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

[KineticDiplomat]

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

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

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

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

[fusilier]

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

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

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

[Lvl 2 Expert]

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

So gunpowder is easy

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




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

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



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

[Zombimode]

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

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

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

[BlacKnight]

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

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

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

[Brother Oni]

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

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

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

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

[Talakeal]

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


Somewhat ranty context:

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

[Willie the Duck]

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

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

[Gnoman]

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

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

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

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


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

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

[Brother Oni]

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Beleriphon]

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

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

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

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

[Kraynic]

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

My reply is just for the leather part of this.

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

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

[Max_Killjoy]

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

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

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

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

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

[Lemmy]

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

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

So... I'm a mechanical engineer and studied a bit of welding on my own for a while because of one specific job I had, but I'm not a welding specialist by any means, much less when it comes to armor.

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

-

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

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

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

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

[Beleriphon]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Clistenes]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[fusilier]

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

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

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

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

*By modern standards.

[Lvl 2 Expert]

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

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

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

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

[Vinyadan]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[eru001]

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

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

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

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

[Brother Oni]

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

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

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

[Lemmy]

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

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

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

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

[Beleriphon]

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

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

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

[Grim Portent]

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

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

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

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


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

[jjordan]

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


Somewhat ranty context:

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

Talk to the SCA. Armour needs constant maintenance and repair. Most regular participants carry kits with them to effect critical repairs. Leather straps, in particular, are constantly breaking and requiring replacement. Rivets blow out and have to be replaced (on articulated armor and straps). Leather has to be dried and oiled or it will develop molds that eat the leather and destroy it. Repairs are repairs and do not make the armor better. Upgrades and improvements might make the armor better, but those aren't repairs.

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

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

[Clistenes]

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Lvl 2 Expert]

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

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

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

[VonKaiserstein]

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

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

[fusilier]

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

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

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

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

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

[Grim Portent]

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

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

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

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

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