Got a Real World Weapons or Armour Question? Mk XII

[Mr. Mask]

Depends what you mean by, "basket case". Despite depiction in popular media, post traumatic stress, and depression (the real, clinical kind), rarely involves staring at the wall for hours, or any of those other "classic signs". It can happen, but most people who suffer from psychological problems seem far from disabled--you generally never can tell that they do.

If you don't come out of a war traumatised, either you saw no action, or you had some very questionable properties beforehand (questionable, not outright bad--a lack of empathy and self-preservation instinct isn't immediately evil--though it makes travelling in that direction quite easy).

WW1 had a lot of problems with the adjustment to trench warfare, so even three weeks under it could be a very terrible thing.

[Spiryt]

How big of an issue was bullet drop when dealing with muskets? I seem to remember cruching the numbers at some point for one of the slower types and getting something rather bad, around 5 feet of drop after 100 yards.

Admittedly, I'm pretty bad at physics sadly, but even for rather slow speeds 5 feet drop seems extreme, 2-3 feet would be more appropriate.

[Brother Oni]

How big of an issue was bullet drop when dealing with muskets? I seem to remember cruching the numbers at some point for one of the slower types and getting something rather bad, around 5 feet of drop after 100 yards.

For a Brown Bess with an initial muzzle velocity of 1000fps, 22 inches at 75 yards, all the way up to 20 feet at 300yds: link.

As that link notes, the slower the initial velocity, the bigger the drop. That said an 1816 .69 cal flintlock with 110 grains of powder and a 412 grain ball achieved a muzzle velocity of 1500fps, so 1000fps may be a bit on the slow side.
Note that powder quality and weapon tolerances are going to have a significant effect on initial velocity.

The Artillerist's Manual by John Gibbons says musket variation may exceed 36-54" at 200yds, which the author of the above link believes is in ideal range situations only and that effective musket fire is not possible past 100-150yds, which is supported by contempory writers.

[Galloglaich]

Does anyone know of a good system for emulating the mechanics of pre-industrial naval warfare? I'm particularly interested in Mediterranean galleys either of the Medieval / Early modern type or the ancient Classical Greek / Roman type.

G

[Brother Oni]

Does anyone know of a good system for emulating the mechanics of pre-industrial naval warfare? I'm particularly interested in Mediterranean galleys either of the Medieval / Early modern type or the ancient Classical Greek / Roman type.

Outside of RPGs, about the only system I know that models naval combat to that degree is the out of print Man O'War game by Games Workshop. It has rules for ships powered by oars and/or sail and if you strip out all the fantasy elements, it could make a passable emulation.

On a less accurate and more gaming side, Pirates of the Burning Sea is a MMO based on age of sail technology. The naval missions of Assassin's Creed 3 also give a very good feel for things in the age of sail (particularly how reliant you are on other people to be your eyes).

[Knaight]

I think it's worth distinguishing between a warrior being saved by armor, and a warrior planning on getting hit repeatedly because the armor is guaranteed to take it. Beowulf for example is repeatedly saved by his mail, but it isn't written as if getting mauled or knifed is a non-issue because he has it. It's written as a lethal situation only made survivable because of the armor, and given the alternative he wouldn't have taken the hit in the first place.

It is important to distinguish this, but I stick by my analysis regarding Le Morte d'Arthur. It reads like nobody has even considered blocking beyond having a shield that needs to get hacked through, where skill consists of hacking through the enemy faster than they hack through you - at least on foot.

[eulmanis12]

Does anyone know of a good system for emulating the mechanics of pre-industrial naval warfare? I'm particularly interested in Mediterranean galleys either of the Medieval / Early modern type or the ancient Classical Greek / Roman type.

G

Spartan games has some naval systems with pretty good mechanics, though the games themselves deal with fantastic scenarios its fairly easy to adjust for historical play.

For early modern (WWI era) there is an old system called "Fear only God and Dreadnaught" that might be worth looking into

[fusilier]

Does anyone know of a good system for emulating the mechanics of pre-industrial naval warfare? I'm particularly interested in Mediterranean galleys either of the Medieval / Early modern type or the ancient Classical Greek / Roman type.

G

I've never played them, but in the past I know I've run across wargames that focus on that subject. Medieval period might be tricky, but Lepanto should be well supported, as well as ancient. Try searching for "galley wargame" (or "war game"). Wish I could recommend one that was good.

[fusilier]

Admittedly, I'm pretty bad at physics sadly, but even for rather slow speeds 5 feet drop seems extreme, 2-3 feet would be more appropriate.

Even that sounds like a lot of drop for just 100 yards. That was a common range for late 18th century, and they didn't use elevating sights. We should also keep in mind that we are talking about a musket using an undersized ball to speed loading (if you start using tight fitting ammo it changes the equation considerably).

The Artillerist's Manual by John Gibbons says musket variation may exceed 36-54" at 200yds, which the author of the above link believes is in ideal range situations only and that effective musket fire is not possible past 100-150yds, which is supported by contempory writers.

That's variation not drop. Variation in the horizontal plane isn't as big a deal for volley fire at a massed target. Vertical deviation is a much bigger issue. [When the French first adopted the minie-rifle the line infantry were issued with a less accurate minie-ball, that was flatter shooting but had more deviation in the horizontal.] I have a copy of Small Arms, 1856, at home, which is a period source that performed a lot of tests, but I don't think they ever really considered bullet drop just deviation at range. I'll try to take a look when I get home.

[Matthew]

It is important to distinguish this, but I stick by my analysis regarding Le Morte d'Arthur. It reads like nobody has even considered blocking beyond having a shield that needs to get hacked through, where skill consists of hacking through the enemy faster than they hack through you - at least on foot.

That is pretty much par for the course with regard to medieval romance and epic, and probably connected to the motif of the "heroic blow", which is the sort that shears through man, horse and a foot of the ground beneath (I am not kidding, that is literally what is described in a surviving fragment of the Middle English Chanson de Roland).

[Mr Beer]

To be honest, the army in the middle of a war is probably where you want people like that.

Yes. In a war zone, I’d be happy to fight side by side with a well-disciplined sociopath. Just wouldn’t want to be anywhere near them in normal life (although of course I probably am without knowing about it).

While he probably was a sociopath, many otherwise normal soldiers are often very enthusiastic about engaging the enemy as a result of their training, which can be mistaken for sociopathy.
An example of this would be the recent conflicts - if a US Army led convoy was hit by an ambush, they would focus on breaking through and getting clear of the area. If it were a USMC led convoy, they would generally dismount and go kill the enemy instead.

Aggression is frequently mentioned as a critical factor in effective infantry solidering.

I recall reading a summary of a study of, I think, British soldiers in WWI, that basically concluded anybody not a basket case after a month or two of frontline deployment was a sociopath to begin with. People with a normal capacity for empathy just got ground down.

My understand is that sociopaths are virtually fearless but more importantly they lack normal responses to consequences. You can give a sociopath an electric shock and they don’t fear receiving another one. They know performing an action risks another shock but they don’t care. Consequently they don’t suffer from PTSD.

That said I believe that some normal soldiers can take a long time at the front without breaking down but of course they will likely incur some kind of psychological effect, even if it’s only a tendency to immediately hit dirt when they hear a loud noise.

[Mr. Mask]

I think even sociopaths tend to suffer from PTSD. Many of them do fear for their own lives, and become disturbed by the idea they might've been killed. Plus, PTSD is less about personal fear, and more of a biological reaction (your brain remembers tense moment,s and for some reason decides to torture you with them).

[fusilier]

As that link notes, the slower the initial velocity, the bigger the drop. That said an 1816 .69 cal flintlock with 110 grains of powder and a 412 grain ball achieved a muzzle velocity of 1500fps, so 1000fps may be a bit on the slow side.
Note that powder quality and weapon tolerances are going to have a significant effect on initial velocity.

The Artillerist's Manual by John Gibbons says musket variation may exceed 36-54" at 200yds, which the author of the above link believes is in ideal range situations only and that effective musket fire is not possible past 100-150yds, which is supported by contempory writers.

I've thumbed through my copy of Small Arms, 1856 and, unfortunately, I couldn't find any reference to bullet drop. There's tons of deviation tables, but for the old smoothbore muskets they're only for 300 and 400 yards.

However, there's an appendix to the report which consists of a translation of a French report from 1851. There they report some tests that I thought were quite interesting. At 164 yards a group of marksmen were able to hit a 6' 6" by 1' 10" target (roughly man sized), 30 percent of the time with the smoothbore infantry musket. At 218 yards, they were able to hit a 6' 6" by 4' 8.7" target 35 percent of the time! These are pretty good hit rates with the old musket, and they weren't using a firing machine (a kind of bench with the gun fixed to it to remove human error) like the American tests. Although, there isn't much detail given on how they were fired, and if they had rear sights (they were firing at targets at 437 yards).

A British report in the second appendix, also gives some good results for musket fire, with troops firing by file and by volley. Although the remark "the muskets were 4 feet 6 inches from the ground" implies that they might have been firing over a breastwork of some sort. At a target 6 feet tall 20 feet broad (11 men wide):

100 yards . . . . . . . 74.5 per cent
260 " . . . . . . . 42.5 " "
300 " . . . . . . . 16. " "
400 " . . . . . . . 4.5 " "

Again there's no mention as to whether or not the muskets had been fitted with rear-sights (they would have been issued without them but they could have had to been modified for tests). Also, it should be kept in mind that these are rather scientific tests, to see how the new rifle-muskets compared to the old smoothbore ones. So they may have been fixing the elevation for each range, or performing other modifications to the weapons and setup, as they were trying to generate comparative information about the weapons, and not describe their general effectiveness on the battlefield. [In fairness there was some of the latter -- but it didn't include the smoothbore muskets.]

[Mr Beer]

I think even sociopaths tend to suffer from PTSD. Many of them do fear for their own lives, and become disturbed by the idea they might've been killed. Plus, PTSD is less about personal fear, and more of a biological reaction (your brain remembers tense moment,s and for some reason decides to torture you with them).

Let's say "highly resistant to PTSD" then, at least this is what I got from my limited reading on the subject.

[Talakeal]

Does anyone know how tight a "formation" modern military infantry use?

I was trying to explain to my (now ex) players that clumping up in the middle of the board was a terrible tactic, and they all insisted that real life special forces squads are never more than five feet apart from one another when operating in the field.

I think this is really weird, as it would them to be easily surrounded and they easily taken out by a single automatic weapon or explosive, but I can't find any information one way or another.

[Storm Bringer]

how spread out modern footsoldiers are is a variable question. in daytime and open ground, they prefer to spread out quite a bit, so as to minimise the affect of area affect weaponry. however, in closer terrain or at night, they do tend to clump up somewhat, as its the only way to keep squads together.

so, it's not unrealistic for soldiers to be only 5 feet apart, but it's not common.

I'd say just keep throwing AOE affects at them until they get the message about separation.

[Mr. Mask]

Were they going in with stealth, or were they running and gunning?

[Beleriphon]

Does anyone know how tight a "formation" modern military infantry use?

I was trying to explain to my (now ex) players that clumping up in the middle of the board was a terrible tactic, and they all insisted that real life special forces squads are never more than five feet apart from one another when operating in the field.

When doing CQB sure, five feet apart seems perfectly reasonable for teams of three to five soldiers. That's about as far apart as you can get in most hall ways and rooms.

In truly open terrain you're probably inside an APC or other vehicle for the purpose of travelling. If for some reason a vehicle isn't in use then you'd want to spread out only as much as necessary to make sure a single grenade can't kill your entire team, but at the same time you still want to be able to see everybody, or at least be in ear shot.

So the answer as to how tight a formation is in modern military parlance is as tight or loose as it needs to be.

[Talakeal]

Were they going in with stealth, or were they running and gunning?

Its just their standard battle formation. They clump up in a ball so they can't get "surrounded" individually.

The problem is they never move, which is boring from a gameplay perspective and makes any terrain I set up on the board (and 90% of the board area) pointless as they just clump up in the middle.

They also keep getting beaten up a result, because they have no way to shield the weaker party members while making the "tank" party members an easier target.

It also allows the entire party to be flanked* by enemies who don't outnumber them.


*: Rather than a flat -2 AC for enemies attacking from both sides I use a -1 per side on which you have restricted movement.

[Mr. Mask]

Staying close when you're moving through a forest low-key is kind of necessary, so you don't get separated. Same for travelling at night. While there are situations where grouping up could make sense in a fire fight (like, there's only good cover in one place, so grenades are a secondary concern), they do seem to be ignoring possibilities of flanking enemies and spreading the enemy fire.


I suggest giving them an encounter where it is completely obvious that they need to spread out, just to get them to try it. Put them against a few guys with a machine gun position. If they bunch up, they're easy targets and will definitely lose. If they spread out, the ones getting shot at can take cover, while the others move to flank and get a grenade in.

[warty goblin]

Flamethrowers, grenades and and fully automatic weapons; all solid methods to get your players to move and get out of their stupid little ball of paranoia.

[Talakeal]

Staying close when you're moving through a forest low-key is kind of necessary, so you don't get separated. Same for travelling at night. While there are situations where grouping up could make sense in a fire fight (like, there's only good cover in one place, so grenades are a secondary concern), they do seem to be ignoring possibilities of flanking enemies and spreading the enemy fire.


I suggest giving them an encounter where it is completely obvious that they need to spread out, just to get them to try it. Put them against a few guys with a machine gun position. If they bunch up, they're easy targets and will definitely lose. If they spread out, the ones getting shot at can take cover, while the others move to flank and get a grenade in.

I have done that. They die. Then they yell at me for throwing an "OP encounter" at them. When I say it wasn't the encounter it was the tactics they used, then their pride is on the line and the argue even harder that clumping up is the only valid tactic.

Right now the rules I am using encourage movement and splitting up, or at least I think they do. My players are telling me that is completely unrealistic and the rules SHOULD encourage sticking in a tight ball because that is what real life special forces are trained to do.

[warty goblin]

My (very very limited) understanding is that Special Operations are trained to be aggressive, mobile and fight as an adaptable team. Staying balled up in one spot is none of these things. Thanks to guns having range, you don't have to be five feet away from somebody to support them in combat. In fact you probably can support them better if you aren't five feet away, since it means one guy can't pin you both down, and you can put fire on a position from multiple angles.

[Kornaki]

There's a youtube channel for this!

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL1322931D847CFFDD

For example the fireteam wedge does not satisfy the claims of your party by a significant amount (nobody is within 10 yards of each other I think)

Reaction to indirect fire - once they hit their cover point they're in groups of two that are at least 20-30 yards from each other.

In react to contact only 1/3rd of this twelve man group even engages the enemy at the start, the other 2/3rds are far enough back to be safe and guard the flanks of the engaging group.

[Mr. Mask]

Talakeal: Well... rats. On the angle that it was OP, you could show them that you, using their characters, could easily win the encounter, but I doubt that will solve problems. I recommend getting them to watch Band of Brothers, and some other series or films which feature professional tactics (can't think of many which offer good showings of spreading out--though you could show them Gods and Generals and Gettysburg as an example of why bunching together is so losses-heavy in war, even if necessary at that point in history).

But, if they are your ex players now, you have the luck of not having to fight with it on them. You could email them a link to these posts if you wanted to prove the point, but disengaging entirely is perhaps a wiser move.

[Brother Oni]

That said I believe that some normal soldiers can take a long time at the front without breaking down but of course they will likely incur some kind of psychological effect, even if it’s only a tendency to immediately hit dirt when they hear a loud noise.

If current reports are anything to go by, it's distant sounds in the background as well. For example, 4th July fireworks are particularly bad as they have a tendency to sound like gunfire and far off gunfire what you can't immediately identify the source of, is generally bad for your nerves.
So watching a fireworks display = ok, fireworks display a mile down the round that you can't see the lights from = bad.

Seeing rubbish bags and other things by the side of the road also brings back particularly bad memories of IEDs for some veterans.

[Fortinbras]

I have couple of questions about hunting in the High Middle Ages.

1. Could anyone give me a rough run-down of forest law in Scandinavia and Germany? Did aristocrats in those areas have a monopoly on most of the big game hunting or were things more open to lower classes?

2. Did aristocrats do much "stalking" when they hunted, e.g. with bows and the like, or did they tend to just use the dog-and-horse combo that is better known.

3. Is hunting with a melee spear and no dogs very practical at all or will game just run away?

[Mr Beer]

Does anyone know how tight a "formation" modern military infantry use?

I was trying to explain to my (now ex) players that clumping up in the middle of the board was a terrible tactic, and they all insisted that real life special forces squads are never more than five feet apart from one another when operating in the field.

I only have a sample of 10 or so posts you've made, but as far as I can tell, your players are wrong about everything and this is no exception. There is no doctrine which insists special forces personnel must never exceed 5' distance from each other on missions. Given "flexibility" and "personal initiative" are important to all elite units, it would be a strange thing indeed were this the case.

[Mr Beer]

If current reports are anything to go by, it's distant sounds in the background as well. For example, 4th July fireworks are particularly bad as they have a tendency to sound like gunfire and far off gunfire what you can't immediately identify the source of, is generally bad for your nerves.
So watching a fireworks display = ok, fireworks display a mile down the round that you can't see the lights from = bad.

Seeing rubbish bags and other things by the side of the road also brings back particularly bad memories of IEDs for some veterans.

Mmm, yes. I read a Ranger's personal experiences in Vietnam and he mentioned being in a restaurant back in the States after the whole thing was over and the other patrons laughing at him when a car backfired and he instantly dived under the table. But of course, the guys who don't develop that reflex get killed on modern battlefields.

[Matthew]

Questions about long bowmen:

1) What is the evidence for significant visible physical deformities as a result of training with the war bow? The Mary Rose skeletons show signs of os acromiale, but that is not quite the same thing. I seem to recall late medieval battlefield depictions have been cited before as showing archers with one shoulder higher than the other, but that seems unlikely to me.

2) Is there any reason to suppose that the average long bowman was physically stronger than the average man-at-arms? Presumably he was better able to pull a long bow, but would that muscle training and development put him at an advantage over somebody who trained to fight hand-to-hand. It seems a spurious supposition to me, bound up with the myth of the war bow as a transformative weapon, but maybe I am wrong.

Some medieval depictions:

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