missile combat
Moraelin
spell combat. I.e., being able to shoot into the next room. However, what's
not clear to me is whether or not does this just open a whole new chapter of
fine harassment opportunities. Namely, of the "fireball everyone from a
distance, and run away" variety. Particularly since most clients nowadays do
have command queuing, speed-walking, and other means to get far away by the
time they realize what's happening and charge to see who's the bugger.
Anyone tried this?
Chris Jensen
: Been pondering for a while on the opportunity to add ranged missile and
Instead of "A fireball flies in from the west"
How about "Merlin throws a fireball in from the west"
Then at least the people know who whacked them, and it is not completely
contrived. If Merlin has line of sight to hit the next room, they have
line of sight to see him doing it.
Chris J.
Peter R. Sadlon
do with a lot of the otherthings we have. Anyways these are the main
points.
- missile combat does relativly little damage compares to same room
- prevent the caster from moving for the stronger spells for a tic or 2
- the legal system, bountys and bounty hunters to discourage massive
player killing sprees
On Mon, 2 Nov 1998, Moraelin wrote:
> Been pondering for a while on the opportunity to add ranged missile and
> spell combat. I.e., being able to shoot into the next room. However, what's
> not clear to me is whether or not does this just open a whole new chapter of
> fine harassment opportunities. Namely, of the "fireball everyone from a
> distance, and run away" variety. Particularly since most clients nowadays do
> have command queuing, speed-walking, and other means to get far away by the
> time they realize what's happening and charge to see who's the bugger.
>
> Anyone tried this?
>
>
>
>
>
Moraelin
Peter R. Sadlon wrote in message <71ngkg$11...@ds2.acs.ucalgary.ca>...
>We have tried this and it works relitivly fine but I think it has lots to
>do with a lot of the otherthings we have. Anyways these are the main
>points.
>
>- missile combat does relativly little damage compares to same room
Sounds like a good idea. Though I'm pondering whether to maybe code it more
along the lines of making it a lot more likely to miss or be dodged. I don't
think realistically a heavy crossbow bolt would lose too much momentum over
50-100 ft distance.
>- prevent the caster from moving for the stronger spells for a tic or 2
That sounds like a very good idea for the spell casters. Beats me what
rationale I could use for delaying someone trying the same thing with a
longbow or heavy crossbow, though.
>- the legal system, bountys and bounty hunters to discourage massive
> player killing sprees
Does this actually work? I've seen bounty systems on a couple of MUD's, but
basically the effect was quite contrary. People were happily killing each
other to create bounties, and then to collect those bounties. As much as I'd
really _love_ to have a more IC justice system than me nuking them until
they glow, I'm wary of creating an endless money source.
Thanks for the answers, everyone, btw.
Ilya
on missile combat and distances, etc.
I've seen a few places handle the whole ranged issue
(Terris, Legends of Future Past, and even Aalynor's
Nexus jump instantly to mind, though I am sure there
are plenty more) by simply extending the idea of a
room in some way.
One way would be by using sublocations, based on
the relative size of the location (if locations HAD
size, that is). Then you'd have sublocation move
commands to get around within a location/room, leaving
ranged combat all within sight, just not necessarily
involving physical contact.
Another way (Terris and LOFP both do this as I recall)
is to keep track of relative position only, not exactly
a sublocation in a room. So then beings in a room would
likely start at, say, unengaged state. Staying in the
same location, they could move to engage, try to keep
someone from engaging, guard someone else, etc.
I've found both work pretty well and avoid the other
implications of combat through rooms.
My favorite concept I've been toying with for some time
is to go ahead and make ranged activity work across multiple
locations and just extend the idea of the senses. That is,
if you can 'see' to another room, perhaps because it is just
another plains area and visibility is good, then you are also
notified of what happens there, just as if you were in the
room. Room entry, room exit, talking, whatever, could be
handled that way. I call this 'transparent walls.'
The name isn't important, but the function could be nice.
I also toyed with having the various senses attenuated by
their own rules. This would mean, taking the case of the
two plains rooms next to each other, that maybe most small
actions would NOT be seen in the next room. I pull a knife,
you probably don't see it if I'm a few hundred feet away.
If I do a larger action, perhaps you will see it. Same for
smells and sounds, with various attenuation rules.
Doesn't seem like the implementation would be very difficult.
In the diku-ish realm, having the functions that send action
results to a room extended to send them to (potentially)
multiple rooms based on wall transparency -- this seems
pretty workable.
Oh well, fwiw!
Ilya
--
Ilya, Game Commandos review site http://www.GameCommandos.com
il...@gamecommandos.com
John Adelsberger
: We have tried this and it works relitivly fine but I think it has lots to
: do with a lot of the otherthings we have. Anyways these are the main
: points.
: - missile combat does relativly little damage compares to same room
I've always hated this; I've seen it in many places, and the overall
effect is to make missile combat just another checkbox on the featurelist;
it is effectively useless in most cases, even against npcs, because of
the relative difficulty in using it in large quantities. Besides, I'm
an advocate of the realistic combat school of gaming, and compared to
most melee weaponry, missiles tend to be REALLY deadly:)
--
John J. Adelsberger III
j...@umr.edu
"Civilization is the process of setting man free from men."
- Ayn Rand
mor...@niuhep.physics.niu.edu
>Peter R. Sadlon wrote in message <71ngkg$11...@ds2.acs.ucalgary.ca>...
>>do with a lot of the otherthings we have. Anyways these are the main
>>points.
>>- prevent the caster from moving for the stronger spells for a tic or 2
>That sounds like a very good idea for the spell casters. Beats me what
>rationale I could use for delaying someone trying the same thing with a
>longbow or heavy crossbow, though.
If you are too intent on running away immediatly after shooting your
aim will be spoiled.
mor...@niuhep.physics.niu.edu
>: We have tried this and it works relitivly fine but I think it has lots to
>: do with a lot of the otherthings we have. Anyways these are the main
>: points.
>
>: - missile combat does relativly little damage compares to same room
>
>I've always hated this; I've seen it in many places, and the overall
>effect is to make missile combat just another checkbox on the featurelist;
>it is effectively useless in most cases, even against npcs, because of
>the relative difficulty in using it in large quantities.
Agreed.
>Besides, I'm an advocate of the realistic combat school of gaming, and
>compared to most melee weaponry, missiles tend to be REALLY deadly:)
Smiley noted.
Most of my knowledge deals with bows.
Muds are difficult to correlate to the real world because of the normally
short range and the sometimes absense of the concept of measured distance.
At 150 yards most experienced archers could be expected to hit a stationary
man-sized target. At that distance a wide variety of armours would
be capable of reducing the damage done by the arrow. All but the thinnest/
poorest quality plate will dead on stop it (unless it targets the
open visor :)
At 10 yards only the best plate would stop an arrow striking head on
(bodkin points assumed) and given a modicom of time the archer can pick
the target. OTOH with a moving target center of mass is your best
bet as it will likely hit something.
A peircing wound has long-term implications but unless it hits a blood
vessel (not a non-zero proposition to be sure) it is not obviously any
more damaging than a slash/crush with a sword. And in fact if you use
a bodkin point(armour piercing) as opposed to a broadhead (hunting)
it would probably cause less... IM-most-HO.
Though there may be mobility issues.
Crossbows tend to do more crushing damage, lighter bows of all types
can be fairly easily defended against.
Robert
John Adelsberger
: John Adelsberger <j...@umr.edu> writes:
: >Besides, I'm an advocate of the realistic combat school of gaming, and
: >compared to most melee weaponry, missiles tend to be REALLY deadly:)
: Most of my knowledge deals with bows.
Ok. For the moment, I'll assume that fireballs bigger than people
and lightning bolts aren't really significantly affected by normal
armors, because contrary to gaming wisdom, it would make no sense
for them to be. That leaves bows and modern weaponry. The latter
being a topic unto itself, I'll stick to bows for now.
: Muds are difficult to correlate to the real world because of the normally
: short range and the sometimes absense of the concept of measured distance.
Very true.
: At 150 yards most experienced archers could be expected to hit a stationary
: man-sized target. At that distance a wide variety of armours would
: be capable of reducing the damage done by the arrow. All but the thinnest/
: poorest quality plate will dead on stop it (unless it targets the
: open visor :)
First off, using the bows available in a fantasy setting, I question
accuracy at 150 yards; you might be right, but I'm thinking you need
modern designs to achieve that kind of accuracy at that range unless
you can handle an insanely high pull weight.
Aside from that, VERY few people ever used complete suits of plate for
anything but jousting; the movement penalty is so high that your
opponent will just walk up to you and slip a dagger between the plates
while you stumble around like an idiot. As such, the odds of hitting
the plate itself are high, but not as high as you'd think. This
should leave a reasonable chance to do some damage, even to characters
in 'plate mail.'
: At 10 yards only the best plate would stop an arrow striking head on
: (bodkin points assumed) and given a modicom of time the archer can pick
: the target. OTOH with a moving target center of mass is your best
: bet as it will likely hit something.
Not only that, but at 10 yards, if you're using a missile and your
opponent isn't, you'd better hope he's inexperienced or unprepared.
You're probably going to hit a shoulder or something even if you go
for the center of mass shot, and then he's going to cut you to
ribbons while you reload. At close range, though, premodern armor
isn't going to stop arrows reliably; that much is for certain.
: A peircing wound has long-term implications but unless it hits a blood
: vessel (not a non-zero proposition to be sure) it is not obviously any
: more damaging than a slash/crush with a sword.
Blood vessels and vital organs are very likely hits, actually, and if
they're damaged, you generally don't see the victim doing much
meaningful anytime soon, even if he doesn't die.
: Though there may be mobility issues.
There will certainly be mobility issues involved with being impaled...
this and the pure shock value of seeing something protruding from
your chest/back/whatever have to be considered.
: Crossbows tend to do more crushing damage, lighter bows of all types
: can be fairly easily defended against.
No question.
Anyone wanna talk guns?:) Hehe... no, your body armor will NOT stop what
I just fired in from the next room. .50 cal saboted light armor piercing,
against a human target. Bend over and kiss yer ass goodbye; if I hit
you in the finger, your arm is coming off at the shoulder:)
The effects of beam weaponry would be interesting too, but probably only
in space or a very sci fi setting.
Chris Jensen
: : At 150 yards most experienced archers could be expected to hit a stationary
: : man-sized target. At that distance a wide variety of armours would
: : be capable of reducing the damage done by the arrow. All but the thinnest/
: : poorest quality plate will dead on stop it (unless it targets the
: : open visor :)
: First off, using the bows available in a fantasy setting, I question
: accuracy at 150 yards; you might be right, but I'm thinking you need
: modern designs to achieve that kind of accuracy at that range unless
: you can handle an insanely high pull weight.
I believe the Welsh longbow was capable of accuracy at these ranges, but
only by highly practiced individuals (read: their papa gave them a bow
when they were 4 and they practiced every day for 20 years). Crossbows
had similar stopping power and accuracy, and had the advantage that they
required little training to use properly, their major disadvantage is a
_very_ low rate of fire.
: Aside from that, VERY few people ever used complete suits of plate for
: anything but jousting; the movement penalty is so high that your
: opponent will just walk up to you and slip a dagger between the plates
: while you stumble around like an idiot. As such, the odds of hitting
: the plate itself are high, but not as high as you'd think. This
: should leave a reasonable chance to do some damage, even to characters
: in 'plate mail.'
Recreations of Austrian (IIRC) plate armor demonstrated little if any
mobility penalty to the wearer. Subjects were able to perform
summersaults, and run for extended periods with little more fatigue than
would be incurred by lugging a modern day infantry kit. Knights of the
rennaisance period were expected to fight alongside the troops, both
mounted and dismounted, often against lightly armored peasants armed with
pikes. Mobility is a prime concern in this type of combat and I imagine
armorers were made very aware of this by their noble customers.
<snip>
: : A peircing wound has long-term implications but unless it hits a blood
: : vessel (not a non-zero proposition to be sure) it is not obviously any
: : more damaging than a slash/crush with a sword.
: Blood vessels and vital organs are very likely hits, actually, and if
: they're damaged, you generally don't see the victim doing much
: meaningful anytime soon, even if he doesn't die.
: : Though there may be mobility issues.
: There will certainly be mobility issues involved with being impaled...
: this and the pure shock value of seeing something protruding from
: your chest/back/whatever have to be considered.
I am not so sure that vital organs are such a likely thing to hit. There
is evidence that most of the carnage caused by longbowmen in their most
spectacular victories were caused by asphyxiation and crushing. You may
ask how this is possible, so I will explain :P The English commanders
tried to set up their archers to use the best advantage of terrain. When
possible, the bowmen would form a "V" fanning outward and foreward from
the supporting infantry. They would then wait for the enemy to attack
their position. The enemy typically attacked the center with a
narrow columnar formation (this tendency was often reinforced, or even
completely forced by the terrain). The archers let loose with flanking
fire from both sides, encouraging the hapless enemies at the outer edges
of the formation to crowd inward away from the withering fire. The people
in the middle get crushed, trampled, and otherwise have a crappy time.
Moving back to the damage potential of bows. Injuries to the extremeties
will impair movement and/or combat effectiveness, and may produce
paralyzing psychological shock value, but otherwise the victim will still
be quite able to walk over and chop your head off if you don't do anything
else to prevent him. A hit to the brain will definitely stop them, but
remember that skulls are pretty hard :P Even complete destruction of the
heart will allow the victim about 8 seconds of full mobility, more than
enough to close 10 yards and chop you in half. Lung hits will stop them
in about the same time it takes you to pass out by holding your breath.
Any other vital organ hit will take longer. These are of course just the
physical effects, the victim will quite likely freak out and become
useless as soon as he is hit with a serious injury.
: : Crossbows tend to do more crushing damage, lighter bows of all types
: : can be fairly easily defended against.
Just remember, the bigger the crosbow, the longer it takes to reload
Chris J.
mor...@niuhep.physics.niu.edu
>mor...@niuhep.physics.niu.edu wrote:
>: John Adelsberger <j...@umr.edu> writes:
>
>: >compared to most melee weaponry, missiles tend to be REALLY deadly:)
>: At 150 yards most experienced archers could be expected to hit a stationary
>: man-sized target. At that distance a wide variety of armours would
>: be capable of reducing the damage done by the arrow. All but the thinnest/
>: poorest quality plate will dead on stop it (unless it targets the
>: open visor :)
>First off, using the bows available in a fantasy setting, I question
>accuracy at 150 yards; you might be right, but I'm thinking you need
>modern designs to achieve that kind of accuracy at that range unless
>you can handle an insanely high pull weight.
80 lbs should do it easily, 50 lbs won't. Wimps can use 50 lb bows,
you don't quite need to be Mr. Universe to use an 80 lb bow but you do need
to be fairly strong.
You don't need decades of practice to do this but you won't do it
in 3 months either.
(Yes, typically English archers had a decade or two of twice (or more)
weekly practice under their belt when they went to war, but you don't
need that much to hit a stationary man-sized target with some regularity)
>Aside from that, VERY few people ever used complete suits of plate for
>anything but jousting;
There is a difference between jousting suits, which are very heavy,
(but still does NOT require a winch) and battle armour, which were
just as complete (And which were almost universal among knights by
roughly 1400).
There are, as you suggest, variations which only provide partial plate
protection.
It should be noted that wearing full plate is hot, so more than one knight
met his end 100 yards away from the battle line with his visor open.
Robert
John Adelsberger
: In rec.games.mud.admin John Adelsberger <j...@umr.edu> wrote:
: : Aside from that, VERY few people ever used complete suits of plate for
: : anything but jousting; the movement penalty is so high that your
: Recreations of Austrian (IIRC) plate armor demonstrated little if any
: mobility penalty to the wearer. Subjects were able to perform
: summersaults, and run for extended periods with little more fatigue than
: would be incurred by lugging a modern day infantry kit.
A suit of full plate weighs, at a minimum, about 90-100 pounds. In
addition, the articulation of the joints is necessarily less than
optimal. I've seen recreations; usually, they use modern metals,
modern forming techniques, and so on, and the results are far superior
to anything that could have existed at the time of the originals.
: Knights of the
: rennaisance period were expected to fight alongside the troops, both
: mounted and dismounted, often against lightly armored peasants armed with
: pikes. Mobility is a prime concern in this type of combat and I imagine
: armorers were made very aware of this by their noble customers.
Fighting against pikes isn't a big problem for heavy armor; you're
practically immune. The same goes with many other large weapons.
Even so, knights kept their horses unless forced off, because their
armor was made for fighting on horseback.
: : There will certainly be mobility issues involved with being impaled...
: : this and the pure shock value of seeing something protruding from
: : your chest/back/whatever have to be considered.
: I am not so sure that vital organs are such a likely thing to hit. There
[snip description of arrows fired at formation]
We're talking about firing on one man or a small group here. Either you
hit him, or he laughs. No crushing:)
: remember that skulls are pretty hard :P Even complete destruction of the
: heart will allow the victim about 8 seconds of full mobility, more than
: enough to close 10 yards and chop you in half.
This isn't realistic. That kind of damage to the heart will cause
paralyzing amounts of shock. Sure, if you were a machine, you could
act, but you're not. Look at what happens when even a three millimeter
round goes through a heart - the victim _stops._
: Lung hits will stop them
: in about the same time it takes you to pass out by holding your breath.
Try doing anything physically demanding while holding your breath. You'll
last about 3-5 seconds tops.
: Any other vital organ hit will take longer.
Yes, but they'll be almost instantly debilitating. Bile dumped into
your abdomen really hurts, for instance:)
: These are of course just the
: physical effects, the victim will quite likely freak out and become
: useless as soon as he is hit with a serious injury.
Yup.
: Just remember, the bigger the crosbow, the longer it takes to reload
Normally, yes.
Moraelin
John Adelsberger wrote in message <3640a...@news.cc.umr.edu>...
>Ok. For the moment, I'll assume that fireballs bigger than people
>and lightning bolts aren't really significantly affected by normal
>armors, because contrary to gaming wisdom, it would make no sense
>for them to be. That leaves bows and modern weaponry. The latter
>being a topic unto itself, I'll stick to bows for now.
Depends on the effect of the spell. E.g., if you view a fireball as
basically the medieval equivalent of HE ammo, i.e., a blast, then I'd do
believe that you will get some protection from hiding behind a big metal
breastplate or a big shield. Granted, you will probably still get whacked,
but nowhere as hard as taking the blast naked. Likewise, if you view an ice
storm as basically a combination of extreme cold and crushing damage from
pieces of ice, any thickly padded armour will greatly slow down your losing
heat, and again I'd assume a breastplate would indeed decrease the strength
of physical hits. On the other hand, if we're talking psionic type attacks,
yeah, those probably wouldn't be affected by armour.
This also leaves open the issue of enchanted armour. E.g., I'm wearing a
full suit of something saturated with magical protection. Would it be too
unrealistic to assume it could lend a hand at defending against spells?
>First off, using the bows available in a fantasy setting, I question
>accuracy at 150 yards; you might be right, but I'm thinking you need
>modern designs to achieve that kind of accuracy at that range unless
>you can handle an insanely high pull weight.
Personally I mean to make weapons as close as possible to their RL
counterparts. Definitely not what is available in most phantasy games.
(E.g., I'm not coding 40 pound swords... such a weight is 10 times a RL
sword weight.) I.e., the question is if a RL bow could do it, not if a
phantasy bow could :)
>Aside from that, VERY few people ever used complete suits of plate for
>anything but jousting; the movement penalty is so high that your
>opponent will just walk up to you and slip a dagger between the plates
>while you stumble around like an idiot. As such, the odds of hitting
>the plate itself are high, but not as high as you'd think. This
>should leave a reasonable chance to do some damage, even to characters
>in 'plate mail.'
I'm not so sure about that. A full suit of plate, made for battle, would be
around 60 pounds, no more. Even I can run with 60 pounds on me, and I'm no
body builder. Knights had to be mobile, because sooner or later the charge
would lose momentum and it'd be melee time. An immobile knight would be a
dead duck against light cavalry. (The story about knights being raised into
saddle with a crane is just a piece of Mark Twain's wild imagination, I'm
affraid.)
About the mobility problem, well, a suit of armour for a knight could
consist of over 200 interlocking pieces, and was tailored on his exact
measurements, precisely to limit movement as little as possible. For that
reason, it also was extremely expensive. Probably wasn't the same as moving
around without it, tho, which is why personally I did code some dexterity
and agility penalties for rigid armour.
On the other hand, jousting armour was heavily reinforced on the front and
most likely points of impact, but often thinner on the back. Jousting was a
sport, with precise rules, and where you could have a good idea of what's
likely to happen. Actual battle wasn't. Anyway, a jousting suit was heavier
than the suits for actual battle.
Also, at the peak of the firearms vs armour race, breastplate and helmet
thickness (and weight) went through the roof, trying to stop bullets, but at
the expense of forfeiting protection for the rest of the body.
>Not only that, but at 10 yards, if you're using a missile and your
>opponent isn't, you'd better hope he's inexperienced or unprepared.
Not if you're using a crossbow. Those did have the distinct advantage of
being able to shoot instantly, if loaded. Though after that, reloading is
out of the question at that range.
Moraelin
>I just fired in from the next room.
Actually, adding firearms was another idea I've been pondering. E.g., I have
rapiers which were only used after (and because) firearms made armour
obsolete. Would it then be out of theme to have muskets which take 1 minute
to load? Or maybe should I take the rapiers out, too? Hmm... Can't decide
yet.
Anyway, it depends on what period the gun was made in. In the 14't century,
plate armour could still stop bullets. In fact, it was the only thing that
could stop them. Mainly because guns were still fairly underpowered.
>.50 cal saboted light armor piercing,
>against a human target. Bend over and kiss yer ass goodbye; if I hit
>you in the finger, your arm is coming off at the shoulder:)
I do believe that they had no such thing as HVAP ammo before this century :)
Actually, I also doubt that anyone actually produces sabot ammo for .50
calibre guns. My best guess is that at this calibre, the even smaller size
sabot would be way too lightweight to be of any practical value. You could
have hard tip bullets, but not sabot or HEAT.
I also doubt that a .50 calibre bullet would be able to rip an arm off at
the shoulder, except if it does hit the shoulder. It just doesn't have
enough kinetic energy for that, and in any case it's much likely to just
pass through before transferring enough of that energy to the arm. Even more
so, if we're talking armour-piercing ammo.
Then again, I'm not a big fan of weapons produced after WW2, hence not very
up to date on them, so I could well be wrong.
Chris Jensen
: : In rec.games.mud.admin John Adelsberger <j...@umr.edu> wrote:
: : : Aside from that, VERY few people ever used complete suits of plate for
: : : anything but jousting; the movement penalty is so high that your
: : Recreations of Austrian (IIRC) plate armor demonstrated little if any
: : mobility penalty to the wearer. Subjects were able to perform
: : summersaults, and run for extended periods with little more fatigue than
: : would be incurred by lugging a modern day infantry kit.
: A suit of full plate weighs, at a minimum, about 90-100 pounds. In
: addition, the articulation of the joints is necessarily less than
: optimal. I've seen recreations; usually, they use modern metals,
: modern forming techniques, and so on, and the results are far superior
: to anything that could have existed at the time of the originals.
As noted by another poster, a full suit of combat plate can weigh more
like 50 lbs, and the recreations I am talking about attempted to use
contemporary materials and methods. This is armor designed for dual
purpose heavy infantry/heavy cavalry, not special purpose jousting armor.
: : remember that skulls are pretty hard :P Even complete destruction of the
: : heart will allow the victim about 8 seconds of full mobility, more than
: : enough to close 10 yards and chop you in half.
: This isn't realistic. That kind of damage to the heart will cause
: paralyzing amounts of shock. Sure, if you were a machine, you could
: act, but you're not. Look at what happens when even a three millimeter
: round goes through a heart - the victim _stops._
This _is_ realistic. The white tailed deer has similar physiology to
humans when it comes to gunshot and other injuries. A white tail shot
with a high power rifle (.300 winchester magnum PSP) through the shoulder,
pulverising the heart, damaging both lungs, and exiting through the
sturnum can and will run away for 5 or 6 seconds before collapsing, this I
have witnissed with my own two eyes. Accounts from police departments in
the USA and other countries show similar results with human targets
continuing hostile action after suffering fatal wounds. One or even two
serious gun shot wounds will not produce immediate shock or paralysis.
This is the reason that many european police agencies issue fully
automatic weapons to their officers. A sufficient number (4, 5, or more)
of bullet hits in close succesion will produce the desired paralysis, even
when the wounds are non-fatal.
Chris J.
Chris Jensen
: John Adelsberger wrote in message <3640a...@news.cc.umr.edu>...
: >.50 cal saboted light armor piercing,
: >against a human target. Bend over and kiss yer ass goodbye; if I hit
: >you in the finger, your arm is coming off at the shoulder:)
: I do believe that they had no such thing as HVAP ammo before this century :)
Not to my knowledge.
: Actually, I also doubt that anyone actually produces sabot ammo for .50
: calibre guns. My best guess is that at this calibre, the even smaller size
: sabot would be way too lightweight to be of any practical value. You could
: have hard tip bullets, but not sabot or HEAT.
The smallest sabot round I know of is for .30-06 hunting rifles. The
bullet caliber is .22 and the muzzle velocity of these is astounding
(3000+ fps) These rounds are primarily for varmint and small game hunting
and are IMO more of a novelty than a useful tool. I do not know of any
sabot ammunition for the US army .50 cal machine gun. Blackpowder hunting
rifles commonly come in .50 cal and there is plenty of sabot ammo for
these, but the velocity is very low compared to modern high powered
centerfire rifle ammo.
: I also doubt that a .50 calibre bullet would be able to rip an arm off at
: the shoulder, except if it does hit the shoulder. It just doesn't have
: enough kinetic energy for that, and in any case it's much likely to just
: pass through before transferring enough of that energy to the arm. Even more
: so, if we're talking armour-piercing ammo.
I concur.
Chris J.
Gordon McGregor
> Anyone wanna talk guns?:) Hehe... no, your body armor will NOT stop what
> I just fired in from the next room. .50 cal saboted light armor piercing,
> against a human target. Bend over and kiss yer ass goodbye; if I hit
> you in the finger, your arm is coming off at the shoulder:)
My all time favourite weapon ever is in the collection the Art galleries
in Glasgow, Scotland.
They have a German metal mace, (dated circa 1000 AD [Im probably wildly
out with this date - some time in the middle ages),
about 2 foot long mace, with the typical 'fluting' at the end. The
'stock'
of the mace as a swivelable end, that stores shot, and the mace 'barrel'
is hollowed, with holes for a wick. The mace provides a 'one-shot'
kind of hand cannon operation, and then can be used as a normal mace.
I found it bizzare. Some day I'll take a picture of it, and put it on
a web site with the correct details.
Gordon
--
Gordon McGregor
Design Engineer, SoCDT UK
Email: Gordon_...@email.mot.com
Tel: +44 (0)1606 815412
Nathan Alexander Simington
> My all time favourite weapon ever is in the collection the Art galleries
> in Glasgow, Scotland.
> They have a German metal mace, (dated circa 1000 AD [Im probably wildly
> out with this date - some time in the middle ages),
If the weapon is designed to be fired, it would require some kind of
gunpowder, which wasn't formulated in the West before about 1245 C.E.,
IIRC.
My spadeful of grit,
Nathan
Gordon McGregor
>
> Gordon McGregor wrote:
> If the weapon is designed to be fired, it would require some kind of
> gunpowder, which wasn't formulated in the West before about 1245 C.E.,
> IIRC.
One of these days I'll go back and find out what date it was, 1000AD was
a wild guess. But it was designed to be fired. Although I doubt I
would
like to be holding it in my hand at the time. For some reason now,
1400AD springs to mind. I just don't rightly recal the correct date.
I just found it a delightfully insane idea, showing the evolution from
impact weapons to projectile weapons. I also felt it might just about
be allowable in fantasy settings, considering the amount of 'wizards'
et al, using flash powders and saltpeter and the like,
Guns generally totally over-balance a fantasy mud, but something that
was so bizzare, single shot, rubbish accuracy, high risk to the user
etc, and then became a 'typical' hack'n'slash weapon after discharge
appealed to me.
N@N
David Skidmore
-mor...@niuhep.physics.niu.edu wrote:
-: John Adelsberger <j...@umr.edu> writes:
-
-: >Besides, I'm an advocate of the realistic combat school of gaming, and
-: >compared to most melee weaponry, missiles tend to be REALLY deadly:)
-
-: Most of my knowledge deals with bows.
-
-Ok. For the moment, I'll assume that fireballs bigger than people
-and lightning bolts aren't really significantly affected by normal
-armors, because contrary to gaming wisdom, it would make no sense
-for them to be. That leaves bows and modern weaponry. The latter
-being a topic unto itself, I'll stick to bows for now.
-
-: Muds are difficult to correlate to the real world because of the normally
-: short range and the sometimes absense of the concept of measured distance.
-
-Very true.
-
-: At 150 yards most experienced archers could be expected to hit a stationary
-: man-sized target. At that distance a wide variety of armours would
-: be capable of reducing the damage done by the arrow. All but the thinnest/
-: poorest quality plate will dead on stop it (unless it targets the
-: open visor :)
-
-First off, using the bows available in a fantasy setting, I question
-accuracy at 150 yards; you might be right, but I'm thinking you need
-modern designs to achieve that kind of accuracy at that range unless
-you can handle an insanely high pull weight.
I'd have to agree. Assuming a fantasy setting, most weapons of a
technological nature are not as good quality-wise as things made today.
-Aside from that, VERY few people ever used complete suits of plate for
-anything but jousting; the movement penalty is so high that your
-opponent will just walk up to you and slip a dagger between the plates
-while you stumble around like an idiot. As such, the odds of hitting
-the plate itself are high, but not as high as you'd think. This
-should leave a reasonable chance to do some damage, even to characters
-in 'plate mail.'
*nod*
-: At 10 yards only the best plate would stop an arrow striking head on
-: (bodkin points assumed) and given a modicom of time the archer can pick
-: the target. OTOH with a moving target center of mass is your best
-: bet as it will likely hit something.
-
-Not only that, but at 10 yards, if you're using a missile and your
-opponent isn't, you'd better hope he's inexperienced or unprepared.
-You're probably going to hit a shoulder or something even if you go
-for the center of mass shot, and then he's going to cut you to
-ribbons while you reload. At close range, though, premodern armor
-isn't going to stop arrows reliably; that much is for certain.
*nod* Many people think of armor as being so tough, but methods for refining
the metal and producing the plate were nothing compared to the methods used
now. They were inefficient, and very low precision, meaning armor tended to
not be perfectly even thickness, therefore having weak spots. Should perhaps
be some chance that you hit one, based on perhaps the quality of armor?
-: A peircing wound has long-term implications but unless it hits a blood
-: vessel (not a non-zero proposition to be sure) it is not obviously any
-: more damaging than a slash/crush with a sword.
-
-Blood vessels and vital organs are very likely hits, actually, and if
-they're damaged, you generally don't see the victim doing much
-meaningful anytime soon, even if he doesn't die.
Those pesky blood vessels run through every part of the body... Any
significant hit will likely break one or more. Vital organs tend to be the
most protected portion of an armored person, but not an unlikely hit anyhow,
as they are for the most part grouped all together in the torso.
-: Though there may be mobility issues.
-
-There will certainly be mobility issues involved with being impaled...
-this and the pure shock value of seeing something protruding from
-your chest/back/whatever have to be considered.
-
-: Crossbows tend to do more crushing damage, lighter bows of all types
-: can be fairly easily defended against.
-
-No question.
-
-Anyone wanna talk guns?:) Hehe... no, your body armor will NOT stop what
-I just fired in from the next room. .50 cal saboted light armor piercing,
-against a human target. Bend over and kiss yer ass goodbye; if I hit
-you in the finger, your arm is coming off at the shoulder:)
hehehe. Nothing quite like modern firepower, eh?
-The effects of beam weaponry would be interesting too, but probably only
-in space or a very sci fi setting.
Just how many places out there are doing a sci/fi setting, or at least not a
medieval setting? Other than the couple based on Star Wars, even the
MudConnector doesn't have many. It's a shame... though, given that most of
what's out there are slightly modified copies of stock code, adding the stuff
neccesary for a modern setting, i.e. missile weapons like guns, etc, as well
as other things, are probably beyond the coding skills of at least 50% of
them, leaving people in a medieval fantasy setting whether they wan it or
not... :)
--
Raptor
---
-John J. Adelsberger III
-j...@umr.edu
mor...@niuhep.physics.niu.edu
>On 4 Nov 1998, John Adelsberger wrote:
>-mor...@niuhep.physics.niu.edu wrote:
>-: John Adelsberger <j...@umr.edu> writes:
>-First off, using the bows available in a fantasy setting, I question
>-accuracy at 150 yards; you might be right, but I'm thinking you need
>-modern designs to achieve that kind of accuracy at that range unless
>-you can handle an insanely high pull weight.
>I'd have to agree. Assuming a fantasy setting, most weapons of a
>technological nature are not as good quality-wise as things made today.
<sigh>
A longbow is not a high tech weapon. The advantages of the modern travesties
called bows these days are pretty much moot in combat, esp. for an experienced
archer who isn't a wimp.
>*nod* Many people think of armor as being so tough, but methods for refining
>the metal and producing the plate were nothing compared to the methods used
>now. They were inefficient, and very low precision, meaning armor tended to
>not be perfectly even thickness, therefore having weak spots. Should perhaps
>be some chance that you hit one, based on perhaps the quality of armor?
I don't think so. But first let me deal with high quality armour.
No, they did not have accidental weak spots, they were very carefully
made with thicker metal in the places more likely to be hit/more vital
to protect.
The most serious advantage a modern armourer has today is the ease with
which he can get high quality steel. Early (1250 or so) pieces of plate
were not very hard but as time progressed it improved considerably.
Actually the real problem as I understand it was getting fairly consistantly
high quality swords. The stress they are under shows up flaws far
more readily than what typical plate goes through.
Robert
John Adelsberger
Chris Jensen <cje...@potter.ieee.uh.edu> wrote:
: Accounts from police departments in
: the USA and other countries show similar results with human targets
: continuing hostile action after suffering fatal wounds. One or even two
: serious gun shot wounds will not produce immediate shock or paralysis.
The first shot stop percentage for .45 ACP is upwards of 95% of humans
hit. Not hit in the chest, or the neck. Just hit, period. Sure, you
might be _capable_ of continuing, physically, and you might even do it,
if you're high on drugs or otherwise in a seriously abnormal mental
state, but that's the exception in people, not the rule. Shock and fear
stop most people far more quickly than unconsciousness or death.
And yes, police reports are full of 'contrary evidence,' but that's because
they've historically used .38 and 9mil, which rounds are far less effective
for whatever reason(don't remember the exact statistics, but the stop
percentage for -hotloaded- .38 is under 70%, and for standard .38, it
drops to about 50%. 9mil is actually worse unless the range is point
blank.) Even non ACP .45 loads aren't quite as effective, and afaik,
nobody knows why.
Also, what little evidence exists suggests that some very small rounds,
such as 3mil, can be quite effective if they go through the heart,
inducing shock within only a couple of seconds and rendering targets
too weak to stand, even though they might conceivably survive.
John Adelsberger
: John Adelsberger wrote in message <3640a...@news.cc.umr.edu>...
: Actually, I also doubt that anyone actually produces sabot ammo for .50
: calibre guns. My best guess is that at this calibre, the even smaller size
: sabot would be way too lightweight to be of any practical value. You could
: have hard tip bullets, but not sabot or HEAT.
.50 cal SLAP is a standard US military ammunition. That's saboted light
armor piercing, for the acronym weary:) Also, the US military's upcoming
replacement for the M16 has a 20mil HE round, which is close to .50.
Of course, the .50 SLAP uses depleted uranium for mass, and the 20mil
HE round is for the underbarrel secondary weapon... hehe.
: I also doubt that a .50 calibre bullet would be able to rip an arm off at
: the shoulder, except if it does hit the shoulder. It just doesn't have
: enough kinetic energy for that, and in any case it's much likely to just
: pass through before transferring enough of that energy to the arm. Even more
: so, if we're talking armour-piercing ammo.
I was exaggerating, but .50 rounds have been known to tear arms off when
hitting at the elbow, depending on how they hit.
: Then again, I'm not a big fan of weapons produced after WW2, hence not very
: up to date on them, so I could well be wrong.
On some details, you are, but if you think depleted uranium, it'll make
much more sense:)
John Adelsberger
mor...@niuhep.physics.niu.edu wrote:
: A longbow is not a high tech weapon. The advantages of the modern travesties
: called bows these days are pretty much moot in combat, esp. for an experienced
: archer who isn't a wimp.
Against what, and used in what fashion? Sure, if you're just using the
modern design to lower the pull weight, you lose, but if you have a
modern compound design with a 100lb actual pull and a modern and
appropriate design for the arrowhead, you're going to have a lot greater
penetration power than any longbow ever did. Against armored targets,
that _does_ matter.
: The most serious advantage a modern armourer has today is the ease with
: which he can get high quality steel. Early (1250 or so) pieces of plate
: were not very hard but as time progressed it improved considerably.
The metals available up to the 2nd half of this century were brittle,
especially when it got cold. As such, metal armor at freezing
temperatures really would suck against arrows, but at normal temperature,
it might be quite usable. Hardness isn't the issue unless you're talking
REALLY old metal, as you note.
: Actually the real problem as I understand it was getting fairly consistantly
: high quality swords. The stress they are under shows up flaws far
: more readily than what typical plate goes through.
This is true. Spain and the Orient had the only _consistently_ good ones
for most of the time they were in common use, and Spain still has the
best sword steel in the world.
mor...@niuhep.physics.niu.edu
>The first shot stop percentage for .45 ACP is upwards of 95% of humans
>hit. Not hit in the chest, or the neck. Just hit, period.
Out of curiousity is there any data for the .45 ACP using the revolver?
mor...@niuhep.physics.niu.edu
Note on terminology (not aimed at anyone in particular) mail/maille
is armour made by interlocking rings of metal together.
>: A longbow is not a high tech weapon. The advantages of the modern
>: travesties called bows these days are pretty much moot in combat,
>: esp. for an experienced archer who isn't a wimp.
>Against what, and used in what fashion? Sure, if you're just using the
>modern design to lower the pull weight, you lose, but if you have a
>modern compound design with a 100lb actual pull and a modern and
>appropriate design for the arrowhead, you're going to have a lot greater
>penetration power than any longbow ever did. Against armored targets,
>that _does_ matter.
<heh>
First the apology, I started that post without realizing what time
it was so I left it half-finished, I probably should have saved it
instead of posting. Sorry.
Second, there were longbows which had 120 lb pull.
Third, In many cases it doesn't matter, esp. in the typical mud application.
At 100 yards against mail and lots of padding there is very likely a
difference between a 50 lb bow and an 80 lb bow. I am not so certain
there is a significant difference between an 80 and a 100 lb bow.
At relatively short distances a 60 lb bow doesn't know that mail is even
there.
Physically speaking I am a wimp, perhaps a Str 10 on the ADD scale.
I can shoot a 50 lb bow. For sustained use I am more comfortable
with a 35 lb bow. OTOH with practice it would be trivial for me
to work my way up to a 50 lb bow. (yes I can state that with
authority :)
Fourth, I will expand on what I meant.
The advantages of the modern compound bow are:
1)It can shoot lighter wt. arrows. This is accomplished in two ways.
First by using an extended shelf a shorter arrow can be used (i.e. it
doesn't have to reach the main part of the bow) and second the force
curve is such that they can more efficiently use a lighter arrow.
This last also applies to medieval composite bows.
Lighter wt arrows are useful for hunting because they are faster and so
drop less over a given distance so that a mis-estimate of distances
doesn't cause as much of an error.
But for war you don't want a light wt. arrow (except for harrassing at
extreme distances). The heavier wt arrow will have more kinetic energy
(despite the slower speed) and more momentum, both of which you want
to be able to penetrate armour.
2) Pull wt. let off. Please note that with a 100 lb compound bow you
still have to pull 100 lbs, but by the time you have pulled the arrow
to its aiming point the pull has let off by 50-75%. This allows you to
take your own sweet time aiming.
This might have some utility for mudding (or FRP) but for medieval warfare
it is of very limited interest. Esp. as many if not most longbow archers
were probably instinctive/point and shoot archers.
3) Pins. You put aiming pins on for different distances. Of course if
you don't know what the distance is...
Robert
mor...@niuhep.physics.niu.edu
>Chris Jensen <cje...@potter.ieee.uh.edu> wrote:
>A suit of full plate weighs, at a minimum, about 90-100 pounds. In
Unattributed quote from soc.history.medieval
====================================
A typical set of full field plate from Italy circa
1450 weighed by Claude Blair came in at 57 lb while
a German field harness from 25 years earlier weighs
41 lb 13.5 oz. Neither of these are too much more than
the hypothetical 12th Century harness discussed above
and was probably slightly lighter than 13th Century
Transition Armour.
====================================
This agrees with other data I have seen.
>Even so, knights kept their horses unless forced off,
The English frequently fought on foot.
>: Any other vital organ hit will take longer.
>
>Yes, but they'll be almost instantly debilitating. Bile dumped into
>your abdomen really hurts, for instance:)
Adrenalin is a wonderful thing. But yes shock is /not/ to be dismissed.
Robert
Robert J Grady
> But for war you don't want a light wt. arrow (except for harrassing at
> extreme distances). The heavier wt arrow will have more kinetic energy
> (despite the slower speed) and more momentum, both of which you want
> to be able to penetrate armour.
Slower speed also means more stopping power. It's much better for an
arrow to tear into someone than to squick right through them.
Also, a sufficiently heavy arrow shot from a sixty pound bow CAN punch
right through steel plate if it gets lucky. Or a helmet... There is a
reason that sophisticated armor technologies involve lots of curves.
Axes and maces are a big part of that reason, but arrows are the
clincher.
There are other notable benefits of heavier arrows. They tend to knock
people over. Even better, they can knock a horse off-balance.
- Stripes
mor...@niuhep.physics.niu.edu
>At 150 yards most experienced archers could be expected to hit a
>stationary man-sized target.
Rethinking this, I am not sure exactly how to word this. Certainly
the evidence suggests that this is a historically true statement, and
just as certainly the experienced archers referred to have years of
practice doing just that kind of thing.
I think a reasonable translation for muds would be to put the
above level of accuracy at the upper reaches of the archery skill level.
Similarly hitting the torso at 60 yards should be in the middle reaches.
Again this is a stationary target, and "expected to hit" does not equal
100% of the time, better than 70%? I think so, but how much better?
dunno.
mor...@niuhep.physics.niu.edu
>There are other notable benefits of heavier arrows. They tend to knock
>people over. Even better, they can knock a horse off-balance.
An arrow weighing 1.5 oz. going 160 foot per second has the same momentum
(which is what is of interest for knocking somebody down) as a one lbs
rock going 1.5 feet per second (which is pretty damn slow). Both
speed and weight are approximate but you aren't going to get much
more than double that.
Robert
Richard Woolcock
> : spell combat. I.e., being able to shoot into the next room. However, what's
> : not clear to me is whether or not does this just open a whole new chapter of
> : fine harassment opportunities. Namely, of the "fireball everyone from a
> : distance, and run away" variety. Particularly since most clients nowadays do
> : have command queuing, speed-walking, and other means to get far away by the
> : time they realize what's happening and charge to see who's the bugger.
>
> Instead of "A fireball flies in from the west"
> How about "Merlin throws a fireball in from the west"
Or the easy way to do it, assuming a one-room line of sight:
"To the [direction], [text that is displayed to people in that room]."
That wouldn't require very much work, and would be generic enough to be applied
to all commands (although you'd need a slightly different message for up/down).
KaVir.
Robert J Grady
1.5 oz is pretty light for an arrow with military applications. I've
mailed letters that weigh more than that.
- Stripes
mor...@niuhep.physics.niu.edu
>Actually, adding firearms was another idea I've been pondering. E.g., I have
>rapiers which were only used after (and because) firearms made armour
>obsolete. Would it then be out of theme to have muskets which take 1 minute
>to load? Or maybe should I take the rapiers out, too? Hmm... Can't decide
>yet.
Some thoughts:
Rapiers were primarily (exclusively?) non-military weapons. In social
settings one does not usually wear armour so it may be possible to set
up a situation in which wearing broadswords is not acceptable but rapiers
are.
Muskets... lots of variables there. You can have an accurate musket/
musketball combination that requires a thorough cleaning every two or
three shots and requires close fitting carefully made musketballs.
Or you can make an inaccurate (and presumably less powerful) combination
that can be fired 10-20 times before requiring a good cleaning and
uses looser fitting (therefore more room for error in the manufacture
of the musketballs).
Flintlocks are way out of period. The two primary methods of igniting
the powder is use of a matchlock and a wheellock, both of which involve
delay between the decision to "fire" and the firearm discharging,
which could be used to make life interesting.
Robert
mor...@niuhep.physics.niu.edu
>The metals available up to the 2nd half of this century were brittle,
>especially when it got cold. As such, metal armor at freezing
>temperatures really would suck against arrows, but at normal temperature,
>it might be quite usable.
Perhaps you are thinking of cast iron? Wrought iron as made in the
middle ages was not brittle, cold or not. Iron making went through
a number of changes over the centuries.
If you try to get too high of a carbon content you do get brittleness,
but I don't think that is generally a problem with armour.
Robert
who did check with his neighorhood smith before responding
mor...@niuhep.physics.niu.edu
>mor...@niuhep.physics.niu.edu wrote:
>>
>> Robert J Grady <rgr...@verio.net> writes:
>>
>> >There are other notable benefits of heavier arrows. They tend to knock
>> >people over. Even better, they can knock a horse off-balance.
>>
>> An arrow weighing 1.5 oz. going 160 foot per second has the same momentum
>> (which is what is of interest for knocking somebody down) as a one lbs
>> rock going 1.5 feet per second (which is pretty damn slow). Both
>> speed and weight are approximate but you aren't going to get much
>> more than double that.
>1.5 oz is pretty light for an arrow with military applications. I've
>mailed letters that weigh more than that.
I checked my files and the heaviest I can find a reference to is an
80 gram arrow which is slightly less than 3 ounces. As I said, you
aren't going to get much more than double.
Robert J Grady
That sounds more like it. A broad-head arrow is likely to have an ounce
of just metal.
I would like to point out that I'm pretty intimidated by the idea of a 1
lb rock flying at two or three feet per second at my head. I am pretty
sure your average horse feels much the same.
Not to mention that rocks tend to deflect, whereas an arrow sticking
into you is going to transfer very nearly all its momentum into you.
For that matter, visualize an arrow sticking INTO a piece of solid steel
plate. Now picture that same arrow impaling the neck of a horse.
- Stripes
mor...@niuhep.physics.niu.edu
>mor...@niuhep.physics.niu.edu wrote:
> >> Robert J Grady <rgr...@verio.net> writes:
> >> >There are other notable benefits of heavier arrows. They tend to knock
> >> >people over. Even better, they can knock a horse off-balance.
>> I checked my files and the heaviest I can find a reference to is an
>> 80 gram arrow which is slightly less than 3 ounces. As I said, you
>> aren't going to get much more than double.
>That sounds more like it. A broad-head arrow is likely to have an ounce
>of just metal.
>I would like to point out that I'm pretty intimidated by the idea of a 1
>lb rock flying at two or three feet per second at my head. I am pretty
>sure your average horse feels much the same.
Think about this for a moment, lets put it in different terms.
Maces weigh around 3 lbs, so the above translates to a mace moving
at one foot per second, so the momentum transfer is roughly equivalent
to swinging a mace weakly about a 1/4 arc.
It won't feel good by any means but it isn't going to knock you off your
feet.
>For that matter, visualize an arrow sticking INTO a piece of solid steel
>plate. Now picture that same arrow impaling the neck of a horse.
Oh I agree, my disagreement was with the ability to knock somebody down.
Robert
Nathan Fenenga Yospe
: mor...@niuhep.physics.niu.edu wrote:
: Not to mention that rocks tend to deflect, whereas an arrow sticking
: into you is going to transfer very nearly all its momentum into you.
Just to be pedantic... there is more momentum transfered by a rock that,
upon striking the target, bounces away, than there is transfered by that
same rock, stopping dead, or, worse, sticking. There is, however, energy
to be considered as well. The rock that stops does so because the target
absorbed the shock... as damaging energy. The technical term is physical
deformation energy.
--
Nathan F. Yospe - Born in the year of the tiger, riding it forever after
University of Hawaii at Manoa, Dept of Physics, second year senior (joy)
(On Call) Associate Algorithm Developer, Textron Systems Corp, Maui Ops.
yospe#hawaii.edu http://www2.hawaii.edu/~yospe Non commercial email only
Richard Goodwin
>: At 150 yards most experienced archers could be expected to hit a stationary
>: man-sized target. At that distance a wide variety of armours would
>: be capable of reducing the damage done by the arrow. All but the thinnest/
>: poorest quality plate will dead on stop it (unless it targets the
>: open visor :)
>
>First off, using the bows available in a fantasy setting, I question
>accuracy at 150 yards; you might be right, but I'm thinking you need
>modern designs to achieve that kind of accuracy at that range unless
>you can handle an insanely high pull weight.
150 yards is a HELL of a long way away. I shoot wuth a traditional
longbow, and I'm not amazingly good, but in my experience 40 yards is
a reaonable distance to start expecting misses (on a sixty cm diameter
target) The pull of the bow doesn't mea njack shit if you're not
pointing it in the right direction.
>Not only that, but at 10 yards, if you're using a missile and your
>opponent isn't, you'd better hope he's inexperienced or unprepared.
>You're probably going to hit a shoulder or something even if you go
>for the center of mass shot, and then he's going to cut you to
>ribbons while you reload. At close range, though, premodern armor
>isn't going to stop arrows reliably; that much is for certain.
The reason plate ws developed was because it generally did stop a shot
that wasn't dead perpendicular to the plate. The reason heavy
crossbows were invented was to go through the plate (and shield, and
horse)
Utopia
Richard Goodwin
>A suit of full plate weighs, at a minimum, about 90-100 pounds. In
>addition, the articulation of the joints is necessarily less than
>optimal. I've seen recreations; usually, they use modern metals,
>modern forming techniques, and so on, and the results are far superior
>to anything that could have existed at the time of the originals.
Excuse me, but that's mainly bullshit. The articulation of joints in a
superiorly woked set of modern armour didn't hamper movement to any
great degree at all, that was the idea.
What do you base the claim that modern materials and techniques (which
is interesting given that armouring hasn't changed a whole hell of a
lot in the last few hundred years) would produce superior products?
You mention that you've seen modern recreations. Whoop de doo, did you
perhaps try them on, with a range of strapping techniques, then try on
a series of period sets of armour, and take specific notes on the
operation, composition, placement, articulation etc?
It's intersting to note that when NASA was first designing the space
suits that the astronauts were going to have to where, they went to
the museum in London(?) that holds King Louis's(?) set of fully
enclosed plate and asked if they could take it apart and seen how it
all fits together. Unsurprisingly the museum authorities told them
where they could stick their measuring tapes.
>Fighting against pikes isn't a big problem for heavy armor; you're
>practically immune. The same goes with many other large weapons.
Again, complete bullshit. The reason heavy, long weapons were in
vented was to punch through the heavy plate that was becoming more
popular. It did so incredibly effectively, especiially things that had
points that were either swung into the victim, or thrust.
Cheers,
Utopia
John Adelsberger
: Second, there were longbows which had 120 lb pull.
Yes, but who can use them for any period of time? I know _one_ guy who
probably could. He'd never be an archer, because he's so good at
pounding on people:)
: The advantages of the modern compound bow are:
: 1)It can shoot lighter wt. arrows. This is accomplished in two ways.
: But for war you don't want a light wt. arrow (except for harrassing at
: extreme distances). The heavier wt arrow will have more kinetic energy
: (despite the slower speed) and more momentum, both of which you want
: to be able to penetrate armour.
I don't know the actual mass/energy/momentum numbers here, but it is good
to remember that if the velocity gain is high enough, loss of some mass
isn't going to mean anything. This is the point behind modern saboted
AP bullets.
John Adelsberger
: John Adelsberger <j...@umr.edu> writes:
: >The first shot stop percentage for .45 ACP is upwards of 95% of humans
: >hit. Not hit in the chest, or the neck. Just hit, period.
: Out of curiousity is there any data for the .45 ACP using the revolver?
AFAIK, the revolver is included in the data, and isn't available
separately. I'm not quite sure, though. I'll see if I can find out.
David Skidmore
-On 4 Nov 98 23:48:44 GMT, John Adelsberger <j...@umr.edu> wrote:
-
->A suit of full plate weighs, at a minimum, about 90-100 pounds. In
->addition, the articulation of the joints is necessarily less than
->optimal. I've seen recreations; usually, they use modern metals,
->modern forming techniques, and so on, and the results are far superior
->to anything that could have existed at the time of the originals.
-
-Excuse me, but that's mainly bullshit. The articulation of joints in a
-superiorly woked set of modern armour didn't hamper movement to any
-great degree at all, that was the idea.
-What do you base the claim that modern materials and techniques (which
-is interesting given that armouring hasn't changed a whole hell of a
-lot in the last few hundred years)
Umm, what rock have you been hiding under? Armor has changed LOTS in the last
200 years or so. Before that they weren't even armoring ships... Modern day
'knights' or people who are daily involved in risking their lives to save
others wear armor. It looks NOTHING like the metal monstrosities of olde
England. Modern armour has changed to work with modern weapons. People no
longer attack each other with swords, axes, pikes, and bows, except the
occasional nutcase. Face it, even when dealing with reproductions of old
armor, they're rpoduced with machinery that the blacksmiths of old could never
have imagined, out of materials much more pure, or in many cases, alloys with
much better qualities than were available 200 years ago.
- would produce superior products?
-You mention that you've seen modern recreations. Whoop de doo, did you
-perhaps try them on, with a range of strapping techniques, then try on
-a series of period sets of armour, and take specific notes on the
-operation, composition, placement, articulation etc?
This last bit is just ludicrous. Have you done this either? Then why does it
matter?
-
-It's intersting to note that when NASA was first designing the space
-suits that the astronauts were going to have to where, they went to
-the museum in London(?) that holds King Louis's(?) set of fully
-enclosed plate and asked if they could take it apart and seen how it
-all fits together. Unsurprisingly the museum authorities told them
-where they could stick their measuring tapes.
What's with the (?)'s? Are you:
a)Not sure how to spell those words?
b)Not sure you have the right words in there at all?
c)Trying to ask if we're still understanding what you write, even with all the
typographical/grammatical errors?
Unsurprisingly, engineers went to look at what had already been done in a
field before doing work on their own. Big deal. If you want to make
something that works, look at things similar to what you want, that you
know work, and work from there. Why are you so shocked by this?
->Fighting against pikes isn't a big problem for heavy armor; you're
->practically immune. The same goes with many other large weapons.
-
-Again, complete bullshit. The reason heavy, long weapons were in
-vented was to punch through the heavy plate that was becoming more
-popular. It did so incredibly effectively, especiially things that had
-points that were either swung into the victim, or thrust.
Unfortunately, if your enemy is not wearing really heavy plate mail, s/he will
be able to outmanuver you and your top-heavy 8 foot pole with relative ease.
Most pikes were more likely used against mounted attackers, where you just
have to plant the butt of the pike in the ground, and point it at the front of
the nearest charging horse.
-Cheers,
-Utopia
--
Raptor
Chris Jensen
In rec.games.mud.admin David Skidmore <dss...@osfmail.isc.rit.edu> wrote:
: Unfortunately, if your enemy is not wearing really heavy plate mail, s/he will
: be able to outmanuver you and your top-heavy 8 foot pole with relative ease.
: Most pikes were more likely used against mounted attackers, where you just
: have to plant the butt of the pike in the ground, and point it at the front of
: the nearest charging horse.
The last I can categarically deny. The pike (in all it's glorious
varieties and derivitaves) was an infantry weapon for use in tight
formations in close combat against both cavalry and infantry. The pikes
were used in the manner you describe to receive a cavalry charge. For
infantry-infantry combat the pikes were held extended and presented an
impenetrable bristling mass of metal points to any person foolish enough
to attack with sword or mace.
Having said that, the pike is utterly useless in a mano a mano
competition. In fact, its effectiveness depends greatly on the ability of
the formation to hold together. If a few of the formation members cut and
run, the whole formation is likely to be cut to ribbons by the opposing
force. This is what made the famed swiss squares so effective. Their
high level of training, excellent unit cohesion, and of course their
deadly reputation ensured that it was the other side that broke first in
the vast majority of engagements. Unless you are implementing group
tactics, the pike has no place in MU* combat.
Chris J.
Chris Jensen
: John Adelsberger <j...@umr.edu> writes:
: >The first shot stop percentage for .45 ACP is upwards of 95% of humans
: >hit. Not hit in the chest, or the neck. Just hit, period.
: Out of curiousity is there any data for the .45 ACP using the revolver?
I don't know where jja's numbers come from but here are mine from
Marshall & Sanow, I found these on-line at
http://www.powernet.net/~eich1/sp.html
.45 ACP, Hudra-Shock, Golden Sabre, Cor-Bon 94%, 93%, 92% with 97
shootings combined, these munitions are not available in many police
armories (tho hydra-shock is increasingly popular). Two more common
police hollow-point rounds: Remington +P 91%, CCI Lawman 88%, 155 combined
shootings. As for military ammo, Remmington, Winchester, and Federal FMJ
(full metal jacket) 65%, 63%, 63% with 469 shootings. These are one-shot
incapacitation percentages in cases where a single bullet hit the subject
in the torso (no head, neck, arm, or leg hits).
A few miscelaneous numbers: .38 special 2" barrel, semi-wadcutters (the
good ole detective special) 49%. .38 special 4" barrel +P hollow points
(your average beat cop up until 10 or so years ago) 70-78%. .40 S&W,
assorted JHP (the golden boy of law enforcement carry weapons nowadays)
80-96% with lighter, faster ammo being more deadly. 9mm FMJ (the new GI
issue) 63%, just as good (bad?) as the old stuff, but you can shoot twice
as many people :>. What you hope the bad-guy has: .25 ACP FMJ, 22-23%
with over 4300 shootings! Why you don't want the SWAT snipers to hate
you: .308 win JHP-BT (ballistic tip) 97-100%. Why it's not good to make
fun of marines: .223 FMJ 95-96%. The home defense king: 12 gauge slug
98%, 12 ga 00 buck 88-96%.
The moral of this story: getting shot sucks. Note that these are _not_
mortality number, if anyone has a reference for gun shot wound mortalities
seperated by ammunition type please post or mail.
Chris J.
John Adelsberger
: In rec.games.mud.admin mor...@niuhep.physics.niu.edu wrote:
: I don't know where jja's numbers come from but here are mine from
: Marshall & Sanow, I found these on-line at
: http://www.powernet.net/~eich1/sp.html
: .45 ACP, Hudra-Shock, Golden Sabre, Cor-Bon 94%, 93%, 92% with 97
: shootings combined, these munitions are not available in many police
: armories (tho hydra-shock is increasingly popular).
Given the fact that most police depts still think 9mil is a good weapon,
any sane police officer isn't using dept issue weaponry anyway. The
data I had, which I can't find now(they were in a magazine article,
compiled over several years using all the statistics available through
the police, FBI, and FBI and local police records of shootings by
non-government people; the guy who does them is famous for this project,
but I can't remember his name for the life of me...) were arranged a
bit differently; the .45 ACP was divided into 'hit' and 'miss,' and
it had a stop rate of just above 95%(something like 95.1...) Of
course, most of those hits were in the torso, because that's easy to
hit...
: Two more common
: police hollow-point rounds: Remington +P 91%, CCI Lawman 88%, 155 combined
: shootings. As for military ammo, Remmington, Winchester, and Federal FMJ
: (full metal jacket) 65%, 63%, 63% with 469 shootings. These are one-shot
: incapacitation percentages in cases where a single bullet hit the subject
: in the torso (no head, neck, arm, or leg hits).
Military ammo is uniquely poorly suited to actual use. Its only redeeming
feature is that the military can use it without running afoul of
international law. FMJ is a stupid idea. If you're going to shoot a
guy, why use a round designed not to hurt him too much?!
: A few miscelaneous numbers: .38 special 2" barrel, semi-wadcutters (the
: good ole detective special) 49%. .38 special 4" barrel +P hollow points
: (your average beat cop up until 10 or so years ago) 70-78%. .40 S&W,
: assorted JHP (the golden boy of law enforcement carry weapons nowadays)
: 80-96% with lighter, faster ammo being more deadly.
I'd like to see the .40 JHP round that can achieve 96%... I'd believe
that if you'd said shredder rounds, but not JHP... of course, this
could be sampling error, since the number of shootings probably isn't
large.
: with over 4300 shootings! Why you don't want the SWAT snipers to hate
: you: .308 win JHP-BT (ballistic tip) 97-100%. Why it's not good to make
: fun of marines: .223 FMJ 95-96%. The home defense king: 12 gauge slug
: 98%, 12 ga 00 buck 88-96%.
Well, yes, when you move to rifles and shotguns, things get easier...:)
: The moral of this story: getting shot sucks. Note that these are _not_
: mortality number, if anyone has a reference for gun shot wound mortalities
: seperated by ammunition type please post or mail.
I don't have such data, but it depends heavily on how quickly you get
medical attention. Immediate care can treat all but the worst of bullet
wounds, whereas its lack can make getting shot in the hand quite lethal
over a period of days or weeks.
Oh, and also, while I don't endorse this, if you _really_ must ensure
that you shoot someone and he drops, there's not much to match .30-06
crosscut short of .50:)
John Adelsberger
: Unfortunately, if your enemy is not wearing really heavy plate mail, s/he will
: be able to outmanuver you and your top-heavy 8 foot pole with relative ease.
: Most pikes were more likely used against mounted attackers, where you just
: have to plant the butt of the pike in the ground, and point it at the front of
: the nearest charging horse.
This is precisely correct. Using pikes in hand to hand combat, while
common, required formations of well trained men(IE, not peasants) and
was risky; anyone getting inside the range of your weapon is a real
problem. Peasants who used them generally were defending against mounted
charges.
mwi...@my-dejanews.com
David Skidmore <dss...@osfmail.isc.rit.edu> wrote:
> On Sat, 7 Nov 1998, Richard Goodwin wrote:
> -On 4 Nov 98 23:48:44 GMT, John Adelsberger <j...@umr.edu> wrote:
> ->Fighting against pikes isn't a big problem for heavy armor; you're
> ->practically immune. The same goes with many other large weapons.
> -
> -Again, complete bullshit. The reason heavy, long weapons were in
> -vented was to punch through the heavy plate that was becoming more
> -popular. It did so incredibly effectively, especiially things that had
> -points that were either swung into the victim, or thrust.
>
> be able to outmanuver you and your top-heavy 8 foot pole with relative ease.
> Most pikes were more likely used against mounted attackers, where you just
> have to plant the butt of the pike in the ground, and point it at the front of
> the nearest charging horse.
Um, you guys all seem to be missing the important point that a pike is a
soldier's weapon, not a (solitary) warrior's weapon - it's nearly useless
outside the arena it was designed for.
Pikes were used by blocks of soldiers, usually three deep and around a dozen
wide, moving together much like the Roman "turtle" formations. (At least
that's the classic Swiss pike block.) When blocks were in the field, they
formed a defensive hedge that was incredibly effective against charges
(mounted or otherwise). The small point of the pike punctured even the
heaviest plate when the force of a charging horse was applied to it. The
massive number of pikes employed together made outmanuevering them difficult
(flanking the block sometimes worked, but trained pikemen practiced turning
the facing of their formation quickly to prevent against this). The length
of the weapon (usually eight feet, sometimes as long as 12 feet) made it
impossible for an attacker to reach the formation with another weapon without
first breaching the hedge. And a pike isn't topheavy - the steel point is
rather small, and the weapon would purposefully be weighted toward the butt.
Some other pole weapons had large, complex or ornate heads, but none of them
were as effective as the Swiss pike.
If you employ these weapons realistically in your mud, the success of pikes
on the battlefield will also create major social changes in your world:
Pikes held their own against heavy cavalry, and pikemen were incredibly cheap
to produce and maintain both in terms of time and money. Pikers, along with
other mass-deployed weapons (longbows and longarms), made the knight
obsolete. It wasn't because they were a guarranteed success against heavy
armor, but because they evened the odds at a fraction of the cost. This in
turn lessened the political influence of the nobility, which is one of the
causes that eventually ended feudalism as a political structure.
Pikes were such a successful military weapon that many armies still use a
derivative of them today: The bayonette was invented to allow blocks of
muskets to fight like pikers when engaged at close range. (Most early
longarm tactics were derived from piker tactics, including the standard three
man deep block formation.) But note that being a successful military weapon
doesn't always translate into being an effective warrior's weapon. The
strength of the pike is also it's greatest weakness: A pike is damn near
useless by itself. Unless your players venture out in groups of 36, pikes
shouldn't be their weapons of choice.
-----------== Posted via Deja News, The Discussion Network ==----------
http://www.dejanews.com/ Search, Read, Discuss, or Start Your Own
Lars Duening
> Military ammo is uniquely poorly suited to actual use. Its only redeeming
> feature is that the military can use it without running afoul of
> international law. FMJ is a stupid idea. If you're going to shoot a
> guy, why use a round designed not to hurt him too much?!
This kind of inhuman attitude really makes me sick.
> Oh, and also, while I don't endorse this,
Yeah right.
--
Lars Duening; la...@cableinet.co.uk
Chris Jensen
: Military ammo is uniquely poorly suited to actual use. Its only redeeming
: feature is that the military can use it without running afoul of
: international law. FMJ is a stupid idea. If you're going to shoot a
: guy, why use a round designed not to hurt him too much?!
FMJ has poor stopping power, but it does have many positives.
1) It is legal under the geneva convention, but to quote Kelly's Heroes,
"We're not in Geneva colonel."
2) FMJ may not stop well, but when it comes to killing it is just as
effective, if not more, than other ammo types. 20 minutes after you are
hit it doesn't make any difference if you were shot with FMJ or
hydra-shock.
3) Penetration. In law enforcement and home defense, penetration is bad,
you don't want the bullet going through the bad guy and potentially
hitting a bystander behind him, or going through the wall and hitting
your neighbor. In war this is exactly what you want, maybe you can injure
two enemies with one bullet, or more likely you can shoot through the wood
fence he is hiding behind and still have enough energy to kill him
: I'd like to see the .40 JHP round that can achieve 96%... I'd believe
: that if you'd said shredder rounds, but not JHP... of course, this
: could be sampling error, since the number of shootings probably isn't
: large.
Cor-Bon/Nosler, 96% only 24 shootings, but I expect this to hold up given
Cor-Bon's track record in every other calibre, the stuff is like a wand of
paralysis. Federal 155 grain 94%, 34 shootings. Rounding out the over
90% club are golden sabre, hydra-shock, cor-bon regular, and silvertip.
: Oh, and also, while I don't endorse this, if you _really_ must ensure
: that you shoot someone and he drops, there's not much to match .30-06
: crosscut short of .50:)
.300 win mag ballistic tip hollow points. Drops wild pigs in their tracks
with non-CNS hits, this may not impress you, but it sure does me.
Chris J.
John Adelsberger
: John Adelsberger <j...@umr.edu> wrote:
: > Military ammo is uniquely poorly suited to actual use. Its only redeeming
: > feature is that the military can use it without running afoul of
: > international law. FMJ is a stupid idea. If you're going to shoot a
: > guy, why use a round designed not to hurt him too much?!
: This kind of inhuman attitude really makes me sick.
I don't believe in shooting people. If you're going to do it, it is
hypocrisy to try to 'be nice' about it. In any conflict, either you
are an immoral aggressor, in which case morality is beside the point,
or else you are defending yourself, in which case you are in the right
to use any and all means at your disposal to render the aggressor
harmless. In many conflicts, both sides are immoral aggressors(see the
Middle East and Ireland.) Rarely does it start out that way, but that
doesn't change the facts.
About the only cases I can think of in which I approve of shooting
someone outside of a military conflict are:
1) Self defense in a situation in which the aggressor has a deadly
weapon, or
2) someone breaks into your home. You're there. You shoot him. If
he didn't want to die, he shouldn't have broken into your home.
This could also apply to businesses and other buildings, depending
on the circumstances. Note that 'breaks into' doesn't necessarily
mean 'forces a lock' either. He can crawl in an open window or
open an unlocked door - the key is, he's there illegally.
John Adelsberger
: FMJ has poor stopping power, but it does have many positives.
: 1) It is legal under the geneva convention, but to quote Kelly's Heroes,
: "We're not in Geneva colonel."
Er... well, ok. Since the US routinely ignores other provisions of said
convention, I don't know why we care about that one, but whatever.
: 2) FMJ may not stop well, but when it comes to killing it is just as
: effective, if not more, than other ammo types. 20 minutes after you are
: hit it doesn't make any difference if you were shot with FMJ or
: hydra-shock.
You'd rather see him live, really. This has been a standard strategy
of the US military for a long time; wounded people take up LOTS of
the enemy's resources to care for, whereas dead people you just burn
or bury. That said, I'd want a weapon that'd incapacitate the enemy
NOW, rather than 20 minutes from now; if he can shoot back, I've got
a problem:)
: 3) Penetration. In law enforcement and home defense, penetration is bad,
: you don't want the bullet going through the bad guy and potentially
: hitting a bystander behind him, or going through the wall and hitting
: your neighbor. In war this is exactly what you want, maybe you can injure
: two enemies with one bullet, or more likely you can shoot through the wood
: fence he is hiding behind and still have enough energy to kill him
If they really gave a damn about penetration of individual soldiers' shots,
they wouldn't be using 5.56mm. They made a conscious decision a long time
ago to go for controllability of burst firing and larger count magazines;
if penetration were the goal, .30-06 AP would be decidedly superior, and
it also has better stopping power.
: : I'd like to see the .40 JHP round that can achieve 96%... I'd believe
: : that if you'd said shredder rounds, but not JHP... of course, this
: : could be sampling error, since the number of shootings probably isn't
: : large.
: Cor-Bon/Nosler, 96% only 24 shootings, but I expect this to hold up given
: Cor-Bon's track record in every other calibre, the stuff is like a wand of
: paralysis.
Maybe so, but if that's the case, most other manufacturers of the stuff
ought to be criminally liable for the poor performance of their ammo.
Granted, there are bad .45 ammos too, but not as bad as a lot of the .40.
Of course, anything in a caliber so large as either of these will
cause me severe injuries just to fire more than very occasionally... I've
got some truly wimpy wrists:(
: : Oh, and also, while I don't endorse this, if you _really_ must ensure
: : that you shoot someone and he drops, there's not much to match .30-06
: : crosscut short of .50:)
: .300 win mag ballistic tip hollow points. Drops wild pigs in their tracks
: with non-CNS hits, this may not impress you, but it sure does me.
That is impressive. It's also legal in most/all places, unlike what I was
talking about:) (I'm not sure about specific locales, but I know that
many places frown on cutting big notches in rounded lead tips; they regard
this, quite rightly, as being similar to the shredder ammo they've all
banned:)
telnet user
Let H be the weight of a standard horse [tm].
Let P be the mass of a standard person.
Let dv be the minimum change in velocity required to irrecoverably ruin
a horse's balance.
So the projectile must be carrying at least H dv momentum.
Where did it get this momentum? Consider the shooter, who also
conserves momentum. In creating an object with momentum H dv, he
receives a backwards impulse of H dv / P. Given the size of H/P, and
reasonable estimates of what dv is, anyone who shoots a weapon capable
of knocking down a horse better be prepared for a pretty ferocious
kick.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tim Hollebeek | "Everything above is a true
email: t...@wfn-shop.princeton.edu | statement, for sufficiently
URL: http://wfn-shop.princeton.edu/~tim | false values of true."
mwi...@my-dejanews.com
John Adelsberger <j...@umr.edu> wrote:
> Lars Duening <la...@cableinet.co.uk> wrote:
> : John Adelsberger <j...@umr.edu> wrote:
>
> : > Military ammo is uniquely poorly suited to actual use. Its only redeeming
> : > feature is that the military can use it without running afoul of
> : > international law. FMJ is a stupid idea. If you're going to shoot a
> : > guy, why use a round designed not to hurt him too much?!
>
> : This kind of inhuman attitude really makes me sick.
>
> I don't believe in shooting people. If you're going to do it, it is
> hypocrisy to try to 'be nice' about it.
Or, as my father put it, the Zero'th Law of Gun Safety:
Never point a gun at a man unless you intend to kill him.
If you think John's attitude is "inhuman" (I think you mean 'inhumane' -
John's attitude is *very* human), then you don't understand the purpose of a
weapon. The motivation behind it's use may be humane or inhumane, but the
weapon itself has only one purpose - to kill. To use a weapon intending to
cause pain instead of death is called "torture". Now *that's* inhumane.
Raymond Rabke
>soldier's weapon, not a (solitary) warrior's weapon - it's nearly useless
>outside the arena it was designed for.
<snip comments about formations>
This is very true. A pike is not the weapon for a lone warrior in real life.
However, when a character has 18/10 str, 16+ dex...translating into real
life becomes well nigh impossible. I personally think an 8 foot halberd (a
modified pike with a axe blade-like head useful for slashing as well as
stabbing) is the perfect weapon for the average fantasy warrior. If it's
realism you want, then there should be severe attack penalties for
attempting to use a pike-style weapon, say, an extra round to swing the
point back to bear. In a realistic combat setting, a twelve foot pike would
have no place anyway, except in sieges or some RISK-like mud...
>If you employ these weapons realistically in your mud, the success of pikes
>on the battlefield will also create major social changes in your world:
>Pikes held their own against heavy cavalry, and pikemen were incredibly
cheap
>to produce and maintain both in terms of time and money. Pikers, along
with
>other mass-deployed weapons (longbows and longarms), made the knight
>obsolete. It wasn't because they were a guarranteed success against heavy
>armor, but because they evened the odds at a fraction of the cost. This in
>turn lessened the political influence of the nobility, which is one of the
>causes that eventually ended feudalism as a political structure.
The social changes wrought be the piker and yeoman and the fall of the noble
class would be very interesting to see in a MUD. If only I knew some more
C...
>Pikes were such a successful military weapon that many armies still use a
>derivative of them today: The bayonette was invented to allow blocks of
>muskets to fight like pikers when engaged at close range. (Most early
>longarm tactics were derived from piker tactics, including the standard
three
>man deep block formation.) But note that being a successful military
weapon
>doesn't always translate into being an effective warrior's weapon. The
>strength of the pike is also it's greatest weakness: A pike is damn near
>useless by itself. Unless your players venture out in groups of 36, pikes
>shouldn't be their weapons of choice.
Exactly.
--
TubaMan! (tu-ba man): A ficticious individual created on a whim to satisfy
my comic-book hero aspriations :)
Chris Jensen
: : FMJ has poor stopping power, but it does have many positives.
: : 1) It is legal under the geneva convention, but to quote Kelly's Heroes,
: : "We're not in Geneva colonel."
: Er... well, ok. Since the US routinely ignores other provisions of said
: convention, I don't know why we care about that one, but whatever.
It's better to obey some laws than no laws, and it's best to keep your
violations as small and quiet as possible. This is not my moral opinion,
it is political reality.
: You'd rather see him live, really. This has been a standard strategy
: of the US military for a long time; wounded people take up LOTS of
: the enemy's resources to care for, whereas dead people you just burn
: or bury. That said, I'd want a weapon that'd incapacitate the enemy
: NOW, rather than 20 minutes from now; if he can shoot back, I've got
: a problem:)
Kill a man and you remove one man from the battlefield, wound a man and
you remove 7 men from the battlefield. This has been known for a long
time, and not just by the US. Land mines were designed to wound not kill.
The 18th and 19th centuries are probably the only time in history when
battles were fought only to kill the enemy. Before that capture was much
more lucrative, and after that wounding was found to be more effective.
: If they really gave a damn about penetration of individual soldiers' shots,
: they wouldn't be using 5.56mm. They made a conscious decision a long time
: ago to go for controllability of burst firing and larger count magazines;
: if penetration were the goal, .30-06 AP would be decidedly superior, and
: it also has better stopping power.
I didn't say penetration was their only concern, or even a primary
concern. In long arms JHP is overkill. .223 and .30-06 are both over 90%
stoppers so you might as well go with the lighter weapon. This brings to
mind another interesting point. About 90% of battlefield casualties are
caused by crew manned weapons, mostly artillery but also bombs, tanks, and
crew manned machine guns (e.g. the US SAW). The numbers vary from study
to study but they always point out crew weapons as the major casualty
causer. So why do we have infantry? Because you can't take and hold
territory with artillery and planes. Infantry locates the enemy, infantry
holds the enemy in place while your heavy weapons do their job, infantry
must be countered with infantry. Both of these things are inadequately
accounted for in almost every military simulation I have played.
: Of course, anything in a caliber so large as either of these will
: cause me severe injuries just to fire more than very occasionally... I've
: got some truly wimpy wrists:(
Bummer, guess yer stuck with .380
Chris J.
H. McDaniel
>Given the fact that most police depts still think 9mil is a good weapon,
9mm is good depending on the round and what you're using it for. If
you don't want over penetration in urban settings (ie: you don't want
a stray bullet flying through four apartment houses and dropping ten
kids, their mom and the postman on it's way to the city limitsk.) If
the shooter can aim (and this is *not* a given with most people, even
.. or esp?? cops under pressure) 9mm can do the job. It might take
more shots than .45 (depending on placement,) but then if you're
shooting to kill (which all cops are supposed to, or else the use
of lethal force wasn't justified to begin with,) you're going to
fire more than once in most cases regarless of round anyhow. And
that's true of anybody shooting in a life threatning sit., IMO.
>any sane police officer isn't using dept issue weaponry anyway.
Some departments (rural) have cops that tote full auto subguns (9mm,
mind you.) It will still clean out your sinuses. If the shooter
can aim, I don't think choosing to be hit by .9mm or .45 is much
of a choice at all.
But as to sanity... I'm not convinced that your average cop is
sane (and I know a few that are.) It's a very bad job to have.
[...]
>Military ammo is uniquely poorly suited to actual use. Its only redeeming
>feature is that the military can use it without running afoul of
>international law. FMJ is a stupid idea. If you're going to shoot a
>guy, why use a round designed not to hurt him too much?!
Um... just because a 9mm FMJ HP doesn't blow a guys arm off doesn't
make him any less dead, if he was hit in the right spot. Just makes
it easier for the health officials to clean the streets up afterwards.
-McDaniel
H. McDaniel
>John Adelsberger <j...@umr.edu> wrote:
>> Military ammo is uniquely poorly suited to actual use. Its only redeeming
>> feature is that the military can use it without running afoul of
>> international law. FMJ is a stupid idea. If you're going to shoot a
>> guy, why use a round designed not to hurt him too much?!
>This kind of inhuman attitude really makes me sick.
Ok, people: this is not a good place to debate the ethics of war, etc.
-McDaniel
Lars Duening
> In article <36477...@news.cc.umr.edu>,
> John Adelsberger <j...@umr.edu> wrote:
> > Lars Duening <la...@cableinet.co.uk> wrote:
> > : John Adelsberger <j...@umr.edu> wrote:
> >
> > : > Military ammo is uniquely poorly suited to actual use. Its only
> > : > redeeming feature is that the military can use it without running
> > : > afoul of international law. FMJ is a stupid idea. If you're going
> > : > to shoot a guy, why use a round designed not to hurt him too much?!
> >
> > : This kind of inhuman attitude really makes me sick.
> >
> > I don't believe in shooting people. If you're going to do it, it is
> > hypocrisy to try to 'be nice' about it.
>
> Or, as my father put it, the Zero'th Law of Gun Safety:
>
> Never point a gun at a man unless you intend to kill him.
I know that one. The martial arts equivalent of it was among the first
things we learned in our Karate classes.
> If you think John's attitude is "inhuman" (I think you mean 'inhumane' -
> John's attitude is *very* human), then you don't understand the purpose of a
> weapon. The motivation behind it's use may be humane or inhumane, but the
> weapon itself has only one purpose - to kill. To use a weapon intending to
> cause pain instead of death is called "torture". Now *that's* inhumane.
And that was what I was getting at: with FMJ you 'shoot to kill'. John
otoh spoke for what in the end amounts to 'shoot to maim just for the
fun of it'. As if even the non-lethal wounds inflicted by FMJ rounds
weren't already bad enough.
Maybe it's just me and the aftereffects of being a voluntary civilian
medic.
--
Lars Duening; la...@cableinet.co.uk
mwi...@my-dejanews.com
"Raymond Rabke" <rra...@mail.utexas.edu> wrote:
> >Um, you guys all seem to be missing the important point that a pike is a
> >soldier's weapon, not a (solitary) warrior's weapon - it's nearly useless
> >outside the arena it was designed for.
>
> <snip comments about formations>
>
> This is very true. A pike is not the weapon for a lone warrior in real life.
> However, when a character has 18/10 str, 16+ dex...translating into real
> life becomes well nigh impossible.
Is that a problem with real life, or a problem with the game system? ;)
I won't go into an attack on the system that produces "18(10) Str, 16 Dex"
characters. AD&D a perfect example of what I *don't* want to do with my game
system, but it's certainly not the only RPG system that shares it's flaws.
>I personally think an 8 foot halberd (a
> modified pike with a axe blade-like head useful for slashing as well as
> stabbing) is the perfect weapon for the average fantasy warrior.
A halberd is a reasonable weapon, certainly. One sized slightly more than
the wielder's height is optimal, combining many of the characteristics of a
spear and an axe. Historically, the attempts at improving the utility of the
pike by adding more elaborate features to the head almost always dulled it's
effectiveness in battle - simplicity is the pike's *strength*, not a
weakness. The halberd found it's own niche off the battlefield - it's cheaper
and lighter than a large sword and more threatening than a small one, can be
made highly ornate without destroying it's utility, and can be employed by
either a single man or a small group.
>If it's
> realism you want, then there should be severe attack penalties for
> attempting to use a pike-style weapon, say, an extra round to swing the
> point back to bear.
Not really. A pike is essentially an exaggerated spear. A *severe* penalty
if the target gets inside your range, and a good model for fighting in
formation would be necessary, though.
>In a realistic combat setting, a twelve foot pike would
> have no place anyway, except in sieges or some RISK-like mud...
I'm not sure what to make of this statement...
[SNIP social effects]
> The social changes wrought be the piker and yeoman and the fall of the noble
> class would be very interesting to see in a MUD. If only I knew some more
> C...
That entire time frame is interesting - I think a well researched and
historically placed setting is *far* more interesting than the hodge-podge
that generally passes for "fantasy". I don't think a historic recreation is
necessary, but I've found that history is an incredible inspiration in
designing settings.
mwi...@my-dejanews.com
Could be. In my interpretation of that Zero'th Law, what kind of non-lethal
wounds any type of ammo may do isn't even worth considering. There will *be*
no non-lethal wounds, because any shot that doesn't kill will be followed up
with another one. If anything short of death would suffice, I wouldn't have
a gun pointed at him in the first place.
Nathan Alexander Simington
> Ok, people: this is not a good place to debate the ethics of war, etc.
That didn't stop 'em last time (=
Nathan
John Adelsberger
: And that was what I was getting at: with FMJ you 'shoot to kill'. John
: otoh spoke for what in the end amounts to 'shoot to maim just for the
: fun of it'. As if even the non-lethal wounds inflicted by FMJ rounds
: weren't already bad enough.
What I said was that military ammo should be designed to incapacitate as
quickly as possible. I don't care whether the wounds are lethal, and I
don't care whether the targets suffer or not; shooting people is not a
moral activity unless you're defending yourself, and if you are, the
targets' suffering is irrelevant. Given this, it makes sense to have
military ammo that prevents the opponent from hurting you or your friends
as efficiently as possible; anything else, including suffering and death,
is irrelevant to the design of bullets, however important such things
may be in general.
John Adelsberger
: Where did it get this momentum? Consider the shooter, who also
: conserves momentum. In creating an object with momentum H dv, he
: receives a backwards impulse of H dv / P. Given the size of H/P, and
: reasonable estimates of what dv is, anyone who shoots a weapon capable
: of knocking down a horse better be prepared for a pretty ferocious
: kick.
Neither a heavy crossbow nor a .50 bolt action rifle is going to _knock_
a horse down, but they will both quite handily _take_ the horse down.
The distinction is important, but either way, the horse is going down,
and maybe in more than one piece:)
John Adelsberger
: On Sat, 7 Nov 1998, Richard Goodwin wrote:
: -On 4 Nov 98 23:48:44 GMT, John Adelsberger <j...@umr.edu> wrote:
: -What do you base the claim that modern materials and techniques (which
: -is interesting given that armouring hasn't changed a whole hell of a
: -lot in the last few hundred years)
: Umm, what rock have you been hiding under? Armor has changed LOTS in the last
: 200 years or so. Before that they weren't even armoring ships... Modern day
: 'knights' or people who are daily involved in risking their lives to save
: others wear armor. It looks NOTHING like the metal monstrosities of olde
: England. Modern armour has changed to work with modern weapons. People no
: longer attack each other with swords, axes, pikes, and bows, except the
: occasional nutcase. Face it, even when dealing with reproductions of old
: armor, they're rpoduced with machinery that the blacksmiths of old could never
: have imagined, out of materials much more pure, or in many cases, alloys with
: much better qualities than were available 200 years ago.
I eagerly await Mr. Goodwin's claim that steel hasn't improved in the last
few hundred years, or that titanium and similar metals don't benefit steel
when alloyed with it, or that forming methods haven't improved. This seems
to be his position, but it is insane. In addition, modifications of
ballistic nylon have proven frightfully effective in armoring against
slower moving, larger objects like swords, and this armor is undoubtedly
superior to anything available to the knights of past centuries.
: - would produce superior products?
: -You mention that you've seen modern recreations. Whoop de doo, did you
: -perhaps try them on, with a range of strapping techniques, then try on
: -a series of period sets of armour, and take specific notes on the
: -operation, composition, placement, articulation etc?
It would be trivial for a modern metals shop, with a leatherworker in
tow, to duplicate the design of 'period' armor. It would also be
trivial to make it lighter, stronger, and better fitted. Of course,
this assumes they have an original to work from, but such armor has
nothing to it which modern shops aren't well equipped to outdo given
something to compete with.
Mr. Goodwin's argument reminds me of those people who swear that
medieval Europe was a working man's paradise... it's just a more
sophisticated version of the 'good old days' theme, and it's no
more valid than any of the other variants.
To be fair, though, the average US worker DOES face steeper taxes
than a medieval peasant; if the peasants weren't enslaved(*), their
lives might not have been quite so lousy:)
(*) this comment will undoubtedly draw fire from people who don't regard
serfdom as slavery, but:
1) They were not free to move away from the land they were born on.
2) Their options were, work for the man(the local lord) or die.
3) Their lives were forfeit at the lord's discretion, and he could
do with them essentially as he pleased.
Lars Duening
> Could be. In my interpretation of that Zero'th Law, what kind of non-lethal
> wounds any type of ammo may do isn't even worth considering. There will *be*
> no non-lethal wounds, because any shot that doesn't kill will be followed up
> with another one. If anything short of death would suffice, I wouldn't have
> a gun pointed at him in the first place.
I think that our opinions are not that far apart - it's just that I was
talking about war situations where you can't make sure that everybody
you hit also dies, whereas you seem to think more of one-on-one self
defense situations.
Oh well...
--
Lars Duening; la...@cableinet.co.uk
Lars Duening
> la...@cableinet.co.uk (Lars Duening) writes:
>
> >John Adelsberger <j...@umr.edu> wrote:
>
> >> Military ammo is uniquely poorly suited to actual use. Its only redeeming
> >> feature is that the military can use it without running afoul of
> >> international law. FMJ is a stupid idea. If you're going to shoot a
> >> guy, why use a round designed not to hurt him too much?!
>
> >This kind of inhuman attitude really makes me sick.
>
> Ok, people: this is not a good place to debate the ethics of war, etc.
I know *sigh* actually I can think of no place in Usenet where you could
debate these topics.
I just can't stand it if people talk lightly about committing acts of
cruelty just because it's cool, themselves feeling safe in the knowledge
that it will never happen to them, that they are 'the good ones'.
We are talking about human beings here, not some toys in a big game!
Ok, I shut up now.
--
Lars "between all chairs, as usual" Duening; la...@cableinet.co.uk
mor...@niuhep.physics.niu.edu
>David Skidmore <dss...@osfmail.isc.rit.edu> wrote:
>: On Sat, 7 Nov 1998, Richard Goodwin wrote:
>: -On 4 Nov 98 23:48:44 GMT, John Adelsberger <j...@umr.edu> wrote:
>: -What do you base the claim that modern materials and techniques (which
>: -is interesting given that armouring hasn't changed a whole hell of a
>: -lot in the last few hundred years)
>: Umm, what rock have you been hiding under? Armor has changed LOTS in the
>: last 200 years or so.
I rather suspect that Mr. Goodwin is talking about armouring as it would
apply to medieval fantasy muds.
>I eagerly await Mr. Goodwin's claim that steel hasn't improved in the last
>few hundred years, or that titanium and similar metals don't benefit steel
>when alloyed with it, or that forming methods haven't improved.
I eagerly await Mr Adelsberger's evidence that any of this has an
substantial impact on whether or not any or all recreation armour is a
good model for the impact on movement that medieval armour had.
>: - would produce superior products?
>: -You mention that you've seen modern recreations. Whoop de doo, did you
>: -perhaps try them on, with a range of strapping techniques, then try on
>: -a series of period sets of armour, and take specific notes on the
>: -operation, composition, placement, articulation etc?
>It would be trivial for a modern metals shop, with a leatherworker in
>tow, to duplicate the design of 'period' armor. It would also be
>trivial to make it lighter, stronger, and better fitted.
"trivial"? No. Doable? at substantial expense? the lighter and stronger
part? Yes.
Actually I am genuinely curious: John, do you have access to a modern
metals shop? If so, ask them whether they would consider it trivial to
create a ?two-way curve? while keeping the center of the curve as thick
or thicker than the other parts of the curve.
But, short of expending huge sums of money on titanium armour the difference
in weight won't be that great.
>To be fair, though, the average US worker DOES face steeper taxes
>than a medieval peasant; if the peasants weren't enslaved(*), their
>lives might not have been quite so lousy:)
>
>(*) this comment will undoubtedly draw fire from people who don't regard
> serfdom as slavery, but:
> 1) They were not free to move away from the land they were born on.
> 2) Their options were, work for the man(the local lord) or die.
> 3) Their lives were forfeit at the lord's discretion, and he could
> do with them essentially as he pleased.
3) is catagorically wrong under almost all times places and conditions,
The rest is based on the erroneous assumption that all peasants were "serfs"
or bound to the land. Certainly in England that was never true.
Robert
H. McDaniel
>H. McDaniel <ha...@u.washington.edu> wrote:
>I know *sigh* actually I can think of no place in Usenet where you could
>debate these topics.
Seriously? Try any of these:
misc.activism.militia -- if related to ethics of use by revolutionaries.
soc.history.war.misc -- if in a historical context
sci.military.moderated -- if you aren't just making a political point
talk.politics.guns
Infact the topic will work in most political news groups -- but I
have narrowed it down to those I feel would be most related. rec.guns
would also work if you just want to talk about the science side
(efficency, kill ratio, weapon specifics, etc.) I doubt the moderator
there would let you have too much of a political debate. Also soc.culture.*
groups such as "usa" and "uk" are always good ones for debate on
things like this. But depending on the mood of the active posters in
any give group, it might not get any mileage.. or you might get more
than you bargained for. Hard to say. Anyhoo...
-McDaniel
t...@wfn-shop.princeton.edu
In article <72hivh$7fd$1...@husk.cso.niu.edu>, mor...@niuhep.physics.niu.edu writes:
>
> I eagerly await Mr Adelsberger's evidence that any of this has an
> substantial impact on whether or not any or all recreation armour is a
> good model for the impact on movement that medieval armour had.
Come on. I'm sure you're well aware that your average geek would not
be caught dead wandering around in a cheaply made tin can. EVERYONE
knows that the crap certain clue-challenged people love to wear is
actually high quality battle tested armor, made of the finest modern
alloys. There are vicious rumors floating around that that sort of
stuff is actually made of the cheapest mass produced garden variety
steel and that the workmanship is so shoddy that medieval armorers
would die laughing if they saw it. But no sane person would believe such
a thing.
John Adelsberger
: I just can't stand it if people talk lightly about committing acts of
: cruelty just because it's cool, themselves feeling safe in the knowledge
: that it will never happen to them, that they are 'the good ones'.
The fact that I don't belabor the evils of violence every time I talk
about the design of weaponry doesn't mean I don't understand them.
John Adelsberger
: Actually I am genuinely curious: John, do you have access to a modern
: metals shop? If so, ask them whether they would consider it trivial to
: create a ?two-way curve? while keeping the center of the curve as thick
: or thicker than the other parts of the curve.
I have a friend in materials who works on these exact sorts of problems,
except that his are... 'somewhat' more complex. He regards the work as
easy. Determining the technique to use is occasionally interesting, but
that's about it, and techniques for forming anything doable during the
Renaissance are readily available. I can't really speak for guys who
spend most of their time making motor mounts for old big blocks, but
if they're the guys you thought I meant, I apologize:)
: But, short of expending huge sums of money on titanium armour the difference
: in weight won't be that great.
True. The difference in strength can be considerable though.
: > 1) They were not free to move away from the land they were born on.
: > 2) Their options were, work for the man(the local lord) or die.
: > 3) Their lives were forfeit at the lord's discretion, and he could
: > do with them essentially as he pleased.
: 3) is catagorically wrong under almost all times places and conditions,
Oh really? The lord was the judge in most areas. If he wanted you dead,
he had you brought to him, made up a charge, said 'you're guilty' after
a faked up ceremonial 'hearing' of sorts, and then had you hanged. Sure,
he had to make up a reason, but how hard is that?
: The rest is based on the erroneous assumption that all peasants were "serfs"
: or bound to the land. Certainly in England that was never true.
England during the medieval period was worse than the rest; maybe you
weren't bound to the land, but many lords outright considered you to be
their property, and they had force to back them up... every crime, from
theft to rape and murder, was committed by lords against peasants, and
when the peasants complained, the word of the lord, he being a noble,
was almost always taken over the word of peasants. In addition, the
lords _owned_ the land, and collectively owned all of England, and if
you upset them and they couldn't outright take their revenge, they could
very effectively exile you from your homeland without even a hearing.
Lars Duening
> Lars Duening <la...@cableinet.co.uk> wrote:
>
> : I just can't stand it if people talk lightly about committing acts of
> : cruelty just because it's cool, themselves feeling safe in the knowledge
> : that it will never happen to them, that they are 'the good ones'.
>
> The fact that I don't belabor the evils of violence every time I talk
> about the design of weaponry doesn't mean I don't understand them.
Then you can surely also understand why I consider pain-is-
irrelevant-attitudes inhumane, and why I felt compelled to speak up
accordingly.
I won't argue this topic with you here - it would come to no conclusion
and only annoy everybody else. And if this all is just a
misunderstanding and I misread you, then consider a better choice of
words next time.
--
Lars Duening; la...@cableinet.co.uk
John Adelsberger
: Then you can surely also understand why I consider pain-is-
: irrelevant-attitudes inhumane, and why I felt compelled to speak up
: accordingly.
Certainly, and I didn't make myself clear. I abhor violence. I resent
the fact that the majority of the world still thinks force is the way
to get what they want, including the majority in my country. I would
choose peace any day, but if I am not given that choice, then I choose
to win. If you attack me, or if your country attacks mine, I don't
really care what happens to anyone involved in the attack. Their
pain, suffering, and destruction is the only such that they have the
right to create - and they bring it on themselves. This is a moral
position every bit as important as any other, and I cannot back down
from it.
John Bertoglio
>Lars Duening <la...@cableinet.co.uk> wrote:
>: John Adelsberger <j...@umr.edu> wrote:
>
>: > Military ammo is uniquely poorly suited to actual use. Its only
redeeming
>: > feature is that the military can use it without running afoul of
>: > international law. FMJ is a stupid idea. If you're going to shoot a
>: > guy, why use a round designed not to hurt him too much?!
>
Actually, there are several good reasons for the use of FMJ in mil weapons.
First, the jacketed rounds are much more reliable in autoloading weapons.
This is especially true in handguns. Second, in a military context, wounding
an enemy instead of killing him creates a double burden. You have one less
combat effective and someone to take care of.
>: This kind of inhuman attitude really makes me sick.
There is probably no moral justification for harming another person, even in
self defense. Defending yourself is practical and expedient, not moral.
Having said that, if you choose to defend yourself, the goal becomes to make
sure the person you are attacking does not retain any ability to harm you.
Dead works quite well. (An in the US, because of our crazy legal system,
killing someone is preferable to wounding them because civil actions.)
>I don't believe in shooting people. If you're going to do it, it is
>hypocrisy to try to 'be nice' about it. In any conflict, either you
>are an immoral aggressor, in which case morality is beside the point,
>or else you are defending yourself, in which case you are in the right
>to use any and all means at your disposal to render the aggressor
>harmless. In many conflicts, both sides are immoral aggressors(see the
>Middle East and Ireland.) Rarely does it start out that way, but that
>doesn't change the facts.
I rarely agree with Mr. A. but he is right on here.
>
>About the only cases I can think of in which I approve of shooting
>someone outside of a military conflict are:
>
>1) Self defense in a situation in which the aggressor has a deadly
> weapon, or
Obvious.
>2) someone breaks into your home. You're there. You shoot him. If
> he didn't want to die, he shouldn't have broken into your home.
> This could also apply to businesses and other buildings, depending
> on the circumstances. Note that 'breaks into' doesn't necessarily
> mean 'forces a lock' either. He can crawl in an open window or
> open an unlocked door - the key is, he's there illegally.
Not moral, but a good idea.
BTW, there is nothing magical about the 45acp round. Its just physics. Push
a big, slow round into a torso and you cause all kinds of damage. Same is
true for 44 special (and of course, 44 mag) and the various 44-45 cal
revolver rounds. There is very little modern data on these rounds because
they are not commonly used by law enforcement. The Hatcher Scale (from the
first modern scientific study of firearm rounds) puts all of these rounds in
about the same general range. One major disadvantage of the large cal rounds
is that they are easy to stop by body armor. Smaller, higher velocity rounds
are much more likely to penetrate armor. Arguably, the new 10mm (.40cal)
rounds are the best compromise. The guns are designed to take hollow point
rounds, reliably and they have a much higher muzzle velocity than the 45's.
Having said that, we have Colt Combat Commanders in our year 2k toolkit.
Hope we never have to use them.
jb
Lars Duening
> >: This kind of inhuman attitude really makes me sick.
>
>
> There is probably no moral justification for harming another person, even in
> self defense. Defending yourself is practical and expedient, not moral.
> Having said that, if you choose to defend yourself, the goal becomes to make
> sure the person you are attacking does not retain any ability to harm you.
Yes, and that's what I'd do, too (I'm no pacifist). But can't see any
justification for hurting/crippling someone beyond incapacitation; and
the normal military rounds already do enough damage on their own.
Especially since I was talking about a war situation where the actual
immoral aggressors usually are the leaders, not the soldiers.
Self-defense situations are different.
> >hypocrisy to try to 'be nice' about it. In any conflict, either you
> >are an immoral aggressor, in which case morality is beside the point,
> >or else you are defending yourself, in which case you are in the right
> >to use any and all means at your disposal to render the aggressor
> >harmless.
This is where I disagree with John (not for the first time).
> >About the only cases I can think of in which I approve of shooting
> >someone outside of a military conflict are:
> >
> >1) Self defense in a situation in which the aggressor has a deadly
> > weapon, or
>
> Obvious.
No argument there.
> >2) someone breaks into your home. You're there. You shoot him. If
> > he didn't want to die, he shouldn't have broken into your home.
> > This could also apply to businesses and other buildings, depending
> > on the circumstances. Note that 'breaks into' doesn't necessarily
> > mean 'forces a lock' either. He can crawl in an open window or
> > open an unlocked door - the key is, he's there illegally.
Excessive, unless the burglar threatens you with a deadly weapon, then
it's case 1 again. After all, the burglar might be no burglar at all,
but have a good reason to break into your house (but then he'd better
state is intentions loudly).
But this is also an example of different cultural background. In Germany
and the UK the majority of criminals are not armed with guns
--
Lars Duening; la...@cableinet.co.uk
Richard Goodwin
>David Skidmore <dss...@osfmail.isc.rit.edu> wrote:
>: On Sat, 7 Nov 1998, Richard Goodwin wrote:
>
>: -On 4 Nov 98 23:48:44 GMT, John Adelsberger <j...@umr.edu> wrote:
>
>: -What do you base the claim that modern materials and techniques (which
>: -is interesting given that armouring hasn't changed a whole hell of a
>: -lot in the last few hundred years)
>
>: Umm, what rock have you been hiding under? Armor has changed LOTS in the last
>: 200 years or so. Before that they weren't even armoring ships... Modern day
>: 'knights' or people who are daily involved in risking their lives to save
>: others wear armor. It looks NOTHING like the metal monstrosities of olde
>: England. Modern armour has changed to work with modern weapons. People no
>: longer attack each other with swords, axes, pikes, and bows, except the
>: occasional nutcase. Face it, even when dealing with reproductions of old
>: armor, they're rpoduced with machinery that the blacksmiths of old could never
>: have imagined, out of materials much more pure, or in many cases, alloys with
>: much better qualities than were available 200 years ago.
The process of creating period armour has not significantly changed
since period armour construction techniques were developed to cater
for the clientele that required the armourers services. It still
involves taking a flat sheet of metal, cutting out a pattern, bending
it, and riveting/welding it together in a particular manner. I wasn't
talking about modern armour, Doh, of course thise techniques are new,
I apologise for the obvious distinction you failed to recognise.
>I eagerly await Mr. Goodwin's claim that steel hasn't improved in the last
>few hundred years, or that titanium and similar metals don't benefit steel
>when alloyed with it, or that forming methods haven't improved. This seems
>to be his position, but it is insane. In addition, modifications of
Yup, sure, steel has improved. I'll agree to that.
>It would be trivial for a modern metals shop, with a leatherworker in
>tow, to duplicate the design of 'period' armor. It would also be
>trivial to make it lighter, stronger, and better fitted. Of course,
>this assumes they have an original to work from, but such armor has
>nothing to it which modern shops aren't well equipped to outdo given
>something to compete with.
I disagree entirely. I have had personal experience with a
professional metalworker who has constructed armour for myself and a
great number of people and there is nothing trivial about it.
I see you didn't argue at all with my critique f you sweeping
generalisation and again neglected to explain the specific analysis
techniques you employed when comparing modern recreations of period
armour to similar armour produced in the Middle Ages.
>Mr. Goodwin's argument reminds me of those people who swear that
>medieval Europe was a working man's paradise... it's just a more
>sophisticated version of the 'good old days' theme, and it's no
>more valid than any of the other variants.
Perhaps you'd care to respond to my arguments in a n intelligent
manner rather than employing distracting tactics using wourds such as
"abviously", "insane" and "trivial", and perhaps you'd care to stick
to the topic (snips later bit about serfdom) Mr Adelsberger.
Cheers
Richard Goodwin
>Robert
I see that Robert is indeed a person who has done some research and
can forgive slight errors in meaning and deduce what was actually
meant. Congratulations Sir, you are a rairty in some newsgroups.
Richard
John Adelsberger
: Actually, there are several good reasons for the use of FMJ in mil weapons.
: First, the jacketed rounds are much more reliable in autoloading weapons.
: This is especially true in handguns.
If reliability were a major issue, the police would be using the same thing,
regardless of the dangers to bystanders: they already load rounds that are
illegal for civilian use in many places; it isn't as though they're really
concerned about anything except effectiveness...(those rounds are illegal
in those many places because they're _amazingly_ effective in killing
and/or very seriously mangling human targets.) The only illegal ammos I
_don't_ know to be in police use in one place or another are dumdum
softpoints and the so-called frictionless AP rounds, and those are probably
used somewhere.
: Second, in a military context, wounding
: an enemy instead of killing him creates a double burden. You have one less
: combat effective and someone to take care of.
True. Unfortunately, if you wound him and he then sprays a burst of fire
into your squad, you now have one squad less combatants and one squad more
people to take care of. The military should be concentrating on disabling
opponents as quickly as possible, no matter whether they live or die. FMJ
is not optimal for this purpose.
: There is probably no moral justification for harming another person, even in
: self defense. Defending yourself is practical and expedient, not moral.
By what code of morality? Not mine. If you use force against me, you have
forfeited your right to life; if you choose destruction, it should be your
own.
: Having said that, if you choose to defend yourself, the goal becomes to make
: sure the person you are attacking does not retain any ability to harm you.
: Dead works quite well. (An in the US, because of our crazy legal system,
: killing someone is preferable to wounding them because civil actions.)
Indeed. I know a guy who loads his pistol with highly illegal ammunition,
his reasoning being that the penalty for it is a fine, one time, and set
by law, whereas the penalty for shooting a would-be murderer who survives
is undefined and could stretch into the 10s or 100s of millions. Sad but
true.
: are much more likely to penetrate armor. Arguably, the new 10mm (.40cal)
: rounds are the best compromise. The guns are designed to take hollow point
: rounds, reliably and they have a much higher muzzle velocity than the 45's.
If I had my way, body armor would be irrelevant, but they've pretty much
made all the weapons that make that a reality illegal. My reasoning is
this: A firefight is a risky thing. If you're in one today, the outcome
is essentially random, because there are too many things you can't know
in advance. If I had my way, at least I'd know that whomever was the
better shot would usually win. I'm willing to bank on being a better shot
than most criminals. I wouldn't shoot at anyone else, and nobody else
would shoot at me.
John Adelsberger
: Excessive, unless the burglar threatens you with a deadly weapon, then
: it's case 1 again. After all, the burglar might be no burglar at all,
: but have a good reason to break into your house (but then he'd better
: state is intentions loudly).
: But this is also an example of different cultural background. In Germany
: and the UK the majority of criminals are not armed with guns
What interests me about Europe in general is that despite the very tight
restrictions on firearms, the police feel the need to pack weaponry that
usually isn't allowed to police in the United States. Why?
John Adelsberger
: In rec.games.mud.admin John Adelsberger <j...@umr.edu> wrote:
: It's better to obey some laws than no laws, and it's best to keep your
: violations as small and quiet as possible. This is not my moral opinion,
: it is political reality.
When dealing with the UN, it is best to ignore them entirely, but this is,
I admit, me speaking of the US, which deals from a position of strength.
They keep demanding more money from us, despite the facts that:
1) Without the US, they'd have no (relatively)secure place to meet.
Their buildings here, which are theirs free of charge, are worth
a fortune. (The land itself is, in some cases.)
2) We pay for almost ALL of the costs of every UN military expedition,
despite the fact that they all fail.
3) We are expected to pay a VERY disproportionate amount of dues, simply
because the 1 vote/country system allows all the poor countries to
soak us for their own benefit.
In short, the UN should be begging us for the right to continue to exist,
rather than hitting us up for cash.
: So why do we have infantry? Because you can't take and hold
: territory with artillery and planes. Infantry locates the enemy, infantry
: holds the enemy in place while your heavy weapons do their job, infantry
: must be countered with infantry. Both of these things are inadequately
: accounted for in almost every military simulation I have played.
Very true, although to be fair, what is meant by this is usually that this
is the only _known_ way to do things, or the only cost effective way, or
in some cases, the only politically acceptable way.
Markus Stenberg
> Lars Duening <la...@cableinet.co.uk> wrote:
> : Excessive, unless the burglar threatens you with a deadly weapon, then
> : it's case 1 again. After all, the burglar might be no burglar at all,
> : but have a good reason to break into your house (but then he'd better
> : state is intentions loudly).
>
> : But this is also an example of different cultural background. In Germany
> : and the UK the majority of criminals are not armed with guns
> What interests me about Europe in general is that despite the very tight
> restrictions on firearms, the police feel the need to pack weaponry that
> usually isn't allowed to police in the United States. Why?
Telnet to bat.org and do
>help rumor
(Read: most ordinary police forces in the EU carry weaponry you could buy
on your average 'merican _street_ for chrissake. Of course, if your police
carry less powerful weaponry, that's tough, but I somehow doubt it)
> --
> John J. Adelsberger III
> j...@umr.edu
--
/\ /\
/()\ .. Something _is_ out there .. /()\
/____\ /____\
[Not neccessarily anything as friendly as the Illuminati, either ;)]
John Adelsberger
Markus Stenberg <mste...@cc.Helsinki.FI> wrote:
: John Adelsberger <j...@umr.edu> writes:
: > What interests me about Europe in general is that despite the very tight
: > restrictions on firearms, the police feel the need to pack weaponry that
: > usually isn't allowed to police in the United States. Why?
: (Read: most ordinary police forces in the EU carry weaponry you could buy
: on your average 'merican _street_ for chrissake. Of course, if your police
: carry less powerful weaponry, that's tough, but I somehow doubt it)
I've already been told by people in this group and elsewhere that, among
other things, these sorts of police are known to carry automatic weapons,
and particularly submachine guns:
1) Rural police
2) Guards of various sorts
In the US, the only guards you'll see packing automatic weapons are
military and maybe Secret Service personnel. SWAT teams might have
them. Ordinary police and guards never do. Certainly rural police
don't(legally, anyway; I can't guarantee that all police do what is
legal, and in fact I know of some that don't in various ways:)
What really amazes me is the weapons of choice - submachine guns. These
are indiscriminate weapons, to say the least. Terrorists love them. And
no, you can't buy them on an American street unless you know some very
shady people. Well, not the full auto versions anyway.
--
John J. Adelsberger III
j...@umr.edu
"Civilization is the process of setting man free from men."
- Ayn Rand
Gordon McGregor
> : and the UK the majority of criminals are not armed with guns
>
> restrictions on firearms, the police feel the need to pack weaponry that
> usually isn't allowed to police in the United States. Why?
I still find it strange to go to the City of Westminster and find all
the police are armed. I personally prefer living in a country where
the police generally do not carry weapons, and find it disturbing that
the practice is becoming more common in the UK, even in such a limited
extent. I certainly wouldn't like it to become the US model.
Mind you, the arming of the police in london is in response to a
specific
and fairly localised threat.
Gordon
--
Gordon McGregor
Design Engineer, SoCDT UK
Email: Gordon_...@email.mot.com
Tel: +44 (0)1606 815412
Larnen
>
>
> I've already been told by people in this group and elsewhere that,
> among other things, these sorts of police are known to carry automatic
> weapons, and particularly submachine guns:
>
> 1) Rural police
Rural police?
You what? I take it you're not talking about the UK here...the
only people who are routinely armed are those at ports/airports,
and in specific areas such as Westminster (where getting shot at
by the IRA is a very real threat).
Other forces have firearms squads which need to be explicitly
called out and authorised from on high.
Larnen
mor...@niuhep.physics.niu.edu
John Adelsberger <j...@umr.edu> writes:
>mor...@niuhep.physics.niu.edu wrote:
>>John Adelsberger <j...@umr.edu> writes:
>: > 1) They were not free to move away from the land they were born on.
>: > 2) Their options were, work for the man(the local lord) or die.
>: > 3) Their lives were forfeit at the lord's discretion, and he could
>: > do with them essentially as he pleased.
>: 3) is catagorically wrong under almost all times places and conditions,
Please don't get the idea that I think the life of a peasant was rosy,
it wasn't (at least not by our standards) but the popular view of the
relationship between peasant and lord is seriously flawed.
>Oh really? The lord was the judge in most areas. If he wanted you dead,
>he had you brought to him, made up a charge, said 'you're guilty' after
>a faked up ceremonial 'hearing' of sorts, and then had you hanged. Sure,
>he had to make up a reason, but how hard is that?
My understanding is that for a consider amount of time in England,
the death penalty was the exclusive provence of the King.
Hmmm, can somebody expand on what came under the purview of the
manorial courts?
>: The rest is based on the erroneous assumption that all peasants were
>: "serfs" or bound to the land. Certainly in England that was never true.
>England during the medieval period was worse than the rest; maybe you
>weren't bound to the land, but many lords outright considered you to be
>their property, and they had force to back them up... every crime, from
>theft to rape and murder, was committed by lords against peasants, and
>when the peasants complained, the word of the lord, he being a noble,
>was almost always taken over the word of peasants. In addition, the
>lords _owned_ the land, and collectively owned all of England, and if
>you upset them and they couldn't outright take their revenge, they could
>very effectively exile you from your homeland without even a hearing.
Please give me a time period when you think any of this occured.
Some dates to work with:
The medieval period is commonly designated from roughly 500 AD to 1500 AD.
1066, William led the Normans in the conquering of England and imposed
a social system closer to what we think of as feudalism.
Plate as we think of it came into popularity in the late 1300s.
"Feudalism" was in very serious decline after the first wave of the Black
Plague in 1350??.
The most immediate problems that pop into my mind with respect to your
analysis is that A) the various and sundry lords were not all good
buddies B) it ignores minor details like 1)chartered towns 2) Counties
Palentine.
Robert
mor...@niuhep.physics.niu.edu
>: metals shop? If so, ask them whether they would consider it trivial to
>: create a ?two-way curve? while keeping the center of the curve as thick
>: or thicker than the other parts of the curve.
>I have a friend in materials who works on these exact sorts of problems,
>except that his are... 'somewhat' more complex. He regards the work as
>easy. Determining the technique to use is occasionally interesting, but
>that's about it, and techniques for forming anything doable during the
>Renaissance are readily available. I can't really speak for guys who
>spend most of their time making motor mounts for old big blocks, but
>if they're the guys you thought I meant, I apologize:)
I wasn't sure what you meant. I do wish you would ask him my question
as I stated it, and ask for a rough estimate for what it would cost.
My disagreement is not that it would not be doable, but that it would
be trivial.
Robert
mor...@niuhep.physics.niu.edu
>mor...@niuhep.physics.niu.edu writes:
>> I eagerly await Mr Adelsberger's evidence that any of this has an
>> substantial impact on whether or not any or all recreation armour is a
>> good model for the impact on movement that medieval armour had.
>Come on. I'm sure you're well aware that your average geek would not
>be caught dead wandering around in a cheaply made tin can. EVERYONE
>knows that the crap certain clue-challenged people love to wear is
>actually high quality battle tested armor, made of the finest modern
>alloys. There are vicious rumors floating around that that sort of
>stuff is actually made of the cheapest mass produced garden variety
>steel and that the workmanship is so shoddy that medieval armorers
>would die laughing if they saw it. But no sane person would believe such
>a thing.
<cough><cough>
Be glad I wasn't drinking coffee when I read that, I would have to sue
you for cleaning my keyboard :)
Seriously there is a lot of crap* out there (can we say "pickle barrels",
I knew we could :) but I think my point stands.
For metal armour of the same wt. and general configuration recreation
armour serves as a good first pass model to determine the restictiveness
of the real thing.
There are also very good armourers out there who would probably be
employable in the middle ages and of course if one does a dejanews search
in soc.history.medieval, subject = swim* , for the word museum you would
find that in the ?1920s? somebody got the local college boys to suit up
in a museum's collection of armour to demonstrate that, no, you aren't
a clunking Frankenstein's monster when you adorn yourself with plate.
*I am of two minds on this, these folks have a limited amount of time
and money and they are out there to have fun otoh if you are going to
invest the amount of time required to be a good fighter I think you
should consider putting some effort into making your outfit a little
closer to reality.
Robert
mor...@niuhep.physics.niu.edu
>One major disadvantage of the large cal rounds
>is that they are easy to stop by body armor. Smaller, higher velocity rounds
>are much more likely to penetrate armor. Arguably, the new 10mm (.40cal)
>rounds are the best compromise. The guns are designed to take hollow point
>rounds, reliably and they have a much higher muzzle velocity than the 45's.
>Having said that, we have Colt Combat Commanders in our year 2k toolkit.
>Hope we never have to use them.
Anyone know how the FMJ impacts a round's performance against body armour?
Lars Duening
> > : But this is also an example of different cultural background. In Germany
> > : and the UK the majority of criminals are not armed with guns
> >
> > What interests me about Europe in general is that despite the very tight
> > restrictions on firearms, the police feel the need to pack weaponry that
> > usually isn't allowed to police in the United States. Why?
>
> I still find it strange to go to the City of Westminster and find all
> the police are armed.
Yay, when moving from Germany to UK it was interesting to see that the
policemen here really aren't armed. The only guns I've seen so far are
in Cop shows on TV and on the (seemingly military) guards in front of
Edinburgh Castle.
--
Lars Duening; la...@cableinet.co.uk
Lars Duening
> Distribution:
>
> Markus Stenberg <mste...@cc.Helsinki.FI> wrote:
> : John Adelsberger <j...@umr.edu> writes:
>
> : > What interests me about Europe in general is that despite the very tight
> : > restrictions on firearms, the police feel the need to pack weaponry that
> : > usually isn't allowed to police in the United States. Why?
>
> : (Read: most ordinary police forces in the EU carry weaponry you could buy
> : on your average 'merican _street_ for chrissake. Of course, if your police
> : carry less powerful weaponry, that's tough, but I somehow doubt it)
>
> I've already been told by people in this group and elsewhere that, among
> other things, these sorts of police are known to carry automatic weapons,
> and particularly submachine guns:
>
> 1) Rural police
> 2) Guards of various sorts
German police carries 9mm handguns. You'll see SMGs only on special
occasions like terrorist hunts or on guards guarding sensitive places
like airports, government buildings or embassies (such guarding tasks
are usually performed by the German border guard anyway).
There was a suggestion once to issue SMGs to rural police patrols in the
most dangerous quarters of one German city (I think Frankfurt/M), but
not even the police was happy about it.
--
Lars Duening; la...@cableinet.co.uk
H. McDaniel
>Distribution:
>Markus Stenberg <mste...@cc.Helsinki.FI> wrote:
>: John Adelsberger <j...@umr.edu> writes:
>: > What interests me about Europe in general is that despite the very tight
>: > restrictions on firearms, the police feel the need to pack weaponry that
>: > usually isn't allowed to police in the United States. Why?
>: (Read: most ordinary police forces in the EU carry weaponry you could buy
>: on your average 'merican _street_ for chrissake. Of course, if your police
>: carry less powerful weaponry, that's tough, but I somehow doubt it)
>I've already been told by people in this group and elsewhere that, among
>other things, these sorts of police are known to carry automatic weapons,
>and particularly submachine guns:
>1) Rural police
>2) Guards of various sorts
>In the US, the only guards you'll see packing automatic weapons are
>military and maybe Secret Service personnel. SWAT teams might have
>them. Ordinary police and guards never do. Certainly rural police
>don't(legally, anyway; I can't guarantee that all police do what is
>legal, and in fact I know of some that don't in various ways:)
Sorry, John this is not true. First off any police department (baring
a local law that says otherwise) can maintain full auto or select fire
weapons. I have plenty of friends (who know quite a bit about
firearms) that can vouch for having met officers and sherifs in the
West and midwest that keep select fire weapons in their trunks. One
sherif is fond of toting his subgun in the open -- in an area where
the locals don't mind. And in Texas, as I understand it, the cops
there have select fire M-16s mounted in the cab of their cruisers.
>What really amazes me is the weapons of choice - submachine guns. These
>are indiscriminate weapons, to say the least. Terrorists love them. And
>no, you can't buy them on an American street unless you know some very
>shady people. Well, not the full auto versions anyway.
Well John, select fire (which of course includes full auto) is useful.
That's why the military came up with it. It isn't useful in the same
sense typically depicted in Hollywood movies (pray and spray,) but it
has it's uses -- this not being the proper forum, what's the point of
going into details though?
There are places (esp in the West) where a regular citizen can own
a full auto weapon. There is a license one obtains from the ATF for
the transfer and possesion of Class III weapons. And *any*
Federal Firearms License holder (an arms merchant) is likely to have
a select fire around, if only for personal amusement -- again, assuming
this does not violate the local law.
-McDaniel
H. McDaniel
>"John Bertoglio" <al...@internetcds.com> writes:
If you post this question to rec.guns you *really* are more likely
to get accurate information, but reams of it as opposed to a few lines.
-McDaniel
Darel Finkbeiner
> >: > 2) Their options were, work for the man(the local lord) or die.
> >: > 3) Their lives were forfeit at the lord's discretion, and he could
> >: > do with them essentially as he pleased.
>
> >: 3) is catagorically wrong under almost all times places and conditions,
>
> Please don't get the idea that I think the life of a peasant was rosy,
> it wasn't (at least not by our standards) but the popular view of the
> relationship between peasant and lord is seriously flawed.
>
similar instances among our fellow NATO members of "serfdom", albeit not
called that?
> >Oh really? The lord was the judge in most areas. If he wanted you dead,
> >he had you brought to him, made up a charge, said 'you're guilty' after
> >a faked up ceremonial 'hearing' of sorts, and then had you hanged. Sure,
> >he had to make up a reason, but how hard is that?
this is also much of the argument in the US legal system that any charge
can be brought and that the "grand jury" is simply the puppet of the
prosecutor. In fact, our current law doesn't require any evidence to
bring a trial, and a person can be held in prison for extended periods
without trial on mere accusation.
The differences lie only in the scope. There were fewer people in any
given social system in "medieval" times. So over the same amount of
ground (and with slower transportation) abuses were common. That
doesn't mean that the system was flawed, only that it could not possibly
be enforced effectively.
I agree, there may have been instances of this type of abuse, but it was
not how the system was designed to work. While the King of a given area
technically "owned" the land, there was effective ownership by the other
nobles, and this same group also could hold power over the King.
Remember that the other landed nobles held armies of their own, and
while they were technically loyal to the king, abuses could lead to
rebellion.
John Adelsberger
: I personally prefer living in a country where
: the police generally do not carry weapons, and find it disturbing that
: the practice is becoming more common in the UK, even in such a limited
: extent. I certainly wouldn't like it to become the US model.
Actually, I'm all for a world in which EVERYONE is free to carry any sort
of weapons he wants, but not free to carry them onto the property of
anyone else, save with permission. Criminals can already get any weapon
they want; even in Europe, the reason most of them aren't packing such
weapons is that they know their victims are unarmed - anything can be had
for a price, even in Europe, if you're willing to break the law - including
guns. The only people in Europe who certainly WON'T have guns when they
need them are law abiding citizens. The same can be said for most of the
rest of the world, and the US is headed that way, if the liberals get
their way.
In short, an armed society is a polite society. Your average law abiding
citizen doesn't suddenly decide to resolve his problems with the gun he's
carrying. Criminals do, and they can get guns whether you outlaw them or
not. Sure, accidents happen, and some few people will snap and do stupid
things, but by the same argument, we should outlaw salad forks and letter
openers.
John Adelsberger
: Anyone know how the FMJ impacts a round's performance against body armour?
Depends on a lot of other things. FMJ penetrates better than softpoints
or hollow points in most cases, but not as well as rounds designed for
use against armor(which are often FMJ rounds too, technically speaking,
although there have been some variations.) Then again, you can coat a
standard high velocity hollow point in something like teflon, and all of
a sudden, you've got a round that's really quite effective against armor,
and highly illegal, too:)
John Adelsberger
: [xposted to soc.history.medieval and rec.games.mud.admin]
: Please don't get the idea that I think the life of a peasant was rosy,
: it wasn't (at least not by our standards) but the popular view of the
: relationship between peasant and lord is seriously flawed.
Death at the age of 30 or so on average, horrible diseases in huge
epidemics, and constant poverty... you're being nice about things,
but ok...
: My understanding is that for a consider amount of time in England,
: the death penalty was the exclusive provence of the King.
Ok, so he might have had to throw you in prison for life. You'd be dead
from malnutrition and/or disease and/or exposure in a matter of a few
months or years anyway. You're still minus your whole life because some
noble got pissed and made up a charge against you.
: Please give me a time period when you think any of this occured.
Talk to some Scots. They'll happily enlighten you.
: The most immediate problems that pop into my mind with respect to your
: analysis is that A) the various and sundry lords were not all good
: buddies B) it ignores minor details like 1)chartered towns 2) Counties
: Palentine.
They weren't buddies, but they'd team up to maintain their power rather
than let their differences give power to their subjects.
John Adelsberger
: I wasn't sure what you meant. I do wish you would ask him my question
: as I stated it, and ask for a rough estimate for what it would cost.
I could ask, but the cost to him is materials and time, and since he's
not a commercial metalshop per se, any price he quoted would be an
anomoly in the market:(
: My disagreement is not that it would not be doable, but that it would
: be trivial.
I suppose perhaps that if you take 'trivial' to mean 'trivial to the
average Joe,' then it isn't, but 'trivial' to people who do such work,
well, I don't do the work, but this guy never complains about difficulty
so much as about the stupid people who make him do boring work, so it
seems to me that the real issue is accumulated skill; for some people,
who are the people you'd want doing the work, it would be trivial, but
they'd charge you more than you'd think because they aren't common.
If such armor were useful today, skill in making it would be widespread,
and prices would be reasonable.
The basic form of my position, by the way, is this: we live in a society
that can make _anything_ cheaply and efficiently given that there is
demand for it and it is not beyond the state of technology. In general,
we've found ways to even _automate_ the fabrication of many things more
complex than medieval plate armor, although custom fitting would obviously
be a problem in this case. As such, I simply am not willing to believe
that armor is the one thing that we've just lost the ability to do right,
and that modern society is incapable of something that was considered to
be unusual but very possible 100s of years ago.
John Adelsberger
: There are also very good armourers out there who would probably be
: employable in the middle ages [snip]
Maybe the problem is that I've encountered these sorts, and not the
others, and didn't realize that cheap crap was actually made save for
home decoration... it is?!
(No, I don't own such armor. I don't have a reason, and I don't have
the money I'd shell out. However, having played around with it, I
can say that while you're right, and you're not totally immobile by
any means, for flexible people(read: not a couch potato:) the
difference is quite annoying, and an unarmored person who is
skilled _could_ take advantage of it.)
Paul J. Gans
>In rec.games.mud.admin mor...@niuhep.physics.niu.edu wrote:
>: [xposted to soc.history.medieval and rec.games.mud.admin]
>: Please don't get the idea that I think the life of a peasant was rosy,
>: it wasn't (at least not by our standards) but the popular view of the
>: relationship between peasant and lord is seriously flawed.
>Death at the age of 30 or so on average, horrible diseases in huge
>epidemics, and constant poverty... you're being nice about things,
>but ok...
Sorry. But this is wrong. You *did* want soc.history.medieval
to get in on this, didn't you?
Infant mortality was very high. Look at it this way. If
out of 10 births 6 die at 1 year of age and 4 live to be
70, what is the average life expectancy? Would you believe
28.6 years?
Huge epidemics were rare. There was, in fact, only one
*really* huge epidemic in western Europe -- the Black
Death in 1347-8. There were all sorts of diseases that
folks couldn't cure. But then, they couldn't cure those
same diseases in 1938 either.
As for constant poverty, that's not quite right either. The
lowest class of peasants, the landless ones, lived in
dire poverty. The percent of the population in that state
was evidently quite a bit smaller than the percent of the
English population that was totally impoverished in the 18th
century.
Middle and upper class peasants did quite well. The richer
ones actually managed often to crawl into the nobility.
>: My understanding is that for a consider amount of time in England,
>: the death penalty was the exclusive provence of the King.
>Ok, so he might have had to throw you in prison for life. You'd be dead
>from malnutrition and/or disease and/or exposure in a matter of a few
>months or years anyway. You're still minus your whole life because some
>noble got pissed and made up a charge against you.
Only noble or ecclesiastical persons were thrown into prison.
Others were fined, punished in some other way (whipped, for
instance) and then let go. Nobody had time to worry about
feeding peasants in prison. So they didn't bother to put
them there.
Court rolls from the high and late medieval period are available.
For a good read about the medieal peasantry try
Barbara A. Hanawalt, _The Ties that Bound_ subtitled "Peasant
Families in Medieval England", Oxford, 1986 (paper).
ISBN 0-19-504564-5
It could change your outlook on things.
>: Please give me a time period when you think any of this occured.
>Talk to some Scots. They'll happily enlighten you.
>: The most immediate problems that pop into my mind with respect to your
>: analysis is that A) the various and sundry lords were not all good
>: buddies B) it ignores minor details like 1)chartered towns 2) Counties
>: Palentine.
>They weren't buddies, but they'd team up to maintain their power rather
>than let their differences give power to their subjects.
A medieval would not understand what you are talking about.
What would a peasant do with power? Run his own life? He
did that, about as well as folks do today. True, he didn't
have guaranteed social security, but believe it or not,
most communities had ways of providing for the elderly and
the sick. To put it another way, medieval Paris had more
hospital beds per capita than it does now. And they were
all free. Poor folks didn't even know they were engaging
in socialism. They thought they were doing the right Christian
thing.
>"Civilization is the process of setting man free from men."
> - Ayn Rand
So that's where you are coming from. Mind's already
made up, is it?
------ Paul J. Gans [ga...@panix.com]