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

[fusilier]

I think Ascham's Toxophilus was focused more on sport archery or learning archery in general and that those were just steps for shooting a bow, not official orders.

I suspect a more common command would be just something like "Shoot!" for both bows and firearms, or there may have been a command delivered by drums or horns. The exact order probably varied though, even from company to company.

Somebody once sent me a list of Spanish commands for firearms dated to around 1700, and if I recall correctly, it used the term "tirad!" (shoot!).

[fusilier]

I'm almost positive that it comes from "applying fire" to the gunpowder, or something along those lines.

There were other commands in whatever language the archers were speaking.

I would need to check it up, but I recall the term "give fire" -- which makes sense when using a match-lock or more primitive weapon. Also fire can be used as a verb meaning "to set fire" to something. Military commanders might report that they "fired" their supplies before abandoning a post to the enemy. According to this etymology website, that meaning is attested to from the 14th century. So it's pretty old:

https://www.etymonline.com/word/fire#etymonline_v_33126

[Mike_G]

I would need to check it up, but I recall the term "give fire" -- which makes sense when using a match-lock or more primitive weapon. Also fire can be used as a verb meaning "to set fire" to something. Military commanders might report that they "fired" their supplies before abandoning a post to the enemy. According to this etymology website, that meaning is attested to from the 14th century. So it's pretty old:

https://www.etymonline.com/word/fire#etymonline_v_33126

I would love to see a movie where someone gave the archers the command "Fire bows!" and they shrugged and tossed them into the flames.

[fusilier]

I would love to see a movie where someone gave the archers the command "Fire bows!" and they shrugged and tossed them into the flames.

Hahahaha! +1

[fusilier]

I know this is a really broad question, so I apologize...

But generally speaking, how much of a kingdom or city's population were part of the military?

More specifically, I'd like to know about the ancient Greek city-states around 500~400 BC, Roman Republic near its end and about western European nations around 1400~1500 AC.

I apologize for being late to this conversation, but I wanted to check with my source before posting.

Michael Mallet, in Mercenaries and their Masters, spends some time describing the size of armies in Italy during the 15th century. There's many caveats, often times militia and auxiliary forces were only approximately described, and support personnel may not be listed at all, but there is some interesting information.

"By 1472 the administration of Galeazzo Maria Sforza in Milan was drawing up details for the mobilization of an army of nearly 43,000 men. This was an ambitious and optimistic assessment, and an army of this size certainly never took the field at this time; but it was based on a greater degree of reality than is sometimes thought. All the commanders were named and were divided into categories. First there were the senior condottieri who had long term contracts to maintain certain forces in readiness in peacetime and to increase those to war time levels when called upon. Some of these were condottiere princes who were not normally resident in Milan; others were more immediately available. . . .
These seven men were expected to produce 10,700 cavalry in war time; they were all under contract and were continuously paid for their peacetime forces. The next category were the condottiere 'ad discretionem' whose commitments were more nominal. . . . The war time strength of this group was about 6,500 cavalry. Then came the permanent ducal forces, the famiglia and the lanze spezzate which were maintained at a high degree of readiness and numbered a further 6,000 cavalry. Most of the infantry forces, which numbered around 18,000, were also permanent provisionati. Thus the Duke of Milan at this time was paying a permanent army of well over 20,000 men, and his hopes of increasing these to over 40,000 if needed were reasonably well founded."

(pp 118-19)

Milan was probably an exception during this period: "Venice was maintaining a much smaller army in the 1470's -- probably little more than 10,000 men -- but she was able to raise this quickly to about 20,000 for the War of Ferrara."
(pg. 119)

It should be noted that at the beginning of the century, Milan was reported as having 20,000 cavalry and 20,000 infantry in the field, as it was often fighting a war on two fronts, this assessment is not impossible. (pg. 116)

Unfortunately, I have not been able to find an estimate for the population of the Duchy of Milan during the 15th century.

[rrgg]

Hmm, I remember it being a military discussion. But then I read it over a decade ago, and my memory has only gotten worse since then.

He does touch on the military aspect a bit but it doesn't really go into detail and definitely isn't meant to be like an official drill manual. Generally even military treatises from the 1500s don't go into that much detail about specific training and orders of that sort especially with warfare and firearms changing so rapidly at the time. They instead tend to be aimed at more captain and above level officers who would actually have money and be somewhat higher class. The idea was that when a new company was raised the captain would also hire on some former veterans to be his sergeants and that it would be the sergeants who were really responsible for 1 on 1 training and teaching each soldier to use his weapons in whatever manner they had seen seemed to work best in the field.

Regarding other possible verbs for shooting bows at the time another one might be "give volleys" which seems to show up quite a bit regarding archers. Also "discharge" seems to be more closely associated with firearms (to "charge" an arquebus means to load it) but I have run into the term being used with bows as well from time to time. I can't recall if I've ever come across bows being "fired" though.

[Brother Oni]

Confusing the issue is also the fact that many men in those times were required to maintain some form of military training, in addition to their civilian roles. So up to 50% or higher of eligible men were potentially soldiers.

During the time of Henry VIII, it was a legal requirement that all men owned a bow, at least 6 (I think) arrows and be able to shoot and hit a target at ~200 yds. I'll have to look up the exact wording of the statute.

Edit: There's a couple actually, the most recent being the Unlawful Games Act 1541 (not fully repealed until 1960!);

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

I suspect this was more of a 'Home Guard' defence and enable a good pool of available archers, rather than being able to militarily mobilise every male subject from the ages of 7 to 59.

I have a mention of an Act in 1542 setting the minimum distance for anybody over the age of 24 as 220 yards, but I can't find the name of the Act, nor any Act that looks likely in the list of Acts issued that year.

Speaking of bows...

"Ready bow"
"Nock"
"Mark"
"Draw"
"Loose"

It's worth noting that this is intended for English archers, so they aimed or picked their target ('Mark' being short for 'Mark your target') before drawing and loosing - there was normally a very short gap between these two commands.

I've also seen documents where the command 'Bend' has also been used instead of 'Draw' for English archers due to differing styles of 'drawing' your bow - the stereotypical pulling back of the bowstring while holding the bow steady is 'drawing', while records indicate a technique where they held the string close to its final position and instead pushed the bow out ('bending the bow'), while shifting the body weight and using the whole body. I'll see if I can find a video demonstrating this.

[Lemmy]

I've also seen documents where the command 'Bend' has also been used instead of 'Draw' for English archers due to differing styles of 'drawing' your bow - the stereotypical pulling back of the bowstring while holding the bow steady is 'drawing', while records indicate a technique where they held the string close to its final position and instead pushed the bow out ('bending the bow'), while shifting the body weight and using the whole body. I'll see if I can find a video demonstrating this.

Huh... Is there any advantage to this technique? It sounds a lot more awkward than "normal" shooting... And pushing the bow away or pulling the string requires the same amount of force so I don't see what would be the benefit.

I suppose it's possible that pushing the bow and simultaneously pulling the string with the other hand splits the effort between both arms, making it easier and/or less exhausting.

EDIT: Wait... I think I get what you mean now! If the archer leans back while pushing the bow away, then he could use his weight to draw the string... Although that means the arm doing the pushing has to withstand the archer's body weight, it might be able to allow for a deeper draw. I imagine it would probably tire the bow-pushing arm a lot more, but it could add more energy to the projectile.

[halfeye]

There's also "let fly", and there are probably dozens more (that aren't coming to the tip of my tongue at the moment).

[BlacKnight]

I apologize for being late to this conversation, but I wanted to check with my source before posting.

Michael Mallet, in Mercenaries and their Masters, spends some time describing the size of armies in Italy during the 15th century. There's many caveats, often times militia and auxiliary forces were only approximately described, and support personnel may not be listed at all, but there is some interesting information.

"By 1472 the administration of Galeazzo Maria Sforza in Milan was drawing up details for the mobilization of an army of nearly 43,000 men. This was an ambitious and optimistic assessment, and an army of this size certainly never took the field at this time; but it was based on a greater degree of reality than is sometimes thought. All the commanders were named and were divided into categories. First there were the senior condottieri who had long term contracts to maintain certain forces in readiness in peacetime and to increase those to war time levels when called upon. Some of these were condottiere princes who were not normally resident in Milan; others were more immediately available. . . .
These seven men were expected to produce 10,700 cavalry in war time; they were all under contract and were continuously paid for their peacetime forces. The next category were the condottiere 'ad discretionem' whose commitments were more nominal. . . . The war time strength of this group was about 6,500 cavalry. Then came the permanent ducal forces, the famiglia and the lanze spezzate which were maintained at a high degree of readiness and numbered a further 6,000 cavalry. Most of the infantry forces, which numbered around 18,000, were also permanent provisionati. Thus the Duke of Milan at this time was paying a permanent army of well over 20,000 men, and his hopes of increasing these to over 40,000 if needed were reasonably well founded."

(pp 118-19)

Milan was probably an exception during this period: "Venice was maintaining a much smaller army in the 1470's -- probably little more than 10,000 men -- but she was able to raise this quickly to about 20,000 for the War of Ferrara."
(pg. 119)

It should be noted that at the beginning of the century, Milan was reported as having 20,000 cavalry and 20,000 infantry in the field, as it was often fighting a war on two fronts, this assessment is not impossible. (pg. 116)

Unfortunately, I have not been able to find an estimate for the population of the Duchy of Milan during the 15th century.

I'm skeptical about those numbers, considering that when Milan was conquered by the French at the end of the XV century, this huge armies failed to materialize.
Now if we were talking about the beginning of the XV century, when Milan controlled much of Northern Italy, it would be a different matter. The 40,000 men reported for the Visconti controlled Milan sounds reasonable.
But under the Sforza family in the second part of the century Milan controlled a much smaller area, so honestly I doubt they could have 40,000 men. I mean, France invaded Italy with 20,000 in 1494 and went straight though the peninsula.

[halfeye]

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

[Max_Killjoy]

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

Boats have to float.

You can only put so much armor on a ship so big before the weight exceeds the displacement, and it doesn't float.

[Brother Oni]

Huh... Is there any advantage to this technique? It sounds a lot more awkward than "normal" shooting... And pushing the bow away or pulling the string requires the same amount of force so I don't see what would be the benefit.

I suppose it's possible that pushing the bow and simultaneously pulling the string with the other hand splits the effort between both arms, making it easier and/or less exhausting.

EDIT: Wait... I think I get what you mean now! If the archer leans back while pushing the bow away, then he could use his weight to draw the string... Although that means the arm doing the pushing has to withstand the archer's body weight, it might be able to allow for a deeper draw. I imagine it would probably tire the bow-pushing arm a lot more, but it could add more energy to the projectile.

Yeah, I'm not explaining it very well - you do indeed use both arms, but again the main muscle group are the back.

Here's one video of the technique in action from 0.53 onwards (you'll have to imagine him loosing off as quickly as possible, to get the weight shifting I mentioned): link.
Here's a more detailed breakdown of the technique: link.

Note that there are variances in technique, depending on how you're taught and your natural body shape, but leaning forwards seems to be a common theme; the left handed blue surcoated English archer in the bottom right of Froissart's Chronicles has a very similar pose to both warbow archers in the above videos.

Spoiler: Battle of Crecy, Chapter CXXIX of Jean Froissart's Chronicles

Show

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

Yep, the Washington Naval Treaty 1922 and its subsequence treaties, which placed caps on the maximum tonnage of various ship classes. Since armour weighs more than guns, it was easier to get bigger guns on as cannon technology improved, than it was to get better armour designs, since there's only so much you can do before it simply boils down to 'slap more of it on'.

[jayem]

Yep, the Washington Naval Treaty 1922 and its subsequence treaties, which placed caps on the maximum tonnage of various ship classes. Since armour weighs more than guns, it was easier to get bigger guns on as cannon technology improved, than it was to get better armour designs, since there's only so much you can do before it simply boils down to 'slap more of it on'.

At this period you would also be having range increase massively, to the point of heading out of sight. So it might be that would also shift the balance, if a shot misses it doesn't matter how thick the armour was.

[fusilier]

I'm skeptical about those numbers, considering that when Milan was conquered by the French at the end of the XV century, this huge armies failed to materialize.
Now if we were talking about the beginning of the XV century, when Milan controlled much of Northern Italy, it would be a different matter. The 40,000 men reported for the Visconti controlled Milan sounds reasonable.
But under the Sforza family in the second part of the century Milan controlled a much smaller area, so honestly I doubt they could have 40,000 men. I mean, France invaded Italy with 20,000 in 1494 and went straight though the peninsula.

I'm not sure what effect Ludovico Sforza had on the Milanese military, however, Milan *supported* the French invasion of 1494. Ludovico Sforza had actually *invited* the French in 1494, in hopes of offsetting Alfonso II's claim to the Duchy. The French had already passed through when Ludovico realized that Charles VIII also had a claim to the Duchy of Milan, and was ambitious enough to press it. He switched sides, and then invited Maximilian I (Holy Roman Emperor) to become involved -- by inviting these various foreign powers to Italy, he's basically responsible for the "Italian Wars" that followed. Ironically, while Ludovico was attempting to form alliances that would protect his title as Duke, the exact opposite happened, as basically everybody he invited to help him had a claim on Milan, and by 1500 he was ousted from power.

In my opinion they probably could have mobilized around 40,000 soldiers in 1472, if given time (note: some of the condottieri were not immediately available). However, I have more doubts about how long they could have supported such soldiers in the field, and probably couldn't have supported such a large army outside of their borders. It's also not clear how many of these soldiers were garrison troops (usually infantry), which would not be intended to be part of a "field" army. Milan had the best reputation for its treatment of condottieri -- the result was that they could actually pay less for their soldiers than other Italian states, and they do seem to have been investing in profitable industry at the time.

[BlacKnight]

I'm not sure what effect Ludovico Sforza had on the Milanese military, however, Milan *supported* the French invasion of 1494. Ludovico Sforza had actually *invited* the French in 1494, in hopes of offsetting Alfonso II's claim to the Duchy. The French had already passed through when Ludovico realized that Charles VIII also had a claim to the Duchy of Milan, and was ambitious enough to press it. He switched sides, and then invited Maximilian I (Holy Roman Emperor) to become involved -- by inviting these various foreign powers to Italy, he's basically responsible for the "Italian Wars" that followed. Ironically, while Ludovico was attempting to form alliances that would protect his title as Duke, the exact opposite happened, as basically everybody he invited to help him had a claim on Milan, and by 1500 he was ousted from power.

In my opinion they probably could have mobilized around 40,000 soldiers in 1472, if given time (note: some of the condottieri were not immediately available). However, I have more doubts about how long they could have supported such soldiers in the field, and probably couldn't have supported such a large army outside of their borders. It's also not clear how many of these soldiers were garrison troops (usually infantry), which would not be intended to be part of a "field" army. Milan had the best reputation for its treatment of condottieri -- the result was that they could actually pay less for their soldiers than other Italian states, and they do seem to have been investing in profitable industry at the time.

When talking about the conquest of Milan I was thinking of the 1498 campaign, not the first one. Sure Milan had political problems by then, but I doubt the French would have ever made the attempt if there was the possibility of facing a 40,000 strong army.
Regarding 1494 while it's true that Ludovico was initially on the side of France, but I still doubt he could have that many soldiers, if nothing else because then the other Italian states should have been able to muster similar amounts to not get conquered by Milan in the previous years. And Florence, Naples or the Papal States certainly didn't have 20,000+ strong armies.

Still you are right to point out all the matters to consider about these things: time to muster troops, time they could be kept under arms, garrisons vs field armies ect.
The fact is, what army a state can field depends a lot on the level of mobilization of said state.
One can just look at the World Wars to see how much of a difference there can be between peace time and war time.

[Brother Oni]

At this period you would also be having range increase massively, to the point of heading out of sight. So it might be that would also shift the balance, if a shot misses it doesn't matter how thick the armour was.

Or if the shell doesn't arm due to the armour not being thick enough to trigger the fuse, a belief that led to the development of the 'all or nothing' armour design of WW1-WW2 battleships.

[halfeye]

Boats have to float.

You can only put so much armor on a ship so big before the weight exceeds the displacement, and it doesn't float.

However if you increase the size, then the thickness of the armour can increase. It probably can't increase enough to counter the probable increase in gun bores if you do that though.

When you increase the bore by *2, the mass of the shell goes up by *8, that's a huge increase. So when guns were going from 12 inches to 16 inches, armour should have been doubling or something like it, and it seems it didn't.

[Mike_G]

However if you increase the size, then the thickness of the armour can increase. It probably can't increase enough to counter the probable increase in gun bores if you do that though.

When you increase the bore by *2, the mass of the shell goes up by *8, that's a huge increase. So when guns were going from 12 inches to 16 inches, armour should have been doubling or something like it, and it seems it didn't.

But every pound you increase the mass of the ship makes it harder to move, so you either have a slower,. less maneuverable ship, or you increase the engines, which in turn further increases weigh, burns more fuel, etc. And all that stuff is really expensive.

It doesn't take long to get to a point of diminishing returns. The big battleships became less important and more vulnerable to air attack as the century dragged on. The Yamato was the biggest battleship in the world but accomplished exactly nothing in WWII except sinking. It was the Boba Fett of warships. Something with no victories but a lot of fanboys. I imagine the Japanese navy could have spent that money a lot better on different ships.

So, the "just keep makin' 'em bigger" argument really didn't pay dividends.

[Vinyadan]

About mobilisation, it's interesting to look at the costs. According to Machiavelli, Filippo Visconti († 1447) lamented having spent two million gold (I assume it means ducats) against Florence, and Florence ended the war in 1427 having spent three million and 500 thousand ducats. Emperor Maximillian managed to hire 5,000 Swiss mercenaries for six months for 120,000 ducats in 1507.

Something else I noticed in Machiavelli is that he observes how German cities used games on feast days so that the men would develop skills that were useful for war: he says that they trained with the hand cannon, the pike, and different weapons, as they went for the prizes.

Or if the shell doesn't arm due to the armour not being thick enough to trigger the fuse, a belief that led to the development of the 'all or nothing' armour design of WW1-WW2 battleships.

This reminds me of a discussion I once read about whether a grenade (RPG or shot from a grenade launcher) would explode if it hit a person, or it would just perforate the body. I think there was such a scene in Black Hawk Down.

[Lvl 2 Expert]

This reminds me of a discussion I once read about whether a grenade (RPG or shot from a grenade launcher) would explode if it hit a person, or it would just perforate the body. I think there was such a scene in Black Hawk Down.

Might be a bit of a combination. An RPG (well, at least the I think most comon rounds for it) defeats armor with a shaped explosion. It's supposed to go off at the first sign of serious resistance, because that's what activates the armor piercing effect.

But kinetic energy wise, yeah, there's quite a bit of that in there.

[halfeye]

But every pound you increase the mass of the ship makes it harder to move, so you either have a slower,. less maneuverable ship, or you increase the engines, which in turn further increases weigh, burns more fuel, etc. And all that stuff is really expensive.

It doesn't take long to get to a point of diminishing returns. The big battleships became less important and more vulnerable to air attack as the century dragged on. The Yamato was the biggest battleship in the world but accomplished exactly nothing in WWII except sinking. It was the Boba Fett of warships. Something with no victories but a lot of fanboys. I imagine the Japanese navy could have spent that money a lot better on different ships.

So, the "just keep makin' 'em bigger" argument really didn't pay dividends.

Yeah, it's a puzzle. because they must have known that something was off before WW1, but they kept on making them.

Fisher's battlecruisers are especially odd. Under armoured and overgunned.

The Yamatos are odd too.

[Max_Killjoy]

Yeah, it's a puzzle. because they must have known that something was off before WW1, but they kept on making them.

Fisher's battlecruisers are especially odd. Under armoured and overgunned.

The Yamatos are odd too.

What doomed the RN battlecruisers in the battles they did so poorly in was as much failures of procedure as failures of design. Safe ammo storage and handling practices were often ignored in favor of the RN's obsession with rate of fire, to such a degree that it directly worked against the systems designed to prevent catastrophic powder or ammo explosions inside the ships.

Plus Beatty's thirst for glory and arrogance lead him to make multiple critical errors at Jutland (that he would go on to spend years trying to blame on Jellicoe to the point of having maps and records falsified).

[DrewID]

The Yamato was the biggest battleship in the world but accomplished exactly nothing in WWII except sinking. It was the Boba Fett of warships. Something with no victories but a lot of fanboys.

I love these three sentences so much.

I wonder how many other warships are primarily famous for sinking?
The Bismark
The Maine
The Mary Rose (OK, famous for being found)
The Spanish Armada

DrewID

[Pauly]

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

There are a number of factors.

1) Metallurgy improved, allowing thinner armor for the same level of protection. A very in depth discussion is here: http://navweaps.com/index_nathan/metalprpsept2009.php
As a rough rule of thumb post 1930 armor could be made 25% thinner and retain the same protection as WW1 era armor.

2) What you needed to armor changed. Pre WW1 gunnery assumed direct fire was going to be the standard combat. By WW2 plunging fire at extreme ranges and aerial bombs had to be countered. This lead to extensive armoring of the decks of ships, that was not considered so important to armor in pre WW1 designs. As the war progressed an radar controlled gunnery became standard plunging fire at extreme range became the norm for daylight engagements.
In addition torpedos became longer ranged, faster and carried heavier warheads. Anti-torpedo bulges were developed. Also the armor bel along the waterline was lengthened.

3) As previously mentioned the Washington treaty created a gun-tonnage-armor-speed tradeoff. Some navies, especially the French and Italians decided to sacrifice armor for speed. The Germans and Japanese cheated on the treaty, but in doing so created overweight top-heavy designs that had poor seakeeping, some of which were a serious danger to their crews in bad weather.
One of the German “cheats” was to leave non combat systems unprotected by armor. Which is great for wargames, but not so great when you actually have to sail your damaged ship home.

[Pauly]

Yeah, it's a puzzle. because they must have known that something was off before WW1, but they kept on making them.

Fisher's battlecruisers are especially odd. Under armoured and overgunned.

The Yamatos are odd too.

The battlecruisers weren’t designed to be battleline ships. They were designed to hunt down cruisers and protect your shipping lanes. For example the German pacific squadron, with the exception of the Emden, fled the Pacific because of the presence of HMAS Australia in their operating area.
A job the British BCs did so well they got pushed into the battleline because they had nothing else to do.

[Gnoman]

The battlecruisers weren’t designed to be battleline ships. They were designed to hunt down cruisers and protect your shipping lanes. For example the German pacific squadron, with the exception of the Emden, fled the Pacific because of the presence of HMAS Australia in their operating area.
A job the British BCs did so well they got pushed into the battleline because they had nothing else to do.

That's not really true, although it is often repeated. Had cruisers and commerce protection been the goal, mounting such heavy guns would have been pointless. Even the strongest CA didn't have armor that could stand up to 8" guns, while battlecruisers routinely mounted 12" or larger ones. The only reason to mount such large guns was to penetrate battleship-grade armor. The role of the Battlecruiser in the Royal Navy was to serve as a heavy scout and screen for the battle line (giving you advance warning of enemy maneuvers and preventing light forces from hitting the flank), and as a heavy flanking force (once the enemy line has engaged your line, the battlecruisers swing in and hit the line from another direction). Cruiser-hunting was a valuable secondary role, and one which the RN's BCs did very well in the early stages of WWI, but it wasn't the real purpose.


In this role, they were quite effective - the problem, as Max_Killjoy stated, was that the British had adopted several bad practices that turned "acceptable and repairable damage" into "kaboom-y damage", the most important of which was abominable ammunition handling practice. The ships of all navies were designed to have very little ammunition in the turret, and for the magazines to be blocked by heavy hatches except for when a shell or powder charge was actively being taken out of it (so, in combat, the procedure would be "open hatch, pass shell, pass charge, close hatch, repeat after the gun was fired"). In order to increase rate of fire (which analysis of the Russo-Japanese War and lesser naval actions led the British to believe was paramount), a large quantity of ammunition was staged in the turret, and the magazine hatches were left open. The result was that, when the turret was penetrated, not only did the shells loaded in the guns go off, so did the staged ones, which carried a chain reaction directly to the magazine. The Germans had, in fact, adopted the exact same practices before the war, but their experience with the drawbacks was, due to their BC's much heavier armor, less disastrous than the British one, and they were able to make changes before Jutland.

[fusilier]

When talking about the conquest of Milan I was thinking of the 1498 campaign, not the first one. Sure Milan had political problems by then, but I doubt the French would have ever made the attempt if there was the possibility of facing a 40,000 strong army.
Regarding 1494 while it's true that Ludovico was initially on the side of France, but I still doubt he could have that many soldiers, if nothing else because then the other Italian states should have been able to muster similar amounts to not get conquered by Milan in the previous years. And Florence, Naples or the Papal States certainly didn't have 20,000+ strong armies.

Still you are right to point out all the matters to consider about these things: time to muster troops, time they could be kept under arms, garrisons vs field armies ect.
The fact is, what army a state can field depends a lot on the level of mobilization of said state.
One can just look at the World Wars to see how much of a difference there can be between peace time and war time.

I think the important thing is that this tallying of troops, either in readiness or under obligation, seems to be a serious internal document, not something intended as a political boast. As such, it could be considered a representation of a "theoretical" maximum, not just an impractical fantasy.

[Max_Killjoy]

That's not really true, although it is often repeated. Had cruisers and commerce protection been the goal, mounting such heavy guns would have been pointless. Even the strongest CA didn't have armor that could stand up to 8" guns, while battlecruisers routinely mounted 12" or larger ones. The only reason to mount such large guns was to penetrate battleship-grade armor. The role of the Battlecruiser in the Royal Navy was to serve as a heavy scout and screen for the battle line (giving you advance warning of enemy maneuvers and preventing light forces from hitting the flank), and as a heavy flanking force (once the enemy line has engaged your line, the battlecruisers swing in and hit the line from another direction). Cruiser-hunting was a valuable secondary role, and one which the RN's BCs did very well in the early stages of WWI, but it wasn't the real purpose.


In this role, they were quite effective - the problem, as Max_Killjoy stated, was that the British had adopted several bad practices that turned "acceptable and repairable damage" into "kaboom-y damage", the most important of which was abominable ammunition handling practice. The ships of all navies were designed to have very little ammunition in the turret, and for the magazines to be blocked by heavy hatches except for when a shell or powder charge was actively being taken out of it (so, in combat, the procedure would be "open hatch, pass shell, pass charge, close hatch, repeat after the gun was fired"). In order to increase rate of fire (which analysis of the Russo-Japanese War and lesser naval actions led the British to believe was paramount), a large quantity of ammunition was staged in the turret, and the magazine hatches were left open. The result was that, when the turret was penetrated, not only did the shells loaded in the guns go off, so did the staged ones, which carried a chain reaction directly to the magazine. The Germans had, in fact, adopted the exact same practices before the war, but their experience with the drawbacks was, due to their BC's much heavier armor, less disastrous than the British one, and they were able to make changes before Jutland.

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

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

[KineticDiplomat]

1) Concerning RPGs. This is one where pure theory deviates from reality. Pure theory says that on account of the contact warhead, it should always go off on, well, contact with a resisting solid surface. Which would be bad for the human.

In reality, the launchers and ammunition for the ubiquitous RPG 7 are made by literally dozens of countries, have been made for decades, and to top it off come with a wide variety of ammo types (the iconic image is the AT warhead, but the much smaller HE-Frag warhead is equally if not more prevalent.) The dud rate when you start talking third world usage is...variable. So theoretically, you should get a boom on hitting a human, but wildly different production standards, ammo age, launcher/round mismatch, etc. may very well say otherwise.

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

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

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

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