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

[fusilier]

The reason I don't want to use gunpowder is aesthetics, not gameplay balance. Once you add guns to a setting you change the feel of the world from a purely pseudo-medieval world to something that's a little more modern and that's not what I'm trying to do with this campaign. This is also, at least initially, a very low magic world, so the magic vs. gunpowder thing doesn't really come up.

Most naval fights of the period were boarding actions. When cannons were first introduced on ships they were mostly very light and performed an anti-personnel role, and I suspect pre-gunpowder artillery on ships was mostly used in the same way. Ships can sink for a variety of reasons; not all of them were in excellent condition to begin with, and it would not surprise me that rough collisions may loosen the hull enough that a ship could founder. Incendiaries were often used, but could some times backfire if the opposing ships grappled.

[Vinyadan]

I know of catapults on ships, but they were used against ground targets (by Alexander during the siege of Tyre, iirc by using two ships for each engine, and by Caesar against the Britanni). I didn't check the sources, so I am not sure of whether these machines threw stones or arrows.

[KineticDiplomat]

To go back to the magic part, I suspect you’ll run into the basic issue of trying for “realistic medieval X” in a high magic world. If there are a reasonable selection of things readily available that would easily take the place of or surpass far more modern technology, then a lot of “how it was done”, technically, tactically, operationally - hell even strategically - no longer makes sense. It’s perfectly possible if higher level spells are present to enter a state of close to nuclear stand off with real time ISR and communications in the supposed world of peasants and pitchforks. In that world, does the planning on a galley matter? Do a series of locally run feudal outposts matter when communications infrastructure is sufficient to allow modern centralized states? When logistics are literally magically available?

[jayem]

The rudder is around that time.
And at the start you have whatever made the longboat and dhow.

On the infrastructure, at the end of the period your vaguely getting dock infrastructure (, Liverpool has the pool sealed off at low tide (to keep the water in), while at the start you pretty much have to beach (and hench need the boat to be shallow, keelless, and realistically rudderless.

[fusilier]

The rudder is around that time.
And at the start you have whatever made the longboat and dhow.

On the infrastructure, at the end of the period your vaguely getting dock infrastructure (, Liverpool has the pool sealed off at low tide (to keep the water in), while at the start you pretty much have to beach (and hench need the boat to be shallow, keelless, and realistically rudderless.

Galley rudders were removable so that they could back themselves onto a beach. Old fashioned "steering boards" could easily be lifted out of the way. Galleys did have keels. Cogs were flat bottomed, which allowed them to enter shallow ports, although I don't know if they could be beached easily.

[Vinyadan]

Some time ago I asked if thigh armour for Greek oplites was a thing. Now I think I have found a depiction of it on a famous vase: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exekia...MGEt_16757.jpg

[Storm_Of_Snow]

To go back to the magic part, I suspect you’ll run into the basic issue of trying for “realistic medieval X” in a high magic world. If there are a reasonable selection of things readily available that would easily take the place of or surpass far more modern technology, then a lot of “how it was done”, technically, tactically, operationally - hell even strategically - no longer makes sense. It’s perfectly possible if higher level spells are present to enter a state of close to nuclear stand off with real time ISR and communications in the supposed world of peasants and pitchforks. In that world, does the planning on a galley matter? Do a series of locally run feudal outposts matter when communications infrastructure is sufficient to allow modern centralized states? When logistics are literally magically available?

Well, a divine caster would be subject to the whims of their deity, and it's a lot easier to elminate or disable a single spell caster than it is to sink a cargo vessel (it may be as simple as denying them access to a single material component).

There's also the question of how many supplies that caster can produce in the same amount of time a single vessel would need to travel from the supplies origin point to their destination.

[rrgg]

Here's what the Konungs Skuggsja had to say about naval engagements:

But if the fight is on shipboard, select two spears which are not to be thrown, one with a shaft long enough to reach easily from ship to ship and one with a shorter shaft, which you will find particularly serviceable when you try to board the enemy's ship. Various kinds of darts should be kept on ships, both heavy javelins and lighter ones. Try to strike your opponent's shield with a heavy javelin, and if the shield glides aside, attack him with a light javelin, unless you are able to reach him with a long-shafted spear. Fight on sea as on land with an even temper and with proper strokes only; and never waste your weapons by hurling them to no purpose.

Weapons of many sorts may be used to advantage on shipboard, which one has no occasion to use on land, except in a fortress or castle. Longhandled scythes and long-shafted broadaxes, "war-beams "and staff slings, darts,: and missiles of every sort are serviceable on ships. Crossbows and longbows are useful as well as all other forms of shooting weapons; but coal and sulphur are, however, the most effective munitions of all that I have named. Caltrops cast in lead and good halberds are also effective weapons on shipboard. A tower joined to the mast will be serviceable along with these and many other defenses, as is also a beam cloven into four parts and set with prongs of hard steel, which is drawn up against the mast. A "prow-boar": with an ironclad snout is also useful in naval battles. But it is well for men to be carefully trained in handling these before they have to use them; for one knows neither the time nor the hour when he shall have to make use of any particular kind of weapons. But take good heed to collect as many types of weapons as possible, while you still have no need of them; for it is always a distinction to have good weapons, and, furthermore, they are a good possession in times of necessity when one has to use them. For a ship's defense the following arrangement is necessary: it should be fortified strongly with beams and logs built up into a high rampart, through which there should be four openings, each so large and wide that one or two men in full armor can leap through them; but outside and along the rampart on both sides of the ship there should he laid a level walk of planks to stand upon. This breastwork must be firmly and carefully braced so that it cannot be shaken though one leaps violently upon it. Wide shields and chain mail of every sort are good defensive weapons on shipboard; the chief protection, however, is the gambison made of soft linen thoroughly blackened, good helmets, and low caps of steel. There are many other weapons that can be used in naval fights, but it seems needless to discuss more than those which I have now enumerated.

To an extent, before naval artillery really got good at dealing damage from long ranges, the introduction of gunpowder seems to have actually increased the advantage of tall ships in close combat somewhat. Holding a shield overhead doesn't help so much when the enemy is throwing bombs or shooting swivel guns down at you. Weapons like muskets also limited the effectiveness of the "fighting tops" up in the masts, since relatively lightweight wooden screens could protect against arrows, but not musket balls.

[fusilier]

Here's what the Konungs Skuggsja had to say about naval engagements:



To an extent, before naval artillery really got good at dealing damage from long ranges, the introduction of gunpowder seems to have actually increased the advantage of tall ships in close combat somewhat. Holding a shield overhead doesn't help so much when the enemy is throwing bombs or shooting swivel guns down at you. Weapons like muskets also limited the effectiveness of the "fighting tops" up in the masts, since relatively lightweight wooden screens could protect against arrows, but not musket balls.

One thing not mentioned explicitly in that description are stones and rocks, that were thrown from the fighting tops. There are even drawings showing hoists to carry stones up to the tops.

I'm going to push back a little bit on the gunpowder -- when the guns were primarily small it's probably true that they initially aided in the defense, especially on tall ships. But as large cannons started to be mounted on ships it was the galley that was first able to take advantage of them in an offensive capacity. With little modification to the basic galley design, a rather large cannon could be mounted in the front firing directly forward. While the earliest known attempts of mounting large cannon on galleys occurred in the 1380s, they seem to have been limited mostly to attacking coasts and not other ships. However, sometime in the early 1500s they became standard for ship vs ship combat. These cannons were usually much larger than anything put on a sailing ship at the time. 30 pdrs were common early in the century, and 50-70 pounders becoming common later on. (Those stats are for cannons throwing iron cannonballs, the earlier stone projectile bombards could fire a heavier shot, 80 pounds). While it is true, that a galley typically mounted only one of these heavy cannons, on the centerline, it was in a perfect position to be used offensively. Smaller cannons were added to the flanks, giving a very powerful forward battery. The large cannon could be used at long range, and hold other ships at bay, or try to knock out their defenses before closing in. Occasionally a well placed shot could even sink a ship, but it wasn't common. A well timed volley from the forward battery just before ramming, could clear the enemy decks to facilitate boarding.

Sailing ships couldn't really emulate this. The front of the ship wasn't a very good place to mount a large cannon -- when they first started to use large cannons they were mounted low in the aft, firing rearward. It made sense for the design of the ships, but limited the most powerful cannons to a defensive position -- perhaps useful for dissuading any stalking galleys. (Could also be used in a more static situation against land based targets). Sailing ships had to go through a lot more evolution, and changes in tactics, before powerful artillery could be mounted and used offensively. However, sailing ships were ultimately able to undergo more evolution than galleys, and while galleys never disappeared completely, until the advent of steam power, by the end of the 16th century sailing ships had gained the upper hand.

Long story short -- gunpowder artillery probably gave galleys a new lease on life, at least for a century or so, before they were eclipsed by sailing ships.

[rrgg]

One thing not mentioned explicitly in that description are stones and rocks, that were thrown from the fighting tops. There are even drawings showing hoists to carry stones up to the tops.

I'm going to push back a little bit on the gunpowder -- when the guns were primarily small it's probably true that they initially aided in the defense, especially on tall ships. But as large cannons started to be mounted on ships it was the galley that was first able to take advantage of them in an offensive capacity. With little modification to the basic galley design, a rather large cannon could be mounted in the front firing directly forward. While the earliest known attempts of mounting large cannon on galleys occurred in the 1380s, they seem to have been limited mostly to attacking coasts and not other ships. However, sometime in the early 1500s they became standard for ship vs ship combat. These cannons were usually much larger than anything put on a sailing ship at the time. 30 pdrs were common early in the century, and 50-70 pounders becoming common later on. (Those stats are for cannons throwing iron cannonballs, the earlier stone projectile bombards could fire a heavier shot, 80 pounds). While it is true, that a galley typically mounted only one of these heavy cannons, on the centerline, it was in a perfect position to be used offensively. Smaller cannons were added to the flanks, giving a very powerful forward battery. The large cannon could be used at long range, and hold other ships at bay, or try to knock out their defenses before closing in. Occasionally a well placed shot could even sink a ship, but it wasn't common. A well timed volley from the forward battery just before ramming, could clear the enemy decks to facilitate boarding.

Sailing ships couldn't really emulate this. The front of the ship wasn't a very good place to mount a large cannon -- when they first started to use large cannons they were mounted low in the aft, firing rearward. It made sense for the design of the ships, but limited the most powerful cannons to a defensive position -- perhaps useful for dissuading any stalking galleys. (Could also be used in a more static situation against land based targets). Sailing ships had to go through a lot more evolution, and changes in tactics, before powerful artillery could be mounted and used offensively. However, sailing ships were ultimately able to undergo more evolution than galleys, and while galleys never disappeared completely, until the advent of steam power, by the end of the 16th century sailing ships had gained the upper hand.

Long story short -- gunpowder artillery probably gave galleys a new lease on life, at least for a century or so, before they were eclipsed by sailing ships.

That's all true. I guess I meant to emphasize specifically close quarters combat. War galleys saw a resurgence in popularity as an extremely effective gun platform but that's sort of a completely new tactical role that appears. When it comes to the boarding tactics that were used before gunpowder, though, whereas before galleys might be able to get the upper hand by swarming individual ships one at a time and overwhelming them with boarders, this seems to have been increasingly dangerous against larger ships. Most notably you have the performance of the Venetian Galleasses at the battle of Lepanto, which were essentially upsized galleys with large fore and aft castles like roundships, which seem to have had little problem pushing their way straight through the Ottoman fleet. This also seems to have been an advantage enjoyed by many early european explorers who arrived in the east in relatively large, strudy, ocean-going vessels and despite an often relatively modest gunpowder armament apparently could hold their own pretty well against much larger numbers of enemies at sea.

What I'm wondering is if the use of very early gunpowder weapons in europe, in the form of very early guns, bombs, and incendiaries was part of what was hastening the galley's decline in the first place during the 1300s before cannon technology improved enough to make effective ship-board artillery and the galleys could switch to using their superior speed and maneuverability to soften up roundships from a distance with bombardment.

[Pauly]

It took the development of 2 things
1) Wheeled naval gun carriages so that the recoil of the gun was not transferred to the deck which allowed guns to be side firing.
2) gun ports that allowed the guns to be run inboard for loading
That allowed sailing ships to deliver effective broadsides that ended the galley as a main battle weapon.

[fusilier]

That's all true. I guess I meant to emphasize specifically close quarters combat. War galleys saw a resurgence in popularity as an extremely effective gun platform but that's sort of a completely new tactical role that appears. When it comes to the boarding tactics that were used before gunpowder, though, whereas before galleys might be able to get the upper hand by swarming individual ships one at a time and overwhelming them with boarders, this seems to have been increasingly dangerous against larger ships.

Yeah. Before the introduction of artillery, this certainly seems to have been the case. It probably carried over into the early introduction of artillery, when the artillery was relatively light. It was initially used defensively.

There's a very detailed drawing of carrack from the 1460s, it shows javelins and hoists for stones, a grappling hook at the prow. The cannons are hard to see, but they are all confined to the aft-castle -- the defensive part of the ship.

Spoiler: Image of Carrack

Show

Hopefully this works:

Most notably you have the performance of the Venetian Galleasses at the battle of Lepanto, which were essentially upsized galleys with large fore and aft castles like roundships, which seem to have had little problem pushing their way straight through the Ottoman fleet.

It's been a while since I've studied Lepanto, but my recollection is that the Venetian Galleasses were put in front of the Allied battle line to break up the Ottoman lines. Once disordered, it was easier for the allied war galleys to attack them. Despite the powerful artillery, boarding was still the main form of fighting, and the large size and height of the galleasses would have helped them fend off attacks (as would the large amount of artillery). However, they were slow and not very maneuverable compared to the smaller war galleys. The galleys and galleasses supported each other. Without the support of the galleys, I don't think the galleasses would have proved invulnerable against the Ottoman fleet for long.

This also seems to have been an advantage enjoyed by many early european explorers who arrived in the east in relatively large, strudy, ocean-going vessels and despite an often relatively modest gunpowder armament apparently could hold their own pretty well against much larger numbers of enemies at sea.

Indeed, ships intended for trade in the Indias were often tall, but lacked heavy artillery. The Portuguese Santo Catarina do Monte Sinai (circa 1520), had 140 cannon, but they were all light pieces, mostly swivel guns. The tall castles were the main protection against pirates.

What I'm wondering is if the use of very early gunpowder weapons in europe, in the form of very early guns, bombs, and incendiaries was part of what was hastening the galley's decline in the first place during the 1300s before cannon technology improved enough to make effective ship-board artillery and the galleys could switch to using their superior speed and maneuverability to soften up roundships from a distance with bombardment.

In my studies I haven't seen that phenomenon. I see sailing ships getting larger and taller, carrying more soldiers. Swivel guns just fit into the existing fighting styles, and don't seem to be a driver of design. Put another way, it's not the artillery that makes the difference, it's the increasing height and size of the sailing ships that's driving the relative tactical capabilities. To the contrary, the introduction of heavier artillery *does* have an impact on both tactics and ship design.

[Martin Greywolf]

Naval catapults and ballistae and their issues

Problem here is very simple, they aren't efficient enough in the mechanical sense. Any catapult or trebuchet capable of launching projectiles big enough to cause significant structural damage reliably would be absolutely massive, and ballista may never even get there in the first place because of material limitations.

Furthemore, weight of projectiles themselves is an issue - since they are moving slower than cannonballs, they need to be bigger to get the same destructive effect, and that weight has to be carried by the ship that already has trouble because it is primarily oar-powered and needs to house and supply the oarsmen. Trebuchet projectile weighs about 50-500kg, cannonballs in Borggard's Ordnance are 4-42 lbs, so about 2-21 kg. That is the reduction of ammunition weight by a factor of about 20. I couldn't find any good data on powder weight, but later ratios suggest about 1:4, so total ammo weight is 5-52 lbs, a still huge ten to one in favor of cannon.

There is also accuracy, but we'll get there.

All of this means that there is no way to have siege engines for direct hull destruction, so you only take ones that are good for destroying either people or sails. These can be made a lot smaller, but there will still be only a few of them, and they will therefore have supplementary role instead of being the primary weapons.

Fire attacks

Using flaming arrows or fire pots was definitely done - but boy, do you have to be careful when using them. First of all, there are all the range and accuracy problems we'll get to later, but let's say you actually managed to set the enemy ship on fire.

First of all, you can't capture that ship - it's on fire and will sink with all the booty and lucrative people to ransom and/or sell into slavery. It's not talked about too much, but slave trade was well and operational around the European frontiers, especially in the Mediterranean and along the Eurasian border.

Second problem is, you are at close range and now you have a ship that will sink, and is made for ramming. That enemy crew now has a hell of a motivation - literal fire lit under their bottoms - to ram and board you, and will fight extra hard to sieze your ship. It's the only way for them to live, and if they can't, then there is a solid chance of them taking you down with them, because a ship that is on fire just rammed you.

You can still use fire attacks, and people obviously did, but you need to make sure all of these things are accounted for - maybe you are on city walls, maybe wind is in your favor, or the enemy ship is too slow to catch you.

Last issue is that, well, you need to have an open fire somewhere on a wooden ship, and should that be lit when the enemy is shooting at you, an unlucky hit could very well spill your own incendiary weapon - sure, you can remove fire source from where you store weapons, but wood will still burn, and you just made logistics for your fire attacks harder.

I suspect that one aspect that made Greek fire work was that it was relatively safe to store, but who knows.

Early cannon and how they solve nothing

Problem of early cannons is that they aren't that powerful in proportion to their weight. Sure, you have some like houfnice that are meant for short range and light load, but those meant for sieges?

Spoiler: Hussite tarasnice and houfnice, c1400

Show

Spoiler: Dardanelles gun, Ottoman top of the line bombard, 1465

Show

So while the weight of ammunition has been somewhat mitigated, the weapons themselves are extremely heavy if they are made big enough to damage ships. That means you can't fit enough of them on a ship, since they have to be spinal mounts.

It took the development of 2 things
1) Wheeled naval gun carriages so that the recoil of the gun was not transferred to the deck which allowed guns to be side firing.
2) gun ports that allowed the guns to be run inboard for loading
That allowed sailing ships to deliver effective broadsides that ended the galley as a main battle weapon.

Not really, the order of inventions is almost the other way around.

Both gun carriage and gun ports were feats of engineering people were capable of well before advent of age of sail style gunnery. Problems are in cannon metallurgy and gunpowder manufacture - you needed cannons that were small enough to fit on a broadside (cannon exploding on you is not a good thing on land, and even worse on a ship) and powerful enough to punch through ship hulls (there were significant improvements in manufacturing process of powder, and they don't get a lot of attention). Once they were developed and it suddenly made sense for them to be fitted on ships, gun ports and carriages were promptly developed.

Accuracy - by volume

This is the largest problem here, and will remain an issue until mechanical ranging computers will solve it. It is really hard to fire from a moving platform, really hard to hit a moving target, and even harder to do it of either or both are moving in such a way that their range changes. The maths there gets fiendishly complex, and some of the methods, like integration, will not be invented until Newton-Leibnitz feud.

What's more, should the range be far enough, there is the possibility that the defending vessel will change course after the shot was fired and before it hits. With gunpowder, you need a lot of range, but something slower like a trebuchet will run into this issue a lot sooner - Warwick castle treb has top speed of 70 meters per second, so even if that speed was constant - and it isn't - a target a kilometer away would have 14 seconds before the rock hit.

That means one thing - you either need to be really close, or have a lot of guns so that some of them hit, and preferably both. Age of sail cannons had effeective range in the ballbark of a kilometer or two at best, but real ranges were often as little as 50 meters and most often well under 500.

Conclusion - useful for TTRPGs

So, if you want your ships to be able to wreck each other realistically, you need a weapon that fulfills the following:

• enough power to reliably damage vessel hulls
• enough accuracy to hit at least somewhat reliably
• ammunition of which enough can be stored in the space available
• safe enough to not damage own ship

Provided you have no magical range-finders capable of calculating firing solutions (or hitscan weapons, in the forms of speed of light beams or just really fast projectiles), your weapons have to be short ranged and you need a lot of them for a broadside, which means your weapons also have to be:

• small enough to fit multiple of them to the sides
• ammunition needs to be even smaller

And that is a pretty stringent list of requirements.

[Storm_Of_Snow]

That means one thing - you either need to be really close, or have a lot of guns so that some of them hit, and preferably both. Age of sail cannons had effeective range in the ballbark of a kilometer or two at best, but real ranges were often as little as 50 meters and most often well under 500.

If you've got rifling, then your range and accuracy increases, but you basically need breech-loaders to maintain any kind of rate of fire.

However, a massive issue affecting accuracy is the pitch and roll of the boat.

Although I just started thinking while writing this - were case rounds (as in the fused explosive charges that, with a good gunner and an accurate fuse, detonated over their target, spreading musket balls and shrapnel onto them) used on naval vessels?

[fusilier]

If you've got rifling, then your range and accuracy increases, but you basically need breech-loaders to maintain any kind of rate of fire.

However, a massive issue affecting accuracy is the pitch and roll of the boat.

Although I just started thinking while writing this - were case rounds (as in the fused explosive charges that, with a good gunner and an accurate fuse, detonated over their target, spreading musket balls and shrapnel onto them) used on naval vessels?

The Carronade, introduced in the latter half of the 18th century, was designed like a howitzer, but didn't actually fire an exploding shell. It could fire solid shot, but also had a variety of grapeshot and canister rounds for anti-personnel use. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carronade

The French responded with a howitzer designed to fire a shell, but it doesn't appear to have been successful. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obusier_de_vaisseau

It seems that not until the introduction of the Paixhans "shell guns" (invented in the 1820s, not widely adopted until the 1840s) were exploding ordnance common for ship-vs-ship. In that case, the intention was to smash the enemy's ship to pieces with large caliber exploding ordnance, rather than having an anti-personnel effect. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paixhans_gun

Mortars were mounted on specially designed ships as early as the late 1600s, but they seem to have been used for siege operations against land targets. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bomb_vessel

[Martin Greywolf]

If you've got rifling, then your range and accuracy increases, but you basically need breech-loaders to maintain any kind of rate of fire.

Rate of fire is not necessarily a dealbreaker when you are in a salvo combat - sure, you don't have great RoF, but neither does the other side. The issue here is making the rifling itself - not only is it really damn hard to make it in the first place, if your metallurgy isn't consistent enough, it will get worn down very quickly. The prices are very hard to find, but something like a rifled wheellock would be monstrously expensive in its time, even without decorations they tend to have.

Take that sort of expense, scale it up to cannon size and multiply by something like 50 per ship and they become so prohibitively expensive you may as well get another ship or two for the same price.

Additionally, if the rifling manufacture was possible, rate of fire was possible to solve. Hussites used a gun called Rychlice (literally Speedy in English) that used pre-loaded chambers, not unlike swappable revolver cylinders - only in 1420s.

Spoiler: Prague Rychlice, 20mm

Show

The above is a small field example, these were made big enough to be used as siege weapons, one is mentioned at Karlštejn in 1422.

You may ask, why didn't it catch on? Well, remember that metallurgy we keep coming back to? Apparently, Rychlice had trouble with their barrels, they kept exploding in use if the top RoF was sustained for too long. This was bad enough on dry land to get them discontinued, it would be much worse in cramped ship conditions, with loaded chambers lying everywhere.

Although I just started thinking while writing this - were case rounds (as in the fused explosive charges that, with a good gunner and an accurate fuse, detonated over their target, spreading musket balls and shrapnel onto them) used on naval vessels?

I'll stick to pre-age of sail navies, and the answer for them is kinda. You did have naphta jars, fire pots and early grenades used as anti-personnel weapons during boarding actions, but they were somewhat rare. Fire weapons have all the same problems of burning your loot and you as well if not careful I already mentioned. As for grenades, once they were around, so were all sorts of guns, so you needed to be carful with them as well, because if one of them finds its way to gunpowder storage, you will all die.

Spoiler: Possible shell, Froissart chronicles

Show

Catapults, trebuchets and mortars did rarely use hollow metal or stone shells, there are records from battle at Jadra in 1421, and I've seen several Hussite examples in local museums. The issue with these is that that fuse is a literal fuse, you set it on fire, it will go off after a given time. There was no way to consistently set these off at the right time, they worked by falling down, stopping and exploding later. This is fine for use in sieges where a wall is bound to stop them eventually, but for flat-trajectory cannon on board of ships, it's not ideal.

Catapults and trebuchets did also use clay fire pots, these worked as an upsized molotov coctails. They are possibly the most useful at sea, but you have problem with size of siege engines here.

Spoiler: Lucar, 1688, on fire pots, after giving a receipe for manufacture

Show

Moreover this is to be noted, that the small pottes do serve for to be throne out of one ship into an other in fight upon the sea, and that the great pots are to be used in service upon the land for the defence of towns, fortes, walls, and gates, and to burn such things as the enemies shall throe into ditches for to fill up the same ditches, and also to destroy enemies in their trenches and campes

As for ballistae, they got in on the explosives game as well, alongside crossbows and bows, but again, these were rather rare in the grand scheme of things. Incendiary arrows or bolts could either be of the molotov coctail variety, or just straight up have a bunch of gunpowder strapped to them.

Spoiler: Unknown source showing gunpowder crossbow bolts, ballpark datation by me is maybe 1500, take with a heap of salt

Show

Edit: Rychlice pictures refused to behave, fixed them

[Yora]

The modern military command system of officers and enlisted is an evolution of the medieval European system of nobles and peasants. It very much seems like something that got established out of tradition and sticking with something that already works, and not necessarily out of a natural requirement for military organizations. Are the any modern militaries (present and recent) that don't/didn't use the distinction between officers and enlisted?

[KineticDiplomat]

In the 20th century the PLA (China) and Red Army (Russia), and PAVN (communist Vietnam) amongst others each went with periods without express ranks or where despite a theoretical ranks structure rank was not designated on the ground, in keeping with communist ideals.

There was still a positional authority relationship between the leaders and the led, though there were some experiments with troops being responsible for critiquing and policing their leaders.

None the less, all of the example armies decided to embrace ranks eventually, sometimes off and on. The PLA went the longest, having no ranks from formation through the Korean War, where hideous casualties lead to a military reform along the Soviet model. They ditched ranks again in the 60s, lost a war with Vietnam, and reinstituted them in the 80s when the party decided they wanted a reliable professional army more than they wanted an ideological statement.

[AdAstra]

The modern military command system of officers and enlisted is an evolution of the medieval European system of nobles and peasants. It very much seems like something that got established out of tradition and sticking with something that already works, and not necessarily out of a natural requirement for military organizations. Are the any modern militaries (present and recent) that don't/didn't use the distinction between officers and enlisted?

This has happened in some form or another in many instances, as explained above. Another example I can think of were some of the forces in the Spanish Civil War, where officers were elected, but this was largely on the small unit level, and there were still people in charge.

One major thing is that while the current rank system is indeed descended from those aristocratic concepts, the hierarchy they represent is pretty well essential to modern tactics. You need designated people in charge of other people, and other people in charge of those people, in order to get things done quickly and efficiently. In order to actually exercise initiative and respond to a changing battlefield, you need people at each level who can observe the situation and give out orders that will actually be followed.

Wars cannot, at this point, be effectively fought by gaggles of people all operating independently. It's fought by units of people who support each other and help each other complete a shared mission. The only current way to do this quickly is by having trusted and trained individuals giving directives that the people below them will use their own authority and training to achieve, down to the individual soldier. And in situations where the pecking order is unclear, it's very helpful to have a detailed rank system so that it's clear who's supposed to be in charge.

Obviously, people of higher rank still need to listen to their subordinates if they want to succeed, especially since they're often dependent on them to determine and describe the situation. However, in terms of authority, a clear rank and unit structure is really, really helpful.

[Mike_G]

I don't think anyone is questioning the need for leaders and a chain of command. I think the question is the officer/enlisted divide.

A new 21 year old 2nd Lieutenant outranks a veteran sergeant when they may have less practical experience than even a junior enlisted like an E 3 with a year of service.

There's no good reason you couldn't have everyone enlist as a private and rise through the ranks from rifleman to platoon leader without the artificial line of "guys with shiny stuff on their collars" vs "guys with stripes."

[AdAstra]

I don't think anyone is questioning the need for leaders and a chain of command. I think the question is the officer/enlisted divide.

A new 21 year old 2nd Lieutenant outranks a veteran sergeant when they may have less practical experience than even a junior enlisted like an E 3 with a year of service.

There's no good reason you couldn't have everyone enlist as a private and rise through the ranks from rifleman to platoon leader without the artificial line of "guys with shiny stuff on their collars" vs "guys with stripes."

Oh certainly. Though to my knowledge, there indeed have been issues with officers that ascend through the enlisted ranks, so there potentially is a good reason for the divide. The issue, from what little I know, is that while “mustangs” are usually very competent and understand things that can’t really be taught, they frequently have disciplinary issues, Not necessarily in terms of being insubordinate, but in that they can frequently get too close with enlisted troops (having been one and all) and fail to act like a proper commander, which kinda requires some degree of professional distance. Not to mention that being good at managing a small unit does not necessarily make you that much better at managing a larger one.

There’s also the issue that rising dramatically in rank tends to require actually distinguishing yourself, which rarely happens outside of wartime. So if all your officers are selected from your pool of enlisted men, you’re either going to have to select a few to be officers, which is hard to do without a lot of data on performance and can breed resentment, or have way too many officers if you’re promoting people based on time served. And when it is wartime, you usually need to raise a lot of military units fast, and that’s typically going to require training officers from scratch, unless you want to just force all your prewar professional core into positions which they may not be suitable for.

[KineticDiplomat]

To MikeG's point, there are some western armies that require officers serve one to two years as junior enlisted before becoming officers.

However, even if go clean room on society, there are practical matters of labor management. Military manpower has a short shelf life compared to civilian occupations, even in peace time. Only a handful of very senior leaders are likely to serve past their early-mid forties. On top of which, there is a vast spectrum of jobs and human capital requirements in a military. The two combine to create a pressure for specialization in differing areas of responsibility with different skill sets.

While the idea of a rifle platoon leader maybe being less capable than his senior NCO is a well worn one (though the last few decades of combat have shown it to be false as often as it's true, just as occasionally when the chips are down it's the aggressive senior private who is somehow running things), the officers of the world don't really exist to lead platoons. If they did, you could certainly learn to be a rifleman/cook/truck driver/mechanic/clerk/analyst/etc. and then occupy a junior NCO position (for rifle purposes, team leader), a middling one (squad leader), and then a more senior one (platoon sergeant), before finally taking the platoon/maintenance bay/field kitchen/whatever as it's leader/commander. But it would take you at least half a dozen years and for most somewhere between twelve to fifteen. And then you would need to learn to do all the actual officer work, which is typically focused at higher levels.

That of course leads to three problems.

The first is that the people who make great, for civilian comparison, warehouse foremen or the best carpenters do not necessarily make the best supply chain managers or architects and vice versa. Likewise, a guy with unerring talent for keeping six cannons running and thirty people doing what they're supposed to does not make the best guy to synchronize the rocket and air attacks three days and ninety miles from now. In converse, the guy who can keep the trains running for 20,000 men might suck at driving a lead truck down a dark road or pulling one out of the mud. If he has to "earn his way up" then you end up with lots of people with very necessary skills essentially locked behind a different skill set. And you'll end up promoting a lot of people into "run the trains for 20,000 people" jobs who's skillset was being a great warehouse foreman. Sergeants Major (the highest enlisted rank) and quietly infamous for having extraordinarily bad ideas and grossly over-simplifying the complex at times (let's just make a giant line they can't get through....across all 20km of frontage with our 2,000 or so infantry) even when being very good at their role. Eisnehower was, by all accounts, not a stellar lieutenant and probably would have been an average at best private.

The second is the simple time to learn. Learning to plan the international movement of forces over the course of months, or to program acquisitions for years, takes time and education. Learning to be really good at getting a bunch of trucks down a dark road also takes time and education. You've got twenty years. Odds are you aren't going to learn to be good at both. And one of these two has to give the orders (also flexible, as said planner would be shoved in the back of the gun truck in a firefight, where the same men doing it would follow his multi-year campaign plan without ever questioning it.)

Finally, 21st century wars have had only a trickle of casualties relative to the 20th (at least if you're the western army), and long standing comparably small and professional forces. When the force size and the casualty rates go up, at some point you need to manage a large institution that is under constant attrition. The egalitarian ethos of having your nuclear engineer work as a deck hand rather than a nuclear engineer loses it's appeal quickly when you need lots of them in your navy and quite a few deck hands seem to be dying.

Not that there aren't points of stupidity in the whole matter - the USAF insists all of it's pilots be officers, though frankly there's no particular need for it other than vanity for example.

[Max_Killjoy]

The habit of having pilots etc be officers has some origin in the traditional rules of war and the additional consideration given to officers who become POWs, along with many of the original pilots coming from educated backgrounds, and along with pilots requiring massive amounts of training and a higher paygrade matching their "status".

[Lvl 2 Expert]

That's another thing about rank, it's somewhat intertwined with the traditional education system. "Regular" enlisted receive training below the bachelor level. Like skilled craftspeople around the world they get lots of invaluable practice, but not too much theory to master, which is traditionally valued higher. NCO's get what's essentially a professional/applied bachelor education, sometimes in the form of training on the job and rising through the ranks, and learning to be an officer is the equivalent of getting a master's degree. The math and physics you need to properly grasp what you need to do to keep a fighter jet in the air are university grade stuff, so they're officers.

In fact, all together the military might be fairer about rank than the general civilian world. There are very few people in the military who started as colonel because they were the general's nephew, because they inherited enough money to buy their own tank division or even because someone had legitimately figured out that this guy, he'd be great at running things. Put him in charge and give him a ten million dollar salary.

You want to be an officer? Get your degree and then show us how you handle a platoon.

[Yora]

Certainly a good point for not only having one entry point for people getting into the military rank structure.
Though that makes me wonder, have there been cases of armies with three tiers of ranks instead of two?

[AdAstra]

Certainly a good point for not only having one entry point for people getting into the military rank structure.
Though that makes me wonder, have there been cases of armies with three tiers of ranks instead of two?

Most countries generally delineate between non-commissioned officers and the people below and above them. So sergeants, corporals, petty officers, etc. There are also usually training courses that you're expected to go through, which has occasionally been used to train NCOs with no prior experience (basically entering the army as a sergeant or whatever). Making your NCOs "from scratch" like this tends to have problems, though, so it's usually only happened when there's a shortage of people of such rank. The main issue being that NCOs really need to have actual experience for the sorts of jobs they usually do, in most cases moreso than higher officers, especially since NCOs are often the ones expected to make sure that newer officers aren't making stupid mistakes.

[Lvl 2 Expert]

Making your NCOs "from scratch" like this tends to have problems, though, so it's usually only happened when there's a shortage of people of such rank.

As far as I'm aware this is the rule rather than the exception in the current Dutch armed forces. There are separate training courses for corporals. Although I do believe they have been rebranded task specialists rather than "onderofficieren" (literally under/below/lower-officers, so NCO's). You don't get to be a proper NCO until you make sergeant. There are still internal ways to go from lower to higher ranks, including from enlisted to corporal and from sergeant/adjutant to officer, I just personally have no idea about what kind of percentages of people we're talking about there. Although honestly the requirements for regular enlisted person training aren't exactly bottom of the barrel either, so I suspect the step from soldier or sailor to corporal happens quite a bit. (Also any smallish standing peace time army is not necessarily the best model for any questions about military stuff, as it's usually the big wartime armies we're really trying to learn about.)

(Fun fact: the Netherlands has different types of junior high/high school education aimed at different types of followup. The type you want for a classic academic bachelor into master is called VWO and takes 6 years to complete, and that's what you need to become an officer. But the air force has made an exception. The physical requirements for being a pilot are so high that they needed a larger talent pool to scout from, figuring sometimes it's easier to drag a less academically inclined student through the hard physics than it is to teach an intelligent bookworm reflexes. So you can apply to be a pilot with a 5 year HAVO education. Did I say fun fact? I meant useless. Sorry.)

[Martin Greywolf]

Certainly a good point for not only having one entry point for people getting into the military rank structure.
Though that makes me wonder, have there been cases of armies with three tiers of ranks instead of two?

I mean, it depends on how you define tiers. Medieval armies had four de facto tiers, nobles, retinues, mercenaries/permanent militias (people paid for their expertise in killing stuff) and conscripted population (this one was rarely deployed in practice, but it did happen, usually in defensive sieges). De iure you got to double or triple all of that because of clergy having a separate country and because of free cities, so you end up with something like 4 tiers each of which has 3 "branches".

While some mobility between the tiers was happening, it was unusual - you got to the top ranks in your mercenary company, and that was usually it, unless you managed to make it to a lord's retinue or get a title yourself.

Modern militaries usually tend to split their ranks into two tiers officially, and that is doing stuff and management. This divide is drawn along the traditional lines, but it works well enough. Unoficially, you have a sort of third tier, which is specialists, and they sometimes enter into armies in strange ways. These would be people like nuclear engineers, programmers and other fields where you need a lengthy education. Whether these are officers or not tends to vary.

[Brother Oni]

Certainly a good point for not only having one entry point for people getting into the military rank structure.
Though that makes me wonder, have there been cases of armies with three tiers of ranks instead of two?

Technically yes, but only because salary and rank are heavily intertwined in the military.

The best example of this I can think of, are the various military bands in modern militaries - in order to attract capable candidates from the civilian sector, the military has to offer salaries commensurate with the civilian sector.
Often this means that they get quite a high rank to go along with their pay - looking at the USMC Band, on completion of their boot camp, new musicians get the rank of Staff Sergeant (E6), which has a minimum time-in-service requirement of 60 months and a minimum time-in-grade of 36 months - ie for a regular marine to be promoted up to an E6, they have to have spent at least 60 months serving, 36 of which must have been as a sergeant (E5).

Despite their apparent rank, you wouldn't trust a musician to take command of a full squad during a firefight.

The best media example I can think of, is Counselor Troi from ST:tNG - she's technically a LCDR and of the same rank as Data until very late on in the series, although she would most likely defer to him if the ship was under attack.

Incidentally, this is also the reason behind why you can wind up a British Royal Marine by asking him 'what instrument does he play?'.

That's not to say musicians never got involved in combat - the most memorable example I can think of, is Trumpeter Calvin Titus of the US Army. During the Battle of Peking (1900), he was the first to volunteer to attempt to scale the city walls while under fire from the Imperial Chinese troops and suceeded. He was awarded the Medal of Honor for this.

Unoficially, you have a sort of third tier, which is specialists, and they sometimes enter into armies in strange ways. These would be people like nuclear engineers, programmers and other fields where you need a lengthy education. Whether these are officers or not tends to vary.

In the British Army, these are known as Professionally Qualified Officers - they usually get an abbreviated officer training course (informally known as the 'vicars and tarts' course) then get sent into the military to carry on being nurses, doctors, lawyers, etc.

That said, things have changed since I last read up on it - the PQO course now includes practical infantry knowledge so at the very least, they're not dead weight when the brown smelly stuff hits the fan. This is a response to RAMC medics ending up on patrol in deepest darkest Helmand, althoguh the shift probably started during GW1, when 3 of the 5 dressing stations were commanded by dental officers.

[Mike_G]

The "specialist" rank in the US Army is kind of like that. They are at an NCO pay grade, but don't have the command rank. So an infantry corporal (E 4) will make less than a Specialist 5 (E 5) who may have some particular skill, like being a medic or a linguist, but the corporal is in command even if the attached specialist is technically higher rank.

It's a way to get skilled individuals into the Army at a higher pay grade than an unskilled E 1 recruit but keep the radio repair guy from pulling rank and trying to take command of the platoon over an infantry corporal if the platoon or squad leader needs to be replaced.