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

[Brother Oni]

Those are pretty high draw weights for guys who were 155 cm/5 ft tall on average (based on the size of their armour)...

To reinforce the 'draw weight at a given distance', bows are usually rated as x lbs at y inches. The standard quoted draw length is 28", although longer bows are sometimes measured at 30" or 32".


Shorter build also translates to shorter arms and shorter draw length. We like to talk about draw weight, but a bow doesn't have a draw weight, it has draw weight at a given distance. One major criticism of those draw weight measurements is that they were made with maximum length of arrows in mind, rather than size of archer. I'd be interested to see if that would change things.

I do disagree with measuring the draw weight at the arrow length as being unrepresentative of a Japanese bow's draw weight though. Japanese archery has possibly the longest draw of any historical style, with a thumb draw to somewhere out past the ear. The arrows are similarly sized for that - a recurve arrow or even an English longbow's arrow wouldn't be long enough for a yumi.

Looking it up, the suggested length of a Japanese arrow (ya, 矢) is the distance between the middle finger of your outstretched left hand to the middle of your throat plus 3 finger widths (~5cm). Anecdotally, for me that's 91cm; meanwhile my recurve arrows are 74cm from the tip of the pile to the nock. For reference, the vast majority of the arrows recovered from the Mary Rose were 76cm (~30").

Going by this measurement, the early Edo period bow in the video is somewhere in the region of 89kg at 90+cm, or 196lb at 35+inches. Whether the original owner could draw his bow that far back is a different question though (for example, my bow's actually rated for 36lb at 30", but my draw length's 29").

[Clistenes]

*snip*

Most sources I have consulted mention that while peasants ate whatever they could lay their hands on, from birds to deer {Scrubbed}

River fish is less abundant that sea fish; it is harder to provide the recomended amount of protein if you rely on river fish...

A lot of the Japanese used to eat way more millet and barley than rice, but I guess samurai archers were among the social class able to afford rice...

[Martin Greywolf]

To reinforce the 'draw weight at a given distance', bows are usually rated as x lbs at y inches. The standard quoted draw length is 28", although longer bows are sometimes measured at 30" or 32".

Which is fine for European man height, not for Japanese.



I do disagree with measuring the draw weight at the arrow length as being unrepresentative of a Japanese bow's draw weight though. Japanese archery has possibly the longest draw of any historical style, with a thumb draw to somewhere out past the ear. The arrows are similarly sized for that - a recurve arrow or even an English longbow's arrow wouldn't be long enough for a yumi.

Not true. Most military archery styles do have draws past the ear, longbow being no exception. The length of draw varied, from what we see in period artwork, from in front of the chest to as far past the ear as your hand will let you, through pretty much entire middle ages.

https://manuscriptminiatures.com/image/15593/1000


Looking it up, the suggested length of a Japanese arrow (ya, 矢) is the distance between the middle finger of your outstretched left hand to the middle of your throat plus 3 finger widths (~5cm). Anecdotally, for me that's 91cm; meanwhile my recurve arrows are 74cm from the tip of the pile to the nock. For reference, the vast majority of the arrows recovered from the Mary Rose were 76cm (~30").

Length of arrow is... kind of irrelevant. It tells you what the maximum possible draw length is - sometimes, there are ways to shoot shorter arrows - and that's about it. If you look at

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/31/Woodblock_print_by_Utagawa_Kuniyoshi%2C_digitally_ enhanced_by_rawpixel-com_16.jpg/800px-Woodblock_print_by_Utagawa_Kuniyoshi%2C_digitally_ enhanced_by_rawpixel-com_16.jpg

...you can see some of the bows having arrowhead right at the bow staff at full draw, while others poke out quite a lot. Since arrows have to be mass manufactured, I'd think the standard arrow length was long enough that no one in the army would have it too short, plus some safety margin.


Most sources I have consulted mention that while peasants ate whatever they could lay their hands on, from birds to deer{Scrub the post, scrub the quote}

[...]

A lot of the Japanese used to eat way more millet and barley than rice, but I guess samurai archers were among the social class able to afford rice...

I linked an academic study that said otherwise. That's all that I can really do on that front.


River fish is less abundant that sea fish; it is harder to provide the recomended amount of protein if you rely on river fish...

And this is just not correct, fisheries exist and catching sea fish is considerably harder than catching river fish, on account of sea being kinda big. Northern Hungary, an entirely land locked area, had a significant portion of its diet being fish in middle ages (sure, some of the fish were expensive, but carp was a dime a dozen), and claiming Japan couldn't do the same is something that requires a lot more proof.

[Brother Oni]

Which is fine for European man height, not for Japanese.

What does that have to do with the standard nomenclature for stating longbow poundage and draw weight? The 28", 30" and 32" example lengths are for recurve/longbow, but that's what they are - examples.



Not true. Most military archery styles do have draws past the ear, longbow being no exception. The length of draw varied, from what we see in period artwork, from in front of the chest to as far past the ear as your hand will let you, through pretty much entire middle ages.


Looking at pictures of the draws from the English Warbow society, they've got a lot of draws to the collar bone or the ear which reflect your example art but on a real person, but it's simple biological fact that you can't pull as far back with a three finger draw as you can with a thumb draw, barring unique hand physiology putting your thumb joint up by your finger joints.*

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/0-2KLuAH4GY/maxresdefault.jpg

I've skimmed through a book on Arabic archery and the furthest they pull pack is the ear, using various reference points like the corner of the eye, edge of the beard, the tragus, etc for consistency.



Length of arrow is... kind of irrelevant. It tells you what the maximum possible draw length is - sometimes, there are ways to shoot shorter arrows - and that's about it. If you look at

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/31/Woodblock_print_by_Utagawa_Kuniyoshi%2C_digitally_ enhanced_by_rawpixel-com_16.jpg/800px-Woodblock_print_by_Utagawa_Kuniyoshi%2C_digitally_ enhanced_by_rawpixel-com_16.jpg
...you can see some of the bows having arrowhead right at the bow staff at full draw, while others poke out quite a lot. Since arrows have to be mass manufactured, I'd think the standard arrow length was long enough that no one in the army would have it too short, plus some safety margin.

Practicality would indicate that mass produced arrows would all be about the average length required of an arrow; if they were all too short or too long**, then you'd get issues from either poor accuracy from too long arrows or lots of compensating devices (either arrow tubes on the bow or a device hooked to the drawing hand); short drawing the bow due to having too short arrows isn't a long term solution (less power = less effectiveness = less likely to survive the battle).

Given that Japanese ya are consistently longer than western arrows, that says to me that the average draw length for a Japanese archer is longer than it is for western archery, thus making average arrow length a reasonable estimate of draw length and hence draw weight when subsequently measured.

*I vaguely remember this being Eastern European folklore for checking if somebody was a werewolf...
**To be precise, what I mean by 'too long' is anything over 3-4". Anything more than that and you have to start messing around with the arrow spine to get it to flex correctly around bow - I'm not familiar with how this is done with wooden arrows.

[Pauly]

Most sources I have consulted mention that while peasants ate whatever they could lay their hands on, from birds to deer, the higher classes tended to follow buddhist dietary restrictions (well kinda... eating fish should be as bad as eating meat, but they did so...).

River fish is less abundant that sea fish; it is harder to provide the recomended amount of protein if you rely on river fish...

A lot of the Japanese used to eat way more millet and barley than rice, but I guess samurai archers were among the social class able to afford rice...

{Scrubbed} there are an awful lot of paintings of hunting scenes on the walls of Japanese temples and historic buildings for a culture that supposedly wasn’t into eating meat.

[fusilier]

{Scrub the post, scrub the quote} there are an awful lot of paintings of hunting scenes on the walls of Japanese temples and historic buildings for a culture that supposedly wasn’t into eating meat.

{Scrubbed}

[PhoenixPhyre]

{Scrub the post, scrub the quote}

Now that's sophistry I can get behind.

[HeadlessMermaid]

{Scrub the post, scrub the quote}
{Scrubbed}

[Brother Oni]

{Scrub the post, scrub the quote}


Now that's sophistry I can get behind.

Now that's a 5 a day (https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/eat-well/5-a-day-what-counts/) that I can happily keep to. :smallbiggrin:
While looking up various sources, I found mention of yama kujira (山鯨) or 'mountain whales' as a reference to wild boar (whales were classified as fish so were exempt from a number of prohibitions).


In any case, adherence to food restrictions by individuals was variable

{Scrubbed}

tofu starts appearing in the diets for the elites and upper classes, as the practice of kaiseki (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaiseki), where dishes are served in small individual portions and eaten on a separate plate, rather than massive group servings which are taken then dumped on top of rice as is the Chinese custom. Green tea and hence the tea ceremony also starts appearing around this time.

The Muromachi period (14th-16th century) was largely influenced by the arrival of the Portuguese in the 16th Century and later, the necessities of war during the Sengoku Jidai. The Portuguese passed on some of their cuisine (notably sweets, tempura* and bread) including the eating of beef, although with some resistance as farm animals were far more useful as work animals rather than for food.

*That is, the technique of dipping food in batter and deep frying it; it was devised as a way of meeting the fasting and abstinence requirements of not eating red meat for Lent and other Catholic observances, referred to as the times/periods by the Portuguese and Spanish, which is 'Tempora' in Latin.

[Saint-Just]

Regarding diets in Japan - two further anecdotes about the early and late Edo period:

During the early Tokugawa shoguns at least there was a yearly crane hunt led by the shogun himself around the New Year where supposedly a crane was taken and split into two halves, and one half was sent to the Emperor and the other used for a crane soup served at the shogun's New Year banquet (other retellings mention two birds). One tale has Okubo Tadataka mocking the resulting soup by promising to make another soup like that the next day, and bringing nothing but vegetables. Which at least shows that even Emperor was supposed to partake, and that nobility of that period definitely was quite open about at least occasional enjoyment of meat (the shogun's soup was of course served for symbolical value but it was not normal at all to have a "meat" soup with so little meat).

in 1864 Dr William Willis receives a letter in Japanese addressed to him in capacity of the British mission's medical officer, inquiring whether Western medicine considers it true that consumption of meat increases height, muscle mass, endurance and other qualities desirable for a warrior. Writes back that it is true (though obviously to get increase in height you need to feed children before they has stopped growing), especially for the red meat, but he is not sure what exactly would be the effect on Japanese, so if his correspondent want to introduce high quantity of meat into the diet a cautions experimentation is recommended to avoid possible side effects. Receives another letter three months later saying that experiments has been successful, the only additional observation is that consuming significant amount of pork in combination with strenuous physical activity causes somewhat heightened aggression "which should not be considered a negative in the current situation". His correspondent was supposedly Hijikata Toshizo, Vice-Commander of the Shinsengumi. I cannot cite a primary source, and there are most fanciful stories invented about Shinsengumi, if not as large in number as ninja stories and "facts", but at least it should be dateable and traceable (to the writings of either Dr Willis, or Ernest Satow who was translating), and seems like Shinsengumi kept and slaughtered pigs of their own, which has caused conflict with Nishi Hongan-ji when they moved there.

[Clistenes]

{Scrubbed} there are an awful lot of paintings of hunting scenes on the walls of Japanese temples and historic buildings for a culture that supposedly wasn’t into eating meat.

Hunting was a form of training for war that was done in full battle gear. Of course somebody was probably going to quietly eat the meat, be servants o samurai themselves, but hunts weren't events everybody took part in often, nor would all daimyos approve of their vassals eating the meat.

The crane soup was a ritual event, and it shouldn't be considered representative of a nornal diet.

[Yora]

Now I am really curious about the food that must never be named.
What could the japanese possibly have eaten that it is too horrible for us to imagine?

[VoxRationis]

I believe the typical answer would be natto.

[Yora]

:smallbiggrin::smallbiggrin::smallbiggrin:

You, sir, win +1 internets.

[Brother Oni]

I believe the typical answer would be natto.

The other option is uni, or sea urchin gonads.

Natto is a bit of an acquired taste, but it at least it still looks like food.

Uni sushi does not look appetising at all, however:
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/ej4B-cw1jsk/maxresdefault.jpg

[Vinyadan]

Hijikata Special? (From Gintama). GINTAMA Hijikata Special Vs Gintoki Don - YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iyh66A3w_G4)

[Clistenes]

Now I am really curious about the food that must never be named.
What could the japanese possibly have eaten that it is too horrible for us to imagine?

I you are speaking about the portion of my post that was scrubbed, I mentioned some religious dietary restrictions, which is against the forum's rules.

I didn't think it was important, since I didn't discuss religion itself, only that they influenced Japanese diet, but that's enough to get a warning...

[Yora]

Oh, the horror.

Oddly specific question time with way more historic accuracy than practically needed:
Is there some kind of standard issue 19th century military saber that could be found relatively easily and inexpensively in Denmark, but also looks decently nice and well made?
I got an NPC who deludes herself to be one of the world's best saber fencers and prides herself in her authentic antique sword that was handed down through the generations, but really isn't anything special.

[Vinyadan]

From a quick search, maybe the M1843 sabre? More than 5,000 pieces were made.

https://www.warrelics.eu/forum/bayonets-trench-knives-world/unit-marked-danish-model-1843-sword-need-help-identifying-regiments-356627/

[Yora]

I was thinking of something Danish, Prussian, or Swedish.

[Gnoman]

A fair bit older, and not a saber, but the Swedish http://www.kultofathena.com/product.asp?item=USS705&name=Swedish+17th+Century+M1685+Sword]M1685 might be a good fit. 17th century, but produced in the hundreds of thousands.

[fusilier]

I was thinking of something Danish, Prussian, or Swedish.

Officer sabers tend to be a bit fancier, but without really being anything special. Here are some Danish officer swords:

https://www.militariaweb.dk/stor-dansk-m1837-officerskarde-frederiksvaerk-klinge/

https://www.antique-swords.com/B71-Danish-1854-1869-model-artillery-officers.html

An online search for "Danish saber" should bring up plenty of examples. Most seem to be from the 1800s.

[Mike_G]

There were a crapload of sabers produced throughout the late 18th early 18th century, because of Napoleon. Most are pretty serviceable, and most European swords look fairly similar.

The iconic 1796, which was British, but the Prussians modeled the Blucher saber after it

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pattern_1796_light_cavalry_sabre

A German trooper's sword

https://www.militariahub.com/german-19th-century-heavy-cavalry-troopers-sword/

This would work nicely because it's a mass produced trooper model, not a custom officer's sword

A Swedish saber. It's a straight blade, but I've seen a few Swedish sabers that are straight, so maybe that's a Swedish thing.

https://sbg-sword-forum.forums.net/thread/50781/swedish-cavalry-troopers-sabre-m1864

I'd just Google "Danish Saber" until you see one you like

[Pauly]

Oh, the horror.

Oddly specific question time with way more historic accuracy than practically needed:
Is there some kind of standard issue 19th century military saber that could be found relatively easily and inexpensively in Denmark, but also looks decently nice and well made?
I got an NPC who deludes herself to be one of the world's best saber fencers and prides herself in her authentic antique sword that was handed down through the generations, but really isn't anything special.

Some things that would help.
1) era. Early, mid or late 19th century?
2) history. Is the sword attached to any specific battles or events? Is it Danish issue or possibly captured by the Danes or some gift from a friendly foreign service?
3) type of service. Cavalry? Naval? Engineer? Artillery? Infantry?
4) design. More curved or more straight?

[Yora]

Doesn't really matter. I just need something that looks impressive to the untrained eye, but really isn't. Something that any Danish collector or antiques store might have gathering dust somewhere in the back.

I think I might go with an 1811 Blücher saber from the first Schleswig War. Second Schleswig War would fit more nicely with the backstory, but the new Prussian service sword from that time doesn't look as impressive. The 1796/Blücher looks nasty. Much more choppy than later military swords.

https://www.versandhaus-schneider.de/images/Bluecherg.jpg

And you need to be an expert to see that this is mass produced. One source says that 13 years after a new sword was introduced, they still had 70,000 of these in the armory inventory. Something that looks fancier would have been neat, but the character is completely delusional, so it doesn't matter that her ancient family heirloom looks factory made.

Side question: What are those metal protrusions near the tip of the scabbard? I remember them always being drawn very exaggerated in Lucky Luke comics. I always assume they were to make the scabbard more blunt and not irritate a horse getting poked in the side all the time, but those on this image wouldn't do anything for that purpose.

[Pauly]

There was a Saxon contingent in the 2nd Schleswig war and Saxons had some very nice swords. They probably would fit the not obviously a mass issue sword but not too fancy criteria you are looking for.

Here is a link to a slightly later period saxon uhlan officer’s sword.
http://www.sailorinsaddle.com/product.aspx?id=804

Another example
https://www.warrelics.eu/forum/imperial-germany-austro-hungary/saxon-gr-saber-586857/

NB the “wings” at the bottom of the scabbard are the scabbard drag, and they do exactly what the name says, they drag on the ground and protect the main scabbard from damage.

[Telok]

Thanks all.

Some time ago I was looking for real world research information on spotting distances in order to translate them to a game. Well I finished that, mostly through US military basic research documents from the 60s and 70s.

My conclusion is interesting and not something I've seen in any RPGs. Details vary but all the final graphs I needed had the same basic shape, a sort of stretched out Z. While the exact percentages and distances depend on many factors everything from spotting people in the jungle, to jets in the air, to trucks in the desert from a jet, all ended up having that sort of stretched Z shape. The first 1/3rd to a bit more of the zero to whatever distance it goes from 100% down to 80% or 75%, then in the last 1/2 to 1/3rd of the distance it's going from 25% or 20% down to 0%, and in the middle there's something that generally looks like a cliff.

Anyway, thanks for the initial direction of searching. Partial bibliography to follow and then the typed up data I used in a spoiler for the morbidly curious. There's a pile of handwritten notes too but I'm not transcribing those.

AD-753 600 TARGET DETECTION AND RANGE ESTIMATION
James A. Caviness, et al
Office of the Chief of Research and Development (Army)
November 1972

https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/AD0438001.pdf
RESEARCH MEMORANDUM, MOONLIGHT AND NIGHT VISIF1LITY
by Thomas F. Nichols and Theodore R. Powers, USAIHRU, January 1964

Dobbins, D.A. et al. Jungle Vision IL: Effects of Distance, Horizontal Placement, and
Site on Personnel Detection in an Evergreen Rain forest, U.S. Army Tropic Test Center,
Fort Clayton, Canal Zone, March 1965.

Louis, Nicholas B. The Effects of Observer Location and Viewing Method on Target
Detection with the 18-inch Tank-Mounted Searchlight, HumRRO Technical Report 91,
June 1964.

ASTIA, Report Bibliography on Target Detection and Range Estimation by
Humans, Armed Forces Technical Information Agency, Arlington, Virginia,
November 19 60.

Louis, Nicholas B. The Effects of Observer Location and Viewing Method on Target
Detection with the 18-inch Tank-Mounted Searchlight, HumRRO Technical Report 91,
June 1964.


open terrain 95%
middle terrain 88%
heavy foliage 55%

100m 90%
200m 90%
300m 55%

AD-753 600 TARGET DETECTION AND RANGE ESTIMATION
James A. Caviness, et al
Office of the Chief of Research and Development (Army)
November 1972

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/AD0438001.pdf
RESEARCH MEMORANDUM, MOONLIGHT AND NIGHT VISIF1LITY
by Thomas F. Nichols and Theodore R. Powers, USAIHRU, January 1964

TABLF 4
VISIBILITY AT NIGHT
Moon Age Ground and Background
Object SingleSoldier(meters) Patrol Unit
Starlit Night
Level, Grassy Ground
25 30 40
Level, Rare Ground
30 40 45
Dark Background
10 10 15
Silhouetted Against Sky
35 55 80

12th Day from the Full Moon (Crescent)
Level, Grassy Ground
30 60 75
Level . Bare Ground
30 45 50
Dark Background
10 15 20
Silhouetted Against Sky
130 140 180

7th Day from the Tull Moon (Half)
Level, Grassy Ground
60 70 80
Level, Bare Ground
35 50 55
Dark Background
10 15 20
Silhouetted Against Sky
140 170 230

3d Day from the Full Moon (3/4)
Level, Grassy Ground
70 75 120
Level, Bare Ground
40 50 70
Dark Background
15 20 25
Silhouetted Against Sky
160 220 280

15th Day of the Moon (Full)
Level, Grassy Ground
75 100 150
Level , Bare Ground
50 80 100
Dark Background
15 20 25
Silhouetted Against Sky
180 250 300
50

1. Patrol is three or four men. Unit is a platoon in column. The above figures show the visible range when the object is not in motion. It is easier to Identify an object in motion especially when it is moving crosswise.
2. This experiment was conducted on clear nights during January and February, [t can be assumed that the brightness is practically equal for two or three nights before and after each age of the moon in the chart.

IDENTIFICATION of person size object
FULL MOON %% NO MOON
20m 95%
40m 90% 5m
55m 80% 12m
60m 70% 15m
70m 60% 18m
85m 50% 27m
100m 40% 33m
110m 30% 40m
120m 20% 50m

TABLE 7 -- moonless & cloudless
RECOGNITION RANGES (YARDS) FOR THE
M-48 TANK AND THE 2-1/2-TON TRUCK
recognition = identification
paths 1=60m, 2=60mstraight, 3=50m, 4=125m, noise/no-noise
drive towards observer, 'no noise' = white noise covering
PATH TANK TRUCK
4 111/210 86/77
3 126/192 100/95
2 184/155 83/108
1 152/173 91/97

TABLE 8 -- moonless & cloudless
VISIBILITY RANGES FOR TARGETS GROUPED ACCORDING TO SIZE
"Large" targets included such things as a 2-1/2-ton truck, "medium" targets included such +hings as a jeep, and 2-man tents and similar size material were grouped as "small" targets.
detect / recognize
Large Targets 73/45
Medium Targets 43/24
Small Targets 16/11

TABLE 9 -- full moon & 2minute time limit
VISIBILITY RANGES FOR HUMAN TARGETS
dist, stand, walk
250, 25, x
180, 50, 25
130, 75, x
100, 90, 45

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dobbins, D.A. et al. Jungle Vision IL: Effects of Distance, Horizontal Placement, and
Site on Personnel Detection in an Evergreen Rain forest, U.S. Army Tropic Test Center,
Fort Clayton, Canal Zone, March 1965.

TABLE II
Detection thresholds and 25-75% range at
each of three evergreen rainforest sites.
25% 50% 75%
82 62 47 - dim (50% others), wild palm, stilt palm, maquengue palms, *Geonoma decurrens*
92 80 55 - wild fig, stilt palm, wide leaf palm, *wide-leaf palms*
95 76 59 - Scheelea zonensis, broadleaf evergreens, Str6manthe lutea, *panama hat palm*
90 72 56 - averaged

%% feet time
95% 40
80% 50 25s
70% 60 33s
60% 68 34s
50% 75
40% 80 39s
10% 100 61s

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Louis, Nicholas B. The Effects of Observer Location and Viewing Method on Target
Detection with the 18-inch Tank-Mounted Searchlight, HumRRO Technical Report 91,
June 1964.

Probability of Detecting Targets & observer distance from searchlight
yards time %%
0 10 .14
0 20 .23
10 10 .23
10 20 .35
20 10 .29
20 20 .37
40 10 .21
40 20 .35
80 10 .40
80 20 .54
160 10 .33
160 20 .41

Probability of Identifying Targets
dist %%
0 .20
10 .26
20 .26
40 .25
80 .37
160 .36

Performance on Targets Viewed
From 80-Yard Position by Observers Using Binoculars
type 655yd 780yd 900yd 1055yd
detect
tank 87 89 74 54
apc 96 83 81 60
jeep 90 66 59 32
ID
tank 84 72 46 39
apc 84 56 49 21
jeep 70 28 35 21

[Yora]

I am working on a Vampire the Masquerade campaign set in Germany, and part of the concept is that the city is very efficient at hiding its crimes and supressing the true amount of corruption and criminals from the public. So even though it's the World of Darkness, guns won't be any more common than they really are. This means vampires are not supposed to have them or get reprimanded by their elders for shooting, because it will draw heavy attention from the police, and vampires are trying to stay secret.

Does anyone know anything about what kinds of weapons are commonly seized from criminals in Germany (or even central Europe in general)?
The only thing I was able to find is that there are about 5.5 million registered guns, of which 3.6 million are long guns. But no indication if this is for hunting rifles and shotguns, or also includes sport shooting rifles.

I guess handguns would almost all be 9mm pistols, which in game terms are all the same thing. Maybe drop some well known German brand names for local color, and that's good enough.
Wealthy clan leaders having stocks of hunting guns to equip their minions for extraordinary situations would also seem very plausible, as they would raise few eyebrows to get all the legal paperwork to make them completely legit. But I don't have the slightest clue what kinds of rifles and shotguns European hunters commonly use. Probably not World War 2 Mausers or double barrel shotguns. Any suggestions for generic hunting gun models would be helpful.

[KineticDiplomat]

Well, Benelli and Beretta are both Italian companies with substantial recreational gun lines, and Steyr has a few flagship models for hunting and target guns as well. In terms of pistols, Glock is in fact an Austrian company, and SIG Sauer does European production. There’s also a smattering of crappy Russian companies, but they wouldn’t be your hunting and skeet crowd. H&K is also over there as has “civil” product lines, but they are very much black guns.

[Brother Oni]

Maybe drop some well known German brand names for local color, and that's good enough.

The problem is when you have the likes of Heckler & Koch, SIG Sauer and Walther as well known local German brands (plus there's Glock just over the border in Austria), it's very hard to get a sense of local colour. :smalltongue:

There's a Wikipedia page on German firearms manufacturers which would help on random colour: link (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Firearm_manufacturers_of_Germany).

I've found this global report on gun trafficking, along with breakdowns for Europe on page 26 (link (http://www.unodc.org/documents/data-and-analysis/Firearms/2020_REPORT_Global_Study_on_Firearms_Trafficking_2 020_web.pdf)), where they breakdown the number of seized firearms as 35% pistols, 27% rifles, 11% revolvers, 22% shotguns and the remaining 5% divided up between SMGs, MGs and other unclassified firearms.

As for what model and brands, it's a mix of pretty much everything, from looking at reports on busts on firearms traffickers: 2020 raids (https://www.europol.europa.eu/newsroom/news/1-776-firearms-seized-in-international-sweep-against-illegal-trafficking-of-manufactured-weapons), 2017 raids (https://www.europol.europa.eu/newsroom/news/huge-firearms-depot-seized-during-operation-portu-now-revealed).

For what weapons a German hunter might have, you could check the stock of local gun shops - here's one I found with a quick google search: link (https://www.waffen-ferkinghoff.com/).

[Martin Greywolf]

Does anyone know anything about what kinds of weapons are commonly seized from criminals in Germany (or even central Europe in general)?

Criminals almost universally use handguns for the actual crimes, if even that. Bottom line is that they are concealable, and that's all that matters, because honestly, why would you need an SMG to rob a house? Some occassional hunting weapons for long range assassinations, Kennedy-style, if you want to be really gung ho.

Thing is, Europe has the gun laws it has, and that means it's extremely hard to get a non-registered firearm to the market. The serial number will be recorded somewhere, and if the cops catch you with a stolen gun, it's curtains. This registration of firearms holds even when it comes to private trades, so there's no way for the guns to fall into the cracks the way they can in the US. Even things like smoothbore muskets tend to have at least a duty to inform the police you have one around here.

A lot of the more prominent crime world members will actually have a legal gun, as a self defense carry, because if someone jumps them, it's perfectly legal to use it, and they don't do roberries any more, they organize things. Sure, such a gun could get "lost" and make its way to hands of someone, but if he does any sort of crime with it, it will bring massive scrutiny to you.

So, yeah, most common weapon siezed from criminals is nothing, followed by knife, followed by a pistol. Well, from an organized criminal, because remember, crime does include domestic disputes and crimes of passion, where numbers one and two are axe and kitchen knife.

[Max_Killjoy]

Mike Loades on weapons and combat in video games.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFFs_LW7iOM

[Yora]

I've found this global report on gun trafficking, along with breakdowns for Europe on page 26 (link (http://www.unodc.org/documents/data-and-analysis/Firearms/2020_REPORT_Global_Study_on_Firearms_Trafficking_2 020_web.pdf)), where they breakdown the number of seized firearms as 35% pistols, 27% rifles, 11% revolvers, 22% shotguns and the remaining 5% divided up between SMGs, MGs and other unclassified firearms.

Those are some great numbers. I was already thinking about not including revolvers at all. To my knowledge, military and police phased out revolvers in the 19th century. To normal people they would seem really exotic. (Though I don't know about gun nuts.)
At the very least, I see no need to have anything but "pistol" on the weapons list.


Thing is, Europe has the gun laws it has, and that means it's extremely hard to get a non-registered firearm to the market. The serial number will be recorded somewhere, and if the cops catch you with a stolen gun, it's curtains. This registration of firearms holds even when it comes to private trades, so there's no way for the guns to fall into the cracks the way they can in the US. Even things like smoothbore muskets tend to have at least a duty to inform the police you have one around here.

Guns do fall through the cracks all the time. Of course still nowhere near as much as in the US, 20 to 30,000 registered guns are reported lost or stolen in Germany every year. And there are no customs checks in central Europe. Once a gun enters the EU in Latvia, Romania, or Bulgaria, it can get all the way to Portugal with nobody ever going to check a car.

[Gnoman]

Those are some great numbers. I was already thinking about not including revolvers at all. To my knowledge, military and police phased out revolvers in the 19th century. To normal people they would seem really exotic. (Though I don't know about gun nuts.)
At the very least, I see no need to have anything but "pistol" on the weapons list.

Revolvers remain super popular. You're correct that military and law enforcement use is fairly spotty (although way, way off on the date - police use of revolvers was still common in many places through the 1980s), but the civilian market loves the things. There's several advantages to them, particularly in the very small super-concealable range of things where you aren't getting more than 6 shots anyway.

[Yora]

I assume that's in the context of the American market?

[Gnoman]

Capacity matters a lot more there, but most of the European gun people I'm in contact with are revolver fans as well.


EDIT: Note that the German gun store page linked features more than one revolver quite prominently.

[Martin Greywolf]

Mike Loades on weapons and combat in video games.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFFs_LW7iOM

Mike Loades is one of those people who pioneered a lot of things way back when and then absolutely refused to move with the times. With this video:

KCD - minor nitpick, but alchemy wasn't ever used to make swords.

Dark Souls - ignores vastly improper use of shield.

Dark Souls - you do not ever block with the sword... except for all those many, many time when period treatises explicitly tell you to block.

Dark Souls - okay, did no one explain DS twohanding to this guy? Two handing a sword does increase your reach and damage. The block animation is a little potato, though, but you can't do much better with tech limitations.

For Honor - single edged blades need just as sophisticated temper as double edged ones do, they just need less of it.

Mordhau - why would you throw away a sword? Well, a plethora of reasons, but as a historian, that's not important. What is important is that we have treatise with explicit instructions on how to throw a sword, so we know for a fact it was done. The technique is very different from the spinny throw in the vid, though.

Chivalry - neck is definitely not one of the first areas to get protected. Roman to Carolingian to high medieval shows progression of head first, torso second, arms and legs third, neck fourth. It's one of the last areas to get protected, only followed by hands.

For Honor - flamberge blades can be grabbed, about the only thing wavy blade does is bind slightly better. Overall, not worth the hassle.

For Honor - blade decorations are sometimes done on high status weapons, though not to that extreme. Behold!

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/9d/07/24/9d0724023dd2c4810fb4bbf594a73396.jpg

For Honor - pollax vs pole axe is pointless sophistry. And there is no one end of a pollaxe you do all your fighting with, otherwise Fiore, among others, would have mentioned that when he was telling us how to use one.

Mount and Blade - the game has a third person mode, and you can see how the crossbow is loaded, it's a simple stirrup. That rate of fire is entirely achievable in real life by, among others, me.

Leather bracers in archery - were not used by military archers because they were redundant on account of armor. They seem to be rather rare throughout.

Defeating spears - well, that's utter BS. It's hard to get past a spear point unless you have a shield, and you definitely, absolutely can't easily cleave the spear head off. People tried, and failed. Even once someone's inside a spear's point, it's still useful as a lever, and can be used to shove a large man downhill when he decides to rush you.

Maces and morningstars - both can be one or two handed, distinction is based on how the head looks. Morningstar is a later thing, though.

Flail - pardon me? We have no evidence it was ever a real weapon... except for all of those flails in Hussite museums, or all those flail heads Czech metal detector hobbyists still dig up to this day (pro tip: google "remdih", that's the Czech word for it).

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/08/Russian_flail_and_axe_14.jpg/800px-Russian_flail_and_axe_14.jpg

KCD - taking over a village: shows a clip of attack on a small castle. Okay, there was a village under it, but still.

KCD - Armies of that size could still sneak up on you, but it did take some doing.

KCD - You need 30 men to pillage a village, but that is a castle with three layers of wooden walls and one earthwork or stone one, my man. Why the hell is cavalry charging the walls, though? And that is a pretty shoddy gate, but then again, small castle village, so eh.

Bannerlord - depending on what he means by lance bebing a one use weapon, he may be wrong. Only some late military lances break upon first impact. But he may have meant the charge-disengage-charge cycle, one use in a sense of "you're not supposed to stay in melee with this".

Kite shield - lasted considerably longer, but only in niche cases, there are IIRC some 14th century examples from Byzantium.

Targe - does not have more mobility than viking round shield on account of being strapped to your arm. Hell, it's not even lighter than them. It's also not really meant against arrowstorms, because it's small. And was used against bayonets, at which point shield against arrowstorms was rather pointless.

Buckler - Don't punch with a buckler and for the love of God, don't try to punch an incoming strike away with it. Where does that dumb idea even come from?

Mordhau - Armor gives you as much protection as possible, unless it doesn't. We have numerous counts of people forgoing more protection for more mobility, stamina or vision.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/22/Chronicon_Pictum_I_Karoly_Robert.jpg/800px-Chronicon_Pictum_I_Karoly_Robert.jpg



In conclusion, about third of the video is legitimate facts, a quarter is silghtly questionable or not telling the whole story and the rest is complete BS. All in all, rather disappointing from a professional historian, but nothing we're unaccustomed to.

[rrgg]

There are references to military archers wearing bracers in the 16th century.

https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo/A13122.0001.001/1:3.30?rgn=div2;view=fulltext

[Brother Oni]

I assume that's in the context of the American market?

The standard firearm issued to uniformed Japanese police officers is a 5 round revolver, the New Nambu M60 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Nambu_M60).

The security forces and police assault teams carry 'modern' firearms much like western police forces, plus the JSDF carry weapons on par with any NATO military.


EDIT: Note that the German gun store page linked features more than one revolver quite prominently.

I think that's because they're primarily an importer of American firearms, so I should have found a better example for Yora.

That said, they wouldn't be importing revolvers if there wasn't a client base for it.

[Martin Greywolf]

There are references to military archers wearing bracers in the 16th century.

https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo/A13122.0001.001/1:3.30?rgn=div2;view=fulltext

And much like the flail, the existence of a thing and its widespread use are two different things. From what you will see today, you'd assume bracers and gloves are necessary for heavy bow archery, but the historical evidence doesn't support it.

First clue is that seeing these tools is extremely rare, to a point there are hundred depictions without them for every one with. Even if you discount some depictions with insufficient detail to tell one way or another, you are still left with overwhelming amount of no bracers or tabs, even in settings where you would expect them.

https://manuscriptminiatures.com/image/11438/1000
Detailed enough to show different hair styles nad undershirt poking from under upper clothing


https://manuscriptminiatures.com/image/11459/1000
Details include individual horse teeth and belts differing from string to leather to leather with studs


https://manuscriptminiatures.com/image/15593/1000
Shows some people having leg wraps and some not


https://manuscriptminiatures.com/image/7939/1000
Unusual amount of detail, as expected of Codex Manesse, and nomadic archer depiction is, for once, accurate, since it managed to capture both the ethnic clothes and quiver of Cumans


https://manuscriptminiatures.com/image/14907/1000

http://archers.medieval.ru/rec/pics/48.jpg

Furthermore, we have numerous graves from pre-Christian cultures in Europe, and especially in eastern Europe, pre-Christian can mean up to 13th century. Cuman, Avar and so forth graves are easily identifiable because they packed them with all the tools of the trade of the deceased, to give them to him in the afterlife. That means warrior graves give us warriors with their full military equipment, from which tabs and bracers are almost universally absent. That not only further supports their rarity, it also rules out the possible explanation of "it was worn under the clothing".

The reasons why depend on which bit of equipment we're talking about.

For tabs, the reason is surprisingly that people were "tougher". You can see something similar even today - find someone who does a lot of manual labor without gloves on, maybe someone like a carpenter, and you will notice that the skin on their palms is pretty rough. You can see the same things with people who do manual farming, and can often read descriptions of someone having leathery palms in older books. A hand like this not only has a much greater resistance to splinters, to a point where you can get splinters and not notice as long as they're relatively small and shallow, but also gets you a protections normally reserved to gloves. That's why we rarely see leather gloves worn outside of hunting or dressing up in medieval illuminations, they just weren't as necessary as they are for our hands.

The bracer is a matter of git gud. If you shoot enough, with proper form, there is no need to wear it because you get the string slap only very rarely, if at all. Add to that the mitigation offered by three to six layers of clothing worn every day, and it was probably thought of as a learning experience, and not worn militarily most of the time because gambesons made it redundant.

To sum up, wearing tabs and bracers is not, strictly speaking, ahistorical, and you can get away with it in your kit, but it was not common in the period.

[Brother Oni]

To sum up, wearing tabs and bracers is not, strictly speaking, ahistorical, and you can get away with it in your kit, but it was not common in the period.

From a personal perspective, I'd still want a bracer, although not to protect me, but to protect the string.

If you're wearing a mail shirt with long sleeves, any burrs or edges on your links can potentially cause your string to fray - you're unlikely to get a nice calm full draw every time in the middle of combat, so you'd want to prepare for eventualities and even if you're perfectly calm and can hit a perfect draw every time, the bowman next to you might not be.

The other issue is that bracers are generally made from leather, making their finds highly unlikely in graves as they will simply decay. Even with thumb rings for Middle Eastern and Far Eastern archery, only the more durable metal/horn/bone part of thumb rings have been found, with no trace of any possible leather part.

[Martin Greywolf]

From a personal perspective, I'd still want a bracer, although not to protect me, but to protect the string.

If you're wearing a mail shirt with long sleeves, any burrs or edges on your links can potentially cause your string to fray.

Thing is, does this really matter in a combat archery enviroment? You will likely be shooting at crowds with poor-ish armor about 100-200 meters away, or at heavuly armored targets under 50 meters, at that distance, you don't need competition grade accuracy.

As for string actually breaking, that's almost impossible to happen. Keep in mind you will have abundant spares on campaign, so you can swap it between actions. In battle, you are likely to shoot less than 30 arrows.

And even then, this is only a problem if you have long mail sleeves, and disappears with short sleeves or plate armor, which seems to be what most, though not all, archers chose to wear.

That said, for modern reenactment, go for bracer over mail. We need to take safety of anyone around us, especially the spectators, a lot more seriously. If the string snaps and manages to whip someone in the eye back in the period, it's a one in a million act of God on an already deadly battlefield. If it happens today on a family outing, it's a potential lawsuit.


The other issue is that bracers are generally made from leather, making their finds highly unlikely in graves as they will simply decay. Even with thumb rings for Middle Eastern and Far Eastern archery, only the more durable metal/horn/bone part of thumb rings have been found, with no trace of any possible leather part.

This is brought up regularly, but it's a misunderstanding of how archaeology works. While it is true, in general, that leather decomposes much easier, it is not a universal thing.

In the end, it comes down to what the local conditions are - weather, climate, type of soil, acidity and salinity are the most important. That means there are numerous regions where you will not find leather artifacts, but there are also severral where you will.

Furthemore, all of the above factors also dictate if the leather decomposes partially, completely or completely but while leaving a trace of leather-infused soil behind. Sometimes, even things you'd think cannot possibly be preserved, are.

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Jordan_Pickett/publication/309306488/figure/fig3/AS:421042091773952@1477395665016/Photograph-and-plan-of-burial-pit-showing-deceased-and-grave-goods-Photo-Y-Rassamakin.png
the black line across the torso that looks like the spine a bit, 10, is the central hem of kaftan, an overshirt, entire left side of which is still there as 11
there is also a leather quiver at his left knee

these remains were well-preserved enough to identify original embroidery
https://www.hajjibaba.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/17-12-07-Warren-T.-Woodfin-LorosFaceRolle-detail.jpg


We have several of these grave goods available, and as I said, they all lack bracers and tabs, and sometimes have thumb rings.

[InvisibleBison]

In battle, you are likely to shoot less than 30 arrows.

I find this rather surprising, given how long battles last and how quickly archers can shoot. Do you know why this was the case?

[KineticDiplomat]

While I defer to martin if he knows better, I seem to recall the average archer only carried two dozen or so arrows - addittional ammunition would be carried in the trains, though in a few famous English battles they broke out the stocks to give the archers two or three “basic loads” after the battleground was picked and everyone was relatively static.

If I had to guess a combination of weight/bulk and resource constraints.

[fusilier]

While I defer to martin if he knows better, I seem to recall the average archer only carried two dozen or so arrows - addittional ammunition would be carried in the trains, though in a few famous English battles they broke out the stocks to give the archers two or three “basic loads” after the battleground was picked and everyone was relatively static.

If I had to guess a combination of weight/bulk and resource constraints.

If I remember correctly, physical exhaustion was also a problem. Rapid fire from a powerful bow quickly fatigued the archers. I suspect that in most lengthy battles, there would be rest periods where they could be resupplied and recover some of their strength.

[Saint-Just]

I find this rather surprising, given how long battles last and how quickly archers can shoot. Do you know why this was the case?

How quickly? I was under impression that with serious war bow the answer is "slower than you think", or at least slower than I thought. There is an oft-quoted "12 arrows per minute" for an English longbowman. Even if it was minimal qualification instead of average it's still slow enough.

Andyes, in any case however fast you can shoot it definitely will be tiring.

[Martin Greywolf]

Amount of arrows archers carried

It varies. A lot. A humongous lot. At the extreme ends, we have as little as 3-4 arrows per archer, although this is mostly either "you get surprised and have to go shoot RIGHT NOW" or for purposes of hunting, where you have a guy to carry your arrows for you. At the extremely large end of spectrum, you have about 200, carried in several quivers on horseback, done sometimes by nomads.

The most common amount is somewhere between 20 and 30. We know medieval English archers had sheafs of arrows numbered at 24 per, with one sheaf per standard quiver. They sometimes carried multiple of these (2 sheafs at Agincourt, where they had pre-prepared static position), but 24 seems to be the standard for when you have an archer that will have to move, for example as part of a hedgehog formation or on a plundering raid (chevauchee, if you need to be French or fancy about it). Arab source, Book on the Excellence of the Bow and Arrow from 1500, gives one quiver size as 25-30, while saying an archer should not limit himself to this number in battle - probably meaning you should carry more if the circumstances call for it, but again, 25-30 is the standard.

This seems like less than you can fit in a quiver, but keep in mind that most of these quivers had a leather bit with spaced holes for easy and quick access to arrows if you needed to shoot quickly.

Byzantine sources gives slightly higher numbers, with the provision that these are Roman-ish style armies - this is not necessarily combat load, but rather marching load. Strategikon says 40 in one quiver, Praecepta militaria gives monstrous 40+60 in two quivers, both for foot archers.

As for why, well, they are unlikely to need more. See below.

Rate of fire limitations

There are several of them. Best English warbow archers were required to shoot more than 10, probably up to 20, arrows a minute. Which means one sheaf lasts you about a minute and change of shooting, and you get two of those at Agincourt. This is a bit of an artificial limit to your rate of fire, though, since it disregards things like people (or yourself) resupplying you, and it's not that hard to carry more arrows.

Second limiter is physicality. The best thing to do if you want to have an idea about it is to go to anyone in your local club who has one and draw it a few times. I have a 60 lbs bow and if I rapidly draw it, I can go for maybe 30 reps before my forearms and back decide to take a break (over about 2 minutes? I never actually timed it). It's a physical activity, on par with lifting weight of the bow's draw weight, and quickly at that. You can train yourself, sure, but 1) people tend to slack off as much as they can and 2) only up to a point. You are also wearing armor, on campaign, maybe had to march for a few days, maybe had dysentery and so on.

Your physicality also limits you based on how quickly you shoot, not just how many times. Belting out those 20 arrows per minute will destroy you, but doing 20 arrows over five minutes can give you more arrows shot before you need to take a break.

Third limiter is targets. There is little point in shooting all of your quiver into a single guy, especially if there are two of your frineds targeting him as well. Since you are a person and not a robot, you will probably shoot him until he's out of the action, either due to death, pain or exhaustion. There are several targets you have at any given time, but making a judgement call on every one of them, picking a good one, aiming and shooting him all take time, which limit your practical RoF.

Fourth factor is the what if - what if you shoot quickly now, become exhausted, run out of arrows and then, when you need it the most, there comes a dedicated enemy charge right at you. If you see your enemy is routing, you may wel opt to stop shooting and let them and save breath and arrows for when you really need them.

Length of battles

I don't want to get rambly, so I'll keep this short. Just because a battle takes from dawn till dusk doesn't mean one archer will have enemies in effective range all the time. The amount for which he will have them will be extremely short, because the melee enemy will endeavour to cross the distance where he's getting shot at as quickly as possible. Most medieval battles tend to take at most 3 hours, with only rare expections - those exceptions can drag, though, like battle of Mohi/Sajo, where Hungarian and Mongol armies had some for of continuous action going on for over a month, or Richard the Lionheart's pincushion march.

More arrows is not more good

Let's establish this real quick - you want to carry as few as you can, because it's less weight and less chance of accidental breakage - baggage train tends to have less knocking around than a quiver, and those numbers add up. The ideal situation is you expend every single one of your arrows and need not one more.

How does one restock

I wish we knew. There is the obvious solution of just going to the cart with arrows yourself, but there is also possibility of squires or hired help of some sort doing dedicated resupply. Or maybe the new guy would get the job if a major battle happened?

So how does one archer in battle?

In general you have four modes of action in battle as an archer.

Mode 1: Nothing is in reach, you either march around or wait.

Mode 2: Something is in reach at your long range and it may or may not shoot at you. In this case, you can answer with long range harassing, skirmishing fire - but only if your army has enough ammunition. Sometimes, you're better off hiding behind the closest guy with a shield. This kind of shooting tends to be slow, because there is no need for speed.

Horse archers especially love this mode, and they may opt to have 100+ arrows on them or rapidly circle back to their resupply to continue it, or both. You want former if you are drawing enemy to chase you with a false retreat and the latter if the enemy is stationary and you want to keep up harassing fire.

Mode 3: Oh **** mode. Enemy infantry or cavalry charges, enemy archer formation moves into effective range and opens up. It's essential for you to expend as many arrows as possible to take them out, and take them out quickly. This is where those 20 arrows per minute over a minute comes in, and where it shines. This is also the exact situation at Agincourt.

In this mode, you shoot only when the enemy is at the distance where you can take direct, aimed shots into their weaker armor bits (armpit gap, face, groin, horse) - it tends to be at about 50-60 meters. You can sprint that distance in about 10 seconds in clothes and 20 seconds in armor, but if you need to keep cohesion, you will be slower. Probably more than twice as slow, which gives us 40+ seconds, which is about a minute. Which means the English knew what they were doing, which is not surprising.

The thing about this mode is, once the melee begins, you revert into a sort of mode 2 - you can take point blank aimed shots, but only at a more measured pace, because you really don't want to accidentally spike a friend of yours into the back of his head.

If you have a very good terrain advantage and have elevated bank or something, you can still keep going at it full pelt, but consider this: you still want to take out as many of them before the lines clash, to make your infantry's life easier and disrupt enemy lines. It's better to go pedal to the metal and then be at 1/3 capacity than to go half and half, even in this somewhat rare ideal case.

Mode 4: Either something went FUBAR or you want to finish off a routing enemy. It's time to gently put down the bow, draw that falchion and buckler you have and have at it.



With this in mind. If there is a battle, organizing those dedicated charges takes time. In that time, you cen be resupplied. So, even if, and that's a very big if, there is a battle so big against a foe so disciplined there will be multiple main clashes, you can restock.

For one clash, you will likely only have a minute to shoot at them effectively, and in that minute, you will be able to expend 10-20 arrows. If there is no skirmish phase, you only need that much. If there is a skirmish phase, you may need more than that, so carrying some reserve is not necessarily a bad idea, but skirmish phases tend to be slower-paced, and therefore give you the option to resupply.

So, after that wall of text: you only carry 20-30 arrows because that's all you will likely need, and you will almost certainly have some time to restock in battle.

All that said, I'm absolutely positive there was at least one guy at Agincourt who ran out of arrows, just as the French charge came, because he was plinking at distant targets. I would dearly like to go back in time to take a picture of his face at that moment.

Edit: typo

[fusilier]

Most medieval battles tend to take at most 3 hours, with only rare expections . . .

And it's not likely that an archer would be engaged (i.e. with targets to feasibly shoot at) for all three hours continuously. Battles tend to have an ebb and flow with different forces engaged at different times for different durations.

[Martin Greywolf]

And it's not likely that an archer would be engaged (i.e. with targets to feasibly shoot at) for all three hours continuously. Battles tend to have an ebb and flow with different forces engaged at different times for different durations.

Which is why that paragraph goes:



Just because a battle takes from dawn till dusk doesn't mean one archer will have enemies in effective range all the time. The amount for which he will have them will be extremely short, because the melee enemy will endeavour to cross the distance where he's getting shot at as quickly as possible. Most medieval battles tend to take at most 3 hours, with only rare expections - those exceptions can drag, though, like battle of Mohi/Sajo, where Hungarian and Mongol armies had some for of continuous action going on for over a month, or Richard the Lionheart's pincushion march.

That said, there are exceptions once again, even with regards to individual archers fighting. Agincourt saw English archers being in action pretty much for the full duration, and battle of Marchfeld/Morava field had action by cuman horse archers from dawn until noon. However, there are, once again, factors that made restocking possible and not a major issue.

Agincourt was mostly static, at least for English infantry - every archer got two sheafs of arrows, and there was probably a quite lively effort to resupply. Marchfeld was done by cavalry archers, who had little trouble in withdrawing and restocking.

[fusilier]

Which is why that paragraph goes:
. . .


Wasn't arguing with you. I was just reiterating that point for the original question.

[Martin Greywolf]

One more caveat to add to this that I just thought of. Naval archery.

It's a pretty specific subset of general archery, but it does have its specifics. Since we're usually discussing warbows in medieval to late renaissance contexts, we need to talk about both galleys and sail-powered ships. Fortunately for us, the archery consideration changes only in degree.

The thing about naval combat is, it's slow. Really slow. Even something like a small galley is much less agile than a formation of infantry - sure, two ships at ramming speed may give you as little time as an infantry charge, but anything other than that will keep the enemy in effective range for hell of a lot longer. This may be one of the reasons why we see such a wide dispersion of draw weights at Mary Rose, you may well opt to switch to a lighter bow if the situation allows for it.

The oar-powered ships are better off here, in most circumstances. While they are definitely not faster over a long voyage, they have an option of going to ramming speed, and get a short sprint in that the sail-powered ships can't do. That lets archers to shoot for a shorter amount of time that the sailing ships can only match when crossing the T of a fromation (i.e. passing aship in range at 90 degrees, possibly as part of a failed ramming attempt, possibly as a tactic).

The exact time you will be in effective range is hard to ballpark, but with galleys, we're talking in several minutes, possibly up to an hour or so. With sail ship, it could be several days if it's a stern chase and you start opening up at extreme ranges, but will probably be at the level of several minutes to several hours most of the time.

For the most part, however, the solution to this problem was fortifications. Ships were built with mini castles on them, and that turned the entire thing into more of a siege "try to slap things that pop up" scenario, and woe upon whoever had the lower "castle".

Restocking is even less of a problem here, because there is nothing stopping you from having a quiver with a few dozen arrows bolted on every meter of the ship.

https://manuscriptminiatures.com/image/21836

https://manuscriptminiatures.com/image/16722/1000
"Can someone please tell Godfrey to turn that trebuchet around before he hits the duke behind us?"

[Brother Oni]

I find this rather surprising, given how long battles last and how quickly archers can shoot. Do you know why this was the case?

Further to other replies about repeated drawing/bending being tiring, remember the draw weight of warbows - as discussed earlier in the thread, we're looking at somewhere in the region of 90 - 110+lbs minimum.

While proper form dictates you draw with your back, you're still holding all that weight via a string on three fingers or a thumb plus 1 or 2 fingers, hence the strain on your forearm as well. You're also going to eventually get strain on the other arm holding the bow; locking your elbow is just asking for string slap, so you angle it out to the side (part of Martin's 'git gud'), meaning you have to learn to take the full weight via your muscles without skeletal/joint assistance.


That said, there are exceptions once again, even with regards to individual archers fighting. Agincourt saw English archers being in action pretty much for the full duration, and battle of Marchfeld/Morava field had action by cuman horse archers from dawn until noon.

To add another famous battle onto that list, the Battle of Hastings, 14 Oct 1066 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Hastings) went on from approximately 9 am to dusk (around 5 pm at that time of year). While Norman/Saxon archery wasn't anything particularly notable, the battle itself is notable for the death of the Saxon king, Harold Godwinson, who may or may not have taken an arrow to the eye as immortalised in the Bayeux Tapestry.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bb/Bayeux_Tapestry_scene57_Harold_death.jpg

[Martin Greywolf]

you're still holding all that weight via a string on three fingers

Or on just two fingers. The long story short version is that the shorter the bow is, the less you can afford to put that third finger there. Early Magyar mounted archery used surprisingly long bows (~160cm), later cuman horse archery uses a two-finger direct draw. What that means for Cuman bows isn't clear, as there is not enough research there. Mongols used thumb rings (you can see it on many depictions, Suenaga scrolls among them), and it was them that really popularized them for Ottoman and eastern European area.

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/28/69/64/2869647bb079667ada84dd4a40b0ffb2.jpg

https://live.staticflickr.com/229/448252957_67b9c381aa_z.jpg

https://i.pinimg.com/564x/98/70/e1/9870e10c0bf885ff06fb0cda10a2b897.jpg

https://apsida.sk/sites/apsida/files/styles/g-view/public/image/m74074361.jpg
Also note he's holding two more arrows in his drawing hand for speed shooting - no wonder since there's an angry king chasing him

https://manuscriptminiatures.com/image/7582/1000
It looks like the fingers are under the bow, that is an illusion, the metal bit near fingers is leading opponent's lance tip
Also notice how dead guy shows us the bow isn't exactly short

https://manuscriptminiatures.com/image/12817/1000

[Zombimode]

https://manuscriptminiatures.com/image/12817/1000

Are... are those war elephants? What exactly is this picture showing, anyway?

[Martin Greywolf]

Are... are those war elephants? What exactly is this picture showing, anyway?

Battle of Beth Zechariah. It's from a Weltchronik, i.e. History of the world manuscript, much of which was based on the Bible at the time. And yeah, those are Seleucid war elephants, persumably the now-extinct north African kind. The authors couldn't have seen those (kinda obvious from the picture), since they went extinct sometime during the Roman era, but you did get occassional subsaharan or Indian elephant witnessed by an European - a travelling monk, or maybe one elephant was brought to Mediterranean coast as a rare curiosity, so whoever illustrated these probably had some reference sketches or descriptive reports.

[Saint-Just]

A question about swell of muzzle/muzzle band.

As far as I know it's primary purpose is to make the barrel stronger, wiki talks about internal diameter increasing to make the loading easier, but it is present on cannons where internal diameter is uniform (at least to the limits of manufacturing techniques). Why it's specifically end of the barre l that needs that reinforcement, and not the middle?

Additionally, was there any purpose to place it on a) any pistol ever b)cartridge revolver c)post-1900 automatic pistols? I know that rigorously answering that question would be inordinately hard, but if anyone who is knowledgeable about historical firearms can make a guess I'd be grateful.

[Martin Greywolf]

As far as I know it's primary purpose is to make the barrel stronger, wiki talks about internal diameter increasing to make the loading easier, but it is present on cannons where internal diameter is uniform (at least to the limits of manufacturing techniques). Why it's specifically end of the barre l that needs that reinforcement, and not the middle?


It depends on how you cast that cannon, but if you do it in a vertical mold, with breech at the bottom and muzzle at the top, muzzle will be weaker because of faster cooling, and you can see that bronze cannons at least do have a tendency to split at the muzzle. The middle is reinforced by being thicker, but the muzzle still needs a bit extra, hence the flare. It also stops any splinters that crack off from the front from flying off.

For the really early guns, we're talking Hussite era here, they reinforced the gun barrell just like they reinforced a barrell of beer, saw that it worked, and called it successful. It took a lot of experimentation to get from there to true muzzle swell.


A question about swell of muzzle/muzzle band.
Additionally, was there any purpose to place it on a) any pistol ever b)cartridge revolver c)post-1900 automatic pistols?

You'd need to look into barrell manufacturing process specs to answer that, but it could be that in some cases, that was how a barrell was always done, so they kept doing it. Remember, you have no infrared, no thermal cameras, no x-ray imaging of the blasted things, and no high speed cameras either, to study where they fail in detail. You have a camera at most, and guesswork from what's left.

Edit: Link to a Napoleonic-era specific article. (http://www.artilleryreserve.org/THE%20MUZZLE%20SWELL.pdf)

[fusilier]

A question about swell of muzzle/muzzle band.

As far as I know it's primary purpose is to make the barrel stronger, wiki talks about internal diameter increasing to make the loading easier, but it is present on cannons where internal diameter is uniform (at least to the limits of manufacturing techniques). Why it's specifically end of the barre l that needs that reinforcement, and not the middle?

Additionally, was there any purpose to place it on a) any pistol ever b)cartridge revolver c)post-1900 automatic pistols? I know that rigorously answering that question would be inordinately hard, but if anyone who is knowledgeable about historical firearms can make a guess I'd be grateful.

Sometimes the intention of the muzzle swell was to ease sighting of the weapon -- if the (exterior) muzzle diameter is the same as the breech diameter, then the weapon can be sighted by looking along the barrel. If tapered all the way to the muzzle, then when sighting over the barrel, the cannon would have a slight elevation. *See EDIT

For more accurate shooting temporary rear and front sights could be added to the cannon, but most gunners preferred to aim along the barrel with good result. By the time of the American Civil War, you will start seeing more cannons made without a muzzle swell -- there was a desire to make cannons as light as possible and it was just an extraneous bit. Some still had the swell, but it was rare on new pieces like Parrott rifles, or the big smoothbore Rodman cannons.

Similar reasons could exist in the early days of muskets -- occasionally you may see a reference to a "swamped" barrel. But with the introduction of at least front sights, it seems to have become uncommon for military weapons at least. For pistols? I have a single shot pistol with a muzzle reinforcement, but it has both front and rear sights. My guess is that if the barrel is on the thin side, a muzzle swell helps prevent the muzzle from becoming easily dinged and dented. A pistol is regularly inserted into a holster, so it may expect a little more wear around the muzzle. I doubt that a thin barrel would become dented so as to deform the bore (without really trying), so the desire to reinforce it may be more cosmetic.

*EDIT -- While I have seen rifle and musket barrels that had muzzle swells equal to breech diameter, after checking my sources, on most muzzle-loading cannons the muzzle was a smaller diameter than the "base ring" (thickest part at the breech). However, the muzzle swell would still reduce the amount of elevation if sighting directly over the barrel. A slight amount of elevation may have been more acceptable.

EDIT -- We don't actually know why cannons had muzzle swells. To add a little to the reason that Martin Greywolf gave, the manner in which the barrels were cast may also have been a factor. When cast muzzle up, the weight of the metal will cause the metal at the bottom to be denser, thus making the breech stronger. Additionally, core samples from renaissance-era bronze cannon show lower proportions of tin at the muzzle when compared to the breech. Apparently the tin migrated during cooling. This would make the metal at the muzzle more brittle, and "may" have encouraged the use of a muzzle swell. However, by the American Civil War even bronze cannons were starting to dispense with the muzzle-swell (e.g. Confederate copies of the Napoleon cannon).

[Martin Greywolf]

Sometimes the intention of the muzzle swell was to ease sighting of the weapon -- if the (exterior) muzzle diameter is the same as the breech diameter, then the weapon can be sighted by looking along the barrel. If tapered all the way to the muzzle, then when sighting over the barrel, the cannon would have a slight elevation.

This is a very stupid way of assisting aiming. You absolutely, positively don't want to waste expensive bronze and add hell of a lot of weight to a weapon you need to move than absolutely necessary - you could achieve the same thing with wood. Sure, the sighting was a nice side-benefit, but as a main reason? This would be one of those extraordinary claims that require extraordinary evidence.

That's not even mentioning early cannon where reinforcing bands make sighting alongside a barrell harder, not easier - although at this point, accurate sighting doesn't really matter.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/41/Car_top.JPG/1280px-Car_top.JPG

Or mentioning that many canons don't have swell the same diameter as the breech.

https://st4.depositphotos.com/2164829/25594/i/1600/depositphotos_255946952-stock-photo-view-on-old-cast-iron.jpg

https://comps.canstockphoto.com/bronze-cannon-stock-photos_csp10950330.jpg

[fusilier]

This is a very stupid way of assisting aiming. You absolutely, positively don't want to waste expensive bronze and add hell of a lot of weight to a weapon you need to move than absolutely necessary - you could achieve the same thing with wood. Sure, the sighting was a nice side-benefit, but as a main reason? This would be one of those extraordinary claims that require extraordinary evidence.

At no point did I say it was the main reason. There is a theory that muzzle swells were used due to poor casting techniques which caused the muzzle to be brittle. But this is speculation. Even after it was understood that a muzzle swell was unnecessary they remained in use for a long time.

Manuals of the time mention different ways of sighting along the barrel. As I noted in my edit, sighting directly over the barrel would usually give a slight elevation even with a muzzle swell. This was often considered the maximum effective range, shooting at higher elevations was considered to be "firing at random"

Tapered musket barrels without a swell are evidenced fairly early, but "swamped" barrels continued to be used for a long time. As you said why waste the metal on something that's not strictly necessary?


That's not even mentioning early cannon where reinforcing bands make sighting alongside a barrell harder, not easier - although at this point, accurate sighting doesn't really matter.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/41/Car_top.JPG/1280px-Car_top.JPG

This cannon appears to have a breech diameter the same as the muzzle diameter, why do you think that would make sighting it harder? A line crossing the top points of the reinforcing bands at the breech and the muzzle would be parallel to the axis of the bore. So sighting along those two points would give point blank fire. Which is the way most gunners preferred to fire.

It also appears to be a pedrero, a cannon used to launch stone cannonballs. These cannons had powder chambers of significantly smaller diameter than the barrel. When cast in nearly cylindrical form (as in this case) the metal was very thick around the powder chamber, but thin along the barrel walls. The use of stone allowed them to achieve similar velocities with lower pressure, so the walls could be thinner and the cannon was still safe. The Ottomans were known to cast such cannons muzzle down.


Or mentioning that many canons don't have swell the same diameter as the breech.

https://st4.depositphotos.com/2164829/25594/i/1600/depositphotos_255946952-stock-photo-view-on-old-cast-iron.jpg

Already referenced in my post.


https://comps.canstockphoto.com/bronze-cannon-stock-photos_csp10950330.jpg

This cannon does not appear to me to have a larger muzzle swell than base ring. Do you have a source with measurements?

[fusilier]

Some general information on how muzzle loading cannons were aimed. First some definitions from an 1862 Ordnance Manual (Ordnance and Gunnery, Benton). Italics are original:


"The natural line of sight is a line drawn, in a vertical plane through the axis of the piece, from the highest point of the base-ring to the highest point of the swell of the muzzle, or to the top of the sight if there be one."

"The natural angle of sight is the angle which the natural line of sight makes with the axis of the piece."

"The dispart is the difference of the semi-diameters of the base-ring and the swell of the muzzle, or muzzle-band."

Depending upon the type of cannon the natural line of sight would either yield a slight elevation, or zero elevation (for something like a howitzer).

From at least the 1500s, the gunners' tools included a collection of various devices for aiming, and these would still have been familiar to a gunner in the mid-19th century. Some cannon had built-in front sights, but usually both rear and front sights were removable.

There are instructions in old manuals about determining where the top of the muzzle is and marking it with a piece of wax -- if the cannon is placed on uneven ground, it was necessary to determine where the top was compared to a level horizon for proper aiming. The rear sight usually involved a plumb-bob to make sure it too was placed level.* Elevating and depressing the barrel would also throw the aim off to the left or right, depending upon which way the ground "tilted." For determining the elevation of the cannon a quadrant (which also used a plumb-bob) would be placed in the muzzle -- again it would determine elevation regardless of "tilt"

If cannon were being placed more permanently (like during a siege), platforms were erected to provide a level base, so the annoying issues of determining where exactly the aiming points should be could be avoided.

So after determining where the sights should be placed, the gunner would estimate the range and the angle needed, aim the piece, then remove all the sights/quadrants before firing the cannon. The fall of the shot would be observed. Recoil would mean that the cannon would have to be moved back into place, and it would need to be "re-trained" (aimed), adjustment being made to elevation if necessary.

All trained and experienced gunners would know how to use the instruments for sighting the piece -- but in practice they often wouldn't bother. Experience taught them how the gun fired, and they simply eye-balled the piece without bothering with the sights. The renaissance-era gunnery tables were generally inaccurate anyway, and based on (incomplete) theory rather than experimentally determined.

This is why the natural line of sight and natural angle of sight were important factors to understand when operating a cannon. A cannon-maker could adjust these values, primarily by adjusting the size of the muzzle swell (as the size of the breech is generally dictated by other considerations).

This is not to say that there weren't metallurgical considerations, but that those considerations do not seem to have been well understood, or remarked upon. Some cannon profiles -- like howitzers or pedreros -- didn't really employ a swell, but usually had a ring. This muzzle-ring is often so short and thin, that the chase (the thinner section immediately behind it), would probably suffer from the same metallurgical defects. Even on some 16th century cannons with a proper muzzle swell, the swell was very short, again implying that the chase would have suffered from similar defects.

Regardless of the reasons as to why swells may have been used, they were eventually determined to be superfluous. But there were a lot of things that were superfluous that stuck around cannons. Ornamentation, fancy rings along the barrels, handles, etc. There was a general trend of streamlining that reached its zenith in the 19th century, and swells were about the last thing to be removed. It is around this time, you begin to see more permanent front sights mounted to cannons too.

Link to a 16th century "gunner's sight and level"
https://catalogue.museogalileo.it/object/GunnersSightLevel_n02.html

*EDIT -- conversely the plumb-bob could be used to "level" the cannon itself. But the design of the sight, meant that it could be slid to a position around the base-ring until it was level.

[Martin Greywolf]

Something that might be relevant to playground at alrge: I just finished a series about medieval slings and slinging, something that is somewhat relevant to DnD. It is a story in four parts, and you can find the first one here (https://www.reddit.com/r/Slinging/comments/l0iwac/medieval_slinging_part_1_the_historical_evidence/). As for the subsequent parts, well... you know how to use reddit, I'm sure.

[Saint-Just]

I do not read all that much historical literature, so forgive me if I am missing something obvious, but I am a little bit confused about evolution of crossbows. It is reasonably well-known that very heavy steel crossbows are inefficient, because of how heavy the limbs are and how short the stroke is. And some earlier crossbows with composite horn/wood construction had longer strokes and (it seems) lighter limbs for the same poundage. So if there is a need for a crossbowman to launch 70+ g bolts at 50+ meters/sec, is there is any reason you cannot make a man-portable crossbow with such performance with wooden or composite limbs?

If the answer is yes what is the probable reason for steel? Cheaper cost? Durability? Was there high-power crossbows with organic limbs in 14th century and beyond (man-portable weapons, not siege engines)?

[Brother Oni]

I do not read all that much historical literature, so forgive me if I am missing something obvious, but I am a little bit confused about evolution of crossbows. It is reasonably well-known that very heavy steel crossbows are inefficient, because of how heavy the limbs are and how short the stroke is. And some earlier crossbows with composite horn/wood construction had longer strokes and (it seems) lighter limbs for the same poundage. So if there is a need for a crossbowman to launch 70+ g bolts at 50+ meters/sec, is there is any reason you cannot make a man-portable crossbow with such performance with wooden or composite limbs?

If the answer is yes what is the probable reason for steel? Cheaper cost? Durability? Was there high-power crossbows with organic limbs in 14th century and beyond (man-portable weapons, not siege engines)?

You can - the Chinese had composite prod (limbs) crossbows with a long power stroke as early as the Warring States era (5th to 3rd Century BC).

Composite prod crossbows didn't start appearing in Europe until the 12th Century AD, with steel prods started appearing in the following century. Steel prods didn't fully supersede the wooden/composite prods until the 14th century, as the wooden prod crossbows were more resistant to water and cold.

If I had to hazard a guess, I would say it's due to metallurgy improving enough to make steel of a quality that's suitable for the stresses required. Since composite prods take a long time to cure (partly due to the glues of the time, partly because the glue has to fully impregnate the materials), making steel crossbows are much quicker, especially if your industry base is already geared up to make steel for other uses.

However, despite how good steel is, it still doesn't bend that much, so you're forced to stay with a short power stroke. This leads to a cycle of wanting higher power crossbows which need stronger steel prods which means a shorter power stroke thus you want higher power crossbows, and so on.

[Fuzzy McCoy]

I've got a question about plate and mail combos, as worn by the Ottoman, Mughal, and Persian Empires. Why did they develop these armors instead of full plate harness?

Something like
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/93/24/c1/9324c16448a0366cf5fb2864938e3fec.jpg

or

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/33/41/52/3341528161e8515f2383f08c3e04a3d8.jpg

Obviously in the case of the ottomans, they had knowledge of full plate harness, and yet it seems like they stuck with plate and mail combos. Is it because the empire was outfitting them and cheapness/standardization was required, they provided better heat dissipation, a metallurgy issue, or it's just a complete unknown?

[AdAstra]

I've got a question about plate and mail combos, as worn by the Ottoman, Mughal, and Persian Empires. Why did they develop these armors instead of full plate harness?

Something like
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/93/24/c1/9324c16448a0366cf5fb2864938e3fec.jpg

or

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/33/41/52/3341528161e8515f2383f08c3e04a3d8.jpg

Obviously in the case of the ottomans, they had knowledge of full plate harness, and yet it seems like they stuck with plate and mail combos. Is it because the empire was outfitting them and cheapness/standardization was required, they provided better heat dissipation, a metallurgy issue, or it's just a complete unknown?

Could've been as simple as not having enough smiths with the skills for making the necessary large contiguous multi-thickness interlocking plates required, or having better things for those smiths to do than making armor.

Climate and simplicity of outfitting is also definitely going to factor in. Mail will insulate less and gives good coverage without needing to be fitted, which is a great help when you're outfitting troops yourself rather than relying on familial wealth.

Another factor could also be doctrine. The Ottomans employed heavily armored troops with bows or other ranged weapons to a degree that wasn't as common in Europe, especially for armored cavalry. The greater flexibility of mail would likely be better than plate for fiddling around with a bow.

[Martin Greywolf]

I do not read all that much historical literature, so forgive me if I am missing something obvious, but I am a little bit confused about evolution of crossbows. It is reasonably well-known that very heavy steel crossbows are inefficient, because of how heavy the limbs are and how short the stroke is.

And like any reasonable well knownknowledge, this is mostly wrong.

First of all, you can't compare them to modern crossbows - no carbon fibers or anything similar, all you have is sinew, horn, wood and steel. With those three, there is a difference in weight, but it's not as drastic as you might think.

Second problem is that force and weight of limbs isn't the whole picture. A heavier bow will have better performance when launching heavier bolts (conservation of momentum). There is also a top speed on how quickly a given spring returns to its original state, and this rate of return imposes a maximum top speed on how quickly a bow can launch a bolt, regardless of weight. All of these are interdependent and have complex relationships.

Shortness of stroke, that is inefficient. Thing is, you can absolutely have longer stroke on medieval crossbows, and the best idea we have for why we don't see them is one Oni already mentioned - metallurgy. Or rather, mistrust of any bow material, because if you put too much strain on it, that thing will snap right next to your face.



And some earlier crossbows with composite horn/wood construction had longer strokes and (it seems) lighter limbs for the same poundage. So if there is a need for a crossbowman to launch 70+ g bolts at 50+ meters/sec, is there is any reason you cannot make a man-portable crossbow with such performance with wooden or composite limbs?

Aforementioned conservation of momentum. The heavier the bolt is, the better a heavy bow will perform. If you take a 25g bolt and increase weight to 50 g, that is not really doubling the weight of mass that is accelerated, because that mass also includes bow and string in it. So the heavier the bow, the better it will perform if you double or triple bolt weight.

Of course, the heavier the bow, the more energy it needs to move itself, so the whole thing is kind of like a complex adjustment of several sliders that depend on each other, and maxing out any one isn't necessarily a good thing. More maximum energy is useless if the efficiency is so bad most of it is wasted, less weight is not great if there is less total energy stored in a drawn crossbow.



If the answer is yes what is the probable reason for steel? Cheaper cost? Durability? Was there high-power crossbows with organic limbs in 14th century and beyond (man-portable weapons, not siege engines)?

Most low poundage crossbows are made of wood. It's cheap, convenient and everywhere.

Once you upgrade to composite or steel, convenience, cost and having a guy who knows how to make it are all factors. As is the perception, because even if there was little difference between steel and composite crossbows, the perception that steel is stronger could have played a role.

All in all, I'd go for cost as the main reason, though not the exclusive one, since there is... a hell of a lot more research needed.


I've got a question about plate and mail combos, as worn by the Ottoman, Mughal, and Persian Empires. Why did they develop these armors instead of full plate harness?

Something like
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/93/24/c1/9324c16448a0366cf5fb2864938e3fec.jpg

or

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/33/41/52/3341528161e8515f2383f08c3e04a3d8.jpg

Obviously in the case of the ottomans, they had knowledge of full plate harness, and yet it seems like they stuck with plate and mail combos. Is it because the empire was outfitting them and cheapness/standardization was required, they provided better heat dissipation, a metallurgy issue, or it's just a complete unknown?

Thing is, Europe had pretty much the same thing in coat of plates and brigandine, and even first plate harnesses, and those were actual most commonly seen armor types of the day. Full plate was absolutely brilliant, but prohibitively expensive - enough so that it was not affordable to even all the nobles.


Could've been as simple as not having enough smiths with the skills for making the necessary large contiguous multi-thickness interlocking plates required, or having better things for those smiths to do than making armor.

Thing is, we don't see full plate even for Ottoman sultans, and as the Japanese proved, if there is an advantage to getting full plate, the rich will absolutely pay through the nose for it.



Climate and simplicity of outfitting is also definitely going to factor in. Mail will insulate less and gives good coverage without needing to be fitted, which is a great help when you're outfitting troops yourself rather than relying on familial wealth.

Climate, not so much. Once you have a gambeson on, only thing that really matters to how quickly you overheat is the total weight. There probably is some small difference, but... just not that big of one.

On the other hand, the ease of fitting is definitely a factor, we tend to see the decrease of plate components as European armies grow for this exact reason.



Another factor could also be doctrine. The Ottomans employed heavily armored troops with bows or other ranged weapons to a degree that wasn't as common in Europe, especially for armored cavalry. The greater flexibility of mail would likely be better than plate for fiddling around with a bow.

Not true in the slightest. English archers were entirely happy to use full plate, as did any other. We have ample evidence for that.

Mughals aren't my cup of tea, but for Ottomans, I believe I can offer an answer.

The thing is, they were ahead of their time. In several things, but the one that is relevant here is the army organization and size. They were able to field larger, more organized, more trained and more disciplined armies when compared to the Europeans (look at Mohacs, 60k vs 100k, but then logistics took their toll and we get 40k (at best) Hugarians against 80k Ottomans split into two armies), to the degree where I'd say that they had about reassaince organizational approach in 1400.

And that meant similar equipment philosophy, where even a lot of the elite Janissaries had not that much in the way of armor - possibly none at all, the argument about chain mail sewn into their tunics rages on.

This was met with quite some disdain from European knights who derided them as commoners, but that tended to... not work out so well for them, just aske the French at Nicopolis. Ottomans basically decided that quality was all fine and good, but they wanted medium quality of equipment, quantity of troops and high quality of training.

Europe didn't lag behind for that long, 1400s are time of Hussites, Nicopolis and reformations and counter-reformations and assorted wars, where highly armored knights are proven to be, while not obsolete, not quite as dominant as they have been until now. I'd go as far as to say that true full plate armor, of the gothic german kinds (late 15th to early 16th century), is not very effective when you look at the big picture, something of a last swan song of knights.

Impressive, to be sure, but you may as well grab thirty men with a mix of pikemen with a cuirass and serpentiners (is that what we should call guys with serpentines?) for the cost and get more bang for your buck. Or a few howitzers. Or light field cannons.

After that, it's essentially a matter of cultural heritage when it comes to what exact bits the partial armor of the pike and shot era looks like. Europe with its long history of cuirasses picked those, Ottomans had their own thing in plate-reinforced mail. These are no longer meant to make you pracitcally immune to almost all weapons, they have more of a modern bulletproof vest approach of "they maybe will help you not get killed in some circumstances". And they all have their pros and cons, with cuirasses being able to resist pistol and some musket fire, but chain mail offering better protection in a melee.

[Brother Oni]

Thing is, we don't see full plate even for Ottoman sultans, and as the Japanese proved, if there is an advantage to getting full plate, the rich will absolutely pay through the nose for it.

To support this point, the Sengoku era daimyo, Uesugi Kenshin, supposedly wore this set of Dragon armour:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d9/Kenshin_Uesugi%27s_armour.jpg

[Saint-Just]

And like any reasonable well known knowledge, this is mostly wrong.

First of all, you can't compare them to modern crossbows - no carbon fibers or anything similar, all you have is sinew, horn, wood and steel. With those three, there is a difference in weight, but it's not as drastic as you might think.

Second problem is that force and weight of limbs isn't the whole picture. A heavier bow will have better performance when launching heavier bolts (conservation of momentum). There is also a top speed on how quickly a given spring returns to its original state, and this rate of return imposes a maximum top speed on how quickly a bow can launch a bolt, regardless of weight. All of these are interdependent and have complex relationships.

Shortness of stroke, that is inefficient. Thing is, you can absolutely have longer stroke on medieval crossbows, and the best idea we have for why we don't see them is one Oni already mentioned - metallurgy. Or rather, mistrust of any bow material, because if you put too much strain on it, that thing will snap right next to your face.

Aforementioned conservation of momentum. The heavier the bolt is, the better a heavy bow will perform. If you take a 25g bolt and increase weight to 50 g, that is not really doubling the weight of mass that is accelerated, because that mass also includes bow and string in it. So the heavier the bow, the better it will perform if you double or triple bolt weight.

Of course, the heavier the bow, the more energy it needs to move itself, so the whole thing is kind of like a complex adjustment of several sliders that depend on each other, and maxing out any one isn't necessarily a good thing. More maximum energy is useless if the efficiency is so bad most of it is wasted, less weight is not great if there is less total energy stored in a drawn crossbow.

Most low poundage crossbows are made of wood. It's cheap, convenient and everywhere.

Once you upgrade to composite or steel, convenience, cost and having a guy who knows how to make it are all factors. As is the perception, because even if there was little difference between steel and composite crossbows, the perception that steel is stronger could have played a role.

All in all, I'd go for cost as the main reason, though not the exclusive one, since there is... a hell of a lot more research needed.


All of the above seems very weirdly formulated. I understand or think that I understand all of the above, and I understood it before I wrote my question, that is why I phrased it as "confused" not as "I don't know"

I never compared historical European crossbows with the modern crossbows. I compared them with earlier European and Chinese crossbows. Many factors you mentioned are true for all bows. Light bow will also have better efficiency when shooting heavier projectiles; efficiency gains for the light bow may be less than efficiency gains for the heavy bow but if it started with higher efficiency (usually) heavy bow will never be equally efficient.

From the material standpoint it seems that it was possible to have at least composite if not wooden prod to have equal poundage with steel (specifically 14-15th century steel) while having longer power stroke (always better) and lighter limbs (also always better, though how much depends on the projectile weight). Broadly speaking I wanted to know: if 300 pounds composite is not up to the task of chucking the bolt of appropriate mass fast enough are you forced to go for less efficient steel or you can just have a bigger composite prod? (the answer seems to be yes, you can even from you).

Thank you for pointing out people being cautious of overloading high-powered springs; I read about it a long time ago but forgot until you reminded me.

[fusilier]

It is reasonably well-known that very heavy steel crossbows are inefficient, because of how heavy the limbs are and how short the stroke is.

I've heard this, but I've also read:


The energy which a steel crossbow imparted to its projectile was greater than that given to an arrow by even the most powerful bow — draw forces in excess of a thousand pounds were common. Because the bow was short, relatively little of the energy was expended in accelerating the tips of the bow and most of its considerable force was applied directly to the bolt.
. . .
The energy stored in a tensed bow, when expended, drives not only the arrow, but also the bowstring or cord and the mass of the bow itself. It follows that a bow with less mass will be capable of driving its projectile (assuming a sufficiently small projectile mass) with greater velocity. The easiest way to reduce the mass of the bow while holding the force applied to the projectile constant is to make the bow stiffer and shorter.

This comes from Guilmartin's work, Gunpowder and Galleys, which was originally written in the 1970s (although I have the updated 2003 copy, it says substantially the same thing). While I believe it is generally a good work, I have some issues with Guilmartin's specifics.

Anyway, this seems to imply the opposite, that steel crossbows are more efficient because of the shorter stroke. My question is, does anybody have sources for the claims about efficiency in bows, and perhaps can explain the difference? (For example are they looking at different questions of efficiency or framing the question in such a way that they appear to come to the opposite conclusion).

[Saint-Just]

I've heard this, but I've also read:

This comes from Guilmartin's work, Gunpowder and Galleys, which was originally written in the 1970s (although I have the updated 2003 copy, it says substantially the same thing). While I believe it is generally a good work, I have some issues with Guilmartin's specifics.

Anyway, this seems to imply the opposite, that steel crossbows are more efficient because of the shorter stroke. My question is, does anybody have sources for the claims about efficiency in bows, and perhaps can explain the difference? (For example are they looking at different questions of efficiency or framing the question in such a way that they appear to come to the opposite conclusion).

This is relatively easy and requires only knowledge of physics: the less limbs move the less energy they waste on moving the prod. This can be achieved by using stiffer materials or using shorter spring (limb) of the same material. Using longer limbs than strictly necessary to achieve desirable power stroke is wasteful energy-wise.

All of the above assumes the same power stroke. By shortening the power stroke you always achieve less efficiency with the same power. Both for steel limbs compared to other steel limbs and for organic limbs compared with other organic limbs there is a general trend of more power stored -> less efficiency especially when confined to man-portable format. If you thicken the limb then you increase mass and shorten power stroke, if you lengthen the limb then you increase mass and the distance the limb moves (so effective mass of the prod increases more than physical mass) etc. Because people knew what they were doing 1200-pound steel crossbow does deliver more energy than 400-pound steel crossbow, but not thrice as much (despite often having heavier bolt which increases the efficiency for any crossbow). I am only confused about how moving between wood<->composite<->steel affects things, within the same category it's easier to understand

Notice how compound bows use very stiff prods (so limbs move as little as possible) while going for the longest possible power stroke.

The primary source (I admit that I actually haven't read it, only skimmed and read a simplified summary) would be http://bio.vu.nl/thb/users/kooi/thesis.pdf
But after encountering those ideas for the first time I have seen them discussed (and broadly accepted) by people who actually make and shoot period-correct projectile weapons.

[fusilier]

This is relatively easy and requires only knowledge of physics: the less limbs move the less energy they waste on moving the prod. This can be achieved by using stiffer materials or using shorter spring (limb) of the same material. Using longer limbs than strictly necessary to achieve desirable power stroke is wasteful energy-wise.

All of the above assumes the same power stroke. By shortening the power stroke you always achieve less efficiency with the same power. Both for steel limbs compared to other steel limbs and for organic limbs compared with other organic limbs there is a general trend of more power stored -> less efficiency especially when confined to man-portable format. If you thicken the limb then you increase mass and shorten power stroke, if you lengthen the limb then you increase mass and the distance the limb moves (so effective mass of the prod increases more than physical mass) etc. Because people knew what they were doing 1200-pound steel crossbow does deliver more energy than 400-pound steel crossbow, but not thrice as much (despite often having heavier bolt which increases the efficiency for any crossbow). I am only confused about how moving between wood<->composite<->steel affects things, within the same category it's easier to understand

Notice how compound bows use very stiff prods (so limbs move as little as possible) while going for the longest possible power stroke.

Thank you. The only thing I will observe, regarding energy, is that Work is Force x distance. So a lighter bow with a longer stroke will apply a lower amount of force, but across a greater distance. So "muzzle velocity" isn't simply a matter of force, but how long (or across how much distance) that force is applied? At least that's how interpret a longer stroke as being more "efficient"

[Saint-Just]

Thank you. The only thing I will observe, regarding energy, is that Work is Force x distance. So a lighter bow with a longer stroke will apply a lower amount of force, but across a greater distance. So "muzzle velocity" isn't simply a matter of force, but how long (or across how much distance) that force is applied? At least that's how interpret a longer stroke as being more "efficient"

Yes. Proper warbows are often limited by the human physiology, so especially within the same era within the same tradition (English longbow vs English longbow, yumi vs yumi) it seems that draw weight can be taken as a simplified measure of how much actual power can be transferred to the projectiles. But given how inefficient a system can be there can be a huge difference between different engines - and steel-limbed crossbows are outperformed energy-wise by "lighter" longbows half of their draw weight (that is not to say that steel-limbed crossbows are bad or strictly inferior).

In addition to the longer stroke there is a matter of force curve. "Draw weight" is the weight at the start of the power stroke and it invariably decreases by the end of it but it matters how much it decreases and in what way exactly. I do not how to put it into proper terms but depending on the shape and material of the bow during your initial draw weight may be very low (some hunting bows are almost straight even when strung) and linearly increasing to the max, or start higher and increase faster (pre-modern it's probably best exemplified by the horn/sinew composite bows, I am not sure whether there is a significant distinction between Korean, Mongolian or Turkish traditions). So while during the first 1mm bows with N draw weight would exert the same* force on the projectile, by the middle of the travel some will apply less force than the others and even more so by the end. That difference is (mostly) orthogonal to the bow vs crossbow, both bows and crossbows can have limbs of different materials and forms.

*well, close enough to be considered the same

[Max_Killjoy]

Tod's Worshop -- circa 1400 BCE 960lb crossbow vs modern 150lb crossbow
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghoVmc12vEs

[AdAstra]

And like any reasonable well knownknowledge, this is mostly wrong.

First of all, you can't compare them to modern crossbows - no carbon fibers or anything similar, all you have is sinew, horn, wood and steel. With those three, there is a difference in weight, but it's not as drastic as you might think.

Second problem is that force and weight of limbs isn't the whole picture. A heavier bow will have better performance when launching heavier bolts (conservation of momentum). There is also a top speed on how quickly a given spring returns to its original state, and this rate of return imposes a maximum top speed on how quickly a bow can launch a bolt, regardless of weight. All of these are interdependent and have complex relationships.

Shortness of stroke, that is inefficient. Thing is, you can absolutely have longer stroke on medieval crossbows, and the best idea we have for why we don't see them is one Oni already mentioned - metallurgy. Or rather, mistrust of any bow material, because if you put too much strain on it, that thing will snap right next to your face.



Aforementioned conservation of momentum. The heavier the bolt is, the better a heavy bow will perform. If you take a 25g bolt and increase weight to 50 g, that is not really doubling the weight of mass that is accelerated, because that mass also includes bow and string in it. So the heavier the bow, the better it will perform if you double or triple bolt weight.

Of course, the heavier the bow, the more energy it needs to move itself, so the whole thing is kind of like a complex adjustment of several sliders that depend on each other, and maxing out any one isn't necessarily a good thing. More maximum energy is useless if the efficiency is so bad most of it is wasted, less weight is not great if there is less total energy stored in a drawn crossbow.



Most low poundage crossbows are made of wood. It's cheap, convenient and everywhere.

Once you upgrade to composite or steel, convenience, cost and having a guy who knows how to make it are all factors. As is the perception, because even if there was little difference between steel and composite crossbows, the perception that steel is stronger could have played a role.

All in all, I'd go for cost as the main reason, though not the exclusive one, since there is... a hell of a lot more research needed.



Thing is, Europe had pretty much the same thing in coat of plates and brigandine, and even first plate harnesses, and those were actual most commonly seen armor types of the day. Full plate was absolutely brilliant, but prohibitively expensive - enough so that it was not affordable to even all the nobles.



Thing is, we don't see full plate even for Ottoman sultans, and as the Japanese proved, if there is an advantage to getting full plate, the rich will absolutely pay through the nose for it.



Climate, not so much. Once you have a gambeson on, only thing that really matters to how quickly you overheat is the total weight. There probably is some small difference, but... just not that big of one.

On the other hand, the ease of fitting is definitely a factor, we tend to see the decrease of plate components as European armies grow for this exact reason.



Not true in the slightest. English archers were entirely happy to use full plate, as did any other. We have ample evidence for that.

Mughals aren't my cup of tea, but for Ottomans, I believe I can offer an answer.

The thing is, they were ahead of their time. In several things, but the one that is relevant here is the army organization and size. They were able to field larger, more organized, more trained and more disciplined armies when compared to the Europeans (look at Mohacs, 60k vs 100k, but then logistics took their toll and we get 40k (at best) Hugarians against 80k Ottomans split into two armies), to the degree where I'd say that they had about reassaince organizational approach in 1400.

And that meant similar equipment philosophy, where even a lot of the elite Janissaries had not that much in the way of armor - possibly none at all, the argument about chain mail sewn into their tunics rages on.

This was met with quite some disdain from European knights who derided them as commoners, but that tended to... not work out so well for them, just aske the French at Nicopolis. Ottomans basically decided that quality was all fine and good, but they wanted medium quality of equipment, quantity of troops and high quality of training.

Europe didn't lag behind for that long, 1400s are time of Hussites, Nicopolis and reformations and counter-reformations and assorted wars, where highly armored knights are proven to be, while not obsolete, not quite as dominant as they have been until now. I'd go as far as to say that true full plate armor, of the gothic german kinds (late 15th to early 16th century), is not very effective when you look at the big picture, something of a last swan song of knights.

Impressive, to be sure, but you may as well grab thirty men with a mix of pikemen with a cuirass and serpentiners (is that what we should call guys with serpentines?) for the cost and get more bang for your buck. Or a few howitzers. Or light field cannons.

After that, it's essentially a matter of cultural heritage when it comes to what exact bits the partial armor of the pike and shot era looks like. Europe with its long history of cuirasses picked those, Ottomans had their own thing in plate-reinforced mail. These are no longer meant to make you pracitcally immune to almost all weapons, they have more of a modern bulletproof vest approach of "they maybe will help you not get killed in some circumstances". And they all have their pros and cons, with cuirasses being able to resist pistol and some musket fire, but chain mail offering better protection in a melee.

Do you actually have evidence of English archers using plate in places other than the legs and helmet? Because I did do some research on this to determine if it was correct before posting my earlier spiel. You see a lot of archers (or descriptions of archers) wearing plate on the legs, but mail or brigandine on their upper body, and I've yet to find an example of an archer wearing a proper plate cuirass. If plate really was not a meaningful hindrance to drawing a bow, why would these archers have fully articulated plate on the legs, but not on the arms or chest?

Which come to think of it, should put a pin in the idea that Europeans didn't do this, so that part's definitely incorrect. But you do see more cases of Ottoman armored troops being equipped with bows in addition to their normal weaponry, rather than as their specialization.

[Martin Greywolf]

steel-limbed crossbows are outperformed energy-wise by "lighter" longbows half of their draw weight (that is not to say that steel-limbed crossbows are bad or strictly inferior).

It's far worse than half, I think the ballpark estimate is 10:1 in favor of bows when you count raw poundage, mostly on account of short draw. Still, it really depends on whether you're counting kinetic energy, momentum, initial velocity or something else entirely - all of these are relevant for what the arrow in question can do, and all are interdependent.


Do you actually have evidence of English archers using plate in places other than the legs and helmet? Because I did do some research on this to determine if it was correct before posting my earlier spiel. You see a lot of archers (or descriptions of archers) wearing plate on the legs, but mail or brigandine on their upper body, and I've yet to find an example of an archer wearing a proper plate cuirass. If plate really was not a meaningful hindrance to drawing a bow, why would these archers have fully articulated plate on the legs, but not on the arms or chest?

Which come to think of it, should put a pin in the idea that Europeans didn't do this, so that part's definitely incorrect. But you do see more cases of Ottoman armored troops being equipped with bows in addition to their normal weaponry, rather than as their specialization.

You didn't look all that hard then, this is something that has been well known among re-enactors for at least the last decade. On some of the following links, people in question are wearing jupons, which means you can't really prove or disprove whether they have a cuirass under there, but they at least have full plate legs, stringly suggesting full plate. Others are indisputably plate. Some even have helmets with visors down - I tired it out, and it's possible, but not great for your accuracy.

Item (https://manuscriptminiatures.com/4303/9813)
Item (https://manuscriptminiatures.com/5874/23362)
Item (https://manuscriptminiatures.com/4530/8520)
Item (https://manuscriptminiatures.com/4530/8527)
Item (https://manuscriptminiatures.com/4303/9812)
Item (https://manuscriptminiatures.com/4938/14878)
Item (https://manuscriptminiatures.com/5874/23334)
Item (https://manuscriptminiatures.com/4291/7627)
Item (https://manuscriptminiatures.com/4161/7492)
Item (https://manuscriptminiatures.com/4078/7262)

[adso]

Since we were on a bit of a bow kick, I have a question about the interaction between strength and archery. As many of you may be aware, 3.5 D&D had mighty composite bows with a specific strength bonus seemingly to model draw weight. You took a penalty if your strength score was less than the specified draw weight and could add your strength modifier to damage up to the draw weight. In trying to come up with a more realistic system, I have a few questions about draw weights for those of you with experience or knowledge of archery:

1. How much would strength beyond the minimum necessary to draw a bow help the arrow's speed/damage? If a person is capable of using an X lb bow, would a stronger person with an X lb bow be able to do more damage with it? Or would the extra strength only impact the speed with which they get fatigued and the length of time they can keep the bow drawn in order to aim?
2. In the medieval era (say, 14th and 15th centuries), were there fairly fine gradations in draw weight (as we see today with exact poundage), or would bows be distributed/sold as "for someone of average strength" or "someone of exceptional strength" or similar?
3. To get a bit more gamey, how much is it that raw strength affects one's ability to use a higher poundage bow vs. proficiency with bows writ large? My understanding is that, while a certain degree of form/proficiency is necessary to effectively use one's strength, beyond that it comes down to the strength of (a very particular set of) muscle, is that correct?

Thank you for any assistance!

[Brother Oni]

To preface my comments - I'm speaking primarily from a modern target archery perspective. Martin Greywolf and I will disagree on the importance of a number of points as we have difference archery experiences.


1. How much would strength beyond the minimum necessary to draw a bow help the arrow's speed/damage? If a person is capable of using an X lb bow, would a stronger person with an X lb bow be able to do more damage with it? Or would the extra strength only impact the speed with which they get fatigued and the length of time they can keep the bow drawn in order to aim?

To answer these questions, you need an understanding of how bows work and some finer details of the draw weight terminology.

Bows and crossbows work by being essentially a big spring. You deform the spring when you draw it, putting energy into the system. When you release the string, the spring returns back to its original shape, imparting the released energy into the arrow.*

If you pull the spring beyond its elastic limit into its plastic limit, it will deform and not return back to its original shape, thus imparting less power into the arrow. Pull it back far enough its plastic limit and the bow will break, normally with catastrophic effect (injuries up to and including amputations and fatalities are known with medieval crossbows breaking).

So what is this elastic limit of bows? It depends on the bow's design and materials and is based on its intended draw length.

This leads me onto the finer points of draw weight; by hanging about on this thread, you should be familiar with the concept of draw weights (90lb, 120lb, etc). There's actually a second measurement associated with draw weights, the draw length, so when we say a '90lb draw weight', what we actually mean is a '90lb draw weight at 30" draw length'.
This rated draw length normally gets missed off, since people tend to all be about the same size, resulting in the majority of draw lengths being in between 28" - 30".

So taking a 90lb draw weight at 28" draw length bow, if say a halfling used it, they would be unable to draw it back to that 28", resulting in a lower powered shot (the exact power delivered is dependent on the bow's force/draw curve and how far they managed to pull it back). The same would be for a normal sized but weak human - they would struggle to pull it back to the rated 28". This is known as short drawing.

In comparison, a larger and strong person would be able to draw it back beyond that 28" and be able to get some additional power out of the bow (known as stacking) until they hit the elastic/plastic point. How much more is again dependent on the bow's force draw curve and its tolerances.

A person significantly stronger but of the same size, would be able to shoot for longer, but wouldn't be able to put more power into the bow without altering their form/technique (this is known as over drawing) which may affect their accuracy. Whether this is significant or not, is one of those differences I mentioned in my preface.

Bows have tolerances around their rated draw length and generally you can go beyond a couple inches with no ill effects. You may prefer longer limbs with a heavier draw weight and short draw (for example to get the string angle less acute) or shorter limbs with a lighter draw weight and stack (e.g. horse bows and other archery where space is at a premium), but the end effect is generally the same.

*Releasing a drawn bow or crossbow without an arrow is known as dry-firing and is very damaging to the bow as the energy goes back into the limbs instead of the arrow. As an example of this, accidental dry firing is specifically excluded from the warranty of all modern bow or crossbow manufacturers I know of.


2. In the medieval era (say, 14th and 15th centuries), were there fairly fine gradations in draw weight (as we see today with exact poundage), or would bows be distributed/sold as "for someone of average strength" or "someone of exceptional strength" or similar?

A bowyer would make a range of bows of different lengths and different draw weights, but would generally aim towards a certain standard. A potential archer would then test shoot a range of these bows (initially they would select a range based on the length of the bow versus the archer's height) to find a particular one that they liked or which suited them best.

The standard depended on the culture and the requirements for the time - in England, the Unlawful Games Act 1541**, stated that 'All Men under the Age of sixty Years "shall have Bows and Arrows for shooting. Men-Children between Seven Years and Seventeen shall have a Bow and 2 Shafts. Men about Seventeen Years of Age shall keep a Bow and 4 Arrows - Penalty 6s.8d.'.
This was expanded the following year by an Act of Parliament with a minimum target archery distance of 220 yds for men aged 24 years and above; in other words, you were legally required to be able to hit a target at that distance and were inspected regularly.

It's important to note that serious archers have their bows made personally for them; bows are not like a gun which can be massed produced then fine tuned to a user's personal characteristics afterwards.

**Incidentally, this Act wasn't repealed until 1960!


3. To get a bit more gamey, how much is it that raw strength affects one's ability to use a higher poundage bow vs. proficiency with bows writ large? My understanding is that, while a certain degree of form/proficiency is necessary to effectively use one's strength, beyond that it comes down to the strength of (a very particular set of) muscle, is that correct?

This gets complicated as the higher the bow's poundage, there's a drop in efficiency as you need to make the bow bigger to handle the stresses - see the earlier posts on this page.

While you can brute force the technique with lighter poundage bows (I did during my learner's course with a 29lb bow), once you start getting towards your limit, you rapidly learn how to draw properly, else you tire very quickly.

I do agree that once you get the technique correct***, it's all down to your back muscles.

Anecdotally, my Olympic recurve bow is rated for 38lb at 30" - I don't have a 30" draw length, so I effectively get a 36lb draw at 29". Why didn't I buy a 36lb at 29" bow? The shop didn't have them in stock.

***To emphasise the importance of technique, my archery club has a silver and gold para-olympian archer; I've carried her, her wheelchair and all her kit across a muddy field - she shoots a heavier draw weight bow than me.

[Mike_G]

Does anyone here know of weapons laws in Europe in the late 19th Century?

I know there were a lot of concealed weapons, pocket pistols, cane swords, cane guns etc. Would it be legal to wear a sword openly on the streets of Paris or London or Vienna in, say 1870? It doesn't seem to come up in literature that I've seen.

And if not, when did it become not the done thing for a man of a certain class to wear a sword in civilian life?

[Gnoman]

Europe loved tiny pocket pistols in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. To the point where a lot (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruby_pistol) of (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mauser_Model_1914) tiny (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beholla_pistol) .32ACP (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Savage_Model_1907) semiautomatics (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FN_M1900) wound up serving in WWI armies because there were already companies cranking them or closely related models out in huge numbers for civilian sale.

Restrictions in general didn't really show up until after The War To End All Wars.

[Martin Greywolf]

Since we were on a bit of a bow kick, I have a question about the interaction between strength and archery. As many of you may be aware, 3.5 D&D had mighty composite bows with a specific strength bonus seemingly to model draw weight. You took a penalty if your strength score was less than the specified draw weight and could add your strength modifier to damage up to the draw weight. In trying to come up with a more realistic system, I have a few questions about draw weights for those of you with experience or knowledge of archery:

1. How much would strength beyond the minimum necessary to draw a bow help the arrow's speed/damage? If a person is capable of using an X lb bow, would a stronger person with an X lb bow be able to do more damage with it? Or would the extra strength only impact the speed with which they get fatigued and the length of time they can keep the bow drawn in order to aim?
2. In the medieval era (say, 14th and 15th centuries), were there fairly fine gradations in draw weight (as we see today with exact poundage), or would bows be distributed/sold as "for someone of average strength" or "someone of exceptional strength" or similar?
3. To get a bit more gamey, how much is it that raw strength affects one's ability to use a higher poundage bow vs. proficiency with bows writ large? My understanding is that, while a certain degree of form/proficiency is necessary to effectively use one's strength, beyond that it comes down to the strength of (a very particular set of) muscle, is that correct?

Thank you for any assistance!

Brother Oni pretty much answered everything you asked, but I'm here with something you didn't think about. CON.

See, when it comes to battlefield shooting, especially the rapid-fire into an oncoming charge bit, the limiting thing to your accuracy and performance isn't how strong you are, but for how long you can use the bow you have. Pretty much everyone can draw a 100 lbs bow if you show them the correct technique - once. After that, your arms will begin to shake, and if you are tired enought, you will just be unable to use the bow.

Most tabletops have you shoot in that fast rate of fire, DnD has one round-one attack-6 seconds thing. That means you are flinging 10 arrows a minute out there, which is... pretty hard and demanding on your stamina. No, really, I mean it - people who don't shoot high poundages underestimate this immensely, even the best modern archers can go full speed for about a minute or two at best before they need to rest.

If we assume STR, CON, DEX for physical stats, I'd say that you need STR to be able to use the bow and CON to be able to use it for more than one round effectively, and DEX does very little. So, for bows, you have STR requirements, add STR bonus to damage within some narrow range to account for draw length (like, 15 STR bow can have +1 to +3 from STR added to it) and you add your CON to accuracy.

Compare that to thrown weapons with DEX for accuracy and STR to damage. Or sling with DEX for accuracy and damage but heavy penalties if you aren't proficient. Or crossbows that get DEX to accuracy and nothing to damage and everyone including your grandma is proficient with them.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Brother Oni pretty much answered everything you asked, but I'm here with something you didn't think about. CON.

See, when it comes to battlefield shooting, especially the rapid-fire into an oncoming charge bit, the limiting thing to your accuracy and performance isn't how strong you are, but for how long you can use the bow you have. Pretty much everyone can draw a 100 lbs bow if you show them the correct technique - once. After that, your arms will begin to shake, and if you are tired enought, you will just be unable to use the bow.

Most tabletops have you shoot in that fast rate of fire, DnD has one round-one attack-6 seconds thing. That means you are flinging 10 arrows a minute out there, which is... pretty hard and demanding on your stamina. No, really, I mean it - people who don't shoot high poundages underestimate this immensely, even the best modern archers can go full speed for about a minute or two at best before they need to rest.

If we assume STR, CON, DEX for physical stats, I'd say that you need STR to be able to use the bow and CON to be able to use it for more than one round effectively, and DEX does very little. So, for bows, you have STR requirements, add STR bonus to damage within some narrow range to account for draw length (like, 15 STR bow can have +1 to +3 from STR added to it) and you add your CON to accuracy.

Compare that to thrown weapons with DEX for accuracy and STR to damage. Or sling with DEX for accuracy and damage but heavy penalties if you aren't proficient. Or crossbows that get DEX to accuracy and nothing to damage and everyone including your grandma is proficient with them.

One ameliorating factor is that D&D combats (at least 5e) are over very quickly in universe time (not player time). 3-5 6-second rounds is my experience. So call it one minute, max. With tens of minutes if not an hour or more between fights.

[Martin Greywolf]

One ameliorating factor is that D&D combats (at least 5e) are over very quickly in universe time (not player time). 3-5 6-second rounds is my experience. So call it one minute, max. With tens of minutes if not an hour or more between fights.

I don't know, from what my experience is, you usually see a handful of fights of about 5 rounds, separated by a few minutes at best - at least, if you're exploring a dungeon or some such. And there are, of course, more attacks per round than just the one, at least sometimes. And, taking more abstract approach to this, there is no guarantee that 1 attack is 1 arrow, much like 1 attack isn't one sword swing - the rules tell us they don't have to be, only to turn around and imply that they are.

I still think CON is the stat to use for bow accuracy, though, your hands can be shaky even on the first shot if you already had to march up a steep hill, going from tree to tree while dodging arrows. Or had to run through a mine to get to people you need to rescue in time. I have done both, and while it was fun, it wasn't easy - although morale was raised when one of our enemies in the mine adventure managed to faceplant himself into a puddle when ambushing us from a side tunnel.

[DrewID]

Restrictions in general didn't really show up until after The War To End All Wars.

Which one?

DrewID

[fusilier]

Does anyone here know of weapons laws in Europe in the late 19th Century?

I know there were a lot of concealed weapons, pocket pistols, cane swords, cane guns etc. Would it be legal to wear a sword openly on the streets of Paris or London or Vienna in, say 1870? It doesn't seem to come up in literature that I've seen.

And if not, when did it become not the done thing for a man of a certain class to wear a sword in civilian life?

The sense I get is that openly carrying weapons was regulated, even if ownership was not. Officers in uniform wore their swords in public at that date, but, like you, I don't see depictions of civilians in the 19th century openly wearing swords on the streets. A little digging around on the internet, finds claims that openly wearing swords fell out of favor with the nobles in England in the middle of the 18th century, and a little later in France. So perhaps when they fell out of favor among the nobles, laws were passed prohibiting them in general? I don't have any sources though.

Perhaps looking for the history of some specific laws may help, from wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firearms_regulation_in_the_United_Kingdom#History_ of_firearms_legislation_in_the_United_Kingdom

The first British firearm controls were introduced as part of the Vagrancy Act 1824, which was set up in a reaction against the large number of people roaming the country with weapons brought back from the Napoleonic wars. It allowed the police to arrest "any person with any gun, pistol, hanger [a light sword], cutlass, bludgeon or other offensive weapon ... with intent to commit a felonious act". It was followed by the Night Poaching Acts 1828 and 1844, the Game Act 1831, and the Poaching Prevention Act 1862, which made it an offence to shoot game illegally by using a firearm.


Although I suppose it would depend upon how the police interpreted the qualification "with intent to commit a felonious act."

[Telok]

The sense I get is that openly carrying weapons was regulated, even if ownership was not. Officers in uniform wore their swords in public at that date, but, like you, I don't see depictions of civilians in the 19th century openly wearing swords on the streets. A little digging around on the internet, finds claims that openly wearing swords fell out of favor with the nobles in England in the middle of the 18th century, and a little later in France. So perhaps when they fell out of favor among the nobles, laws were passed prohibiting them in general? I don't have any sources though.

Perhaps looking for the history of some specific laws may help, from wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firearms_regulation_in_the_United_Kingdom#History_ of_firearms_legislation_in_the_United_Kingdom

Although I suppose it would depend upon how the police interpreted the qualification "with intent to commit a felonious act."

Weirdly enough I have a couple of old bookmarks about this. Try a 2011 thread from myarmoury.com (http://myarmoury.com/talk/viewtopic.22719.html) and a 2006 thread from a HEMA and history forum (http://www.fioredeiliberi.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=447&start=0&). I think I have a text file somewhere too. Ah, this (https://www.google.com/search?channel=fs&client=ubuntu&q=thatcher-a-source-book-for-mediaeval-history-selected-documents) is something I have in an old epub file in a directory marked 'law' that I was once using in world building.

[Martin Greywolf]

Although I suppose it would depend upon how the police interpreted the qualification "with intent to commit a felonious act."

This particular bit is still in effect somewhat in Slovakia where I happen to live, when it comes to melee weapons and weapons that don't require registration (weak bows and crossbows, mostly), you can carry them openly or concealed as long as "it isn't apparent from your behaviour" you are about to commit a crime, unless you have that weapon for sporting purpose or for acting. Thinking about it a bit in depth, it's pretty clear why it is phrashed the way it is - having a sword is fine, waving it around and shouting threats is not. That sporting and acting exception is there so that no one will be able to call the cops on the re-enactors.

For eastern Europe in general, you see some restrictions before ww1 - 1853 Waffenpatent permits ownership to anyone unless they are on a blacklist, but requires you to have a permit (issued to "respectable citizens", so whoever isn't currently discriminated against) to carry them. Nazis expressly forbade Jews from owning weapons, which was overturned in 1945, and only real overhaul of the laws happened in 1967 - well, in Austria.

In Hungary, which promptly fell apart into Czechoslovakia (then to Czech protectorate and Slovakia, then Czechoslovakia again and then to Czech republic and Slovakia), Yugoslavia (not even attempting to describe that mess) and so on, and was part of Warsaw pact, the situation is complicated. In general, Warsaw pact countries allowed smoothbore hunting shotguns and restricted everything else to state officials (which could be quite a lot of people, not just police and standing military), with the idea that only hunting firearms should be allowed. This was enforced... unevenly, and we keep finding grandparent's machineguns from their partisan days in the attic to this day.

These laws were liberalized quite a bit after 1989, usually taking USA, Great Britain or France as a template, but it varies on a per nation basis. We even had a bit of an idea to ban ninja weapons a la UK before people came to their senses and realized it was incredibly dumb.

[Brother Oni]

Although I suppose it would depend upon how the police interpreted the qualification "with intent to commit a felonious act."

That sort of nebulous qualification is still present in modern firearms licensing laws in the UK, where you need 'a good reason' to be allowed to get a license.

Similarly, actually owning a firearm involves a police inspection of how it will be stored and secured in your home or the registered location.

[Saint-Just]

In Hungary, which promptly fell apart into Czechoslovakia (then to Czech protectorate and Slovakia, then Czechoslovakia again and then to Czech republic and Slovakia), Yugoslavia (not even attempting to describe that mess) and so on, and was part of Warsaw pact, the situation is complicated. In general, Warsaw pact countries allowed smoothbore hunting shotguns and restricted everything else to state officials (which could be quite a lot of people, not just police and standing military), with the idea that only hunting firearms should be allowed. This was enforced... unevenly, and we keep finding grandparent's machineguns from their partisan days in the attic to this day.

These laws were liberalized quite a bit after 1989, usually taking USA, Great Britain or France as a template, but it varies on a per nation basis. We even had a bit of an idea to ban ninja weapons a la UK before people came to their senses and realized it was incredibly dumb.

I thought that single shot or bolt-action rifles were also legal in the Warsaw pact, maybe not of military design or military calibers, but hunting rifles were allowed AFAIK.

And Soviets specifically produced quite a few different models of semi-auto hunting rifles. Nether security guards nor foresters would need to have so many different options. Now if you needed to be a state/party official to get one to hunt with that's a maybe but that still a lots of people.

[Vinyadan]

I have a question: I remember a description of resistance towards the expansion of monarchies in the Baltic sea by tribesmen who lived in societies where rights and powers were more widely distributed among the population. I think Gotland and the territories of the modern Baltic states were examples. Are there works describing these societies? Can they be compared to the non-monarchical institutions of more-or-less independent cities?

[Martin Greywolf]

If we're talking early/high medieval period, then... kind of?

Thing is, for most of northern half of Europe, big, centralized states weren't a thing up until this point, at least not stable ones. You see some loose alliances like the Cuman Khaganate and areas that had multiple city states, ancient Greek-style, that often allied against foreign threats but were effectively independent (Rus, Kiev, Novgorod, Muscovy etc). Then Carolingian era hits and some of these areas are rolled into large states - I read a pretty poetic description by an academic historian that said something like "A kingdom's borders stretched as far as the king's whip". Which, fair - rebellions and instability were pretty common.

Edit: You had some larger kingdoms for a short time, like Great Moravia or Samo's Realm, but they usually didn't last long past their founder's deaths.

Then once we get to high medieval period, some areas, usually those close tot he Vatican (we can't discuss why this is on this forum), became increasingly centralized and stable - while borders did move, it was a movement in frontier regions. Sure, Austria, Hungary and Bohemia kept tossing Bratislava/Pressburg between the three of them like a hot potato, but towns deeper in either of those (e.g. Viena, Brno, Budapest) kept belonging to one state.

You needed three things, roughly, for this stabilization to occur: 1) ruling party (usually a house) that managed to be the boss for at least a few generations, 2) administrative background, what with record keeping and tax collection (this is where both the Catholic and Orthodox churches were helping out immensely) and 3) borders defensible enough to make it difficult for an army to straight up march to your core territories and take over.

All of that effectively means that large towns and cities were, no matter where in northern Europe, part of the same lineage of semi-independent entities. Sure, a king is your nominal ruler, but it's well within his interests to keep you happy. Problem is, until you get to rise of royal chancelleries that keep detailed records (~1200 in Hungary, I don't know enough about the details of it to speak for other places), we have no way of knowing what those agreements, that were entirely verbal, actually entailed.

Come the Baltic crusades, you have what are essentially the burgher class in kingdoms and then independent city states where their inhabitants are much the same. There is no real "tribesmen" out here, all of these people are using roughly the same equipment and often have roughly the same beliefs (there are pagans openly living in Hungary, after all). The reason why we see them called infidels, savages and tribesmen is that, well, we only have the accounts of their enemies to go by, outside of archaeology.

The whole idea with more widely distributed power structures and freedoms have some merit, but you see it taken way too far, to a point where people claim they had a sort of neo-liberalizm in there, which... unless you find some hard proof, no. There usually was greater religious freedom, and women had a slightly more equal standing perhaps (but then and again, high medieval women were much better off than their renaissance counterparts), and sometimes you had a sort of a democracy - only, there was a very stringent set of rules as to who could actually vote. You see the same voting systems in Free Royal Cities in Hungary and Imperial Cities in HRE - sure you can vote who is the boss, if you own a house in city worth at least X, and no, you can't force anyone to sell one to you if they don't like you.


One of the most resistant misconceptions about the societies of East Central
and Eastern Europe in the early Middle Ages is that in the course of their mi-
gration (see chapter 4), the Slavs have brought to the region specific forms of
social organization. “Neighborhood” communities, such as the opole of Poland
or the župa of the northwestern Balkans (present-day Croatia and Slovenia),
long pre-dated, but also contributed to the rise of medieval states.1 Several
neighboring villages or hamlets within a micro-region (e.g., a river valley)
formed a political entity, which governed itself and had unrestricted rights to
the surrounding lands—both cultivated and grazing fields. That such forms of
social organization existed since the early Middle Ages is a 19th-century idea,
largely derived from evolutionary theories about state formation. That idea
was only recently challenged primarily on grounds of lack of any evidence that
the opole, for example, existed before ca. 1100, or that it was more than an in-
formal association with none of the “legal” traits attributed to it by an earlier
generation of scholars. Similarly, 19th-century theories about the supposedly
rapid Slavicization of Eastern, Southeastern, and East Central Europe being
the result of a specifically Slavic mode of life and society have been revived
in Slovenian scholarship. Andrej Pleterski claims that the župa was the build-
ing block of Slavdom: the župa was nothing less than the Slavic equivalent of
the polis in ancient Greece, the Gau in the Germanic world, and the oppidum
among the Celts—all being “small units of spatial organization” of society.3
However, the evidence of župa as a territorial, or even an administrative entity
is of a much later date. The mir of imperial Russia was still on the minds of
Soviet-era Russian historians, who believed that the transition to feudalism in
Byzantium was made possible only by the Slavs


They did resist being rolled up into other kingdoms, for the same reason why anyone resists that, really - people in charge didn't want to share their power.

For works on them, well. There is obviously Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth, there are a few works on that one. You could also go for works on Teutonic order, since that one was rolling these Baltic city-states over. Other than that, however, there are no really good comprehensive works on the area, you'll have to look for specific studies on individual power blocks, e.g. Cuman Khaganate, Kiev and so on. Unfortunately for us, most of the work on it done by the local academics was done during the USSR era, which means funding was... erratic, and you could go to the gulag if you dared to not shoehorn class struggle into every other sentence. And it's written in half a dozen languages as well, to make it more interesting.

The seminal work, albeit a little dated at this point (e.g. familiares in Hungary predate the banderial system by about a century or two), is the already mentioned Eastern Europe in the Middle Ages (500–1300) by Florin Curta - be warned, ye who read it, it is a monstrous 1378 pages of dense text. It's not strictly about what you want, but you can get information from it if you read enough of the relevant parts.

There is also the Chronicle of Novgorod, which has been translated to english, and is a primary source on the area - I don't knwo if it is online legally, but, y'know, torrents.

[Saint-Just]

There is also the Chronicle of Novgorod, which has been translated to english, and is a primary source on the area - I don't knwo if it is online legally, but, y'know, torrents.

It's out of copyright in the UK (where it has been printed) and the US (just in case), and should be out of copyright literally everywhere on Earth. It was printed in 1914. http://faculty.washington.edu/dwaugh/rus/texts/MF1914.pdf

[Yora]

I just encountered guns firing flechette rounds again. Had not seen those in years.

Does anyone remember what flechette rounds were actually supposed to do, and why the development apparently became a complete dead end?

I recall that gyrojets were just stupidly expensive per round and a solution looking for a problem. But I think flechette seemed like it would at least be plausible.

[Vinyadan]

Martin Greywolf, thanks for the long answer! I don't know much about the history of Eastern Europe. I am pretty much locked out of libraries because of the crisis, so I think I'll take a look at the Chronicles of Novgorod. The introduction of the version linked by Saint-Just is pretty fashinating.

[Pauly]

I just encountered guns firing flechette rounds again. Had not seen those in years.

Does anyone remember what flechette rounds were actually supposed to do, and why the development apparently became a complete dead end?

I recall that gyrojets were just stupidly expensive per round and a solution looking for a problem. But I think flechette seemed like it would at least be plausible.

Flechettes are essentially advanced shotgun shells. Fin stabilized for greater accuracy than the round shot Used in shotguns. There was development of them for use in combat rifles in the 60s and 70s. The increased projectile speed (thank APDS type mechanics) was supposed to give better penetration. They ended up being a dead end, I think mainly because the effect wasn’t worth the time and hassle to manufacture.

Their modern use is in artillery/tank rounds as a modern version of grapeshot.

[AdAstra]

I just encountered guns firing flechette rounds again. Had not seen those in years.

Does anyone remember what flechette rounds were actually supposed to do, and why the development apparently became a complete dead end?

I recall that gyrojets were just stupidly expensive per round and a solution looking for a problem. But I think flechette seemed like it would at least be plausible.

So, flechettes as projectiles in small arms mostly came about due to project SALVO and its many derivatives. Long thin metal darts with fins, usually with a sabot, yadda yadda, practical effect is that you can get very high velocities with minimal recoil, barrel wear, and cartridge weight (I can explain that part more thoroughly if required), very good for achieving high rates of fire and armor penetration. You saw them as both single projectiles akin to rifle rounds, packed into shotgun shells/artillery shells, and as tank projectiles. The latter two were not really related to SALVO, though, just developments that utilized the advantages of the flechette.

For rifles, they failed because their terminal ballistics were pretty terrible, and they had a tendency to be deflected very easily by things like foliage and rain drops. It was also hard to reliably make the sabots in such massive quantities with the tech of the time, further messing with accuracy. Expense was also high, due to both the sabot and the need to machine each flechette. Muzzle blast was atrocious as well.

For shotgun shells, they did alright, but were again expensive and didn't have great wounding characteristics. Also the semi-auto shotguns that the US Army wanted to fire them were way too heavy and bulky. Note that the velocities from theses were not particularly high. High for shotguns, but nothing special compared to say, a rifle.

For artillery, they were very well liked. In this case, the shells were basically a more modern iteration of Shrapnel shells. The shell had tons of flechettes packed together, with a very small bursting charge, which mostly just served to release the flechettes from the shell body. Most of the velocity came from artillery piece itself, thus velocity was nothing special in this case. These were much more deadly, both due to the quantity of flechettes and the fact that they tended to bend and "J-hook". These were mostly replaced with airbursting conventional shells as the fuses became more precise, as they could achieve similar effects plus some additional ones.

Tank guns are the only military applications where you still see substantial use of flechette projectiles. Armor Piercing Fin-Stabilized Discarding Sabot rounds are basically just giant (single) flechette rounds, taking advantage of the very high velocity and sectional density of the projectile to maximize penetration. No other tool has proven as reliable for killing things like tanks.

[Gnoman]

To expand on this, normal ammunition manufacture is little more than casting or swaging (basically stamping, but for more complicated parts) and cleaning up for proper balance and such. For fletchette or sabot ammunition, each round has to be machined to fairly tight tolerances. This is a much more expensive process (and in a more expensive material to boot - lead core bullets have been the standard for so long because lead is cheap) and drives the cost of ammunition into the stratosphere.

Add in the fairly marginal performance benefits in smaller guns, and the project was rightfully a stillbirth.

[Lvl 2 Expert]

Which one?

DrewID

WW1, at least in this context.

[Martin Greywolf]

If you want more info on specific flechette guns, Gun Jesus provideth:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qFANjlr4I9Q

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X1W8iz8DyRw

[Archpaladin Zousha]

Bit of an odd question, but I'm trying to figure out a weapon that would work efficiently in melee for a character I'm building based on her physical aptitudes.

In terms of her height and build (using fantasy ancestries for comparisons), she'd be built like a dwarf, but about a halfling's height, and sort of balances sturdiness with mobility, as her stats include a bonus to damage on her first melee hit after moving 10 ft, so she's supposed to be tanky, but moving from opponent to opponent rather than staying in one spot and letting enemies come to her.

Given these parameters, what kinds of melee weapons would best complement her build and the style her bonuses encourage? My understanding is that long weapons that may compensate for her short height, like pikes or polearms, tend to encourage a very stationary fighting style, like the Greek phalanx or Saxon sheild wall, so they don't really fit with the way she's encouraged to fight, staying mobile and letting the momentum from her advancing carry through to her strike. Am I making sense?

[Mike_G]

Bit of an odd question, but I'm trying to figure out a weapon that would work efficiently in melee for a character I'm building based on her physical aptitudes.

In terms of her height and build (using fantasy ancestries for comparisons), she'd be built like a dwarf, but about a halfling's height, and sort of balances sturdiness with mobility, as her stats include a bonus to damage on her first melee hit after moving 10 ft, so she's supposed to be tanky, but moving from opponent to opponent rather than staying in one spot and letting enemies come to her.

Given these parameters, what kinds of melee weapons would best complement her build and the style her bonuses encourage? My understanding is that long weapons that may compensate for her short height, like pikes or polearms, tend to encourage a very stationary fighting style, like the Greek phalanx or Saxon sheild wall, so they don't really fit with the way she's encouraged to fight, staying mobile and letting the momentum from her advancing carry through to her strike. Am I making sense?

For a style where you keep moving and use your momentum, I'd look at light cavalry weapons, like a saber. Good for slashing on the move and keeping moving. A lance or other pointy weapon will use momentum, but then get stuck. A light mace or hammer could work if you fight people with more armor, or a longsword or katana if you wanta two handed slash-on-the-move weapon.

In fact, just flavor wise, a katana is a nice fit. Plenty of samurai movies show the hero slashing his way through many enemies, always on the move.

[Brother Oni]

Given these parameters, what kinds of melee weapons would best complement her build and the style her bonuses encourage? My understanding is that long weapons that may compensate for her short height, like pikes or polearms, tend to encourage a very stationary fighting style, like the Greek phalanx or Saxon sheild wall, so they don't really fit with the way she's encouraged to fight, staying mobile and letting the momentum from her advancing carry through to her strike. Am I making sense?

Some other suggestions to Mike_G's: some sort of long slashing weapon, like a glaive, guandao or naginata, although with the haft cut down a tad to compensate.

A long two handed swords using particular sword styles also works (there's an Italian sword style for long swords which involved large sweeping motions, as it was intended to fend off multiple attackers while protecting someone, but the name escapes me at the moment), although the weapon length might need to be cut down a bit.

[KineticDiplomat]

An issue with the short and squat trying to use longswords/bastard swords/katanas is that inherently they’re already at a reach disadvantage against any similar armed opponent (as well as those with classic arming swords and shields) if they stay on the outside because of their height, but the reach difference isn’t so big that if they work their way inside they have an advantage - you still need room to swing those things before it turns into headbutts and pommel bashing.

Rather than try to make up for a weakness that two extra feet of height would actually need, why not play to the strength? Go full infighter, either with a classic Roman set up (short stabbing weapon and shield) or a more Hollywood duck and weave style approach. Once you’re inside the guys caught with the long weapons are going to be sucking and that low center of mass is going to really come into advantage in landing short stabbing and hooking blows they can’t hope to defend against, setting up the grapple, or even just if you end up in a raw shoving match.

[Max_Killjoy]

An issue with the short and squat trying to use longswords/bastard swords/katanas is that inherently they’re already at a reach disadvantage against any similar armed opponent (as well as those with classic arming swords and shields) if they stay on the outside because of their height, but the reach difference isn’t so big that if they work their way inside they have an advantage - you still need room to swing those things before it turns into headbutts and pommel bashing.

Rather than try to make up for a weakness that two extra feet of height would actually need, why not play to the strength? Go full infighter, either with a classic Roman set up (short stabbing weapon and shield) or a more Hollywood duck and weave style approach. Once you’re inside the guys caught with the long weapons are going to be sucking and that low center of mass is going to really come into advantage in landing short stabbing and hooking blows they can’t hope to defend against, setting up the grapple, or even just if you end up in a raw shoving match.

Yeah, if I were going to include dwarves in a setting, I'd be tempted to make them more "Roman" in arms.

Doesn't make sense to me to fight in tunnels with weapons that need big arcing swings to be effective, it seems like stabbing swords and spears used from behind shields would be best for holding tunnels. And on the surface, those strong low bodies would, as you note, be good for holding and pushing a line.

[Tobtor]

Given these parameters, what kinds of melee weapons would best complement her build and the style her bonuses encourage? My understanding is that long weapons that may compensate for her short height, like pikes or polearms, tend to encourage a very stationary fighting style, like the Greek phalanx or Saxon sheild wall, so they don't really fit with the way she's encouraged to fight, staying mobile and letting the momentum from her advancing carry through to her strike. Am I making sense?


I think the answers above is generally good. Though, I do not think sabers and similar is ideal. The thing is when you get Halfling size reach is a different thing altogether. Halflings are like 120-125 cm in height or so, right? So that means not only normal reach disadvantage, but also height is in completely different scale.

I have trained with very young kids and my head is a almost unreachable target with most swords, and also so is shoulders and upper torso (as the taller person also have much longer steps etc). This also means that the tall fighter can keep any shield down to protect against swings and cuts etc. Thus I would highly recommend a weapon with some longer reach than sabres or arming swords! A longsword at the least. Normally if you have a normal height disadvantage (30 cm/1 foot or less), the small fighter can compensate by getting very close with a sword etc. This is much less true if you get very big differences like halfling/human.

BUT there are also advantages. If your opponent isn't trained to fight very small adversaries, then a small figher can go "under" the normal defensive stances. Also it opens up new areas of attack, like some of the typically least armoured parts like behind the knees, or thrust from below to the groin etc. Here I would consider something like a short spear the best. It would also allow trusts into armpits from below, a dangerous spot for armoured opponents. Also many aroursm are weak form upwards thrusts (most gaps points downwards) I would go with something that thrust well, but also can cut, like a spear. But you could go for more cutting focused weapons as well, like Brother Oni suggested glaives or naginatas. You could also have something like a light glaive with a spike at the but end for thrust at gaps. And have a large sharp knife/dagger/short-sword at hand, in case you get close and need to stab your opponent in the knee or slice their angles.


Try not to get rushed, but move around!

[AdAstra]

I would definitely be in favor of a medium-sized shield (think stereotypical viking shield) and one-handed stabbing weapon suitable for getting real close. Big enough protective implement to effectively hold the line in tunnels/formations and keep you alive on the charge, small enough that it's not too cumbersome in said tunnels and charges.

For stabbers, you've got lots of swords available, potentially some kind of compact estoc-like weapon. Take full advantage of most weaknesses of armor being very accessible from a lower height (armpits, groin, the back of knees). Short spears or punching daggers like katars could also be neat if you're going for something a touch less conventional.

[Martin Greywolf]

I'm going to go against the mold a lot here.

First of all, you need to consider fighting not in tunnels as well - even in Middle Earth that has an ancient underground city in every mountain range, many if not most battles will be fought outside - Azanubizlar and Five armies both were. That means you *need* to have assets that can do so effectively, and can defeat cavalry and massed archery.

Problem is, you're at a disadvantage no matter what you do in melee, so... avoid melee as much as you can. Macedonian style phalanxes can keep melee opponents at bay and have shields for arrow resistance, and you can transform them into tunnel fighters by ditching pike an using their stabby sword - something they will need to train for anyway. If you want to be really fancy, give some of them langxian to defend attacks from above.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/34/Wubeizhi_Langxian4.jpg

The bulk of your army, however, isn't this line infantry, it's heavy skirmishers. Crossbows work well - physical stature makes little difference to them - and so do thrown weapons. Hell, maybe you even have some room to put some dart slings in there, somewhere. Anything that is capable of ranged combat as well as armored enough to act as a flanking force, with bonus points awarded if you can carry a shield (yes you can, even as an archer).

For cavalry, there's probably not much of it and there is little point in heavy shock cav, so you ged medium cavalry that can still charge from the rear but is agile enough to avoid shock cav, and horse archers or horse crossbowmen.

This army moves and fights much like pike-and-shot formations did in real life, with one caveat being that once the infantry does the pinning, it's the skirmishers that flank, not cavalry. You also need to organize it so that there are small units of about a dozen people in units, and those units have both phalanxes and skirmishers - that way, you can disassemble your entire main body into smaller chunks and still keep their combined arms approach.

[KineticDiplomat]

I think OP was asking for a specific character, a sort of halting dwarf who would be fighting in the typical action movie loose band of federated heroes. When I say infighting/outfighting I mean in the personal violence sense, akin to how you would use the phrases in boxing.

But, if we’re goin army size I think tactically Martin’s Pike & Shot Dwarf Redux theory holds some merit, though I would wonder about the survivability of the commanded shot, so to speak, operating away from their Tercios when the dwarf types are notoriously short of cavalry and are by fantasy convention a bit slower than the average human.

I think strategically the pike and shot concept might run into the issue of the dwarves often being a slow breeding population in decline, making it hard to generate the raw numbers needed to form the large formations, and making any victory that involved trading volleys a pyrrhic one at best. Humans can match you and in discipline and eat the losses better, elves are famously machine gun archers (honestly, I never quite understood how despite them being 20-30 RPM archers with deadly accuracy most LoTR battles don’t turn into Crecy or the Somme...I digress), and green skins...well...I guess it depends who’s greenskins we’re using.

I do wonder if a variant of salvo foot or even just plain Swiss pike charge might be better - break the enemy fast or get into bad war where being 250 pounds of low slung muscle is an advantage.

[VonKaiserstein]

I think another major factor to consider is whether the character is specialized in fighting armored, or unarmored opponents, or both. For unarmored, some sort of short slashing spear and a maneuverable shield would be best for mobile combat- think iklwa, ixlwa. If everything's a target, dancing around and slashing at any exposed body is great.

If they're armored, then a sword's not a great choice- the penetration power just isn't there, and your number of targets is limited. Something heavier and crushing would be better- a military pick should take out anyone's knee, even swung by a smaller being. Fighting this style, your goal isn't to kill anyone, just trip them, cripple them, or severely injure them. Driving 3 or 4 inches of metal beak into a joint or limb should drop somebody- carry a stiletto for finishing anyone off. This weapon would surrender reach, so you'd need to use the shield to block their blow as you closed. That seems to fit the theme of a mobile, rushing fighter that strikes in passing. Done right, you should be unpredictable, and able to weave through combat without alerting your targets that you're coming.

A spiked mace would work as well, but as that relies a bit more on strength, it may not be the best choice for a smaller person. I'd avoid axes for the same reason, it's a weapon that works better in the hands of a strong fighter.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

Well, you're kinda right? It's set in Starfinder, and the character is specifically an alien called a Ferran (http://www.aonsrd.com/Races.aspx?ItemName=Ferran).
https://starfinderwiki.com/mediawikisf/images/2/26/Ferran.jpgSo, I'm trying to figure out the kinds of weaponry these people might favor or develop given what their bonuses encourage, should one go adventuring with a ragtag crew of spacefarers...less in terms of numbers and more in narrative/physics terms of just how people of this size and shape would likely prefer to fight. :smallredface:

[adso]

I have a few questions about impalement.


How frequently did thrusting weapons get stuck in armor or flesh to the degree that they could not immediately be removed and used?
Is the risk of a weapon getting stuck in flesh/armor/shield substantially lower for cutting/hacking weapons than piercing ones?
How did different types of armor affect the likelihood of impalement?
How advantageous is it to impale an enemy versus having your weapon available in a one on one setting?
How difficult would it be to remove a weapon from an active combatant? From a corpse?


Any advice is appreciated!

[halfeye]

Well, you're kinda right? It's set in Starfinder, and the character is specifically an alien called a Ferran (http://www.aonsrd.com/Races.aspx?ItemName=Ferran).
https://starfinderwiki.com/mediawikisf/images/2/26/Ferran.jpgSo, I'm trying to figure out the kinds of weaponry these people might favor or develop given what their bonuses encourage, should one go adventuring with a ragtag crew of spacefarers...less in terms of numbers and more in narrative/physics terms of just how people of this size and shape would likely prefer to fight. :smallredface:

The blurb says they're a high gravity species, currently living on a moon. How strong they are depends on whether they've been on the moon long enough to lose their high gravity characteristics, but if they have not, they are supposed to be strong, not like Dwarves are strong; much stronger than that, more like minotaur strength.

[KineticDiplomat]

I mean, you’re in space with casual interstellar travel, so the real answer is autonomous kill bots that have long since surpassed humanoids in the realm of immediate violence and are resource cheap, with those humanoids that have to be in danger riding in suits/pods that are really AI run to hope to have a chance of surviving by escaping in major combat...but if that’s not happening because RPG:

You’re small and short but have the mass and muscle to handle the heavy stuff. So long as you have G, you can stay in cover easily and crack skulls and armor with high caliber (or equivalent ) weapons. Can probably move around in a lot of crawl spaces and other such areas easier than humans as well, making you a natural tunnel rat. When you lose G you’ll be at a disadvantage - you can explode off a surface easily enough (not sure what the power to weight will be to determine acceleration), but your going to have a harder time converting angular momentum rapidly - stubby little limbs and all. Plus assuming everyone is running weapons with personal fire control (trakcingpoint already makes these, famously having a novice outshooting the NRA rifle champ, including pulling shots from around corners and the like) your size won’t be an issue, but a slow predictable flight path will. If it’s assisted flight, then...who cares?

[Yora]

I have a few questions about impalement.


How frequently did thrusting weapons get stuck in armor or flesh to the degree that they could not immediately be removed and used?
Is the risk of a weapon getting stuck in flesh/armor/shield substantially lower for cutting/hacking weapons than piercing ones?
How did different types of armor affect the likelihood of impalement?
How advantageous is it to impale an enemy versus having your weapon available in a one on one setting?
How difficult would it be to remove a weapon from an active combatant? From a corpse?


Any advice is appreciated!

I don't think I've ever actually heard of a weapon getting stuck in a body in a way that makes it impossible to pull it out again. Ribs are really quite flexible, and the shape of blades designed to penetrate easily also helps with them getting back out easily.
The most likely situation where this happens is for cavalry fighting, where a soldier makes a quick stab at an enemy while riding past him. Because the horse keeps moving forward, you can't really pull your spear or saber back in the direction it went in, and it would be wrenched from your grip. The weapon is of course still sticking inside the enemy, but it's not actually stuck.
In a sword fight on foot, I could see someone getting run through and then falling sideways, or the body turning sideways as the legs give out, and if the attacker doesn't pull is back fast enough, it could again be pulled from his grip. I've seen sword instructors comment several times on movie sword fights that it's really bad form to just stand there while your sword is burried to the hilt in a defeated enemy. Mostly because he still might have a few seconds to stab you back, but I guess also in part to keep your sword when he does fall down.

I don't see armor making a big difference. You don't stab through plates, but through the gaps between plates. And those plates have to be flexible, so they can't really grab on to anything stuck between them.

Soldiers loosing a sword or a spear that ends up left behind in an enemy surely did happen with some frequency. But it you can keep hold of the grip, I don't think getting it pulled out was really a problem.

[Martin Greywolf]

How frequently did thrusting weapons get stuck in armor or flesh to the degree that they could not immediately be removed and used?

All the time, if you really mean immediatelly immediatelly. Probably the most common offender is cut to the head that gets wedged a little bit in the skull.

Then and again, this was something people tended to train for with hunting, and were fairly used to, and most of the time, all you had to do was give the sword a good tug to free it.

Thrusts get stuck in things all the time, to a point where you're sometimes better off running the offending party through to the hilt and using the sword in them to steer them around, rather than try to extract and recover. This goes doubly so for thrusts delivered from horseback - to a point where some treatises (e.g. Capo Ferro) advise you to prefer cuts on a horse.

For sticking in armor, any weapon that pierces plate by design (bec de corbin, spike on warhammers) will do it at least a little bit, but again, once that happens, your foe is probably having problems that will stop him from immediately and you're also in armor, so you will have time to tug it out.

You do occassionally have cases where a weapon gets stuck so badly you can't get it out, but those are pretty rare and usually involve solid plates and blows with counter movement. Or shields, it's not that hard to get a weapon stuck in those, and it may require some wrangling to get it back out. Then and again, most trained fighters will not attack a shield with any kind of force and go around it.

There is even some evidence that some of the viking duelling shields were made specifically to trap swords.


Is the risk of a weapon getting stuck in flesh/armor/shield substantially lower for cutting/hacking weapons than piercing ones?

No, because weapons aren't divided along those lines. A machette and an axe are both hacking, but I'll let you decide which one is much, much likelier to get stuck in a shield.

If we rephrase it to "are some weapons more likely to get stuck", then yeah. The most likely are weapons with narrow business ends that strike with them on a line that isn't directly connecting your centers of mass - so, axes, warpicks, daggers in icepick grip and so on. Thrusts are likely to get stuck, but relatively easy to extract. And so on.


How did different types of armor affect the likelihood of impalement?

In general, they tried to prevent it.



How advantageous is it to impale an enemy versus having your weapon available in a one on one setting?


Pretty good, because now he's stabbed, as opposed to you just standing around with a weapon in hand. If we're talking impalement with weapon getting stuck versus stabbing and recovering, then it's better to recover, but again, this is something people trained for. One on one, the disadvantage of stuck weapon is smaller than a disadvantage of a weapon through the lung that can be used to steer you.

Manipulation of the blade after its placement in a vital area is key not only to neutralizing the opponent, but also to remaining uninjured. Understanding how to manipulate the blade to cause maximal injury once on target is tremendously important -- as is the understanding of how to employ the blade to prevent the (often mortally) wounded opponent from returning the favor.


How difficult would it be to remove a weapon from an active combatant? From a corpse?

As always, it depends, but not that hard in most cases. Also keep in mind that, for most of the history, the weapon likely to get stuck wasn't your only weapon - if the spear gets stuck in someone's shoulderblade, leave it there and draw your sword, that's why you have it. It's once you get to bayonets, revolvers and sabers era that you see some pretty bad problems on account of no sidearms.

Also consider that, if you are far enough into a fight where your weapon gets stuck in someone, there's good odds of weapons of dead or fled opponents being around, so you can pick up one of those.

A second received my bayonet in his heart; but whether owing to its not having been greased, or to its having carried along with it some of the fellow’s cotton jacket, it stuck fast for a minute; and before I could withdraw it, the sabre of a third glanced across my eyes, uplifted to cut me down.

[...]

The head of Hussein, severed from his body, was stuck on his own spear; and it is, I believe, preserved by his conqueror to this day as a trophy.

[...]

“Captain Moorhead [of the 26th Foot] was engaged in single combat with a Tartar soldier [at the storming of Ningpo in 1841]; and his sword having stuck fast in the Tartar’s body, he was twice cut down.” (Maj. H. G. Hart, New Annual Army List, 1851.)

[...]

The dragoon on the left of the front rank, going in at the charge, gave point at the Sikh next him; the sword stuck in the lower part of his body, but did not penetrate sufficiently to disable him; so the Sikh cut back, hit the dragoon across the mouth, and took his head clean off.

[...]

“The brutes fought till we regularly cut and hacked our way through them with sword and bayonet. Unfortunately, the first thing my sword stuck in was the body of a colour sergeant of mine, just alongside of me on the next ladder, who was shot and fell on my sword. But the next moment it was skivering through a Pandy, and then another. All order and formation was over, and we cut and hacked wherever we could. I never thought of drawing my pistol, but poked, thrusted, and hacked till my arms were tired.”

[...]

The shields were very troublesome articles. Made of tough buffalo hide with brass bosses, they were proof against a sword cut; and if you stuck your bayonet into one of them, there was generally some trouble in getting it out again.

[...]

Lieutenant Langlands, of the 74th, was close to us in the action, when a powerful Arab [Maratha partisan] threw a spear at him, and drawing his sword, rushed forward to complete his conquest. The spear, having entered the flesh of the leg and cut its way out again, stuck in the ground behind him, when Langlands grasped it, and turning the point, threw it with so true an aim that it went right through his opponent’s body, and transfixed him within three or four yards of his intended victim!

[...]

A dragoon of the Third Regiment, charging with his squadron, made a thrust at the Sikh next him; the sword stuck in the lower part of his body, but did not penetrate sufficiently to disable him, when the Sikh cut back, hit the dragoon across the mouth, and took his head clean off.

[...]

So he dug his spurs in, rode at him, and stuck him from behind; and that was the end of ‘the gentleman in the blue coat’. The major strained his wrist drawing out his sword. That is always the difficult point. ‘It went in like butter,’ a subaltern of horse told me, describing a similar incident at Barjisiyeh Wood. ‘I didn’t know I’d got him, but I was almost pulled off my horse drawing it out.’

[...]

“One tall man, a corporal of the 24th, killed four Zulus with his bayonet [at Isandhlwana in 1879]; but his weapon stuck for an instant in the throat of his last opponent, and then he was assegaied.”

[Hjolnai]

I have a couple of questions which have been eating away at me, so here goes:

1) I'm aware that guns (particularly cannon) came along well before plate armour. However, the earliest cannon were made from bronze. Since bronze was much more expensive than steel, there was a clear incentive to develop means to make large, reliable pieces of steel. So my question is, did firearm development cause the invention of techniques needed to make plate harness viable?

Now, that might not be answerable, but my second question should be a little easier.

2) I've heard of an incident where people died of overheating in the Russian winter, because of fighting in heavy armour. Unfortunately, I don't remember any more than that, so it's hardly a reliable claim. Are there any historical sources which document cold-weather deaths from armour heat?

[Vykryl]

Dont work up a sweat in freezing temperatures. Once you cool off, the sweat soaked clothing is going to cause problems. Something I've more heard from survival shows/stories

[Martin Greywolf]

I have a couple of questions which have been eating away at me, so here goes:

1) I'm aware that guns (particularly cannon) came along well before plate armour. However, the earliest cannon were made from bronze. Since bronze was much more expensive than steel, there was a clear incentive to develop means to make large, reliable pieces of steel. So my question is, did firearm development cause the invention of techniques needed to make plate harness viable?

Not really. What you need to realize is that, since about WW1 era, we have seen a rise of a pretty targeted and directed research and development in, well, all walks of life. That wasn't the norm at any point before, especially not on national level. Hell, Manhattan project is WW2 and it was somewhat unique even then.

What you have is a ton of individual people doing their craft and occassionally figuring out a better way, and some of those better ways catch on. For our cannon/plate example, it means there was no "better metallurgy researched" moment, but rather incremental developments in the sciences of making plate and making cannon. There probably was overlap, but of the "I heard the cannon makers put in this weird rock, let's try it as well" kind, rather than anything explicit.

The one area where there was a common ground between weapon makers and plate makers is in making of steel ingots themselves, which is often an entirely separate profession - advances there benefit both plate and gun side.

As for incentives, there was always incentive to develop bigger pieces of steel, starting with "let's take the gladius and make it longer" and ending with battleship armor plates.



2) I've heard of an incident where people died of overheating in the Russian winter, because of fighting in heavy armour. Unfortunately, I don't remember any more than that, so it's hardly a reliable claim. Are there any historical sources which document cold-weather deaths from armour heat?

I can't think of any, but this sort of incident is recorded pretty rarely. It's definitely possible, I'll tell you that much, gambeson alone gives you sufficient thermal insulation for it to happen, epsecially if you don't drink - but it would happen pretty rarely. For starters, you have water literally everywhere around you in a Russian winter.


Dont work up a sweat in freezing temperatures. Once you cool off, the sweat soaked clothing is going to cause problems. Something I've more heard from survival shows/stories

This is less of a problem with a gambeson on, since it tends to keep the sweat and warmth inside of it. You could, in theory, sweat it clean through, but that takes a lot of doing, and even then, wool makes for good insulation when it's that thick, even soaked.

You do get to see a pretty interesting effect when someone in armor approaches fire, though - they start to generate steam from their gambeson bits, it looks pretty cool.

[Clistenes]

2) I've heard of an incident where people died of overheating in the Russian winter, because of fighting in heavy armour. Unfortunately, I don't remember any more than that, so it's hardly a reliable claim. Are there any historical sources which document cold-weather deaths from armour heat?

Taking into account that people fought in gambeson and mail or in gambeson and plate in places like Syria, Palestina, Egypt, Turkey, Greece, southern Italy and Southern Spain, sometimes even during summer (like the First Crusade), and they survived (how come the Crusaders didn't suffer heavy losses due to heatstrokes during the Siege of Nicaea...?), I find hard to believe people could die due to overheating during the Russian winter...

I guess somebody could suffer some kind of heart condition and die due to a stroke caused by excessive activity, but heat alone? It's hard to believe...

[Mike_G]

I can actually answer this one.

OK, exertion in the cold is worse for your heart than exertion in the heat. Within reason. I mean you will sweat more and dehydrate faster in the heat.

But you're more likely to have a heart attack in the cold.

Cold makes your blood vessels constrict. That why ice packs help reduce swelling. It also happens internally. If you breath heavily while exerting, you pull a lot of cold air into your lungs, which constricts blood vessels nearby, including those in your heart. And since you're exerting yourself, you're asking your heart to work harder, with less blood supply.

This is a big reason people have heart attacks while shoveling snow.

So I don't think you can die of overheating in the dead of a Russian winter per se, you can give yourself a heart attack, so you die a sweaty mess while over working and it look like you had heat stroke

[Brother Oni]

2) I've heard of an incident where people died of overheating in the Russian winter, because of fighting in heavy armour. Unfortunately, I don't remember any more than that, so it's hardly a reliable claim. Are there any historical sources which document cold-weather deaths from armour heat?

The Battle of Towton 1461 was fought in the snow and although contemporary sources (Jean de Wavrin's Account of the chronicles and old histories of Great Britain primarily) recount soldiers suffering from exposure and later exhaustion, it's not clear whether the exhaustion is from overheating from fighting or the fact that the battle supposedly went on for 10 hours.

It's definitely possible to overheat while in just a gambeson and mail - on those rare warm summer's days in the UK, we'd have re-enactors having to be taken off the field due to heat exhaustion.

As Martin Greywolf points out, if you don't drink or don't have the opportunity to drink (because people are busy trying to kill you all day), then it's perfectly possible to get dehydrated which only exacerbates the onset of exhaustion.

Edit: Mike_G's explanation is far more logical.

[KineticDiplomat]

Re: did guns cause plate.

Well, “common” firearms use didn’t come around until the renaissance, whereas plate is making itself known during the Hundred Years’ War, so the intuitive answer is no.

I was under the impression that plate was mostly a response to things breaking your bones in mail, but I’m sure Martin will be by with a more detailed answer.

2) I’ve personally seen people go down with heat exhaustion in up state NY. Not many, but a handful, all with core temps over 102. Typically the pattern goes:

It’s really, really cold so Person decides he should wear lots of warm layers, hats, gloves, etc. if I’m going to be standing around outside.

Person has to wear constricting protective gear on top of that and carry heavy things, but is mostly standing around so leaves all those cold weather layers on.

Person has to go full out for 15-20 minutes with lots of sprinting, lifting, burpee-esque motions, and sudden strain. He heats up his body in response, but it doesn’t dissipate out into the cold, it gets trapped in all those layers that are meant to trap heat - and it’s worse because he’s wearing constrictive protective gear on top of it.

Person can’t remove any of his stuff during this period. The ambient temperature doesn’t matter, the temperature near his skin for those few minutes is extreme and his body reacts by pouring out sweat. He becomes a sweat soaked mess and collapses.

For the double whammy, not only is he overheated now, but is soaked in sweat and clinging layers - and it’s still realllly cold out, so if you don’t get him inside or near a moderate-able source of heat, you’ll plunge from the extremes of heat exhaustion to hypothermia quickly.

So...could I see some poor Russian dude who wore too much under his armor going through the same? Yep.

[Brother Oni]

Re: did guns cause plate.

Well, “common” firearms use didn’t come around until the renaissance, whereas plate is making itself known during the Hundred Years’ War, so the intuitive answer is no.

I was under the impression that plate was mostly a response to things breaking your bones in mail, but I’m sure Martin will be by with a more detailed answer.

2) I’ve personally seen people go down with heat exhaustion in up state NY. Not many, but a handful, all with core temps over 102.

1) Hand bombards and other early man portable firearms started making themselves known around about the 100 Year's War (there's records of them being used in the Siege of Calais 1346 and there's a quartermaster's note of a ribauldequin in Edward III's muster lists in 1339). I do agree that their effect on the development of plate harness is very hard to conclusively prove or disprove this early.

Firearms absolutely did precipitate the importation of all metal breastplates for nanban gusoku samurai armour in the 16th Century in Japan though.

2) Firefighters?

[Max_Killjoy]

Re: did guns cause plate.

Well, “common” firearms use didn’t come around until the renaissance, whereas plate is making itself known during the Hundred Years’ War, so the intuitive answer is no.

I was under the impression that plate was mostly a response to things breaking your bones in mail, but I’m sure Martin will be by with a more detailed answer.


The timeline I like to post when guns vs armor, or medieval vs "renaissance", comes up:

1300s -- firearms start appearing in Europe
1420s to end of 1600s -- full plate armor
1430s to 1450s -- Gutenberg's work on printing press
1452 to 1519 -- da Vinci
1453 -- fall of Constantinople
1475 to 1564 -- Michelangelo
1492 -- Columbus' first voyage
1529 -- Siege of Vienna

Firearms initially pushed the development of better armor, not the end of armor.

[fusilier]

I don't think I've ever actually heard of a weapon getting stuck in a body in a way that makes it impossible to pull it out again. Ribs are really quite flexible, and the shape of blades designed to penetrate easily also helps with them getting back out easily.

I've heard anecdotes of soldiers getting bayonets stuck between ribs. I think maybe there's a reference to that in All Quiet on the Western Front, but it's been a long time since I read that book.

[KineticDiplomat]

When I say common firearms, I mean as a predictable and regular feature on the battlefield. As in “there’s a good chance I’ll be shot at with an arquebus, what should I do about that?” as opposed to “I hear there was some new fangled device over there, bit of a novelty, like a cannon but smaller!”

Generally the early 1500s is about the time you hear about firearms really coming into their own as a battlefield, though the arquebus starts rising in prominence in the late 1400s. Prior to that, sure you can find a gun made in 1398 with no Burt stock? trigger, or what not, but the idea they had permeated the tactical conscience sufficiently to drive a generational upgrade from mail to plate that happens in the late 1300s to early 1400s seems unlikely...though their presence will certainly lead to increasingly “full” plate culminating things like the white harness (although at the same time cheap(er) 3/4 munition plate is becoming more common for everyone thanks to manufacturing).

2) 10th Mountain.

[Gnoman]

I have a couple of questions which have been eating away at me, so here goes:

1) I'm aware that guns (particularly cannon) came along well before plate armour. However, the earliest cannon were made from bronze. Since bronze was much more expensive than steel, there was a clear incentive to develop means to make large, reliable pieces of steel. So my question is, did firearm development cause the invention of techniques needed to make plate harness viable?



I may just be reading this wrong, but it feels like you're asking if the desire to use steel for cannon helped proliferate the use of steel plate for armor. If this is the case, then the answer is a simple "no". Cannon didn't start being made out of steel until the 1870s - even the Napoleons and Parrot Guns of the American Civil War were iron. This is true for handgonnes as much as it was the larger artillery cannon.

Arquebus and musket barrels were made of steel earlier, but that's more of a 30YW era thing IIRC.

[Garimeth]

Regarding overheating in the cold:

When I went through USMC Mountain Warfare Training for cold weather I and our Corpsmen were told to specifically to look for heat injuries on our more arduous movements. We did not have any injuries, but overheating was definitely a thing, and we had our guys pumping water constantly.

For reference our loadout was typically lightweight goretex jackets and ski pants, polypropylene undershirts, a 45 lbs pack, our rifles, and a sled with all our bivouac gear that got dragged by a hip harness and rotated among a fire team. I can see how if you were wearing alot of thick warming layers it could be a problem pretty quick. The location of the training (to compare altitude and climate) was Bridgeport, California MWTC in January.

I think its worth pointing out that alot of "heat injuries" are essentially the result of dehydration, and in a cold enough environment and without proper prevention your drinking water can freeze, so now if you don't have the time to start a fire or are for some reason prevented from using your body heat to thaw your water DEHYDRATION could be a real threat.

EDIT: Also, I love reading the amount of knowledge some posters in this thread have.

[fusilier]

When I say common firearms, I mean as a predictable and regular feature on the battlefield. As in “there’s a good chance I’ll be shot at with an arquebus, what should I do about that?” as opposed to “I hear there was some new fangled device over there, bit of a novelty, like a cannon but smaller!”

Generally the early 1500s is about the time you hear about firearms really coming into their own as a battlefield, though the arquebus starts rising in prominence in the late 1400s. Prior to that, sure you can find a gun made in 1398 with no Burt stock? trigger, or what not, but the idea they had permeated the tactical conscience sufficiently to drive a generational upgrade from mail to plate that happens in the late 1300s to early 1400s seems unlikely...though their presence will certainly lead to increasingly “full” plate culminating things like the white harness (although at the same time cheap(er) 3/4 munition plate is becoming more common for everyone thanks to manufacturing).

While mobility with firearms seems to have become possible with the introduction of matchcord (late 14th century?), how quickly they were adopted seems to have varied. The hussites were known for their handgunners, but they were taken up fairly quickly in Italy too, with specialists in the field armies showing up in the 1430s. At the Battle of Caravaggio (1448), there was so much smoke from the hand gunners that they couldn't see each other. The next year the short lived Republic of Milan claimed it could field 20,000 men equipped with hand-guns (certainly an exaggeration). Gunpowder weapons also made siege warfare more deadly; many condottieri of the period were wounded at least once by firearms. They also appear in sieges, and the defense of towns, earlier than they appear in open battle. Clearly it was making a significant impact by the mid-15th century, but it's not clear how much impact they had earlier.

[fusilier]

Arquebus and musket barrels were made of steel earlier, but that's more of a 30YW era thing IIRC.

Many were still being made of iron into the 19th century.

[Martin Greywolf]

I really don't know where the dumb idea that firearms somehow magically appeared in renaissance comes from. Hussite wars happen 1419-1434 and have an absolutely massive amount of gunpowder. A war wagon of 18 people had 6 crossbowmen and 2 gunners as its ranged complement, which gets us firearms making up over 10% of an army, and 25% of ranged troops. This isn't counting actual light artillery of which there was one per wagon, so one per 20 people. Assuming Teutonic Order's ratios of knighte and infantrymen, that's as many artillery guns in an army as there are knights.

This development wasn't a one-off thing either. Black army of Hungary was created a bit after 1450 and had a hefty complement of arquebusiers - partly because a lot of them were the ones from Hussite wars or their enemies who promptly decided to adapt this new weapon.

So, for chronology, you see some rare guns pre-1400, you start to see guns fairly often in 1400-1425 and after that, they are a standard part of a medieval army. This means that widespread gun use post-dates plate elements on top of chain mail, since we start to see those in about 1350 as a matter of course, with some early examples as far back as 1275. Well, in western Europe, near-steppe areas (Poland, Russia, Hungary, Balkans, Baltic) have had lamellar and scale cuirasses for centuries at this point.

There in also lies the hint - the cultures around the steppes, with an awful lot of bow use, have some additional armor on top of their chain mail if they can afford it.

That's right, it's bows. Or rather, it's widespread use of powerful bows, powerful enough to make chain mail alone an uncertain proposition, so about 110+ lbs range. If you have a lot of those, you will want to have some extra protection. You start to see this protection in Europe as a result of crossbows increasing their draw weight - goat's foot lever starts to become popular around 1300, being the first mechanical advantage spanning device. With it, you have crossbows that can match the more powerful nomadic bows and with that, an increased need for protection against them.

That, of course, means melee weapons want to keep pace, and you start to see developments like warpicks and flanged maces at about the same pace, culminating with leaving shields behind and taking up warhammers in 1400, as seen in Fiore who doesn't even bother to tell you how to use a shield.

All this means that armor needs to be even more protective, so it gets things like layering three different types of metal in one plate, increased thickness and so on. At this point it gets far too expensive to outfit any but the most elite troops in it and we start to see it gradually decline in use.

So, rough comparision for western Europe is:

1220 - first maybe coat of plates depiction I know of, most people who want more armor just use second gambeson or chain mail layer in their surcoat

1241 - first gunpowder used on European soil in battle, Mongols bring rocket launchers to Sajo, Hungarians not amused

1250 - first unambiguous coat of plates, the famous Saint Maurice from Magdeburg

1300 - chain mail honeymoon ends with more powerful crossbows being the norm, William Wallace is introduced to Welsh longbowmen

1325 - coat of plates is widely popular

1346 - Crecy happens

1350 - coat of plates or brigandine is standard, almost no one goes without it

1400 - plate cuirass is standard, chain mail starts to be removed entirely from bits covered by plate

1410 - serpentine lock

1415 - Agincourt happens

1419 - first mass deployment of gunpowder weaponry on a national level in Europe as part of Hussite wars

1448 - second battle of Kosovo, Ottomans deploy arquebusier regiments

1450 - full plate armor as we know it

1453 - Black army of Hungary begins

1475 - matchlock

1520 - heavy arquebus, aka musket, for use against heavy cuirasses at long-ish range

Ugh, that's it for now, I really need to catch some sleep.

[Max_Killjoy]

I really don't know where the dumb idea that firearms somehow magically appeared in renaissance comes from. Hussite wars happen 1419-1434 and have an absolutely massive amount of gunpowder. A war wagon of 18 people had 6 crossbowmen and 2 gunners as its ranged complement, which gets us firearms making up over 10% of an army, and 25% of ranged troops. This isn't counting actual light artillery of which there was one per wagon, so one per 20 people. Assuming Teutonic Order's ratios of knighte and infantrymen, that's as many artillery guns in an army as there are knights.

This development wasn't a one-off thing either. Black army of Hungary was created a bit after 1450 and had a hefty complement of arquebusiers - partly because a lot of them were the ones from Hussite wars or their enemies who promptly decided to adapt this new weapon.

So, for chronology, you see some rare guns pre-1400, you start to see guns fairly often in 1400-1425 and after that, they are a standard part of a medieval army. This means that widespread gun use post-dates plate elements on top of chain mail, since we start to see those in about 1350 as a matter of course, with some early examples as far back as 1275. Well, in western Europe, near-steppe areas (Poland, Russia, Hungary, Balkans, Baltic) have had lamellar and scale cuirasses for centuries at this point.

There in also lies the hint - the cultures around the steppes, with an awful lot of bow use, have some additional armor on top of their chain mail if they can afford it.

That's right, it's bows. Or rather, it's widespread use of powerful bows, powerful enough to make chain mail alone an uncertain proposition, so about 110+ lbs range. If you have a lot of those, you will want to have some extra protection. You start to see this protection in Europe as a result of crossbows increasing their draw weight - goat's foot lever starts to become popular around 1300, being the first mechanical advantage spanning device. With it, you have crossbows that can match the more powerful nomadic bows and with that, an increased need for protection against them.

That, of course, means melee weapons want to keep pace, and you start to see developments like warpicks and flanged maces at about the same pace, culminating with leaving shields behind and taking up warhammers in 1400, as seen in Fiore who doesn't even bother to tell you how to use a shield.

All this means that armor needs to be even more protective, so it gets things like layering three different types of metal in one plate, increased thickness and so on. At this point it gets far too expensive to outfit any but the most elite troops in it and we start to see it gradually decline in use.


And as I understand it in many place the expense issue is compounded by the transition to larger armies equipped and fielded directly by monarchs and other state-level powers. The cheaper mass-produced (sometimes referred to as "munitions grade" IIRC) plate is much less resistant to firearms than the high-end custom suits, and the cost of improving 10s of 1000s of plates to the high-end standard would have been nuts. And the role of the warrior-noble or warrior-aristocrat starts to fade as well. Demand for high-end armor fell, and the highly specialized skills for making it faded.




So, rough comparision for western Europe is:

1220 - first maybe coat of plates depiction I know of, most people who want more armor just use second gambeson or chain mail layer in their surcoat

1241 - first gunpowder used on European soil in battle, Mongols bring rocket launchers to Sajo, Hungarians not amused

1250 - first unambiguous coat of plates, the famous Saint Maurice from Magdeburg

1300 - chain mail honeymoon ends with more powerful crossbows being the norm, William Wallace is introduced to Welsh longbowmen

1325 - coat of plates is widely popular

1346 - Crecy happens

1350 - coat of plates or brigandine is standard, almost no one goes without it

1400 - plate cuirass is standard, chain mail starts to be removed entirely from bits covered by plate

1410 - serpentine lock

1415 - Agincourt happens

1419 - first mass deployment of gunpowder weaponry on a national level in Europe as part of Hussite wars

1448 - second battle of Kosovo, Ottomans deploy arquebusier regiments

1450 - full plate armor as we know it

1453 - Black army of Hungary begins

1475 - matchlock

1520 - heavy arquebus, aka musket, for use against heavy cuirasses at long-ish range

Ugh, that's it for now, I really need to catch some sleep.


Either of the timelines posted should give someone reason to doubt the standard simplified narrative that "firearms ended armor".

[Gnoman]

Many were still being made of iron into the 19th century.

It is shockingly hard to find good information on what kind of metal was used.

[fusilier]

It is shockingly hard to find good information on what kind of metal was used.

Indeed. During the Civil War some companies in the Union produced M1861 "Special Contract rifle-muskets," the best known being Colt. The 1861 Colt Special was basically the same as the standard Springfield, but had some different features, many of which would be incorporated into the M1863 rifle. Anyway, the barrels of the Colt rifles were marked "STEEL", which would seem to imply that the standard M1861 (which lacked such a marking) had an iron barrel.

Digging on the internet, I found this article, which is rather long, but refers to the difficulties faced in mass producing steel at that time, and makes it clear that iron was used in the U.S. for most (not all) gun barrels through the Civil War.

https://www.muzzleblasts.com/archives/vol4no3/articles/mbo43-3.shtml

[Hjolnai]

Lots of good information here. Looks like I was off the mark to suggest that gun manufacture made plate manufacture feasible. Instead, it's probably more accurate to say that both rely on the same root technology - the ability to produce large quantities of decent iron (and alloys), including large individual pieces. Although the blast furnace is a bit late on to the scene - spreading in Europe in the late 15th century - would it be accurate to say the large scale production of both required much the same technology base? That is, even if the ideas were around much earlier, both technologies required early 15th century iron production capacity to deploy in numbers?

Plenty of information on the cold weather overheating, too. I find the dehydration point particularly interesting; in hindsight maybe it should have been obvious, since humans can survive high temperatures for a sustained period... as long as we drink lots of water. Horns of Hattin, anyone?
One thing which hasn't come up yet, I think, is the wind chill factor. I don't think any medieval textile will stop the wind entirely, but steel plates should. I can certainly see the constrained airflow in plate having a huge impact on internal temperature, even as the plate itself would be dangerously cold to the touch.

[Martin Greywolf]

It is shockingly hard to find good information on what kind of metal was used.

For pre-industrial revolution, this is even harder to do, because only thing that will give you comprehensive answer is to take the whole artifact and destructively drill through it in several places. Needless to say, this isn't done.


Lots of good information here. Looks like I was off the mark to suggest that gun manufacture made plate manufacture feasible. Instead, it's probably more accurate to say that both rely on the same root technology - the ability to produce large quantities of decent iron (and alloys), including large individual pieces. Although the blast furnace is a bit late on to the scene - spreading in Europe in the late 15th century - would it be accurate to say the large scale production of both required much the same technology base? That is, even if the ideas were around much earlier, both technologies required early 15th century iron production capacity to deploy in numbers?

Almost. For personal guns, yeah, you need this kind of metallurgy - but artillery can be made with bronze. In theory, a country like China had capability of fielding Ottoman-style large cannons surprisingly early, there just wasn't the incentive to. Europe was unique in the sheer mindboggling number of fortified castles and towns - Hungary had something like 900 castles per 3 million people, not counting fortified towns, churches, monasteries and villages, that's one fortress per 3 000 people. You could quite literally put all of the Europe's population behind a fortified wall of some sort if you had to, and that's a hell of an incentive to develop sophisticated siege weapons.

Still, you can't go too early, bronze smelting technology also has to be at a certain level to make cannons like these - I think we had a discussion on this point a few pages back.


the ability to produce large quantities of decent iron (and alloys)

Frankly, it's all about steel. You need to have a reasonably large chunks of it, and it has to be without too many flaws, since we don't want it to fail under blows or pressure. It's also important that the soldiers have a perception of this sort of weapon being reliable, because no one wants to put a pipe bomb next to their face and light it.



One thing which hasn't come up yet, I think, is the wind chill factor. I don't think any medieval textile will stop the wind entirely, but steel plates should. I can certainly see the constrained airflow in plate having a huge impact on internal temperature, even as the plate itself would be dangerously cold to the touch.

As someone who was in a night forest with waist deep snow at -20 C, wind is not a problem. You really, really underestimate what medieval fabrics can do if you have proper replicas - a linen tunic with upper clothes made of wool and linen already gets you a minimum of 3 layers, and then you add a linen-backed cloak on top. At that point, the only kind of wind that can get through is strong enough to bodily pick you up. If you have a cloak that is made of a single layer of bedsheets, like a proper starting LARPer (I burned that cloak in the dead of night, there were no wtinesses), you'll have problems.

Armor is even better to have, to a point where you can put your shield on the snow and go to sleep in a gambeson on it using your pack as a pillow. It's not a tremendously comfortable experience, but it's survivable without you getting sick, especially if you also have a cloak and a hood, which you really should.

What really kills a winter campaign is the wetness. That snow will melt at some point and you will inevitably end up with wet, miserable soldiers, and if you are wet and then a wind picks up, you will get sick quickly. In winter, statistics say this will hit a sizeable portion of your troops eventually, so... just stay home. There's also an issue of roads not... existing under all that snow, really, but I'm off on a tangent here.


And as I understand it in many place the expense issue is compounded by the transition to larger armies equipped and fielded directly by monarchs and other state-level powers. The cheaper mass-produced (sometimes referred to as "munitions grade" IIRC) plate is much less resistant to firearms than the high-end custom suits, and the cost of improving 10s of 1000s of plates to the high-end standard would have been nuts. And the role of the warrior-noble or warrior-aristocrat starts to fade as well. Demand for high-end armor fell, and the highly specialized skills for making it faded.

Let's also not forget that these large armies have also shifted how they acquire equipment for their baseline troops from personal acquisition to state-issued kit. Once a state has to pay for the gear, well, lowest bidder time it is.

[DrewID]

Lots of good information here. Looks like I was off the mark to suggest that gun manufacture made plate manufacture feasible. Instead, it's probably more accurate to say that both rely on the same root technology - the ability to produce large quantities of decent iron (and alloys), including large individual pieces. Although the blast furnace is a bit late on to the scene - spreading in Europe in the late 15th century - would it be accurate to say the large scale production of both required much the same technology base? That is, even if the ideas were around much earlier, both technologies required early 15th century iron production capacity to deploy in numbers?

Bret Devereaux has a blog called A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry (https://acoup.blog/) where he takes a historian's look (He is an ancient historian who currently teaches as a Teaching Assistant Professor in the Department of History at NC State U) at many pop-culture views of history, or just at elements if ancient and medieval history that are misunderstood. He recently did a 4-part series (in six parts) at pre-modern iron and steel production. I cannot recommend his blog highly enough.

Pre-modern Iron and Steel Production starts at this post (https://acoup.blog/2020/09/18/collections-iron-how-did-they-make-it-part-i-mining/). Today's post is starting a series on textile production.

DrewID

[Max_Killjoy]

Bret Devereaux has a blog called A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry (https://acoup.blog/) where he takes a historian's look (He is an ancient historian who currently teaches as a Teaching Assistant Professor in the Department of History at NC State U) at many pop-culture views of history, or just at elements if ancient and medieval history that are misunderstood. He recently did a 4-part series (in six parts) at pre-modern iron and steel production. I cannot recommend his blog highly enough.

Pre-modern Iron and Steel Production starts at this post (https://acoup.blog/2020/09/18/collections-iron-how-did-they-make-it-part-i-mining/). Today's post is starting a series on textile production.

DrewID

That blog is spectacular.

I highly recommend it.

He deconstructs the myth of Sparta, the "Fremen Mirage", multiple aspects of GOT/ASOIF, etc.

[Saint-Just]

a 4-part series (in six parts)

That's a true mark of distinction.

Seriously, the Sparta putdown was brutal. I considered myself sophisticated for understanding the brutal oppressiveness and inequality in Sparta but for some reason I had an image of it as a successful long-standing military power. Kind of "I abhor their ideals but admire their results". To know how relatively little it achieved was really weird. And to understand that the source of the problem was demographics which everybody has seen but no one did anything about was even worse/better.

[DrewID]

That's a true mark of distinction.

Seriously, the Sparta putdown was brutal. I considered myself sophisticated for understanding the brutal oppressiveness and inequality in Sparta but for some reason I had an image of it as a successful long-standing military power. Kind of "I abhor their ideals but admire their results". To know how relatively little it achieved was really weird. And to understand that the source of the problem was demographics which everybody has seen but no one did anything about was even worse/better.

I was pulled in by his analysis of the Siege of Minas Tirith.

To me, the best thing is that I don't always agree with him. Sometimes I find myself having to adjust my thinking based on his evidence, but sometimes I still disagree with his conclusions, and that's OK. He makes his presentation, backs it up with published sources (especially when he moves further outside his primary specialty, which is the Mediterranean region and the Greco-Roman period), and does it without being rude or offensive. And is frequently entertaining to boot. I think if you have an interest in this thread, you will enjoy his blog.

DrewID

[Martin Greywolf]

For me, it's too basic, there isn't any new information or analysis there, it just compiles what we've already known for a few decades into sometimes interesting points of view.

Problem is, much like Lindybeige, he doesn't clearly say what are facts and what is just his opinion and makes some very... facepalm inducing mistakes when speaking about topics outside of his area of expertise.

One of those was that, apparently, soldiers in musket warfare era had high starched collars because aristocracy believed they needed to see less from their peripheral vision. This is so, so overwhelmingly stupid - mostly because any even cursory glance at any of these uniforms shows that the collar limits bugger all.

A less silly but more revealing mistake was in the originally linked series, claiming that while medieval mines were technically free of taxes, the owner wast he king who took his cut, and so they were effectively still taxed. This is not how medieval taxation works and is a result of surface level reading of the privileges without really understanding the context.

So, my verdict is, that blog is good for very general or Greco-Roman specific topics, but not that great for details in other areas.

[Gnoman]

I haven't read everything on there, but that sort of thing usually happens when he makes an off-the-cuff or side comment, such as the "early modern" stuff in his Game Of Thrones teardown. When he's focused on something, he usually seems to put in the research to avoid that.

[fusilier]

Bret Devereaux has a blog called A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry (https://acoup.blog/) where he takes a historian's look (He is an ancient historian who currently teaches as a Teaching Assistant Professor in the Department of History at NC State U) at many pop-culture views of history, or just at elements if ancient and medieval history that are misunderstood. He recently did a 4-part series (in six parts) at pre-modern iron and steel production. I cannot recommend his blog highly enough.

Pre-modern Iron and Steel Production starts at this post (https://acoup.blog/2020/09/18/collections-iron-how-did-they-make-it-part-i-mining/). Today's post is starting a series on textile production.

DrewID

Thanks for reminding of that blog, I just read his series on the Universal Warrior. That was a very good read.

[fusilier]

One of those was that, apparently, soldiers in musket warfare era had high starched collars because aristocracy believed they needed to see less from their peripheral vision. This is so, so overwhelmingly stupid - mostly because any even cursory glance at any of these uniforms shows that the collar limits bugger all.

Leather neck stocks were definitely a thing, well into the mid-19th century. And I can tell you from personal experience that they do inhibit turning your head somewhat! (You have to kind of lift your chin to turn your head to the side . . . it's not as bad as a neck brace -- I imagine -- but it does encourage you to keep your head facing straight ahead).

I'm not sure about starched collars. 16th/17th century soldiers are often depicted wearing ruffs, and large (stiff looking) falling collars. I haven't found those to be too restrictive, but I don't starch mine. 18th century soldiers are shown with high neck collars on their shirts, and cloth neck stocks wrapped around their necks.

It wasn't necessarily the coat's collar that would be particularly particularly restrictive -- although in the early 19th century they could be quite tall -- instead it was the neck stock, or (in an earlier period) detached shirt collar.

[Mike_G]

One of my HEMA buddies and I (both medics, both vaccinated, so we can be in melee range) got ahold of two Black Fencer musket and bayonet trainers and took them out to play.

https://southcoastswords.com/products/blackfencer-musket

This is not a paid endorsement, I just wanted to show the weapon in question.

My God, the bayonet is really really tough to beat. We did bayonet vs bayonet (obviously even), then vs saber, broadsword, spadroon, rapier and longsword (the last two are kinda iffy historically, but the others all did share the same battlefields)

The bayonet was hands down the better choice. It surprised both of us just how much of an advantage it was. Obviously it has a reach advantage, but the thrust is really fast, very accurate, and hard to parry. The extra mass of the musket, plus the fact that the bayonet fighter has both hands on it makes it tough to parry or beat aside unless you catch it very much on the forte of your blade, and I mean like "right up against the guard" forte. Of all the weapons, the longsword did best, since it had a comparable reach, plus the leverage of two hands. I'd still choose a bayonet though, if my life depended on it.

The only tactic that seems to work well is to parry the initial thrust then grab the barrel of the musket, but that's not as easy as it sounds. Cutting at the forward hand kind of works, but it's very easy for the bayonet fighter to thrust into your attack and impale you when you go for that cut.

I imagine a shield, like a Scottish targe or a Zulu shield might be effective if you catch the thrust and control the weapon while you make your attack with your broadsword or knobkerrie or iklwa.

Anyway, I just thought it was very interesting and wanted to share.

[KineticDiplomat]

That is pretty interesting, especially as officers kept carrying swords for a good long bit. Granted those were nothing more than prestigious edged swagger sticks after a point, but they kept using them as real weapons for a good chunk of the black powder era.

Do you think that you guys were using any rules or restrictions that gave the bayonet an ahistorical edge?

As a corollary, do you think the bayonet would have been as advantageous compared to a sword in general battlefield work as opposed to one on one in a ring, so to speak?

Both of those are non-rhetorical questions by the by.

[fusilier]

One of my HEMA buddies and I (both medics, both vaccinated, so we can be in melee range) got ahold of two Black Fencer musket and bayonet trainers and took them out to play.

. . .

The only tactic that seems to work well is to parry the initial thrust then grab the barrel of the musket, but that's not as easy as it sounds. Cutting at the forward hand kind of works, but it's very easy for the bayonet fighter to thrust into your attack and impale you when you go for that cut.

I've seen manuals from the 1850s, showing that tactic of a swordsman parrying then grabbing the muzzle of the musket.

Glad you had fun! Haven't had a chance to use something like this myself, but I know someone who was looking into having something similar made. (Doing bayonet v. bayonet drills with real bayonets and antique muskets . . . you have to take things slow, and just kind of go through the motions).

[fusilier]

That is pretty interesting, especially as officers kept carrying swords for a good long bit. Granted those were nothing more than prestigious edged swagger sticks after a point, but they kept using them as real weapons for a good chunk of the black powder era.

Do you think that you guys were using any rules or restrictions that gave the bayonet an ahistorical edge?

As a corollary, do you think the bayonet would have been as advantageous compared to a sword in general battlefield work as opposed to one on one in a ring, so to speak?

Both of those are non-rhetorical questions by the by.

While I haven't tried it myself, I will point out that the "fake" musket and bayonet, weigh about half as much as the real thing. I'm speculating here, but I imagine that would probably make the fake musket/bayonet a little faster in things like parrying and going from one position to another (i.e going from a parry to an attack). On the other hand, the lighter weight might make it easier for a swordsman to parry an attack. Mike_G, what are your thoughts?

I've found, over the years, that my upper body strength has improved, and makes it a little easier to throw around real muskets in these drills. But the younger reenactors (and I remember when I was one), their arms wear out quickly -- they are hefty things, and some of the positions are kind of stressful.

I have missed bayonet drill -- the ceilings are too low in my apartment for me to really practice. ;-)

[Mike_G]

That is pretty interesting, especially as officers kept carrying swords for a good long bit. Granted those were nothing more than prestigious edged swagger sticks after a point, but they kept using them as real weapons for a good chunk of the black powder era.

Do you think that you guys were using any rules or restrictions that gave the bayonet an ahistorical edge?

As a corollary, do you think the bayonet would have been as advantageous compared to a sword in general battlefield work as opposed to one on one in a ring, so to speak?

Both of those are non-rhetorical questions by the by.

My guess for officers using swords is that a sword is a sidearm. They didn't want officers fighting, they wanted them commanding. Once the fight gets to melee, you need to be able to defend yourself, so a sword is a good weapon to give them. Keeps them from turning into a rifleman when they should be a leader, but gives them some ability to fend off an enemy at close quarters. It's also easier to carry a sword and do other things. A musket is big and heavy and if you have one, that's more or less what you are using. You can have a different primary job and still carry a sword. I think of a sword in the past like a pistol today. A handy backup weapon, easy to wear for every day, and useful for self defense, but nobody's primary battle weapon.

We're not using any rules at all, other than "don't hurt one another so badly we can't go back to work next week." We're wearing a lot of padding and using blunt sparring weapons, so we're not pulling many punches. Grabbing the musket is allowed, light grappling and so on.

I think the bayonet would be even better in a battle. If you have fifty of your friends in a line on either side of you, bayonets would be easier to use without tangling one another up than swords.

I imagine this is why spears were so common for so long. Same principle. Spears would probably be ever deadlier in melee, but having a musket or rifle with a bayonet combines the pike and shot roles and lets every man in the regiment do double duty

[Mike_G]

While I haven't tried it myself, I will point out that the "fake" musket and bayonet, weigh about half as much as the real thing. I'm speculating here, but I imagine that would probably make the fake musket/bayonet a little faster in things like parrying and going from one position to another (i.e going from a parry to an attack). On the other hand, the lighter weight might make it easier for a swordsman to parry an attack. Mike_G, what are your thoughts?


I agree on both counts. But I don't think the extra weight will slow a thrust down all that much, and if you parry with the musket presented forward, you don't have to move it very far to cover your line, so I don't think it will suffer all that much. If you swing the musket, I can see having a hard time recovering. We learned a bayonet slash in the Marines, but that was with a shorter, lighter rifle, so the recovery wasn't so bad. Not really something you can do with the triangular socket bayonet. And not that they expected us to use the bayonet in combat as much as the average Redcoat with a Brown Bess.

The fact that even a 5 pound sparring musket is really difficult to beat or parry with a two pound sword will probably mean stopping a ten pound musket will be like trying to parry a freight train.




I've found, over the years, that my upper body strength has improved, and makes it a little easier to throw around real muskets in these drills. But the younger reenactors (and I remember when I was one), their arms wear out quickly -- they are hefty things, and some of the positions are kind of stressful.

I have missed bayonet drill -- the ceilings are too low in my apartment for me to really practice. ;-)

I hear you. It's been a year since I have been able to go to fencing/SCA/HEMA club. I'm lucky that I have a sparring partner and we can fight in the back yard if the weather permits

[Martin Greywolf]

I imagine a shield, like a Scottish targe or a Zulu shield might be effective if you catch the thrust and control the weapon while you make your attack with your broadsword or knobkerrie or iklwa.

If you go against any competent shield fighter with spear of any kind, he will destroy you and feast on your tears. Then and again, once you have two lines of people and everyone is discouraged from moving in and you get into a poke-y poke-y fight, spears have the edge again.

It's just that, most HEMA people who are doing sabre or longsword for the most part are overthinking it and trying to make something work - there's not a lot of science to it, you just take that shield and keep pressing him, because he gets precisely one opportunity to stab you before that shield is blocking his hand too much.


That is pretty interesting, especially as officers kept carrying swords for a good long bit. Granted those were nothing more than prestigious edged swagger sticks after a point, but they kept using them as real weapons for a good chunk of the black powder era.

Oh no, they got used quite a lot. You forget that while these people had gunpowder, their opponents very often didn't, or had little of it, and therefore were entirely too happy to engage, whether we're talking about Zulu, Little Big Horn or Sikh rebellions. Swords got used quite a lot there, and that lasted pretty much up to WW1 when large industrialized nations brought a massive amount of artillery to the field - hell, Matt Easton put up a video about how swords weren't discontinued in British army because they weren't effective (they were in trench raids), but because they identified the officers for any sniper paying attention.

That said, you do want your officer to command up until the situations gets so chaotic it is not possible, and that happens when the enemy gets close to you. And for that, sword is still not that good, but sword and several pistols/revolver/howdah pistol are pretty great, especially since bayonets tend to get stuck in bodies, sometimes even by bending.


I agree on both counts. But I don't think the extra weight will slow a thrust down all that much, and if you parry with the musket presented forward, you don't have to move it very far to cover your line, so I don't think it will suffer all that much. If you swing the musket, I can see having a hard time recovering.

Well, my experience is with spear, spear with heavier handle and a halberd, and it matters quite a bit. The thrust remains unaffected, but recovering it is a lot more challenging, especially if you're going against a weapon of similar reach. A lot will also depend on where a rifle would have center of mass, put it forward of your front hand (a la halberd) and you get to the point where parries with the tip become... kinda impossible to do against a spear.

A few historical quotes, taken from the ever-reliable Swordsmen of the British Empire.

“They [Asian warriors] are ever desirous of the closest combat, and are well satisfied to meet their enemy with the sword and dagger. This was ever the desire of the Eastern nations south of Tartary; and to this day, like the ancient Janissaries, the British sepoys would prefer the use of the sword (a heavy curved broadsword, a weapon of the most destructive nature in the hands of the natives) to the bayonet, and which, on several occasions, has been found more than a match for the latter. The Rohillas, in 1773, cut to pieces more than one battalion by rushing in upon them, putting aside the musket with one hand and using the sword with the other; while one of the assaults at Acre is celebrated from the French being overpowered by the Turks in the like manner.”

“The enemy [Rohillas] rushed on, sword in hand, and in many instances seized and turned aside the bayonets of our troops with one hand, whilst with the other they made most dexterous use of their broadswords.”

“The Janissaries had always proved formidable to their enemies by the wild impetuosity of their attack, which resembled that of the Highlanders. When they neared their enemies’ battalions, they poured in a destructive volley, and throwing down their muskets, attacked them with the scimitar in one hand and their favourite weapon, the formidable yataghan [or double-curved sword knife] in the other; and these often proved an overmatch for the bayonet, even in the hands of the most disciplined troops in Europe.”

“Sergeant John Macrae [of the 78th Highlanders], a young man about twenty-two years of age, but of great size and strength of arm, showed [in the Egyptian Expedition of 1807] that the broadsword, in a firm hand, is as good a weapon in close fighting as the bayonet. If the first push of the bayonet misses its aim or happens to be parried, it is not easy to recover the weapon and repeat the thrust when the enemy is bold enough to stand firm; but it is not so with the sword, which may be readily withdrawn from its blow, wielded with celerity, and directed to any part of the body, particularly to the head and arms, while its motions defend the person using it. Macrae killed six men, cutting them down with his broadsword (of the kind usually worn by sergeants of Highland corps), when at last he made a dash out of the ranks on a Turk, whom he cut down; but, as he was returning to the square, he was killed by a blow from behind, his head being nearly split in two by the stroke of a sabre.”

“The strength of the musketeer rests in his bullet, not his bayonet. The claymore was of precisely the length to enable its wielder successfully to encounter a bayoneteer, as it could always over-cut the bayonet when caught by the target; or even if the bayoneteer succeeded in transfixing his adversary, the length of the broadsword enabled the compliment to be returned.”

“Our soldiers were animated with a degree of fury beyond any I have ever known; and one of them plunged his bayonet with such force through the body of a Travancorean that it remained firmly fixed in the back bone, from which in his hurry he could not withdraw it; he therefore unfixed it, leaving the carcass in that state.”

So, the chief methods to defeat the bayonet are:


extend your sword hand for maximum reach
use a shield or an off hand weapon
use... just an off hand - possibly wrap it in a bit of cloth a la cloak fencing, especially for sparring
parry and grab
parry and close - the preferable way to do this seems to be to parry upwards


And since Mike_G mentioned using the parry and grab method, I think I know where the problem lies. To borrow terminology from Fiore, if you exchange points with a bayonet, you can only grab, and the bayonet wielder will be able to recover quickly. But, if you break his point, the much higher weight of his musket will come into play and he will not have enough time to recover before you close.

The real question is, was the universally poor performance of bayonets in history a result of not that much training, or a feature of the weapons used? And honestly, I don't know how to call this one.

[Mike_G]

If you go against any competent shield fighter with spear of any kind, he will destroy you and feast on your tears. Then and again, once you have two lines of people and everyone is discouraged from moving in and you get into a poke-y poke-y fight, spears have the edge again.

It's just that, most HEMA people who are doing sabre or longsword for the most part are overthinking it and trying to make something work - there's not a lot of science to it, you just take that shield and keep pressing him, because he gets precisely one opportunity to stab you before that shield is blocking his hand too much.



Oh I fully expect shields to do very well. We just don;t have any shield to practice with, and I expected swords to do better than they did, so I wont commit.

But I do think I'd take a sword and targe over a bayonet.







Well, my experience is with spear, spear with heavier handle and a halberd, and it matters quite a bit. The thrust remains unaffected, but recovering it is a lot more challenging, especially if you're going against a weapon of similar reach. A lot will also depend on where a rifle would have center of mass, put it forward of your front hand (a la halberd) and you get to the point where parries with the tip become... kinda impossible to do against a spear.


The mass of a rifle is going to be toward the butt. The stock is wider there, often the stock doesn't go all the way to the muzzle and you have the whole lock and all that hardware pretty far back. the musket center of mass will almost always be between the hands, unless you are gripping it very far back. So yeah, it's heavier than a sword, but you have two hands on it, and the point of balance between them so it's not hard to thrust or recover.

I wouldn't swing it like an axe. That would take it far out of line and be hard to recover, but extend the point and lunge, then you can recover quite quickly, like a foil fencer.

And in any kind of attempted bind, the big heavy weapon with two hands will easily displace the light weapon with one hand on it.




A few historical quotes, taken from the ever-reliable Swordsmen of the British Empire.


Great anecdotes. Can't beat first hand accounts.




So, the chief methods to defeat the bayonet are:


extend your sword hand for maximum reach
use a shield or an off hand weapon
use... just an off hand - possibly wrap it in a bit of cloth a la cloak fencing, especially for sparring
parry and grab
parry and close - the preferable way to do this seems to be to parry upwards




Tried all of these. The thing is, the thrust is quick, has lot of reach, and if it misses, it really isn't hard to draw back and thrust again. It just isn't. You can use the thing like a sewing machine needle, jabbing repeatedly from beyond the swordsman's reach until he misses a parry if you don't over extend.

I also think some of these might work one on one, but if you figure bayonets were used by formed troops, yeah, sure you can parry and try to close, and maybe the guy you parried can't stab you, but his buddy might.



And since Mike_G mentioned using the parry and grab method, I think I know where the problem lies. To borrow terminology from Fiore, if you exchange points with a bayonet, you can only grab, and the bayonet wielder will be able to recover quickly. But, if you break his point, the much higher weight of his musket will come into play and he will not have enough time to recover before you close.

The real question is, was the universally poor performance of bayonets in history a result of not that much training, or a feature of the weapons used? And honestly, I don't know how to call this one.

My guess is poor training and forgetting the drill in the heat of the moment. In a safe, friendly bout between two people who have sparred with one another quite a bit, the bayonet has a ton of advantages over the single sword. But if you are a green conscript facing a screaming Highlander or Zulu, you probably just panic and shove the point out and hope.

Which brings me to my other thought. Swords were generally used by people who spent a lot of time training in their use. Officers probably had been fencing since their youth, and likely practiced enough that it became instinctive. The common soldier with his Brown Bess and bayonet was probably not sent to fencing lessons by his family when he was young. He probably had some basic instruction from a sergeant who shouted commands like "Parry left! Thrust! Jesus Christ, Atkins, what the hell are you playing at?" for an afternoon.

So maybe the gentleman who has spent countless hours learning to use a sword can beat a man who has learned two parries and three attacks by the numbers and practiced for a day or so.

Seen here, the bayonet isn't easy to get past with a sword

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKbOj3i0rQ8&t=380s

And is harder to get past if you have a line of troops with the infernal things

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zoc0CwpuqkM

[Max_Killjoy]

A lot of weapon vs weapon "which is better" discussions seem to ignore that little thing about the better fighter making a huge difference.

[fusilier]

The mass of a rifle is going to be toward the butt. The stock is wider there, often the stock doesn't go all the way to the muzzle and you have the whole lock and all that hardware pretty far back. the musket center of mass will almost always be between the hands, unless you are gripping it very far back. So yeah, it's heavier than a sword, but you have two hands on it, and the point of balance between them so it's not hard to thrust or recover.

The point of balance will either be between the two hands, or at the leading hand, for guard and some attacks. At the end of something like a lunge the point of balance will be in front of the hands, but the guard position is quickly regained. There are some attacks designed to be used close in, which would put the leading hand near the muzzle, and the rear hand close to the point of balance. [This is all from the manual that I'm most familiar with, from around 1852. There were many other manuals.]


I wouldn't swing it like an axe. That would take it far out of line and be hard to recover, but extend the point and lunge, then you can recover quite quickly, like a foil fencer.

The standard US manual of the Civil War was copied from a French manual. The only major difference (or so I've been told) is that the US version omitted "club muskets", which is basically swinging it like club overhead to strike with the butt. Without consulting the manual, I can only think of one swinging attack off the top of my head, and it's a low strike with the butt which was used to push an opponent away. Given the tactics used at the time, soldiers could easily end up in hand-to-hand and crushed together with little room to maneuver (although that's probably true for a very long stretch of history).



My guess is poor training and forgetting the drill in the heat of the moment. . . .

So maybe the gentleman who has spent countless hours learning to use a sword can beat a man who has learned two parries and three attacks by the numbers and practiced for a day or so.

This! From what I can tell bayonet training was often very rudimentary, and probably rarely practiced. I would not be surprised if many veterans had never received any training. The French during the 2nd Empire seem to have given a lot more attention to this. Some anecdotes from the Crimean War caused other powers to take notice of the French improvements in bayonet training, and I think that influenced the spread of more sophisticated bayonet drills and more time spent training. (I remember reading US inspectors-general reports from the late 1850s, and they were commenting on the levels of bayonet training among the infantry they saw at the various posts. The implication was that training was new).

Also to actually spar with bayonets was difficult. All sorts of special equipment was required which just wasn't part of the standard army budget. And the infantry was the largest arm. A soldier of the Civil War, may have been considered well trained with use of the bayonet, and probably had never done any real sparring. Cadets from military schools may have done such sparring, and an *exceptionally* well trained soldier, probably from a pre-war militia Zouave regiment, may have as well (and possibly some old regular enlistedmen).

After the Civil War, training improves, but now we are no longer in the musket era.

[Clistenes]

Bret Devereaux has a blog called A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry (https://acoup.blog/) where he takes a historian's look (He is an ancient historian who currently teaches as a Teaching Assistant Professor in the Department of History at NC State U) at many pop-culture views of history, or just at elements if ancient and medieval history that are misunderstood. He recently did a 4-part series (in six parts) at pre-modern iron and steel production. I cannot recommend his blog highly enough.

Pre-modern Iron and Steel Production starts at this post (https://acoup.blog/2020/09/18/collections-iron-how-did-they-make-it-part-i-mining/). Today's post is starting a series on textile production.

DrewID

It's a very good blog, but I think he focuses a bit too much in Britain when he studies European warfare. He skips the Tercios, the Landsknecht and the Swiss when he studies Warriors vs Soldiers, and I think these three are very important, being transitional between warrior and soldier mentality...

[KineticDiplomat]

If I’m reading the above posts correctly, then it would appear that the great irony is that by and large the amount of training with the bayonet went up as its actual battlefield usefulness went down...

[fusilier]

If I’m reading the above posts correctly, then it would appear that the great irony is that by and large the amount of training with the bayonet went up as its actual battlefield usefulness went down...

That's probably true! But it's also a reflection of more complete and sophisticated training of soldiers. As tactics developed common soldiers had to act more independently. Skirmish drill was becoming more common for all troops, and not just elite light infantry units, for example. I believe by the 1850s French enlistedmen were even beginning to receive some classroom training. National service models were also being implemented, so large numbers of the population were being given some peacetime training. The old way of drafting huge levies for the first time during a war, meant that basic training was often very short, and things like bayonet drill were, understandably, neglected as low priority.

[DrewID]

It's a very good blog, but I think he focuses a bit too much in Britain when he studies European warfare. He skips the Tercios, the Landsknecht and the Swiss when he studies Warriors vs Soldiers, and I think these three are very important, being transitional between warrior and soldier mentality...

TBH, his whole Warriors vs. Soldiers series is by far the most opinionated piece he has done, and the most consistently out of his specialization (which is Classical Mediterranean). He is usually better when he focuses on presenting factual data, even if it is outside his specialty (like the recent steel making series), or presenting opinion pieces that are within his specialty (like the Sparta series).

DrewID

[Pauly]

If I’m reading the above posts correctly, then it would appear that the great irony is that by and large the amount of training with the bayonet went up as its actual battlefield usefulness went down...

All of the studies done about the effect of bayonet in battle have shown that very few casualties have ever been inflicted by the bayonet. The first studies I am aware of come from the Napoleonic era, so it may have been different with earlier technologies.
My books are in another country but iirc one study of casualty reports after famous bayonet charges found the percentage of casualties by bayonet wounds was in the single digit percentages. This is in well documented situations where the common report was that the bayonet was the deciding factor.

The bottom line take away is that the bayonet is primarily a psychological weapon. If you look like you can more confidently and more competently stick 18 inches of cold steel into your opponent than he is to you, he is more likely to run away. So while there is some combat value in training your soldiers being able to fight effectively with the bayonet, the main advantage is the morale effect (your soldiers are more likely to stay, the enemy more likely to run).

[KineticDiplomat]

As a follow up question to that, since we’ve gotten on to the topic of training, does anyone know the ratio of actual “skills training” to “other soldier stuff” at various points in history?

Within the same technological era? Since we have the bayonet in question, for instance a small professional army from the seven years war (or whenever you think is more approaches) vs the levee en masse for example?

Or out of era. Did a legionnaire practice with sword and shield daily, or was he more akin to a modern soldier who might fire far fewer rounds in a year than a shooting enthusiast?

[Tobtor]

As a follow up question to that, since we’ve gotten on to the topic of training, does anyone know the ratio of actual “skills training” to “other soldier stuff” at various points in history?

Within the same technological era? Since we have the bayonet in question, for instance a small professional army from the seven years war (or whenever you think is more approaches) vs the levee en masse for example?

Or out of era. Did a legionnaire practice with sword and shield daily, or was he more akin to a modern soldier who might fire far fewer rounds in a year than a shooting enthusiast?

I know most about dark age-medieval periods. Most training was done as "fun", that is games and sports. This seem to continue well into the post medieval era (at least until the late 18th/early 19th century). It seem many people would have been quite adept in several weapons, and some with a specialized skill (like bow, crossbow, sling, spear-throwing, staff use, fencing etc). That means you have a quite broad skill set of the individual. Sparing and mock fights where also a regular occurance (developed into tournaments etc. during the medieval period). Though "proper training" was also a thing for personal combat skills and even small group combat. Both for regular men-at-arms and mercenaries, but also for levies etc. (such as the English/Welsh rules that stipulates weekly training with the longbow, many other regions had similar laws).

What seem to be missing is specialized training in large scale manoeuvring/formations, which in large battles most be considered more important that the individual soldier. Mock battles was fought ("battle tournaments"), but I have seen no evidence of specialised training before the late medieval period (where it still seem fairly rare).

What I read about Roman military, it seem that combat training was conducted on a (nearly) daily basis (perhaps baring when doing battles/campaign), as well as regular formation training.

[Martin Greywolf]

All of the studies done about the effect of bayonet in battle have shown that very few casualties have ever been inflicted by the bayonet. The first studies I am aware of come from the Napoleonic era, so it may have been different with earlier technologies.
My books are in another country but iirc one study of casualty reports after famous bayonet charges found the percentage of casualties by bayonet wounds was in the single digit percentages. This is in well documented situations where the common report was that the bayonet was the deciding factor.

The bottom line take away is that the bayonet is primarily a psychological weapon. If you look like you can more confidently and more competently stick 18 inches of cold steel into your opponent than he is to you, he is more likely to run away. So while there is some combat value in training your soldiers being able to fight effectively with the bayonet, the main advantage is the morale effect (your soldiers are more likely to stay, the enemy more likely to run).

This is one of those things you need to pretty much ignore. Sure, there aren't many casualties - what is a casualty? Dead, injured, taken out of combat? And by this metric, modern guns are psychological weapons as well, since you expend a tremendous amounts of bullets (thousands) to injure one guy.

Even medieval melee weapons weren't that kill-y, a battle that had a 10% casualty rate was usually thought of as unusual, anything over 30% was a massacre - with some exceptions where the loosing force got either encircled or hunted down for days after the battle was over.


Or out of era. Did a legionnaire practice with sword and shield daily, or was he more akin to a modern soldier who might fire far fewer rounds in a year than a shooting enthusiast?

To answer this, we must first acknowledge a fundamental principle of writing things down: advice is not given if everyone follows it, laws are not written if everyone follows them. Therefore, when Vegetius writes De Re Militari and waxes poetic about how the ancients fought and trained daily, we can safely assume that this wasn't the norm in his time.

Similarly, when we look at medieval England and it's bow practicing laws, we can safely assume that they are written as a reaction to people not training enough for the king's liking. If we find a point in Landsknecht company rule about how you will be hella punished for cutting down your pike, we can assume this was something people did out of lazyness.

So, with that in mind, it was a lot like today. If you had a knight who was a tournament enthusiast (Ulrich von Lichtenstein) or aknight that was really into the science of fencing (Fiore de'i Liberi), they had much, much more training than your average knight or mercenary - they are the equivalent of the shooting enthusiast.

At the same time, not only are the non-enthusiasts motivated to get a solid amount of training (by, y'know, having to go and fight at some point, which is klinda dangerous), but the enthusiasts are involved in "the real thing", so you will not see much in the realm of medieval equivalent of range toys or techniques that are utterly impractical in the field.

If you're looking for exact numbers, we don't know.


I know most about dark age-medieval periods. Most training was done as "fun", that is games and sports. This seem to continue well into the post medieval era (at least until the late 18th/early 19th century). It seem many people would have been quite adept in several weapons, and some with a specialized skill (like bow, crossbow, sling, spear-throwing, staff use, fencing etc). That means you have a quite broad skill set of the individual. Sparing and mock fights where also a regular occurance (developed into tournaments etc. during the medieval period). Though "proper training" was also a thing for personal combat skills and even small group combat. Both for regular men-at-arms and mercenaries, but also for levies etc. (such as the English/Welsh rules that stipulates weekly training with the longbow, many other regions had similar laws).

What seem to be missing is specialized training in large scale manoeuvring/formations, which in large battles most be considered more important that the individual soldier. Mock battles was fought ("battle tournaments"), but I have seen no evidence of specialised training before the late medieval period (where it still seem fairly rare).

What I read about Roman military, it seem that combat training was conducted on a (nearly) daily basis (perhaps baring when doing battles/campaign), as well as regular formation training.

Well, the above is true for the nobility - although I'd hesitate to call a hunt a "fun" thing, sure, some enjoyed them, but it was also a sort of a social obligation, a part of your job as a noble, not the least because it prepared you for war, as several people in the period noted outright. It's also likely that, especially when it comes to ranged weapons, a given individual would pick one and stick with it, so bow or crossbow, really.

For non-nobles, which usually means some form of mercenaries, we have pretty much no data. We do have hints, though, and the most prominent of them is that one of these mercenaries, or rather their captain, was Fiore de'i Liberi, the guy who wrote the seminal work on melee fighting in 1400. The idea that he would not train his soldiers is... yeah, he absolutely trained them.

Problem is, these guys didn't have option to engage in a lot of things the nobles did, like tourneys, hunting and such, so they had to make do some other way. WHat other way, we don't know.

People are lazy, and often idiots

Remember this point and burn it into your heart. Sure, you're a mercenary and expected to fight, but meh, you will train tomorrow, you're just feeling kinda not like doing anything today.

Look into any industry that needs specialized training, and you will find it being cut down to reduce costs, not followed out of lazyness and so on, and we can be sure medieval era was no different. For every mercenary who dilligently trained and saved his silver to buy better armor eventually, you had five who loafed about and spent money on booze.

This is why organizations that enforced discipline were so successful and famous, be it the Roman army, Templars or Swiss pikemen.

[KineticDiplomat]

I had seen something by van Creveld that basically said (and any errors in the phrasing are mine) that the transition to the gunpowder era suddenly saw a mix where you had a lot more soldiers who were hasty productions, combined with all of a sudden gunpowder means training is no longer a two way affair (and much more expensive), and on top of all that you’re approaching a tactical era where being able to keep your pike pointed up or down on command is worth more than personal prowess.

That part sounds as good as anything I’d heard. Concerning bayonets within the same era, I have no idea...

[Clistenes]

As a follow up question to that, since we’ve gotten on to the topic of training, does anyone know the ratio of actual “skills training” to “other soldier stuff” at various points in history?

Within the same technological era? Since we have the bayonet in question, for instance a small professional army from the seven years war (or whenever you think is more approaches) vs the levee en masse for example?

Or out of era. Did a legionnaire practice with sword and shield daily, or was he more akin to a modern soldier who might fire far fewer rounds in a year than a shooting enthusiast?

During the Renaissance most armies expected recruits to arm and train themselves to some extent before joining the army, and then they were taught to fight as a group.

It varied greatly from country to country:

In the British Isles they still kept pretty much a feudal system.
Italy relied heavily on mercenary companies, using guild-based medieval militias when things turned ugly; powerful nobles kept their own feudal retinues too...
France had the gendarme companies as the core of their armies: Heavy horse companies made up of men-at-arms loyal to the king but organized pretty much following the model of mercenary companies. In time of war the army was strengthened with foreign mercenaries and feudal retinues.
Spain ditched feudal retinues pretty soon, leaving the defense of the Iberian Peninsula to them (the crown didn't expect it to be in any serious danger, so they sent the actual professional army abroad); the Tercios were a professional army organized around companies recruited and trained by a captain.

In most cases, it seems European governments expected the soldiers they were paying for to come trained on their own; they either came trained or were trained by the captains who recruited and led the unit.

Soldiers from the Tercios were expected to bring their own weapons and to have some basic training, but that wasn't always the case, and sergeants (usually veteran soldiers), ensigns and captains were tasked to find any inadequacies and start their training as soldiers (which wasn't quite sistematized, each sergeant, ensign and captain did whatever they felt like... some put quite an effort, some did barely anything...).
Some rich captains sought to give them better weapons; Alonso de Contreras, an alferez (ensign) at the time, stole a cache of weapons from a smuggler in order to arm his company, but the smuggler turned to be rebel conspiring against the crown and Contreras got into an ugly mess (because he didn't report the smuggler...

Afterwards the company was shipped to Italy, a low intensity combat scenario. Maestres the Campo (commanders of Tercios) usually broke the companies, mixing veterans and recruits so the recruits could complete their training on the field observing and taking advice from the veterans.

Once the soldiers were considered trained and toughened enough to operate in a high intensity scenario, they were shipped to Flanders... In Flanders they were joined by non-Spanish mercenary companies hired by the crown.

The Spanish veterans had a saying: "España, mi cuna, Italia, mi ventura, Flandes, mi sepultura" (Spain, my craddle, Italy, my joy, Flanders, my tomb...". Whatever they did in Italy, it didn't left them bad memories; it seems recruits were treated quite softly (young soldiers were rarely executed for showing cowardice there; it seems officers expected them to "toughen" gradually, rather than using the shock treatment of throwing them into a carnage). Flanders was the real deal; soldiers were expected to be fully trained professionals there, and discipline was draconian...

[Tobtor]

Well, the above is true for the nobility - although I'd hesitate to call a hunt a "fun" thing, sure, some enjoyed them, but it was also a sort of a social obligation, a part of your job as a noble, not the least because it prepared you for war, as several people in the period noted outright. It's also likely that, especially when it comes to ranged weapons, a given individual would pick one and stick with it, so bow or crossbow, really.

I am not only talking about nobles. Games that involved weapons where fairly common. There are many examples of for instance crossbow shooting contests practised by "middle class" people (citizens in towns, free farmer etc) in the late medieval periods. In earlier texts such as the Icelandic Sagas (written in the 12-14th century) we also hear about bow shooting contest, training fights, swimming contests and al sorts of "martial" activities practices by farmers.

Various games in Denmark stems from semi-martial training. For instance every year at lent there today children take turn to hit a barrel with a club until et breaks. The winner is the one who smashes it. In the 18th century it was done on horseback and done by young men - the winner (and any household he lived in) in each parish would be exempt for certain taxes for 1 year. This would intice people to train riding skill as well as "swinging while you rigt" skills.


People are lazy, and often idiots

I completely agree. Whenever we see a text about training or any manual it specify how the people higher up would like it to be (within reason). So surely we should take any texts as a "high point", and deduce that the average is lower.

[Martin Greywolf]

I am not only talking about nobles. Games that involved weapons where fairly common. There are many examples of for instance crossbow shooting contests practised by "middle class" people (citizens in towns, free farmer etc) in the late medieval periods. In earlier texts such as the Icelandic Sagas (written in the 12-14th century) we also hear about bow shooting contest, training fights, swimming contests and al sorts of "martial" activities practices by farmers.

First issue I have with this is defining what is a martial activity - swimming is not it. Sure, it can occassionally help you and it builds stamina, but so does running or just walking, so we're putting the definitions far too broad here.

As for the contests themselves, they were not very high level. Your bottom rung modern amateur BJJ gym probably has a much higher quality of wrestling that your annual village tournament, simply because the pool of possible participants is very low, and the pool of willing participants even lower. If you are a mildly talented at the given sport, you will have practically no incentive to get better - there are no big leagues to get into, really - and the bar is low.

We should look at these activities the way we look at today's football/soccer - sure, every village has a team, but that doesn't mean the entire village male population is at the skill level of said team, and the team itself is far, far below the professional players. It's a recreational activity more than anything else, and any serious footballer/soldier would wipe the floor with them - well, with the usual caveat for wrestling specifically of size mattering.

That said, this activity does have the potential to evolve into something useful, whether by enforcing training by law (archery) or by introducing higher leagues with higher prizes (wrestling, boxing). Once you have either of those, then you get people with martial skills at a higher level than usual. The issue is finding these cases, and for most of the medieval world, they are closed to the non-noble public.

There are some exceptions, e.g. English archery and German burghers developing a decidedly martial mindset, but hey are just that, exceptions.


Various games in Denmark stems from semi-martial training. For instance every year at lent there today children take turn to hit a barrel with a club until et breaks. The winner is the one who smashes it. In the 18th century it was done on horseback and done by young men - the winner (and any household he lived in) in each parish would be exempt for certain taxes for 1 year. This would intice people to train riding skill as well as "swinging while you rigt" skills.

I don't know enough about Denmark to call this, but be very sceptical about statements like these unless backed by some serious facts and original documents. 17th-19th centuries are especially suspect, because everyone and their mother was trying to come up with some nationalistic martial spin to make their country look biggest and baddest, and a lot of idiocy resulted from it, like the idea that sabres are inferion to straight swords, that sabres are superior to straight swords, that sabres were brought to Europe by the Ottomans and so on.

[Zombimode]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKbOj3i0rQ8&t=380s

I don't know, I find videos like this to be pretty much without any value for learning something about the use and comparison of historic weapons.

The environment of these "fencing" style match up are just so artifical. There are usually three problems, all of the present in this video:

1. The fencers are religiously fixated on their weapon instead of winning an actual fight. They are not using their hands, they are not using their bodies.

2. They are bound by the artifical scoring system where even a weak tip with the weapon counts as a "hit". This creates its very own metagame and results in the very cautious distance fighting we see in the video. It disregards any effects of armor or technique of deflecting the opponents weapon even unarmored.

3. They are not using the "real" weapon but some fencing props. These might resemble the weapons in some respects but not in all. The ability to damage the opponents weapon for instance is not accounted for at all.

[Mike_G]

I don't know, I find videos like this to be pretty much without any value for learning something about the use and comparison of historic weapons.

The environment of these "fencing" style match up are just so artifical. There are usually three problems, all of the present in this video:

1. The fencers are religiously fixated on their weapon instead of winning an actual fight. They are not using their hands, they are not using their bodies.

2. They are bound by the artifical scoring system where even a weak tip with the weapon counts as a "hit". This creates its very own metagame and results in the very cautious distance fighting we see in the video. It disregards any effects of armor or technique of deflecting the opponents weapon even unarmored.

3. They are not using the "real" weapon but some fencing props. These might resemble the weapons in some respects but not in all. The ability to damage the opponents weapon for instance is not accounted for at all.

So what do you propose as a valuable way to learn something about a weapon?

I merely ask as a former infantry Marine with 30 years of fencing. I'm sure if you speak slowly enough and use small words I'll be able to understand

And I'm not sure what you watched, but there are a lot of instances of the guy with the sword grabbing the barrel of the musket , so nobody is "religiously fixated on their weapons."

[Pauly]

This is one of those things you need to pretty much ignore. Sure, there aren't many casualties - what is a casualty? Dead, injured, taken out of combat? And by this metric, modern guns are psychological weapons as well, since you expend a tremendous amounts of bullets (thousands) to injure one guy.

Even medieval melee weapons weren't that kill-y, a battle that had a 10% casualty rate was usually thought of as unusual, anything over 30% was a massacre - with some exceptions where the loosing force got either encircled or hunted down for days after the battle was over.


Just to be clear the studies I have seen refer to returns of wounds, not MIA, captured, ill etc. In bayonet charges the number of wounds inflicted by shooting exceeds wounds inflicted by bayonets by an order of magnitude. Again I don’t have my books with me so I can’t give you the references, but the studies isolated casualties as best they could to exclude casualties from the battle as a whole and to isolate the casualties from the bayonet charge.

[Martin Greywolf]

I don't know, I find videos like this to be pretty much without any value for learning something about the use and comparison of historic weapons.

The environment of these "fencing" style match up are just so artifical. There are usually three problems, all of the present in this video:

1. The fencers are religiously fixated on their weapon instead of winning an actual fight. They are not using their hands, they are not using their bodies.

2. They are bound by the artifical scoring system where even a weak tip with the weapon counts as a "hit". This creates its very own metagame and results in the very cautious distance fighting we see in the video. It disregards any effects of armor or technique of deflecting the opponents weapon even unarmored.

3. They are not using the "real" weapon but some fencing props. These might resemble the weapons in some respects but not in all. The ability to damage the opponents weapon for instance is not accounted for at all.

Look, we've seen your kind before. The crowd that claims that HEMA is useless because they aren't killing themselves with real weapons and therefore aren't real viking warriors doing real things and your particular fantasy fighting style than never went up against any properly resisting opponent is superior to theirs because it is more real.

The people you're taking potshots at are one of the most respected practitonars of martial arts of that period, having both practical and academical knowledge to back up what they do - unless they are doing some goofy thing, which is not the case in this video.


Just to be clear the studies I have seen refer to returns of wounds, not MIA, captured, ill etc. In bayonet charges the number of wounds inflicted by shooting exceeds wounds inflicted by bayonets by an order of magnitude. Again I don’t have my books with me so I can’t give you the references, but the studies isolated casualties as best they could to exclude casualties from the battle as a whole and to isolate the casualties from the bayonet charge.

And that's not really a good way to asses the effecto fo bayonet as a weapon or to call it psychological - a charge with any other weapon would have similar result, because it's not the bayonet that is psychological, it's the charge. Another factor that makes bayonet seem a lot less effective is that, well, in a melee fight, your opponent can surrender a lot easier. A better study for the effectiveness of a bayonet would probably be something like looking at bayonets storming an encircled mildly fortified position, and looking at how many were killed by gunfire versus how many wounded, killed or surrendered during battle thanks to bayonets - but even that is flawed, since guns are at a disadvantage when taking potshots at a fortified position.

[Zombimode]

So what do you propose as a valuable way to learn something about a weapon?

I merely ask as a former infantry Marine with 30 years of fencing. I'm sure if you speak slowly enough and use small words I'll be able to understand

And I'm not sure what you watched, but there are a lot of instances of the guy with the sword grabbing the barrel of the musket , so nobody is "religiously fixated on their weapons."


Look, we've seen your kind before. The crowd that claims that HEMA is useless because they aren't killing themselves with real weapons and therefore aren't real viking warriors doing real things and your particular fantasy fighting style than never went up against any properly resisting opponent is superior to theirs because it is more real.

The people you're taking potshots at are one of the most respected practitonars of martial arts of that period, having both practical and academical knowledge to back up what they do - unless they are doing some goofy thing, which is not the case in this video.

Dudes, chill. This kind of hostility is really not warrented.

I'm a mostly silent but active follower of these threads and do very much value both your and Mike's extensive contributions.

If you think my takeaway from the video in question is misguided I would rather hear your clarifcations that could help me putting things into perspective instead of dismissive comments like the above.

[Mike_G]

Dudes, chill. This kind of hostility is really not warrented.

I'm a mostly silent but active follower of these threads and do very much value both your and Mike's extensive contributions.

If you think my takeaway from the video in question is misguided I would rather hear your clarifcations that could help me putting things into perspective instead of dismissive comments like the above.

OK, I will concede to taking a bit of a tone and give this a shot.

Your comments, however, was the most dismissive thing I've read in a long time, about people who have been doing HEMA as well as tests with historical swords, who have actually consulted on the design of new HEMA swords, who have read and translated historical manuals. The AHF guys are not playing tag with foils.

To get at the specifics,

*The weapons they are simulating were not generally used against armor, being Napoleonic in era, so effectiveness vs armor is not a thing here.

*They do not use "artificial rules." The techniques are out of Hutton and Roworth's manuals of swordsmanship for the British army. The Bayonet drill is also from the British Army manuals. The simple footwork is also a result of army drill, since one was expected to use a bayonet in formation, so there isn't a lot of lateral movement. That's not a bug, it's a feature.

*There is a lot of grabbing of bayonets and musket barrels and offhand parries so you clearly missed a lot of that if you say "they don't use their hands or bodies."

*The swords are very accurate as far as weight and balance. I have one of the same sabers, and a few antique 19th century sabers, and the weight and balance are very close. Yes, the musket is light. Because if I thrust even a blunt bayonet on the end of a rigid ten pound rifle at you, it would probably come out your back. Simple safety and not wanting to kill your friends is going to create some limits, yes.

*They are not using "artificial" rules for hits. Most HEMA clubs, at least when not in direct competition, use a kind of loose agreement on what's a good hit, indicating good hits vs light ones. "Junk hits" get thrown out in sparring all the time. Like, yeah you hit, but it wouldn't have hurt me, or it was flat or whatever. In sport fencing, which I did for decades, yes, a hit is a hit is a hit, fatal or not, so long as it's on target, but that ain't this.

*These same people do a lot of actual cutting with real blades, so they know what cuts will actually be effective and which will not. Clearly there's no good way to combine a cutting test and sparring, unless we bring back the Colosseum.

A lastly, if you're going to trash an entire system of what is basically experimental historical research, and probably the best way to learn how a weapon worked, ie "try to hit someone with it who tries not to let you with it, or as close a facsimile as you safely can" then please explain what would be a good way to learn. There will always be compromises because we don't actually want to cripple one another. That's just reality. Real troops train with safe weapons to learn how really kill people with unsafe weapons. Trying to make a good hit with a realistic weight weapon simulation is the gold standard of discovering what works. Blunt weapons and padded jackets do not invalidate this exercise


So, yes, those of us who follow this get a bit defensive.

[Brother Oni]

To support Mike_G's comments, the objections would be akin to saying 'MILES gear is not representative of actual weapons due to the lasers not simulating real round ballistics like travel time and bullet drop, so therefore any manoeuvrer and fire training isn't worthwhile. Also, since any registered hit is also automatically a fatal one and doesn't take into account the protection offered by modern body armour, they should be using plastic rounds at least, if not live ammunition'.

The point is, there are good videos on weapon comparisons and bad videos on weapon comparisons; the linked video is one of the former.
If you can't tell whether a video is good or bad, have a look at the people presenting it and a look at their credentials - if you're still not sure after that, then ask people with more experience, preferably phrasing any question in a less dismissive manner.


The ability to damage the opponents weapon for instance is not accounted for at all.

Since this wasn't addressed - how much damage are you expecting to do to an opponent's weapon in a 10-15 second bout? Each bout is effectively between a 'new' pair of fighters since one or both were 'killed' in the previous one, so they start with 'new' weapons every time.

About the only damage that could be done, is the sword breaking off the bayonet - the sword isn't cutting through the metal barrel of the musket/rifle, and the bayonet isn't breaking the sword blade.

[KineticDiplomat]

Re: bayonet percentages. I took Pauly’s reference to be per capita for wounds inflicted, not an overall percentage of the force lost. Still has the usual statistical vulnerabilities of anything with so many variables that can’t be measured. I would esucatedlt guess that those black powder numbers represent “one cylinder of an engine” where apparently bayonet drill was not a big deal (from what I’ve heard here)...whereas if I had to hazard a guess Mike_G spent some amount of time learning to bayonet things with an M16, though I doubt anyone imagined he would actually use the thing for more than utility work. (Or, ever popular, pile them all in an inventoried tough box, band it, and leave the inventory on top to save everyone counting them monthly)

[Mike_G]

Re: bayonet percentages. I took Pauly’s reference to be per capita for wounds inflicted, not an overall percentage of the force lost. Still has the usual statistical vulnerabilities of anything with so many variables that can’t be measured. I would esucatedlt guess that those black powder numbers represent “one cylinder of an engine” where apparently bayonet drill was not a big deal (from what I’ve heard here)...whereas if I had to hazard a guess Mike_G spent some amount of time learning to bayonet things with an M16, though I doubt anyone imagined he would actually use the thing for more than utility work. (Or, ever popular, pile them all in an inventoried tough box, band it, and leave the inventory on top to save everyone counting them monthly)

Ironically, I think modern bayonet training (if we can consider the 1980s modern, if I want to speak from experience) is largely psychological. It's not that they expect troops to get into bayonet fights, but they want to instill some aggression and get you used to fight someone else in close quarters. The Pugil Stick fights we had were never going to turn us into master bayonet fencers, but the idea is that hand to hand still happens, and if you have done some sparring at least the idea of trying to face off against someone isn't completely alien. So maybe, when the moment comes, you won't freeze up. If you only remember one or two blocks and attack aggressively, you'll probably win a close quarters fight.

I don't know what the training is now, but I would think that there is a greater chance of meeting an enemy at uncomfortably close range when clearing houses in Falluja than any of the Cold War scenarios they were thinking of back when I was in boot camp and Reagan was President.

If nothing else, hand to hand practice is fun, where as most training really isn't.

[Max_Killjoy]

Ironically, I think modern bayonet training (if we can consider the 1980s modern, if I want to speak from experience) is largely psychological. It's not that they expect troops to get into bayonet fights, but they want to instill some aggression and get you used to fight someone else in close quarters. The Pugil Stick fights we had were never going to turn us into master bayonet fencers, but the idea is that hand to hand still happens, and if you have done some sparring at least the idea of trying to face off against someone isn't completely alien. So maybe, when the moment comes, you won't freeze up. If you only remember one or two blocks and attack aggressively, you'll probably win a close quarters fight.

I don't know what the training is now, but I would think that there is a greater chance of meeting an enemy at uncomfortably close range when clearing houses in Falluja than any of the Cold War scenarios they were thinking of back when I was in boot camp and Reagan was President.

If nothing else, hand to hand practice is fun, where as most training really isn't.

Haven't US and allied troops had a few, ahem, "opportunities" to fix bayonets in Iraq and Afghanistan?

IIRC most of the instances a bunch of pissed-off screaming marines with knives on their guns has convinced the enemy that they'd rather be somewhere else.

[Mike_G]

Haven't US and allied troops had a few, ahem, "opportunities" to fix bayonets in Iraq and Afghanistan?

IIRC most of the instances a bunch of pissed-off screaming marines with knives on their guns has convinced the enemy that they'd rather be somewhere else.

That's a big part of the weapon's charm.

[Brother Oni]

IIRC most of the instances a bunch of pissed-off screaming marines with knives on their guns has convinced the enemy that they'd rather be somewhere else.

Interestingly enough, that's that Pauly pointed out in his original post and possibly why the bayonet casualties are so low - people really don't want close up face time with an screaming enemy soldier with sharp blades on sticks, so would rather retreat than receive a bayonet charge.

[Lapak]

Interestingly enough, that's that Pauly pointed out in his original post and possibly why the bayonet casualties are so low - people really don't want close up face time with an screaming enemy soldier with sharp blades on sticks, so would rather retreat than receive a bayonet charge.I think about this a fair bit when thinking of situations like Little Round Top. There are a fair handful of examples where a bayonet charge broke the enemy and where that charge was ordered at least in part because ammunition and/or morale was running low. In some ways, receiving a bayonet charge could mean that you were on the verge of winning the day up to that point, but the sheer morale impact flips things around.

[KineticDiplomat]

The US, at least, pulled bayonet training from the menu back in 2010. The aggression part has largely been replaced by wrestling/brawling/dirty-knife (not sure what that is actually called, but it’s of the “pull it and stab a dude while wrestling” variety as opposed to a knife-duel variety) hybrids with different names depending on the service.

I believe only a handful of engineer units issue bayonets out these days, mostly for engineer work.

So it appears we have this sort of historical curve where bayonet importance (in the raw physical sense, elan not withstanding) declining in some sort of reverse logarithm graph, while training grows close to linearly before suddenly dropping to near zero.

[Mike_G]

The US, at least, pulled bayonet training from the menu back in 2010. The aggression part has largely been replaced by wrestling/brawling/dirty-knife (not sure what that is actually called, but it’s of the “pull it and stab a dude while wrestling” variety as opposed to a knife-duel variety) hybrids with different names depending on the service.

I believe only a handful of engineer units issue bayonets out these days, mostly for engineer work.

So it appears we have this sort of historical curve where bayonet importance (in the raw physical sense, elan not withstanding) declining in some sort of reverse logarithm graph, while training grows close to linearly before suddenly dropping to near zero.

I wondered so I looked this up, and while the Army did drop the bayonet training, the Marines still teach it as part of MCMAP, or Marine Corps Martial Arts Program.

Because Marines, basically.

I wonder if the Army still issues them. It's useful when house clearing or meeting an enemy in the brush at bad breath range to have a knife already poised on the weapon rather than trying to transition from your rifle to a pistol or knife when the enemy is already that close. It also makes the enemy hesitate to grab the muzzle of your rifle when it has a blade on the end of it.

[KineticDiplomat]

MCMAP added that back in? That’s new (or old I guess). Wonder when?

As for the army...

They’re still on company property books, and with the recent focus back on the “Close Combat Force” (there’s all sorts of good stuff headed their way, for which you can thank one of McCain’s last major pieces of legislation which grants comparatively low cost programs to bypass traditional procurement channels via a set of rapid authorities) soldier level equipping, the MTOEs even actually have one for every rifle in infantry units.

That said, issuing them is another deal entirely.

CQB they’re generally a liability. One of the results of updating room clearing is that barrels spend a lot of time close to your own people. Like resting over their shoulder in a stack, or inches away from them as you try to get barrels up and into the room. Adding knives to those barrels could end badly. The typical response to someone in first two feet of a door is shoot if armed, but if you don’t know, non dominant hand to the face and toss them into the room for the guy behind you to decide to shoot or not while you get out of that doorway.

At a more personal level, the army virtually only uses carbines these days. The whole weapon is quite short, particularly when the butt gets collapsed to deal with body armor and room clearing. Like so short that if you can’t blow someone off your muzzle, you are now wrestling and head butting. Add on that when you do it right, driving the gun smoothly through its arc is what creates those lethal few seconds that win or lose an entry, and anything that makes it harder, slower, or delays getting off that center mass pair on a target is frowned upon.

That said, prevailing wisdom in the army is that trying to clear a barricaded shooter in CQB is folly, particularly after the Rangers went and proved it by failing spectacularly to do so despite their intensive training for CQB. You don’t enter rooms unless you have shock and surprise on your side. If it’s digging out time, it’s time to employ firepower.

[Vinyadan]

About carbines, I remember reading an article that lamented US infantry not having sufficiently long-range weapons to efficiently answer fire when ambushed outside cities. Does any of this ring true?



That said, prevailing wisdom in the army is that trying to clear a barricaded shooter in CQB is folly, particularly after the Rangers went and proved it by failing spectacularly to do so despite their intensive training for CQB. You don’t enter rooms unless you have shock and surprise on your side. If it’s digging out time, it’s time to employ firepower.
Does this refer to a particular episode with the Rangers?

[fusilier]

Interestingly enough, that's that Pauly pointed out in his original post and possibly why the bayonet casualties are so low - people really don't want close up face time with an screaming enemy soldier with sharp blades on sticks, so would rather retreat than receive a bayonet charge.

The general understanding seems to be that this was the case. Bayonet charges rarely resulted in hand-to-hand combat -- usually one side would lose their nerve, and either the defenders would flee, or the attackers would hold up short, and then both sides would exchange fire at close range, until one side retired.

Various stratagems were used to try to prevent the attackers from stopping: having them charge with unloaded muskets, to discourage them from stopping to shoot, was relatively common. Using a deep formation was another; those in the rear, screened from whatever chaos was taking place in the front, would keep pushing those in front forward. I'm not sure how well either of those worked, but they were tried.

There's an old tabletop Civil War wargame I used to play, one of these games based on charts derived from statistics of actual events. It was very difficult to get two regiments to engage each other in hand-to-hand. When it did happen, the outcome was hard to predict, and often times entire units were just wiped out. I don't think it was simulating how deadly hand-to-hand combat was, but that it tended to *shatter* those units that participated. Many soldiers surrendered/were captured in hand-to-hand, others fled individually from the combat. The loser would be so disorganized/scattered, that they would effectively cease to be an effective fighting force for the rest of the battle (and even the winner could find itself in a bad way), even if the total casualties were relatively low.

[Gnoman]

About carbines, I remember reading an article that lamented US infantry not having sufficiently long-range weapons to efficiently answer fire when ambushed outside cities. Does any of this ring true?

There's a lot of garbage articles on stuff like that out there. An M4 is capable out to 500 meters, which is pretty much the limit of what is practical for hitting a person-sized target reliably anyway. The current development push is for a higher-caliber (~6.5mm) rifle with higher velocity, but htat has more to do with the proliferation of body armor.

[fusilier]

All of the studies done about the effect of bayonet in battle have shown that very few casualties have ever been inflicted by the bayonet. The first studies I am aware of come from the Napoleonic era, so it may have been different with earlier technologies.
My books are in another country but iirc one study of casualty reports after famous bayonet charges found the percentage of casualties by bayonet wounds was in the single digit percentages. This is in well documented situations where the common report was that the bayonet was the deciding factor.

The bottom line take away is that the bayonet is primarily a psychological weapon. If you look like you can more confidently and more competently stick 18 inches of cold steel into your opponent than he is to you, he is more likely to run away. So while there is some combat value in training your soldiers being able to fight effectively with the bayonet, the main advantage is the morale effect (your soldiers are more likely to stay, the enemy more likely to run).

I'm not disagreeing with the conclusions, but I do want to point out that most of those studies suffer from a particular bias --

When calculating the percentage of casualties caused by "X" weapon, the studies (all that I've seen) are based on field hospital reports. This means they do not include those *killed* outright on the battlefield (or wounded but died before reaching the hospital). They only count those treated at a field hospital. As a result the more deadly weapons are probably underrepresented (artillery for example).

It could be that bayonet wounds were more deadly and therefore are underrepresented. However, it could also be that they were *less* deadly and are actually overrepresented. Again, I'm not disagreeing with the conclusions, just pointing out that the evidence is potentially flawed.

[fusilier]

As a follow up question to that, since we’ve gotten on to the topic of training, does anyone know the ratio of actual “skills training” to “other soldier stuff” at various points in history?

Within the same technological era? Since we have the bayonet in question, for instance a small professional army from the seven years war (or whenever you think is more approaches) vs the levee en masse for example?

Or out of era. Did a legionnaire practice with sword and shield daily, or was he more akin to a modern soldier who might fire far fewer rounds in a year than a shooting enthusiast?

I have seen "camp schedules" from the American Civil War. A lot of drill, with breaks for meals. However, while they follow a particular pattern, they weren't necessarily standardized, and sometimes drill periods were set-aside for officers and NCO's -- many of them were also totally green -- so the schedules don't necessarily reflect what would be typical for a peacetime army. I even looked in my copy of the 1861 US Army regulations, and didn't see any "standard" drill schedule. I'll let you know if I dig anything up.

[Mike_G]

MCMAP added that back in? That’s new (or old I guess). Wonder when?


Yeah, not a clue. I've been out for a long time. I just googled "does the Marine Corps still teach bayonet fighting" and that's what came up.

I think it has some value, but more like "spend a day on it in Boot camp and maybe play with it from time to time in an infantry unit" rather than extensive training like you do with rifles and with small unit tactics




As for the army...

They’re still on company property books, and with the recent focus back on the “Close Combat Force” (there’s all sorts of good stuff headed their way, for which you can thank one of McCain’s last major pieces of legislation which grants comparatively low cost programs to bypass traditional procurement channels via a set of rapid authorities) soldier level equipping, the MTOEs even actually have one for every rifle in infantry units.

That said, issuing them is another deal entirely.

CQB they’re generally a liability. One of the results of updating room clearing is that barrels spend a lot of time close to your own people. Like resting over their shoulder in a stack, or inches away from them as you try to get barrels up and into the room. Adding knives to those barrels could end badly. The typical response to someone in first two feet of a door is shoot if armed, but if you don’t know, non dominant hand to the face and toss them into the room for the guy behind you to decide to shoot or not while you get out of that doorway.

At a more personal level, the army virtually only uses carbines these days. The whole weapon is quite short, particularly when the butt gets collapsed to deal with body armor and room clearing. Like so short that if you can’t blow someone off your muzzle, you are now wrestling and head butting. Add on that when you do it right, driving the gun smoothly through its arc is what creates those lethal few seconds that win or lose an entry, and anything that makes it harder, slower, or delays getting off that center mass pair on a target is frowned upon.

That said, prevailing wisdom in the army is that trying to clear a barricaded shooter in CQB is folly, particularly after the Rangers went and proved it by failing spectacularly to do so despite their intensive training for CQB. You don’t enter rooms unless you have shock and surprise on your side. If it’s digging out time, it’s time to employ firepower.

I'm a big fan of the old fragmentation grenade for clearing buildings, but sometimes that's not an option.

I make no claim to knowledge of any doctrine after 1990. I'm confident that the military that did urban fighting in Iraq probably knows better than I do.

[Martin Greywolf]

At a more personal level, the army virtually only uses carbines these days. The whole weapon is quite short, particularly when the butt gets collapsed to deal with body armor and room clearing

A short weapon with bayonet isn't necessarily bad because of it's shortness in this day and age - your enemies are no longer likely to be armed with sabers or charging you on horseback, so you only need enough length to make it more effective than a knife. Which it is. All of the other problems, however, still apply.

Bayonet charges being psychological weapons

They really aren't. It's a misconception born out of some eearly attempts to apply maths to warfare without really understanding the nuances of the situation. There are several problems with the claim, so let's pick them apart one by one.

Two components, not one

This is what everyone tends to forget the most. We aren't talking about bayonets here, we're talking about bayonet charges, and charges inherently do have a psychological effect. But that doesn't mean bayonets do, and that is an important distinction. Because most of the charges people cite when they talk about bayonets being a psychological weapon would end up exactly the same if the charging force was armed with anything else, be it broadsword, daneaxe or half a brick in a sock.

Factors of a rout

Your morale breaks, you run. Simple. But the reason that morale breaks are several: preexisting conditions (well rested, good food), perception of battle, trust in leadership, training and expectation. And the expectation is key here, if you are going into the battle with the expectation of fighting in a melee (like a medieval spearman or renaissance pikeman), enemy closing in won't do much on its own, some other factor will need to be there.

But, if your expectation is to take potshots at the enemy, then you're in trouble if they close, and it really doesn't matter what era this happens in - we have several cases in medieval battles of archers holding fast against charging infantry and driving them back, as well as many cases of archers routing once engaged - and this most likely depended on whether these archers were armored yeomen expecting to fight it out, or poorly equipped.

This isn't really limited to range vs melee either, since anything unexpected happening can break morale - sudden artillery barrage when you weren't expecting any, enemy cavalry appearing where you don't expect them and so forth.

And evidence we have supports this, Sikh rebellions saw the native troops on both sides having little trouble fighting in melee, even against bayonet charges, and you see this over and over all over Africa and middle east.

Ranged and melee destruction

In a battle your goal is rarely to kill them all, killing people is just a way to make claiming your objectives easier. A dead soldier is as good as one incapacitated for a month in most conflicts - until we come to WW1 and a battle can last for more than a year. The best way strategically to get rid of enemy soldiers is actually to capture them, at least in times without international agreements on POWs, because then you can put them to work for you.

Problem is, ranged weapons don't really give you a non-lethal option, and they don't give the enemy an opportunity to surrender. Melee weapons, on the other hand, do both. It's also easier to not rout under ranged fire, since you're standing among frineds with no enemy close, and that's what monkey brain likes - but that doesn't mean bayonets are psychological weapons, if anything, any melee weapon has a greater psychological impact when compared to ranged combat.

But even that is questionable - what is the psychological impact of closing into melee vs the psychological impact of a unit of dragoons (or maybe just skrimishers) closing quickly and unloading a bunch of carbines and pistols into you at a point blank range? I don't know, because I've never seen a study that delved into this.

Bayonets as weapons

If you start looking at eyewitness accounts of bayonets being actually used as weapons when fighting someone, they seem to be... just a weapon? Without any psychological component to them, and with some disadvantages that come from trying to cosplay as a spear when you are a rifle.

But when they [Sikhs] did use the bayonet, “the foe received a cut over his head and a prog in the stomach at the same moment”.

As Maj. Gen. Sir Charles Napier observed during the Sind War in 1843, “more men fall by the sword and the bayonet than I ever expected to see in modern warfare, where fire is all in all”

Lieutenant Bryant, a very powerful man, first saved the life of O’Donnell,who had snapped his pistol [misfired] at the leader of the Arabs, and was about to be cut down by him, when Bryant put him to death, and then attacking their colour bearer, cut him down also and seized their standard. Amongst other feats, having broken his sword on some Arab’s skull, he seized a musket and bayonet; and so dexterous was he with this newweapon that he frequently put the bayonet through one man and knocked a second down with the butt end. Seeing a leader mounted on a beautiful mare, he immediately singled him out for his prey, and running him through the body, seized the mare by the bridle and bore her off in triumph.”

Major Hunter put up his scabbard as a guard; but such was the stoutness of arm of the gallant Jat, so great the sharpness of his sword, that the scabbard was cut through as if it had been paper, and Major Hunter’s left arm nearly severed. Our men then rushed on Khoosial Singh, who fell pierced with innumerable bayonet wounds.”

Just then, I heard the discharge of several muskets; there was a desperate struggle for a moment; and the Sikhs were quickly overpowered by the strong detachment which I had accompanied to the trenches, and who were most fortunately brought back by the report of firearms. In a few moments, every Sikh was struggling on his back, pinned to the ground by our men’s bayonets.”

I have seen many instances of desperation on the part of sepoys who defended themselves with firelock and bayonet or sword with such success that it required the efforts of three or four troopers to dispose of them.”

After the blow, I had my turn and gave my ‘friend’ one across the head, which did not cut him down to the shoulder as I had imagined—the skull being a very tough article. At the same moment, one of our men bayoneted this fellow; and [Captain] Daly cut him down too. As I got my cheek cut, I felt a cut just below my hip. The man who did it was instantly bayoneted, and a moment afterwards a third fellow rushed at me—a rather short little scoundrel. He made a vicious cut at my head too; but, being much taller, I easily guarded it; and as I stepped a little forward after this blow, I had full time to raise myself, arm, and sword to their full stretch. My sword caught him a fearful gash at the back of the neck and down across the shoulder, and he fell on his face to rise no more; for a dozen bayonets were stuck into him in a moment. At this instant a number of Her Majesty’s 60th Rifles came up, and the enemy were all shot down or bayoneted. After this I fainted from the profuse bleeding of an artery which was cut in my face, and remember no more till I was picked up and carried back to camp.”

I went at one fellow with my sword, and the two men went at the others with their bayonets. Well, they soon polished off their two; but I couldn’t manage my chap so soon, as he was, like most of these natives, a pretty tolerable swordsman.

“To resume: A few minutes afterwards, another adventure of a ‘touch and go’ nature befell me. In a mêlée, a brother officer had singled out a rebel foot soldier and was hotly striving to cut him down; but his antagonist, with bayonet fixed, kept him at bay, and had just brought his musket to his shoulder to fire, when most luckily in the very nick of time I saw what was going on and charged the Pandy, who, disconcerted by the sudden attack, hurriedly attempted to shift his aim onto me, but ineffectually. As he pulled the trigger, his bullet sped harmlessly past my face; while I brought the edge of my sword down on his skull with such good will that it clave in two, and he fell dead.

One thing I noticed when reading through these is that, if the enemy was surrendering to a bayonet charge, it usually happened in a situation where morale was so low many others have surrendered or fled without any fighting at all.

And then there's this gem that has absolutely nothing to do with the topic at hand, but is an account of a... creative use of bayonets.

“In addition to their muskets, all the men [insurgents] in the Secundrabâgh were armed with swords; and the native tulwars were as sharp as razors. When they had fired their muskets, they hurled them amongst us like javelins, bayonets first, and then drawing their tulwars, rushed madly on to their destruction, slashing in blind fury with their swords. As they rushed on us, they actually threw themselves under the bayonets and slashed at our legs. It was owing to this fact that more than half of our wounded were injured by sword cuts.”

[Max_Killjoy]

Maybe melee weapons, including the bayonet, gain more psychological effect as they become more rare?

[Mike_G]

Maybe melee weapons, including the bayonet, gain more psychological effect as they become more rare?

I think that ties into the "expectation" thing that Martin mentioned.

These days, soldiers expect to be in contact with their team or squad, taking cover and firing at an enemy who is a nice comfortable distance away. When that enemy is no longer a figure on the horizon, but a screaming madman who jumps into your fighting hole trying to stab you, that's not what you signed up for.

[KineticDiplomat]

Re: Mike and hand grenades. As much as people wanted to disagree and do the SWAT thing, that became the prevailing wisdom (just not in frame construction buildings you’re in at the same time) - to the point where it got upped, and squads going into “serious” urban fights usually packed a SMAW or two as the squad leader’s Sunday punch if someone really wanted to fight from a building.

Re: range issues and carbines. This became a bit of half logic out of Afghanistan primarily - particularly the eastern mountains. Firefights would often be across a mountain valley or at ranges where any modern assault rifle would struggle, converted M14s and sniper rifles being the only real “rifles” in the inventory that had the reach. To handle this most patrols would pack extra machineguns in lieu of SAWs, and company 60mms were converted to platoon weapons. OPs armed with TOW missiles and Javelins were another popular answer to the range problem, what with there not being any tanks to shoot...

Which should make it pretty clear that the issue wasn’t one the difference between a carbine and small caliber assault rifle was going to cover. There was at the time a thought-faction that marksmanship had become a lost art (marginally true) along with big war soldier skills (at the time very true) which naturally allied with the idea that the movement to carbines rather than rifles was just one more sign of the decline. You can imagine they were quite vocal about the range issue, despite it largely being one that was not really addressable by rifles or individual marksmanship.

Re: Rangers. 2003 saw several raids where the mix of SWAT style clearing and heavy resistance didn’t end well. The most public one was actually special operating forces, but it demonstrates a trend the Rangers often encountered - the units sent to kill/capture Uday and Qusay entered the building to find its handful of defenders had barricaded themselves in good firing positions on the second floor, dominating the entrances and stairwells. The SOF had gone in with eight men expecting to do a fairly standard raid, and lost four of them very quickly. Cue a 4 hour firefight and pummeling the building with helicopter launched missiles before round two, which basically saw a walk over except for one shell shocked survivor who had the poor judgment to try to resist further and dies quickly.

Anyhow, that raid and other less public incidents caused most people to figure that if even the guys who trained this religiously like a pro sports team couldn’t force a position, normal troops were best off answering that sort of situation with firepower.

[Mike_G]

Re: Mike and hand grenades. As much as people wanted to disagree and do the SWAT thing, that became the prevailing wisdom (just not in frame construction buildings you’re in at the same time) - to the point where it got upped, and squads going into “serious” urban fights usually packed a SMAW or two as the squad leader’s Sunday punch if someone really wanted to fight from a building.


This really is a case of "nothing really changes." This is how they fought in Stalingrad and Seoul and Hue.

I love me some hand grenades. Yes, they have limitations, but all weapons have limitations. When the situation is right, they're amazing.




Re: range issues and carbines. This became a bit of half logic out of Afghanistan primarily - particularly the eastern mountains. Firefights would often be across a mountain valley or at ranges where any modern assault rifle would struggle, converted M14s and sniper rifles being the only real “rifles” in the inventory that had the reach. To handle this most patrols would pack extra machineguns in lieu of SAWs, and company 60mms were converted to platoon weapons. OPs armed with TOW missiles and Javelins were another popular answer to the range problem, what with there not being any tanks to shoot...

Which should make it pretty clear that the issue wasn’t one the difference between a carbine and small caliber assault rifle was going to cover. There was at the time a thought-faction that marksmanship had become a lost art (marginally true) along with big war soldier skills (at the time very true) which naturally allied with the idea that the movement to carbines rather than rifles was just one more sign of the decline. You can imagine they were quite vocal about the range issue, despite it largely being one that was not really addressable by rifles or individual marksmanship.


I would think that with advanced optic becoming more common, like almost universal over the past decade, marksmanship would improve.

That said, low hit percentage has been a complaint since forever. And the Old Guard will always hate on the new weapons. I like the M -14, and I learned on the M-16A2, which is a decent enough rifle. But once you have troops in vehicles so much of the time, and for urban combat, I can see that the nice, compact M-4 would be a very effective choice. And it's not that short, really, that it's going to lose much range or accuracy. It's not like the difference between an M-1 Garand and an M-1 carbine.

[Martin Greywolf]

Maybe melee weapons, including the bayonet, gain more psychological effect as they become more rare?

Sort of, but it also depends on who you are. Speaking of modern world, someone from SWAT or GIGN is going to be a lot more comfortable in melee ranges than your average WW2 soldier, even without accounting for training. Basically, anyone who expects close up fight is going to be better at it that someone who doesn't.

Historically, you get a sort of ebb and flow of these issues, with colonial era being interesting in that the soldiers were drilled and trained for European style wars, and then had to go to fight in Indian jungles against a completely different kind of opponent. Or your standard regiment met someone who had a tradition of melee fighting a la the Highlanders. According to Kinsley, British started to put more emphasis on bayonet training in 1850s, but that is basically the doorstep of the WW1, so we had little time to see if or how it paid off.


I think that ties into the "expectation" thing that Martin mentioned.

These days, soldiers expect to be in contact with their team or squad, taking cover and firing at an enemy who is a nice comfortable distance away. When that enemy is no longer a figure on the horizon, but a screaming madman who jumps into your fighting hole trying to stab you, that's not what you signed up for.

Although these days, it starts to be, what with extensive training in CQC we are seeing in various militaries - it's just that you have carbines and grenades instead of swords and flintlock pistols. The soldiers are also, for the most part, volunteers and part of an army with training so extensive it almost reaches the knightly levels, although there is a lot more things to train them in - your average knight doesn't have to worry about learning how to operate five different radios.

On a flintlock-related note, Forgotten Weapons recently put up a video on a waterproofed hunting rifle: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rK4wSNhdSxU

[thereaper]

How do kite shields stand up (or not) against serpentine-powder handgonnes of the 14th century? I can't find any sources on this.

[neceros]

How often did people actually use a short sword?

[Brother Oni]

How often did people actually use a short sword?

You'll need to be more specific on the period you're interested in. For example, post Marian reforms, every Roman legionary was equipped with a gladius, which is classed as a short sword.

[KineticDiplomat]

Re: optics. Yes, the ACOG in particular has done wonders for turning low to mid grade shooters into better shooters - the issue comes at 250m+ where fundamentals still have an outsized effect; you just can’t better at follow-through/squeeze without conditioning the shooter. During the GWOT years, the sudden call to learn lots of new skills combined with the long term desire not to burn out formations in training when you’d need them for another tour a year from now often meant marksmanship was abbreviated to qualification, or perhaps a few days until an infantryman could shoot expert one time. There has been a return to spending more time on it these days, but it was not an entirely untrue complaint back in the years of big commitments. It didn’t help that sudden scaling of the force meant a lot of the junior and mid grade NCOs were accelerated into position - in many cases they absolutely deserved their positions and performed well, but a guy who’s been shooting for seven years tends to know more about it than a guy who’s been shooting for three on an abbreviated program.

In interesting technical news, the prototypes for a fire control system on the new infantry rifle all include not just the scope, but a LRF and the ability to shift the reticle in scope to adjust for the range.


Re: knights and training. This kind of harkens to the heart of my earlier question. Just how much did that knight train, within the understandable variance? For comparison, a good CQB training path includes 1-2 weeks of “just shooting and other personal skills”, followed by 3-4 weeks of escalating unit sized shoot houses and scenarios. The preponderance of the time and resourcing is spent on the unit (even if it’s just a fire team) rather than the individual skill. How that stacks against a knight, a legionnaire, a redcoat, that’s the interesting bit of the question...

[Clistenes]

How do kite shields stand up (or not) against serpentine-powder handgonnes of the 14th century? I can't find any sources on this.

I don't think kite shields ever faced handgonnes... they went out of fashion before gunpowder reached Europe.

But I don't think they would have been useful at all... for what I have read and heard, kite shields were made with flexible, lightweight materials (Roman legionnaire shields were three times heavier or more...) and a handgonne ball would probably have punched through it.

[thereaper]

I don't think kite shields ever faced handgonnes... they went out of fashion before gunpowder reached Europe.

But I don't think they would have been useful at all... for what I have read and heard, kite shields were made with flexible, lightweight materials (Roman legionnaire shields were three times heavier or more...) and a handgonne ball would probably have punched through it.

It went out of fashion with men-at-arms (they usually went with heater shields or nothing at all), but not with normal soldiers. I've seen illustrations from the 14th century where they're shown (such as this one: http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-yb5J0NUtKlg/VnHE_QBV3uI/AAAAAAAAHUw/ImQOdxb0IbU/s1600/shields_40.jpg). Matt Easton has also confirmed they "never really went away".

I wouldn't be surprised if one could send a lead ball through a shield, but I'm curious how much energy it would have after doing so (whether it would still be lethal to a common soldier).

[Pauly]

Shields generally aren’t designed to prevent punch through, with the exception of pavises. They are much lighter than most modern people suppose.
The Sheer amount of material to cut through blocks cuts. Thrusts are protected against by diverting the thrust away. Obviously I’m casting a very wide net and there will be plenty of examples do things differently, one obvious exception being the jousting shield..

[eru001]

It went out of fashion with men-at-arms (they usually went with heater shields or nothing at all), but not with normal soldiers. I've seen illustrations from the 14th century where they're shown (such as this one: http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-yb5J0NUtKlg/VnHE_QBV3uI/AAAAAAAAHUw/ImQOdxb0IbU/s1600/shields_40.jpg). Matt Easton has also confirmed they "never really went away".

I wouldn't be surprised if one could send a lead ball through a shield, but I'm curious how much energy it would have after doing so (whether it would still be lethal to a common soldier).

So it is difficult to create a hard and fast rule for "what will safe you from a bullet"

Stopping/deflecting a bullet is a complex mathematical equation in which, type of material, angle of impact, thickness of material, distance of travel from shooter, weight to bullet, quantity of powder behind bullet, shape of bullet, quality of powder behind bullet, amount of give in the impact area, exact weather conditions, and several other factors are all variables.

Historically, bullets have been stopped or deflected by a significant number of improbable things, and have and have at times failed to be stopped by things designed to stop them. It's less a question of exactly what "Will" stop a bullet and more a question of what improves your odds and how lucky you are at any given point.

Suffice to say. A foot soldier with a shield between him and the bullet has a better chance than one that does not, but without having information on quite a few more variables than just the presence or non presence of a shield, it would be impossible to comment on to what degree.

It is entirely possible that say, a foot soldier wearing a cheap munition's breastplate, which would not on its own stop a bullet, might survive if the bullet first hit his shield, expended energy going through it, and then impacted his armor at a less than ideal angle. It is also entirely reasonable to say that it wouldn't make enough of a difference.

[Clistenes]

It went out of fashion with men-at-arms (they usually went with heater shields or nothing at all), but not with normal soldiers. I've seen illustrations from the 14th century where they're shown (such as this one: http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-yb5J0NUtKlg/VnHE_QBV3uI/AAAAAAAAHUw/ImQOdxb0IbU/s1600/shields_40.jpg). Matt Easton has also confirmed they "never really went away".

I wouldn't be surprised if one could send a lead ball through a shield, but I'm curious how much energy it would have after doing so (whether it would still be lethal to a common soldier).

I dunno... that shield is the type with a flat upper side, not a tear-shaped one... at what point does a shield stop being a kite shield and becomes a heather shield...?

[fusilier]

Maybe melee weapons, including the bayonet, gain more psychological effect as they become more rare?

They may have had more of a psychological effect among different groups at different times. I heard that during WW2, Germans would get nervous if they saw *Americans* fixing bayonets, because Americans did so very, very rarely at that time, it was a signal they meant serious business.

Americans generally seem to have been less likely to fix bayonets than their European counterparts throughout history. During the American Civil War, if you saw the enemy approaching with fixed bayonets, you knew they at least *intended* to charge, rather than simply advancing to exchange close range volleys (intentions didn't always carry through, of course). At the same time, European infantry would have entered battle with bayonets fixed.

[VoxRationis]

How does the seating arrangement in a modern tank (say, an Abrams) work? Are some of the crew members rotating as the turret traverses?

[Brother Oni]

How does the seating arrangement in a modern tank (say, an Abrams) work? Are some of the crew members rotating as the turret traverses?

For most modern MBTs, all the crew except for the driver are in sort of a hanging basket attached to the turret, so they rotate with the turret.

For the Challenger 2, the driver is lying almost prone in front of the tank:

https://i.imgur.com/NC5Pwxw.jpg

The Abrams is much the same, but I believe the driver isn't as prone.

[Martin Greywolf]

Re: knights and training. This kind of harkens to the heart of my earlier question. Just how much did that knight train, within the understandable variance? For comparison, a good CQB training path includes 1-2 weeks of “just shooting and other personal skills”, followed by 3-4 weeks of escalating unit sized shoot houses and scenarios. The preponderance of the time and resourcing is spent on the unit (even if it’s just a fire team) rather than the individual skill. How that stacks against a knight, a legionnaire, a redcoat, that’s the interesting bit of the question...

If you have someone like Fiore, or a member of a fencing guild that makes a living teaching fighting, they train several hours each day, with some exceptions when travelling or some such, for theit entire lives.

A more standard knight or noble, who spends a lot of time on politicking, administrative duties and so on will probably clock in at something like an hour a day? It really depends on circumstances, if he's travelling as part of king's retinue, it may be that little or even less, if he's assigned to a castle it will probably be more. A lot of this training will be hunting or mock unofficial tournaments and melees - problem is, no one recorded what they looked like, exactly, so we have very little data to go on.

Our best guess is "less that Fiore or Lichtenauer".

As for how long, well, their entire lives. They start at ~15 and never really stop, but the training is less intensive than modern courses. Many knights elected to travel around Europe for a year or a few to learn from foreign (not only) fighting styles, if they had the funds and the time.

I think it's fair to say a knight would be, at a minimum, at a level of an amateur boxer who takes his hobby pretty seriously.


It went out of fashion with men-at-arms (they usually went with heater shields or nothing at all), but not with normal soldiers. I've seen illustrations from the 14th century where they're shown (such as this one: http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-yb5J0NUtKlg/VnHE_QBV3uI/AAAAAAAAHUw/ImQOdxb0IbU/s1600/shields_40.jpg). Matt Easton has also confirmed they "never really went away".

You do see them as long as you see shields, but they also become far, far less common after ~1300 AD, and disappear from some roles entirely.


Shields generally aren’t designed to prevent punch through, with the exception of pavises. They are much lighter than most modern people suppose.
The Sheer amount of material to cut through blocks cuts. Thrusts are protected against by diverting the thrust away. Obviously I’m casting a very wide net and there will be plenty of examples do things differently, one obvious exception being the jousting shield..

There are different types of shields within the same shape, meant to do different things. Even looking at viking round shields, some of them are very light and thin, others are much thicker. Some shields aren't meant to absorb ranged shots from front, others very much are. After all, a high poundage warbow can shoot clean through a standard kite shield and your mailed hand behind it. Let's also not forget that the above doesn't apply to large shields like kite and Roman, whose arguably main purpose was stopping missiles.

Pavaises also have handheld forms, some can be carried and others can't, pavaise is more about the shape of the shield, rather than the purpose for which it is made. As it is with all shield terminology, actually.

Then there were gun shields which were shields with integrated gun - they didn't work in practice because they were too heavy to use the gun properly with one hand.

And then there's this German 16th century bullet proof shield, complete with proofing mark and a hole from a bullet that almost made it through.

https://c8.alamy.com/comp/T9RD6K/a-german-bullet-proof-circular-shield-rondache-end-of-the-16th-century-heavy-slightly-domed-shield-forged-in-one-piece-with-a-turned-edge-original-lining-and-grip-rivets-with-partly-preserved-brass-ornamental-discs-carved-in-the-shape-of-flowers-on-the-back-preserved-remnants-of-the-decorative-fringe-and-a-fragment-of-the-leather-lining-shot-strike-mark-and-a-further-bullet-hole-that-has-almost-fully-penetrated-the-shield-diameter-565-cm-historic-historical-additional-rights-clearance-info-not-available-T9RD6K.jpg
https://c8.alamy.com/comp/T9RD6N/a-german-bullet-proof-circular-shield-rondache-end-of-the-16th-century-heavy-slightly-domed-shield-forged-in-one-piece-with-a-turned-edge-original-lining-and-grip-rivets-with-partly-preserved-brass-ornamental-discs-carved-in-the-shape-of-flowers-on-the-back-preserved-remnants-of-the-decorative-fringe-and-a-fragment-of-the-leather-lining-shot-strike-mark-and-a-further-bullet-hole-that-has-almost-fully-penetrated-the-shield-diameter-565-cm-historic-historical-additional-rights-clearance-info-not-available-T9RD6N.jpg

So, you can make a shield bulletproof against black powder weapons, especially inefficient black powder weapons. Or even against modern weapons.

But there will be drawbacks in cost (hardened steel instead of mild) or weight that you can't really avoid, and the latter especially limits how big you can make them while still being practical. And no matter what you do, a cannonball will kill you dead, shield or no shield. In general, it seems that once gunpowder weapons got popular, the preferred solution wasn't to get shields that were bulletproof, but rather to get more guys with firearms - which is reasonable once you realize that a shield can't cover all of you and repeated impacts are a problem.

[KineticDiplomat]

Re: tanks.

There are two basic configurations, and one that is prototyping.

The one it sound like you’re interested in is the standard 4 man crew, common to western MBTs.

They run a driver separate in the hull, laying down in either a seat, or in most modern conversions, a blast hammock to improve survivability. While doing this the driver is reliant on his vision blocks (or, in a few cases, digital cameras feeding screens). For night time, he slots in appropriate thermals/light enhancement to the block. All of this comes at a price in overall awareness.

For easier driving, the driver can crank his seat up and drive with his head out of the hatch - not a great idea if contact is possible, but it certainly makes life easier and saves crew fatigue (the commander and loader don’t have to feed the driver awareness). Most modern tanks won’t allow you to traverse the turret in this configuration to avoid ripping his head off. They do have a commanders override though...

The turret is a three man set up, with the the center being dominated by the breach of the gun. It’s actually mostly open space until recoil, at which point it will shatter the bones of anyone caught in that space. Safety gates can be set up, and indeed will be in any live training event -informally, combat decisions may vary.

The loader has a seat that does double duty as a standing point for when he is riding out of the hatch. He has a comparatively spacious side of the tank to himself, framed by the radios (he doubles as the RTO for the vehicle beyond the pre-set channels everyone can toggle) and the ready rack storage doors behind him. When actually loading the gun he almost always just stands up on the floor of the turret to do it for better position, then gets back out of the way of the breech.

Standing, the loader is behind a machine gun on his side of the turret (and famously needs to remember not to shoot the barrel by mistake) covering his side of the tank and taking over junior TC duties. It is not uncommon for junior NCOs being groomed for the TC position to spend a lot of time in the loader position even though it’s actually manned by a very new soldier. He learns to direct the driver, manipulate the radio, and get a feel for what’s happening outside the tank. He is also way less likely to direct the driver into a ditch while the TC looks at a map, a screen, etc. Extra officers (an A/S3 for instance) may also grab the loader slot if moving with the tank, as it gives them radios and visibility while not demanding much technical proficiency.

Then we go to the other side of the turret. The tank commander has a seat/standing stool mix that allows him to either stand out of the turret for visibility and to man the commanders machine gun (older and the newest models can/must operate from inside)

When he drops down, he’ll have an array of control panels on the turret wall, as well as any additional computers the tank is carrying, a master control handle for the gun (or independent viewer), and an optics extension to let him look through the sights. He is staggered with the gunner, so sitting down will put the gunners head between his legs. Comedy ensues. Sat down he is reliant on vision blocks and optics, so many TCs prefer to leave the hatch in at least open-protected unless they absolutely have to button up completely.

And the we come to the poor cramped gunner. He is on line with the TC seat but lower, the breech to his side and a diverse array of fire control computers, screens, and switches for gun options on the turret wall to his front and side, and of course the primary optic extension, back up sight, coax mount, and hand cranks for the turret. Easily the most cramped position on the tank, and no standing up - the sight doubles as a convenient brow rest for napping.

As a final caveat, by spinning the turret on some tanks, you can open a narrow access between the turret and the driver. Theoretically for pulling the driver out when evacuation by his hatch is impractical, it’s say to day use is allowing the turret crew to poke the driver with a stick if he falls asleep or his commo helmet disconnects without him noticing.

[Martin Greywolf]

Since the topic of ancient steam power keeps cropping up here every so often, here (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ga36q3vHncM)'s a useful video done on development of naval steam engines. If nothing else, it showcases why doing this is Not Easy and why having a steam engine doesn't mean it's suited for uses on warships.

[fusilier]

Since the topic of ancient steam power keeps cropping up here every so often, here (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ga36q3vHncM)'s a useful video done on development of naval steam engines. If nothing else, it showcases why doing this is Not Easy and why having a steam engine doesn't mean it's suited for uses on warships.

That video is a very nice overview of the development of marine engines (from roughly 1800-1950). Thank you for sharing.

[Tacticslion]

Awkwardly copying and pasting this whole thing, since I was informed that it should probably go in this thread, rather than the thread that I started for it. Sorry!

So, I've asked several other places, and figure I might as well ask here. I'm putting this thread here because, though I'm hoping to use some of the ideas in games, it's not really for any given system, and applies more broadly to history in general.

So, my fellow history nerds, I'm looking for nautical quasi-experts to yammer at me so that I get an idea for boats able to be crafted with Hellenic skills c. 600 to 500 BC - obviously triremes, of course, but I'm specifically asking, "What is a boat (including triremes) that could have conceivably been used at the time, possibly even in war, even though it wasn't?" For example, why didn't they build ships akin to longships? It seems obvious that longships wouldn't do well in direct combat with triremes (as the latter could simply crush the former from sheer weight), but were they in use in the Mediterranean at all c. 550? If not, why not? Similarly, what were the far eastern peoples (most specifically those of India and China - though I beleeeiiiiiiiive India was still being slowly consolidated and the Zhou dynasty was pretty firmly eastern China)?

Basically, I'm asking about possible methods of nautical revolution, if it's even possible, under those conditions and if, when, and how such a thing might happen.

I'm pretty excited to see any feedback folks have, because navel history is nooooooot my forte, and it really is a fascinating subject. Any links that can be provided are, of course, welcome.

Also, it's a given that people of the ancient world were very intelligent (and certainly knew more about the subject than I do!); but different peoples had differing ships and different designs and uses and similar all at the same time period, so I'm curious why some developed in one place and not others. The triremes, for example, were uniquely Mediterranean, while the ancient Chinese and Indians had their own thing going on, to say nothing of the ancient South Sea and Pacific peoples. While a longship wouldn't fare well against a trireme, would it fare well against a the Mediterranean lembos or even the hemiolia and how do those differ (if they do)? I'm not even sure how the lembos or hemiolia were used (if they were) in combat when the triremes were on the field, simply because the triremes were so incredibly massive with literal armies aboard each it's hard to even think about comparisons.

Anyway, thanks! :D

[Tacticslion]

I was previously on talk-type, and this is an after-the-fact clean up, so apologies for any oddities from auto correct and things missed by me!

I also felt like I should clarify that in addition to just general seaworthiness and boat making stuff across-the-board, I’m also curious about how combat tactics in general might interact with each other from other local seafaring cultures. The primary interaction for triremes was to hit the other ship real hard and hope that was enough, and if not, your men went and stab their men. I would tend to expect this is the general method of naval combat, also adding archers at times, or something, but, again, I am really not familiar with naval warfare in this time period.

Edit: Talk-type is often not my friend. XD

[VoxRationis]

You seem to have a very high estimation of the size and mass of a trireme. They wouldn't have "literal armies" on them; a crew of 170 rowers was used for the reconstruction Olympias, and having a complement of marines even close to that would, if it didn't capsize the ship, probably immobilize it. You might be thinking of some of the larger polyremes.

[Khedrac]

boats able to be crafted with Hellenic skills c. 600 to 500 BC

I believe the Egyptians were constructing large reed-boats prior to this time, even if the techniques hadn't made it over to Greece. Thor Heyerdahl's expeditions showed that they could have worked quite well with a few caveats:
1. Cut the reeds in August or they will float under the water not on it.
2. "Large" here probably equals up to 10 crew with room for a cargo or more men.
3. Although sails will provide some control, the boat will be very much at the mercy of ocean currents.

[Pauly]

The design of a ship is heavily dependent on where it is designed to go.

In a shallow enclosed sea, such as the med, broad shallow designs work. In rough oceans deeper narrower designs work.

Harbor facilities are also important. Does the ship have to be beached to load/unload? Are there deep water docks readily available?

Navigation is another important consideration. In the Odyssey Odysseus spends 10 years mucking about in the Western Med before finding his way hime. Polynesians were able to conquer the Pacific in outrigger canoes and a bit of nouse.

[DavidSh]

To be fair to Odysseus, seven of those ten years he spent with Calypso.

[Martin Greywolf]

"What is a boat (including triremes) that could have conceivably been used at the time, possibly even in war, even though it wasn't?"

The answer is, almost none. All kinds of ships were used in the Med at this time, and about the only exceptions to this are ocean-sailing ships. These could be constructed, concievably, and weren't because there wasn't much incentive to do so. Much of the age of sail has been inspired by colonial expansion, and ancient and medieval kingdoms in the area didn't have the desire to expand in this way, for a host of reasons.

If you give them some reason to really try to get to Americas - in real life, it was finding trade route to India - they will develop these over time.


For example, why didn't they build ships akin to longships? It seems obvious that longships wouldn't do well in direct combat with triremes (as the latter could simply crush the former from sheer weight), but were they in use in the Mediterranean at all c. 550? If not, why not?

Well, first problem is, what are you building them for? The scandinavian longships were meant for quick plundering raids, if you have a culture that doesn't value those all that much, they have less reason to build them.

The other reason is that, well, they did build ships that were longship-like, shields on the sides included.

https://www.naval-encyclopedia.com/images/divers/antiques/lemboi_illyrien.gif

I could write more, but I'd just be paraphrasing this link (https://www.naval-encyclopedia.com/goodies-naval-encyclopedia/antique-ships/hellenistic-ships/).


Similarly, what were the far eastern peoples (most specifically those of India and China - though I beleeeiiiiiiiive India was still being slowly consolidated and the Zhou dynasty was pretty firmly eastern China)?

Usually, they did, much like Lamboi was a greek longship. Thing is, it's the Norse that are weird in that they had longships and little else, while others had longships for specialized tasks and also other, bigger warships. As for specifics of Asian ship design, remember that they don't get the advantage of having a relatively calm and easy to navigate sea like the Med, almost entirely enclosed from all the oceans.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/80/Songrivership3.jpg

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5e/TurtleShip1795.jpg



Basically, I'm asking about possible methods of nautical revolution, if it's even possible, under those conditions and if, when, and how such a thing might happen.

You need some form of major upheval to status quo, that either wrecks the old ways or opens up new opportunities you have to jump on, as a nation, lest you are left behind.

The issue is that ship design is hideously expensive. I don't think there is any other object that even comes close to the cost of a warship, both in terms of designing and building it and maintenance and crew training and pay. Even castles are cheaper, because they tend to not sink or get damaged in storms much.

With that in mind, unless there is a massive payoff in resources or prestige on the horizon, no one will invest into building ships.

The one exception to this would be some kind of setting that is entirely island-based, where entire national economies would be driven to near collapse to maintain fleets, because they need them to stave off existential threats.

For comparision, when the Dutch wrecked British fleets at Medway in Second Anglo-Dutch war, the cost for the Royal Navy in terms of purchasing power was something over 6 billion pounds in modern money. Granted, yearly modern UK navy budget is 40 bil (with army getting 20, because ships are still incredibly costly), but that is still a significant chunk of it.



Also, it's a given that people of the ancient world were very intelligent (and certainly knew more about the subject than I do!); but different peoples had differing ships and different designs and uses and similar all at the same time period, so I'm curious why some developed in one place and not others. The triremes, for example, were uniquely Mediterranean, while the ancient Chinese and Indians had their own thing going on, to say nothing of the ancient South Sea and Pacific peoples. While a longship wouldn't fare well against a trireme, would it fare well against a the Mediterranean lembos or even the hemiolia and how do those differ (if they do)? I'm not even sure how the lembos or hemiolia were used (if they were) in combat when the triremes were on the field, simply because the triremes were so incredibly massive with literal armies aboard each it's hard to even think about comparisons.


This is like asking "Explain 20th century in three sentences." The quick and dirty version is that once you ignore the mostly superficial details, you have a few distinct ship types, meant for different tasks, with different levels of seakeeping and resistance to bad weather.

Triremes specifically, and their medieval descendants, are a specific case of a large ship that carries a lot of troops and can manuevre quickly. It does that very well, but is absolutely awful at endurance of any kind, be it in rowing or in provisions. Longship is a light vessel that can move quickly, whether by oar or sail, and outpace and outturn pretty much anything, ideal for quick raids of merchant vessels or poorly defended coasts, but is awful for fighting anything in it. A merchant vessel sacrifices crew numbers and as much agility as it can to maximize cargo space and endurance.

[VoxRationis]

Navigation is another important consideration. In the Odyssey Odysseus spends 10 years mucking about in the Western Med before finding his way hime. Polynesians were able to conquer the Pacific in outrigger canoes and a bit of nouse.


To be fair to Odysseus, seven of those ten years he spent with Calypso.

Yeah, the ten-year Odyssey is rather like the Biblical 40 years of wandering between Egypt and the Levant. They're meant to be larger-than-life tales of deprivation, not realistic expected travel times for those journeys at any point in human history. There are lots of routes one can take between Ilium and Ithaca, and none of them should take even a month in a penteconter (in good weather). Remember that all of Odysseus' "friends" made it back home before he did to start pestering Penelope, and though they were heinous guests, their point that someone who was ten years late returning home probably wasn't ever going to return was pretty valid.


Well, first problem is, what are you building them for? The scandinavian longships were meant for quick plundering raids, if you have a culture that doesn't value those all that much, they have less reason to build them.

And conversely, building ramming ships implies that your society is engaging in conflicts where it makes sense to sink ships in fights on the water, rather than capture them through boarding actions or simply use one's own ships to transport to the site of a land battle.


If you're looking for reading on the subject of ancient galleys, I would recommend this source (http://www.ancientportsantiques.com/wp-content/uploads/Documents/AUTHORS/Rankov2012-TriremeOlympia.pdf); it's a series of reports on the subject of the reconstructed Olympias (including some critiques and divergence of opinion; I would take Tilley's essay with a grain of salt, as he appears to have an... idiosyncratic idea of how we should interpret the numbering system), getting into the nitty-gritty of all sorts of technical details as well as analyzing historical sources.

[Tacticslion]

You seem to have a very high estimation of the size and mass of a trireme. They wouldn't have "literal armies" on them; a crew of 170 rowers was used for the reconstruction Olympias, and having a complement of marines even close to that would, if it didn't capsize the ship, probably immobilize it. You might be thinking of some of the larger polyremes.

Hey! A hundred seventy dudes is a literal army... of rowers!
I could definitely have worded that better, however! XD

Mostly I'm just pointing out they had ludicrously large numbers of people on them (people they were dependent upon to do stuff), plus be built explicitly for ramming (and their mass is increased by that bronze ram in front).

The larger polyremes were simply too large to use ramming maneuvers on (or, at least, they got that way: ramming the ship really wasn't the way to win a battle after the triremes), but they didn't come online until the 300s or later, if I'm not mistaken, a little beyond my 600 to 500 BC: a time period in which, again to my limited knowledge, had only the karvi, smallest versions of the longship available, with c. 16 benches, making the triremes seemingly simply significantly out-mass them without effort. Of course, I could be wrong on that - perhaps triremes were even more crowded than I realize or longships were roomier. But 170+20+6=196 (I think?) seems a heck'v'a lot more than ~32.

I think it's 75 ft. by 11 ft. compared to 130 ft. by 20 ft. That's just shy of double in both dimensions, and I'd be unsurprised if the heavier warship, loaded with tons of dudes (highly exacting mathematical figures, here), also road deeper in the water with higher sides.

But the fact is, I honestly don't know about how the Mediterranean ships of smaller size really functioned (heck, I don't understand how the ones of bigger size function!). Speaking of which...


The design of a ship is heavily dependent on where it is designed to go.

In a shallow enclosed sea, such as the med, broad shallow designs work. In rough oceans deeper narrower designs work.

Harbor facilities are also important. Does the ship have to be beached to load/unload? Are there deep water docks readily available?

Navigation is another important consideration. In the Odyssey Odysseus spends 10 years mucking about in the Western Med before finding his way hime. Polynesians were able to conquer the Pacific in outrigger canoes and a bit of nouse.

... this is more or less what I was talking about when I was asking about the comparison of, say, a lemboi to a longship. What are their comparative goals? How are they designed similarly or differently? What's the comparison? A great emphasis is often put on how great the longship design was, but is it just because they're pretty, because they last long, or is there some significant mechanical advantage they have?

As to,


This is like asking "Explain 20th century in three sentences."

Hey! I said, "Yammer on at length!" I mean, it's right there! "At length!" XD

I know that ships are built differently for differently, but that's part of what I'm asking (and even why I was asking if the longship actually compared to the lemboi in any way, which it seems they do based on your acknowledgement of them later).

I'd be interested in going more into the stuff you posted, but alas: I have children and probably have to stop now.


I believe the Egyptians were constructing large reed-boats prior to this time, even if the techniques hadn't made it over to Greece. Thor Heyerdahl's expeditions showed that they could have worked quite well with a few caveats:
1. Cut the reeds in August or they will float under the water not on it.
2. "Large" here probably equals up to 10 crew with room for a cargo or more men.
3. Although sails will provide some control, the boat will be very much at the mercy of ocean currents.

... okay, not really a Mediterranean ship, but still: I was informed elsewhere that the dhow, odam, and another woven ship of an unknown type were active in the middle and far easts at this time, and were all "woven" boats with no pitch, which is... something that I really don't know about. How does one craft a watertight vessel without pitch? What were they woven from?

I know nothing of odams except they're an Indian woven boat of some sort (though vague picture searches might suggest they're a circular small boat? Possibly akin in size to a coracle? But I really don't know), and I was under the impression that dhow were seaworthy ships that allowed cargo transfer, which likely means good steering. (I kind of thought dhow were a later stage, but I seem to have had literally everything wrong about them so far, so...)

Anyway. I gotta go! Later and thank you all for your responses so far!

[fusilier]

... this is more or less what I was talking about when I was asking about the comparison of, say, a lemboi to a longship. What are their comparative goals? How are they designed similarly or differently? What's the comparison? A great emphasis is often put on how great the longship design was, but is it just because they're pretty, because they last long, or is there some significant mechanical advantage they have?

This is definitely outside of my bailiwick, but one area I would look to would be construction techniques and what limitations those might have imposed. My understanding is that ancient mediterranean vessels were made using a mortise and tenon technique, which involved building the hull first, then adding a frame. Lapstrake (or clinker) construction might have been developed a little later than the period you are interested in, but I believe that's the construction technique used by viking longships. Carvel built, where the frame was built first and then the hull built with flush planking, was a development of the middle ages.

As others have mentioned, there were different designs for different purposes. A bulk cargo ship might have a rounder hull to efficiently carry as much cargo as possible. A warship would be built narrow for speed. There would be ships that lie in between, trying to balance competing goals.

[Calthropstu]

I came across an unholy abomination called a lantern shield. How the hell did someone defend against that?

[Martin Greywolf]

Yeah, the ten-year Odyssey is rather like the Biblical 40 years of wandering between Egypt and the Levant. They're meant to be larger-than-life tales of deprivation, not realistic expected travel times for those journeys at any point in human history. There are lots of routes one can take between Ilium and Ithaca, and none of them should take even a month in a penteconter (in good weather). Remember that all of Odysseus' "friends" made it back home before he did to start pestering Penelope, and though they were heinous guests, their point that someone who was ten years late returning home probably wasn't ever going to return was pretty valid.

Let's also not forget that the whole premise of that journey is Odysseus really, really ticking off Poseidon. The sea god. The god of the seas. While planning to sail on sad seas. Seas that belong to the sea god.


I came across an unholy abomination called a lantern shield. How the hell did someone defend against that?

Fairly easily. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mGnqhj3qx-A) (links to a sparring video on YT, not mine)

While it isn't completely useless, it tries to combine a sword/dagger with a shield and a lantern, and therefore suffers the drawbacks of all three. It's significantly less agile than a sword/dagger OR a shield, it has to be strapped to your arm, if you use it to attack, you can't use it to defend and if you have a lit lantern in there, you better pray to all the gods you know the oil doesn't spill and ignite all over you.

It's preferable to a parrying dagger when facing a halberd, but pretty much anything is at that point. The best use is probably if you absolutely, positively must storm into a dark room (whether at noght or underground), then it can serve as source of light, tool for blinding opponents and keeps your off hand useful in a fight. Pretty small niche overall, but it exists.

The lantern shields were unpopular enough that you sometimes, albeit rarely, see... just... a lantern in off hand, used kinda like a shield. Making it a shielding lantern? It is used to blind people, though.

https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-JEjb0O1lsUc/VtYKP4neiRI/AAAAAAAAIN8/k5C8pLETzVA/s640/marcelli_rapier_and_lantern_1.jpg

[Yora]

Not actually a weapon, but in the same manufacturing sector:

Does anyone know when the modern pickaxe first appeared in its current shape? Those are long and thin pieces of steel that are made to endure a lot of abuse. I think this would require some pretty high quality steel, but as a digging tool also would have to be quite cheap. So I am wondering if these have been around before the industrial revolution, and what people would have used to break hard compacted dirt before.

[AdAstra]

Not actually a weapon, but in the same manufacturing sector:

Does anyone know when the modern pickaxe first appeared in its current shape? Those are long and thin pieces of steel that are made to endure a lot of abuse. I think this would require some pretty high quality steel, but as a digging tool also would have to be quite cheap. So I am wondering if these have been around before the industrial revolution, and what people would have used to break hard compacted dirt before.

Uh, define current shape. Because people have been using points at right angles to shafts since basically forever. You can make a crude pickaxe-like tool out of an antler without much trouble, which should be sufficient for dirt. Adzes, mattocks, and hoes would also be used for manipulating dirt, being especially useful for digging out furrows for planting, clearing undergrowth, or digging out things you don't want in the dirt. All are incredibly ancient tools. Even the plow is about as old as things get, and the hand tools are older.

Simplest of all is the digging stick. Literally just a sturdy, sharpened stick, useable for most agricultural digging tasks. Still used in many places.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digging_stick

People have had to dig since before we even learned to farm. A lot of gathered food or hunted critters lived underground, so tools to do it predate, a lot.

[Pauly]

I came across an unholy abomination called a lantern shield. How the hell did someone defend against that?

Slightly off topic, but something like this

https://youtu.be/rXAOXa-ayKE

My, albeit limited, understanding is that shield lanterns were for the city guards apprehending criminals at night, not serious warfare.

[Pauly]

Let's also not forget that the whole premise of that journey is Odysseus really, really ticking off Poseidon. The sea god. The god of the seas. While planning to sail on sad seas. Seas that belong to the sea god.

][/SPOILER]

To come full circle though, the Illiad and the Odyssey use the gods to explain phenomena that the Greeks of the time didn’t have the science to explain.
Flash floods caused by distant rain in the catchment head of a river? - The River god rose up and left it banks.
Morale failure in battle? - The opposing God came down and caused the enemy to run away.
Armor suddenly failing catastrophically because of inclusions in the metal? - A god broke the shield.
Storms at sea caused by a low pressure system moving into your local area? You p-ed off Poseidon.
Unmarried maiden falls pregnant? Zeus is up to his shenanigans while Hera had her back turned.
You suck at Navigation and don’t know how to tack against the wind? - The gods of winds and clouds conspired against you

[Vknight]

I'm been thinking about how people would apply titanium to usage on the battlefield if they had access to it.

[Max_Killjoy]

I'm been thinking about how people would apply titanium to usage on the battlefield if they had access to it.

What time period and other technology level are we looking at?

Titanium doesn't hold an edge, so not great for blades.

Not very dense, so not great for impact weapons.

I's strength per weight is good, and its corrosion resistant, so the right alloy might be good for armor.

[Calthropstu]

What time period and other technology level are we looking at?

Titanium doesn't hold an edge, so not great for blades.

Not very dense, so not great for impact weapons.

I's strength per weight is good, and its corrosion resistant, so the right alloy might be good for armor.

Good for armor? Try amazing for armor. They created a titanium breastplate. It stopped hollow point bullets at short range. But did redirect the splattered bullet upwards so you needed to protect the neck and head.

[Martin Greywolf]

Well, with modern metallurgy and plastics and non-newtonian fluids, you might get some limited use out of armor. Problem is, that low weight is actually pretty bad for making you not hurt purposes.

While a titanium helmet or cuirass may well stop penetration, the other way of hurting a guy in armor, short of stabbing him where armor is not, is blunt force. Contrary to pupular belief, and according to an often misquoted study (Fragment Hazard Criteria by Feinstein, available online for free), it isn't the kinetic energy that matters when it comes to blunt injuries, but rather momentum. Or, more precisely, a linear relationship between velocity and mass that is slanted in favor of velocity, but not to a point where it is exponential.

Long story short, if you take a projectile and take its p = m*v, then bigger p means more hurt.

However, when that projectile hits armor and does not go through, it will (in ideal circumstances) transfer all of its p to the target. If you are wearing rigid armor, like a helmet, it means it needs to move either the entire plate, or the bit of it which it deforms. Assuming former, your standard great helmet (which is Bolzano helmet replica I own) weights 5 kg (with helmet 3 kg, coif and crevelliere 2kg).

Take your average slinger, with a 100 gram anti-armor rock, slinging it at 50 m/s. This gives it a p=5 kg/m/s, which means that should it impact that helmet, it will move it, conveniently, at 1 m/s, or 3.6 km/h. This is an impact that is comparable to walking into a doorframe with the helmet on, something which, uh, I may have done in the past.

Reduce the helmet weight by half, and you get over 7 km/h speed, which is more like jogging into a doorframe with your forehead, which while not fatal, will almost assuredly knock you on your butt. Take an elite slinger that can sling at close to 100 m/s, or take a much heavier pollaxe (3 kg) moving at ~30 m/s overhand twohanded blow, and you really, really need every bit of that weight not to get a nasty hit.

That said, titanium armor would be great against arrows that have lower weight and primarily rely on penetration to do their damage.

Or you could make it titanium but thicker, but at that point, why bother? Maybe heat resistance for that dragon breath?

[Grim Portent]

You could probably use titanium for specific pieces of armour that are more likely to take a glancing hit, or almost never be hit, while using steel for helmets, pauldrons and breastplates and so on. It won't save much weight overall, but even a small reduction in weight can be desirable.

[halfeye]

Well, with modern metallurgy and plastics and non-newtonian fluids, you might get some limited use out of armor. Problem is, that low weight is actually pretty bad for making you not hurt purposes.

While a titanium helmet or cuirass may well stop penetration, the other way of hurting a guy in armor, short of stabbing him where armor is not, is blunt force. Contrary to pupular belief, and according to an often misquoted study (Fragment Hazard Criteria by Feinstein, available online for free), it isn't the kinetic energy that matters when it comes to blunt injuries, but rather momentum. Or, more precisely, a linear relationship between velocity and mass that is slanted in favor of velocity, but not to a point where it is exponential.

Long story short, if you take a projectile and take its p = m*v, then bigger p means more hurt.

However, when that projectile hits armor and does not go through, it will (in ideal circumstances) transfer all of its p to the target. If you are wearing rigid armor, like a helmet, it means it needs to move either the entire plate, or the bit of it which it deforms. Assuming former, your standard great helmet (which is Bolzano helmet replica I own) weights 5 kg (with helmet 3 kg, coif and crevelliere 2kg).

Take your average slinger, with a 100 gram anti-armor rock, slinging it at 50 m/s. This gives it a p=5 kg/m/s, which means that should it impact that helmet, it will move it, conveniently, at 1 m/s, or 3.6 km/h. This is an impact that is comparable to walking into a doorframe with the helmet on, something which, uh, I may have done in the past.

Reduce the helmet weight by half, and you get over 7 km/h speed, which is more like jogging into a doorframe with your forehead, which while not fatal, will almost assuredly knock you on your butt. Take an elite slinger that can sling at close to 100 m/s, or take a much heavier pollaxe (3 kg) moving at ~30 m/s overhand twohanded blow, and you really, really need every bit of that weight not to get a nasty hit.

That said, titanium armor would be great against arrows that have lower weight and primarily rely on penetration to do their damage.

Or you could make it titanium but thicker, but at that point, why bother? Maybe heat resistance for that dragon breath?

I suspect you are oversimplifying the maths here. I am terrible at maths, so I'm not going to try to explain that, but it comes down to you can take an impact as a collision, and collisions are known in physics.

There are two sorts of collisions, elastic and inelastic (not elastic). In an elastic collision, all of the energy that came into the collision as velocity leaves the collision as velocity, but that doesn't mean that it leaves with the object that it came in with, ke is maintained, but so is momentum, there are equations for both, and to solve for what happens you have to find the one solution where both equations work.

What actually works in elastic collisions is that most of the energy leaves with the lighter particle, in some function (which I don't remember) of the ratio of the two masses. This has the effect that almost all of the energy in a cartridge leaves a gun with the bullet, and the bigger the difference in mass between the gun and the bullet, the less kick there is, a lighter gun with the same cartridge will kick more (not allowing for muzzle brakes, suppressors or other complications). So, your case of the weapon bouncing off and lighter armour being worse is probably rightish, but it is not quite that simple, and you do have to know the mass of the projectile, a smaller lighter projectile with the same ke would take more of that ke away again.

Inelastic collisions are much messier, in most aspects of thinking about that.

[Mike_G]

Armor that is lighter reduces fatigue, and if it's good against points and edges, that isn't nothing. It's probably perfect for mail.

[Max_Killjoy]

Armor that is lighter reduces fatigue, and if it's good against points and edges, that isn't nothing. It's probably perfect for mail.

I was also thinking that corrosion resistance counts for something.

[Mike_G]

I was also thinking that corrosion resistance counts for something.

Agreed.

It might be great marine armor.

[Calthropstu]

The bullets not only failed to penetrate, they didn't even scratch or dent. This was from a 45 too. Assuming some serious padding underneath to absorb shock, or other methods for redirecting the force, you could withstand hundreds of bullets. All of this was part of an attempt to turn Iron Man from science fiction to science fact. They apparently succeeded pretty well.

Finding the best method for kinetic dispersement is definitely beyond my capabilities, but I see no reason that a full suit of "bullets can't hurt me" can't be made using titanium.

[Brother Oni]

The bullets not only failed to penetrate, they didn't even scratch or dent. This was from a 45 too.

.45 ACP is a pistol round which any Level IIa vest can stop - that's honestly not particularly impressive. If it can stop full rifle rounds, then yeah it starts looking practical.


Assuming some serious padding underneath to absorb shock, or other methods for redirecting the force, you could withstand hundreds of bullets. All of this was part of an attempt to turn Iron Man from science fiction to science fact. They apparently succeeded pretty well.

You mean this link (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rB6L6AsBT8)? Being immune to pistol fire is fine for civilian purposes, but kinda insufficient in a military setting, especially since Iron Man flying in would probably trigger CIWS or other AA defences and they all use much bigger munitions than .45 ACP.

[stack]

Good for armor? Try amazing for armor. They created a titanium breastplate. It stopped hollow point bullets at short range. But did redirect the splattered bullet upwards so you needed to protect the neck and head.

Important thing I note in this statement: "hollowpoint".

Hollow points are designed to deform. They are not good for penetrating a hard surface. Stopping a full metal jacket would be more impressive. Besides, pistol rounds are wide and round, relatively speaking. Less powder, shorter barrel. Much easier to stop than a rifle or intermediate cartridge. Lack of deformation on a rigid plate is impressive though.

[Calthropstu]

.45 ACP is a pistol round which any Level IIa vest can stop - that's honestly not particularly impressive. If it can stop full rifle rounds, then yeah it starts looking practical.



You mean this link (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rB6L6AsBT8)? Being immune to pistol fire is fine for civilian purposes, but kinda insufficient in a military setting, especially since Iron Man flying in would probably trigger CIWS or other AA defences and they all use much bigger munitions than .45 ACP.

Yes that was the link I saw. I would like to see that thing go up against some military hardware.

And, to be honest, at some point, I see no reason to even put a man in the suit. Remote control should do fine. Maybe even better.

[Pauly]

I was also thinking that corrosion resistance counts for something.

I work daily with carbon steel knives. The amount of effort you need to put in to prevent corrosion is minimal. Just make sure it is clean and dry before you put it away.

It might count where the item is stuffed in the back of a damp closet for months at a time, but for stuff that’s used regularly it’s a minimal advantage.

[Mike_G]

.45 ACP is a pistol round which any Level IIa vest can stop - that's honestly not particularly impressive. If it can stop full rifle rounds, then yeah it starts looking practical.




Yes, plenty of vests can stop pistol rounds, but there was almost no deformation of the armor in the video, so clearly it wasn't tested to the limit. I'd love to see a titanium plate in a modern plate carrier tested against rifle rounds.

[Pauly]

Yes, plenty of vests can stop pistol rounds, but there was almost no deformation of the armor in the video, so clearly it wasn't tested to the limit. I'd love to see a titanium plate in a modern plate carrier tested against rifle rounds.

Lack of visible deformation may not be a good thing. It might be an indicator of brittleness. Which is good if you aren’t getting hit by things liable to cause failure, but a very bad thing if you are getting hit by things that can cause failure.

[Mike_G]

Lack of visible deformation may not be a good thing. It might be an indicator of brittleness. Which is good if you aren’t getting hit by things liable to cause failure, but a very bad thing if you are getting hit by things that can cause failure.

Which is all speculation until we test it to the point where either

A) It fails

or

B) It stops a .50 BMG round

We know it will stop pistol rounds. We don't know it will stop rifle rounds, but that's it. We don't know it won't either.

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

[Pauly]

Which is all speculation until we test it to the point where either

A) It fails

or

B) It stops a .50 BMG round

We know it will stop pistol rounds. We don't know it will stop rifle rounds, but that's it. We don't know it won't either.

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

The fact they chose to use .45 ACP hollow points (fat subsonic rounds designed to splash) when there are a wealth of better armor penetrators readily available tells you something.

[Mike_G]

The fact they chose to use .45 ACP hollow points (fat subsonic rounds designed to splash) when there are a wealth of better armor penetrators readily available tells you something.

No, it doesn't

And the .45 was ball ammo. The 9 mm was one hollow point and one ball.

All this test tells us is that it will stop a .45.

This isn't the DOD evaluating a proposed item. This is the guy from Mythbusters making television.

[GeoffWatson]

Peasant Levies? Real or not?

We've often seen stories where soldiers would round up a group of farmers, and force them to fight with just their farm tools or basic spears.

But I've heard that this didn't really happen, and was just propaganda to convince early musket armies accept being conscripted and forced to fight with hardly any training.
Basically the peasants were far too weak, untrained, and cowardly to stand up against trained and equipped soldiers, except maybe in defence of their homes.

[Grim Portent]

To my understanding most medieval armies were made of paid volunteer soldiers, with varying degrees of professionalism. Levies were a thing, but generally meant the local lord was obliged to call up the locals who had the skills and equipment to be soldiers already rather than drafting every single male that could hold a pointy stick. Armies are expensive to feed and transport, so it's generally always been better to bring five guys with gear and basic skills than to bring twenty five with no gear and no skills.

Some countries did have a practice of encouraging the common folk to learn military skills, such as having mandatory archery practice.

[Calthropstu]

Peasant Levies? Real or not?

We've often seen stories where soldiers would round up a group of farmers, and force them to fight with just their farm tools or basic spears.

But I've heard that this didn't really happen, and was just propaganda to convince early musket armies accept being conscripted and forced to fight with hardly any training.
Basically the peasants were far too weak, untrained, and cowardly to stand up against trained and equipped soldiers, except maybe in defence of their homes.

This happened. Mainly Poland, Japan and China that I know of. I think other Eastern european nations as well. They did this to look far more threatening than they actually were.

[halfeye]

Peasant Levies? Real or not?

We've often seen stories where soldiers would round up a group of farmers, and force them to fight with just their farm tools or basic spears.

But I've heard that this didn't really happen, and was just propaganda to convince early musket armies accept being conscripted and forced to fight with hardly any training.
Basically the peasants were far too weak, untrained, and cowardly to stand up against trained and equipped soldiers, except maybe in defence of their homes.

The Monmouth Rebellion was allegedly mainly farmhands, but I think they were supposed to be volunteers.

[Tobtor]

Peasant levies WERE a thing. Especially in the early medieval period. Both in the Carolinian period, in Anglo-Saxon England, in Scandininavian late VIking age and Early medieval period.

After around 1200 it became less so. In theory the system still applied and peasant where supposed to turn up for war (with gear dependent on how much land they owned) or send someone else in their stead (son, brother, farmhand etc.).

But as armies became more professional and knights on horses dominated, the Kings etc. typically wanted better more professional soldiers to deal with the knights. So gradually the "punishment for not showing up for military duty was a small fine, that gradually turned into a tax. The fine/tax was low enough that that the pesant just paid it, and thus giving the king or noble more money to equip knight or hire mercenaries.

The timing of this development differed from areas, and in some areas it never really disappeared completely, but by 1400 it seem to be rare (from what we can gather, it is hard to know for certain).