Recruitable Unit Rebalance Version 7.51 Released.

[wombatsSAR]

re: English Longbowmen wheren't a chosen few -
I will dig up the refs for you. King Edward used less than 10% of those that came to serve when he went to Agincourt, iirc. But, as said, I will dig up the ref. And, yes, in general, bow fire was massed fire. The reason that the xbow was shot in a flat trajectory was because it COULD be shot that way. A flat trajectory comes from a fast moving object, nothing else (short of lift).

re: Do not use weapons with negative prec in the game.
ok, hadn't played with that. I was just considering how hard it is to learn how to shoot a bow properly, as well as the sling. If the xbow was taken as a base, then the others were worse... and since I was looking at it as the ave guy was 10s all around... newbie mistake, obviously.

re: Crossbows do not outrange Longbows:
pretty sure you are wrong on both counts but I'll dig up the Sci. Amer. articles. I need to get new copies anyway. Arrows are even worse than you suggest. Straight out of the bow, they wobble and bend. The path is more or less straight but the arrow flexed quite a bit. Hence, a real need to match the mass of the point, the wood and flex of the shaft, and the pull of the bow. Also, the arrow HAD to flex or it would not shoot true. I _believe_ it began to precess later in flight, but that may be me confounding information.

re : Additionally, bolts are much sturdier than arrows
very true.

re: - Longbows where used for balistical mass archery. The thick crossbow bolt looses too much energy when fired in a ballistic arc. Crossbows where fired straight at the nearby enemy, from the second or third row of the shield wall.
again, I will get the article for you and post the aerodynamic results.

re: 0 AP or low AP
as I recall the damage rules, the weapons would be: wpn base damage + str (if used) + 2d6. I was basically trying to suggest a way to model all the bows the same and still have the xbows do what they did best, which was piss of the knights since they could now be killed by poorly peasants. Well, that it was harder to ransom some dead guy than a live captive. The suggestion might not work out right.

[wombatsSAR]

Ref: Scientific American January 1985 pg 104-110

examples: (from Payne-Gallway, actually) 85 g bolt shot 420 m from a 550 kg pull medieval crossbow. Longbows attained lengths of ~275 m. Article authors cite another historian claiming 2x pull weight xbows were common, fwiw. (note to self - find that guy's book)

Wind Tunnel Test results (so this is science and not conjecture):

Drag/Mass ratios and range (calculated from an 80 m/s start)
(the numbers are approx. since I had to eyeball a graph)

Arrow: >1.5 range ~210 m
bolt 1: ~.75 range ~250 m
bolt 2: ~.72 range ~320 m
bolt 3: ~.70 range ~420 m
bolt 4: ~.68 range ~520 m

bolts 1 & 2 were medieval designs, bolts 3 & 4 were roman. Just to make it clear, the higher the d/m number, the worse the aerodynamic performance.

note: 80 m/s is a rather high speed for an arrow (from the authors of the article). Typical numbers are usually in the 60 m/s range (from me remembering what Hardy's book, which isn't nearly as handy as a journal).

Upshot: xbows flew further and hit harder. They could be fired ballistically just as easily as a bow and would have to be for the bowmen to hit targets farther away. Close shots are flatter just because the bolts flew faster.

[Saber Cherry]

Thanks for the information! I'll have to digest it a while...

I'm suspicious of xbows being fired ballistically, though. You say "Could be fired ballistically." Was there any evidence that they were or weren't? Of course they could be, but with a bow, you pull back the string and kind of have a feel for that arc, as a function of your draw and angle. Firing a crossbow ballistically is like firing a handgun ballistically - possible, but never done (aside from corrections of a few feet of drop, generally calculated by the scope) since you only have control over a single factor, angle. At least, that's how it would seem to me...

I'm particularly surprised at the terrible arrowodynamics (get it? A pun!). This might be mitigated a bit by firing in high arcs, thus storing some energy as potential (immune to drag) for much of the flight, as opposed to firing flat, where the energy is always kinetic (and thus vulnerable to energy loss from drag, proportional to v^2 IIRC).

Anyway, I'll muse over this new stuff... chew on it like cud... maybe build my own longbow out of balsa wood and piano wire, and extrapolate from there...

By the way, Wombats - the combat simulator has the att/def roll bug fixed now Thanks for noting the problem!

[Evil Dave]

Saber Cherry said:
Firing a crossbow ballistically is like firing a handgun ballistically - possible, but never done (aside from corrections of a few feet of drop, generally calculated by the scope) since you only have control over a single factor, angle. At least, that's how it would seem to me...

but that's how rifles and (some) artillery work today.

I'm particularly surprised at the terrible arrowodynamics (get it? A pun!). This might be mitigated a bit by firing in high arcs, thus storing some energy as potential (immune to drag) for much of the flight, as opposed to firing flat, where the energy is always kinetic (and thus vulnerable to energy loss from drag, proportional to v^2 IIRC).

you know one statement of the three laws of thermodynamics is "you can't win, you can't break even, and you can't get out of the game"? same with arching flight: yes, you can reduce *instanteous* drag with the high trajectory, but the time of flight is much longer than a flat trajectory, so drag works *longer*. i'd have to dig up the drag-corrected ballistic equation to figure out what the actual numbers are.

there's also the little problem that for fin-stabilized projectiles, their ability to stay pointed in the right direction goes up as v^2 also, since that term is in the equation for lift. so, there goes their precision.

[Saber Cherry]

Evil Dave said:

but that's how rifles and (some) artillery work today.

I know, field artillery is like that, but they do a bunch of calculations before firing... and rifles have adjustable scopes that account for drop over distance... and medieval xbowmen had neither calculators nor scopes. The only crossbow I've ever seen with a scope was in Deus Ex, and I put it there myself

I think it would be very hard to fire a crossbow accurately with more than a minor (<5 degrees) arc... and any arc-firing requires more training than direct firing, which would defeat the point of cheaply raising masses of untrained crossbowmen. Assuming, of course, that crossbows were used by cheap masses of poorly trained soldiers, which could be another false premise on my part.

Your point on the longer trajectory negating a lower velocity is interesting... it would take several complex integrals to figure out how much energy ends up being saved, if any, by firing at a 30-degree angle or so. It would be much simpler to model in Excel (in .01 second intervals), given the drag formula. I did something like that once, to find the ideal angle to launch a water balloon for max distance, but I have a pretty poor memory...

[Evil Dave]

Saber Cherry said:
I think it would be very hard to fire a crossbow accurately with more than a minor (<5 degrees) arc... and any arc-firing requires more training than direct firing, which would defeat the point of cheaply raising masses of untrained crossbowmen. Assuming, of course, that crossbows were used by cheap masses of poorly trained soldiers, which could be another false premise on my part.

i imagine if you had to train levies to fire crossbows ballistically, you'd do it the way the napoleonics did with muskets: drill a few angles for likely ranges (maximum, half-max, short) and figure that will do well enuf.

[The_Tauren13]

I think gameplay should be way more important than realism. This is a fantasy game, after all.

[wombatsSAR]

Old question re: age of longbows
From Hardy's book, Longbow - arrow heads date back to 50,000 yo. However, bows don't preserve well. Cave drawings show "longbows" in scale but can the artists' sense of scale be trusted??? There are two Mesolithic fragments that have right proportions and geometries to be from a longbow. Various other Stone Age sites have uncovered bows ~175 cm in length, others between 177 and 200 cm. These are ~2,500 BC to 1,600 BC. Hardy goes on at some length about the "pre" history of the bow. Basically, a bow of some length has been around for quite some time, although the date of _the_ longbow's use in England has an unclear lineage.

Important note re: crossbow range - I'm using STEEL bows. If you count only composite bow xbows, then yeah, range is less than the xbow but greater than the lesser selfbow. Steel bows were fairly common about 50 yr after Crecy and available by Agincourt but the rate of fire of a crossbow is VERY poor, the moreso for the stronger pulls. The rate of fire is about 1/2-1/6 that of the bow. They were great for defense or other fortifide positions. Additional note, when used in the field, they often had either mantlets or pavisses to hide behind, or even had ~kite shields strapped on their backs. (Payne-Gallway and Hardy)

re: numbers of longbowmen and are they elite?
I admit that this is based more on peripheral arguments than on % numbers. Firstly, the strength required for using the bow was outside the casual norm and that this str requirement was unique enough to leave its marks in the skeleton. This implies that they had the time to practice their art enough to make a consuming activity. Secondly, ~20% of the English archers were mounted - this implies wealth and decent amount of it, hence, again, enough free time to make training possible. Third, there is at least one example of a longbowmen (probably one of the Black Prince's guard archers) getting his own coat of arms, and other honors (the family name is noted as part of Jodrell Bank in Cheshire). Fourth, longbowmen received higher pay than regular footmen. It was not as high as mounted knights, though. Fifth, "by 1590 Sir Roger Williams was complaining that 'out of 5,000 archers not 500 will make any strong shootes', and 'few or none do anie great hurte 12 or 14 score off'." Lastly, since this is long and circumstantial, Henry V left England with 2,000 knights and men-at-arms, 65 gunners, and 8,000 longbowmen. The army of conquest that Henry could muster had only 8,000 archers out of how many that were in England? It was his choice and I doubt he picked weenie ones.

re: range
From Hardy: (velocity and range, 70 lb bow)
Lozenge Bodkin 46.5 m/sec 180 yd max (sigh, let's mix units)
Long Bodkin 43.6 m/sec 170 yd
Broadhead 38.7 m/sec 150 yd

extrapolation to 150 lbs, still Hardy, ranges should be ~300 yds

re: blowguns
I found the refs in Steven Vogel's "Prime Mover". He _calculates_ a maximum range of 28 m with an impact speed of ~13 m/s, and thus an impact momentum of only 2% that of an arrow. Actual reports from his anthropological colleagues gave measures of 17 m to 30 m. Gotta have the poison.

re: ballistic fire
I think that's just a bias. In both cases (bow and xbow), you train with it and get to see the projectile in flight, hence learning its flight characteristics. I venture that the xbow is easier since loosing an arrow is a non-subtle art all its own whereas firing the xbow is much more easily mastered - it's a trigger! One usually doesn't fire a handgun "ballistically" because there's no need to learn (use a rifle or call in uncle arty) and it's difficult to learn since the bullet is smaller and travels too darn fast, hence you can't see what you're doing.

re: balsa and piano wire
mmm, bad choices. Balsa has low compression and tensile strengths. Piano wire easily cuts fingers when being drawn. However, since it is very light, geek-like muscles can heft it without sweating, and the piano wire could be tuned to play a one-note song.

re: combat sim fix
Cool!!! Maybe I'll find the ambition now to balance out my ... uh ... mod.
if you can call it that. ... I have no sense of propriety. I'll leave it at that.

I'm quitting for a bit. Thanks for reading, all.