Got a Real World Weapons or Armour Question? Mk XII

[warty goblin]

I can't really imagine how it would improve impact of actual strikes. In fact interfering would be more certain

In the case of assaulting giant turtles, I'd think they'd be used essentially as small battering rams. In which case a heavier, thicker pike propelled by four men could offer substantial advantages in terms of penetration over four men with normal pikes. Since they aren't being used in human-on-human warfare here, I don't think the usual standards quite apply.

[Mr Beer]

I can't remember the source, but don't most serial killers supposedly start with small animals at an early age first?

Yep, animal torture/killing is one of the strongest indicators/precursors to serial killing. It's part of the process of building the strong internal fantasy of ritualistic murder that is at the core of serial killers.

Since it got such a strong reaction above, I should probably mention that hunting isn't associated with serial killing, at least to my knowledge. The excitement of the hunt is something natural to predatorial animals and that includes homo sapiens.

Oh and yeah, hunting is associated with helping military recruits overcome their aversion to killing humans. Making newbies personally kill farm animals has been used in modern Western military training for that exact purpose.

[Avilan the Grey]

Hunting has been a popular past time among all groups throughout history, not just the military.

I don't think hunting, as such, made it easier to kill people.

However up until fairly recently, Death was much closer than it is now. The Reaperman was always present, at least up until vaccines. Death was until just 100 years ago, something everybody lived with and experienced on a personal level. Wars, famine, disease, accidents. It might be easier to kill, if death is thought of as something natural, and common. In the last 100 years not only have we started to try to prevent death, but we have started to more and more treat death as an anomaly, something that is "wrong" and "unnatural". Farmers and hunters still live closer to death us city folks.

Edit: Sidenote: On the other hand people tend to misunderstand the "average lifespan: 35 years of age" thing about dark ages and such... If you lived past your early childhood, it was much more common than most people think to live well into your 60ies and 70ies at least. The mast majority of deaths were infants or young children, which drastically lowers the "average lifespan".

[Mr. Mask]

Fortinbras: Thank you for linking me to that. That was a very interesting discussion.

[TuggyNE]

Edit: Sidenote: On the other hand people tend to misunderstand the "average lifespan: 35 years of age" thing about dark ages and such... If you lived past your early childhood, it was much more common than most people think to live well into your 60ies and 70ies at least. The mast majority of deaths were infants or young children, which drastically lowers the "average lifespan".

This is why 95% of statistics are lies.*"Average" does not mean what you (in general) think it means.

*See what I did there?

[GnomeFighter]

On the other hand people tend to misunderstand the "average lifespan: 35 years of age" thing about dark ages and such... If you lived past your early childhood, it was much more common than most people think to live well into your 60ies and 70ies at least. The mast majority of deaths were infants or young children, which drastically lowers the "average lifespan".

It is interesting when people talk about how life was short, or people living longer now. The book of Psalms (written over 2000 years ago) gives the human life span of 70-80 years. Now, this may have been "as long as you can hope for", but it seems reasonable that this was not a massive wish, but a reasonable hope for someone who avoided major illness or war.

Yes, the average has shifted due to better anti natal and post natal care, better medical care all round, and less killing each other, but our expected life span has shifted very little in 2000+ years.

[Brother Oni]

So, I'm thinking about doing a bit of homebrew about crossbows. However, you don't see crossbows in myth and fantasy quite as much as you do other weapons, so I don't feel as familiar or comfortable with them as I would something like a sword or a bow.

Crossbows are comparatively newer than bows (earliest recorded mention is 5th century BC), so there's not as much mythology behind them.

As for appearances in fantasy, the typical image of a crossbow is an early Medieval period one, which starts to places boundaries on the technology level on your otherwise generic Dark Age fantasy setting.
In visual media, modern crossbows use a pulley system so cannot be easily substituted for historical ones and the number of people who still make historically accurate crossbows are rather thin on the ground, increasing the cost of renting one. This is not including any legal issues regarding crossbows, especially weapons legislation.

With this in mind, I'd like to learn a bit more about them, and in general what people think about them. My understanding is that they're relatively easy to use (point and click is not such a hard concept compared to using a sling or bow) and put some real power behind their bolts. Of course, slow firing is also something people seem to associate with them, given how bolts were reloaded.

As Galloglaich said, it's a very broad question. For an overview, the wikipedia article (link) is quite good and we can help fill in more of the specifics, things that aren't covered (eg actual use), or unusual variants (eg repeating crossbows).

I can't speak for a sling, but a bow is very simple to pick up and use. The hard part is getting consistent power output and the strength to use a heavy draw (powerful) bow, which is where crossbow wins out.

This is why 95% of statistics are lies. "Average" does not mean what you (in general) think it means.

Taking your comment at face value, I think it's more like most people don't know how to correctly interpret statistics and are thus manipulated by people who do know how to use them.

When most people say 'average', what they actually mean or want is the 'median'.

[AmberVael]

Can you narrow down what you are interested in specifically a bit more? Social context of crossbows? Military context? Tactical use? history? Different types and their characteristics?

It's hard for me to narrow it down, really. There's a lot of stuff from all of those categories that I could find useful, which is why I phrased it like I did.

What I'm looking for is inspiration for a sort of heroic or possibly even superhuman fighting style based around crossbows (a crossbow based Tome of Battle discipline, specifically). While that does mean realism can be put a bit to one side, I think having an accurate understanding of how crossbows were actually used (on a personal and tactical level) could prove handy. It also means that I'm interested in legendary or near legendary accomplishments with a crossbow, and in general knowing what people think or were thinking of crossbows, whether or not they were correct.

I can probably narrow down the kind of crossbows to be looked at though, given that this would be aimed at a more typical medieval fantasy setting (standard D&D). Stuff that would be relevant to that period would probably be most helpful.

Really though, you could toss me anything that you think is fascinating or interesting about crossbows and I'd appreciate it and might be able to put it to use.

[AgentPaper]

If you're looking for class/archetype ideas, then one that comes to mind would be the plucky engineer or tinker, who makes his own crossbow, and upgrades it in various ways so that it shoots more bolts, faster, and makes specialized bolts that do crazy stuff like explode, spit acid, create a sonic boom to deafen people, latch onto walls and make a grappling hook, etc, etc.

Crossbows don't have much of an established mythology since they're the weapon of the common man, and weren't around long enough or sufficiently different from bows enough to make their own legends, at least none that are common knowledge today. Instead, you're better off either tapping into the scientist/engineer mythos, or possibly some of the early gun mythos, IE a gunslinger type crossbow user using hand crossbows as revolver proxies. The demon hunter from Diablo 3 is a good example of the latter.

[Avilan the Grey]

It is interesting when people talk about how life was short, or people living longer now. The book of Psalms (written over 2000 years ago) gives the human life span of 70-80 years. Now, this may have been "as long as you can hope for", but it seems reasonable that this was not a massive wish, but a reasonable hope for someone who avoided major illness or war.

Yes, the average has shifted due to better anti natal and post natal care, better medical care all round, and less killing each other, but our expected life span has shifted very little in 2000+ years.

Not having the statistics in front of me, but I think there is a huge difference when you get close to 70 somewhere. Because that's when your immune system and general constitution takes a sharp dive downhill and you are back into "infant and young children" category, sensitivity-wise. Basically when your health started failing due to old age, you were again much more likely to die. This is why it is a huge deal that we pushed the life expenctancy up from 75 to 80 in the last quarter of the 20th century (again, average age).

[Spiryt]

Crossbows being weapons of common man is also somehow problematic - even very simple crossbow would be costly, cumbersome (heavy or/and large, with bow being often quite long and stock being long in perpendicular direction as well), and somehow specialized.

It obviously depends on how one builds a setting - some pretty much tribal Eastern Asian people were employing very simple crossbows as traditional hunting weapons.

But in Europe crossbow was generally more elaborate, specialized tool for war and big game hunting, at least in Medieval period.

'Superhuman' and 'heroic' crossbow user can be pretty easy to do, anyway.

Some powerful dude, strong nimble, and so on, usual heroic stuff, pulling crossbow so powerful that most men need solid levers to even attempt it.

Basically, high scores in dead lift. And can lift all day along.

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Then his eyes are keen beyond belief, his resolve unmatched etc. so he can hit rising pidgeon at 100 paces.

His bow is of finest yew, and maple, dragon horn and roc sinew.

His hair and dentition is of course stunning.

[GraaEminense]

Heroic Crossbowman? Swiss Willy springs to mind. Heroic physique (strong enough to swiftly load a crossbow) and dead-eye shot according to legend, but not all that much in the way of crossbow-specifics.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Tell

[fusilier]

Crossbows are very interesting with a lot of variation. I've often heard it claimed that crossbows are more accurate than bows -- possibly because it's easier, i.e. less strenuous, to aim. However, I've also heard the exact opposite! That the large diameter crossbow bolt, and the uncontrolled way that it is "slapped" into flight by the cord greatly reduces accuracy -- however, this view is in the context of a heavy military crossbow vs. a recurve or longbow -- and specified that this didn't apply to a finely made hunting crossbow.

Crossbows can be loaded and fired fairly quickly, but as they become more powerful the rate of fire drops. I believe this is also true for bows, although more in the aggregate; you can fire a heavy bow quickly, but not for long.

The systems for loading crossbows also vary considerably, and I've seen some inconsistencies about which produces more power, meaning that the simple relationship between rate of fire and power might be complicated by the kinds of devices used to load them. [I'm increasingly under the impression that the belt-hook method could actually span pretty high powered crossbows, possibly depending upon the physical training of the soldier, and the willingness to risk serious back injury ;-) ].

[Dienekes]

It is interesting when people talk about how life was short, or people living longer now. The book of Psalms (written over 2000 years ago) gives the human life span of 70-80 years. Now, this may have been "as long as you can hope for", but it seems reasonable that this was not a massive wish, but a reasonable hope for someone who avoided major illness or war.

Yes, the average has shifted due to better anti natal and post natal care, better medical care all round, and less killing each other, but our expected life span has shifted very little in 2000+ years.

This may be closer to what is right. If I remember back in college (so, fair warning this could be completely wrong), one of my professors stated that the "average expectancy of 35" that keeps coming up is actually from the late Renaissance and early industrial Europe rather than the medieval ages which was generally longer due to lack of urban centralization (excluding outlier periods of the black death which drastically cut the life expectancy of Europe)

[The Fury]

OK, I'm not sure that this is appropriate for this thread because it's about something that's only sort of a weapon.
What I've noticed is that in rural areas, especially on farms, workers will often carry knives with them, generally decent-sized and single-edged. I think some people call them "chore knives." In older times I know that they were sometimes made out of whatever metal was available, for example my great-grandfather used one made out of an old saw blade, I've also seen them made out of old kitchen knives.
It seems to me that medieval peasants would use something similar just because they're so useful. That said I've not been able to uncover any information about what they looked like, how they were made or anything. Most information I can find is about daggers and stuff meant for actually fighting.

[Rhynn]

That's probably because they were so common and unremarkable. Really, there's endless variety for what knives would look like. The Finnish puukko goes back to the Middle Ages, but obviously the modern blades are very different. Here's an older historical style from 300+ years ago, vöyrin puukko.

A knife is just any sharp piece of metal with a grip, ultimately.

Edit: Also, easy option: Google "medieval knife." Plenty of examples of archeological discoveries as well as reproductions thereof.

[rrgg]

As far teaching people to kill goes I sort of feel that the psychological resistance to killing tends to be overemphasized quite a bit. Truth is a lot of people do seem to like violence quite a bit, and it probably wouldn't take a lot of "they're different/bad" to turn the average joe into a murderer.

The really hard part is getting people willing/confident enough to risk their own lives as well. If you are close enough to hit the enemy with your sword then you need to be okay with the fact that he is close enough to hit you with his. That's why it's generally perferred to stay as far back as you can with a really long spear,

[fusilier]

This may be closer to what is right. If I remember back in college (so, fair warning this could be completely wrong), one of my professors stated that the "average expectancy of 35" that keeps coming up is actually from the late Renaissance and early industrial Europe rather than the medieval ages which was generally longer due to lack of urban centralization (excluding outlier periods of the black death which drastically cut the life expectancy of Europe)

The expression should be "average life expectancy at birth". That "at birth", is commonly dropped but it's very important to understanding what life expectancy means.

Take a look at life expectancy tables (actuary tables?) at some point, they should show a breakdown of "life expectancy by age," not merely from birth.

I remember looking at a table for the year 1850, a time period when we probably had decent records. Life expectancy at birth was something around 40 years. But by the time you reached 20 years, your life expectancy was around 60 years, etc. Getting over the childhood diseases seems to have been a major hurdle.

This website has some historical tables, but they are listing the number of years remaining, not the total age. So you have to add the numbers to get age:

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0005140.html


I remember from my college days, a few ancient greeks who were reported to live into their nineties or even hundreds. The professor pointed out that if someone made it to the their sixties, they had usually survived so many plagues, wars, and famines, that they were pretty tough and may easily be good for another thirty or forty years.

[Mr Beer]

But by the time you reached 20 years, your life expectancy was around 60 years, etc. Getting over the childhood diseases seems to have been a major hurdle.

Adding to this, in modern actuarial life insurance tables, there is sometimes a cluster of higher premiums around the pre-25 age range.

So life insurance can be cheaper for say, a 25 year old than a 22 year old, because adolescents and young adults statistically engage in risk-seeking behaviour to such an extent that it skews the intuitive life expectancy trend.

It's possible that surviving pubescent stupidity was also a significant hurdle to overcome back then.

[Dead_Jester]

It's possible that surviving pubescent stupidity was also a significant hurdle to overcome back then.

The fact that the late teens and early adulthood period is also the one where young men are most likely to engage in warfare, all the while having had little training or monetary means to equip themselves properly, probably also contributed somewhat to the skewed balance in that part of life.

That, and the fact that pubescent stupidity (and the related initiations, tests and challenges) have, and still are, a considerable cause of premature casualties.

[Brother Oni]

Crossbows are very interesting with a lot of variation. I've often heard it claimed that crossbows are more accurate than bows -- possibly because it's easier, i.e. less strenuous, to aim. However, I've also heard the exact opposite! That the large diameter crossbow bolt, and the uncontrolled way that it is "slapped" into flight by the cord greatly reduces accuracy -- however, this view is in the context of a heavy military crossbow vs. a recurve or longbow -- and specified that this didn't apply to a finely made hunting crossbow.

Which is understandable - with a military crossbow you often have lots of available targets for an extended period of time, thus penetration and rate of fire is far more useful.
Compare to a hunting crossbow where you only get one shot, thus you have to make that shot count, making accuracy far more important.

In modern terms, it's be like a PDW, a battle rifle, a sniper rifle and a SAW. All essentially work in the same way, but each is intended for a different role thus they emphasise different traits.

As for accuracy, I feel it's important to highlight the difference between accuracy and precision, (people who shoot regularly can ignore this):

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Accuracy is when you can hit the target, while precision is when you can get the same result over and over again. Obviously you want both, but if you're accurate but imprecise then you end up taking lots of shots to hit the target. If you're inaccurate but precise, often all you need to do is to adjust your sights.

Of the two, precision is far harder to learn.

In the case of a bow, inconsistent power output affects both your accuracy and precision (and was also a common issue with early firearms when their shooters put in varying size powder charges due to the stress of combat). Getting this right will make you very precise, thus becoming accurate is a comparative easy aim adjustment.

Crossbows fix the issue of consistent power output, but the flight characteristics of a bolt are inferior to an arrow's, thus at longer distances a bow is more likely to be on target.

I suspect fusilier's sources are both correct, it just depends on the distance to target (the closer, the more accurate and precise the crossbow is).

As far teaching people to kill goes I sort of feel that the psychological resistance to killing tends to be overemphasized quite a bit. Truth is a lot of people do seem to like violence quite a bit, and it probably wouldn't take a lot of "they're different/bad" to turn the average joe into a murderer.

I think it depends on the time period: I know during WW1 and WW2, it took a fair bit of training to overcome the aversion to killing.

In modern times, it's been found that new recruits have noticeably less aversion to kill. There are a number of theories on why this is, but they're all very hot button topics.

That's why it's generally perferred to stay as far back as you can with a really long spear,

I think it's more because for the same mass of metal in a single sword, you can make multiple spears instead, thus arming more men with the same amount of comparatively expensive metal (wood was generally cheap back then).

This not including the preference for long weapons (pikes, spears, etc) in mass combat as they allow more men in a unit to fight effectively at once.

[Spiryt]

Crossbows fix the issue of consistent power output, but the flight characteristics of a bolt are inferior to an arrow's, thus at longer distances a bow is more likely to be on target.

I'm not really sure about it. Stiffness is generally huge advantage, in both receiving, conserving energy and stable flight.

Assuming roughly the same mass, bolt will usually be a bit thicker, so air will drag it more, obviously.

On the other hand, in all kinds of arrows fletching is anyway biggest 'slower', much bigger than differences in shape.

and the uncontrolled way that it is "slapped" into flight by the cord greatly reduces accuracy

I've also read it somewhere, but realistically, the contact between the cord and arrow is actually easier to control with crossbow, when you don't have to actually hold the string... So it's hard to tell.

[Mr Beer]

The fact that the late teens and early adulthood period is also the one where young men are most likely to engage in warfare, all the while having had little training or monetary means to equip themselves properly, probably also contributed somewhat to the skewed balance in that part of life.

Yes agree.

It's not something I've ever looked into but I remember reading that, all else being equal, 25 year olds make significantly superior soldiers to 18 year olds, at least partly because they make better decisions under pressure.

[Mr Beer]

As far teaching people to kill goes I sort of feel that the psychological resistance to killing tends to be overemphasized quite a bit.

It's significant enough to be a concern that modern armed forces attempt to address in their training.

[Incanur]

The weight of the evidence indicates greater accuracy for crossbows over bows, though of course this depends on the specifics. Late-sixteenth-century firearm advocate Humphrey Barwick explicitly ranked the crossbow as more accurate than the bow. (He ranked the gun as more accurate still.) Being able to aim at one's leisure and without the exertion of holding back 80-180lbs makes a notable difference.

It's my understanding that if anything bolts tended to have less drag than arrows because of their shorter length and greater density.

The idea of crossbows as weapons of the common man isn't completely off, depending on what you mean by the common man. Various medieval town inhabitants practiced the crossbow with greater or less dedication. It was considered the Swiss national weapon before the rise of the halberd and then pike. In the fifteenth century and early sixteenth century you repeatedly find crossbows in the hands of dubiously effective infantry. (One fifteenth-century source hilariously describes a volley from over a thousand crossbows as doing no more harm than "a shower of rotten apples.") In China, you have crossbows as the most common infantry weapon for certain periods.

Speaking of China, Chinese crossbow designs had the best names. Who doesn't want to shoot a divine-armed or enemy-vanquishing crossbow?

[warty goblin]

Yes agree.

It's not something I've ever looked into but I remember reading that, all else being equal, 25 year olds make significantly superior soldiers to 18 year olds, at least partly because they make better decisions under pressure.

I've also read that modern armies prefer drafting eighteen year olds though, as they're much easier to emotionally and mentally control than older men. Maybe one aspect of older people making better decisions under pressure is them being more able and willing to say 'screw you' to the entire war.

[fusilier]

I'm not really sure about it. Stiffness is generally huge advantage, in both receiving, conserving energy and stable flight.

Assuming roughly the same mass, bolt will usually be a bit thicker, so air will drag it more, obviously.

On the other hand, in all kinds of arrows fletching is anyway biggest 'slower', much bigger than differences in shape.




I've also read it somewhere, but realistically, the contact between the cord and arrow is actually easier to control with crossbow, when you don't have to actually hold the string... So it's hard to tell.

It has to do with the "release" (or so the theory goes): On a bow, the bowstring is in contact with the arrow, and the manner in which the archer releases the string is more smoothly controlled by the archers fingers (not necessarily more consistent). The arrow is being accelerated more smoothly as it is in contact with the bowstring the moment it is released. On a crossbow, the cord is released mechanically, and it does not begin it's movement already in contact with the arrow. So the arrow doesn't begin accelerating when the cord does, and is struck (or "slapped") into motion by an already moving cord. The more powerful the crossbow, the more serious this problem. So a lighter hunting crossbow, wouldn't suffer this problem to nearly the same degree as a military crossbow hoping to puncture plate armor. Also, the more powerful the crossbow the thicker the bolt has to be, which affects it's aerodynamics negatively. (Was it Payne-Galloway's research where they shattered a normal arrow trying to launch it from a heavy crossbow?)

[fusilier]

It's my understanding that if anything bolts tended to have less drag than arrows because of their shorter length and greater density.

My understanding is that arrows have lower drag, because they have a narrower cross-section. Their longer length means that the mass per cross-sectional area is greater than a bolt!

[Incanur]

I guess I've heard it both ways. In wind tunnel tests published in Scientific American 252:1 (January 1985), the tested crossbow bolt experienced lower drag than the tested longbow arrow. If bolts really are less aerodynamic, I want to know, because that would make the crossbow Payne-Gallwey used to shoot a bolt approximately 450 yards even more powerful.

[fusilier]

I guess I've heard it both ways. In wind tunnel tests published in Scientific American 252:1 (January 1985), the tested crossbow bolt experienced lower drag than the tested longbow arrow. If bolts really are less aerodynamic, I want to know, because that would make the crossbow Payne-Gallwey used to shoot a bolt approximately 450 yards even more powerful.

Hmm. I just reported what I had heard. I wonder if also depends upon the kind of head used on the projectiles? I'm sure there are ton of other design factors to consider too.