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[Kot]

No, he obviously didin't even flinch and the ball just anti-climatically bounced off him and he went like "that's all what you've got?", and then he used his Hussar wings to fly over to the cannon crew and beat them to death with their own cannon. All this while having bored-slightly irritated expression.
It doesn't say but common sense suggests that he was thrown to the ground pretty hard.

[mainiac]

I ask the question because unlike people living back then, we have modern physics at our disposal.  We know that the conservation of momentum exists and that an direct impact with a ball travelling at 400 m/s would result in the target moving at a fairly significant pace.

However people at the time would not be well versed in physics.  If they were embellishing the story these are the sorts of details that they would fail to get right.

So... do the accounts mention the guy getting launched through the air at a fairly high speed?

[Kot]

So you're questioning the honorable Polish noblemen now? HOW DARE YOU!?
The source (the one I base my knowledge of is Polish history book (that was actually the only case I knew about, but people have been throwing those three around on various history related forums and Wikipedia also confirms but of course without fucking sources so fuck Wikipedia, per usual) which cites some Polish nobleman memories which are more in line of "back when we were besieging Smoleńsk, this dude Jan Wejher got hit straight in the chest by a Russian culverin fired from rampart and miraculously survived and then he even donated the armour to Loreto to thank God for his life" and I belive the author went as far as to check if the armour actually arrived and apparently it did but there's not much more about it) doesn't mention him flying through the air but it also doens't even mention range and a lot of other things... so I guess you can have it your way.

[Parsely]

My point was that armour fares much better against early blackpowder guns than it's commonly believed, and that the armour was in some cases so good that it actually could  save your life (not your ability to fight in that battle) from a fucking cannon.

I have no illusions that it's possible to withstand being shot by a blackpowder weapon if you're wearing armor. In the 16th and 17th century it was common to still wear plate armor. There's a reason that people wore plate armor in the pike and shot era, but there's also a reason that the Winged Hussars unit as well as their cavalry tactics became obsolete on the battlefield in the 18th century.

[Kot]

Well, last time Winged Hussars were used in actual battle was 1702 during Battle of Kliszów. during which they actually have beaten Swedish cavalry but were later recalled off from the field as a manner of personal revenge of Polish Hetman against King. That is what killed Polish Winged Hussars, the fact that they were Polish, not that they were Winged Hussars. Poland was becoming ridiculously weak state due to internal fuckups and outside enemies taking advantage of it. Winged Hussars were like feudal knights, they had to be called to arms, and it was even worse because (I am largely simplifying but the practical outcome is the same) all of them had to agree to it before they even had war. If Poland could strategically support usage of Winged Hussars, I belive they could have won tactical victories (and with a good success) in 18th century as well and their final dissolution would come only with advent of rifles...
Though, to be honest, they would just take off their plate armour and continue charging at enemy lines because death wish is very Polish thing to have...
And once we would get tanks we would totally use them in the same way, charging forward at full speed, crushing the enemy forces, jumping over trenches, knocking over Brandenburg Gate and driving closer to hit them with our swords... I may have been playing too much Hearts of Iron IV recently.

[Sheb]

That battle is the origin of the drunk pole meme in French. The legend is that most of the army had been drinking which was why their ass were being kicked until the pole horses saved the day. The following day Napoleon is said to have berated his troops "Be drunk if you want, but be drink like poles!"

[Tack]

I'm not an expert on this stuff, but could plate armor hit with a canon cause spalling?

[Kot]

I guess, but plate armour isin't just a thick plate of armour in front of bare chest. There is a lot of padding, leather and other stuff inbetween that would proably stop most fragments. IMO the biggest problems either come from penetrations, dents (having your armour inside your chest isin't very helpful either) and the sheer force of impact which is proably enough to do damage even without penetration.

[Tack]

True, probably not helpful if your breastplate compresses your chest cavity.
Your ribs could possibly cause some pretty terrific shrapnel as well...

[BFEL]

So Armchair General thread, who would win: Star Wars, or Star Trek?

Personally I think Star Wars has the advantage on the ground, cuz Jedi, but Trek has the advantage in space for...various reasons.
Thoughts?

[mainiac]

Jedi aren't that great, Star Trek also has psychics and phasers go way faster then blasters.  Star Trek has engineers who are far more adaptable then Star Wars.  Star Wars would have a major government spend a decade developing a superweapon.  Two star trek engineers would defeat it in three hours using a modulated shield harmonic.

To be fair, only the federation has "those famed Starfleet engineers who can turn rocks into replicators."

[Taricus]

Star wars has a fleet that far outstrips those available to star trek in sheer size alone. The imperial military could pretty much just overrun the federation. An economy the size of thousands, if not millions, of worlds is going to be able to provide a far larger military than what the federation could potentially muster.

[BFEL]

Star wars has a fleet that far outstrips those available to star trek in sheer size alone. The imperial military could pretty much just overrun the federation. An economy the size of thousands, if not millions, of worlds is going to be able to provide a far larger military than what the federation could potentially muster.

Good point. Though do Star Wars ships have shields? I think I've seen shields on the capital ships but I don't think I've seen anything like the shielded shuttlecraft Trek has.
If Trek has better defensive systems it might not be all that easy to overrun them with numbers. Might look like a inverse Wolf-359 where one Trek ship shrugs off everything the Empire or Republic throws at them. Not to mention Trek has things like Transporters. The "transport photon torpedo to command deck of enemy ship" trick would be used a lot more often and effectively against someone with no defense against it.

Also what are Star Wars weapons like? They seem to just be nondistinct lasors once they get put on ships. I know they tend to be turreted, while Trek phasors tend to work on a 250-ish degree array on the saucer.

[mainiac]

The Federation alone has a population of 10 trillion citizens.  The Klingon and Romulans have similar sized empires and the Cardassians have an empire that is at least in the same ballpark as these three.

I think that the per capita productivity of the Federation is just one a completely different scale from the Galactic Empire.  When the Borg first showed up the Federation multiplied the size of star fleet several times over.  This didn't even send a ripple through their economy.  They were still doing almost all of their construction in the sol solar system alone.  Then Star Fleet got even bigger when the dominion invaded and they still weren't any signs of economic strain.  The Federation essentially doesn't care about the cost of starships, all they are worried about is being able to train enough quality crews to man those ships.  The limiting factor for the federation seems to be the raw quantity of energy that they are capable of harnassing.  Their interest in rare elements could be limited to the extent that mining some substances displaces a large amount of energy expenditure when done on the industrial scale.  The number of ships in Star Fleet probably compares to the number of Star Destroyers and Star Fleet isn't really even trying...

The empire has a lot of manpower but that manpower is basically useless.  They can't even teleport it.  Heck, a Federation science ship like Voyager could probably board and capture a Star Destroyer with just their security team.  Star Destroyers dont have structural integrity fields or rotating shield frequencies so the federation could just teleport explosives and a security team directly onto their bridge.  The Galactic empire is just downright primitive compared to Star Fleet.

[Kot]

Star Wars vs Star Trek...
Well, versus regular Star Trek, proably Star Wars would win. Versus Star Trek Mirror Universe, however...