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

[Lord Torath]

I've got a player who wants their Int:9 half-giant with the bowyer/fletcher proficiency to invent one (a compound bow) in a Dark Sun pick-up-game campaign. The player says they want to have their half-giant hire some engineers to do the actual design work.

Dark Sun has catapults, ballistae, and crossbows. It has pulleys and winches. Could you get away with brass bushings instead of precision bearings in the cams and pulleys?

This thing will already be super expensive (I'm thinking 1000s of gold pieces on Athas, which is like 100,000s of gold pieces anywhere else), and I'm not clear on what benefits the player wants it to provide relative to more standard bows.

I'm not the senior DM on the server (if I were, we wouldn't be using the Revised Dark Sun rules), so this won't be entirely my decision.

[Max_Killjoy]

I've got a player who wants their Int:9 half-giant with the bowyer/fletcher proficiency to invent one (a compound bow) in a Dark Sun pick-up-game campaign. The player says they want to have their half-giant hire some engineers to do the actual design work.

Dark Sun has catapults, ballistae, and crossbows. It has pulleys and winches. Could you get away with brass bushings instead of precision bearings in the cams and pulleys?

This thing will already be super expensive (I'm thinking 1000s of gold pieces on Athas, which is like 100,000s of gold pieces anywhere else), and I'm not clear on what benefits the player wants it to provide relative to more standard bows.

I'm not the senior DM on the server (if I were, we wouldn't be using the Revised Dark Sun rules), so this won't be entirely my decision.

I don't think Athas has what it takes for that to be a thing.

It would be entirely rool of kewl.

Even then, I don't think D&D has the granularity to represent the benefits.

[Pauly]

I've got a player who wants their Int:9 half-giant with the bowyer/fletcher proficiency to invent one (a compound bow) in a Dark Sun pick-up-game campaign. The player says they want to have their half-giant hire some engineers to do the actual design work.

Dark Sun has catapults, ballistae, and crossbows. It has pulleys and winches. Could you get away with brass bushings instead of precision bearings in the cams and pulleys?

This thing will already be super expensive (I'm thinking 1000s of gold pieces on Athas, which is like 100,000s of gold pieces anywhere else), and I'm not clear on what benefits the player wants it to provide relative to more standard bows.

I'm not the senior DM on the server (if I were, we wouldn't be using the Revised Dark Sun rules), so this won't be entirely my decision.

I’d offer the player an oxybeles (the precursor to the ballista) with some pulley and lever mechanism with the winch to allow faster loading. A half giant should be big and strong enough to operate it, and it doesn't break the technology of the world.

[TheStranger]

I don't think Athas has what it takes for that to be a thing.

It would be entirely rool of kewl.

Even then, I don't think D&D has the granularity to represent the benefits.

I think this is the right answer, in terms of both the tech level to create and the effects under D&D rules. That said, rule of cool isn’t inherently bad in a D&D game. IMO the way to handle it as a DM is to find out why the player wants it and what stats they think it should have. If this is a variant of how new players say they stab somebody in the neck expecting that means their dagger will do more than 1d4 damage, you may need to have a talk about how D&D works (doesn’t mean they can’t have it, though). If they’re an archery enthusiast and think compound bows are cool regardless of the stats, you might want to think about fitting it into the game. If they’re trying to munchkin their way to some mechanical advantage, that’s another issue.

If you do decide to allow a compound bow in the game, I’d treat it as an extraordinary feat of craftsmanship by a legendary bowyer, not something that could readily be replicated without substantial advances in metallurgy and precision machining that would fundamentally change the setting. Essentially it would be a refluffed magic bow (but mundane for purposes of DR or in an AMF), not an invention that’s introduced to the world.

[Martin Greywolf]

I'll speak only on the practical and historical bits of this, what you do with in-game stuff is up to you.

Can you make a compound bow with medieval tech? Yes, and it's not going to be that difficult, any jeweller will be able to make the necessary pulleys and the limbs will go to crossbow maker.

While compound bow is under tension all the time, the same goes for the crossbow, and the method of their use would likely be the same - span them when on campaign, unspan them for long term storage. You'd also likely see similar methods of limb construction, mening wood, layered horn and sinew or metal. This would make the bow limbs quite chunky, making it look like vertical crossbow, but it would work.

So, why did no one do that?

Because there was no point. The compound bow has only one major advantage when compared to standard bow - it's easier to draw. It doesn't necessarily shoot lighter arrows faster because of it, though, since there is a limit on how fast the limbs can move, no matter what they are shooting, but it does mean you could fire heavier arrows.

Thing is, only use for something like that is armor penetration, and you don't hit the limits of selfbows and composite bows when it comes to that until late medieval period, and by that point, you see serpentines around and flintlocks aren't that far off.

Which means that there is no reason to invest vast amounts of money into compounds before late medieval armor, and once late medieval armor comes around, compound bows have to compete with easy to make, easy to use arquebuses that also have comparably much cheaper ammunition.

If we didn't discover gunpowder, for some weird reason, we would probably see compound bows in military use, albeit in limited numbers. It's still far more expensive and harder to repair and maintain than self bows, or even composites.

As for crossbows, bows and crossbows have fundamentally different roles. A bow is a fast-firing weapon, a crossbow is a slow-firing poke-from-behind-cover weapon. While they can be pressed into each other's role, they aren't in direct competition, as evidenced by both bows and crossbows being used alongside one another.

[Max_Killjoy]

I'll speak only on the practical and historical bits of this, what you do with in-game stuff is up to you.

Can you make a compound bow with medieval tech? Yes, and it's not going to be that difficult, any jeweller will be able to make the necessary pulleys and the limbs will go to crossbow maker.

While compound bow is under tension all the time, the same goes for the crossbow, and the method of their use would likely be the same - span them when on campaign, unspan them for long term storage. You'd also likely see similar methods of limb construction, mening wood, layered horn and sinew or metal. This would make the bow limbs quite chunky, making it look like vertical crossbow, but it would work.

So, why did no one do that?

Because there was no point. The compound bow has only one major advantage when compared to standard bow - it's easier to draw. It doesn't necessarily shoot lighter arrows faster because of it, though, since there is a limit on how fast the limbs can move, no matter what they are shooting, but it does mean you could fire heavier arrows.

Thing is, only use for something like that is armor penetration, and you don't hit the limits of selfbows and composite bows when it comes to that until late medieval period, and by that point, you see serpentines around and flintlocks aren't that far off.

Which means that there is no reason to invest vast amounts of money into compounds before late medieval armor, and once late medieval armor comes around, compound bows have to compete with easy to make, easy to use arquebuses that also have comparably much cheaper ammunition.

If we didn't discover gunpowder, for some weird reason, we would probably see compound bows in military use, albeit in limited numbers. It's still far more expensive and harder to repair and maintain than self bows, or even composites.

As for crossbows, bows and crossbows have fundamentally different roles. A bow is a fast-firing weapon, a crossbow is a slow-firing poke-from-behind-cover weapon. While they can be pressed into each other's role, they aren't in direct competition, as evidenced by both bows and crossbows being used alongside one another.

I thought an advantage of the compound bow is that it can be held at full draw without straining, potentially improving accuracy.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Completely random, disconnected question--

I've been watching a bit more wuxia (and related) clips, and one recurring theme (with that and with the Dynasty Warrior games) is that chinese spears often have a "tassel" or tuft of colorful things or other cloth-like decoration near the tip (usually attached to the shaft just before the tip).

Wikipedia says this:

Common features of the Chinese spear are the leaf-shaped blade and red horse-hair tassel lashed just below. The tassel shows elite troop status. It also serves a tactical purpose. When the spear is moving quickly, the addition of the tassel aids in blurring the vision of the opponent so that it is more difficult for them to grab the shaft of spear behind the head or tip. The tassel also served another purpose, to stop the flow of blood from the blade getting to the wooden shaft (the blood would make it slippery, or sticky when dried).

Is that correct? Are there other meanings there? Is there a reason that you don't see western spears depicted that same way as much?

[Brother Oni]

While compound bow is under tension all the time, the same goes for the crossbow, and the method of their use would likely be the same - span them when on campaign, unspan them for long term storage.

Depends on the compound bow design. The older ones can be unstrung much like a recurve, but any vaguely modern compound requires a bow press and specialised gear. Meanwhile a medieval crossbow just needs a bastard string and whatever spanning mechanism it uses normally.

The compound bow has only one major advantage when compared to standard bow - it's easier to draw.

The compound bow's major advantage is that you can hold it at full draw with comparatively little effort, due to the way the cams have altered the force/draw curve. The permits longer time aiming, thus greater accuracy.
Other common compound bow accessories like release aids, allows for much greater consistency.


On a separate note, the limbs of a compound bow are very short, much like a horsebow. This means you're probably only going to manage a a two finger draw at most as the string angle will be too acute for a full draw, which limits the amount of power you can put it in (as you have less points of contact to draw the bow). Typically you'd get around the issue with a release aid, so that's another fiddly mechanism to add to the compound bow.

As Max said, D&D doesn't have the granularity to properly model the differences between bows in general, let alone a compound and a recurve (force/draw curves, being able to hold at full draw for longer, shorter bow lengths, string angles, etc) beyond giving it Masterwork status and a +1 to hit.

[Martin Greywolf]

I thought an advantage of the compound bow is that it can be held at full draw without straining, potentially improving accuracy.

Depends on the compound bow design. The older ones can be unstrung much like a recurve, but any vaguely modern compound requires a bow press and specialised gear. Meanwhile a medieval crossbow just needs a bastard string and whatever spanning mechanism it uses normally.

The compound bow's major advantage is that you can hold it at full draw with comparatively little effort, due to the way the cams have altered the force/draw curve. The permits longer time aiming, thus greater accuracy.
Other common compound bow accessories like release aids, allows for much greater consistency.

I wouldn't call it a major advantage, especially not in warfare. There are precious few places where the ability to hold your draw and aim slightly better would be useful, and in most of these (ambushes and shooting from behind cover or at people in cover), crossbow does better because you don't need to expose a lot of your body to use it.

I guess it gives you edge over other bows, but you aren't competing with just bows, you are up against all ranged weapons in use at the time.

The easier draw (as in, force expended by the human vs initial velocity), on the other hand, lets you get elite draw weight archery with people who aren't physically at that level, but the cost is... prohibitive.

Other common compound bow accessories like release aids, allows for much greater consistency.

I mean, yeah. And they have optical sights, red dots and all maner of fancy things, some of which are transferable to other bow types, some of which aren't. But all of those make the situation even worse in the "how expensive is this thing going to be" department, especially in age without mass manufacture.

Completely random, disconnected question--

I've been watching a bit more wuxia (and related) clips, and one recurring theme (with that and with the Dynasty Warrior games) is that chinese spears often have a "tassel" or tuft of colorful things or other cloth-like decoration near the tip (usually attached to the shaft just before the tip).

Wikipedia says this:

Common features of the Chinese spear are the leaf-shaped blade and red horse-hair tassel lashed just below. The tassel shows elite troop status. It also serves a tactical purpose. When the spear is moving quickly, the addition of the tassel aids in blurring the vision of the opponent so that it is more difficult for them to grab the shaft of spear behind the head or tip. The tassel also served another purpose, to stop the flow of blood from the blade getting to the wooden shaft (the blood would make it slippery, or sticky when dried).

Is that correct? Are there other meanings there? Is there a reason that you don't see western spears depicted that same way as much?

Yeah, all of that is pretty much a myth. I do a lot of spear fighting, and let me assure you, no amount of tassels is going to make me not watch where the shiny stabby bit is pointing. I guess someone without much training may make that mistake? And as for grabbing the spear, that's about as likely as being able to parry a sword with a dagger. Can you do it? Yeah, especially against a weaker opponent. But it's extremely hard to do and not that hard to defend against.

Also, a tassel will, if anything, make it easier to grab.

Also, it's not just chinese spears.

Spoiler: 17th century Germany, ceremonial

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Spoiler: English renaissance era

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Also, while it's not a tassell per se:

Spoiler: Austria, c1410

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Does it stop blood then?

No. I mean, first of all, there won't be all that much blood on it that won't drip off, and more importantly, what makes you think someone won't get impaled enough to go past the tassel? Or someone gets impaled and then your friend stabs him in the neck and now blood is all over the place. And you. And your friend.

There is, however, at least one credible reference to a tassel being meant to stop a liquid:

I will onelie say thus much more touching the pike∣man, that he ought to haue his Pyke at the point and middest trimmed with handsome tassels, and a handle, not so much for ornament as to de∣fend the Souldiers bodie from water, which in raine doth runne downe alongst the wood.

- William Garrard, 1591

What is the tassel for?

The number one use is decoration. Be it as rank/unit insignia, as a talisman or just to look nicer. Sometimes you even see the entire spear shaft painted, and there is no limit on how fancy the ceremonial spears can get.

As for practical uses, the rainwater stopper is mentioned above, although I wonder how effective it would be in heavy rain - not much, I imagine. Another use is reinforcing the wood, the tassel has some sort of binding under it, and that helps protect the wood a bit from splintering, whether as a result of blows landing on that bit of the shaft, or from general use. It's not a very big improvement, but it does help a bit.

[PhoenixPhyre]

What is the tassel for?

The number one use is decoration. Be it as rank/unit insignia, as a talisman or just to look nicer. Sometimes you even see the entire spear shaft painted, and there is no limit on how fancy the ceremonial spears can get.

As for practical uses, the rainwater stopper is mentioned above, although I wonder how effective it would be in heavy rain - not much, I imagine. Another use is reinforcing the wood, the tassel has some sort of binding under it, and that helps protect the wood a bit from splintering, whether as a result of blows landing on that bit of the shaft, or from general use. It's not a very big improvement, but it does help a bit.

Interesting. So I guess the big difference between chinese media depictions of spears and western media depictions of spears is the media culture, not the actual spears.

I mean, I've seen lances with pennants in western movies, and I've seen flagbearers, but the average "dude with spear" (who in western modern media seems be typecast as "faceless grunt who will die") generally doesn't. Or maybe I just didn't see them.

[Vinyadan]

In illuminations, lances of knights with pennants are very common. There also are spearmen with them, although they are a bit harder to find on Google. In particular, I found this one -- a fac simile from the early XIX century of a now lost manuscript, the Hortus deliciarum, from the XII century. https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k9400936h/f7.item See the bottom. Also the Varangian Guard in a contemporary representation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varang...Skyla_Gate.jpg

They seem to be limited in the Bayeux tapestry, where however they are present for very important knights and occasions, like when Conan gives up the keys of St. Michael by passing them over with a lance to another lance, both with pennants. The weapons given to Harold by William also have a pennant.

By the way, there is something I find interesting about the tapestry: in it, the Normans are referred to as "Franci".

[Brother Oni]

I wouldn't call it a major advantage, especially not in warfare. There are precious few places where the ability to hold your draw and aim slightly better would be useful, and in most of these (ambushes and shooting from behind cover or at people in cover), crossbow does better because you don't need to expose a lot of your body to use it.

We weren't talking about warfare but the advantages of a compound bow over a longbow.

You would be able to get a second shot off much quicker than a crossbow, plus the arrow shelf makes the compound bow innately more accurate and precise; if you look at the scores in target archery federations, longbow has the lowest average scores of the main three categories (longbow, recurve and compound).

The main circumstances where you'd find being able to hold at full draw for longer (or partially let down and rest) being a major advantage is during hunting, especially when stalking. I agree that in medieval times, they would have used a different solution; for hunting, the alternate solution would have been to use a crossbow instead.

Yeah, all of that is pretty much a myth. I do a lot of spear fighting, and let me assure you, no amount of tassels is going to make me not watch where the shiny stabby bit is pointing.

Do you fight with a HEMA/Western style or a Chinese/Eastern style? There are clear differences between how the spear is used, which the favours the use of a tassel (e.g. Eastern uses slashes and is much quicker in the 'pool cue' style strikes, at least on comparison with HEMA spear sparring videos versus qiang long spear and short spear sparring videos).

[Martin Greywolf]

In illuminations, lances of knights with pennants are very common. There also are spearmen with them, although they are a bit harder to find on Google. In particular, I found this one -- a fac simile from the early XIX century of a now lost manuscript, the Hortus deliciarum, from the XII century. https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k9400936h/f7.item See the bottom. Also the Varangian Guard in a contemporary representation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varang...Skyla_Gate.jpg

They seem to be limited in the Bayeux tapestry, where however they are present for very important knights and occasions, like when Conan gives up the keys of St. Michael by passing them over with a lance to another lance, both with pennants. The weapons given to Harold by William also have a pennant.

Yeah, there is a fierce debate about how common they were, with the bottom line once again being "we don't really know". It may well be they were used as rank insignia in some cases at least, but these are the details that aren't really elaborated on in medieval sources.

Do you fight with a HEMA/Western style or a Chinese/Eastern style? There are clear differences between how the spear is used, which the favours the use of a tassel (e.g. Eastern uses slashes and is much quicker in the 'pool cue' style strikes, at least on comparison with HEMA spear sparring videos versus qiang long spear and short spear sparring videos).

I did both, though I mostly stick to European these days. My favourite spear guard is stolen straight from Tai Chi, though.

Eastern issues

The katas, forms, whatever of eastern style of teaching MAs are meant to be a technique syllabus. You go through the sequence once and have all the things your style says you should be able to do with that weapon.

What they aren't is representative of the application. Just because you have a 50/50 ratio of stabs and strikes in spear form doesn't mean you will ahve that ratio in application. A lot of the techniques in the forms are meant to be used in specific cases only, if you see an opening, not as a general thing.

A good way to think about this is to imagine Fiore's blade grabs - if you had a form with all of his giocco largo techniques, you'd have ~20 techniques in total, two of which use blade grabs (and several more for stepping on blade and grabbing opposing hilt). That gives you a ratio of 1 in 10 for grabbing the blade, even though we only rarely see it done in practice.

Finally, tassel doesn't help you. It just... doesn't distract at all. If you are fighting someone, especially with a polearm, you watch him as a whole, you can't tunnel vision onto just the tip of his spears. Where his arms and legs are is just as important. And a spear is a rather large and visible object in the first place.

Western issues

You can't learn a European spear style by looking up a spear chapter in a treatise and study that. To take Fiore as an example, by the time he gets to the spear, he already went through grappling, dagger, sword in one and two hands, sword in armor and pollaxe in armor - and the techniques from previous steps are to be used where applicable. He explicitly tells us so several times.

We are three masters using spear guards that are closely related to the sword guards.
- Fiore on spear guards, ~1400

He then gives you a handful of examples, but the meaning is clear - look at what is in sword section and apply it where you can. More than that, sword section guards are also used in pollaxe section, so you need to look at that as well.

As for slashes/strikes and pool-cuing, well, let's listen to the first thing Fiore tells us about how to fight with a spear:

The extended lance which is used in hand;
The more it is extended, the less it deceives.

This literally tells you to use pool-cuing and switch up the targets so that your opponent can't defend easily.

Six Masters stand in guard with it,
And with a step and a beat, they suddenly strike,
Both from the right side and from the left (for certain):
The beat is made to the side and not up;
And the beat wants to be one arm's length on the lance,
And whoever goes against it will make such a failure.

This is a bit more arcane, but we know from the past usage that when Fiore says "strike", he means both a cut and a thrust, whatever is applicable in your position. "With a step and a beat", on the other hand, means you should cut into the opposing weapon to defend yourself.

Slashes aren't directly addressed by Fiore, not even with swords. The most likely explanation is that he considers them mostly interchangable with cuts.

This comes a bit later, and explicitly tells us to use a strike offensively:

Guards from the left side can also cover and beat aside, but these will wound with a strike, because they cannot effectively place a thrust.

This isn't specific to Fiore either, if you want, for example, Lichtenauer tradition spear fighting, you need to look at Meyer's staff and go from there.

Spoiler: Meyer, pool-cueing with the staff, top left

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Couple this with a lot of disinterest in spear fighting in HEMA, the fact that you cannot do it safely in tournaments and, well, most people just don't get that deep into it. The situation is better with people who do armored fighting, but that is a tiny subsection of WMA in general due to cost of entry, so...

As for me, I do enjoy all sorts of causing damage to opponent's organs, including occassional lancing in battle.

Spoiler: This is from 2016... man I'm old

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Eastern vs Western differences

Ultimately, not that many. Eastern spear forms tend to have fancier footwork and more outright twirling of the spear and of the self, but that is true for Eastern forms in general, and probably not indicative of actual battlefield use. Unfortunately, there are very few historical Eastern sources translated, and usually only partially at that. I'd really like to know what Qi Jiguang had to say about spears...

Eastern forms also seem to lack the armored fighting syllabus, which is the most prevalent in Europe, but that could very well be lack of any instructions telling us what is supposed to be used against armor in the first place.

[Pauly]

Tassels on spears are not a uniquely Chinese thing.

They were widely used in cultures that had no direct or indirect contact with the Chinese. Incas in the Americas and in Sub Saharan Africa in many different cultures.

What that tells you is that the tassels had a real battlefield use. As far as it being stopping rain, the Peruvian Altiplano receives very little rain, yet tasseled spears were ubiquitous in Incan armies. Whilst it may be a consideration for the English on their damp little island it doesn’t explain tassels being common in dry areas.

As for the distraction/blurring if vision that’s something that sounds to me like a post facto rationalization. Quite simply if it were a thing it would only be applicable in duels, so there’d be no point going to the expense and bother of putting a tassel on tens of thousands of spears for an army.

My thought is that it’s most likely use is some form of fields sign. Denoting which side of a battle you are on. It’s possible to be a unit designation, but considering how many different units there were and then if the enemy is doing the sane thing that it’s a recipe for disastrous miscommunications.

As for stopping blood, others have discussed the reasons why it’s impractical in reality. The other issue is that if you want something to tie around the end of your soear to stop blood running down it, there are other cheaper and easier options that a horse hair tassel.

[Martin Greywolf]

Tassels on spears are not a uniquely Chinese thing.

They were widely used in cultures that had no direct or indirect contact with the Chinese. Incas in the Americas and in Sub Saharan Africa in many different cultures.

What that tells you is that the tassels had a real battlefield use.

It really doesn't. You see plenty of various items across the cultures that appear without any practical use whatsoever. The best example is probably carving reliefs into stone - sure, sometimes they are there to tell a story, but most often, they serve as a status symbol or a simple decoration.

Warfare is no different - give a soldier a partially wooden weapon, and he will soon carve stuff into the wood.

Spoiler: 4th century Roman

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Spoiler: WW1

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Rank insignia is a possibility, but placing that on the business end of a spear has its problems, and Occam's razor says we should lean towards the simplest explanation - soldiers wanted to make their stabby stick look nice. And that sometimes makes you do wildly impractical things:

Spoiler: Germany, 1560

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[fusilier]

I don't think I've seen this mentioned (maybe I just missed it), but I think I've heard it claimed that the pennant at the end of a lance would help prevent the lance from being driven too far into the target. Most military lances don't seem to have crossbars as far as I can tell (like a boar spear might), and I could see a light lance going pretty far into unarmored target if hit in a soft spot. But I'm skeptical myself -- it's just another reason I think I heard.

Checking my "Gunnery and Ordnance" textbook from 1862, it describes the lance as having a pennon "which serves as an ornament, and to frighten the enemy's horses."

[Martin Greywolf]

I don't think I've seen this mentioned (maybe I just missed it), but I think I've heard it claimed that the pennant at the end of a lance would help prevent the lance from being driven too far into the target. Most military lances don't seem to have crossbars as far as I can tell (like a boar spear might), and I could see a light lance going pretty far into unarmored target if hit in a soft spot. But I'm skeptical myself -- it's just another reason I think I heard.

Penants don't stop overpenetration even on blunt spears in one hand on foot, let alone on mounted lance charge. We'd see a whole lot more pennants and a whole lot less winged or boar spears if they worked.

More importantly than that, stopping overpenetration this way isn't something you want on a mounted lance - on foot sure, but put it on a lance and the shock you will get from impact will be even worse, able to push you back more, or in a weird direction. Or whatever bar you have on that pennant (and you will need one to do anything) will simply break.

If you do want to prevent the lance from overpenetrating and getting stuck, make it breakable. The really long lances that are 5-6 meters will need to be hollow to be carried anyway.

Checking my "Gunnery and Ordnance" textbook from 1862, it describes the lance as having a pennon "which serves as an ornament, and to frighten the enemy's horses."

I've read something similar about Polish hussar lances, with pennants that were ~4.5 meters long on 6 meter lances (lance length tops out at about 6.5 meters, pennants are described as going to the horse's ears when held vertical). It bears mentioning that this isn't something that will work reliably, the horses may or may not spook at the noise, and definitely won't spook if they belong to people who fought the pennant users regularly, since they will be used to it.

It also bears mentioning how large these things are.

Spoiler: Most often seen depiction

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This is all wrong, as that is at best the demilance, not an actual lance.

Spoiler: No, this is a knoif, uh, lance

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Even this depiction has penants that aren't long enough, though.

Something this large will be considerably louder that the pennants of a more sane size we're more familiar with.

[fusilier]

I've read something similar about Polish hussar lances, with pennants that were ~4.5 meters long on 6 meter lances (lance length tops out at about 6.5 meters, pennants are described as going to the horse's ears when held vertical).
. . .
It also bears mentioning how large these things are.

I don't know if it was the noise, or fluttering it in the eyes of the enemy horse that was the intention of the smaller pennants, but either way, I suspect some training might be possible to help. (EDIT -- I'll also note, not sure if it is significant, but in the 1862 textbook the "frightening" the enemy horses purpose is mentioned *after* the "ornamentation" purpose). Anyway . . .

Wow! Those Polish lances were very long. Based on the imagery, is it 16th/17th century? The 19th century lances are described as 8.5 to 10 feet (~2.5 - 3 meters).

[Martin Greywolf]

I don't know if it was the noise, or fluttering it in the eyes of the enemy horse that was the intention of the smaller pennants, but either way, I suspect some training might be possible to help.

I read an account from napoleonic wars that claimed that horses who were in their first battle were scared of cannon fire, yet that one battle was enough to get them used to it. Same thing goes for horses these days that hang around stuntmen or reenactors. The traiing in question might not even be deliberate.

Wow! Those Polish lances were very long. Based on the imagery, is it 16th/17th century?

It tended to change. First problem is Polish, you have three words that could be translated as lance: lanca, kopija and pika. Lanca and kopija are obviously not Polish, but rather loan words, and stabby sticks were called kopija in Polish, as in most Slavic languages, without distinction between lances, spears and sometimes javelins.

The hussars were using two lengths of kopija, really, the extreme 6.5 meter ones and shorter lance that was about 3-4 meters. Polish word for the latter is kopijka, which is diminutive of kopija, and is translated as "little spear", albeit the diminutives are not necessarily related to size. A more accurate translation will usually call them short lances or demilances.

So, if you find a latin, english or whatever text talking about winged hussars, it is often not possible to tell whether the pokey stick is kopija or kopijka, and even Polish sources may not specify.

As best as I can tell, the kopija was used against western troops and kopijka against eastern - these are secondary sources claims, mind you, I don't specialize in this period to a point where I go down hunting specific ordinances. This was dictated by weapons used at the time, western armies used pike squares and long couched lances, so the idea was persumably to outrange them (especially in a flanking charge, a pike square can turn some of its people to fend it off surprisingly quick). Eastern troops had a different tactical doctrines in play (and at this time, especially after Mehmet II reforms, we can actually talk about state doctrines), and didn't use spears of that length, so using them against them was not that great of an idea.

Remember, the kopija is 6 meters, needs to be hollowed out and is one use only, making it a pretty expensive weapon. The hussars only carried a few of them (well, when I say hussars, I mean their retainers), the most often quoted number is three.

Also keep in mind that eastern vs western split in use is meant in general, a specific battle may well see the commander order a switch to the longer weapon, and there are a few accounts of battles against Ottomans or other nomads that mention a single lance impaling three or four mounted people at once - not very likely with a kopijka. And that's not even going into the possibility of an army simply running out of lances.

As the time goes on and pikes disappear from battlefield, lances shrink in size as well, since there is no point in making them that big. And since most of the really popular depictions of battle of Vienna - you know the one, the Sobieski one, the Sabaton one - were painted in 18-19th centuries, they tend to use lances that are about 4-5 meters, or right in between kopija and kopijka. As for what they really used here, I'm not sure.

The 19th century lances are described as 8.5 to 10 feet (~2.5 - 3 meters).

Well, the Winged Hussars proper were disbanded in 1770s. Your lances are probably for the light cavalry kind of hussars, or maybe for dedicated lancers that survived until WW1, albeit not in great numbers. And since we have no pikes around at this time, I'd say that length is about right for the period.

A note on outreaching

Since this will inevitably come up.

You can't outreach a pike with a lance in the sense that you can charge into a prepared pike square. If length of a pike is 6 meters and you point it 1.5 meters above the ground, and it is braced into the ground as was the procedure, Pytagoras gives you 5.8 meters of reach, minus ~1.5 meters, because you're standing like this:

Spoiler: Brace for impact

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So, 4.3 meter reach.

Sure, that hussar 6.5 meter pike can reach you, but 6.5 meter pike length doesn't mean 6.5 meters reach. From the pictures, you get 5.5 meters tops from your face and only 4-4.5 meters from head of your horse. That's not a lot of meters to work with. In fact, it's less than one, meaning a charge will cross that distance in about 150-200 ms, meaning that even if the braced pike begins falling at the moment of impact, it will move only 20 cm (s = 1/2*g*t^2).

A direct charge into a pike formation will, if the pikes don't rout, get you a mutual slaughter at best, and cavalry will come off worse in this exchange as they are the more expensive soldier type.

However, take your average Landsknecht halberd:

Spoiler: It's called Halberd because it cuts you in Halb!

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That one is between 2 and 4 meters long, and used to guard the corners and sometimes flanks of pike formations. Brace it same as pike, and you get 1.3 meter reach to 3.7 meter reach (with a 3m halberd giving 2.6). Now, for that 1.3 meter reach (which is analogous to musket with bayonet on), you don't really need the 6 meter lance and its 4 meter reach. But it will let you outreach the long halberds to a point where a flanking charge will disrupt the braced halberds enough that, once you and your horse get to them, they will most likely not be braced much.

To put numbers on it, you have 4.5 meter lance reach vs 3.7 halberd reach, meaning four to five times as much time for falling, meaning the freefalling halberd will drop 80 cm to a full meter.

Spoiler: Mair with ~3 meter halberd

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Spoiler: Bavarian sabre halberd, listed as 2.7 meters

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link to czech description

Spoiler: Wikipedia claims 1.5 to 1.8 meter length, yet THESE are their images

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Edit: added a few more numbers to the latter part of this

[snowblizz]

A direct charge into a pike formation will, if the pikes don't rout, get you a mutual slaughter at best, and cavalry will come off worse in this exchange as they are the more expensive soldier type.

And most importantly if the formation hasn't broken, the musketeers and cannon will shoot you or your horse to death long before.

This is why you have musketeers and why pikemen do not fight alone. Pike and shot, neither works alone for very good reasons.

[Calthropstu]

Spoiler: Wikipedia claims 1.5 to 1.8 meter length, yet THESE are their images

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Edit: added a few more numbers to the latter part of this

Maybe those wer just really short soldiers?

[Brother Oni]

Spoiler: Wikipedia claims 1.5 to 1.8 meter length, yet THESE are their images

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Maybe those wer just really short soldiers?

Using back of an envelope calculation, in the top image, the pike is about 21 cm long on my screen, with the soldier being about 16.5 cm.

Being generous and assuming that the pike's 1.8m long, the makes the soldier 1.41m tall or just under 4'8" in freedom units.

Surprisingly, the bottom image gives me almost identical values with the same pike length of 1.8m (9cm for pike, 7 cm for soldier) of 1.4m and just over 4'7".

I guess length of sharp pointy sticks is something that's conserved over the centuries.

[Myth27]

How far away can a regular handgun be heard normally? And with a suppressor?

Ideally give me 5 distances for a DC:0, 5, 10, 15, 20 listening checks

[Gnoman]

Handguns are loud. Very loud. I'd put it in the miles range. To put into perspective, a Manowar concert set a volume record at 139 decibels, resulting in the Guiness Book of World Records deleting their "loudest band" record for future editions. An unsuppressed 9mm Parabellum shot is 160.

I'd put it at DC 0 for any practical range, and DC -10 within a mile or two.

[Calthropstu]

Handguns are loud. Very loud. I'd put it in the miles range. To put into perspective, a Manowar concert set a volume record at 139 decibels, resulting in the Guiness Book of World Records deleting their "loudest band" record for future editions. An unsuppressed 9mm Parabellum shot is 160.

I'd put it at DC 0 for any practical range, and DC -10 within a mile or two.

I don't think miles. Otherwise I'd hear a lot mor gunshots. I'd say maybe a mile on an open plain with little sound between.
Less if say a large number of insects or other noises were between them.

Adjust for buildings in the way.

[Gnoman]

If you're in a city, buildings attenuate a lot of sounds. That's something that is much to complex to really factor in. In more open country, I've heard gunshots that I know were several miles away quite clearly.


The important point is that you'll almost certainly not hear it at all before it becomes quieter than "people talking" (DC0).

[Telok]

I don't think miles. Otherwise I'd hear a lot mor gunshots. I'd say maybe a mile on an open plain with little sound between.
Less if say a large number of insects or other noises were between them.

Adjust for buildings in the way.

I did research into vision & hearing for a game with "perception" but no rules or examples. You can check the Other Games forum, I have a DtD49k7e thread and the stuff is in the book 1 download, or you can wait until later when the 2 year old child is out of the house and I can use the computer without a hairless howler monkey jumping on me. The handgun in a suburb is addressed.

OK, snagged time. Hearing stuff is in the spoiler.

Spoiler

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The system is a roll & keep using d10s from 2010. The DC/TN chart is exactly the same as the D&D 5e DC chart (and about as useful), but normal people in stressful situations have 2k2 (roll 2d10, keep the best 2) or 1k1 if they're completely untrained in something that needs training. That puts normal untrained perception 50% success at DC 11, DC 5 @ 93% and DC 15 @ 27%. You're basic competent PC is at 4k3 for DC 15 @ 85%, DC 20 @ 57%, DC 25 @ 30%. Maximum is generally 10k5 who 50%s at 43.

Locating the source and understanding the content of a sound (like making out what someone said, identifying a motor as a 2-cylinder as opposed to a 4-cylinder, or figuring the direction of a safety switching off in the dark) happens at about 1/4th or 1/5th the detection range, or about 1/10th the detection range if you're unprepared or facing the other way.

To notice the sound: at TN 10, TN 20, TN 30, TN 40
whisper, library, laser shot:	5m, 10m, 20m, 40m
running tap/shower, office or forest:	10m, 20m, 40m, 80m
conversation, busy restaurant: 20m, 40m, 80m, 160m
noisy household appliance, passing automobile: 40m, 80m, 160m, 320m
alarm clock, crying baby: 80m, 160m, 320m, 640m
lawnmower, shouting: 250m, 500m, 1km, 2km
circular saw, busy highway: 500m, 1km, 2km, 4km
disco, light rioting, las cannon: 1km, 2km, 4km, 8km
rock concert, gunpowder pistols: 2km, 4km, 8km, 16km
jet engines, gunpowder longarm: 5km, 10km, 20km, 40km
grenades, rockets, collapsing towers: 10km, 20km, 40km, 80km
artillery, thunderbolts: 50km, 100km, 200km, 400km

Silencers on guns move the distance down by an amount equal to their quality level with poor quality silencers moving pistol shots down to 'light rioting' distances and best quality silencers moving it down to 'baby crying' distances.

Apply in order:

x2 TN for each:
intervening wall (without large openings)
-> background noise of a higher level, per level <-
layer of hearing protection or sound-proofing

Distance modifier:
-1k1 or +10 TN per doubling of the distance (a crying baby at 160m is TN 20)
-10 TN for each halving of the distance (a crying baby at 40m is automatic)

+5 TN for each:
intervening chunk of forest, hill, or neighborhood (outdoors)
intervening light interior door or open room (indoors)
-> background noise of the same level <-
sound absorbing features of the environment

Note: Once the TN goes over 65 go back to adding +5 to the TN instead of doubling the TN.

Examples: Someone shoots a silenced hand cannon. The gunshot is TN 10 at 2km, reduced to TN 10 at 500m for the silencer and 120m to discern that it's a hand cannon instead of an autopistol or revolver. Inside a house a kilometer away would be TN 30 (10, x2 for the exterior wall, +10 for distance) to hear it and identifying it a TN 60 (10, x2 for the wall, and 4x10 for distance). A crying baby in the next room would double those TNs (10, x2 for a wall, -20 since it's less than 20m away, and TN 0 is less than TN 30 so the baby is louder at that range). Without the silencer but still a kilometer away and inside would be a TN 10 to hear it and TN 30 to identify it. Remember, this is out in the open. In a suburb or city you would add +5 or more to the TN from intervening houses and trees, and with another doubling of the base TN if there is a busy highway within 250m or cars passing within 20m.

Bibliography

Spoiler

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Bibliography (just in case you really want to replicate some of this for yourself)

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

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

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

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

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

Scripps Institution of Oceanography. Predictions of Sighting Range Based Upon Measurements of Target and Environmental Properties
Jacqueline I. Gordon.
http://misclab.umeoce.maine.edu/educ.../SIO_63-23.pdf

Google searches: target detection through visual recognition

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=...55T--bKi8JZffc

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=...6nWRcf5Pnw4z3D

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=...CZ5RKl3lLOzVQD

Detection of random low-altitude jet aircraft by ground observers (Tech. Memo. 7-60; AD 238 341)
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=...T02A3PZuTP8LlX

I amazes me, world militaries really care about this sorts of stuff but no RPG ever seems to make any effort to check previous research to fridge logic their see & hear rules.

[KineticDiplomat]

These guys make acoustic sensors for police support in major US cities:

https://www.shotspotter.com/

They say a mile is about right for a handgun. Two major caveats.

The first is that with range and wave variables you might have a very hard time telling it actually was a gunshot at that distance as opposed to a different sound closer.

The second is that your own surroundings matter a great deal, both in the raw decibel sense of when is the sound actually capable of overcoming sounds around you, and of the mental ability to pick out a noise as a gunshot. It helps that for modern firearms humans tend to fire in consistent patterns of shots which allows an initial identification of the noise, categorizing as “yes, gunshots”, followed by extra mental effort and focus on determine location.

So on a still night in an open field where you’re listening hard for a gunshot and being quiet yourself, and someone empties half a magazine, well at a mile it might still be DC 10.

In the middle of a day as you walk past a construction site paying attention mostly to your Uber pick up time, and someone fires a single shot a mile away in a city might be a Natural 20 Only.

[fusilier]

Handguns are loud. Very loud. I'd put it in the miles range. . . .

I've heard fifes and drums playing from a couple of miles away -- when the acoustics were just right. And these were the same fifes and drums I stood next to, with no hearing loss. ;-) There are also "acoustic shadows" which resulted in people many (sometimes dozens) of miles away hearing cannon fire from a battle, but the army's commander, only a mile or two away, didn't hear a thing. There's a good number of those stories from the American Civil War but they were reported in other wars too.

I strongly suspect it comes down to local conditions and topography.

[Pauly]

Aside from the environmental factors affecting the hearer there are gun/ammunition factors at play.
1) subsonic -v- supersonic ammo. The De Lisle carbine was famously quiet because of the use of subsonic ammo and a large suppressor
2) the mechanical noise of the action. Manually operated guns have significantly less noise than auto and semi auto actions. Allegedly the suppressed Sten gun had more mechanical noise than bullet noise.
3) the amount of charge in the round. More gunpowder = more noise
4) caliber. Large caliber guns tend to have a lower note (more ‘boom’ than ‘crack’). Lower notes travel further than higher notes, but higher notes are more noticeable.
5) the type of powder, although this should just be broadly delineated as black powder -v- smokeless powder. Faster burning powder makes a louder higher pitched noise.
6) the size/condition of the suppressor.