were mostly scrapped.

I think Hood should count, there were three hits, but their effects didn't apparently combine. Barham (torpedo, or some idiot smoking in the magazine?), the British battlecruisers at Jutland, they were being fired on by the German battlecruisers so I think that should count.

The Hood's deck armor was still comparatively thin, for battleships of that era (i.e. WW2). And it is not in dispute that the shot hit the deck and not the more heavily armored sides (as far as I know).

But it was still a lucky shot, although I agree that, if we consider the Hood to be a battleship, then it is reasonable to say it was destroyed with one shot. (As the other hits don't seem to have done serious damage -- however the final "hit" may actually have been more than one round hitting simultaneously)

I do not have a list of modern warships sunk, but you can check the results of major battles. Battle of Tsushima, for pre-dreadnoughts, Jutland for Dreadnoughts, etc. Can you name any examples other than the Hood?

However, I must admit some confusion: I thought the original question was about battleships, not all types of warships (which are typically less well armored). Similarly I thought the discussion was about the resistance to heavy (battleship) artillery, not other weapons like torpedoes and aerial bombs.

[halfeye]

The Hood's deck armor was still comparatively thin, for battleships of that era (i.e. WW2). And it is not in dispute that the shot hit the deck and not the more heavily armored sides (as far as I know).

To repeat:


In Jurens's opinion, the popular image of plunging shells penetrating Hood's deck armour is inaccurate, as by his estimation the angle of fall of Bismarck's 15-inch shells at the moment of the loss would not have exceeded about 14°, an angle so unfavourable to penetration of horizontal armour that it is actually off the scale of contemporaneous German penetration charts.

They were at moderately close range for the guns involved.


But it was still a lucky shot, although I agree that, if we consider the Hood to be a battleship, then it is reasonable to say it was destroyed with one shot. (As the other hits don't seem to have done serious damage -- however the final "hit" may actually have been more than one round hitting simultaneously)

I do not have a list of modern warships sunk, but you can check the results of major battles. Battle of Tsushima, for pre-dreadnoughts, Jutland for Dreadnoughts, etc. Can you name any examples other than the Hood?

I did name other examples. For another, Tirpitz, it was a bomb, but it was one (another hit didn't detonate, so I think one is fair), and it sank her.


However, I must admit some confusion: I thought the original question was about battleships, not all types of warships (which are typically less well armored). Similarly I thought the discussion was about the resistance to heavy (battleship) artillery, not other weapons like torpedoes and aerial bombs.

Torpedoes are not so fast as shells, but they have a similar explosive load to battleship shells.

However, in the main I am interested in battleships (and ships of similar armour levels) resistance to battleship gunnery.


British self-critique

The official British Admiralty examination of the Grand Fleet's performance recognised two main problems:

British armour-piercing shells exploded outside the German armour rather than penetrating and exploding within. As a result, some German ships with only 8 in (20 cm)-thick armour survived hits from 15-inch (38 cm) projectiles. Had these shells penetrated the armour and then exploded, German losses would probably have been far greater.
Communication between ships and the British commander-in-chief were comparatively poor. For most of the battle, Jellicoe had no idea where the German ships were, even though British ships were in contact. They failed to report enemy positions, contrary to the Grand Fleet's Battle Plan. Some of the most important signalling was carried out solely by flag instead of wireless or using redundant methods to ensure communications—a questionable procedure, given the mixture of haze and smoke that obscured the battlefield, and a foreshadowing of similar failures by habit-bound and conservatively minded professional officers of rank to take advantage of new technology in World War II.

Shell performance

German armour-piercing shells were far more effective than the British ones, which often failed to penetrate heavy armour.[136] The issue particularly concerned shells striking at oblique angles, which became increasingly the case at long range.[137] Germany had adopted trinitrotoluene (TNT) as the explosive filler for artillery shells in 1902, while the United Kingdom was still using a picric acid mixture (Lyddite). The shock of impact of a shell against armour often prematurely detonated Lyddite in advance of fuze function while TNT detonation could be delayed until after the shell had penetrated and the fuze had functioned in the vulnerable area behind the armour plate.[138] Some 17 British shells hit the side armour of the German dreadnoughts or battlecruisers. Of these, four would not have penetrated under any circumstances. Of the remaining 13, one penetrated the armour and exploded inside. This showed a 7.5 per cent chance of proper shell function on the British side, a result of overly brittle shells and Lyddite exploding too soon.[139]

The issue of poorly performing shells had been known to Jellicoe, who as Third Sea Lord from 1908 to 1910 had ordered new shells to be designed. However, the matter had not been followed through after his posting to sea and new shells had never been thoroughly tested.[140] Beatty discovered the problem at a party aboard Lion a short time after the battle, when a Swedish Naval officer was present. He had recently visited Berlin, where the German navy had scoffed at how British shells had broken up on their ships' armour.[141] The question of shell effectiveness had also been raised after the Battle of Dogger Bank, but no action had been taken.[142] Hipper later commented, "It was nothing but the poor quality of their bursting charges which saved us from disaster."[143]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Jutland#Outcome

If british armour was being tested with british shells in that period, it's no wonder Hood sank, though the people concerned probably weren't quite that dim.

[fusilier]

To repeat:
. . .
However, in the main I am interested in battleships (and ships of similar armour levels) resistance to battleship gunnery.


I've tried to provide logical responses to your questions, and provide input about how you can test their veracity. But I can't really follow your responses, as you appear to respond to individual sentences in isolation, rather than reading through a paragraph in its entirety. Maybe I haven't been following it closely enough, but the conversation appears to be splitting and digressing in ways that seem to be impressive even by this thread's standards.

[Storm Bringer]

So, recently I've been working on a project and I'm at a point where I think all of the general guidelines are good but I'm unsure on the details.

The context: There's a military conflict between nations A and B; the world is at a rough mid-late 1940s tech level with no magic or similar changes that would influence the results here. Nation A is significantly smaller in both population and industry than nation B, but is allied with nation C who will force nation B to divert a portion of their forces to fighting them (nation C is, however, also significantly weaker than nation B in available population/industry). For the last ~7 years there has been an arms race and series of proxy conflict between the A+C block and B+smaller allies, which B has come out on top after, but led to about half a decade of rapid military expansion with a heavy focus on paper strength in nation A. Before tensions cool following the end of the last proxy conflict, a series of events cause an escalation to direct war.

I'm wondering:
A What sort of strategy nation A's military would pursue when unburdened by political demands; it seems like a focus on defense and fortification in search of force multiplication is the logical move, is it?

B For internal political reasons, nation A's military is in competition with a number of parallel military organizations, which have generally had first pick of recruits (especially officers) and done what they can to secure the most modern equipment for themselves. When it comes time for these organizations (which are organized similar to historical paramilitary groups like the post-war German Freikorps) to participate in the fighting, what kind of problems are likely to arise?
C For the same political reasons, nation A has an anemic air force and weak armored force; what would be the best way to utilize these against superior enemy forces?
D Finally, would it be correct to expect that deployments of large forces of light infantry to cover sections of the frontline would likely result in their encirclement or disintegration in the face of air-supported armored attacks?[/list]

A: its historically common, but I'd argue its often a bad move, generally because the sheer cost of fortification, combined with the pace of technological advance, means they are often kept on past their point of obsolescence, and thus relied upon to stop a threat beyond those that were envisaged by the designers (for example, the Belgian Fort of Eben-Emael, which the Germans were able to neutralise in 1940, via a glider assault, within 10 years of its construction, due the increases in aircraft ability and the invention of shaped charge warheads). So, it sounds logical, but in the time period we are talking about it is a sub-optimal strategy.



B: Based on the performance of groups like the SS and the Italian blackshirts, I'd say that they'd fail to meet expectations, but that might be due to unrealistic expectations. for our hypothetical Paramilitary organisation(s) (hereafter, the "paras"), how useful they are depends on how well integrated they are into the military and wether their is a unified chain of command. If, for example, the paras were explicitly outside the standard chain of command and not beholden to army commanders, you have unity of command issues where the army finds itself reliant on troops it cant control, and might have to compromise its plans in order to accommodate these elements.

For example, the political forces that are creating the paras as separate "elite" formations might well mandate that any assault the army wants to make must be spearheaded by the paras, and that once the assault Is over, the paras are to be withdrawn form the front to be used in some other assault, even if the army would rather keep them in place holding the line they just won.



C: Best use of limited assets in this case is to concentrate what you have in to mobile reserve, and use that as a "fire brigade" and rush them to wherever they can do the most good. So, while you might not have the airplanes to control the whole theatre, you might be able to secure temporary control of the airspace over a critical sector for a few hours, and use that time to win (or attempt to win) the ground battle.


D: probably, it really depends by what you mean by "light" infantry. If you mean a force with nothing heavier than small arms, then absolutely, but that would also be true if defending against "heavy" infantry with the usual complement of supporting artillery, AT weapons, AA guns, signals and logistic support, etc. In a modern, cold war era definition of light infantry (basically meaning any non-mechanised infantry), they would last much better because they have the support and specialist elements for fighting a air-armour attack.

In the long run, they'd still lose, because the key is combined arms, and if your lacking two arms of your force and the enemy isn't, your in a bad place. However, assuming that you've only got so much to work with, and that you can intelligently use your infantry and terrain, you might slow an enemy advance enough that a counter-attack force can get into position and stop the enemy attack. Plus, their are all those terrains and situations where armour and air power are less of an advantage (for example, heavy jungle or forests, dense urban terrain, etc), which level the playing field somewhat.

[KineticDiplomat]

@ PersonMan

At the risk of asking the obvious, what are the political objectives and circumstances, even for an "unburdened" nation? Is this a World War II style "Conquest & Unconditional Surrender" type of war, is it simply to humiliate a foreign power with no intent of occupation or regime change, a small imperial war of negotiated outcome? A knock down drag out bare-knuckle brawl like the Ostfront? Are the populations die-hard nationalists who will demand total victory but are willing to get behind the will and the act, or are they somewhat uninterested in what appears to be a border dispute, tired of the endless taxes, falling apart to internal strife, something in between? At the strategic level, the fundamental ends of state (or non-state for much of history) are what drives the strategy; the military only provides the means that constrain the ends.

As for the "WWII like" strategy, nation A faces a significant problem if it decides to build linear fortifications unless it has terrain strongly supporting it's defense beyond the tactical scale -if you've got Italian style layers and layers of endless mountains, well, a nice line of dug in infantry could be a real problem while the elite units are available to laterally counterattack breakthroughs since there's just not that many roads for a mechanized force to advance on.

Other than that...simply put, a linear defense without much mobility forward will be weak enough to be penetrated somewhere. After that occurs and expands to a tactical-operational level corridor, large portions of the rest of the line are now irrelevant - at best they are facing weak fixing forces allowing the already superior B to concentrate even more strength against even weaker formations along their attack axis while the majority of A's troops sit on "the line" as B drives towards their objectives, at worst the A troops can't withdraw fast enough to avoid being encircled and are lost unless they have strong pre-built logistical support. If you spent money on those forts and didn't just dig them, so much the worse - a large portion of the national investment can be rendered moot with a few key penetrations.

That said, a prepared mosaic defense might be a viable strategy (again, see politics - there is no such thing as politically unburdened strategy) in the right combination of terrain and road networks, particularly if the individual hedgehogs were well supplied ahead of time. In this case, relatively immobile and perhaps less trained infantry would essentially hold strongpoints in good defensive terrain, strongly reinforced with prebuilt fortifications - the intent not being to fight B on the outside of town, so to speak, but to drag them into close combat in terrain where they need to concentrate lots of troops in brutal exchanges where skill is marginalized, and their mechanization/airpower advantage is offset. Obviously, you need to pre-stage most of the logistics and it does mean ceding lots of less favorable terrain. The elite units are not used to "stronger plugs in the line", but as offensive formations that can move quickly through the mosaic to take advantage of opportunities and use the hedgehogs as operational level covers to allow them to reposition when B masses against the threat. It would be a way to make the fort idea potentially work.

It is also entirely possible in the right terrain that you could do a modern Fabian. The destruction of your own rail network will help rob B's supply requirement heavy force of a lot of their punch; the best tank divisions in the world still need gas, and lots of it, and the bulk transportation requirements for artillery ammunition are eye watering if you need to truck it very far. You might see if you could pull off a backhanded blow if you think B is long on mech and low on motorization while your forces are far less tied to supply lines (they will still consume more than you can humanly imagine, just not in the same way B does).

As for the weak armor and air, the trick is not putting them in fights where they won't do any good. "Road A is critical! Send the Tanks to A!" just means dead tanks if state B is throwing a mechanized corps down the road anyhow. When you spend them, they will probably die, but they should die achieving something, not plussing up an already doomed situation.

[fusilier]

C: Best use of limited assets in this case is to concentrate what you have in to mobile reserve, and use that as a "fire brigade" and rush them to wherever they can do the most good. So, while you might not have the airplanes to control the whole theatre, you might be able to secure temporary control of the airspace over a critical sector for a few hours, and use that time to win (or attempt to win) the ground battle.

I can't find the reference at the moment, but I remember reading an analysis of the Italian Army in WW2 which backs up your suggestion. Italy started off with too little of the modern equipment of war: tanks, aircraft, even trucks -- and the situation actually got worse as the war progressed. For example the number of trucks actually decreased; production couldn't keep up with losses.

The thesis of the analysis was basically: The Italian army did better during WW2 when it was smaller. When it was smaller, they didn't have to spread those mechanized resources (tanks, airplanes) as thinly, and therefore could keep better proportions for combined arms operations. (Along with having more resources to support each soldier)


B: Based on the performance of groups like the SS and the Italian blackshirts, I'd say that they'd fail to meet expectations, but that might be due to unrealistic expectations. . . .

I know there was resentment between the regular Italian military and the political MVSN (blackshirts). The MVSN tended to get "more" (weapons or better ones at least), but I don't think they had as much training (although both factors may have become inconsistent during the war). The ranks of the MVSN had different names, which outranked the equivalent rank in the regular military. Experience in the Spanish Civil War had shown that the "binary" structure of the regular Italian infantry division was deficient. With the war looming, they attempted to augment each division with an MVSN battalion -- this led to more direct friction between the two groups. Although, ultimately, the extra numbers may have helped a little.

[Gnoman]

To repeat:

I did name other examples. For another, Tirpitz, it was a bomb, but it was one (another hit didn't detonate, so I think one is fair), and it sank her.



Torpedoes are not so fast as shells, but they have a similar explosive load to battleship shells.


Both of these are extremely flawed arguments. Tirpitz was sunk by one bomb hit, but it wasn't exactly an ordinary bomb - the RAF hit it with a Tallboy earthquake bomb, which was so large that only two aircraft in the Allied arsenal (The Avro Lancaster and the B-29 Superfortress) were capable of carrying it. It had the mass of five 16" AP shells, the explosive charge of one hundred 16" AP shells, and had pretty much the same level of penetration as a 16" AP shell.


As for torpedoes, the typical torpedo carries much more explosive than a shell (16" HE ~150 pounds, Mark 14 Torpedo = 643 pounds), and explodes underwater. This not only makes the explosion more powerful, but has another effect. You don't sink ships by making holes that let air in. You sink ships by making holes to let water in, and torpedoes are much, much better at than than shells are.

[PersonMan]

A: its historically common, but I'd argue its often a bad move, generally because the sheer cost of fortification, combined with the pace of technological advance, means they are often kept on past their point of obsolescence, and thus relied upon to stop a threat beyond those that were envisaged by the designers (for example, the Belgian Fort of Eben-Emael, which the Germans were able to neutralise in 1940, via a glider assault, within 10 years of its construction, due the increases in aircraft ability and the invention of shaped charge warheads). So, it sounds logical, but in the time period we are talking about it is a sub-optimal strategy.

I see what you mean, yeah.


B: Based on the performance of groups like the SS and the Italian blackshirts, I'd say that they'd fail to meet expectations, but that might be due to unrealistic expectations. for our hypothetical Paramilitary organisation(s) (hereafter, the "paras"), how useful they are depends on how well integrated they are into the military and wether their is a unified chain of command. If, for example, the paras were explicitly outside the standard chain of command and not beholden to army commanders, you have unity of command issues where the army finds itself reliant on troops it cant control, and might have to compromise its plans in order to accommodate these elements.

For example, the political forces that are creating the paras as separate "elite" formations might well mandate that any assault the army wants to make must be spearheaded by the paras, and that once the assault Is over, the paras are to be withdrawn form the front to be used in some other assault, even if the army would rather keep them in place holding the line they just won.

Those are good points, especially regarding the chain of command - in this case, the organizations are both outside the army's control and divided into their own groups that are only beholden to direct orders from the head of state, and otherwise entirely at the disposal of their individual leaders. That seem like it could result in a lot of these organizational conflicts, especially as the commanders of these groups will be looking for old school glorious decisive battles to be the hero of.


D: probably, it really depends by what you mean by "light" infantry. If you mean a force with nothing heavier than small arms, then absolutely, but that would also be true if defending against "heavy" infantry with the usual complement of supporting artillery, AT weapons, AA guns, signals and logistic support, etc. In a modern, cold war era definition of light infantry (basically meaning any non-mechanised infantry), they would last much better because they have the support and specialist elements for fighting a air-armour attack.

Ah, gotcha. Probably something halfway between the former and latter, in most cases - though they're far more likely to have (heavily outdated; think early 1920s level) armor support and some artillery than they are to have proper logistics and supply companies. Would lacking the latter be more likely to result in a force that could potentially withstand one or two attacks, but would then break under continued pressure due to an inability to properly resupply and reorganize, or is it more of a "if they lack these, they will probably be a mess by the time they reach the fighting and rapidly collapse from there" type requirement?


In the long run, they'd still lose, because the key is combined arms, and if your lacking two arms of your force and the enemy isn't, your in a bad place. However, assuming that you've only got so much to work with, and that you can intelligently use your infantry and terrain, you might slow an enemy advance enough that a counter-attack force can get into position and stop the enemy attack. Plus, their are all those terrains and situations where armour and air power are less of an advantage (for example, heavy jungle or forests, dense urban terrain, etc), which level the playing field somewhat.

Yeah - the general "game plan" I have is that A loses, and fairly quickly, but I'm hoping to make the loss something that, if analysed, is clearly the result of their weaker position and structural weaknesses rather than being a fairly generic "yup they were smaller so they lost" explanation.


@ PersonMan

At the risk of asking the obvious, what are the political objectives and circumstances, even for an "unburdened" nation? Is this a World War II style "Conquest & Unconditional Surrender" type of war, is it simply to humiliate a foreign power with no intent of occupation or regime change, a small imperial war of negotiated outcome? A knock down drag out bare-knuckle brawl like the Ostfront? Are the populations die-hard nationalists who will demand total victory but are willing to get behind the will and the act, or are they somewhat uninterested in what appears to be a border dispute, tired of the endless taxes, falling apart to internal strife, something in between? At the strategic level, the fundamental ends of state (or non-state for much of history) are what drives the strategy; the military only provides the means that constrain the ends.

Ah; yeah, I was too vague there - what I meant was specifically 'what would the military do to defend against an expected attack by B, when not specifically demanded to favor X or do Y directly by the government?', but the general political situation is something I left out, too.

The objectives for A would lie between a minimum of "repulse B's attack as close to the border as possible; maintain the status quo in a peace deal" and a maximum of "regain land lost in a previous war, dismantle and carve B into friendly regimes". A's population is generally unenthusiastic; a minority are vigorously supporting the war and a larger minority is in secret (the regime has outlawed their activity) opposition to the regime that can/will escalate into rebellion.

The objectives of B go from the minimum of "enforce specific political demands related to the cause of the war (releasing prisoners, paying reparations) and ensure A's military cannot be a direct threat" to the (intended goal) of "topple the current regime, occupying the country as necessary to support the establishment of a new one". B's population is far more behind the war - imagine something similar to the response in Imperial Germany when WWI began. Some are pushing for peace, but the general consensus is that this is a defensive war against a national/ideological enemy that needs to be fought.


Other than that...simply put, a linear defense without much mobility forward will be weak enough to be penetrated somewhere. [...] It would be a way to make the fort idea potentially work.

Gotcha. The 'mosaic defense' idea is actually a very interesting one I hadn't thought of - unfortunately it isn't really possible in this immediate context (as any defensive plan involving ceding large areas to B's attack would be vetoed by A's political leadership, and the terrain right on the border isn't ideal for it) but I will definitely be keeping that in mind, especially for nation C, which does have the kind of terrain to make that work.


It is also entirely possible in the right terrain that you could do a modern Fabian. The destruction of your own rail network will help rob B's supply requirement heavy force of a lot of their punch; the best tank divisions in the world still need gas, and lots of it, and the bulk transportation requirements for artillery ammunition are eye watering if you need to truck it very far. You might see if you could pull off a backhanded blow if you think B is long on mech and low on motorization while your forces are far less tied to supply lines (they will still consume more than you can humanly imagine, just not in the same way B does).

Would that be viable in fairly open terrain without long distances? A's capital (and, around it, the most industrialized/populous region of the country) is only ~250 km from the border, which may or may not be enough distance to manage this kind of strategy in.


As for the weak armor and air, the trick is not putting them in fights where they won't do any good. "Road A is critical! Send the Tanks to A!" just means dead tanks if state B is throwing a mechanized corps down the road anyhow. When you spend them, they will probably die, but they should die achieving something, not plussing up an already doomed situation.

Gotcha. Presumably, once these forces are expended would be a good time for the military to start sending "we recommend trying to make peace before our defense collapses and we have no bargaining power left"-style letters to the government?

[halfeye]

Both of these are extremely flawed arguments. Tirpitz was sunk by one bomb hit, but it wasn't exactly an ordinary bomb - the RAF hit it with a Tallboy earthquake bomb, which was so large that only two aircraft in the Allied arsenal (The Avro Lancaster and the B-29 Superfortress) were capable of carrying it. It had the mass of five 16" AP shells, the explosive charge of one hundred 16" AP shells, and had pretty much the same level of penetration as a 16" AP shell.

It was the level of penetration I was mainly interested in, but I certainly wasn't aware that the explosive charge in the 16 inch shells was so relatively puny. These are 0.85 tonne shells, having them contain 0.085 or less tonnes (i.e. less than 85 kg) of explosive is unexpected to me at least.

I was aware that the Lancaster had to be modified to carry the Grand Slam, but I'd have assumed, apparently mistakenly, that the more or less half size Tall Boy could be carried in an unmodified bomber, probably a Halifax or a Liberator, as well as the Lanc.


As for torpedoes, the typical torpedo carries much more explosive than a shell (16" HE ~150 pounds, Mark 14 Torpedo = 643 pounds), and explodes underwater. This not only makes the explosion more powerful, but has another effect. You don't sink ships by making holes that let air in. You sink ships by making holes to let water in, and torpedoes are much, much better at than than shells are.

There are antitorpedo belts fitted for just that reason. I will say again how surprised I am by the relatively small amount of explosive in those shells.

Apparently, these heavy shells are so ballistically nice for water that they can sometimes get in under the torpedo belt. I was surprised by that, I know bullets stop pretty quickly, I didn't realise there was so little resistance that shells would still be going fast enough to go through steel after 80+ feet.

[KineticDiplomat]

~250km away over open terrain is not where you want to be when your enemy has striking advantages in mech and air. Especially not for a forward defense. Maybe for a longer campaign you could break down his motor pool if you stopped him deep, but really - 250km of open ground isn't much. But if you had to fight it anyhow, a couple options (which also allow nifty RP dramatization)

A) Try to out-OODA B by mobilizing faster and seizing key mobility positions (bridges, canal crossings, rail yards, ports) and perhaps some exposed population centers in B. The idea is to make him burn his Sunday punch re-taking terrain that gives you some advantage while also helping to offset his initial mobilization plans and making him burn trucks and tracks on tactical movement much earlier in the fight. The remainder of your forces which are mobilizing use the time to do their damndest to limit mobility options near the border and concentrate forces wherever he telegraphs his punches.

B) A multi-layered defense where the first defensive belt is basically a series of reflexive ambushes. Let the armor divisions through with just enough fighting that they believe it, close the roads behind them and take on their infantry as the gap widens - maybe even get a chance to smash some logistical hubs. The second belt will just have to force the armored forces to burn off enough fuel and ammo to neuter them. The third belt kills them.

C) Fight at the crossings, and use off-road strongpoints with roadblocks to force the tracks to divert. Basically, a series of strongpoints in range of the major road networks that the enemy will have to divert to handle. Best would be, say, a wooded or heavily irrigated area a klick or two away, but you make do with what you have. Make the mech infantry dismount, and maybe even bring up straight leg infantry, to clean you out or you're in position to interdict the supply columns. As to the tracked vehicles, every mile they have to drive off-road is a strain on the maintenance and logistics. It won't be bone breaking like the Panzegruppes having to continually attack off-road in Russia, but it will wear out vehicles. Of course, short as it is, they may just blow through and figure they'll clean up the strongpoints later.

D) Pak-fronts & minefields. If you can get in front of the armor, mass anti-tank guns and mines along their attack axis.

E) Any of the above combined with using your own limited armor for a turning movement.

[Lvl 2 Expert]

Lucky shots on battleships can't have been too common in their heyday, or they would have been completely replaced by weapon systems maximizing the chance at lucky/lethal hits without all the armor costs, like light cruisers, pt-boats/mtb's, subs, coastal batteries, rockets and airplanes.

Given the prevalence of several of those systems today and the noticable lack of battleships, the odds of lucky/lethal single hits has quite possibly gone up, despite the rise of active countermeasures. The US navy approach of using aircraft carriers to fight from as long a distance as possible and then surround those expensive ships with a whole swarm of support against anything that slips through in particular doesn't show a lot of faith in ship armor.

[Vinyadan]

Battleships had three advantages: armour, range, and striking power. I think that a time where planes could arrive from beyond range and drop guided and armour-piercing bombs didn't leave much room for battleships.

[Blackhawk748]

So I've been watching a bunch of old Post Apoc B movies and I've realized something. They never seem to run out of smokeless powder. Oh they keep calling it gunpowder, but it's smokeless, which brought a question to kind.

Let's say it all goes to crap and a few years go by, no more smokeless powder. Now, what guns still work with black powder? Revolvers, shotguns and bolt actions should be fine, and I would assume simplistic recoil operated ones, but gas would be right out.

What do you all think?

[Lvl 2 Expert]

One of the problems with musket era gunpowder was that soot would build up in the barrel with every shot. To prevent bullets from getting stuck and blowing the gun up they used a smaller caliber round than what the barrel was made for. That's one of the main reasons muskets were so inaccurate. A marksman could fire off one or two bullets of the right caliber from a clean gun and get some pretty good accuracy out of them, but they'd have to clean the barrel thoroughly ro be able to repeat that act. So for continued fire under battlefield conditions this was not an option.

I think that might become the main problem in this scenario. Depending on exactly what kind of gunpowder they're using basically all bullets may now be unsuitable for use with their own guns.

Revolvers, shotguns, bolt action rifles and metal cartridges all existed before smokeless powder, or at least somewhat independent of it, so this problem can't have been a complete showstopper, but what the impact of this in a fictional scenario is might depend heavily on exactly how much technology they lose.

[Storm Bringer]

So I've been watching a bunch of old Post Apoc B movies and I've realized something. They never seem to run out of smokeless powder. Oh they keep calling it gunpowder, but it's smokeless, which brought a question to kind.

Let's say it all goes to crap and a few years go by, no more smokeless powder. Now, what guns still work with black powder? Revolvers, shotguns and bolt actions should be fine, and I would assume simplistic recoil operated ones, but gas would be right out.

What do you all think?

the big problem with back powder is that its much more fouling than smokeless powders. this means that a modern bolt action (by which I mean almost every bolt action you can think of, like the Mauser, the Lee-Enfield, the Mosin, etc.) will work for about 10-15 shots before the rifle is so gunked up that it needs stripping and cleaning (Or at least a pull though to clear the barrel. this was one of the major technical hurdles that slowed the adoption of bolt action weaponry before the 1886 invention of smokeless powder.

it's possible to make a working bolt action using blackpowder (and was done historically), but it generally requires a larger calibre round to ensure the fouling issue is manageable (most historical black powder bolt action weapons were around 11mil/ .45 calibre, much larger than modern 7-8mm rounds)

i'd write more but I need to go.

[halfeye]

Lucky shots on battleships can't have been too common in their heyday, or they would have been completely replaced by weapon systems maximizing the chance at lucky/lethal hits without all the armor costs, like light cruisers, pt-boats/mtb's, subs, coastal batteries, rockets and airplanes.

One would think that, but actually, big battles involving battleships were really rare. There was Jutland, which was kind of a mess and a lot of British battlecruisers went "kerblooey", and the British were apparently firing shells that might as well have been fireworks, but the Germans didn't realise so ran away because they were out numbered.

[Blackhawk748]

One of the problems with musket era gunpowder was that soot would build up in the barrel with every shot. To prevent bullets from getting stuck and blowing the gun up they used a smaller caliber round than what the barrel was made for. That's one of the main reasons muskets were so inaccurate. A marksman could fire off one or two bullets of the right caliber from a clean gun and get some pretty good accuracy out of them, but they'd have to clean the barrel thoroughly ro be able to repeat that act. So for continued fire under battlefield conditions this was not an option.

I think that might become the main problem in this scenario. Depending on exactly what kind of gunpowder they're using basically all bullets may now be unsuitable for use with their own guns.

Revolvers, shotguns, bolt action rifles and metal cartridges all existed before smokeless powder, or at least somewhat independent of it, so this problem can't have been a complete showstopper, but what the impact of this in a fictional scenario is might depend heavily on exactly how much technology they lose.

I thought the Minie ball helped to alleviate this somewhat? Or was that just making rifling easier to engage? I forget honestly.

Either way the Trapdoor rifles of the US and the Henry Lever Guns didn't seem to have massive fouling issues and now I'm curious how they circumvented this problem.


the big problem with back powder is that its much more fouling than smokeless powders. this means that a modern bolt action (by which I mean almost every bolt action you can think of, like the Mauser, the Lee-Enfield, the Mosin, etc.) will work for about 10-15 shots before the rifle is so gunked up that it needs stripping and cleaning (Or at least a pull though to clear the barrel. this was one of the major technical hurdles that slowed the adoption of bolt action weaponry before the 1886 invention of smokeless powder.

it's possible to make a working bolt action using blackpowder (and was done historically), but it generally requires a larger calibre round to ensure the fouling issue is manageable (most historical black powder bolt action weapons were around 11mil/ .45 calibre, much larger than modern 7-8mm rounds)

i'd write more but I need to go.

Now I'm curious why Lever Guns didn't seem to have this same issue considering their round capacity you'd have the barrel gunked to hell and back from your first reload nevermind loading it up again

[Storm Bringer]

I thought the Minie ball helped to alleviate this somewhat? Or was that just making rifling easier to engage? I forget honestly.

Either way the Trapdoor rifles of the US and the Henry Lever Guns didn't seem to have massive fouling issues and now I'm curious how they circumvented this problem.



Now I'm curious why Lever Guns didn't seem to have this same issue considering their round capacity you'd have the barrel gunked to hell and back from your first reload nevermind loading it up again

two reasons, namely smaller powder load and high calibre. the "classic" 1873 Winchester lever gun ("the gun that won the west") shot a .45 calibre pistol cartridge , which are both bigger and less powerful than, say, .303 Enfield.

the "full power" trapdoor rifles also had a larger bore (in that 10-11mil range), and this larger bore and lack of working parts to get gunked up (Compared to a bolt action) meant they took much longer to reach unshootably dirty.

the minie helped mainly with muzzle loaders, by giving them a bullet that slid down easy but still engaged with the rifling.

[jayem]

Lucky shots on battleships can't have been too common in their heyday, or they would have been completely replaced by weapon systems maximizing the chance at lucky/lethal hits without all the armor costs, like light cruisers, pt-boats/mtb's, subs, coastal batteries, rockets and airplanes.

Given the prevalence of several of those systems today and the noticable lack of battleships, the odds of lucky/lethal single hits has quite possibly gone up, despite the rise of active countermeasures. The US navy approach of using aircraft carriers to fight from as long a distance as possible and then surround those expensive ships with a whole swarm of support against anything that slips through in particular doesn't show a lot of faith in ship armor.

That's what you have (Torpedo-Boat)-Destroyers for. At least until you try and use them as ((Torpedo-Boat)-Destroyer)-Destroyers at which point they get too big,

I'd contend that in the late heyday (WW1) the shift you were expecting had kind of occured with the focusing on the gun (to get the lucky shot first) and speed (including to run away) being a partial example. The planes, and (partial-submerged) torpedo boats being lucky to deliver a lethal load against the armour that they did have*.

Then during really late heyday WW2 when lucky/lethal hits could easily be obtained by planes. The battleship was replaced fairly quickly. Between the wars, battleships were not tested.
Also during WW2, there was a clear expectation of a heirachy of engagements ending with the mighty Hood to see off the opposing Battlecruisers.

In the early Ironclad days, lucky shots clearly were not common (consider Monitor and the other one).

*Even a WW2 torpedo, you're looking at a range of something like a 300kg warhead delivered from 8km. While the 5" guns have been shooting 10*60kg rounds at you every minute for the last 12km.

[Blackhawk748]

two reasons, namely smaller powder load and high calibre. the "classic" 1873 Winchester lever gun ("the gun that won the west") shot a .45 calibre pistol cartridge , which are both bigger and less powerful than, say, .303 Enfield.

the "full power" trapdoor rifles also had a larger bore (in that 10-11mil range), and this larger bore and lack of working parts to get gunked up (Compared to a bolt action) meant they took much longer to reach unshootably dirty.

the minie helped mainly with muzzle loaders, by giving them a bullet that slid down easy but still engaged with the rifling.

While at work this was sort of the conclusion I came to. The .45 is a short fat round and I forgot that when I typed that up. So basically if Blackpowder had to be the propellant we used we
d have to use large caliber guns with lower powder amounts, correct?

[Mike_G]

While at work this was sort of the conclusion I came to. The .45 is a short fat round and I forgot that when I typed that up. So basically if Blackpowder had to be the propellant we used we
d have to use large caliber guns with lower powder amounts, correct?

Yes, but also the gas systems on most semi automatic rifles are carefully calibrated for the pressure of the round for which they were intended. Timing the whole process of the bolt unlocking, moving backward, extracting and ejecting the case, then coming forward just as the magazine spring has pushed another round up into position so the bolt can chamber it and lock before firing is not something you can really mess with all that much. Change the pressure curve and throw off the timing and you have bolts tearing cartridges, stovepiping rounds, closing on an empty chamber, and lot of other issues. All this independent of fouling in the gas system.

In short, you cant just load your empty .223 cases with black powder and expect the rifle to function as a semi automatic. I don't know if you could even design a gas operated semi automatic rifle for black powder. Blowback operated, maybe, but that would still need a carefully calibrated powder load for consistent burn time and chamber pressure.

[fusilier]

I thought the Minie ball helped to alleviate this somewhat? Or was that just making rifling easier to engage? I forget honestly.

The Minie ball helped with fouling, as, after expanding, the ball would remove a lot of the fouling that the previous shot had deposited, thus preventing too much fouling from building up, making the gun easier to load. Nevertheless, the blackpowder still generates a lot more fouling than smokeless, and that can start to gum up the mechanism. That said, the metallic cartridge black-powder repeaters could be fired for more than "10-15 shots" before getting gunked up (I think it was more of a problem for those that used paper cartridges).

Early Mausers, Vetterli rifles (Swiss and Italian), even the first Lee-Metford rifles, used blackpowder metallic cartridges.

Aside on Minie balls:

I've been reading a lot about them lately. The United States adopted a minie ball (the Burton Ball) that expanded very slowly; to work correctly in their .58 caliber weapons it had to have a very tight fit (.5775). When the Civil War broke out, and large numbers of .577 Enfield muskets were being imported, they changed the caliber to something smaller (.565?), so that one round would work in both weapons. The bullet would expand enough to catch the rifling and be accurate, but, now that happened a little later after being fired: the bullet would travel 6 or so inches before catching the rifling. So the fouling at base of the barrel would start to build up, and after around 15 shots or so it could become difficult to seat the ball all the way on top of the powder (which was necessary). The British version was more undersized, but expanded very quickly.

[Gnoman]

Black powder and nitro propellants ("smokeless" "powder") are extremely different. Not simply in "one is less powerful" terms, either. Simplifying a bit, putting nitro propellants in a gun designed for black powder will probably result in the gun exploding. Putting black powder in a gun designed for nitro will send a bullet out the muzzle, but will not work well in autoloaders. Depending on the system used, you'll either get a few shots off before needing to start manually actuating it, or else you'll break the gun. This means that the only truly practical guns to convert to black powder would be manually-actuated ones - revolvers for pistols, bolt/lever/pump/break action for longarms.


This is problem #2 for maintaining an ammunition supply without an industrial base.


Problem #1 is a much nastier one. Black powder is easy to make if you know the recipe, while you can load most guns (Glocks being the most prominent exception - they'll explode) with cast lead bullets. Casings are harder to make, but are reusable. That's 3 out of the 4 essential parts for a cartridge gun. The last one's a doozy.

See, to make the cartridge go off, you need something that will explode when struck by the firing pin - in cartridges this is called a "primer", while loose examples are "percussion caps". These are not easy to make. Fulminate of mercury requires toxic (and generally difficult to find) ingredients, a fairly involved process, and not detonating it can be difficult. Potassium Chlorate is safer, but still not easy to produce. If you can't manage that, you'll have to revert to loose-powder flintlocks.

Once you've solved that, you can decide what your best options are. Black powder can't attain the same velocities as nitro can, so big, heavy bullets are the way to go. This means that your post-apoc setting will have a very "Old West" fell to the weaponry.

[fusilier]

In short, you cant just load your empty .223 cases with black powder and expect the rifle to function as a semi automatic. I don't know if you could even design a gas operated semi automatic rifle for black powder. Blowback operated, maybe, but that would still need a carefully calibrated powder load for consistent burn time and chamber pressure.

The earliest Maxim machine guns used blackpowder ammunition, and Maxim patented several devices to filter particulate residue from the guns. Which were rendered moot by the introduction of smokeless powders a couple years later -- but it is possible to design an automatic weapon that works well enough with blackpowder. However, as you pointed out, you can't simply take an existing weapon and expect it to work without fouling becoming a serious problem.

I believe most of these weapons do have the ability to be adjusted for different pressures, but that may require an armorer, and the consistency of the ammunition is still important.


See, to make the cartridge go off, you need something that will explode when struck by the firing pin - in cartridges this is called a "primer"

Yup. If you can't make primers, you're back to flintlocks.

[Blackhawk748]

Yes, but also the gas systems on most semi automatic rifles are carefully calibrated for the pressure of the round for which they were intended. Timing the whole process of the bolt unlocking, moving backward, extracting and ejecting the case, then coming forward just as the magazine spring has pushed another round up into position so the bolt can chamber it and lock before firing is not something you can really mess with all that much. Change the pressure curve and throw off the timing and you have bolts tearing cartridges, stovepiping rounds, closing on an empty chamber, and lot of other issues. All this independent of fouling in the gas system.

In short, you cant just load your empty .223 cases with black powder and expect the rifle to function as a semi automatic. I don't know if you could even design a gas operated semi automatic rifle for black powder. Blowback operated, maybe, but that would still need a carefully calibrated powder load for consistent burn time and chamber pressure.

I wrote Gas-Operated off on the fouling issue alone. Everything else just hammers that fact home. Blowback? Maybe, but I kinda doubt it. Gas? Hell no.


The Minie ball helped with fouling, as, after expanding, the ball would remove a lot of the fouling that the previous shot had deposited, thus preventing too much fouling from building up, making the gun easier to load. Nevertheless, the blackpowder still generates a lot more fouling than smokeless, and that can start to gum up the mechanism. That said, the metallic cartridge black-powder repeaters could be fired for more than "10-15 shots" before getting gunked up (I think it was more of a problem for those that used paper cartridges).

Early Mausers, Vetterli rifles (Swiss and Italian), even the first Lee-Metford rifles, used blackpowder metallic cartridges.

Glad to see my memory is still on point.


Problem #1 is a much nastier one. Black powder is easy to make if you know the recipe, while you can load most guns (Glocks being the most prominent exception - they'll explode) with cast lead bullets. Casings are harder to make, but are reusable. That's 3 out of the 4 essential parts for a cartridge gun. The last one's a doozy.

See, to make the cartridge go off, you need something that will explode when struck by the firing pin - in cartridges this is called a "primer", while loose examples are "percussion caps". These are not easy to make. Fulminate of mercury requires toxic (and generally difficult to find) ingredients, a fairly involved process, and not detonating it can be difficult. Potassium Chlorate is safer, but still not easy to produce. If you can't manage that, you'll have to revert to loose-powder flintlocks.

Once you've solved that, you can decide what your best options are. Black powder can't attain the same velocities as nitro can, so big, heavy bullets are the way to go. This means that your post-apoc setting will have a very "Old West" fell to the weaponry.


Funnily enough, I had a similar situation in a different post apoc setting I had made, this one I wanted America to be using Hall Rifles primarily and as it tutrned out the two Mercury Mines in America happened to stuck in very hostile areas. A rather amusing happenstance for me.

As for the primers, I remember reading (God knows where) that there was a lead based primer or something like that and they didn't like it because the thing was less stable than the Mercury one.

And I am very fine with Old West Post Apoc.


The earliest Maxim machine guns used blackpowder ammunition, and Maxim patented several devices to filter particulate residue from the guns. Which were rendered moot by the introduction of smokeless powders a couple years later -- but it is possible to design an automatic weapon that works well enough with blackpowder. However, as you pointed out, you can't simply take an existing weapon and expect it to work without fouling becoming a serious problem.

I believe most of these weapons do have the ability to be adjusted for different pressures, but that may require an armorer, and the consistency of the ammunition is still important.


I recall Ian talking about this on... InRange I think, and while it seemed like it would sort of help with the fouling problem (it wasn't really well tested) there would still be this obnoxious cloud of smoke in the way and I think that will always be an issue for Full Auto Blackpowder, that damn smoke is always gonna make quite the wall in front of you.

[Storm Bringer]

The Minie ball helped with fouling, as, after expanding, the ball would remove a lot of the fouling that the previous shot had deposited, thus preventing too much fouling from building up, making the gun easier to load. Nevertheless, the blackpowder still generates a lot more fouling than smokeless, and that can start to gum up the mechanism. That said, the metallic cartridge black-powder repeaters could be fired for more than "10-15 shots" before getting gunked up (I think it was more of a problem for those that used paper cartridges).

Early Mausers, Vetterli rifles (Swiss and Italian), even the first Lee-Metford rifles, used blackpowder metallic cartridges.


ok, i stand somewhat corrected. I was under the impression that those rifles were all around .40-.45 calibre, not .30 calibre which i thought didn't work well with black powder due to fouling, but the lee metford is .303. Most of the others are .40 ish, though, at least until after 1886 and the smokeless revolution.

[Mike_G]

See, to make the cartridge go off, you need something that will explode when struck by the firing pin - in cartridges this is called a "primer", while loose examples are "percussion caps". These are not easy to make. Fulminate of mercury requires toxic (and generally difficult to find) ingredients, a fairly involved process, and not detonating it can be difficult. Potassium Chlorate is safer, but still not easy to produce. If you can't manage that, you'll have to revert to loose-powder flintlocks.


OK, I have a question, because I truly have no idea, but what are those paper rolls for cap pistols made of? I can't imagine they'd be mercury because they are for kid's toys, and even back in the 70s I think that wouldn't have flown.

Because you can get a bang with just impact, so I could see finding a way to get them to ignite a powder charge, with a bit of tinkering.

A final point about post apocalyptic settings. There are a ton of guns out there, and a lot of ammo stockpiled. Plus the munitions factories and stockpiles of materials. So I can see the first few years after the disaster as being pretty easy to find guns and ammo.

[fusilier]

ok, i stand somewhat corrected. I was under the impression that those rifles were all around .40-.45 calibre, not .30 calibre which i thought didn't work well with black powder due to fouling, but the lee metford is .303. Most of the others are .40 ish, though, at least until after 1886 and the smokeless revolution.

My understanding is that it has to do with efficiency -- that smokeless powders are more efficient, for some reason, with smaller caliber ammo. Not to do with fouling. I could be wrong though. The Lee-Metford (the immediate predecessor of the Lee-Enfield), was originally intended to be used with smokeless powder, but the British were having developmental problems with cordite and so it was designed for a .303 black powder round. Then it turned out that the barrel was ill suited for smokeless powders. :-/

EDIT --

Blackpowder weapons may have used looser fittings to allow for fouling to build up -- but I'm not sure about that.

[fusilier]

I recall Ian talking about this on... InRange I think, and while it seemed like it would sort of help with the fouling problem (it wasn't really well tested) there would still be this obnoxious cloud of smoke in the way and I think that will always be an issue for Full Auto Blackpowder, that damn smoke is always gonna make quite the wall in front of you.

The various mechanical machine guns that used blackpowder (Gatling guns, Mitrailleuses, Gardner Guns, etc.), always had that problem with smoke. However, they were crew served weapons and could at least attempt to place a spotter at a slightly better position. (If the air was still there wasn't much that could be done).

[fusilier]

OK, I have a question, because I truly have no idea, but what are those paper rolls for cap pistols made of? I can't imagine they'd be mercury because they are for kid's toys, and even back in the 70s I think that wouldn't have flown.

Apparently something called "Armstrong's Mixture", which can include Potassium Chlorate (which I think is used in modern percussion caps):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armstrong%27s_mixture

[Blackhawk748]

My understanding is that it has to do with efficiency -- that smokeless powders are more efficient, for some reason, with smaller caliber ammo. Not to do with fouling. I could be wrong though. The Lee-Metford (the immediate predecessor of the Lee-Enfield), was originally intended to be used with smokeless powder, but the British were having developmental problems with cordite and so it was designed for a .303 black powder round. Then it turned out that the barrel was ill suited for smokeless powders. :-/

Smokeless Powder has more bang than Black Powder so you need less for a similar punch, so they work better for intermediate cartridges because you get get a whole lot of bang for smaller space.

[Gnoman]

My understanding is that it has to do with efficiency -- that smokeless powders are more efficient, for some reason, with smaller caliber ammo. Not to do with fouling. I could be wrong though. The Lee-Metford (the immediate predecessor of the Lee-Enfield), was originally intended to be used with smokeless powder, but the British were having developmental problems with cordite and so it was designed for a .303 black powder round. Then it turned out that the barrel was ill suited for smokeless powders. :-/

EDIT --

Blackpowder weapons may have used looser fittings to allow for fouling to build up -- but I'm not sure about that.


Smokeless Powder has more bang than Black Powder so you need less for a similar punch, so they work better for intermediate cartridges because you get get a whole lot of bang for smaller space.

It isn't just a matter of "more bang". You can't throw a bullet faster than the speed of the propellant itself. The fastest black powder cartridges I can find (there's some examples of loose powder guns with very fine powder that go higher) were in the 1500 FPS range - decent, but not on par with smokeless. For example, the smokeless .30-06 Springfield can easily hit the 2900 FPS range, depending on loading. This is because smokeless has higher speed, and burns faster - allowing you to use a shorter barrel for a given charge.

This maximum speed doesn't translate into maximum power, because you can still add mass and use more powder to get the same speed. This is why black powder guns tended to be very large bore - to get that extra energy. Small bore guns have a lot of ballistic advantages, and smokeless can push a bullet faster - allowing you to get the extra energy with speed instead of mass.

[Sapphire Guard]

Re country defence, what's the geography like? The UK defends itself very differently from the USSR or France.

WW2 Belgium has very little to work with in defending itself, except canals. Eben Emael turned out not to work, but I'm not sure there were many better options.

[Storm Bringer]

Re country defence, what's the geography like? The UK defends itself very differently from the USSR or France.

WW2 Belgium has very little to work with in defending itself, except canals. Eben Emael turned out not to work, but I'm not sure there were many better options.

well, your right, geography is often one of the most important factors in planning a defence, and the Belgians didn't have many options (Eben Emeal is sat behind the albert canal, explicitly to control the bridges over it).

their actual, main plan wasn't to hold to the Albert canal, but along the river Dyle (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_war_planning_1920–1940) further into Belgium, with the forces on the Canal there to fight a delaying action for several days before withdrawing (even the strongest fort in the world wasn't expected to hold out forever against modern artillery for very long)

[Lemmy]

Is there any way longbows and crossbows have stayed relevant in warfare, say, around the early 17th century?

For example, if producing and learning how to use them were much easier?

[Mike_G]

Is there any way longbows and crossbows have stayed relevant in warfare, say, around the early 17th century?

For example, if producing and learning how to use them were much easier?

You would think so, but they don't seem to have been used much that late.

On paper, as far as accuracy, range and rate of shot (I refuse to say "fire" when discussing bows) they should be able to compete with early firearms.

That said, most armies pretty much fielded all firearms by that point, so there must be a good reason.

[Grim Portent]

Probably not. Guns outclassed man portable bows and crossbows in the mid to late 1500s as I recall. Everything short of the bigger crossbows that needed to be mounted in some fashion couldn't match the range and penetration of firearms once muskets became a thing.

The only real advantage of bows and crossbows that guns can't match was the ability to fire in arcs over friendly formations and into the further parts of enemy formations. Guns can't do that, but they got so much better at just blowing holes through the front ranks it didn't really matter. Once the penetration and range of a gun outpaces that of the crossbow and bow it easily makes them obsolete.


From a game/story design perspective I'd say the best time for bow/crossbow/gun to be a meaningful choice was the 1500s, a longbow, heavy crossbow or matchlock arquebus all had their selling points, though the crossbow was the general winner for mass use.

[Blackhawk748]

Probably not. Guns outclassed man portable bows and crossbows in the mid to late 1500s as I recall. Everything short of the bigger crossbows that needed to be mounted in some fashion couldn't match the range and penetration of firearms once muskets became a thing.

The only real advantage of bows and crossbows that guns can't match was the ability to fire in arcs over friendly formations and into the further parts of enemy formations. Guns can't do that, but they got so much better at just blowing holes through the front ranks it didn't really matter. Once the penetration and range of a gun outpaces that of the crossbow and bow it easily makes them obsolete.


From a game/story design perspective I'd say the best time for bow/crossbow/gun to be a meaningful choice was the 1500s, a longbow, heavy crossbow or matchlock arquebus all had their selling points, though the crossbow was the general winner for mass use.

Well Bows blow guns out in Rate of Fire but thats about it. Once people stop wearing armor bows could be useful, but then they'd just start wearing armor again thus invalidating it.

So ya, the 1500s maybe the early 1600s would be when they overlapped meaningfully

[ExLibrisMortis]

How do the costs of firing bows, crossbows, and guns compare? I imagine that casting lead bullets en masse is somewhat easier than fletching arrows (and you shoot arrows more quickly, too), but I have no idea how difficult/expensive it is to make gunpowder.

[Blackhawk748]

How do the costs of firing bows, crossbows, and guns compare? I imagine that casting lead bullets en masse is somewhat easier than fletching arrows (and you shoot arrows more quickly, too), but I have no idea how difficult/expensive it is to make gunpowder.

It's not, it's just sulfur, saltpeter, and charcoal. These are reasonably easy to get and you can make a ton in one sitting, unlike arrows.

So gunpowder is easy

[KineticDiplomat]

One might conceivably argue that if the longbow could be mass manufactured without specific yew, and taught to a conscript in two weeks of drill, and anyone without any specific musculature could draw a warbow, and you somehow had a way to make arrows as financially and logistically easy as shot, it would be a solid contestant up through the Napoleonic era. It’s a lot of “ifs”, especially the training (2 weeks vs lifetime), but if you’re waiving that in your world...

On one hand, 10 arrows a minute is a lot more than 3 bullets, and in terms of accuracy you would be out-performing the Brown Bess.

On the other, a formation with a musket and a bayonet is almost certainly superior at shock, can protect itself from cavalry without having to prepare the battlefield, and has the important morale factor of being extremely loud and smoky. Plus you can advance with the weapon loaded.

If two formations met in your fictional world, presumably the musket formation would send out skirmishers to draw the brunt of the arrow storm, and try to entice the archers to break ranks in manner exposing them to cavalry or an attack column. When either the archers run low or come out to try to drive off the skirmishers, advance, fire a crushing volley and then charge in to make it bayonets against clubs and daggers.

[fusilier]

Is there any way longbows and crossbows have stayed relevant in warfare, say, around the early 17th century?

For example, if producing and learning how to use them were much easier?

One thing that I know has been discussed before, is that while the longbow can have a higher rate of fire, maintaining that rate of fire tends to exhaust the archers very quickly. In fairness, saying you can shoot a gun all day long probably isn't fair, because they would foul and need cleaning eventually, but it's not as physically exhausting.

[Lvl 2 Expert]

It's not, it's just sulfur, saltpeter, and charcoal. These are reasonably easy to get and you can make a ton in one sitting, unlike arrows.

So gunpowder is easy

A note to go with this one: gunpowder is easy on a country scale. Saltpeter in particular was usually harvested from manure through a process that takes months and can't be relocated very easily. Sulfur might need to be imported (although you can make sulfurless gunpowder in a pinch, smells less like hell as a bonus). For a roaming army always on the move or in a survival situation on a deserted island making gunpowder is quite hard, much harder than crafting arrows from sticks and feathers (which might actually become harder to do if you scale it up, you run out of prime suitable sticks and found feathers pretty soon and need to start getting your own manufacturing and logistics together). But if you have early modern logistics, sure, easy.




Another note, because we're now discussing quite a wide time range: keep in mind bayonets don't appear until the mid 17th century. And those are plug bayonets, they're mounted after you stop shooting, because they go in the barrel. Alternatives start being invented within a decade after the first use of these plug bayonets or so, but mass adoption of reliable socket bayonets (ring bayonets are a later thing I think, but the effect is roughly the same) doesn't occur until around 1700.

So for the original question about the early 17th century bayonets are not a concern.



What is a major concern is the development of ever more organized formations and tactics. Bow vs gun is one thing, bow vs late 30 years war salvo based pike and shot formations with integrated light guns (cannons), that's quite another thing. Bows might work for light cavalry or skirmishers at that point, in fact in settings like Japan around this time you see them used in addition to firearms. But as a replacement for firearms in the main infantry formations? Someone is going to need to think up some serious strategies to get them viable. They have a big gap to fill.

[Zombimode]

One might conceivably argue that if the longbow could be mass manufactured without specific yew, and taught to a conscript in two weeks of drill, and anyone without any specific musculature could draw a warbow, and you somehow had a way to make arrows as financially and logistically easy as shot, it would be a solid contestant up through the Napoleonic era. It’s a lot of “ifs”, especially the training (2 weeks vs lifetime), but if you’re waiving that in your world...

This, pretty much. People often forget that the main selling point of firearms were the cheap and easy production and ease-of-use all the while being "good enough" as a weapon. It allowed the qick creation of large armies that are strong enough to fight. Compared to the specialist nature of almost all medieval weaponry those are pretty big advantages.

There is probably a point in technological advancement when firearms outclass warbows as weapons (against "soft" targets), although I suspect this point lies somewhere in the 19th century rather than the 17th century.

[BlacKnight]

This, pretty much. People often forget that the main selling point of firearms were the cheap and easy production and ease-of-use all the while being "good enough" as a weapon. It allowed the qick creation of large armies that are strong enough to fight. Compared to the specialist nature of almost all medieval weaponry those are pretty big advantages.

There is probably a point in technological advancement when firearms outclass warbows as weapons (against "soft" targets), although I suspect this point lies somewhere in the 19th century rather than the 17th century.

Not really.
Early firearms were expensive and their main advantage was that they could pierce plate armor, which no other personal ranged weapon could.
Trained musketers were very accurate, probably more than trained archers.
There are 18th centuries manuals that states a musket had an effective range of 300m, if used by a soldier defending a fortress.
Of course mass formations in the open, under enemy fire, performed way worse, but I suspect the same was true for archers.

[Brother Oni]

There is probably a point in technological advancement when firearms outclass warbows as weapons (against "soft" targets), although I suspect this point lies somewhere in the 19th century rather than the 17th century.

While I agree from a technological point, maintaining a culture of archery to enable an available supply of archers is much, much harder. As the saying goes, "if you want a good archer, start with his grandfather".

The English even introduced several laws for mandatory archery practice (along with a minimum performance metric) and by the 17th Century English Civil War, archery as a primary battlefield discipline was still dead. I remember seeing a muster list from the time and it specifically stated that providing archers were not acceptable to discharge service obligations.

I can't remember the exact reference or numbers, but it was said that if you went on campaign with a force of archers, about 25% wouldn't be available as active combatants after the first week and a further 25% would be out after the first month - this is solely due to malnutrition and injury from using the bow, never mind other losses (desertion, disease, battle casualties, etc).

[Talakeal]

How feasible is repairing damage to armor? Does doing so make it weaker or stronger over time? How often should a piece (or just a component of a larger piece) be replaced?


Somewhat ranty context:

My players were complaining about adventuring expenses, and I brought up replacing damaged pieces of armor as an example. They said that was unrealistic, I responded that my leather coat can't be repaired and needs to be replaced every few years due to accumalated damage, and I image it would be so much worse for leather armor that regularly saw battle; to which my players replied that repairing armor actually makes it stronger, not weaker, so you would never replace an old piece. I said, if that was the case, why wouldn't they intentionally beat up the armor and then repair it a few times before ever leaving town, which was dismissed as the equivelent of "why don't they make the plane out the black box?"

[Willie the Duck]

Leather is actually something of a nightmare to 'repair' and that might have been one of the reasons that it wasn't used that much historically. However, the way to do it would be to patch it, which theoretically might make it a little stronger, but at the cost of greater weight and inflexibility. Of course once you go down that road you have to discuss what the 'leather armor' in your campaign world actually is (is it cuir bouilli? If so, is it a supplemental top layer over mail and padding and thus a medium armor? Is it a buff coat? Biker leathers?). Regardless, no repairing leather armor doesn't inherently make it stronger, it can by adding material, but that pretty much is building the plane out of the black box.

Large-plate metal armor could be repaired in the same way (applying a patch over a hole), with the same increase in weight if you want the thing to be stronger. I don't know how much that was actually historically done, compared to replacing individual components of the armor. Obviously (I think?) stuff like mail, scale, or the various small-piece metal plate armor mostly would just replace the damaged sections.

[Gnoman]

This, pretty much. People often forget that the main selling point of firearms were the cheap and easy production and ease-of-use all the while being "good enough" as a weapon. It allowed the qick creation of large armies that are strong enough to fight. Compared to the specialist nature of almost all medieval weaponry those are pretty big advantages.

There is probably a point in technological advancement when firearms outclass warbows as weapons (against "soft" targets), although I suspect this point lies somewhere in the 19th century rather than the 17th century.

Manufacturing firearms was not cheap or easy when they arrived on the scene. Taking a large chunk of metal and turning it into a tube was far more involved than shaping a bow - even when you factor in the need for specific wood or layering different materials.

Quite notably, there are many accounts of units throwing away bows and crossbows after looting guns from a defeated enemy - something that would be ludicrous if guns were cheap.


With the early handgonnes, there wasn't even as much of a "this is easier to use" factor. These early weapons were cumbersome, and keeping it leveled while operating a touch "lock" was quite difficult.

The virtue of gunpowder weapons in these early days was armor penetration and the massive morale effect of a volley. Seeing the enemy line erupt in smoke and flame is terrifying even when you're used to it.

[Brother Oni]

... to which my players replied that repairing armor actually makes it stronger, not weaker, so you would never replace an old piece.

That's a similar sort of argument I've seen for why homeopathy works.

It's a load of rubbish. Have your players never seen a weld fail or clothes fall apart due to poor stitching?

Consider a single piece breastplate. They're generally a uniform piece of hardened metal - after battle damage has been inflicted and the integrity has been compromised, how on earth would riveting new plates to cover the holes (thereby introducing additional stress points at the rivet points) create a stronger piece of armour? If placed on the outside, then the patches themselves introduce edges for weapons to catch on, making it less protective.

For mail, while you can replace the damaged links, there's probably a dozen other links that have been stressed but not broken from the penetrating blow, and are more likely to fail at a later point from metal fatigue or when struck again.

For a more extreme version, ceramic plates for body armour are intended to shatter when hit by a round, dispersing the energy harmlessly. If the players insist that repaired armour is stronger than unrepaired armour, give them a plate carrier with compromised plates that have been 'repaired' and offer to shoot them. :smallamused:

[Beleriphon]

Not really.
Early firearms were expensive and their main advantage was that they could pierce plate armor, which no other personal ranged weapon could.
Trained musketers were very accurate, probably more than trained archers.
There are 18th centuries manuals that states a musket had an effective range of 300m, if used by a soldier defending a fortress.
Of course mass formations in the open, under enemy fire, performed way worse, but I suspect the same was true for archers.

The idea that firearm balls could pierce plate armour as the reason it fell out uses is false. When firearms and plate were in use at the same time plate armour was heavy enough to provide some effective protection from balls. Horses however generally are not bullet resistant, and after a certain point equipping a large number of troops with firearms and pikes was more cost effective then equipping a dozen men with horses and heavy armour. Plus it takes less time to train the user, and you can defend a fort much easier with a bunch of guns than with cavalry.

Now if you mean armour like mail or anything other than fitted plate, then sure firearms would tear it to pieces. So soldiers stopped wearing because it was heavy, and didn't do anything for them. But, you have to remember musketeers still wore a metal cuirass well into the late 16th century, it wasn't just for show either.

It isn't until relatively modern time frames that firearms using shaped bullets would reliably punching through metal. A .303 cal round would punch a hole in plate armour and the man wearing it, but that's because it is 1) a modern rifle round and 2) uses a substantially more powerful propellant then gunpowder. A .70 cal ball is much larger than a .44 Magnum round, but Dirty Harry's weapon of choice has substantially more energy applied to the target than Jack Sparrow's.

[Kraynic]

My players were complaining about adventuring expenses, and I brought up replacing damaged pieces of armor as an example. They said that was unrealistic, I responded that my leather coat can't be repaired and needs to be replaced every few years due to accumalated damage, and I image it would be so much worse for leather armor that regularly saw battle; to which my players replied that repairing armor actually makes it stronger, not weaker, so you would never replace an old piece. I said, if that was the case, why wouldn't they intentionally beat up the armor and then repair it a few times before ever leaving town, which was dismissed as the equivelent of "why don't they make the plane out the black box?"

My reply is just for the leather part of this.

Any time you stitch on leather, you create a row of holes for the stitching. You know, like a line of perforations in paper to help you tear it. I know some years back I saw a series of articles in a leather working magazine by Dusty Johnson (I think that was the name) of Pleasant Valley Saddlery where he tested different ways of creating the holes (awls, slot punches, and drills), and then saw how easy it was to actually tear the leather along the line of stitching. Leather also has a "grain" or primary orientation of strands that can have an affect on how lines of stitching hold based on whether it is running with or across the grain.

Basically, for general use, this might not come up much. But for something that is under strain and being hit/cut, repairs may conceal weaknesses, but they are unlikely to make something stronger unless the initial creation was flawed in some way and the flaw was "fixed" with the repair.

[Max_Killjoy]

The question of whether early(ish) firearms were able to penetrate plate armor does not have a simple "yes" or "no" answer.

The problem comes from people doing "tests" with simple sheet steel, or replicates of "munitions plate", or similar, and then saying "wow that ball went right through it from 5 meters away", and declaring armor useless... and continuations of myths from sources ranging from English national propaganda ( "The English longbow was a can-opener!" ) to Hollywood showing all sorts of weapons going right through heavy plate like it was a shiny metal sundress.

Cheap mass-produced plate could be penetrated fairly reliably, especially at closer ranges.

Well-made plate armor was largely proof against those same firearms, even at fairly close range.

There was a huge difference in the protection offered based on the quality of the armor.

[Lemmy]

That's a similar sort of argument I've seen for why homeopathy works.

It's a load of rubbish. Have your players never seen a weld fail or clothes fall apart due to poor stitching? (..)
So... I'm a mechanical engineer and studied a bit of welding on my own for a while because of one specific job I had, but I'm not a welding specialist by any means, much less when it comes to armor.

But, welding can indeed make things stronger (my experience is with joints, specifically, but it should apply more or less generally as well). Among other factors, this is simply because you add more mass to the welded zone. However... Proper welding is difficult and requires quite a lo of skill (hats off to skilled professional welders, BTW), and poor welding can indeed create a number of structural problems. The main reason (proper) welding fails is because in general, the weld is located in areas of concentrated stress.

-

It has nothing to do with how homeopathy supposedly works (it doesn't. and even if it did, it'd probably be a matter of biological properties, rather than structural integrity).

As for the "why not make planes of black box material"... I'm guessing it's because it'd make airplanes too costly to produce and operate, and too heavy to fly... And likely not offer any significant protection.

If a hypothetical adamantine airplane falls 2000 miles into the ground but doesn't suffer a single scratch... The people inside it would still die because they just fell 2000 miles. The only difference is that they would end up as pink blobs on the floor and walls of the airplane, rather than as pink blobs and charred corpses on the surrounding area.

So what's the point? Unless airplanes fall with such regularity that recovering fallen ones is cheaper than just making new ones... And if so, I doubt they'd have many customers in the first place.

[Beleriphon]

As for the "why not make planes of black box material"... I'm guessing it's because it'd make airplanes too costly to produce and operate, and too heavy to fly... And likely not offer any significant protection.

I'm not sure anybody that suggests that has ever seen a FDR or CVR after a plane crash. They aren't in dirty but otherwise mint condition. Many of them fail to survive plane crashes, although that's usually due to heat from fuel fires damaging the guts.

At a practical level they survive on the basis that they're basically a fire safe with a few data ports and the safe is protecting recorders rather than your last will and testament or family photos. They're relatively small compared to the size of an airplane, and pretty sturdy; but they are positioned to be most likely to survive a crash by being in the tail section, given that most planes don't tend to go down tail first.

As for what they're made of black boxes are often made of titanium composites. So, the same stuff as a fighter jet. But a fighter jet hits the ground and breaks apart? What's with that? Well, one will note it does atomize, but rather breaks into chunks that tend to be larger than a CVR/FDR. So the black boxes survive because they're very, very sturdy, and also not that big so they can survive extreme forces easier.

Not that any of that has to do with patching plate amour or leather pants.


If a hypothetical adamantine airplane falls 2000 miles into the ground but doesn't suffer a single scratch... The people inside it would still die because they just fell 2000 miles. The only difference is that they would end up as pink blobs on the floor and walls of the airplane, rather than as pink blobs and charred corpses on the surrounding area.

So what's the point? Unless airplanes fall with such regularity that recovering fallen ones is cheaper than just making new ones... And if so, I doubt they'd have many customers in the first place.

I don't want to guess, but I'm going to assume some rather extreme G loads. More than enough to kill people even if a plane crash doesn't dismember the bodies.

[Clistenes]

You would think so, but they don't seem to have been used much that late.

On paper, as far as accuracy, range and rate of shot (I refuse to say "fire" when discussing bows) they should be able to compete with early firearms.

That said, most armies pretty much fielded all firearms by that point, so there must be a good reason.

Miyamoto Musashi compared bows and teppo (Japanese arquebusses and muskets) in his Book of the Five Rings.

He said bows were very effective at the beginning of battle when used in open plains and at a distance under 50 meters, since they would do a lot of damage very fast against poorly armoured infantry, but if the distance was greater than 50 meters the reduced accuracy and damage would make them ineffective despite their high rate of fire (while musket balls would still be relatively accurate and able to punch through armor even at a range of 90 meters, and they would still be deadly to unarmored opponents -if inaccurate -at 550 meters).

If the distance was too short, on the other hand, the enemy would charge at you.

So the problem of the bows was that their "sweet spot" was too narrow... troops spent very little time at their "less than 50 m. away, but not too close either" ideal range...

[fusilier]

The idea that firearm balls could pierce plate armour as the reason it fell out uses is false.

People have argued this point considerably. It seems to be true that plate armor peaked after the introduction of firearms. However, I think a fair look at history shows a complicated picture. There was a kind of arms race between firearms and armor. While the best plate armor of circa 1400 may have been able to stop a contemporary handgonne bullet, I doubt it would be able to stop a long range shot from a Spanish "double musket" of circa 1600. Likewise, a breastplate from 1600 may have been able to stop a Spanish "double musket" shot -- but the relative expense and weight of the armor had increased.

For every reference of armor stopping a bullet, you can find a reference for armor being pierced by bullets. There's been at least one documentary where they recreated late 16th century armor, but then tested it against only a moderate .75 caliber caliver, and not the heavy, armor-piercing, overcharged* muskets of the day. That's without going into technical details of armor manufacture, or economic issues.

I think firearms were definitely a factor in the decrease of armor. However, they didn't cause an "immediate" abandonment of armor, and the actual interaction and subsequent development is complicated.

*By modern standards.

[Lvl 2 Expert]

The idea that firearm balls could pierce plate armour as the reason it fell out uses is false. When firearms and plate were in use at the same time plate armour was heavy enough to provide some effective protection from balls.

musketeers still wore a metal cuirass well into the late 16th century, it wasn't just for show either.

Armor did get much thicker and heavier around this time though, which is one of the main reasons why musketeers often only wore a cuirass or even just the breastplate and a helmet, even if they could afford more. Their armor was heavy. (I think a cuirass gradually increased in weight from around 15kg to 25kg around this time, but that's a remembered factoid.) And even then in some army configurations that was only the front line of musketeers, with the rest wearing even less. Even heavy cavalry armor shaved off any bits they didn't need quite as much, like the back of the legs. There is a relatively simple formula for the impact depth (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impact_depth) of high speed projectiles, which suggests that at least at relatively close range a musket ball, while not nearly as effective as a more modern bullet shape (at modern bullet speeds), should be able to penetrate roughly its own diameter in steel plating. (And yes, this formula means that at some point adding extra speed to a projectile is not going to increase penetration depth, just the amount of damage done to the penetrated layer of armor. This holds true even for giant asteroids that produce very wide but relatively shallow craters.) Arrows/arrowheads, while their shape is theoretically more suited to piercing armor, lack the speed (and the density, but that doesn't matter unless you increase the speed first) to do the same kind of damage.

I've also seen people around these forums suggest that the increase in thickness was mainly because the quality of armor produced decreased with the switch from handcrafted plate armor for only the super rich to a more industrial method of production, which would mean thinner plate from around 1400 would have been just as (in)effective versus bullets as thicker 1600's plating. I personally don't buy that as a full explanation, but I don't know enough about the subject to determine how much of it is true.

[Vinyadan]

I think that the thing with fire weapons was that they were crossbows on steroids. Fairly difficult to make, sure, but they didn't need to rely much on skill or physical fitness. Any city could have a militia armed with them, if it was willing to pay.

Not only this, but horsemen could now shoot a couple guns while riding, extending their reach with minimal effort. Since they already were using an expensive animal, they probably didn't have much of a problem with buying expensive weapons.

And you also have hunters who can convert to guns. More buyers, and an incentive to development! By 1650, guns had overtaken crossbows as hunting weapons. They had become more precise and flexible. Around this time, crossbow-makers often also built arquebuses.

There also probably was an advantage in shape and handling. A long, thin barrel looks better to me for fortifications than a crossbow or a bow, and not having a bow on point probably made handling easier than a crossbow.

Add to this the ease of transport when it came to ammunition. Sure, it takes some effort to make sure everything stays dry and clean, but how many arrows can an archer or a crossbowman carry?

And I think that the transition from artisan to industry also is an important factor. With a bow, you need to pick the right tree, so a living being that is susceptible to many external factors. I wonder if bows ever were mass-produced. With guns, instead, the defining feature is the quality of the metal. You can transport metal in ingots, you can refine it. You can centralise production, which is interesting for the nascent nation-states, but also for entrepreneurs. To make an example, in 1526 Beretta sold 185 arquebus barrels to Venice for 296 ducats.

And the wounds were ugly. This is something that I have seen in old descriptions, people were afraid of the way the ball would damage them, compared to an arrow.

Parallel to this there was the development of artillery, which completely changed how sieges happened (from a matter of months, to one of weeks, or even days and hours), and I assume that developments in this field also trickled down into small arms (also, if you are already producing gunpowder for artillery, you likely will also produce it for arquebuses).

[eru001]

I think that the thing with fire weapons was that they were crossbows on steroids. Fairly difficult to make, sure, but they didn't need to rely much on skill or physical fitness. Any city could have a militia armed with them, if it was willing to pay.

actually one of the reasons they became popular was that the earlier firearms were very easy to make compared to other ranged weapons.

A crossbow is a fairly complicated mechanical device, by the standards of the day, and required a skilled crossbowyer to manufacture.

By comparison, a handgonne was a fairly simple iron tube with no moving parts and could be made by most blacksmiths. This was a major factor in it's widespread use in peasant revolts and other uprisings. For a great example of this, look into the Hussite Revolt.

[Brother Oni]

But, welding can indeed make things stronger (my experience is with joints, specifically, but it should apply more or less generally as well). Among other factors, this is simply because you add more mass to the welded zone. However... Proper welding is difficult and requires quite a lo of skill (hats off to skilled professional welders, BTW), and poor welding can indeed create a number of structural problems. The main reason (proper) welding fails is because in general, the weld is located in areas of concentrated stress.

I didn't mention welding as in the context of a standard D&D setting, that technique isn't available unless shenanigans has brought 19th + Century metallurgy knowledge and modern day forging techniques to an late Medieval age society.

Of course you can always use magic, but that's outside the scope of this thread (and not cheap either!).

[Lemmy]

I didn't mention welding as in the context of a standard D&D setting, that technique isn't available unless shenanigans has brought 19th + Century metallurgy knowledge and modern day forging techniques to an late Medieval age society.

Of course you can always use magic, but that's outside the scope of this thread (and not cheap either!).
I wasn't talking about D&D either. I was just correcting what I saw as a somewhat common misconception (that welding makes things weaker). I wasn't sure if you meant medieval welding, specifically, since the other examples aren't medieval-specific (homeopathy, stitching, airplanes and black boxes).

I honestly have no idea what medieval welding (or whatever comes closest) looks like or what are its effects on the welded material.

[Beleriphon]

I wasn't talking about D&D either. I was just correcting what I saw as a somewhat common misconception (that welding makes things weaker). I wasn't sure if you meant medieval welding, specifically, since the other examples aren't medieval-specific (homeopathy, stitching, airplanes and black boxes).

I honestly have no idea what medieval welding (or whatever comes closest) looks like or what are its effects on the welded material.

I'd imagine most medieval welds, if we can call them that, are forge welds. Which generally involves fusing two pieces of metal to make a new whole item item, like an axe head which probably has a hardened steel edge and mild steel or even iron body. If that's the kind of weld we're talking about yes, welding does in point of fact make an item stronger than it was before hand. However, it isn't like you can forge weld a patch onto a breastplate.

[Grim Portent]

On the topic of firearms vs crossbows, what I found when I was looking into it a few months back was that muskets were the gun that heralded a big shift in weapons and armour use, or at least coincided with the changes being brought on by shifts in manufacturing, logistics and military doctrine in the 1500s/1600s.

Arquebus (arquebi?) and late crossbows both had effective armour penetration at something like 200 metres* and were lethal up to 400 metres or so, though the arquebus could fire faster (late crossbows were very slow in exchange for their power) and had a higher maximum range.

The musket was able to pierce armour at something closer to 400 metres, which is a substantial improvement and one crossbows couldn't keep up with. As muskets became more common the priorities involved in armour design changed towards even thicker breastplates and helmets and less or even no armour elsewhere because the chest was the most vital area to protect from gunshots. Cavalry went from wearing plate to wearing the 3/4ths armour used by Men-at-Arms, as well as ditching their horse armour, infantry also changing the nature of their armour as the need to protect from arrow storms went away and the need to survive being shot in the chest or head from the front increased, and also to compensate for the musket being quite heavy.

I'm not super well versed in the history of the period, and obviously there were more factors involved than just 'musket beats crossbow', but I do feel the musket was the gun that defines the transition point where guns became the more effective weapon, at least to my casual analysis.


*Not that they would reliably penetrate armour at these ranges as I understood it, just that they were capable of penetrating plate up to that distance.

[jjordan]

How feasible is repairing damage to armor? Does doing so make it weaker or stronger over time? How often should a piece (or just a component of a larger piece) be replaced?


Somewhat ranty context:

My players were complaining about adventuring expenses, and I brought up replacing damaged pieces of armor as an example. They said that was unrealistic, I responded that my leather coat can't be repaired and needs to be replaced every few years due to accumalated damage, and I image it would be so much worse for leather armor that regularly saw battle; to which my players replied that repairing armor actually makes it stronger, not weaker, so you would never replace an old piece. I said, if that was the case, why wouldn't they intentionally beat up the armor and then repair it a few times before ever leaving town, which was dismissed as the equivelent of "why don't they make the plane out the black box?"Talk to the SCA. Armour needs constant maintenance and repair. Most regular participants carry kits with them to effect critical repairs. Leather straps, in particular, are constantly breaking and requiring replacement. Rivets blow out and have to be replaced (on articulated armor and straps). Leather has to be dried and oiled or it will develop molds that eat the leather and destroy it. Repairs are repairs and do not make the armor better. Upgrades and improvements might make the armor better, but those aren't repairs.

Household accounts indicate that armor, with some exceptions (jousting/tournament rigs), was likely ablative in nature. You didn't want to be walking around in a ton of metal so you got the lightest armor you could get away with and expected it to save your life in one or two battles (or pitched skirmishes) before it required repair/replacement of substantial portions. And you generally wouldn't wear the same armor for years, you'd get your armor replaced every few campaigns (in part because it wasn't generally maintained when not in use).

Personally, I think armor should degrade over time and have created mechanics to model this. But they're tedious book-keeping and not really effective because the d20 range doesn't allow for a lot of shading. A drop of 1 in AC is pretty big.

[Clistenes]

The idea that firearm balls could pierce plate armour as the reason it fell out uses is false. When firearms and plate were in use at the same time plate armour was heavy enough to provide some effective protection from balls. Horses however generally are not bullet resistant, and after a certain point equipping a large number of troops with firearms and pikes was more cost effective then equipping a dozen men with horses and heavy armour. Plus it takes less time to train the user, and you can defend a fort much easier with a bunch of guns than with cavalry.

Now if you mean armour like mail or anything other than fitted plate, then sure firearms would tear it to pieces. So soldiers stopped wearing because it was heavy, and didn't do anything for them. But, you have to remember musketeers still wore a metal cuirass well into the late 16th century, it wasn't just for show either.

It isn't until relatively modern time frames that firearms using shaped bullets would reliably punching through metal. A .303 cal round would punch a hole in plate armour and the man wearing it, but that's because it is 1) a modern rifle round and 2) uses a substantially more powerful propellant then gunpowder. A .70 cal ball is much larger than a .44 Magnum round, but Dirty Harry's weapon of choice has substantially more energy applied to the target than Jack Sparrow's.

Arquebusses were considered to have better armor-piercing properties than crossbows, and crossbows better than bows. Spanish artisans tested armor shooting arrows, bolts and bullets against them. If they stopped the arrow, they were considered "half-proof", if they stopped the bolt, they were considered "full-proof", and is they stopped a bullet, they were considered "bullet proof".

There was some debate about arquebusses having better or worse anti-armor properties than lances, but both were considered better than bows and crossbows.

It was possible to make armor proof against arquebuss and pistol bullets, but not against musket balls. And bullet proof full plate was considered too heavy, so they equipped soldiers with just cuirasses and morrions. Some cavalry kept using full plate, but they didn't expect it to protect them against bullets (save maybe the cuirass and the helmet), only against melee weapons.

[Lvl 2 Expert]

I'm not super well versed in the history of the period, and obviously there were more factors involved than just 'musket beats crossbow', but I do feel the musket was the gun that defines the transition point where guns became the more effective weapon, at least to my casual analysis.

Probably, yes. The musket around 1600 seems to represent some measure of "this is how much firepower you need". Arquebuses around 1600 are sometimes seen as a bit of a boys weapon in military circles, "you're strong enough now to upgrade to a musket and go up a pay grade". They're absolutely lethal weapons, but they're not seen as packing quite the punch you want when you pick out firearms, although they're very useful for more mobile troops and skirmisher units. Muskets at this time are pretty cumbersome weapons, coming with a unipod to rest the weapon on while firing it. As weapons technology quickly improves not only do muskets become lighter and less unwieldy, apparently without losing their critical power, but lots of smaller versions start popping up and becoming popular for military use. Fusils, carbines, rohrs etc become popular weapons not just for infantry use but for cavalry as well. I figure this probably means that these weapons around 1650 are not only generally better than their predecessors from half a century earlier, they might actually come close in power to a 1600 musket. Either that or the idea of how much firepower you need changed, possibly because of an increased rate of fire and a better understanding of how to use firearms effectively. But the early musket is the gun that got them there.

(I'm not too up to date on the centuries before that, when firearms actually first started playing a military role, but based on what I know about the 1600's I would suspect it's true.)

[VonKaiserstein]

Another factor to consider in the effectiveness of patching armor, is that except for breastplates and helmets, broken armor is probably just going to be discarded. A patch is going to impair the articulation of any joints it is placed on.

On the breastplate proper, most breastplates from the 16th century feature very smooth lines, and many, especially Italian style ones, have sides that slope away. Putting a patch on smooth, sloped armor is not going to be effective at deflecting a bullet which is far more likely than a breastplate actually stopping a shot. You can see helmets trending in this direction as well- morians are about as sloped as it's possible to get a helmet, as are barbutes. It's a far cry from the Vendels or Crusader great helmets.

[fusilier]

Probably, yes. The musket around 1600 seems to represent some measure of "this is how much firepower you need". Arquebuses around 1600 are sometimes seen as a bit of a boys weapon in military circles, "you're strong enough now to upgrade to a musket and go up a pay grade". They're absolutely lethal weapons, but they're not seen as packing quite the punch you want when you pick out firearms, although they're very useful for more mobile troops and skirmisher units. Muskets at this time are pretty cumbersome weapons, coming with a unipod to rest the weapon on while firing it. As weapons technology quickly improves not only do muskets become lighter and less unwieldy, apparently without losing their critical power, but lots of smaller versions start popping up and becoming popular for military use. Fusils, carbines, rohrs etc become popular weapons not just for infantry use but for cavalry as well. I figure this probably means that these weapons around 1650 are not only generally better than their predecessors from half a century earlier, they might actually come close in power to a 1600 musket. Either that or the idea of how much firepower you need changed, possibly because of an increased rate of fire and a better understanding of how to use firearms effectively. But the early musket is the gun that got them there.

(I'm not too up to date on the centuries before that, when firearms actually first started playing a military role, but based on what I know about the 1600's I would suspect it's true.)

Arquebuses, and later calivers, were the preferred weapons for skirmishers (as you noted). The general impression that I have is that those weapons were considered to be able to pierce armor, but they needed to be closer than a musket.

I would not assume that lighter weapons of the mid 17th century were equalling or approaching the power of heavy muskets a half century earlier. The power of most firearms can be roughly estimated from a few factors. Length and caliber of the barrel, and the amount of propellant used. (Shape and material of the projectile matter too, but for this time period that was pretty consistent)

As even muskets of the mid-1600s were becoming smaller and lighter (some were even abandoning the rest), I suspect that firearms had finally "won" the competition against armor. Armor was both increasingly rare and of poorer quality, so the need for something as powerful as the heavy muskets from the end of the 16th century was diminishing. That's my theory.

[Grim Portent]

Just realised that the rise of the flintlock mechanism was definitely a big contributor to firearms becoming more widely used which I don't think has come up.

The original handgonnes were basically unusable in large amounts due to how awkward it was to set them up and fire them.

Matchlocks were extremely expensive to operate over time, though I could never find contemporary prices for the actual match it was generally described as a significant expense.

Wheellocks weren't as expensive to use but were far more prone to mechanical failure and were very expensive to purchase in the first place and the mechanism wound up mostly on pistols where matchlock mechanisms would have been inappropriate.

Flintlocks were the first (relatively) cheap to make, cheap to use, reliable and mass producible variant of firearms.

[fusilier]

Just realised that the rise of the flintlock mechanism was definitely a big contributor to firearms becoming more widely used which I don't think has come up.

The original handgonnes were basically unusable in large amounts due to how awkward it was to set them up and fire them.

Matchlocks were extremely expensive to operate over time, though I could never find contemporary prices for the actual match it was generally described as a significant expense.

Wheellocks weren't as expensive to use but were far more prone to mechanical failure and were very expensive to purchase in the first place and the mechanism wound up mostly on pistols where matchlock mechanisms would have been inappropriate.

Flintlocks were the first (relatively) cheap to make, cheap to use, reliable and mass producible variant of firearms.

The earliest weapons which could be considered flintlocks, were developed in the mid-to-late 1500s (the "true flintlock", was developed in the early 17th century). It wasn't until around 1700 that European armies finally gave up on matchlocks.

Matchlocks were terribly cheap. Most versions used a simple sear-spring. If you can make gunpowder, you can make matchcord -- out of almost anything. It was necessary to acquire match cord, and there are stories of armies requisitioning all the bed ropes in a town to make match cord. The weapon itself didn't require fine tuning and precision -- you can fiddle with how the match is held in the jaws to get it to line up correctly (I've used one). It doesn't matter too much if the sear spring is a little weak, or a little strong, there's a lot of tolerance there. When rushed, or if something has broken, you can manually fire it like an old fashioned handgonne.

Wheellocks were very expensive, they required a lot of precision, linkages, and good springs. A piece of pyrite (it has to be right kind) is necessary to fire them too. If poor quality steels are used they will fail frequently.

Flintlocks are cheaper than wheellocks, but still more complicated than a matchlock. Various springs have to tempered to give the right amount of force. Alignment between moving parts must be good, and the frizzen has to be hardened in a particular way to give good sparks (also made out of the right material). I think refining the flintlock to the point where it was consistently reliable took some time, then it had to be made cheaply to compete with a matchlock.

The matchcord had lots of draw backs. It has to be lit, it must be kept lit, it can give away a position at night, and is a significant fire hazard around gunpowder (which it was around all the time). While it could be made from almost anything, certain materials were better than others.

--EDIT-- I was rushed when writing this: to clarify, many European armies were still equipping their infantry with matchlocks as late as 1700 (and pikemen lasted about that long too). Generally speaking, the matchlocks were replaced gradually, and not all at once, mounted troops were the first to get "firelocks" (wheellocks, flintlocks), then specialist infantry and guards for the gunpowder, etc.

[DrewID]

--EDIT-- I was rushed when writing this: to clarify, many European armies were still equipping their infantry with matchlocks as late as 1700 (and pikemen lasted about that long too). Generally speaking, the matchlocks were replaced gradually, and not all at once, mounted troops were the first to get "firelocks" (wheellocks, flintlocks), then specialist infantry and guards for the gunpowder, etc.

Especially since "guarding the army's supply of gunpowder" and "walking about carrying a lit match" are NOT two great tastes that go great together.

DrewID

[Gnoman]

--EDIT-- I was rushed when writing this: to clarify, many European armies were still equipping their infantry with matchlocks as late as 1700 (and pikemen lasted about that long too). Generally speaking, the matchlocks were replaced gradually, and not all at once, mounted troops were the first to get "firelocks" (wheellocks, flintlocks), then specialist infantry and guards for the gunpowder, etc.

Matchlocks continued in use for another century in Japan and China, as I understand it. Among all the other reasons for keeping it around, you can't convert matchlock to flintlock quickly and easily (unlike the later conversion from flintlock to caplock), and they were perfectly serviceable weapons.

[Lvl 2 Expert]

And early flintlocks sometimes even still had a matchlock mechanism as well, as a backup. Because it worked, and they knew it did.

They were less handy when it was raining, but even then with a good rain cover most of the troops could usually keep their match lit.

Keeping a good supply of match going was a hassle though. Apparently a single sentry pulling duty every night could burn through a mile of match per year. So for a single battle with an army ten thousand strong and some backup match for everyone in case the thing runs long (for a good head on engagement 8 hours of battle wasn't out of the norm, even if most of that is manoeuvring you still want to be able to fire at any time, because there's always cavalry around looking for weaknesses) you'd need around 60 miles of the stuff or so.

[fusilier]

Matchlocks continued in use for another century in Japan and China, as I understand it. Among all the other reasons for keeping it around, you can't convert matchlock to flintlock quickly and easily (unlike the later conversion from flintlock to caplock), and they were perfectly serviceable weapons.

At least -- I think they were pretty common in the region sometime into the middle of the 19th-century. I knew a guy who was trained in China during WW2 and they drilled with matchlocks -- my understanding is they just used them as drill rifles, but that's how prevalent they were at that late of a date.

[Pauly]

At least -- I think they were pretty common in the region sometime into the middle of the 19th-century. I knew a guy who was trained in China during WW2 and they drilled with matchlocks -- my understanding is they just used them as drill rifles, but that's how prevalent they were at that late of a date.

Apparently in the Sergey Bondarchuk’s “War and Peace” they went into the armories to get old rifles for the extras. They ended up being able to equip all of the ones close to the camera with M1808s and Brown Besses.

[Mike_G]

Arquebus (arquebi?) and late crossbows both had effective armour penetration at something like 200 metres* and were lethal up to 400 metres or so, though the arquebus could fire faster (late crossbows were very slow in exchange for their power) and had a higher maximum range.

The musket was able to pierce armour at something closer to 400 metres, which is a substantial improvement and one crossbows couldn't keep up with.


I'm going to have to express a bit of skepticism on these ranges.

400 meters is a very long shot. It's a long shot for a modern rifle without a magnified optic. The US Army doesn't even train to shoot that far out.

I learned to shoot in the Marine Corps, where marksmanship is pretty much a religion, and we only qualified out to 500 yards. It's doable, but it's not easy, even with the (iron sighted) M16A2, which I am pretty sure would be far more accurate than a 15th century musket. The tolerances are more precise, the rifling is more precise, the ammunition is more consistent, and there's no way on God's green earth that a big honking slow soft lead round ball will have anywhere near the ballistic efficiency of a small, fast, metal jacketed spitzer bullet.

Most practical musketry fire was held until close range to get the most out of your volley. If a weapon is perfectly good at 100 meters, it's fine as a military arm up through the mid nineteenth century. Anybody who could take their musket and pick off a man at 400 yards is such an edge case that there's no way a military would choose weapons based on that guy. That would be like outfitting your infantry with the same shoes that Usain Bolt uses to get some extra marching speed.

And I'm not very convinced that even if you did, by some stroke of luck, hit a guy at those ranges, that it really would penetrate armor. A big, soft, round projectile loses energy pretty fast. I'm going to need to see a decent test to believe that it could still pierce a breastplate at that point.

[Max_Killjoy]

I'm going to have to express a bit of skepticism on these ranges.

400 meters is a very long shot. It's a long shot for a modern rifle without a magnified optic. The US Army doesn't even train to shoot that far out.

I learned to shoot in the Marine Corps, where marksmanship is pretty much a religion, and we only qualified out to 500 yards. It's doable, but it's not easy, even with the (iron sighted) M16A2, which I am pretty sure would be far more accurate than a 15th century musket. The tolerances are more precise, the rifling is more precise, the ammunition is more consistent, and there's no way on God's green earth that a big honking slow soft lead round ball will have anywhere near the ballistic efficiency of a small, fast, metal jacketed spitzer bullet.

Most practical musketry fire was held until close range to get the most out of your volley. If a weapon is perfectly good at 100 meters, it's fine as a military arm up through the mid nineteenth century. Anybody who could take their musket and pick off a man at 400 yards is such an edge case that there's no way a military would choose weapons based on that guy. That would be like outfitting your infantry with the same shoes that Usain Bolt uses to get some extra marching speed.

And I'm not very convinced that even if you did, by some stroke of luck, hit a guy at those ranges, that it really would penetrate armor. A big, soft, round projectile loses energy pretty fast. I'm going to need to see a decent test to believe that it could still pierce a breastplate at that point.

My thoughts on this...

There are various world record claims for bow shots between 300 and 400 meters, roughly. But, those are flight arrows and soft targets, and just getting it to stick counts.

A mass of archers firing at a mass formation of soldiers (even with just helmet and shield for armor) at that range might wound a few through raw odds of hitting just the right spots, and maybe "cause a morale check", but I highly doubt they'd score any kills, let alone enough to matter.

A single archer hitting a single living target at that range and causing a significant or lethal wound... that strikes me more as dumb luck than something you'd ever want to count on.

[Blackhawk748]

I'm going to have to express a bit of skepticism on these ranges.

400 meters is a very long shot. It's a long shot for a modern rifle without a magnified optic. The US Army doesn't even train to shoot that far out.

I learned to shoot in the Marine Corps, where marksmanship is pretty much a religion, and we only qualified out to 500 yards. It's doable, but it's not easy, even with the (iron sighted) M16A2, which I am pretty sure would be far more accurate than a 15th century musket. The tolerances are more precise, the rifling is more precise, the ammunition is more consistent, and there's no way on God's green earth that a big honking slow soft lead round ball will have anywhere near the ballistic efficiency of a small, fast, metal jacketed spitzer bullet.

Most practical musketry fire was held until close range to get the most out of your volley. If a weapon is perfectly good at 100 meters, it's fine as a military arm up through the mid nineteenth century. Anybody who could take their musket and pick off a man at 400 yards is such an edge case that there's no way a military would choose weapons based on that guy. That would be like outfitting your infantry with the same shoes that Usain Bolt uses to get some extra marching speed.

And I'm not very convinced that even if you did, by some stroke of luck, hit a guy at those ranges, that it really would penetrate armor. A big, soft, round projectile loses energy pretty fast. I'm going to need to see a decent test to believe that it could still pierce a breastplate at that point.

I mean, its doable. One of the World Record long-distance kills is from a Blackpowder Rifle in the US Civil War. If memory serves it was like 1000 yards. Yes he had an optic, but it was a 1860s optic so like a...x3 or 4 zoom maybe?

Basically, the gun can do it, its a matter of if the shooter can. Now, would it go through armor? Probably not. Would it leave a nice big honking dent? Maybe. Closer ranges it definitely would and I can say that having a dent in an important spot would totally suck and cause not only discomfort but possible issues moving.

Edit: 1390 yards (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longest_recorded_sniper_kills#Confirmed_kills_1,25 0_m_(1,367_yd)_or_greater). The shooter is ranked 19th out of 20. Also a .50-90 Sharps is on that list, much higher than I'd think. It was 1874 so Im not sure if that was Blackpowder or smokeless at that point

[Vinyadan]

I'm going to have to express a bit of skepticism on these ranges.

400 meters is a very long shot. It's a long shot for a modern rifle without a magnified optic. The US Army doesn't even train to shoot that far out.

I learned to shoot in the Marine Corps, where marksmanship is pretty much a religion, and we only qualified out to 500 yards. It's doable, but it's not easy, even with the (iron sighted) M16A2, which I am pretty sure would be far more accurate than a 15th century musket. The tolerances are more precise, the rifling is more precise, the ammunition is more consistent, and there's no way on God's green earth that a big honking slow soft lead round ball will have anywhere near the ballistic efficiency of a small, fast, metal jacketed spitzer bullet.

Most practical musketry fire was held until close range to get the most out of your volley. If a weapon is perfectly good at 100 meters, it's fine as a military arm up through the mid nineteenth century. Anybody who could take their musket and pick off a man at 400 yards is such an edge case that there's no way a military would choose weapons based on that guy. That would be like outfitting your infantry with the same shoes that Usain Bolt uses to get some extra marching speed.

And I'm not very convinced that even if you did, by some stroke of luck, hit a guy at those ranges, that it really would penetrate armor. A big, soft, round projectile loses energy pretty fast. I'm going to need to see a decent test to believe that it could still pierce a breastplate at that point.

For what I understand, the M16 is limited by its own design to operate at those ranges, however. It uses an intermediate cartridge, that was introduced exactly because it was impossible to aim too far without specialised optics, so there was no sense in having heavier bullets.

So there are two factors I can think of. One is that certain arquebuses may have been made with the intent of striking hard from far away. The other one is that terminology is a problem, because language is pretty fluid and researchers may not check what the familiar word actually meant in a certain text.

To make an example, Cellini describes one of his guns as a "gerefalco", a large arquebus with a calibre of 2 cm, which he compares in length to a half culverin. He describes a long shot -- although he doesn't really say how long -- and explains that he gave an arc to the trajectory. He almost hits his target; the ball actually hits the man's sword, and he dies from the shrapnel.

Such a weapon is pretty close to a cannon, but it's still called an arquebus in some dictionaries I could find. So such oversized, overcharged versions meant for the long range could really have had that sort of effect. However, it's still longer than two meters, probably close to or even over 3 m. And Cellini was a "bonbardieri", so an artillery man, and he often describes handling falconets and other small artillery weapons.

This is a problem in general with classification, I guess, because there are "moschetti" (muskets) which were actually naval artillery weapons with a calibre of 4.5 cm used by XVI century Venice.

At the same time, we know that arquebus balls didn't always perforate armour, or even the skin. Field doctors in Italy divided wounds in three different kinds (perforated body with the ball having passed through and left from the other side, perforated body with the ball left inside, no perforation). Even without penetration, the hit could still be bad enough to wound in what I assume was a manner similar to ancient slings.

[rrgg]

I'm going to have to express a bit of skepticism on these ranges.

400 meters is a very long shot. It's a long shot for a modern rifle without a magnified optic. The US Army doesn't even train to shoot that far out.

I learned to shoot in the Marine Corps, where marksmanship is pretty much a religion, and we only qualified out to 500 yards. It's doable, but it's not easy, even with the (iron sighted) M16A2, which I am pretty sure would be far more accurate than a 15th century musket. The tolerances are more precise, the rifling is more precise, the ammunition is more consistent, and there's no way on God's green earth that a big honking slow soft lead round ball will have anywhere near the ballistic efficiency of a small, fast, metal jacketed spitzer bullet.

Most practical musketry fire was held until close range to get the most out of your volley. If a weapon is perfectly good at 100 meters, it's fine as a military arm up through the mid nineteenth century. Anybody who could take their musket and pick off a man at 400 yards is such an edge case that there's no way a military would choose weapons based on that guy. That would be like outfitting your infantry with the same shoes that Usain Bolt uses to get some extra marching speed.

And I'm not very convinced that even if you did, by some stroke of luck, hit a guy at those ranges, that it really would penetrate armor. A big, soft, round projectile loses energy pretty fast. I'm going to need to see a decent test to believe that it could still pierce a breastplate at that point.

Keep in mind that this is specifically in reference to the heavy 16th century muskets that fired a ~2 oz. bullet. Humphrey Barwick claimed that a musket was dangerous to "common" armors at 400 yards, armors "of proof" at 200 yards, and unarmored men at 600 yards. The armor penetration might be stretching it a little bit but apart from that it seems to fit given that he's talking just about the ability of the bullet to deal damage at those distances, not the ability to hit single individuals.

From what I've read the way "far shooting" was used was that you wouldn't be delivering whole volleys at that distance, rather a captain would have a couple files of hand-picked veterans or sharpshooters, etc. to step forward into a thin skirmish line with muskets and start calmly firing at a large body of enemy pikemen or cavalry at up to 400-600 yards away. The main purpose of this was just to harrass the enemy, to unnerve them, force them to move, attack prematurely, etc. however if the enemy formation did opt to remain completely still out in the open, say for hours at a time, they would eventually start to take significant casualties. According to Barnabe Rich from his experience in the low countries new captains would quickly learn not to leave their men or horses standing out in the open against musket fire even at 480-600 yards for very long without moving them into cover or screening them with skirmishers of their own.

Essentially expert marksmen with muskets could be effective against large formations at a distance under perfect, firing-range conditions, but against a moving target, targets that are spread out/in cover, or especially against enemies who are actually shooting back and posing an imminent danger, even among the best-trained shooters accuracy would just sort of quickly go down the toilet.

[KineticDiplomat]

I have to agree with Mike G here. Every now and again someone will go run a Picatinny test on musket or blackpowder rifle, clamping it in place with a bench and adjusting it to a perfect angle for a given range, and find out it can hit targets at far, far beyond the historical record. They will typically conclude "aha, they must have shot farther than we thought" or "it was just dumb leaders who didn't realize you could shoot that far."

They almost inevitability look stupefied when they hear that soldiers who shoot reasonably frequently, using easy to handle weapons with very flat trajectories and low recoil, smokeless powder with consistently manufactured rounds, often with a combat optic, firing from a prone position on a range, are far from guaranteed to hit a man sized target at 300 meters. And that many support troops, who despite being undertrained by modern standards, still fire far more practice rounds than a redcoat or civil war draftee, can struggle to consistently hit beyond 150 meters or so.

The next step is they blame modern weapon design, usually on the idea "well, the US/Russians/Whoever designed them to fight at under two hundred meters and optimized for that." Which, while true, ignores the actual ballistics. Which is to say the comparatively small rounds of modern assault rifles do tend to have a substantially degraded flight after six hundred meters or so (whereas you can expect a modern hunting caliber to reliably go out much further), but that within those six hundred meters they have trajectories that are very easy to shoot. Because no one wants to mess with working on range holds and bullet drop mechanics in a firefight; they want shooting to be "get ight picture, squeeze trigger, the same way at 100 meters as it is at 300". Compared to the NATO 5.56 or RU 7.62x39, blackpowder weapons look like you're lobbing a catapult.

The final argument usually goes: "but formations were BIG targets", which is true. But most people don't miss left-right. They miss under-over. A problem which is definitely exacerbated by fat slow bullets on loping trajectories. And formations are still man height, though they do have a larger hazard area for near overshoots can create a beaten zone which hits rear ranks.

[AdAstra]

I have to agree with Mike G here. Every now and again someone will go run a Picatinny test on musket or blackpowder rifle, clamping it in place with a bench and adjusting it to a perfect angle for a given range, and find out it can hit targets at far, far beyond the historical record. They will typically conclude "aha, they must have shot farther than we thought" or "it was just dumb leaders who didn't realize you could shoot that far."

They almost inevitability look stupefied when they hear that soldiers who shoot reasonably frequently, using easy to handle weapons with very flat trajectories and low recoil, smokeless powder with consistently manufactured rounds, often with a combat optic, firing from a prone position on a range, are far from guaranteed to hit a man sized target at 300 meters. And that many support troops, who despite being undertrained by modern standards, still fire far more practice rounds than a redcoat or civil war draftee, can struggle to consistently hit beyond 150 meters or so.

The next step is they blame modern weapon design, usually on the idea "well, the US/Russians/Whoever designed them to fight at under two hundred meters and optimized for that." Which, while true, ignores the actual ballistics. Which is to say the comparatively small rounds of modern assault rifles do tend to have a substantially degraded flight after six hundred meters or so (whereas you can expect a modern hunting caliber to reliably go out much further), but that within those six hundred meters they have trajectories that are very easy to shoot. Because no one wants to mess with working on range holds and bullet drop mechanics in a firefight; they want shooting to be "get ight picture, squeeze trigger, the same way at 100 meters as it is at 300". Compared to the NATO 5.56 or RU 7.62x39, blackpowder weapons look like you're lobbing a catapult.

The final argument usually goes: "but formations were BIG targets", which is true. But most people don't miss left-right. They miss under-over. A problem which is definitely exacerbated by fat slow bullets on loping trajectories. And formations are still man height, though they do have a larger hazard area for near overshoots can create a beaten zone which hits rear ranks.

Yup, getting an accurate range is tough when you're standing up, aiming a heavy gun with very crude sights, and have a significant delay between when you pull the trigger and when the bullet comes out the other end. And of course when you miss you can't just try again immediately afterward, and adjust your aim appropriately, you've gotta reload the gun, and the next shot will be made harder by exertion and the cloud of smoke your first volley made, not even mentioning the bullets coming in your direction. Also the number of rounds allotted for training purposes would be pretty heavily limited if conflict was not imminent.

Even today, you're shooting at fleeting or moving targets, sometimes just muzzle flashes. Exposing yourself for too long puts you at significant risk, making it tricky to align your sights or get a clear bead on the target, and all sorts of other factors like stress, exhaustion, sudden incoming fire, or ordnance can confound your aim.

[rrgg]

I have to agree with Mike G here. Every now and again someone will go run a Picatinny test on musket or blackpowder rifle, clamping it in place with a bench and adjusting it to a perfect angle for a given range, and find out it can hit targets at far, far beyond the historical record. They will typically conclude "aha, they must have shot farther than we thought" or "it was just dumb leaders who didn't realize you could shoot that far."

They almost inevitability look stupefied when they hear that soldiers who shoot reasonably frequently, using easy to handle weapons with very flat trajectories and low recoil, smokeless powder with consistently manufactured rounds, often with a combat optic, firing from a prone position on a range, are far from guaranteed to hit a man sized target at 300 meters. And that many support troops, who despite being undertrained by modern standards, still fire far more practice rounds than a redcoat or civil war draftee, can struggle to consistently hit beyond 150 meters or so.

The next step is they blame modern weapon design, usually on the idea "well, the US/Russians/Whoever designed them to fight at under two hundred meters and optimized for that." Which, while true, ignores the actual ballistics. Which is to say the comparatively small rounds of modern assault rifles do tend to have a substantially degraded flight after six hundred meters or so (whereas you can expect a modern hunting caliber to reliably go out much further), but that within those six hundred meters they have trajectories that are very easy to shoot. Because no one wants to mess with working on range holds and bullet drop mechanics in a firefight; they want shooting to be "get ight picture, squeeze trigger, the same way at 100 meters as it is at 300". Compared to the NATO 5.56 or RU 7.62x39, blackpowder weapons look like you're lobbing a catapult.

The final argument usually goes: "but formations were BIG targets", which is true. But most people don't miss left-right. They miss under-over. A problem which is definitely exacerbated by fat slow bullets on loping trajectories. And formations are still man height, though they do have a larger hazard area for near overshoots can create a beaten zone which hits rear ranks.

It's not really a case of "dumb leaders not realizing how far guns can shoot", the historical record shows they did recognize that heavy muskets could have a noticeable impact at up to 600 yards in the right situations and that this was a tactic which was used from time to time and was something to be weary of. It's just that most of the time it wasn't really relevent or those situations would try to be avoided.

Again, "effective" in this case doesn't mean hitting reliably or even most of the time, I mean that if a musketeer is firing hundreds of rounds at a large, stationary formation, literally over the course of hours with runners occasionally bringing him additional ammunition or a new weapon if his malfunctions or becomes too fouled, then as long as some of his shots connect every so often he'll be inflicting a very slow trickle of casualties. If the enemy formation stays still long enough and he remains unaccosted, he might even eventually work out the enemy's exact distance and how high he needs to aim his sight each time for best results. And again, this is inflicting casualties so slowly that even if the sharpshooters opened up at 600 yards and the enemy formation kept advancing, even at a walk, they would easily be able to get within charging distance before the shooting had done any significant damage. This is why at most you'd only ever send out a handful of your most experienced musketeers for very long range shooting, the rest of the company's shot you'd have remain standing by, conserving their stamina and ammunition for delivering short-range volleys in case the enemy ever gets fed up and decides to try closing the distance.

To put it in other words "Effective range" is generally a pretty fast and loose term and can mean something very different depending on the specific conditions, the target, and what kind of effect you're looking for. It's not a distance at which bullets suddenly disappear into thin air. For modern soldiers during training I assume that it's at some point still mentioned or at least implied that if someone ever does start shooting at him with an M16 from more than 500 yards away then he shouldn't continue standing motionless out in the open.

Lastly, to make one more point regarding the difference between "practice" vs "combat conditions" that I think is interesting and that a lot of people tend to miss. When you come across illustrations or descriptions from the early modern period of large, dense formations of soldiers standing out in the open during a battle, that does not necessarily mean that they are leaving themselves exposed to being shot at by snipers or sharpshooters. To take a quote from Ardant du Picq, who was writing in 1869 about armies fully armed with rifles:

" However, let us not have illusions as to the efficacy of the fire of skirmishers. In spite of the use of accurate and long range weapons, in spite of all training that can be given the soldier, this fire never has more than a relative effect, which should not be exaggerated.

"The fire of skirmishers is generally against skirmishers. A body of troops indeed does not let itself be fired on by skirmishers without returning a similar fire. And it is absurd to expect skirmishers to direct their fire on a body protected by skirmishers. To demand of troops firing individually, almost abandoned to themselves, that they do not answer the shots directed at them, by near skirmishers, but aim at a distant body, which is not harming them, is to ask an impossible unselfishness. "

[Mike_G]

As usual, this has drifted quite a bit, but my points are as follows:

I really doubt that 15th-16th century muskets were intended to do much shooting at over 400 yards. I've shot at long ranges with, let's just admit, much better guns, and while I can hit a man sized target at 500 yards in perfect conditions, it ain't easy.

I highly doubt that a soft lead ball will punch through armor at long range. It's soft, it's slow and it's going to lose a lot of energy after flying 400 yards.

And even if there are a few expert marksmen who can make hits with any kind of regularity at those ranges, that isn't the standard for soldiers. There's only one Carlos Hathcock.

So the original question of "can bows/crossbows still be effective on the battlefield after early firearms?" I think we have to compare the average archer to the average musketeer. And the average infantryman with a firearm anytime before 1870 was probably not all that dangerous to a man more than 100 yards away.

I think, on paper, if you put 100 trained men with longbows and 100 trained men with, say a Brown Bess and had them try to put shots on a target at 50 or 100 yards over a minute, the bows probably can hold their own.

Because the average redcoat is not hitting anybody at 400 yards. He's not even bothering to fire until he's under 100, and he's likely to miss that shot and then charge with the bayonet to finish the job.

I'm not saying bows or crossbows are better than muskets, just that they weren't replaced because the musket was a superweapon that was killing armored men at 400 yards. Any of these weapons is deadly at 50-100 yards and that's where all of them were mostly used.



.

[fusilier]

For what I understand, the M16 is limited by its own design to operate at those ranges, however. It uses an intermediate cartridge, that was introduced exactly because it was impossible to aim too far without specialised optics, so there was no sense in having heavier bullets.

So there are two factors I can think of. One is that certain arquebuses may have been made with the intent of striking hard from far away. The other one is that terminology is a problem, because language is pretty fluid and researchers may not check what the familiar word actually meant in a certain text.

To make an example, Cellini describes one of his guns as a "gerefalco", a large arquebus with a calibre of 2 cm, which he compares in length to a half culverin. He describes a long shot -- although he doesn't really say how long -- and explains that he gave an arc to the trajectory. He almost hits his target; the ball actually hits the man's sword, and he dies from the shrapnel.

Such a weapon is pretty close to a cannon, but it's still called an arquebus in some dictionaries I could find. So such oversized, overcharged versions meant for the long range could really have had that sort of effect. However, it's still longer than two meters, probably close to or even over 3 m. And Cellini was a "bonbardieri", so an artillery man, and he often describes handling falconets and other small artillery weapons.

This is a problem in general with classification, I guess, because there are "moschetti" (muskets) which were actually naval artillery weapons with a calibre of 4.5 cm used by XVI century Venice.

At the same time, we know that arquebus balls didn't always perforate armour, or even the skin. Field doctors in Italy divided wounds in three different kinds (perforated body with the ball having passed through and left from the other side, perforated body with the ball left inside, no perforation). Even without penetration, the hit could still be bad enough to wound in what I assume was a manner similar to ancient slings.

Yeah, this could be an issue of confusing terminology. Arquebus, Musket, and Culverin all have variable meanings depending upon the context. As you pointed out the earlier version of arquebus could refer to a large weapon that's more of a light artillery piece. I could see that having the ability to puncture armor at 200 meters or more.

Throughout the "musket" era, there are many accounts of somebody being hit by a "spent ball" -- it either ricocheted, or simply traveled a very long distance -- the result being that it didn't pierce the skin. Also, I remember reading about Giovanni de' Medici (Giovanni dalle Bande Nere), where bullets would pierce the metal armor, but not the leather armor underneath it.

[Clistenes]

As usual, this has drifted quite a bit, but my points are as follows:

I really doubt that 15th-16th century muskets were intended to do much shooting at over 400 yards. I've shot at long ranges with, let's just admit, much better guns, and while I can hit a man sized target at 500 yards in perfect conditions, it ain't easy..

They didn't shoot at human-sized targets, they shot at dense pike and halberd formations (same for bows, by the way...).




I highly doubt that a soft lead ball will punch through armor at long range. It's soft, it's slow and it's going to lose a lot of energy after flying 400 yards.

Actually, when there still were plate armor around they often used steel or iron ammo against armored enemies.

Also, while they were slow when compared to modern bullets, they were very heavy, and they would lose height way faster than they lost horizontal momentum... the projectile could still do quite a bit of damage by the time it was at the height of your legs.

And arrows had the same problem, only worse...


And even if there are a few expert marksmen who can make hits with any kind of regularity at those ranges, that isn't the standard for soldiers. There's only one Carlos Hathcock.

True, but the same can be said about bows. And bows were even less accurate on average.


So the original question of "can bows/crossbows still be effective on the battlefield after early firearms?" I think we have to compare the average archer to the average musketeer. And the average infantryman with a firearm anytime before 1870 was probably not all that dangerous to a man more than 100 yards away.

On the other hand, if you put 1,000 Renaissance era musketeers against a pike block, they would kill armored pikemen at 100 yards, while arrows would bounce even on buff jackets or gambesons at that distance.


I think, on paper, if you put 100 trained men with longbows and 100 trained men with, say a Brown Bess and had them try to put shots on a target at 50 or 100 yards over a minute, the bows probably can hold their own.

A Brown Bess could punch through a 1 inch wooden shield at 300 yards. At that distance, an 150-lb English longbow's heavy (60gr.) war arrow would have lost its momentum and would be close to hit the ground (their range was of 320 yards).

A Brown Bess's bullet just keeps its momentum and goes in a straight line for way longer, and it's less affected by the wind, so I am quite sure that, given the same amount of training, it would perform better than a longbow at 100 yards.


Because the average redcoat is not hitting anybody at 400 yards. He's not even bothering to fire until he's under 100, and he's likely to miss that shot and then charge with the bayonet to finish the job.

True, he isn't hitting a target at 400 yards, but the longbow's arrow would have hit the floor at 320 yards...


I'm not saying bows or crossbows are better than muskets, just that they weren't replaced because the musket was a superweapon that was killing armored men at 400 yards. Any of these weapons is deadly at 50-100 yards and that's where all of them were mostly used.

The musket didn't need to be a superweapon... it was enough for it to be better than the bow.

And true, muskets were used at the 50-100 yards range, but bows were effective only at around 50 yards or less. Modern testing by Warsaw University of Technology in 2017 shows that even lesser quality armor was effective against longbows at just 25 m/27 yards (some arrows could punch through the armor, but their penetration was less than 24 mm, so a soldier could take a few shots like these and survive). Mike Loades 2011 test showed that gambeson and mail were quite effective against bodkins even at 10 yards.

[Beleriphon]

Essentially expert marksmen with muskets could be effective against large formations at a distance under perfect, firing-range conditions, but against a moving target, targets that are spread out/in cover, or especially against enemies who are actually shooting back and posing an imminent danger, even among the best-trained shooters accuracy would just sort of quickly go down the toilet.

I see, so a few well trained, potentially natural, shooters would fire at a formation with intention of hurting somebody or something at ranges the formation couldn't reasonable retaliate at since it was maybe a dozen shooters spread out enough hitting an individual became impossible.

[Mike_G]

I see, so a few well trained, potentially natural, shooters would fire at a formation with intention of hurting somebody or something at ranges the formation couldn't reasonable retaliate at since it was maybe a dozen shooters spread out enough hitting an individual became impossible.

Except, as rrgg says later in his post, that isn't really how it happens in practice, because what formation is just going to stand still out in the open and take it?

They will either move to close, and men with slow loading muskets will get very few shots off before the enemy close with them, or they'll deploy their own skirmishers, or cavalry will roll up the dispersed skirmishers or, if the target formation has none of those options, they will likely move away out of danger.

This is the same forum where people insisted the American riflemen were no threat to British regiments because "all the redcoats had to do was fix bayonets and charge" before the rifles could be reloaded.

I'm sorry, I just don't buy the idea of 15th-16th Century muskets as a significant long range threat. I can totally see them used to volley at an enemy formation at relatively close (< 100 yards) range.

Most musket and rifle fire prior to the late 19th century was done at very close range. The sharpshooters that we have record of are by far the exception to the rule. They may pick off the occasional officer, but when you are looking at a battle the scale of Waterloo or Gettysburg with tens of thousands of casualties, a few snipers at long range probably had less effect on the battle than a single cannonball.

So, while I'm not quite with Ben Franklin on Team Archery, I think if we compare bows to guns, we need to compare the average bow to the average gun, which in both cases would be close range massed shooting at a formation. The archers would get a lot more rounds off, the musketeers might be more accurate and harder hitting. Comparing the max range is more or less irrelevant, since battles were almost never fought at max range.

[rrgg]

Yeah, this could be an issue of confusing terminology. Arquebus, Musket, and Culverin all have variable meanings depending upon the context. As you pointed out the earlier version of arquebus could refer to a large weapon that's more of a light artillery piece. I could see that having the ability to puncture armor at 200 meters or more.

Throughout the "musket" era, there are many accounts of somebody being hit by a "spent ball" -- it either ricocheted, or simply traveled a very long distance -- the result being that it didn't pierce the skin. Also, I remember reading about Giovanni de' Medici (Giovanni dalle Bande Nere), where bullets would pierce the metal armor, but not the leather armor underneath it.

Yeah, and this is where 600 yards figure comes from, a number of authors mention it as sort of a rule of thumb for roughly the maximum distance at which a 16th century musket ball still has enough energy to kill or incapacitate. If you did fire a musket way up in air at a high angle you could get the bullet to carry probably around 1000-1200 yards, however (and while i suspect that the terminal velocity of a lead ball is probably high enough that it would still hurt quite a bit if it hit) it probably wouldn't be enough to actually kill someone. It's a statistic that doesn't really matter with modern rifle bullets which are much more aerodynamic and need less energy to penetrate flesh in the first place, but it was something to consider way back in the smoothbore days.

Barnabe Rich and Roger Williams actually both listed the maximum lethal range as one of the biggest advantages of switching to the full-sized musket over the lighter caliver, i.e. the musket could kill at up to 600 yards while the caliver/arquebus they only considered deadly up to maybe 400 yards or less.

As an example, say for instance that you encounter an enemy battalion armed with pikes and calivers guarding a bridge while your force includes actual musketeers. You can sit back while some of your muskets fire on the enemy position from 500-600 yards and force them to either cross the bridge and go on the offensive, stay there and continue taking casualties for free, or else retreat and give up the bridge without a fight.

It's essentially the same role that artillery would often be used for (speaking of which, light artillery gradually becoming more mobile and more available might be yet another reason that far shooting with small arms became less common over time) or for that matter, the role bows and crossbows often played at long range during the middle ages. See the battle of Agincourt where the english bowmen advanced to within bowshot of the french camp and coaxed them into attacking prematurely.



As usual, this has drifted quite a bit, but my points are as follows:

I really doubt that 15th-16th century muskets were intended to do much shooting at over 400 yards. I've shot at long ranges with, let's just admit, much better guns, and while I can hit a man sized target at 500 yards in perfect conditions, it ain't easy.

I highly doubt that a soft lead ball will punch through armor at long range. It's soft, it's slow and it's going to lose a lot of energy after flying 400 yards.

And even if there are a few expert marksmen who can make hits with any kind of regularity at those ranges, that isn't the standard for soldiers. There's only one Carlos Hathcock.

So the original question of "can bows/crossbows still be effective on the battlefield after early firearms?" I think we have to compare the average archer to the average musketeer. And the average infantryman with a firearm anytime before 1870 was probably not all that dangerous to a man more than 100 yards away.

I think, on paper, if you put 100 trained men with longbows and 100 trained men with, say a Brown Bess and had them try to put shots on a target at 50 or 100 yards over a minute, the bows probably can hold their own.

Because the average redcoat is not hitting anybody at 400 yards. He's not even bothering to fire until he's under 100, and he's likely to miss that shot and then charge with the bayonet to finish the job.

I'm not saying bows or crossbows are better than muskets, just that they weren't replaced because the musket was a superweapon that was killing armored men at 400 yards. Any of these weapons is deadly at 50-100 yards and that's where all of them were mostly used.



.

I'd argue that there is enough evidence to say that soldiers way back then even with smoothbores would be able to put a significant number of rounds on target at those ranges over time. Here's a page from "small arms and ammunition in the US service" which shows the results of a series of musket trials carried out in 1800 France: https://i.imgur.com/KG1h3zA.png

There are a number of other musket trials from around this same period which tend to match these results pretty closely although I'll use this one since it includes the results for all the way up to 471 m.

A couple of things to note:

-This would have been using napoleonic-era muskets, which had generally become quite a bit lighter than those in the 16th century. A 16th century musket with a much longer barrel and a bullet weighing almost twice as much would likely maintain it's momentum much better and keep an overall flatter trajectory.

-Despite being on a practice range, and firing at a large "battalion-sized" target 32 meters wide, the results still don't seem to represent very good shooting. Out of the 100-man volley only 67% of shots hit the target directly at 78.5 meters, yet at 471 meters 5% of their shots still managed to hit the target directly. We know that there were many individual shooters from both this period and much earlier who were able to reliably hit a man-sized target with smoothbores at ~50-100 meters, so it seems conceivable that those individuals would be capable of hitting a formation-sized target at those distances and farther much more often as well.

-16th century formations tended to have many more ranks and be much deeper than napoleonic infantry lines and thus would usually have presented less dead space where a bullet could pass through the gaps without hitting anything.

-Given that estimates for the numbers of bullets expended to casualties inflicted for various battles throughout the early modern and napoleonic periods tend to more often be in the range of hundreds or even thousands of shots per casualty, I'd argue that a marksman hitting even 2.5-5% of the time at range is being pretty darn effective.

You are absolutely right that in reality this kind of accuracy would almost never, if ever, be achieved on the battlefield whether due to smoke, fear, adrenaline, difficulty estimating range, being screened by loose skirmishers, etc. And I know it sounds like I'm being nitpicky about the whole "maximum effective range" thing, I just feel compelled to keep bringing it up because I'm still annoyed at various video games I've played where i would put musketeers in a strong, defensive position, in cover, only for them to be whittled down by archers at range without fighting back because the game has decided that muskets are only ever allowed to shoot at enemies at a distance of less than 100 while archers get to have a range of 125. >.>

Regarding bows and crossbows vs guns. My position is still that it was probably the whole "battlefield conditions" thing which really did them in, not just a case of taking longer to train. We know about how badly the accuracy of troops armed with muskets and rifles suffered during an actual firefight, so how well would even the best trained archers really be able to shoot when they also have to worry about bullets and cannonballs whistling past them?

[fusilier]

Yeah, and this is where 600 yards figure comes from, a number of authors mention it as sort of a rule of thumb for roughly the maximum distance at which a 16th century musket ball still has enough energy to kill or incapacitate. If you did fire a musket way up in air at a high angle you could get the bullet to carry probably around 1000-1200 yards, however (and while i suspect that the terminal velocity of a lead ball is probably high enough that it would still hurt quite a bit if it hit) it probably wouldn't be enough to actually kill someone. It's a statistic that doesn't really matter with modern rifle bullets which are much more aerodynamic and need less energy to penetrate flesh in the first place, but it was something to consider way back in the smoothbore days.

Barnabe Rich and Roger Williams actually both listed the maximum lethal range as one of the biggest advantages of switching to the full-sized musket over the lighter caliver, i.e. the musket could kill at up to 600 yards while the caliver/arquebus they only considered deadly up to maybe 400 yards or less.

As an example, say for instance that you encounter an enemy battalion armed with pikes and calivers guarding a bridge while your force includes actual musketeers. You can sit back while some of your muskets fire on the enemy position from 500-600 yards and force them to either cross the bridge and go on the offensive, stay there and continue taking casualties for free, or else retreat and give up the bridge without a fight.

It's essentially the same role that artillery would often be used for (speaking of which, light artillery gradually becoming more mobile and more available might be yet another reason that far shooting with small arms became less common over time) or for that matter, the role bows and crossbows often played at long range during the middle ages. See the battle of Agincourt where the english bowmen advanced to within bowshot of the french camp and coaxed them into attacking prematurely.




I'd argue that there is enough evidence to say that soldiers way back then even with smoothbores would be able to put a significant number of rounds on target at those ranges over time. Here's a page from "small arms and ammunition in the US service" which shows the results of a series of musket trials carried out in 1800 France: https://i.imgur.com/KG1h3zA.png

There are a number of other musket trials from around this same period which tend to match these results pretty closely although I'll use this one since it includes the results for all the way up to 471 m.

A couple of things to note:

-This would have been using napoleonic-era muskets, which had generally become quite a bit lighter than those in the 16th century. A 16th century musket with a much longer barrel and a bullet weighing almost twice as much would likely maintain it's momentum much better and keep an overall flatter trajectory.

-Despite being on a practice range, and firing at a large "battalion-sized" target 32 meters wide, the results still don't seem to represent very good shooting. Out of the 100-man volley only 67% of shots hit the target directly at 78.5 meters, yet at 471 meters 5% of their shots still managed to hit the target directly. We know that there were many individual shooters from both this period and much earlier who were able to reliably hit a man-sized target with smoothbores at ~50-100 meters, so it seems conceivable that those individuals would be capable of hitting a formation-sized target at those distances and farther much more often as well.

-16th century formations tended to have many more ranks and be much deeper than napoleonic infantry lines and thus would usually have presented less dead space where a bullet could pass through the gaps without hitting anything.

-Given that estimates for the numbers of bullets expended to casualties inflicted for various battles throughout the early modern and napoleonic periods tend to more often be in the range of hundreds or even thousands of shots per casualty, I'd argue that a marksman hitting even 2.5-5% of the time at range is being pretty darn effective.

You are absolutely right that in reality this kind of accuracy would almost never, if ever, be achieved on the battlefield whether due to smoke, fear, adrenaline, difficulty estimating range, being screened by loose skirmishers, etc. And I know it sounds like I'm being nitpicky about the whole "maximum effective range" thing, I just feel compelled to keep bringing it up because I'm still annoyed at various video games I've played where i would put musketeers in a strong, defensive position, in cover, only for them to be whittled down by archers at range without fighting back because the game has decided that muskets are only ever allowed to shoot at enemies at a distance of less than 100 while archers get to have a range of 125. >.>

Regarding bows and crossbows vs guns. My position is still that it was probably the whole "battlefield conditions" thing which really did them in, not just a case of taking longer to train. We know about how badly the accuracy of troops armed with muskets and rifles suffered during an actual firefight, so how well would even the best trained archers really be able to shoot when they also have to worry about bullets and cannonballs whistling past them?

rrgg, as usual I'm impressed with your recall, and your ability to cite sources. I think in most cases skirmishers neither inflicted many casualties nor took many themselves (exceptions exist; in the 16th century skirmishers could be used very aggressively and at close range). And there's a lot of evidence that most casualties from personal firearms happed at ranges under 100 yards, even when rifle-muskets were employed. But the usefulness of skirmishing goes beyond incurring casualties -- screening, forcing the enemy to deploy/respond, etc. So even if few casualties are incurred at extreme ranges, discussions of the effective extreme range of the weapons are useful.

The rifles used in WW1 typically had sights that elevated up to 2000 or more meters. As it was explained to me, rather than firing on an enemy formation at such extreme ranges, you may fire at a target area (like a bridge) to dissuade the enemy from entering/crossing it.

I agree with the conclusion that "overall" guns had many advantages over bows and crossbows. I know that sharpshooters employed by the North African galleys carried a musket for long range sniping, and a bow for rapid close in shots. That "dual" primary weapon ability is something that requires very specific conditions, however. North American Plains warriors sometimes showed such abilities too.

[Brother Oni]

I'm sorry, I just don't buy the idea of 15th-16th Century muskets as a significant long range threat. I can totally see them used to volley at an enemy formation at relatively close (< 100 yards) range.

I tried to post this earlier in response to Beleriphon, but it looks like the forum software ate my post.

I know that during the 16th Century Sengoku Jidai, during the Battle of Nagashino, Oda and Tokugawa samurai matchlock (deppo) skirmisher squads moved ahead and sniped at the Takeda cavalry formations in a bid to bait them to break ranks and charge forwards. To this end, these deppo squads had larger bore matchlocks than the standard ashigaru matchlock (teppo) formations, thus could fit more powder and use larger shot.

I don't think that this tactic would have been developed on the fly for this battle - it would have been developed over the course of earlier battles from the war and I know it was continued onwards, most notably, at the Battle of Sekigahara.

[William M. Pail]

I don't think that this tactic would have been developed on the fly for this battle - it would have been developed over the course of earlier battles from the war and I know it was continued onwards, most notably, at the Battle of Sekigahara.
I totally agree with you,but there is no way to say for sure.

[Mike_G]

rrgg, as usual I'm impressed with your recall, and your ability to cite sources. I think in most cases skirmishers neither inflicted many casualties nor took many themselves (exceptions exist; in the 16th century skirmishers could be used very aggressively and at close range). And there's a lot of evidence that most casualties from personal firearms happed at ranges under 100 yards, even when rifle-muskets were employed. But the usefulness of skirmishing goes beyond incurring casualties -- screening, forcing the enemy to deploy/respond, etc. So even if few casualties are incurred at extreme ranges, discussions of the effective extreme range of the weapons are useful.

The rifles used in WW1 typically had sights that elevated up to 2000 or more meters. As it was explained to me, rather than firing on an enemy formation at such extreme ranges, you may fire at a target area (like a bridge) to dissuade the enemy from entering/crossing it.


This is true, but the rifles were almost never used at that range. These weapons were developed during period of colonial war, when troops might well see a Zulu Impi at a great distance, and make some long shots, or they might be called on to use "long range covering fire" on an area, almost like artillery. In modern warfare, nobody is using rifles at a mile. That why God gave us mortars.

A friend of mine owns a Mauser C 96 automatic pistol, an antique, not a reproduction, and the sights go out to a very optimistic 800 yards. Nobody hits with a pistol at that range. He happens to be a gun designer and mechanical engineer, and he feels that since the weapon was a new technology (an automatic pistol with a high capacity and stripper clips for quick reloads) they weren't sure how it would be used and included the long range sights. The idea that a unit might be able to create a beaten zone at long range with rapid fire sounds reasonable in theory, but the weapon was actually used at very close range, often by cavalry, like the pistol it was.

It's a lovely weapon, and a tack driver at 25 yards (I shot a 4" group with it), but I wouldn't think I could hit a barn at 800. Just because the sights exist doesn't mean they were used. This happens a lot with new tech. The designer provides for instances that might theoretically be possible, but wind up being unlikely or unrealistic in practical use.

This is why post WWII rifles all moved away from the very long range weapons firing .30 -ish caliber full sized rounds to shorter, lighter higher capacity rifles firing intermediate rounds. You see the development during the war. Most nations started with their WWI weapons and most new weapons became quicker, closer range, lighter and so on. The German SG 44 replacing the K98, the American M1 replacing the '03 Springfield and the M1 carbine becoming very popular with troops. You also see the proliferation of the SMG.

WWI probably had the mist accurate general issue rifles in history, but after a lot of field use, virtually all millitaries realized that these aren't idea for the realities of the battlefield and by the cold war, everybody had switched over.



I agree with the conclusion that "overall" guns had many advantages over bows and crossbows. I know that sharpshooters employed by the North African galleys carried a musket for long range sniping, and a bow for rapid close in shots. That "dual" primary weapon ability is something that requires very specific conditions, however. North American Plains warriors sometimes showed such abilities too.

None of which I disagree with. But I think the bow could still have a niche on the battlefield right up to the general issue of breechloading or repeating rifles. Because I think the average archer could probably hit a target just as well as the average man with a black powder musket, and if it take the archer two or three shots to be as effective, he can still take two or three shots for every shot the musketeer gets. Men with breechloaders and metallic cartridges were sill dying from arrows into the 1880s

I agree the guns were probably better overall, but the question was about the viability of a bow or crossbow as a battle field weapon, and I think it's viable but inferior. Much like I wouldn't bring a Lee Enfield to fight in Faluja, but it's viable if obsolete.

[Max_Killjoy]

Also, while they were slow when compared to modern bullets, they were very heavy, and they would lose height way faster than they lost horizontal momentum... the projectile could still do quite a bit of damage by the time it was at the height of your legs.


I'm pretty sure that, aside from a small aerodynamic effect, all projectiles lose height at the same rate -- it's only their forward velocity that decreases their vertical fall over horizontal distance traveled.

[Beleriphon]

I'm pretty sure that, aside from a small aerodynamic effect, all projectiles lose height at the same rate -- it's only their forward velocity that decreases their vertical fall over horizontal distance traveled.

That one is more or less true. All projectiles released from the same vertical height will take the same amount of time to hit the ground. Mythbusters did an episode on a 9mm bullet that was dropped vs one that was fired. They both take the same time to reach the ground, assuming the fired bullet is completely level to start with. I think the end result of the show was that any differences would be with the margins of error for their setup to actually test things.

[halfeye]

That one is more or less true. All projectiles released from the same vertical height will take the same amount of time to hit the ground. Mythbusters did an episode on a 9mm bullet that was dropped vs one that was fired. They both take the same time to reach the ground, assuming the fired bullet is completely level to start with. I think the end result of the show was that any differences would be with the margins of error for their setup to actually test things.
Only in so far as you can ignore the fact that the surface of the Earth is curved.

[redwizard007]

Only in so far as you can ignore the fact that the surface of the Earth is curved.

Exactly how far would one need to shoot for that particular fact to become pertinent? Are we talking 1000 meters? 2000?

[Max_Killjoy]

Exactly how far would one need to shoot for that particular fact to become pertinent? Are we talking 1000 meters? 2000?

Handheld ballistic computers for snipers do take both the curvature and the rotation of the earth into account, reportedly.

[Storm Bringer]

Exactly how far would one need to shoot for that particular fact to become pertinent? Are we talking 1000 meters? 2000?

err, quick google says that the horizon for a standing shooter (say, 5 feet/150cm off the ground) is roughly 4,400m.

if your only 30cm off the ground (say, a prone sniper) its about 2000m. Now, its perfectly possible for a prone sniper to both see a target beyond that distance and hit it, but it would require said target to be tall enough to stand tall over the curve of the earth. So, using the 30cm high prone sniper, assuming a "flat", empty field, could not see another 30cm high prone sniper beyond about 4 km, because the earth would be in the way. if one of the snipers stood up, he could be seen and shot by the prone sniper form further out (about ~6.5km)

so, yes, its technically a factor, but its only really important on very long range shots. Again, this Is assuming a perfectly "smooth" earth sized sphere, so those figures will be adjusted by the local terrain elevation and height the observer is at.

Incidentally, it was this maths that drove the tall "pagoda" tower superstructures (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_battleship_Yamashiro#/media/File:Japanese_battleships_Yamashiro,_Fuso_and_Haru na.jpg) of Japanese battleships in the interwar era, as the japs strove to improve their viewpoints and get better, more accurate fire control data. Almost every warship had some form of rangfinder mounted on top of the foremast or forward superstructure.

[Clistenes]

I'm pretty sure that, aside from a small aerodynamic effect, all projectiles lose height at the same rate -- it's only their forward velocity that decreases their vertical fall over horizontal distance traveled.

That one is more or less true. All projectiles released from the same vertical height will take the same amount of time to hit the ground. Mythbusters did an episode on a 9mm bullet that was dropped vs one that was fired. They both take the same time to reach the ground, assuming the fired bullet is completely level to start with. I think the end result of the show was that any differences would be with the margins of error for their setup to actually test things.

And that's why initial velocity of the projectile matters: A longbow heavy arrow has a velocity under 300 fps or 91 m/s, while a blackpowder musket has a muzzle velocity in between 120 m/s (390 fps) to 370 m/s (1200 fps), meaning that, when the the projectile finally hits the ground, the musket ball has traveled a longer distance...

[Lemmy]

I'm pretty sure that, aside from a small aerodynamic effect, all projectiles lose height at the same rate -- it's only their forward velocity that decreases their vertical fall over horizontal distance traveled.Well... That depends on what you mean by "small aerodynamic effect".

[fusilier]

Concerning long range fighting, I found this on another forum. You have to scroll down a bit to the long quoted section, mostly in German. Anyway, it's Napoleonic era documentation of effective skirmisher fire between 600 and 1000 paces. I'm actually surprised to see it myself.

http://theminiaturespage.com/boards/msg.mv?id=522617

[Tobtor]

While shooting (lets assume) 1.000 meters (or yards) is all well and fine, and a great advantage, we must also consider the terrain!

In large parts of Europe we have very diverse landscapes (hills, threes, small streams with bushes along the beaches, small forests, not to mention houses farms, villages etc). Thus places where an army have a 1.000 meters visibility is not that common. It would have been much worse in let us say 1500-1700 AD. Today modern fields are much larger than early modern ones.

Even a relatively flat country like Denmark would have few areas like that. Medieval field system even had low dikes/ditches all over the place! There are some moor/heath areas, and here it could be possible. But you really need to search for places where you have a good view of 1.000 meters! Using a view-shed analysis and taking just terrain into account showed that most places I tried a view-shed analysis of less 500 meters.

Looking at random historic maps (18th century) showed that many fields where less than 100 meters across from one dike to the next. The dikes are typically 0,5-1 in height (today), but enough to duck behind if someone is firing at a defensive position - especially as they may be overgrown with small trees etc.

Thus range is a advantages, but you must look at it not from a maximum possible range but at realistic ranges. Lets say one side is camped behind a dike and you are behind the other and need to storm across a field of 100 yards, that means that any range over 100 feet is not really important.

About bows/crossbows and gunpowder weapons: Last year I read an article about a war between Denmark-Sweden (I think it was the one in 1611-13, but it could be one in the late 16th century), where a battle was fought in southern Sweden. They found the battlefield and was surprised at how many cross bolts and arrows they found compared to bullets, especially as large part of the "Danish" army was made up of German mercenaries (thus with modern equipment).

Two points about this:
A. It was fought in January or February and it was likely foggy and/or raining. Thus not ideal for gunpowder
B: Secondly it was fought in a forested area. Thus ranges above 50 meters is not likely. Thus rate of fire is likely to be more important than range.

So if looking to make bows a viable solution use terrain (shot line of view) and weather (wet/damp) as explanations.

[Brother Oni]

Exactly how far would one need to shoot for that particular fact to become pertinent? Are we talking 1000 meters? 2000?

Further to Storm Bringer's comments on the curvature of the Earth, at higher altitudes or shells that travel very long distances/heights, the rotation of the Earth has an effect; this is called the coriolis force (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coriolis_force). Note that the deflection depends on which direction you're firing in and the hemisphere you're in:

Firing north is the opposite of firing south
Firing north in the northern hemisphere is the opposite of firing north in the southern hemisphere
East/west firing solutions are unaffected by the coriolis force, however the Eotvos effect (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E%C3%B6tv%C3%B6s_effect) causes westward shots to hit low and eastward shots to hit high.


The most famous example is the Paris Gun (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_Gun), used by the Germans to shell Paris during WW1 at a distance of 75 miles miles (120km). From the book Modern Exterior Ballistics (McCoy, Robert [1999]), this fired 210 mm 106kg shells and from 49.5 degrees N towards Paris, there's a drop in range of 393 m and a deflection of 1343 m.

The same book also has a table for deflections due to Coriolis effect of a 7.62mm Ball M80 Bullet:

500 yards - .6 inches
1000 yards - 2.8 in
1500 yards - 7.6 in
2000 yards - 15.9 in

Artillery gunners used to have big firing tables that state the necessary adjustments by bearing before being superseded by computers, although I've found some anecdotal stories from people who have attended artillery control training doing the calculations by ruler and lookup tables. One person who used smaller artillery pieces (<23km range) distinctly remembers a special table on top of all the other ones for an adjustment of earth's rotation as a function of angle, latitude and time of flight, although compared to wind influence, the earth rotation correction wasn't big unless he was shooting at >45 degrees elevation.

TL:DR - Long range sniping is difficult, which is why DC's Deadshot is a supervillian. :smalltongue:

[Gnoman]

Incidentally, it was this maths that drove the tall "pagoda" tower superstructures (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_battleship_Yamashiro#/media/File:Japanese_battleships_Yamashiro,_Fuso_and_Haru na.jpg) of Japanese battleships in the interwar era, as the japs strove to improve their viewpoints and get better, more accurate fire control data. Almost every warship had some form of rangfinder mounted on top of the foremast or forward superstructure.

It would be wiser to use "Japanese" or "IJN". The abbreviated version you used is generally considered a slur.

[Saint-Just]

Question: is there any historical basis for the nagateppo/"eggshell grenades"? I know that a lot of info about ninjas is pure fabrication, but on the other hand Japanese did use full-size offensive grenades relatively early in the gunpowder era. If it is a fabrication what are the most likely sources of this invention (i.e. do we see such things in 18th century Japanese plays? in 19th century Orientalist writings? in the early 20th century Japanese samurai flicks?)

[Pauly]

Question: is there any historical basis for the nagateppo/"eggshell grenades"? I know that a lot of info about ninjas is pure fabrication, but on the other hand Japanese did use full-size offensive grenades relatively early in the gunpowder era. If it is a fabrication what are the most likely sources of this invention (i.e. do we see such things in 18th century Japanese plays? in 19th century Orientalist writings? in the early 20th century Japanese samurai flicks?)

A lot of the ahistorical tropes about ninjas derve from Kabuki theater
- dressing in black, which the stagehands did, so the ninja attack comes as a surprise to the audience,
- straight swords - to differentiate them from Samurai

The eggshell grenade sounds very much like a theater prop to me. Maybe it has an actual historical ancestor, but the common pop culture representation probably derives from theater.

[Beleriphon]

A lot of the ahistorical tropes about ninjas derove from Kabuki theater
- dressing in black, which the stagehands did, so the ninja attack comes as a surprise to the audience,
- straight swords - to differentiate them from Samurai

The eggshell grenade sounds very much like a theater prop to me. Maybe it has an actual historical ancestor, but the common pop culture representation probably derives from theater.

An actual grenade for sure is a prop, an egg shell filled with some kind of loose powder as a soft tissue irritant however could work and seems like the kind of thing a spy would be using.

As for being a real thing? It doesn't look like, even a cursory Google search doesn't find anything. Google Scholar returns no results for nagateppo, or naga-teppo.

In fact, I'm not even sure the word is proper Japanese. It looks like a compound word from naga and teppo, neither of which have anything to do with grenades or eggs.

[fusilier]

Question: is there any historical basis for the nagateppo/"eggshell grenades"? I know that a lot of info about ninjas is pure fabrication, but on the other hand Japanese did use full-size offensive grenades relatively early in the gunpowder era. If it is a fabrication what are the most likely sources of this invention (i.e. do we see such things in 18th century Japanese plays? in 19th century Orientalist writings? in the early 20th century Japanese samurai flicks?)

There is a class of grenades known as "frangible grenades" (unfortunately, the United States produced a grenade called "M1 Frangible Grenade", which might make an internet search somewhat frustrating). I'm not aware of any of these grenades dating to the era that you refer to. The idea being that the grenade would break open when it hit a hard surface then "something" would happen. They could be smoke grenades, fire grenades (think molotov cocktail), sometimes poison gas.

Here's an example of a German one:
http://www.inert-ord.net/ger03a/gerat/index.html

In the 19th century there was something called a "fire grenade", which was actually intended as a kind of fire extinguisher. It was a salt water filled (later CTC filled) frangible grenade that was supposed to be thrown at the base of a fire, theoretically extinguishing it when the grenade shattered.

I know that there were much older versions of frangible grenades, used for trying to set fire to enemy ships in boarding conflicts (greek fire). But I can't find specific information on them.

[Clistenes]

The Spanish Tercios developed a quite fiendish device for nocturnal warfare: they hurled copper spheres filled with burning phosphor to illuminate their enemies and be able to shoot them down... but some of these phosphor spheres had iron case blackpower grenades inside, so their foes were afraid to get close to the copper spheres to put them off, because they could explode at any time...

[Max_Killjoy]

There is a class of grenades known as "frangible grenades" (unfortunately, the United States produced a grenade called "M1 Frangible Grenade", which might make an internet search somewhat frustrating). I'm not aware of any of these grenades dating to the era that you refer to. The idea being that the grenade would break open when it hit a hard surface then "something" would happen. They could be smoke grenades, fire grenades (think molotov cocktail), sometimes poison gas.

Here's an example of a German one:
http://www.inert-ord.net/ger03a/gerat/index.html

In the 19th century there was something called a "fire grenade", which was actually intended as a kind of fire extinguisher. It was a salt water filled (later CTC filled) frangible grenade that was supposed to be thrown at the base of a fire, theoretically extinguishing it when the grenade shattered.

I know that there were much older versions of frangible grenades, used for trying to set fire to enemy ships in boarding conflicts (greek fire). But I can't find specific information on them.

What's funny is that those firefighting grenades were featured on The Explosion Show this week (on the Science Channel, starring Tory Belleci and some web person I'd never heard of)... and they're somewhere between worthless, and actively bad, for use on fires.

[Max_Killjoy]

Something to get us started back up... can't recall if this was posted before...

Tod's Workshop testing longbow against armor -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBxdTkddHaE
Shad's reaction video -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQABDS0NmtM

Also, seriously thinking about basing something for a technophile species/culture on this -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HXUOwagfqA0

[Mike_G]

Something to get us started back up... can't recall if this was posted before...

Tod's Workshop testing longbow against armor -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBxdTkddHaE
Shad's reaction video -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQABDS0NmtM

Also, seriously thinking about basing something for a technophile species/culture on this -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HXUOwagfqA0

Loved the Tod's Workshop video.

He got the closest to accurate bow and armor and arrows I've seen. A lot of tests have so many layers of abstraction, like shooting arrows from an air canon or dropping them on a weighted press and using just a sheet of metal as "armor" or some crappy reproduction breastplate or a 30 pound recurve bow, but trying to fudge it, like "this bow at 30 yards is equivalent to a warbow at 100 yards"

This test was the closest we're gonna get anytime soon to realistic armor against a realistic bow.

[Max_Killjoy]

Loved the Tod's Workshop video.

He got the closest to accurate bow and armor and arrows I've seen. A lot of tests have so many layers of abstraction, like shooting arrows from an air canon or dropping them on a weighted press and using just a sheet of metal as "armor" or some crappy reproduction breastplate or a 30 pound recurve bow, but trying to fudge it, like "this bow at 30 yards is equivalent to a warbow at 100 yards"

This test was the closest we're gonna get anytime soon to realistic armor against a realistic bow.

Between that and the Smithsonian documentary I saw late last year where authentically re-created tempered steel breastplate was resisting firearms from close-ish range with no ill effects beyond a dent (wish I could find it online to link to)... I'm pretty much of the opinion right now that good quality breastplates pretty much forced an opponent to hit you somewhere else.

[halfeye]

Between that and the Smithsonian documentary I saw late last year where authentically re-created tempered steel breastplate was resisting firearms from close-ish range with no ill effects beyond a dent (wish I could find it online to link to)... I'm pretty much of the opinion right now that good quality breastplates pretty much forced an opponent to hit you somewhere else.

What calibre and of firearm, and pistol or rifle?

Urg what a typo. Obviously should be "What calibre of firearm, and pistol or rifle?"

[Kaptin Keen]

What calibre and of firearm, and pistol or rifle?

And what type of ammo. According to my sources - which, let's be honest, is mostly RPG rulebooks - you get way better penetration from jacketed ammo than mere lumps of lead.

[Lvl 2 Expert]

What calibre and of firearm, and pistol or rifle?

Closer to "pistol or musket?", I assume.
How breastplate does vs guns is at its most relevant between roughly 1500 and 1700. Large infantry muskets would seem like the most interesting one to test to me, but lighter musket style weapons (for both skirmishers and cavalry, and even mixed in to the main foot formations) and cavalry pistols/dragoons are common on the battlefield as well.

So yeah, I'm going to be keeping an eye out for Smithsonian documentaries now.

[Saint-Just]

And what type of ammo. According to my sources - which, let's be honest, is mostly RPG rulebooks - you get way better penetration from jacketed ammo than mere lumps of lead.

May I inquire which system actually assigns greater penetration to jacketed bullets vs non-jacketed from the same gun? My understanding is that at least in pistol\revolver rounds you wouldn't expect to see significant increase in penetration between modern-style jacketed soft lead and cowboy-style hard cast lead.

Now, expanding (hollow-point, or soft-point) ammo would of course have less penetration than jacketed bullets - but unjacketed cast bullets do not behave as hollow-points. And going in the other direction hard steel cap or core would increase penetration - - but that's not jacketing either.

[Kaptin Keen]

May I inquire which system actually assigns greater penetration to jacketed bullets vs non-jacketed from the same gun? My understanding is that at least in pistol\revolver rounds you wouldn't expect to see significant increase in penetration between modern-style jacketed soft lead and cowboy-style hard cast lead.

Now, expanding (hollow-point, or soft-point) ammo would of course have less penetration than jacketed bullets - but unjacketed cast bullets do not behave as hollow-points. And going in the other direction hard steel cap or core would increase penetration - - but that's not jacketing either.

Are you trying to argue the finer points of ammo terminology with someone who clearly stated his frame of reference as 'RPG rulebooks'?

Because if so, let's rock. I'm just not sure what you could hope to achieve here??

[Lilapop]

The entire point of copper jacketed bullets is being harder than lead, to avoid the projectile getting abraded by a rifled steel barrel (because lead is indeed soft enough to leave residue clogging up the rifling grooves). A simultaneous, if probably unrelated, development are "pointy" bullets, which may not get a significant increase in penetration against flesh or body armor from their form alone, but are fired at higher velocities and have less airfriction at the same time, leading to substantially higher impact velocities and therefore better penetration.

Not sure where hunting soft points fit into this... they might be supposed to penetrate better than a mushrooming hollowpoint, but less well than (and thereby transmit more energy into the target creature than) an FMJ by at least flattening the tip.

[Max_Killjoy]

What calibre and of firearm, and pistol or rifle?

That's one of the reasons I want to find the video, so I can nail down exactly what they were using and at what distance.

It was longer barreled, and vaguely 50' away, but probably not a 1700s musket. They were definitely using a lead ball, not steel or iron. The ball struck lower right IIRC, and glanced off, leaving a shallow round indentation.

It was within the last year and it had zero sensationalism so it couldn't have been most of the "science" or "documentary" channels at this point (it's amazing how far down hill the iterations of Discovery Science have gone in the hunt for cheap programming and higher ratings).

E: Finally found it, not Smithsonian... PBS Nova. All instances of the video I can find are behind regional blocks or paywalls. But the preview/intro does briefly show the firearm used and the distance. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9cWlsbX894 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9cWlsbX894) They also discussed the big difference between cheap untempered plate and high-quality tempered steel plate in resisting the heaviest hits.

[halfeye]

That's one of the reasons I want to find the video, so I can nail down exactly what they were using and at what distance.

It was longer barreled, and vaguely 50' away, but probably not a 1700s musket. They were definitely using a lead ball, not steel or iron. The ball struck lower right IIRC, and glanced off, leaving a shallow round indentation.

It was within the last year and it had zero sensationalism so it couldn't have been most of the "science" or "documentary" channels at this point (it's amazing how far down hill the iterations of Discovery Science have gone in the hunt for cheap programming and higher ratings).

E: Finally found it, not Smithsonian... PBS Nova. All instances of the video I can find are behind regional blocks or paywalls. But the preview/intro does briefly show the firearm used and the distance. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9cWlsbX894 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9cWlsbX894) They also discussed the big difference between cheap untempered plate and high-quality tempered steel plate in resisting the heaviest hits.

I back out of Youtube every time they do their "accept our cookies" thing, so I haven't seen the video.

I am very dubious about personal armour stopping rifle bullets, the 0.303 round would allegedly go through 9 inches of brick wall, and to be proof against small arms tanks needed 12mm of armour plate.

I would be more or less unsurprised by a 0.22 pistol round bouncing off thick armour, an 0.44 magnum or an 0.45 as used in the "wild west" however has a lot more energy due to the approximately eight times higher mass.

[AMX]

I back out of Youtube every time they do their "accept our cookies" thing, so I haven't seen the video.

I am very dubious about personal armour stopping rifle bullets, the 0.303 round would allegedly go through 9 inches of brick wall, and to be proof against small arms tanks needed 12mm of armour plate.

I would be more or less unsurprised by a 0.22 pistol round bouncing off thick armour, an 0.44 magnum or an 0.45 as used in the "wild west" however has a lot more energy due to the approximately eight times higher mass.

You're thinking much too modern - this is about blackpowder muzzleloaders, and not the newest ones.

[Max_Killjoy]

I back out of Youtube every time they do their "accept our cookies" thing, so I haven't seen the video.

I am very dubious about personal armour stopping rifle bullets, the 0.303 round would allegedly go through 9 inches of brick wall, and to be proof against small arms tanks needed 12mm of armour plate.

I would be more or less unsurprised by a 0.22 pistol round bouncing off thick armour, an 0.44 magnum or an 0.45 as used in the "wild west" however has a lot more energy due to the approximately eight times higher mass.

I don't disagree, but what does that have to do with the question at hand?

[AdAstra]

I back out of Youtube every time they do their "accept our cookies" thing, so I haven't seen the video.

I am very dubious about personal armour stopping rifle bullets, the 0.303 round would allegedly go through 9 inches of brick wall, and to be proof against small arms tanks needed 12mm of armour plate.

I would be more or less unsurprised by a 0.22 pistol round bouncing off thick armour, an 0.44 magnum or an 0.45 as used in the "wild west" however has a lot more energy due to the approximately eight times higher mass.

The .303 is far too modern for this to be a fair comparison, especially since those numbers are probably for cordite (equivalent to smokeless powder) propellant. The 12mm of steel required from tanks was influenced by the existence of steel-cored armor-piercing rounds and machine guns (even if the armor resists the bullet, if it gets too beat up there's the chance that another one too close will punch through, and there might be a lot of bullets thrown at you). Armor penetration figures also typically assume no slope, which most breastplates incorporated.

Would a breastplate provide guaranteed protection from repeated dead-on hits by the largest and fastest available projectiles at extremely close range? Probably not, but a good chance at stopping just a single bullet is far better than no chance. Real-world conditions (i.e. volleys of fire at normal combat distances from firearms that were far from perfect) mean there are very few perfect shots, getting repeated hits on the same target is far from a guarantee, and armor does not have to protect against every conceivable threat to be effective.

[Gnoman]

Historically, the cuirass worn by cuirassers was expected to stop a pistol ball at close range, and a musket ball at long, with the musket punching through at close range. The gun shown in that PBS intro appeared to be either an arequebus or a later-era light musket, not a proper heavy anti-armor weapon, and the amount of smoke suggests that it might have been underloaded.

[Clistenes]

Historically, the cuirass worn by cuirassers was expected to stop a pistol ball at close range, and a musket ball at long, with the musket punching through at close range. The gun shown in that PBS intro appeared to be either an arequebus or a later-era light musket, not a proper heavy anti-armor weapon, and the amount of smoke suggests that it might have been underloaded.

Cuirasses were expected to stop pistol and arquebuss balls, not musket balls.

[Vinyadan]

Related to armour vs guns, albeit from a much later era: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armour_of_the_Kelly_gang

[Gnoman]

Cuirasses were expected to stop pistol and arquebuss balls, not musket balls.

They were intended to keep out muskets at long range, but not short. This, of course, refers to the heavy musket of an earlier era, not necessarily the later and lighter. "brown bess" style in use after armor declined furthere.

[halfeye]

Related to armour vs guns, albeit from a much later era: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armour_of_the_Kelly_gang

Yes, that almost worked.


The gang's armour was made of iron a quarter of an inch thick ...

Ned Kelly's armour weighed 44 kilograms (97 lb). His suit was the only one to have an apron at the back, but all four had front aprons.

That's a lot of weight.

[fusilier]

That's one of the reasons I want to find the video, so I can nail down exactly what they were using and at what distance.

It was longer barreled, and vaguely 50' away, but probably not a 1700s musket. They were definitely using a lead ball, not steel or iron. The ball struck lower right IIRC, and glanced off, leaving a shallow round indentation.

It was within the last year and it had zero sensationalism so it couldn't have been most of the "science" or "documentary" channels at this point (it's amazing how far down hill the iterations of Discovery Science have gone in the hunt for cheap programming and higher ratings).

E: Finally found it, not Smithsonian... PBS Nova. All instances of the video I can find are behind regional blocks or paywalls. But the preview/intro does briefly show the firearm used and the distance. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9cWlsbX894 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9cWlsbX894) They also discussed the big difference between cheap untempered plate and high-quality tempered steel plate in resisting the heaviest hits.

The problem I have with this program is that the focus was completely on recreating the armor as accurately as possible, not the firearm. If I remember correctly, they used a .75 caliber "caliver." Which is "one" of the firearms such armor may have encountered. There's no indication that they attempted to charge it to historical standards, which would be overcharging by modern standards, although the powder may have been a poorer quality. Also it wasn't a .90 caliber heavy musket, specifically designed for punching through heavy armor.

So after a long and very thorough investigation and detailed reconstruction of the armor, they seem to have said "a gun is a gun" when it came to the other side of the equation. In my opinion the claim to the superiority of the armor is much weaker than it could have been.

[fusilier]

The entire point of copper jacketed bullets is being harder than lead, to avoid the projectile getting abraded by a rifled steel barrel (because lead is indeed soft enough to leave residue clogging up the rifling grooves). A simultaneous, if probably unrelated, development are "pointy" bullets, which may not get a significant increase in penetration against flesh or body armor from their form alone, but are fired at higher velocities and have less airfriction at the same time, leading to substantially higher impact velocities and therefore better penetration.

Not sure where hunting soft points fit into this... they might be supposed to penetrate better than a mushrooming hollowpoint, but less well than (and thereby transmit more energy into the target creature than) an FMJ by at least flattening the tip.

I thought jacketed bullets had to do with the introduction of smokeless powders -- which burned at higher temperatures, causing the lead to partially melt. Which made a big mess. So jackets were used. If it was simply a matter of lead against a steel or iron barrel, it would have been a problem during the blackpowder era. According to wikipedia, it was supposed to prevent the soft lead bullets from being deformed in the magazine. So . . . lots of reasons are given. (Note: I don't doubt that a jacketed bullet would have better penetration, but I don't believe that was the original intention)

[Gnoman]

The higher velocity of nitro propellants would potentially result in a much worse lead fpilong problem than you would expect from a rifle-musket or black-powder carfridge gun, but the bullets wouldn't melt. Pure lead bullets are still standard for .22LR, and the only cases of tose melting are in supercharged "how fast can we push this bullet" loads.

[Pauly]

Yes, that almost worked.



That's a lot of weight.

Well the armor did work. Not one round penetrated the armor. The Kelly gang were killed/disabled by shots that missed the armor. Ned Kelly, who wore the complete armor with backplate, walked in full view and close range of the police for an estimated 15 minutes, before being taken down by hits to his legs and arms. The police did not believe the reports about the armor and so weren’t thinking about aiming for the arms or legs.

As for the weight, the armor was made in a bush forge, not a proper furnace and it wasn’t heat treated. Recent analysis shows some parts were cold hammered into shape. If it was made by an armorer with a proper furnace to do heat treating I’m sure the weight could come down quite significantly.

[fusilier]

The higher velocity of nitro propellants would potentially result in a much worse lead fpilong problem than you would expect from a rifle-musket or black-powder carfridge gun, but the bullets wouldn't melt. Pure lead bullets are still standard for .22LR, and the only cases of tose melting are in supercharged "how fast can we push this bullet" loads.

So the rifling was stripping the lead from the bullets? That makes sense.

[Gnoman]

So the rifling was stripping the lead from the bullets? That makes sense.

It was a big enough problem that the Union issued special bullets (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Williams_cleaner_bullet) that had zinc disks in place of the normal expanding base. In theory, the shot would expand the disks, forcing the zinc into the rifling grooves and scouring out the lead residue that was accumulating in there. Initially, this was 1 out of every 10 issued rounds, later increased to 3 in 10. It was later determined that these bullets didn't actually work.

[Clistenes]

They were intended to keep out muskets at long range, but not short. This, of course, refers to the heavy musket of an earlier era, not necessarily the later and lighter. "brown bess" style in use after armor declined furthere.

I dunno... I haven't read about cuirasses stopping musket balls in any contemporary text.

Early musket balls were very heavy and slow, so they lost height way faster than horizontal velocity (and hence, killing power).

By the time they were flying at the height of your knees, they still had enough punch to blow your leg off...

So, if they hit your cuirass, they were almost assured to keep enough power to punch through...

[Thiel]

Anyone want to know what people in 1889 thought of the bicycle as a military vehicle? Yes?
Well I have just the book for you. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1D8x6OiVDux3AVdsSrgP1eOK0Hx1mkBbk/view?usp=sharing]PDF Link (https://drive.google.com/file/d/1D8x6OiVDux3AVdsSrgP1eOK0Hx1mkBbk/view?usp=sharing)

I found it at my local library a while back and decided to translate it

[fusilier]

It was a big enough problem that the Union issued special bullets (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Williams_cleaner_bullet) that had zinc disks in place of the normal expanding base. In theory, the shot would expand the disks, forcing the zinc into the rifling grooves and scouring out the lead residue that was accumulating in there. Initially, this was 1 out of every 10 issued rounds, later increased to 3 in 10. It was later determined that these bullets didn't actually work.


I've been studying these bullets lately. The bullet was not intended as a cleaner bullet, but a more accurate bullet, however it was discovered that it did help clean out the barrel compared to the modified Burton Bullet. It's a very long and complicated story, but you can find a lot of detail about it in this video here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bAdfKe1M4rk&feature=emb_logo

[Raunchel]

Anyone want to know what people in 1889 thought of the bicycle as a military vehicle? Yes?
Well I have just the book for you. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1D8x6OiVDux3AVdsSrgP1eOK0Hx1mkBbk/view?usp=sharing]PDF Link (https://drive.google.com/file/d/1D8x6OiVDux3AVdsSrgP1eOK0Hx1mkBbk/view?usp=sharing)

I found it at my local library a while back and decided to translate it

Thanks! I never even thought about it, but it makes for a very interesting read.

[Max_Killjoy]

The problem I have with this program is that the focus was completely on recreating the armor as accurately as possible, not the firearm. If I remember correctly, they used a .75 caliber "caliver." Which is "one" of the firearms such armor may have encountered. There's no indication that they attempted to charge it to historical standards, which would be overcharging by modern standards, although the powder may have been a poorer quality. Also it wasn't a .90 caliber heavy musket, specifically designed for punching through heavy armor.

So after a long and very thorough investigation and detailed reconstruction of the armor, they seem to have said "a gun is a gun" when it came to the other side of the equation. In my opinion the claim to the superiority of the armor is much weaker than it could have been.

The musket is also a later weapon, isn't it?

One notable difference between the armor in the arrow test video, and the armor in the PBS documentary, is that the former is not tempered, while the latter armor is.

[Max_Killjoy]

Also, latest "reloading bow" video -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sy_bJQaD3Uc -- just for fun.

[fusilier]

The musket is also a later weapon, isn't it?

One notable difference between the armor in the arrow test video, and the armor in the PBS documentary, is that the former is not tempered, while the latter armor is.

For the PBS documentary, a heavy musket would have been a contemporary to the armor (late 16th century, around the time of the Spanish Armada?) As armor use declined in the 17th century muskets actually became lighter and would have had lower penetration. However, there was a great variety of firearms available in the late 16th century.

That's my complaint: they matched the best armor against a contemporary middle weight firearm, and didn't even demonstrate that they were using historical standards with it.

[Saint-Just]

The musket is also a later weapon, isn't it?


Not...quite? Early firearms terminology is confusing, but in relevant time period both musket and caliver did exist, musket being heavier and more powerful. 18-th century musket has a bore comparable to the earlier caliver but somewhat higher powder charge. It still was not as powerful as earlier muskets.

[rrgg]

I dunno... I haven't read about cuirasses stopping musket balls in any contemporary text.

Early musket balls were very heavy and slow, so they lost height way faster than horizontal velocity (and hence, killing power).

By the time they were flying at the height of your knees, they still had enough punch to blow your leg off...

So, if they hit your cuirass, they were almost assured to keep enough power to punch through...

It's sort of more other way around. All bullets lose height at roughly the same rate (well sometimes a musket ball might come out of the barrel with a bit of backspin or frontspin but i'm ignoring that for now), and given two projectiles with the same density, shape, and velocity the larger one will be slowed less quickly by air resistance due to the cube-squared law meaning it has a smaller cross section and surface area relative to its mass. If you take two round balls with the same size and density but different velocities, the force of drag is going to be greater the higher the velocity is meaning that the faster bullet will lose speed at a higher rate than the slower one. Especially at speeds around and above the speed of sound, the effect of air resistance increases dramatically, around three times as much as at much lower velocities.

Basically, given the same muzzle velocity a heavier bullet will typically travel much farther and with a much flatter trajectory than a smaller one. The hard part of course being that it's trickier to accellerate a heavy bullet to very high velocities than a smaller one. If you look at very early hand cannons a lot of them do have fairly wide, short barrels and seem to have been built more for lobbing large, heavy bullets at relatively low velocities (at least compared to later firearms). Towards the end of the 15th century, with weapons like the arquebus, you tend to see a trend towards smaller calibers and much longer barrels relative to their diameter. This provides a number of advantages, in particular a much higher muzzle velocity/point blank range was generally associated with much higher accuracy and made aiming much simpler. It could also help a lot with recoil both because a longer barrel means that the bullet can accelerate more gradually over a longer period and since Kinetic energy is calculated (1/2)mv^2 while momentum is calculated with m*v, you can have a lighter bullet reach the same kinetic energy as a heavier bullet but with much less momentum (though the lighter bullet will also lose that kinetic energy more quickly over distance due to air resistance). Lower recoil also improves accuracy and helps quite a bit if you want to fire the weapon on the move braced against your cheek, chest or shoulder rather than sticking it into the ground or hooking it onto a castle wall first.

For the actual heavy musket which appears in the 16th century, there was no way for contemporaries to really measure a bullet's velocity and know for sure for another two centuries, but it most likely was a pretty high velocity weapon as well. Though it was made to fire a larger bullet than most arquebuses and calivers, the musket's barrel was typically much longer and heavier still, to the point where a forked rest was required to support the front end of the weapon when firing. The extra long barrel again would give the bullet more time to accelerate, muskets generally continued to use roughly the same powder:lead ratio as smaller firearms at the time, with a 20+ lb musket the barrel is going to be pretty strongly reinforced to help contain the explosive internal pressures and if nothing else the sheer mass of the weapon would have helped reduce the recoil felt even further. Plus according to primary sources it seems that recoil from a heavy musket was pretty severe anyways and could be quite painful without a very sturdy grip and good technique.

[Lvl 2 Expert]

Anyone want to know what people in 1889 thought of the bicycle as a military vehicle? Yes?
Well I have just the book for you. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1D8x6OiVDux3AVdsSrgP1eOK0Hx1mkBbk/view?usp=sharing]PDF Link (https://drive.google.com/file/d/1D8x6OiVDux3AVdsSrgP1eOK0Hx1mkBbk/view?usp=sharing)

I found it at my local library a while back and decided to translate it

Nice, thanks. Bicycles have been used for some brilliant military feats since. They allow for semi-rapid transport of semi-many infanterists over semi-rough terrain for semi-cheap. Unfortunately all the semi's in there make them pretty niche, at the very least in a modern context. Need to move 1000km? By bike you can be there in 10 days, maybe 5 with very well trained troops and minimal equipment. (Or 40 with no roads and a few dissassembled artillery pieces loaded up.) But in many situations that will still be too late, so there's essentially no difference with the time it would take to walk.

Although around ww2 armies still uses plenty of horses and such because they simply didn't have enough motor vehicles, in that setting bicycles were certainly useful. That might explain why we still have a half (okay, three quarters) joking national trauma about the Germans stealing all our bicycles. They worked great for patrolling and such.

[Clistenes]

It's sort of more other way around. All bullets lose height at roughly the same rate (well sometimes a musket ball might come out of the barrel with a bit of backspin or frontspin but i'm ignoring that for now), and given two projectiles with the same density, shape, and velocity the larger one will be slowed less quickly by air resistance due to the cube-squared law meaning it has a smaller cross section and surface area relative to its mass. If you take two round balls with the same size and density but different velocities, the force of drag is going to be greater the higher the velocity is meaning that the faster bullet will lose speed at a higher rate than the slower one. Especially at speeds around and above the speed of sound, the effect of air resistance increases dramatically, around three times as much as at much lower velocities.

Basically, given the same muzzle velocity a heavier bullet will typically travel much farther and with a much flatter trajectory than a smaller one. The hard part of course being that it's trickier to accellerate a heavy bullet to very high velocities than a smaller one. If you look at very early hand cannons a lot of them do have fairly wide, short barrels and seem to have been built more for lobbing large, heavy bullets at relatively low velocities (at least compared to later firearms). Towards the end of the 15th century, with weapons like the arquebus, you tend to see a trend towards smaller calibers and much longer barrels relative to their diameter. This provides a number of advantages, in particular a much higher muzzle velocity/point blank range was generally associated with much higher accuracy and made aiming much simpler. It could also help a lot with recoil both because a longer barrel means that the bullet can accelerate more gradually over a longer period and since Kinetic energy is calculated (1/2)mv^2 while momentum is calculated with m*v, you can have a lighter bullet reach the same kinetic energy as a heavier bullet but with much less momentum (though the lighter bullet will also lose that kinetic energy more quickly over distance due to air resistance). Lower recoil also improves accuracy and helps quite a bit if you want to fire the weapon on the move braced against your cheek, chest or shoulder rather than sticking it into the ground or hooking it onto a castle wall first.

For the actual heavy musket which appears in the 16th century, there was no way for contemporaries to really measure a bullet's velocity and know for sure for another two centuries, but it most likely was a pretty high velocity weapon as well. Though it was made to fire a larger bullet than most arquebuses and calivers, the musket's barrel was typically much longer and heavier still, to the point where a forked rest was required to support the front end of the weapon when firing. The extra long barrel again would give the bullet more time to accelerate, muskets generally continued to use roughly the same powder:lead ratio as smaller firearms at the time, with a 20+ lb musket the barrel is going to be pretty strongly reinforced to help contain the explosive internal pressures and if nothing else the sheer mass of the weapon would have helped reduce the recoil felt even further. Plus according to primary sources it seems that recoil from a heavy musket was pretty severe anyways and could be quite painful without a very sturdy grip and good technique.

You have missed what I said about musket bullets being very slow, compared to modern ones. Their technology wasn't good enough to safely produce high pressures without the barrel blowing up, despite the long, reinforce barrels you mentioned, so they compensated by having big heavy guns that shot big bullets.

As you have said, a heavier bullet loses horizontal velocity as a slower rate than a light one, and muskets had an effective range way greater than arquebusses and pistols, but still way shorter than modern rifles.

As you have said, all bullets lose height at roughly the same rate, but since musket bullets were so much slower than modern firearms (around 450 m/s against an AK-47's muzzle velocity of 730 m/s), even if a heavy musket bullet and a modern rifle bullet hit the ground at the same time after being shot, the musket bullet will have reached a far shorter distance from the shooter.

Plus muskets were smoothbores, so the trajectories of the bullets were less straight than rifles...

But, since the musket bullets were so heavy, they still caused considerable damage when they hit, despite being so slow. We are speaking of 3.8 to 8.5 times the weight of an AK-47 bullet (3000-4000 joules of energy vs an AK-47's 7.62×39mm cartridge's 2100 joules or so...).

Going back to the original question, cuirasses... if you shot a musket, the heavy bullet kept its horizontal velocity quite well, because it was heavy (you said it yourself), but it was still very slow, so, if the guy you were shooting against was too far away, the bullet would miss his chest and hit his legs or fly between them or pass next to them... But it kept its horizontal velocity quite well, so it was still fast enough to hurt you seriously it hit the leg.

On the other hand, it you aimed at the chest and got a hit, that means the guy was quite close, and at that distance the bullet would keep enough energy to punch through the cuirass...

Hence, it should be quite rare for a cuirass to stop a musket ball in battle, because at the distance a cuirass could stop a musket ball you would rarely be hit at all...

[Gnoman]

Almost nothing could stop a heavy anti-armor musket at close range, but you could keep it out long enough to ensure that you're going to face no more than one or two effective volleys as you charge home (because you go from "this is the range that they can hurt us" to "this is the range at which we're trampling and stabbing them" too quickly for them to reload more than once). You also have to be able to contend with long-range harassing fire.

At such ranges, muskets wouldn't be fired at individual soldiers. They'd be fired en masse at large bodies of troops in the same manner that bows were used before them and bolt-action rifles would be used after them (this is why so many WWI-era small arms have sights that go out to a kilometer or more). Such volleys would be of limited use against infantry (because you're not going to inflict a lot of casualties) but could help disrupt a forming cavalry charge (take out a few riders or injure a few horses, and you get a lot of confusion, which breaks up cohesion). These are the ranges where a cuirass had to be able to withstand a musket ball.

[Clistenes]

These are the ranges where a cuirass had to be able to withstand a musket ball.

Yes, but at such distances the ball was more likely to hit your legs than your cuirass, or not at all...

Look the chart on page 46: https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/139707.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwi3_s21_YLoAhVCz4UKHd7_B2sQFjAWegQIARAB&usg=AOvVaw1Gn1aTJcmFY0Xr6uS14bhx

At 100 metres, the musket bullets penetrated a 4 mm thick steel plate or a 5 inches thick wooden shield (Benjamin Robins, New Principles of Gunnery: Containing the Determination of the Force of Gun-Powder), but it had already dropped around 20-25 cm.

I guess a breastplate could stop the bullet somewhere between the 200-400 m range, but at that point the bullet has already dropped at least 1.25 m.

They could increase the effective range by aiming high (the bullet would follow a parabolic trajectory), but that would decrease horizontal velocity.

Other sources claim that a heavy musket ball could punch though a 3-4 mm breastplate at 30 m; I guess those were slower balls from earlier muskets... The probably dropped faster too... (https://books.google.es/books?id=OvhJDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT197&lpg=PT197&dq=tercios+breastplate+thickness&source=bl&ots=7ZSDH8aEq7&sig=ACfU3U0J8YADgJlGNwY9wlK1KHyzau4g4Q&hl=es&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiM4JfdmYPoAhUL1xoKHV3BCMwQ6AEwCnoECAgQA Q#v=onepage&q=tercios breastplate thickness&f=false).

[Max_Killjoy]

Yes, but at such distances the ball was more likely to hit your legs than your cuirass, or not at all...

Look the chart on page 46: https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/139707.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwi3_s21_YLoAhVCz4UKHd7_B2sQFjAWegQIARAB&usg=AOvVaw1Gn1aTJcmFY0Xr6uS14bhx

At 100 metres, the musket bullets penetrated a 4 mm thick steel plate or a 5 inches thick wooden shield (Benjamin Robins, New Principles of Gunnery: Containing the Determination of the Force of Gun-Powder), but it had already dropped around 20-25 cm.

I guess a breastplate could stop the bullet somewhere between the 200-400 m range, but at that point the bullet has already dropped at least 1.25 m.

They could increase the effective range by aiming high (the bullet would follow a parabolic trajectory), but that would decrease horizontal velocity.

Other sources claim that a heavy musket ball could punch though a 3-4 mm breastplate at 30 m; I guess those were slower balls from earlier muskets... The probably dropped faster too... (https://books.google.es/books?id=OvhJDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT197&lpg=PT197&dq=tercios+breastplate+thickness&source=bl&ots=7ZSDH8aEq7&sig=ACfU3U0J8YADgJlGNwY9wlK1KHyzau4g4Q&hl=es&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiM4JfdmYPoAhUL1xoKHV3BCMwQ6AEwCnoECAgQA Q#v=onepage&q=tercios breastplate thickness&f=false).

Did they just slap a sheet of mild steel up to a rigid mount, or did they use curved tempered steel, mounted over mail and cloth, over a soft body analogue, and on a stand with give?

[Clistenes]

Did they just slap a sheet of mild steel up to a rigid mount, or did they use curved tempered steel, mounted over mail and cloth, over a soft body analogue, and on a stand with give?

I don't know. I have been trying to find the book, but I still haven't been able.

For the references I have read, I think they shot the musket against a sheet of steel, rather than a breastplate mounted on a mannequin, but I don't know what kind of steel it was...

[rrgg]

You have missed what I said about musket bullets being very slow, compared to modern ones. Their technology wasn't good enough to safely produce high pressures without the barrel blowing up, despite the long, reinforce barrels you mentioned, so they compensated by having big heavy guns that shot big bullets.

As you have said, a heavier bullet loses horizontal velocity as a slower rate than a light one, and muskets had an effective range way greater than arquebusses and pistols, but still way shorter than modern rifles.

As you have said, all bullets lose height at roughly the same rate, but since musket bullets were so much slower than modern firearms (around 450 m/s against an AK-47's muzzle velocity of 730 m/s), even if a heavy musket bullet and a modern rifle bullet hit the ground at the same time after being shot, the musket bullet will have reached a far shorter distance from the shooter.

Plus muskets were smoothbores, so the trajectories of the bullets were less straight than rifles...

But, since the musket bullets were so heavy, they still caused considerable damage when they hit, despite being so slow. We are speaking of 3.8 to 8.5 times the weight of an AK-47 bullet (3000-4000 joules of energy vs an AK-47's 7.62×39mm cartridge's 2100 joules or so...).

Going back to the original question, cuirasses... if you shot a musket, the heavy bullet kept its horizontal velocity quite well, because it was heavy (you said it yourself), but it was still very slow, so, if the guy you were shooting against was too far away, the bullet would miss his chest and hit his legs or fly between them or pass next to them... But it kept its horizontal velocity quite well, so it was still fast enough to hurt you seriously it hit the leg.

On the other hand, it you aimed at the chest and got a hit, that means the guy was quite close, and at that distance the bullet would keep enough energy to punch through the cuirass...

Hence, it should be quite rare for a cuirass to stop a musket ball in battle, because at the distance a cuirass could stop a musket ball you would rarely be hit at all...

Yeah, sorry. I was focusing more on comparing period firearms, where the short of it is that since muskets were already shooting at likely around 500 m/s or so, even if you did take a smaller caliber muzzle loader and tried to accelerate the smaller round bullet to even higher muzzle velocities than that, you are already so far past the speed of sound and the point of diminishing returns where the lighter bullet loses speed so quickly that the heavy musket is still typically going to shoot much farther and have a much flatter trajectory overall that the smaller caliber weapons.

When it comes to modern military rifles though they generally do still beat out muskets handily when it comes to penetration at least due to bullets being much better shaped for both aerodynamics and penetration and usually including harder materials such as jacketed bullets or being made with a harder lead alloy. The 1980s experiments in Graz Austria did include two modern assault rifles for comparison and both performed way better than it came to penetration, though at shorter ranges larger muskets could produce much larger wound cavities in a simulated soft target, and the muskets were still able to well outperform a modern glock pistol.

https://journals.lib.unb.ca/index.php/MCR/article/view/17669/22312

A somewhat more interesting point of comparison is the early minie style rifles used during the us civil war. During Mordecai's testing at Washington Washington arsenal in the late 1840s he recommended aiming for a muzzle velocity of around 1500 fps with smoothbore musket charges and measured an "old rifle" (ie a rifle firing a tightly patched round ball rather than a minie bullet) as having a muzzle velocity of 2000-2100 fps. The new rifles however had to settle for much smaller charges and a much lower velocity of closer to 900-1000 fps. This means that up to a certain distance the old smoothbores would have been capable of a flatter trajectory and has led to some speculation that part of the reason rifles had a fairly minimal effect on combat accuracy during the civil war is that they were more reliant on soldiers having to accurately judge ranges and adjust their sights at around 50-100 yards than they would have had to before. At range though the minie ball still performed dramatically better. Whereas with round balls even the 16th century heavy muskets were considered unlikely to kill or cause serious wounds to even unarmored targets past 600 yards if they hit, and were unlikely to shoot much farther past 1000 yards even if pointed way up in the air, civil war era Springfields and Enfields were apparently still able to pierce several inches into wood and sandbags at 1000 distance and could reach that far with just a few degrees of elevation. How exactly their penetration compared at very short ranges I'm not entirely certain. I think I did come across a passing British reference at one point complaining that the new Enfield rifles' penetration was unsatisfactory so maybe that was the for a very well charged brown bess, but I don't think that was the case with the smaller 69. Caliber US smoothbores at the time. Its tricky to compare directly since even if a cylindriconical bullet has less energy, it has a much denser cross-section and will need much less energy overall to penetrate say a steel plate since it only has to make a smaller hole. If I recall Earl J Hess's book did have a short section discussing all the anecdotal evidence regarding privately purchased "bulletproof" armors used during the civil war, which were typically made of 18th century steel and were of a huge variety of different designs, but concluded that they only seemed to have worked about half the time, in addition to coming across lots of complaints about how they were too heavy most of the time and would only protect you if you got shot square in the center of the chest.

Getting back to the subj

[S@tanicoaldo]

I've been working on a setting that is between it's Bronze and Iron Ages.

There is a NPC blacksmith who complained to the PCs that laments the newfound popularity of iron over bronze, since iron is more brittle. Bronze, he argues, is superior since it merely bends and can be hammered back into shape.

Which is something I always thought it was true, unlike steel iron is not that much better to make weapons than Bronze it's just easier to make you can mass produce.

One of my players called me out and I said I was wrong and Iron is a lot superior but was unable to provide any evidence.

Anyway I was reading online and I was unable to find any text that goes deeply in the subject.

So can anyone help me out?

[Lvl 2 Expert]

I've been working on a setting that is between it's Bronze and Iron Ages.

There is a NPC blacksmith who complained to the PCs that laments the newfound popularity of iron over bronze, since iron is more brittle. Bronze, he argues, is superior since it merely bends and can be hammered back into shape.

Which is something I always thought it was true, unlike steel iron is not that much better to make weapons than Bronze it's just easier to make you can mass produce.

One of my players called me out and I said I was wrong and Iron is a lot superior but was unable to provide any evidence.

Anyway I was reading online and I was unable to find any text that goes deeply in the subject.

So can anyone help me out?

Staying faithful to the era your NPC could exist. Not only do many people just love to grumble about things that are new and find anything wrong with them to complain about, bronze does have some legitimate advantages like the hammering it back into shape thing. But this is a transitional era as well of course, the smiths of this time have more experience working bronze and the bronze available will be an alloy whose composition has been tweaked over time, while the iron just contains some random impurities. If you were talking about medieval quality steel I would agree with your player that it is generally the better material for weapons, but in a transitional setting it is going to depend on a bunch of factors.

Game wise it would be nice to do something interesting with it though. Either give bronze and iron weapons slightly different properties to create an interesting in game decision or introduce another smith later on who has been happily experimenting with iron and has a different perspective on things.

(Side note: iron is not really easier to make, it requires a hotter furnace and therefore wasn't figured out until much later. Iron ore is much more plentyfull though, so the raw materials are easier to get. Random ground contains several percents of iron. This was a big advantage in the real world middle eastern early iron age, because their entire trade networks and other complex societal structures had just collapsed.)

[Xuc Xac]

I've been working on a setting that is between it's Bronze and Iron Ages.

There is a NPC blacksmith who complained to the PCs that laments the newfound popularity of iron over bronze, since iron is more brittle. Bronze, he argues, is superior since it merely bends and can be hammered back into shape.

Which is something I always thought it was true, unlike steel iron is not that much better to make weapons than Bronze it's just easier to make you can mass produce.


Iron is worse than bronze, but steel is better if you can figure out how to make it consistently.

In the early Bronze Age, iron is rare and can only be found as meteorites because nobody can smelt it from ore yet. An iron weapon is a super expensive but functionally inferior status symbol, like a sword with a silver blade. King Tut was buried with an iron dagger, for example.

In the early Iron Age, iron is cheap crap. It only has one ingredient that can be found almost anywhere and it's harder to work with than bronze so it can't be made with a lot of fancy details. Depending on the smith's mood, the weather, and whether or not a butterfly in China flapped its wings that morning, an iron weapon will either be too hard and brittle or too soft and bendy. At this point, rank and file soldiers are mainly equipped with iron but the officers have bronze.

In the later Iron Age, bronze is mostly used for decorative bits or nautical equipment (for its corrosion resistance). Smiths have figured out how to make steel on purpose. It's not always high quality, but even the low quality stuff can be used to make weapons that are good enough.

If you wanted to rate the suitability of a metal for making weapons like swords, axes, and spears on a scale of 1 to 10 (with 1 being a Nerf toy and 10 being the theoretical platonic ideal sword material):
Iron is an 8, bronze (properly alloyed and treated by a weaponsmith) is a 9, and steel is a 9.5. You need about a 2 or 3 to kill someone and killing becomes easy around 4 or 5.

[Lvl 2 Expert]

If you wanted to rate the suitability of a metal for making weapons like swords, axes, and spears on a scale of 1 to 10 (with 1 being a Nerf toy and 10 being the theoretical platonic ideal sword material):
Iron is an 8, bronze (properly alloyed and treated by a weaponsmith) is a 9, and steel is a 9.5. You need about a 2 or 3 to kill someone and killing becomes easy around 4 or 5.

That would make pillows a low (and liberally applied) 2, wood somewhere around a 4, depending on whether we're allowing helmets, and flint maybe a 6 if not judging the whole "hard to shape into a sword specifically" too hard. Not a bad system.

[Max_Killjoy]

I've been working on a setting that is between it's Bronze and Iron Ages.

There is a NPC blacksmith who complained to the PCs that laments the newfound popularity of iron over bronze, since iron is more brittle. Bronze, he argues, is superior since it merely bends and can be hammered back into shape.

Which is something I always thought it was true, unlike steel iron is not that much better to make weapons than Bronze it's just easier to make you can mass produce.

One of my players called me out and I said I was wrong and Iron is a lot superior but was unable to provide any evidence.

Anyway I was reading online and I was unable to find any text that goes deeply in the subject.

So can anyone help me out?

You are correct.



Iron takes one metal, not two.
That one metal is far more common than copper or tin.
Copper and tin ores are rarely near to each other.
This all made iron far cheaper than bronze on the material side.
Iron takes a much hotter furnace to smelt, etc -- it's trickier and less obvious what it takes to make a good iron alloy.


Something that's no commonly known about bronze is that it can be work-hardened to hold an edge and retain its shape more resiliently -- eliminating the "can't hold an edge" problem. Additionally, there are differences between high-tin bronze and low-tin bronze, just as there are differences in steels depending on how much carbon, etc, is in the alloy. High-tin bronze is crazy good for making edged weapons.

The belief that early iron was immediately better than bronze is a notion of "inevitable progress" was dominant in historical circles and popular "knowledge" for hundreds of years, in no small part because of a disdain in academia for "experimental archaeology". It's still one of those things that "everybody knows" even though it's just not true.


http://myarmoury.com/talk/viewtopic.31591.html
https://old.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/aexgpk/if_iron_is_really_better_than_bronze_in_every_way/
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/wiki/prehistory?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=usertext&utm_name=AskHistorians&utm_content=t1_d080ss6#wiki_the_transition_from_th e_bronze_age_to_the_iron_age

[Lemmy]

TBF, Steel is more brittle than bronze... Because that characteristic is pretty much tied to hardness. If something is super-hard, it's also super-brittle. Steel, for example, is both stronger and more brittle than iron.

The main advantages of steel over bronze are:

- availability.
- strength.
- hardness
- weight/density.

For the purpose of armor and weapons, I'd say availability and weight/density are the most important factors. Bronze, however does have some significant advantages too:

- more plastic (can suffer more deformation without fracturing - i.e.: it's less brittle).
- resistant to corrosion (specially that caused by salt water).

These factors are probably not enough to compensate for its disadvantages (compared to steel) when it comes to armor and weapons, but they could still be used as valid arguments by a blacksmith trained in the bronze age.

[Max_Killjoy]

Hard = brittle is a tendency, not a universal formula. One of the tricks of making a good sword is to make the steel hard enough to hold an edge, but impart the "spring" quality of returning to shape when bent, rather than snapping off or staying bent; this is in part where quenching and tempering come into play.

[S@tanicoaldo]

Staying faithful to the era your NPC could exist. Not only do many people just love to grumble about things that are new and find anything wrong with them to complain about, bronze does have some legitimate advantages like the hammering it back into shape thing. But this is a transitional era as well of course, the smiths of this time have more experience working bronze and the bronze available will be an alloy whose composition has been tweaked over time, while the iron just contains some random impurities. If you were talking about medieval quality steel I would agree with your player that it is generally the better material for weapons, but in a transitional setting it is going to depend on a bunch of factors.

Game wise it would be nice to do something interesting with it though. Either give bronze and iron weapons slightly different properties to create an interesting in game decision or introduce another smith later on who has been happily experimenting with iron and has a different perspective on things.

(Side note: iron is not really easier to make, it requires a hotter furnace and therefore wasn't figured out until much later. Iron ore is much more plentyfull though, so the raw materials are easier to get. Random ground contains several percents of iron. This was a big advantage in the real world middle eastern early iron age, because their entire trade networks and other complex societal structures had just collapsed.)

I see, thanks for the info.

Also, it's good to see you again, it's been a while since I visited these forums but I remember all the players from my short lived "Ivory tree coven" game rather fondly :)

"New technology is bad, back in my day..." Is defenitly the vibe I was going for with this NPC.

Yeah when I said easier I meant cheaper, I also think that another advantage is that iron uses only one material while bronze uses two no?


Iron is worse than bronze, but steel is better if you can figure out how to make it consistently.

Yeah but they don't have steel yet.

They are just figuring iron out and the secret on how to make it is closely guarded. Not allowing a lot of experimentation.


You are correct.



Iron takes one metal, not two.
That one metal is far more common than copper or tin.
Copper and tin ores are rarely near to each other.
This all made iron far cheaper than bronze on the material side.
Iron takes a much hotter furnace to smelt, etc -- it's trickier and less obvious what it takes to make a good iron alloy.


Something that's no commonly known about bronze is that it can be work-hardened to hold an edge and retain its shape more resiliently -- eliminating the "can't hold an edge" problem. Additionally, there are differences between high-tin bronze and low-tin bronze, just as there are differences in steels depending on how much carbon, etc, is in the alloy. High-tin bronze is crazy good for making edged weapons.

The belief that early iron was immediately better than bronze is a notion of "inevitable progress" was dominant in historical circles and popular "knowledge" for hundreds of years, in no small part because of a disdain in academia for "experimental archaeology". It's still one of those things that "everybody knows" even though it's just not true.


http://myarmoury.com/talk/viewtopic.31591.html
https://old.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/aexgpk/if_iron_is_really_better_than_bronze_in_every_way/
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/wiki/prehistory?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=usertext&utm_name=AskHistorians&utm_content=t1_d080ss6#wiki_the_transition_from_th e_bronze_age_to_the_iron_age

Yeah that's what i imagined. But that player is kind of an anoying know it all. i was just checking to make sure I was not breaking any verisimilitude in the setting.


TBF, Steel is more brittle than bronze... Because that characteristic is pretty much tied to hardness. If something is super-hard, it's also super-brittle. Steel, for example, is both stronger and more brittle than iron.

The main advantages of steel over bronze are:

- availability.
- strength.
- hardness
- weight/density.

For the purpose of armor and weapons, I'd say availability and weight/density are the most important factors. Bronze, however does have some significant advantages too:

- more plastic (can suffer more deformation without fracturing - i.e.: it's less brittle).
- resistant to corrosion (specially that caused by salt water).

These factors are probably not enough to compensate for its disadvantages (compared to steel) when it comes to armor and weapons, but they could still be used as valid arguments by a blacksmith trained in the bronze age.

Thanks! Now I feel validated because all of that was my initial logic.

The ideia was to add the fluff of new technologies and changes that are taken over the land. And how the people are adapting to it.

[Lemmy]

Hard = brittle is a tendency, not a universal formula. One of the tricks of making a good sword is to make the steel hard enough to hold an edge, but impart the "spring" quality of returning to shape when bent, rather than snapping off or staying bent; this is in part where quenching and tempering come into play.
Kind of... "Springness" or whatever you want to call it, is just the elasticity of the material (i.e.: how much it can bend without deforming permanently). It comes before the plasticity of the material in a stress/strain chart (plasticity being how much you can deform something before it breaks).

It's possible to be very elastic and not very plastic... Which would mean the material can bend and go back for a wide range of stress, but then, once it goes past that and enters the "permanently deformed" zone, it only has a small margin of stress of stress it can endure before breaking... In fact, IIRC, that's generally the case (at least for metals).

e.g.: (using random numbers just to illustrate my point): A material could "bend" and go back to normal when put under a stress of anything between 0 and 500 N, then bend and permanently deform from 500,01 N to 550 N.

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Jean-Christophe_Lavocat/publication/305728176/figure/fig27/AS:668526457147399@1536400536137/Stress-Strain-curve-for-an-elastic-material-Within-the-elastic-region-if-the-material.ppm
Look how little the graphic can go up in the plastic region (compared to the elastic region) before failing.

I'm not a materials engineer, but IIRC, spring still has higher elasticity, but not particularly high plasticity (by which I mean, it can sustain higher stress to the higher elasticity, but once it enters the plastic deformation zone, the increase in stress required for it to fail is not wider than the increase in stress required to break less elastic types of steel. And in fact, it can sustain less strain before rupturing).

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Osama_Khayal/publication/334362506/figure/fig3/AS:779019188445187@1562744056383/Area-under-the-stress-strain-curve-of-high-carbon-spring-steel-and-structural-steel-2.jpg

Basically, it takes a lot more energy to permanently deform spring steel... But if you do reach the point where you can do it, it can bear much less strain than other types of steel.

That said, I'm by no means an expert. I'm a mechanical engineer who works mostly with OSH nowadays, not a materials engineer. I'm also not very good at explaining stuff... So take all of this with a grain of salt.

[fusilier]

Concerning the Iron vs Bronze debate:

Could it be that iron is easier to work than bronze? In an overall sense, bronze is an alloy, so you have to get the alloying materials combined correctly. So, even if good bronze is better than good iron, perhaps a lot of ancient bronze was of poor quality, so iron was often a little better?

I pose the question, because I've seen claims that iron was actually a little superior, metallurgically speaking, than bronze. Note: this is in addition to an economic argument (everybody seems to agree that iron was cheaper), and I've also seen claims that bronze is superior to iron.

[Max_Killjoy]

Concerning the Iron vs Bronze debate:

Could it be that iron is easier to work than bronze? In an overall sense, bronze is an alloy, so you have to get the alloying materials combined correctly. So, even if good bronze is better than good iron, perhaps a lot of ancient bronze was of poor quality, so iron was often a little better?

I pose the question, because I've seen claims that iron was actually a little superior, metallurgically speaking, than bronze. Note: this is in addition to an economic argument (everybody seems to agree that iron was cheaper), and I've also seen claims that bronze is superior to iron.

In part, it's that a lot of assumptions were made about ancient bronze using crappy low grades of modern bronze, or just plain copper.

Iron is actually harder to work -- it has a higher melting point, requires more effort to refine, etc.

Early iron is also a lot more variable in quality for those reasons, and because the alloying process with carbon isn't as obvious as to what's going on, and it's a lot harder to get the impurities out (see higher melting point, etc). Once you know the right ratio of copper to tin, it's not that hard to put the right ratio together, assuming you have both copper and tin... whereas it's not even evident that there's this carbon thing alloying with the iron (even before actual steel).

[Saint-Just]

Could it be that iron is easier to work than bronze? In an overall sense, bronze is an alloy, so you have to get the alloying materials combined correctly. So, even if good bronze is better than good iron, perhaps a lot of ancient bronze was of poor quality, so iron was often a little better?


I don't believe so. Yes, smelting bronze requres precise control of proportions, yes, impurities in tin can make bronze much worse. Nevertheless smelting iron requires control of the carbon content, more fuel, and then you need to work hard to spearate iron from the slag.

Most importantly while smelting may be comparable (though I wouldn't say so), once you got a brick of relatively pure metal, bronze is much easier for a smith to turn into swords and\or ploughshares than iron.

[fusilier]

I don't believe so. Yes, smelting bronze requres precise control of proportions, yes, impurities in tin can make bronze much worse. Nevertheless smelting iron requires control of the carbon content, more fuel, and then you need to work hard to spearate iron from the slag.

Most importantly while smelting may be comparable (though I wouldn't say so), once you got a brick of relatively pure metal, bronze is much easier for a smith to turn into swords and\or ploughshares than iron.

Thanks for the responses. So let me pose another question: is there evidence that bronze was preferred for high quality weapons after the general introduction of iron? Is there evidence that the wealthy or important preferred bronze for weapons when they could afford it?

Also, we have examples of bronze weapons that can be tested for their composition. I'm assuming that when testing it, it does turn out to be good quality? I'm just trying to ground the claims with the available historical or archaeological records.

[Max_Killjoy]

Thanks for the responses. So let me pose another question: is there evidence that bronze was preferred for high quality weapons after the general introduction of iron? Is there evidence that the wealthy or important preferred bronze for weapons when they could afford it?
.

Bronze armor and weapons were still in use for several centuries into the "iron age" -- the degraded trade system might have kept new bronze from being created for some time, but heirloom weapons and recasting of existing bronze into weapons were still quite possible.

[fusilier]

Bronze armor and weapons were still in use for several centuries into the "iron age" -- the degraded trade system might have kept new bronze from being created for some time, but heirloom weapons and recasting of existing bronze into weapons were still quite possible.

I know that bronze armor remained popular. And I believe Roman spears used bronze heads, although the pila heads were iron? But what about swords and knives? I did read somewhere that the Romans kept recasting old bronze (including non-weapons), without paying much attention to the tin content, with the result being that the quality of the bronze deteriorated over the centuries. But it was just a comment on a forum.

I'm wondering what other factors may have been an issue, and I'm looking for a little more detail. Bronze is better than iron, but iron was cheaper so that's why it replaced bronze. Why didn't the wealthy continue to use bronze for all weapons and armor? Did the skill just get lost? Kind of like armor in the gunpowder age; eventually it just became too difficult to make armor that could stop bullets, so it faded out. Maybe bronze swords weren't *that* superior, and just fell out of style.

[halfeye]

I am reminded of a film featuring Victor Mature where a bronze sword broke on an iron one. Typical that Hollywood got it wrong.

[Max_Killjoy]

I know that bronze armor remained popular. And I believe Roman spears used bronze heads, although the pila heads were iron? But what about swords and knives? I did read somewhere that the Romans kept recasting old bronze (including non-weapons), without paying much attention to the tin content, with the result being that the quality of the bronze deteriorated over the centuries. But it was just a comment on a forum.

I'm wondering what other factors may have been an issue, and I'm looking for a little more detail. Bronze is better than iron, but iron was cheaper so that's why it replaced bronze. Why didn't the wealthy continue to use bronze for all weapons and armor? Did the skill just get lost? Kind of like armor in the gunpowder age; eventually it just became too difficult to make armor that could stop bullets, so it faded out. Maybe bronze swords weren't *that* superior, and just fell out of style.

The wealthy DID continue to use bronze for 100s of years.

Nothing lasts forever.

Iron kept getting better -- bronze is better than early iron, than cheap iron, than bad iron, but not all iron.

The skills to work bronze into weapons and armor became less common as bronze implements became more rare and iron implements became more common.

Armies got bigger so a lot of iron weapons were made (Hellenistic world, then Roman armies).

Etc.

[Vinyadan]

I know that bronze armor remained popular. And I believe Roman spears used bronze heads, although the pila heads were iron? But what about swords and knives? I did read somewhere that the Romans kept recasting old bronze (including non-weapons), without paying much attention to the tin content, with the result being that the quality of the bronze deteriorated over the centuries. But it was just a comment on a forum.

I'm wondering what other factors may have been an issue, and I'm looking for a little more detail. Bronze is better than iron, but iron was cheaper so that's why it replaced bronze. Why didn't the wealthy continue to use bronze for all weapons and armor? Did the skill just get lost? Kind of like armor in the gunpowder age; eventually it just became too difficult to make armor that could stop bullets, so it faded out. Maybe bronze swords weren't *that* superior, and just fell out of style.

Bronze weapons didn't disappear for a very long time, in the sense that bronze cannons were still produced and used in the XX century (8 cm FK M. 5). The (possibly) most ancient cannon that is known to have survived is made of bronze (Wuwei cannon), and the guns that allowed the conquest of Constantinople in 1453 were also made of bronze.

The reason why Austria was still using bronze for her cannons was that she couldn't produce good enough steel. Once steel gets good enough, you have little reason to keep using bronze. Looking at the phase-out of bronze, it probably depended on the ancients having learnt how to produce steel of acceptable quality. For this, they needed to get good-quality iron first, because they couldn't remove impurities. Some places simply had better iron, and were famed for it, Noricum being the typical example. To turn this iron into steel, they first heated it until it was white, then they hammered it while in a charcoal fire (this was in the Roman era).

Concerning the passage from bronze to iron in Greece, the first iron items were probably imports from Cyprus, and mostly utility items (XII-XI century: knives and so on). Before 1000 BC, Greece starts producing its own iron knives. After some imports of iron swords from the East, Greece starts producing almost exclusively iron swords after a local type (Griffzungenschwert = Naue I-II) previously made of bronze. Spear tips take more time for the passage to bronze (after 1000 BC). Bronze arrows are frequent during the Dark Age (compared to iron. Arrows in general aren't frequently found for this era, except in Crete, what with Cretan archers in later ages).
There are no remains of armour for this time. Bronze armour reappears in Argos in the VIII century BC. It's possible that it was made after the type worn in other parts of Europe in that time, and that the Greeks could have met during the colonizing of Italy. In the same grave there was a bronze helmet; these probably existed some time earlier, based on bronze statuettes. Bronze greaves return after the Dark Age. A frequent theme in these threads is how steel plates for armour would not be viable until the blast furnace was invented, which takes us at least into the Middle Ages. Instead, the Greeks went for linothorax, whatever it precisely was. It's possible that they were using armour of a perishable material also before the models found in Argos entered use.
Concerning shields, there are bronze shield umbos from 1100-1050 found in Cyprus, probably used for leather and wooden shields.

This having been said, there were a number of areas where even the Romans didn't stop using bronze. An interesting example are Roman military diplomas, documents that attested that a legionary had been discharged and whether he had received citizenship. Another use were ship rams. A ram discovered in Israel weighs 465 kg, a single high-quality bronze casting. However, ship nails could be made of iron.

When talking about bronze, it's also important to note how many different types there were. For example, the bronze of the helmets found on the bottom of the sea near the Aegadian Islands contained more tin than the bronze rams found in the same location (all from the first Punic War). Corinthian bronze was supposedly a particularly valuable kind. And so on.

[Pauly]

At the point in time the game is set in bronze is the proven reliable technology that has been mastered. Iron is the experimental new fad that may or may not be around next year, people haven’t mastered production of yet, haven’t mastered smithing techniques to make things out of it yet.

Depending on whether it is a fantasy world or based irl will govern the availability and price of the raw materials.

The earliest iron items were jewelry and other decorative items. Moving on to knives then larger implements such as swords.

Another important point is that bronze doesn’t rust (well technically it does as tarnish) and suffer from serious corrosion damage. If you’ve ever used a carbon steel knife you know it can be very easy to suffer fatal compromising corrosion to a knife in as little as a week if you out it away wet.

[Brother Oni]

Thanks for the responses. So let me pose another question: is there evidence that bronze was preferred for high quality weapons after the general introduction of iron? Is there evidence that the wealthy or important preferred bronze for weapons when they could afford it?

Also, we have examples of bronze weapons that can be tested for their composition. I'm assuming that when testing it, it does turn out to be good quality? I'm just trying to ground the claims with the available historical or archaeological records.

I know bronze was preferred for weapons where the weight was important - bronze mace heads were more popular that iron or steel ones up until Norman Times at least, since they were ~10% heavier per volume.

As for the quality of recovered bronze weapons, there's a number of documentaries on the metallurgy and craftsmanship of the bronze weapons of the Terracotta Army. Off the top of my head, despite being burial weapons, all were combat worthy, with a few weapons indicating that they were used in warfare prior to being sealed in the tomb.

That's not to say all bronze weapons were high quality weapons, it's just that only the good quality ones (eg those buried with an emperor) tend to last long enough for archaeologists to recover them.


Roman pila heads were iron for a couple reasons - the main one I remember was that so the head deformed on impact, to prevent the enemy simply recovering the pila and throwing them back.

[fusilier]

I know bronze was preferred for weapons where the weight was important - bronze mace heads were more popular that iron or steel ones up until Norman Times at least, since they were ~10% heavier per volume.

One of the things that I've noticed, regarding swords, iron seems to have replaced bronze pretty quickly. The weight argument makes sense.

[fusilier]

Bronze weapons didn't disappear for a very long time, in the sense that bronze cannons were still produced and used in the XX century (8 cm FK M. 5). The (possibly) most ancient cannon that is known to have survived is made of bronze (Wuwei cannon), and the guns that allowed the conquest of Constantinople in 1453 were also made of bronze.

The reason why Austria was still using bronze for her cannons was that she couldn't produce good enough steel.

I've often wondered why Austria was using bronze for their field gun barrels, when Skoda (in Austria-Hungary) would be producing excellent steel artillery around the same time. In the 1890s when Italy adopted the Carcano rifle, they made barrels with imported steel from Germany (Krupp), and Austria-Hungary. After a trial period they decided the Austro-Hungarian steel was superior and paid royalties to obtain the process, so that Italy could make the steel. It seems like Austria *could* make very good steel, which is why the bronze barrel on the M.5 seems so weird.

In the second half of the 19th century there are references to "compressed bronze" in the context of artillery. But with the widespread introduction of steel, it quickly disappeared (with a few hold outs), and it's hard to find good information on it.

Returning to the original subject, from bronze age to iron age: it appears that at least some classes of weapons were replaced quickly with iron. If bronze was always metallurgically superior, my question was why do things like bronze swords disappear almost immediately, rather than being reserved for those with more wealth? Especially seeing that swords are often considered status symbols. The comment concerning weight by Brother Oni makes sense.

Of course, I could be wrong in my assumption that iron replaced bronze for swords, but so far that's what I've seen.

[VonKaiserstein]

Returning to the original subject, from bronze age to iron age: it appears that at least some classes of weapons were replaced quickly with iron. If bronze was always metallurgically superior, my question was why do things like bronze swords disappear almost immediately, rather than being reserved for those with more wealth? Especially seeing that swords are often considered status symbols. The comment concerning weight by Brother Oni makes sense.

Of course, I could be wrong in my assumption that iron replaced bronze for swords, but so far that's what I've seen.

I'd imagine it's the length factor. In almost any situation, you want to be able to kill the other guy before he can kill you- and an iron sword can be made longer than a bronze one. You can see a similar trend once rapiers come onto the scene, swords start getting longer and longer until they hit their reasonable maximum. Unless you're looking to fight in formation, a longer sword is better. Short swords were favored only in formation fighting with large shields- and you'd generally be using spears during the late bronze age if you're fighting in formation.

[Max_Killjoy]

I'd imagine it's the length factor. In almost any situation, you want to be able to kill the other guy before he can kill you- and an iron sword can be made longer than a bronze one. You can see a similar trend once rapiers come onto the scene, swords start getting longer and longer until they hit their reasonable maximum. Unless you're looking to fight in formation, a longer sword is better. Short swords were favored only in formation fighting with large shields- and you'd generally be using spears during the late bronze age if you're fighting in formation.

Take a look at the earliest iron weapons, they were usually daggers, axes heads, spear heads, etc -- it took quite some time before iron swords could actually be made even as long as bronze swords. Bronze swords reached 3 feet of blade length, and if made correctly, were not flimsy at all.

[Willie the Duck]

Returning to the original subject, from bronze age to iron age: it appears that at least some classes of weapons were replaced quickly with iron. If bronze was always metallurgically superior, my question was why do things like bronze swords disappear almost immediately, rather than being reserved for those with more wealth? Especially seeing that swords are often considered status symbols. The comment concerning weight by Brother Oni makes sense.

Of course, I could be wrong in my assumption that iron replaced bronze for swords, but so far that's what I've seen.

Exactly how thing moved from bronze to iron does seem a bit tough, other than the supply issues associated with bronze. Weight is a good guess. The earliest iron stuff would have been small, but once you started to be able to make iron swords as long as bronze ones, I agree that it would seem reasonable that there should be a period of overlap, barring additional reasons*. Is it simply such an inconvenience to get either copper or tin from somewhere else that once you know how to make a decent sword as-long-as-swords-are-these-days out of iron, you just stop making bronze ones? Or are there additional concerns? For that matter, is it swords that would drive this? Perhaps there's a reason to want iron armor so much that you switch over the instant you have dual capacity, and you don't want to train smiths/manage supply chains for both?
*For the sake of this point, I am assuming you are correct.

[Vinyadan]

About the bronze cannons, I'll translate some parts from a book (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/47322/47322-h/47322-h.htm) about the life of Alfried Krupp (1812-1887). One note, I translated "Gussstahl" with "cast steel", which may or may not be right (Wikipedia goes for "crucible steel".) Steel-bronze = Stahlbronze.

In that time [about 1845], people still produced front-loaded, always smooth, bronze cannons. Krupp at first didn't think of changing the usual construction, and instead thought that his materials would be more advantageous, because their use could make the gun walls much thinner, and also lighter, and the weapon more mobile. At first he didn't find it necessary to prepare the whole gun out of steel, because the main problem of the bronze gun was in the fast consumption of the gun walls. So he prepared only the core tube out of steel and surrounded it with cast iron. (1847) [...] Although these "Mantelrohre" were so much superior in resistance compared to Bronze guns that a 3-punder needed a wall-thickenss of just 32,7 mm vs 62,8 in the case of bronze, around 1854 Krupp converted himself to the massive gun [in which all parts of the gun are made of cast steel. The measurements of such a massive 12-pounder gun were the same as those of a contemporary bronze cannon, but it had a weight of 535 kg vs the 620 kg of the bronze one, the 12-pounder Napoleon, which I believe was the last bronze cannon used by the USA].

[...]...obviously the back-loaded rifled guns are the most usable and effective ones! But it wasn't that simple back then [in 1860]. We must realize that the introduction of rifled guns decisively reshaped the tactics and the way of fighting of the army, and today [1928] we couldn't do without the rifled guns, because the new tactics as a whole are based on their use. The old way of fighting, and in this still fully lay the artillerists of 1860, fit the use of smoothbores, and, on the short distance, which was the one then usually accounted for, they were superior to rifled guns. The shrapnel-shot was not yet developed for the rifled gun, and with grenades it was much more effective at distance, but it completely lacked the canister shot. So it's understandable that people were of the opinion that both kinds of cannon would be well adequate to complete each other: the smoothbore would be used in battle at short range, while the rifled guns could be used as position cannon, in a very stable location over longer distances.

[...][After the 1866 Prussian-Austrian-Italian war] the smoothbores had to be put aside as fully unusable. [However, during the same war, various steel cannons had blown up unexpectedly. Bronze did burst open and get torn, but these incidents weren't as dangerous. The artillery inspectors] saw themselves forced by duty and conscience to try anew the construction of a performing bronze, rear-loaded cannon. They had a 9cm gun built, which was to correspond to the size and weight of a cast steel one as much as possible. The shooting tests were favourable. The attempts were followed on, now with an 8cm gun, and there happened a full change in favour of bronze. Around the same time, in which Prussia was about to turn its back on Krupp's cast steel, Austria had come to the opposite conclusion, that bronze field cannons had to be eliminated, because cast steel was clearly superior.

[The results of the war of 1870-71 brought back the popularity of steel. In Austria] various steel guns were tried, two of them from local manufacturers, which proved themselves unusable, and with guns by Krupp. [The results with Krupp were positive, and a few test guns were effectively made and sent. However,] the Austrian Reichsvertretung would not have accepted to pay such a price, especially while it considered the provision of the material a way to help the local iron industry in a time of stagnation, and did everything possible to gain control of the matter. The ministers instead believed that the trial of steel gun production by the locals would have represented a problem, because a real defense industry did not exist in Austria, and would need money and time to be created... if it hadn't been for a lucky combination: [...] in 1874 the first tests with the steel-bronze developed by Uchatius began. [...] So in Austria cast steel was pushed away by steel-bronze, as far as field artillery is concerned. [In the navy steel cannons stayed in use, since they couldn't be made in hard bronze without damaging their performance].

Again, it's odd that in Prussia hard bronze (since 1875 also produced in Spandau) was used for heavy guns, like siege guns, while the field artillery stayed true to steel. [...] Almost the whole arsenal in Germany after 1875 was made of bronze cannons [...] the material was available in large quantities, because of the many looted French guns. The fast development of guns allowed to believe that the new guns would in short time be surpassed by other states and become unusable. In such a case, steel cannons became worthless in spite of their higher cost, while bronze guns still maintained useful materials. The facts confirmed this opinion. Bronze cannons also were sufficient for the needs, given their performance and ease of preservation. The only problem was that the loading room would undergo changes because of the exploding charges, and this was the reason that forced to put them aside. With the introduction of smokeless powder and explosive grenades, people had to add a steel soul to the hard bronze cannons, and returned to cast steel for new constructions. [Introduction of hard-bronze artillery: Italy 1880, Spain 1879. The return to steel followed the death of Alfred Krupp in 1887. Austria managed to build 12, 15 and 18 cm guns of steel-bronze that could resist strong charges, which maybe is why they kept going with this material.]

About steel-bronze:

In the autumn of 1873 Lavroff, a Russian colonel, tried to compress the internal walls by pushing cylinders of increasing diameter through the barrel, and the good success brought the Asutrian general Uchatius to a thought that reached the desired result. While he gave the outer strata of the barrel greater hardness by fast cooling after casting, he reached the same result for the inner ones through a forced broadening of the bore from 80 to 87 cm pushing a cylindrical stamp. The tension then has a similar effect as the the tension of cast steel in relation to exploding powder charges.

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/47322/47322-h/47322-h.htm

[Xuc Xac]

I've read that bronze was often preferred for cannon barrels because it has low metal on metal friction. Balls didn't feel so sticky like they did in iron or steel barrels.

[Brother Oni]

Is it simply such an inconvenience to get either copper or tin from somewhere else that once you know how to make a decent sword as-long-as-swords-are-these-days out of iron, you just stop making bronze ones?

Possibly - I remember reading somewhere the Phoenicians had a secret trade route to 'tin bearing isles' or the Cassiterides (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassiterides), which have been most likely traced to near Briere in France, on the Bay of Biscay.

By modern sea routes, Beirut in Lebanon (approximately where Phoenicia was believed to be) to the nearby port of Nantes is ~3400 nautical miles and even further in a galley which has to hug the coast for dear life in the rougher seas of the Atlantic ocean. There's even evidence that tin from Cornwall made its way around the ancient world; that's a long way to go for tin during the Bronze Age.

So when people start developing this new metal that maybe about 50-75% as good as bronze but you can dig it out of the ground locally rather than make a nearly 7,000 nm round trip, you can see the attraction for kingdoms who have to mass produce arms and armour to outfit their armies. Significant disruptions in the tin trade around this time also propagated the advancement of iron.

Somewhat related, but arsenical bronzes also disappeared surprisingly rapidly once tin and other bronzes were discovered, partly because smiths who work with arsenical bronzes tend to have a very short lifespan or end up crippled, but also because you can more reliably vary the amount of tin you add to the bronze to control its properties, rather than guesstimate during smelting for arsenical bronze.

[Vinyadan]

Translated from "Krieg im Frieden" by Günther Kronenbitter (2003), pp.:


The determining step, which would take away the key position of the state equipment manufacture in the Arsenal [in the outskirts of Wien], was the passage to steel barrels introduced with the M 98 [1898]. Unlike those of schmiedebronze, steel barrels could also be produced by private companies in the metal industry. The "Bronze Age" of the k.u.k. Army however only ended during the war (WWI), as there wasn't enough copper and the Arsenal couldn't deliver the requested number of pieces, but the provision measures of the last years before the war already prepared the farewell to this particularity of the Austrian-Hungarian artillery. The "Army Equipment Facility" in the Arsenal of Wien lacked the experienced specialists and its own steel workshop needed for the production of the necessairy quality steel. Skoda had the necessary production technology at its disposal, and so the engineers of the company from Pilsen cooperated closely with the Technical Military Committee, the Artillery Shooting School and the new Commission for Shooting Experimentation on the M98 and M11.
One argument for holding on so long to the schmiedebronze as barrel material of the field cannons were the comparatively low costs, and the cartelisation of the local industry in the iron and steel sector brought effectively with itself the danger that the prices of steel products would become immense. Although Skoda had placed the price pro piece to at least 160,000 Crowns, the Bohemian company stayed essentially free of competitors.

I've read a couple of articles from the press around 1904, and it really looks like people were conscious that Skoda was the only alternative to the State Arsenal (other competitors were simply too small), that bronze excluded Skoda, that Skoda would have gained money anyway from ammo and other parts, and that a clear correlation was felt between taxes getting higher and Skoda making money.

Schmiedebronze: it's the successor of steel-bronze. It was invented by the Arsenal. Compared to its predecessor, it has a different alloy content, as well as forging and moulding processes. (from a few entries in Lueger-1904)

While there are some academic articles about steel-bronze, I can't find much about schmiedebronze, and it seems that its composition and working was considered a secret. It contained phosphor, was cold forged, and was invented by Friedrich Thiele (so it was also called Thielische Bronze or Edelbronze). When the first cannons came out, a brochure was given to interested parties, explaining why they were made of bronze:

1. They cost 2/5 compared to steel.
2. If bronze cannons are good for fortifications, then they are good for the field.
3. Bronze can be recycled
4. Bronze cannons can be repaired
5. The material has no defects
6. It's easier to keep in good state. (Militär-Wochenblatt, 1904, 68, I, p. 1700)

[fusilier]

Translated from "Krieg im Frieden" by Günther Kronenbitter (2003), pp.:



I've read a couple of articles from the press around 1904, and it really looks like people were conscious that Skoda was the only alternative to the State Arsenal (other competitors were simply too small), that bronze excluded Skoda, that Skoda would have gained money anyway from ammo and other parts, and that a clear correlation was felt between taxes getting higher and Skoda making money.

Schmiedebronze: it's the successor of steel-bronze. It was invented by the Arsenal. Compared to its predecessor, it has a different alloy content, as well as forging and moulding processes. (from a few entries in Lueger-1904)

While there are some academic articles about steel-bronze, I can't find much about schmiedebronze, and it seems that its composition and working was considered a secret. It contained phosphor, was cold forged, and was invented by Friedrich Thiele (so it was also called Thielische Bronze or Edelbronze). When the first cannons came out, a brochure was given to interested parties, explaining why they were made of bronze:

1. They cost 2/5 compared to steel.
2. If bronze cannons are good for fortifications, then they are good for the field.
3. Bronze can be recycled
4. Bronze cannons can be repaired
5. The material has no defects
6. It's easier to keep in good state. (Militär-Wochenblatt, 1904, 68, I, p. 1700)

Vinyadan, thank you for all the detailed information about late 19th century artillery bronze, and specifically what was going on in Austria-Hungary. If I were to paraphrase, the Austrian state-arsenal invested heavily in bronze, wasn't prepared to make steel, and was kind of old fashioned. (It was also cheaper, at least until war caused a shortage of materials). I have not heard that the M.5 cannons were particularly troublesome, or that their barrels wore out quickly, etc. Sounds like they mostly gave good service.

[AdAstra]

Exactly how thing moved from bronze to iron does seem a bit tough, other than the supply issues associated with bronze. Weight is a good guess. The earliest iron stuff would have been small, but once you started to be able to make iron swords as long as bronze ones, I agree that it would seem reasonable that there should be a period of overlap, barring additional reasons*. Is it simply such an inconvenience to get either copper or tin from somewhere else that once you know how to make a decent sword as-long-as-swords-are-these-days out of iron, you just stop making bronze ones? Or are there additional concerns? For that matter, is it swords that would drive this? Perhaps there's a reason to want iron armor so much that you switch over the instant you have dual capacity, and you don't want to train smiths/manage supply chains for both?
*For the sake of this point, I am assuming you are correct.

One thing I am aware of is that there was significant overlap between the emergence of iron and the phasing out of bronze. Bronze weapons have been recovered from well past iron's introduction. The Iron age only represents where iron completely supplanted bronze for most purposes. China's Warring States period saw iron and bronze weapons and armor used side by side (with bronze starting out more common, iron and steel being gradually phased in) until quench-hardened steel showed up.

(Also as a more minor arguable example, the Sarissa, a basically-pike that was crucial during Phillip of Macedon's conquest of Greece, and Alexander's earlywork, used an iron head and a bronze butt-spike, for corrosion-resistance, since it was often meant to be braced on the ground. It was also a secondary point in case the main one broke, and served to balance the spear, a role for which bronze's extra weight was, if anything, a slight advantage. So there you have an example of a genuine widely-used weapon that used both in a way meaningful to the weapon's practical use!)

[Beleriphon]

Potential thought on iron swords seemingly replacing bronze swords nearly overnight, is it possible that don't have the bronze sword exemplars because they might have exists, but were melted and recast into something that iron wasn't good for at the time, like say a helmet or maybe a cuirass?

[Lapak]

Potential thought on iron swords seemingly replacing bronze swords nearly overnight, is it possible that don't have the bronze sword exemplars because they might have exists, but were melted and recast into something that iron wasn't good for at the time, like say a helmet or maybe a cuirass?
This is not only possible, it's likely in my view. To take another example: a big reason such a large percentage of the statuary recovered from history is wood, marble, and pottery (despite unambiguous records showing a lot of work was done in bronze) is exactly because bronze can be and is reused this way. Every time a rough period came along where the material was seen as more valuable than the art, the art got melted down.

[Lvl 2 Expert]

Also, it's good to see you again, it's been a while since I visited these forums but I remember all the players from my short lived "Ivory tree coven" game rather fondly :)

Good times, good times...

[fusilier]

Potential thought on iron swords seemingly replacing bronze swords nearly overnight, is it possible that don't have the bronze sword exemplars because they might have exists, but were melted and recast into something that iron wasn't good for at the time, like say a helmet or maybe a cuirass?

But that would imply that iron had some advantage over bronze when it came to swords (once, of course, iron working became good enough to make swords). My current speculation is that iron being lighter may have been enough of an advantage to displace bronze (again for swords), even if one could afford bronze. For other uses (like armor) bronze was preferred when it could be afforded. But it's just a theory.

[Beleriphon]

But that would imply that iron had some advantage over bronze when it came to swords (once, of course, iron working became good enough to make swords). My current speculation is that iron being lighter may have been enough of an advantage to displace bronze (again for swords), even if one could afford bronze. For other uses (like armor) bronze was preferred when it could be afforded. But it's just a theory.

The advantage could be simple as simple as cost. If I can buy three iron swords or one bronze sword but I still need my armour made of bronze, I'll probably opt for iron all other things being equal. As a plus I do have grandpa's collection of bronze swords.... and I could just another iron sword if I need one... :smallwink:

[Lemmy]

Wouldn't weight be an even bigger factor for armor than for weapons? :smallconfused:

[fusilier]

Wouldn't weight be an even bigger factor for armor than for weapons? :smallconfused:

In terms of encumbrance, yes. But in terms of agility, the manner in which the armor is carried on the body may not make much of a difference. For a sword, being a little lighter, and maybe with a different balance, may give just enough of an advantage in agility to offset the "inferiority" of iron.

[Vinyadan]

Wouldn't weight be an even bigger factor for armor than for weapons? :smallconfused:

There are two problems for answering this question. The first problem is that we don't really know what armour was used in Greece during the early iron age (1100-700 BC). The depictions we have can be interpreted as people fighting naked, except for a helmet, a shield, and a huge belt that covers the belly.

The second problem is why the passage took so long to happen. The Romans were still using bronze helmets during the civil wars. Instead, the Celts had been making iron helmets at least since the V century BC. Rome didn't have a local tradition in making helmets, so they used products made by Etruscans or Italics, who used bronze, or by Celts, who more frequently used iron. These groups lived all in Italy, and there it was possible to find the same helmet types made with both materials. However, even bronze helms often contained iron parts, with cheeckguards being made of two bronze sheets sandwiching an iron one, or simply for parts like rivets. Also, bronze helmets in this time were made with iron instruments. (in the IV century BC, the Celts already wore iron chain mail).

At the same time, we have an iron cuirass from the tomb of Phillip (d. 336 BC), the father of Alexander the Great. This must have been a highly valuable object, and it looks remarkably square, like an iron version of a linothorax. By contrast, the iron plate armour found in the tomb of Prodromi (dated from 400 to 250 BC), now in the museum of Igoumenitsa, has a shape just like bronze armour (its owner must also have been a well-off man, since he also had two iron helmets, one of which silvered, and probably was a cavalryman). I can't help but wonder if, at least in Greece, the technology to make iron armour was present, but the costs exorbitant. There is more information here: https://www.academia.edu/3487780/A_NEW_HELMET_FROM_MACEDONIA

Anyway, the move towards linothorax suggests that people were conscious of the advantages of a lighter, more flexible armour. There also was mixed material armour, with metal over the shoulders and a corset for the rest of the torso.

[Pauly]

In terms of encumbrance, yes. But in terms of agility, the manner in which the armor is carried on the body may not make much of a difference. For a sword, being a little lighter, and maybe with a different balance, may give just enough of an advantage in agility to offset the "inferiority" of iron.

I’ll take a little disagreement over the use of the word “encumbrance” which is used in RPG circles as referring to how much a person can carry.

Professionally made armor generally hangs off the body and is supported by belts to evenly distribute the weight. People wearing properly made and designed armor are not particularly badly encumbered and are quite capable of performing almost all athletic activities.

What the weight of armor, along with the heat sink effect of armor, restricts is the ability to sustain activity over time. You can basically do in armor what you can do without armor, just for much shorter periods of time.

I’m not disagreeing with you in any way. The point is more about how RPGs can mangle perceptions of reality through their mangling of the language.

[Mike_G]

I’ll take a little disagreement over the use of the word “encumbrance” which is used in RPG circles as referring to how much a person can carry.

Professionally made armor generally hangs off the body and is supported by belts to evenly distribute the weight. People wearing properly made and designed armor are not particularly badly encumbered and are quite capable of performing almost all athletic activities.

What the weight of armor, along with the heat sink effect of armor, restricts is the ability to sustain activity over time. You can basically do in armor what you can do without armor, just for much shorter periods of time.

I’m not disagreeing with you in any way. The point is more about how RPGs can mangle perceptions of reality through their mangling of the language.

Agreed.

But a lighter sword is absolutely easier to use than a heavier sword. It doesn't just tire you out sooner, it moves slower and it's harder to be precise with. So a sword that is 10% lighter is going to be preferred by most people, even if the edge dulls quicker or the chance of breaking goes up a bit, because it's lighter on every swing, and the durability only comes into play after a lot of swings, which you may never reach.

[fusilier]

I’ll take a little disagreement over the use of the word “encumbrance” which is used in RPG circles as referring to how much a person can carry. . . .

Fair enough. What I was trying to convey is that heavier armor would be more fatiguing than light armor, all other things being equal -- badly fitted armor might be more fatiguing than heavier well fitted armor. Perhaps I should have used the term "fatiguing"? It's not that wearing well fitted armor isn't fatiguing at all, it's just that it's not as fatiguing as people think (you are after all carrying more weight).

[fusilier]

Agreed.

But a lighter sword is absolutely easier to use than a heavier sword. It doesn't just tire you out sooner, it moves slower and it's harder to be precise with. So a sword that is 10% lighter is going to be preferred by most people, even if the edge dulls quicker or the chance of breaking goes up a bit, because it's lighter on every swing, and the durability only comes into play after a lot of swings, which you may never reach.

Thanks for the response. It's the kind of informed opinion I was looking.

[Saint-Just]

Wouldn't weight be an even bigger factor for armor than for weapons? :smallconfused:

In addition to all things said above: bronze armour has a benefit of allowing you to make large plates (like single-piece breastplate). In the early Iron age you cannot make large plates out of iron, and if you have tried to achieve the same level of protection by using scale or lamellar or small plates riveted together then the overlap between plates would be more than enough to negate any advantage in weight iron may have.

[Pauly]

Agreed.

But a lighter sword is absolutely easier to use than a heavier sword. It doesn't just tire you out sooner, it moves slower and it's harder to be precise with. So a sword that is 10% lighter is going to be preferred by most people, even if the edge dulls quicker or the chance of breaking goes up a bit, because it's lighter on every swing, and the durability only comes into play after a lot of swings, which you may never reach.

Swords have an optimum weight. Too light and they don’t transfer enough energy in the strike and become easier to deflect/parry; too heavy they run into the problems you’ve described. Depending on the environment and armor they are likely to face will change what that optimum size/weight distribution is, as can be seen through the evolution of sword types through history. Even a ‘static’ design like the katana shows a lot of variation on closer examination (katanas from warring periods that are expected to come across armored opponents tend to be narrower and less curved than katanas from peaceful times where unarmored opponents are the expected opponent).

Also what is the optimum size/weight for me will almost certainly not be the optimum size/weight for you. The optimum size/weight is heavily informed by your own physique, strength and endurance. The historical evidence of situations where we can match bespoke swords to their owners shows generally that larger, stronger more conditioned person will want a larger/heavier sword.

An average person might well want the same sword, only lighter. Other people chose the option of keeping the sword the same weight but making it bigger or stronger.

As for sword breakages they usually happened from an excess of stress applied to an area with an inclusion. Breakages happened when they hit the wrong spot on the blade with the wrong type of force. The standard pre 21st century way of preventing breakages due to inclusions in the iron was to increase mass (or wait for a breakthrough in smelting and/or foundry techniques).
I am unaware of an historical account of a sword breaking through fatigue or overuse. Although with non-tempered swords without spring steel could be bent, and possibly repeated bending and re-straightening might lead to metal fatigue failures.

[Mike_G]

Swords have an optimum weight. Too light and they don’t transfer enough energy in the strike and become easier to deflect/parry; too heavy they run into the problems you’ve described. Depending on the environment and armor they are likely to face will change what that optimum size/weight distribution is, as can be seen through the evolution of sword types through history. Even a ‘static’ design like the katana shows a lot of variation on closer examination (katanas from warring periods that are expected to come across armored opponents tend to be narrower and less curved than katanas from peaceful times where unarmored opponents are the expected opponent).

Also what is the optimum size/weight for me will almost certainly not be the optimum size/weight for you. The optimum size/weight is heavily informed by your own physique, strength and endurance. The historical evidence of situations where we can match bespoke swords to their owners shows generally that larger, stronger more conditioned person will want a larger/heavier sword.

An average person might well want the same sword, only lighter. Other people chose the option of keeping the sword the same weight but making it bigger or stronger.

As for sword breakages they usually happened from an excess of stress applied to an area with an inclusion. Breakages happened when they hit the wrong spot on the blade with the wrong type of force. The standard pre 21st century way of preventing breakages due to inclusions in the iron was to increase mass (or wait for a breakthrough in smelting and/or foundry techniques).
I am unaware of an historical account of a sword breaking through fatigue or overuse. Although with non-tempered swords without spring steel could be bent, and possibly repeated bending and re-straightening might lead to metal fatigue failures.


To a point.

But nobody in the history of swords has ever said "Iron/steel is just too damn light for my sword. Could you find something heavier to make it out of?"

For the same weight as bronze you could just make a steel sword longer and gain reach or broader and gain cutting ability. Heavier material than iron will never be a selling point.

[halfeye]

To a point.

But nobody in the history of swords has ever said "Iron/steel is just too damn light for my sword. Could you find something heavier to make it out of?"

For the same weight as bronze you could just make a steel sword longer and gain reach or broader and gain cutting ability. Heavier material than iron will never be a selling point.

Iron is a relatively heavy metal. Bronze may need to be thicker to have the same strength, but mass for mass it will have more volume.

[Saint-Just]

Iron is a relatively heavy metal.

I beg to differ. Of seven classical metals only tin is lighter than iron (and I mean pure iron, high-carbon cast iron could be lighter than pure tin). Of all metals known to science nowadays iron is closer to the midway in the list , but still is in the lighter half.

Iron is a relatively heavy thing, people have used a lot of organics and ceramics in the everyday life, nowadays we also have plastics. Compared to them iron is heavy. Compared to other metals - not really.

[Vinyadan]

Concerning the fast switch from bronze to iron swords in Greece: Greece was fairly close to the then-defunct Hittite Empire, which was the (or one?) homeland of iron- and steel*-making. The Hittites were already making steel in the XIII century BC (and at least one sword had its blade composed by different parts with different levels of carbon forged together); this era sees the value of iron drop and the production increase significantly. So it's possible that the Greeks actually only did the switch (1100-1000 BC) once superior iron/steel was available, compared to early iron, which cost more, was inferior for many applications, and was something of a status symbol.

Maybe this iron/steel could keep a better edge than contemporary bronze. Maybe it couldn't and people didn't care, because the sword was a back-up weapon, and so it was better if it was lighter and not too large (swords get increasingly smaller in Greece in later centuries, with the Spartans reaching 35 cm, so almost no one takes advantage of the lighter weight to make a longer weapon, which would have also needed more skill to produce).

It's also true that large metal objects still were made of bronze, except some of the largest ones, the tripod lebes. And there was some back-and-forth in the following centuries, with spear heads and butts reverting to bronze. There could be a reason for this, in that bronze could be cast and iron couldn't, so you could use moulds and make a lot of smaller items (arrow heads in particular). The tripod also was later more often found made of bronze.

Personally, I get the impression that, in addition to problematic trade routes, metallurgy was in a developmental stage (as it's always been, I guess) and that different materials would surpass and catch-up to each other as production techniques were discovered or imported.

*steel as in "not homogeneous iron-carbon alloy".

[halfeye]

I beg to differ. Of seven classical metals only tin is lighter than iron (and I mean pure iron, high-carbon cast iron could be lighter than pure tin). Of all metals known to science nowadays iron is closer to the midway in the list , but still is in the lighter half.

What seven classical metals are you talking about?

There certainly are heavier metals than iron (gold, lead, mercury, uranium, plutonium) of those only uranium is in any way suitable for sword and armour. Copper, zinc, aluminium, calcium, potassium, magnesium are all lighter than iron, and there are many more that are too.

[Brother Oni]

For the same weight as bronze you could just make a steel sword longer and gain reach or broader and gain cutting ability. Heavier material than iron will never be a selling point.

While I agree with you, I'd just be careful in extrapolating this for every weapon - bronze mace heads being more popular than steel ones for example.


Iron is a relatively heavy metal. Bronze may need to be thicker to have the same strength, but mass for mass it will have more volume.

When you say 'mass for mass, it will have more volume', do you mean iron or bronze? Bronze is denser than iron (~8.7 g/cm3, depending on the bronze alloy in question) while iron is about 7.9 g/cm3 depending on purity, thus mass for mass, iron will have more volume than bronze (~10% more).

[halfeye]

While I agree with you, I'd just be careful in extrapolating this for every weapon - bronze mace heads being more popular than steel ones for example.



When you say 'mass for mass, it will have more volume', do you mean iron or bronze? Bronze is denser than iron (~8.7 g/cm3, depending on the bronze alloy in question) while iron is about 7.9 g/cm3 depending on purity, thus mass for mass, iron will have more volume than bronze (~10% more).

I was just checking that on Wikipedia, it seems I was confused, I thought copper and tin were like potassium and calcium. Thanks for the heads up. :smalleek:

[Saint-Just]

What seven classical metals are you talking about?
Gold, silver, copper, tin, lead, iron, and mercury. The only metals which has been widely known during the classical era and the Early Medieval.



There certainly are heavier metals than iron (gold, lead, mercury, uranium, plutonium) of those only uranium is in any way suitable for sword and armour. Copper, zinc, aluminium, calcium, potassium, magnesium are all lighter than iron, and there are many more that are too.

And there many more that are heavier than iron. Look at this (https://sciencetrends.com/the-density-of-all-metals/) table, for example. Describing iron as "heavy" metal is hardly accurate.

[wilphe]

I think all of the lighter metals are unknown to classical science in their native forms, only as compounds and are sufficiently strongly bonded and reactive that you are not going to discover them by accident

Conversely the classical metals do show up as the pure metal and/or are easy to refine from ore

[wilphe]

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

[halfeye]

Gold, silver, copper, tin, lead, iron, and mercury. The only metals which has been widely known during the classical era and the Early Medieval.



And there many more that are heavier than iron. Look at this (https://sciencetrends.com/the-density-of-all-metals/) table, for example. Describing iron as "heavy" metal is hardly accurate.
Wikipedia does:

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

Iron is the midpoint of the nuclear reactions, fusion stops at iron going up, fission stops at iron (or typically before) going down.

[Max_Killjoy]

Wikipedia does:

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

Iron is the midpoint of the nuclear reactions, fusion stops at iron going up, fission stops at iron (or typically before) going down.



Important note there -- "The criteria used, and whether metalloids are included, vary depending on the author and context." Whether something is a "heavy metal", or even a "metal", varies a lot -- at one extreme, when talking about stellar makeup, astronomers will refer to anything heavier than hydrogen or helium as a "metal".

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

[Vinyadan]

Important note there -- "The criteria used, and whether metalloids are included, vary depending on the author and context." Whether something is a "heavy metal", or even a "metal", varies a lot -- at one extreme, when talking about stellar makeup, astronomers will refer to anything heavier than hydrogen or helium as a "metal".


Like new metal, melodic metal, power metal... :smalltongue:

[Mike_G]

While I agree with you, I'd just be careful in extrapolating this for every weapon - bronze mace heads being more popular than steel ones for example.




I was specifically discussing swords. I don't dispute that heavier materials might have been useful in different weapons, but I can't see any good reason to make a sword out of heavier metal than iron.

[Vinyadan]

I was specifically discussing swords. I don't dispute that heavier materials might have been useful in different weapons, but I can't see any good reason to make a sword out of heavier metal than iron.

Well, there was that time when the Gauls sacked Rome and asked for a ransom to leave, so the Romans had to put the valuables on the scales, and, since he felt they weren't really into it, the Gaulish leader Brennus threw his sword on one of the plates to signal that the price had increased.

[Gnoman]

Swords have an optimum weight. Too light and they don’t transfer enough energy in the strike and become easier to deflect/parry; too heavy they run into the problems you’ve described. Depending on the environment and armor they are likely to face will change what that optimum size/weight distribution is, as can be seen through the evolution of sword types through history. Even a ‘static’ design like the katana shows a lot of variation on closer examination (katanas from warring periods that are expected to come across armored opponents tend to be narrower and less curved than katanas from peaceful times where unarmored opponents are the expected opponent).

Also what is the optimum size/weight for me will almost certainly not be the optimum size/weight for you. The optimum size/weight is heavily informed by your own physique, strength and endurance. The historical evidence of situations where we can match bespoke swords to their owners shows generally that larger, stronger more conditioned person will want a larger/heavier sword.

An average person might well want the same sword, only lighter. Other people chose the option of keeping the sword the same weight but making it bigger or stronger.

As for sword breakages they usually happened from an excess of stress applied to an area with an inclusion. Breakages happened when they hit the wrong spot on the blade with the wrong type of force. The standard pre 21st century way of preventing breakages due to inclusions in the iron was to increase mass (or wait for a breakthrough in smelting and/or foundry techniques).
I am unaware of an historical account of a sword breaking through fatigue or overuse. Although with non-tempered swords without spring steel could be bent, and possibly repeated bending and re-straightening might lead to metal fatigue failures.

Some of the most effective swords in history were as light as a loaf of bread. There's evidence that larger people wanted larger swords, but that doesn't mean that weight was desirable. Larger swords have more reach than shorter ones, which is a fairly important quality in individual combat (where sidearms such as swords were more likely to come into play). Larger swords are also inescapably heavier, but that could easily be a side effect rather than a design goal.

[Lvl 2 Expert]

Like new metal, melodic metal, power metal... :smalltongue:

But swords are best made of death metal.

Doom metal is reserved for nuclear weapons.

[Pauly]

Some of the most effective swords in history were as light as a loaf of bread. There's evidence that larger people wanted larger swords, but that doesn't mean that weight was desirable. Larger swords have more reach than shorter ones, which is a fairly important quality in individual combat (where sidearms such as swords were more likely to come into play). Larger swords are also inescapably heavier, but that could easily be a side effect rather than a design goal.

A typical loaf of bread weighs about 400g, just under one pound.

The only historical sword that regulalrly approached that weight is the 18th century small sword. This is a sword designed for ritualized semi-sporting unarmored duels and usually weighed in about 600g.

One handed swords designed for war fighting weighed 1 to 1.25kg although it is more common to find heavier examples than the usual rather than lighter examples
Some sources:
http://www.thearma.org/essays/weights.htm#.Xm1tIi-RWhA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03HIYgLWGu0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MY5Sdwp5cU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fy8rhlK3kNY

Here a 770g sword (i.e. 2 full loaves of bread) is described as ‘super light’

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0QDPU0itinU

[halfeye]

A typical loaf of bread weighs about 400g, just under one pound.

That's called a small loaf here, and sells relatively poorly, the normal loaf is 800gm.

[AnonCastillo]

How would you recommend statting out linothorax in D&D3.5? Take the chain shirt stats but make it medium armor with a bonus specifically against piercing damage or ranged attacks? Or was it light enough to remain in the light armor category?

[Brother Oni]

How would you recommend statting out linothorax in D&D3.5? Take the chain shirt stats but make it medium armor with a bonus specifically against piercing damage or ranged attacks? Or was it light enough to remain in the light armor category?

A replica linothrax affording full torso protection weighs about 10lbs, which comparing to the D20 SRD, puts it at the same weight as padded armour.

That said, a suit of mail is 40lbs under D20 SRD rules, which is is heavier than a full mail hauberk - the heaviest existing original is ~30lbs, with modern replicas coming at around the 22lb mark depending on weave and link size (22lbs for an European 4-in-1 weave with links consisting of 1.5mm gauge wire with a 10mm ID), so I'd advise using weight to gauge protection with a pinch of salt.

[Silver Swift]

I'm trying to figure out how many goons I can throw at a character before it becomes completely ridiculous. The scene is that there are a bunch of guys planning to beat up a character that they incorrectly assume is unarmed and handcuffed.

So three part question:

1) How many tough, but untrained and unarmed guys could one well trained guy with a modern combat knife realistically take on?

2) What kind of tactics would someone with a lot of training in hand to hand combat use in such a situation? Do you try to keep everyone at a distance or do you jump one enemy to try to take them out before the rest can intervene?

3) Are there any other weapons that you'd rather have in such a situation than a knife? Assuming that a) you need to be able to hide the weapon on your body and b) you can't bring anything containing gunpowder or other explosives. Would you prefer pepper spray over a knife? How about one of these (https://www.karatemart.com/images/products/large/expandable-polycarbonate-baton.jpg)?

[Brother Oni]

I'm trying to figure out how many goons I can throw at a character before it becomes completely ridiculous. The scene is that there are a bunch of guys planning to beat up a character that they incorrectly assume is unarmed and handcuffed.

So three part question:

1) How many tough, but untrained and unarmed guys could one well trained guy with a modern combat knife realistically take on?

2) What kind of tactics would someone with a lot of training in hand to hand combat use in such a situation? Do you try to keep everyone at a distance or do you jump one enemy to try to take them out before the rest can intervene?

3) Are there any other weapons that you'd rather have in such a situation than a knife? Assuming that a) you need to be able to hide the weapon on your body and b) you can't bring anything containing gunpowder or other explosives. Would you prefer pepper spray over a knife? How about one of these (https://www.karatemart.com/images/products/large/expandable-polycarbonate-baton.jpg)?

1) Need more detail - are they all together in a small room (eg a prison cell), in a normal living room, open plan office, woods, outdoor urban environment, etc? Does the protagonist have the element of surprise? Is he stalking them or does he square up to the whole group like at the start of an action movie scene? What do you mean by 'well trained'? Military special forces, martial arts with practical fighting experience?

2) This one I know - use the environment and the opponents to make sure you only face one at a time. For example, if two of them are approaching, he would manoeuver around so that the opponent he is fighting, physically blocks the second opponent.
If you have a range advantage (ie a weapon), then use it and stay on your feet - close range wrestling or going to the ground against one guy, just means that his friends dogpile you and start stamping on your head.

3) Depending on the environment and the concealment limitations you've given, I'd want a bigger knife - a machete or similar would be good, if I couldn't get away with an actual short/small sword.
In my opinion, a collapsible baton isn't designed for the fighting you're planning (at least not the UK police ASP I handled) - it's designed for subduing civilians in a riot situation or a self defence weapon. Treat it to the sort of stresses that you'd put it through in a fight (e.g. someone grabs it and you end up wrestling over over) and the cheaper ones will bend or snap. You're also going to need more space since the baton is intended to strike with the tip, which may be an issue in a 8ftx6ft cell.

[Pauly]

I'm trying to figure out how many goons I can throw at a character before it becomes completely ridiculous. The scene is that there are a bunch of guys planning to beat up a character that they incorrectly assume is unarmed and handcuffed.

So three part question:

1) How many tough, but untrained and unarmed guys could one well trained guy with a modern combat knife realistically take on?

2) What kind of tactics would someone with a lot of training in hand to hand combat use in such a situation? Do you try to keep everyone at a distance or do you jump one enemy to try to take them out before the rest can intervene?

3) Are there any other weapons that you'd rather have in such a situation than a knife? Assuming that a) you need to be able to hide the weapon on your body and b) you can't bring anything containing gunpowder or other explosives. Would you prefer pepper spray over a knife? How about one of these (https://www.karatemart.com/images/products/large/expandable-polycarbonate-baton.jpg)?

The largest number of opponents defeated in a 1 -v- many brawl scenario that can be reasonably verified is Lenny McLean who got the nickname “10 man Len” for beating 10 men in a brawl. That’s pitting what was probably the best bare knuckle fighter on the planet at the time against a bunch if goons.

Tactics generally in that situation:
The goons want to surround then rush
The fighter wants to limit getting surrounded. He can:
- use doorways walls etc. to prevent people getting around him
- charge the circle, take out one or two then break through and move to a new position. Rinse and repeat.

An extendable baton is probably a better weapon than a knife. Firstly for the reach advantage. The second one is that tactically it is less lethal. In the presence of a knife the goons are going to be more careful of co-ordinating their surround then rush, and won't risk engaging in tight places like corners or doorways.

[Xuc Xac]

An extendable baton is probably a better weapon than a knife. Firstly for the reach advantage. The second one is that tactically it is less lethal. In the presence of a knife the goons are going to be more careful of co-ordinating their surround then rush, and won't risk engaging in tight places like corners or doorways.

I would rather have the baton because it's more likely to make a goon stop fighting. People can get fatally stabbed right in the chest and not slow down or even notice for several minutes. A lot of murder trials involving stabbing usually try to portray the stabber as unnecessarily vicious because they stabbed the dead person 50 times, which is far more than necessary to kill them. Even (or especially) in self defense cases, this happens because the attacker doesn't stop and fall down dead like in the movies. They keep coming until they pass out from blood loss. A knife wound is easily fatal, but it's not debilitating.

Getting your arm, collarbone, shin, or skull broken by one solid hit from a club will make someone quit fighting even if they are far from dead. Basically in D&D terms, using the knife means hitting one goon dozens of times to hack your way through a big pile of hit points, but using a club means doing 1d6 damage and forcing a morale check to make the goon give up after one hit.

[Silver Swift]

1) Need more detail - are they all together in a small room (eg a prison cell), in a normal living room, open plan office, woods, outdoor urban environment, etc? Does the protagonist have the element of surprise? Is he stalking them or does he square up to the whole group like at the start of an action movie scene? What do you mean by 'well trained'? Military special forces, martial arts with practical fighting experience?

It's pretty much exactly a standard action movie scene. Normal living room, the fighter has the element of surprise in the sense that they expect him to be handcuffed and unarmed, but can't go stalk around to sneak up on them.

He's a special forces type of guy, but has some batman training on top of it.

[Pauly]

It's pretty much exactly a standard action movie scene. Normal living room, the fighter has the element of surprise in the sense that they expect him to be handcuffed and unarmed, but can't go stalk around to sneak up on them.

He's a special forces type of guy, but has some batman training on top of it.

I’d say 6 is the maximum for a relatively realistic fight. The hero takes out 2 in the initial surprise, leaving 4 to deal with once they realize he’s armed. If he can take one out before they can effectively surround and rush him, that leaves him in a 1 -v- 3 fight which is reasonably do-able.

[gkathellar]

It's pretty much exactly a standard action movie scene. Normal living room, the fighter has the element of surprise in the sense that they expect him to be handcuffed and unarmed, but can't go stalk around to sneak up on them.

He's a special forces type of guy, but has some batman training on top of it.

How lethally is he willing to fight (there's a lot to be said for punching someone in the trachea, if you're willing to live with the legal consequences of doing so)? How close is the kitchen and can he break through to it (and by extension, the knives)? What kind of improvised weapons are available (anything from ballpoint pens to mid-sized lamps to chairs)? How likely are the adversaries to use any of those things against him once they realize what's happening?


Getting your arm, collarbone, shin, or skull broken by one solid hit from a club will make someone quit fighting even if they are far from dead.

Having trained with baton in a law enforcement context, I have to say that usually this isn't what happens. Usually your baton bounces off of the opponent's arm or shoulder (potentially leaving them with a nasty welt or bruise, it should be noted) while they get to grappling distance. One of the better martial artists I've met explained it thus: "How many times do you get to hit with the baton? Usually once."

That said!

First of all, if we assume an arbitrary amount of skill, you can absolutely say the baton is going to break a bone with every hit. In that case, you're absolutely right.

Second of all, baton tactics absolutely can be used to deal with multiple opponents, when combined with good use of terrain, distance, and unarmed technique - as illustrated IRL in the video found here. (https://gothamist.com/news/video-nypd-officer-uses-baton-to-fend-off-group-of-attackers-inside-les-subway-station)

[Lvl 2 Expert]

Im a situation where the fighter is not worried about hurting or killing opponents, because they're baddie bads, some form of a blackjack or sap might be an option (there are many variations of these weapons, so I'm going to describe what I'm thinking of). It's like a regular collapsible baton, but the upper section is flexible (a big metal spring) and the head is a lead weight. They're illegal in a lot more places than regular collapsible batons are and have a reputation as a weapon of hardened criminals. The Dutch name is "ploertendoder", meaning something like ruffian killer. That might have the effect Xuc Xac describes, a regular baton maybe not so much.

But honestly pepper spray or a stun gun/contact taser might be an even better option. It doesn't inspire as much fear in the opponents, but they're generally pretty effective at making someone stop fighting effectively after one hit. And they create less horrible head trauma as a bonus.

[Brother Oni]

I would rather have the baton because it's more likely to make a goon stop fighting. People can get fatally stabbed right in the chest and not slow down or even notice for several minutes. A lot of murder trials involving stabbing usually try to portray the stabber as unnecessarily vicious because they stabbed the dead person 50 times, which is far more than necessary to kill them. Even (or especially) in self defense cases, this happens because the attacker doesn't stop and fall down dead like in the movies. They keep coming until they pass out from blood loss. A knife wound is easily fatal, but it's not debilitating.

A combat knife can slash and cut as well as stab. There's a number of attacks with a knife where you aim to disable your opponent rather than fatally stab (pull/push cuts aimed at the inner bicep near the elbow for example will quite happily disable that attacker's arm, anything near the throat or top of the shoulder near the collar bone, etc).

There's also the 'in and out'* where you drive the tip shallowly into one of the above regions, then push straight out - the tendons/muscles are close to the surface and don't need a deep wound to cause disabling damage.

*I'm not versed in the technical terms of sword fighting, so please substitute the correct term here.

Speaking of batons, do US police forces still issue the side handle baton (ie a tonfa)? That can more than happily withstand the stresses involved.


But honestly pepper spray or a stun gun/contact taser might be an even better option. It doesn't inspire as much fear in the opponents, but they're generally pretty effective at making someone stop fighting effectively after one hit. And they create less horrible head trauma as a bonus.

Unless the protagonist has resistance to pepper spray, expect that to be smeared all over him in very short order in a standard living room with 6 goons.

Stunguns was something I looked into, but I failed to find any information on the number of charges a contact taser had.

[gkathellar]

Speaking of batons, do US police forces still issue the side handle baton (ie a tonfa)? That can more than happily withstand the stresses involved.

There's very little national standardization among U.S. police forces, so it's possible the tonfa is still in use somewhere, but it's fallen out of favor in general (I don't think any major metropolitan department still uses it, although I could be mistaken). My understanding is that it was never particularly well-liked, largely because it was a pain to wear and the design's benefits were esoteric as far as the typical officer was concerned.

[Saint-Just]

Stunguns was something I looked into, but I failed to find any information on the number of charges a contact taser had.

According to my information: practically unlimited. Those without an automatic cutoff can deliver at least 30 seconds of uninterrupted zapping (and that's for a hide-in-your-palm model, larger ones have larger capacities).