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[Areyar]

I think it is safe to assume that goblins are using shortbows, maybe some larger bows, but not equivalents of the laminated longbows as used by the english to high effect on  the french nobility.
(Those peasants were unusually highly skilled at markmanship as well.)

IIRC
Usually medieval bows were crude and used by barely proficient peasants, firing hails of arrows at a general area. Saturation bombardment assured sufficient impact and a rather nasty surface to walk on, with arrows sticking out everywhere.

[Sevrun]

Gentlemen... You are overlooking one thing, I'm afraid.  The medieval crossbow wasn't just someone's answer to the time needed to train archers.  The bloody thing was designed with the express intention of taking a charging knight out of his bleedin saddle before he ran you through.  Reload SHOULD be abyssmally show if these crossbows have that kinda power behind them (and they certainly seem to) because you're talking about 100+ lbs of force those things could deliver, and typically needed a winch to do reload.  If you want faster less penetrating X-bows then petition the great Toady to seperate them into X-bows and Arbalests or something similar to that...  I wouldn't wanna try coding it though

[Osmosis Jones]

quote:(Those peasants were unusually highly skilled at markmanship as well.)  

Gotta love state-enforced archery practice.

Incidentally, as fearsome as those english long bows were, they weren't even the most effective design (the cross section was all wrong - D shaped rather than rectangular). I shudder to think what a 2m yew longbow with optimum design efficiency could do...

[Ramirez]

On the topic of shortbow vs longbow in DF, I would assume that the game mostly uses longbows. Dwarves could probably use shortbows but not longbows due to their size, plus I dont know if I could see human and elf soldiers using shortbows. I'm sure even goblins could produce longbows, considering they are able to make plate armour and build several storey high obsidian towers.

On the topic of armour vs piercing weapons though, chainmail offers little protection against arrows and bolts alike (think of it as pushing a needle through fabric, the holes amplify the force allowing the projectile to slide through). Plate armour was developed primarly in Europe as a method to survive longbow hits, and even then its effectiveness was limited at shorter ranges. When first introduced for knights, plate armour was mostly negated by either using daggers to stab exposed areas or bashing weapons to cause traumatic internal damage through the armour, as conventional weapons had little effect. Crossbows on the other hand, are able to punch through almost any sort of human-wieldable armour but at the cost of reload rate (some of them barely hand-reloadable and many of them use a winch reload system).

But lastly: anyone else think this thread should be brought up in the suggestions forum as something like "extra differences between missile weapons" or "armour and projectile weapons" or something like that?

[Sevrun]

Sorry, I asked a question about military recommendations and it kinda grew on us  

[Neonivek]

Chainmail also was when properly used several layers thick and its reported "Inability to block arrows" Creates the largest loophole in history that frankly I don't know how to fix at this point if it is true. Heck it completely alters the first Crusade (after the People's Army event) where they relied on their armor to block arrows.

"This deforms the link, possibly breaks it"
-Alright... so only 5-10 more links to go, the fact that the person using the Arrow is mostly not incredably trained, the quality of the bow, the arc of the arrow, as well as the angle. The Arrow would most likely be Broadhead instead of Target (I think that is the term) so that it would have weight when it falls.
-At this point... and your constant description of Chainmail... I think we are hitting a point where we both are talking about two things called Chainmail... Which is why I loathe Medieval terminology...

"c) Chainmail can actually be a liability, as arrows, bolts, and especially bullets will rip the chain links apart, causing small bits of metal shrapnel in the wound"
- Yes but the alternatives weren't good.

"The arrow went through the first layer of chain mail, the wooden board, the rear layer of chain mail, a barn door, and embedded itself in the rear tyre of a tractor. Farmer wasn't happy"
-Yay, using Modern Day weaponry against an unknown quality of Chainmail is fun. Though that does make me question why Arrows do not pass through targets more often... I guess they have magical forcefields

"The bloody thing was designed with the express intention of taking a charging knight out of his bleedin saddle before he ran you through"
-Yep, Cavalry for the longest time had a unquestionable supperiority. Though in all likelyness they were never going to take down the whole troop

Ill pick my battles and just say that Armor was much more useful against arrows and even Crossbows then what Dwarf Fort potrays in which it is a Miracle your shield can block it at all by your descriptions.

[Sevrun]

lol I agree with your understanding of chainmail...  don't get me mixed up with some of the other bein said in here.  But you also have to consider that when some people say crossbow they're thinking, as you said, the modern equivalent, and not the monstrous pains in the arse of the medieval period.  Though I think if we're going to pursue this conversation, we need to agree on what everyone's referring to as chainmail.  I aws under the impression that a single layer was simply called ringmail, but I may be mistaken there.  And an agreement on what kind of crossbow we're talking about.  if it's one of the winch crank monsters of the medieval period or something newer (haven't kept up with modern crossbows   )

[Duke 2.0]

I don't want to point out stuff that will prolong this squabble, but:

A: Modern-day Chainmail =/= Chainmail used in the medieval period =/= Chainmail used by everybody in the pre-modern era. Many different kinds, with many different ranges of effectiveness. I'm sure there is a version that can stop arrows somewhat easily, and another that is total trash.

B: Bows used back in the medieval era were rather outdated in other parts of the world. In some eastern nations the composite bow was made, which was basically a machine gun in effectiveness when compared to the ones used by Europeans. Then there are modern bows, which would put composite bows used by those nations to shame. I'm sure if a nation is lacking sufficient bow technology, they would have trouble getting through some armors. Others might find armor laughable.

But ontopic: Perhaps in the future Toady could somehow implement archery, where the arrow arcs upwards a few Z-levels if possible to gain strength. Meanwhile, crossbows would be mostly used with straight-line firing. I hear that in the period where bows were mainly used, the best way to get power behind an arrow was to have it arch into the air at an target.

[Areyar]

I always thought ringmail was simply metal rings sewn onto leather armour,
while chain has the rings connected to eachother via chainlinks.

edit: I second the move/copy to suggestions and namechange.

[ May 11, 2008: Message edited by: Areyar ]

[Derakon]

quote:Originally posted by Neonivek:
<STRONG>Chainmail also was when properly used several layers thick and its reported "Inability to block arrows" Creates the largest loophole in history that frankly I don't know how to fix at this point if it is true. Heck it completely alters the first Crusade (after the People's Army event) where they relied on their armor to block arrows.</STRONG>

You're smoking crack.

A maille vest, only one layer thick, is already on the order of 30-40 pounds. There's a small amount of evidence for having put two layers over the heart area, but having more than one layer for any significant amount of the suit would have rendered the wearer completely unable to move. The only layering that went on with maille was the padding that was worn under it, to absorb some of the brute force of impacts and to keep the rivets on the rings from scratching you up.

Again, and I repeat myself for emphasis and italicize it so you'll maybe read it this time, maille was for guarding against slashing blows. This is the task it is most ideally suited for, as it can take the slicing action and spread it across a much larger area. Most notably, maille was not for piercing attacks, which would just puncture through. Nor was it for bashing attacks for that matter, where it did nothing except give you some interesting bruises.

If you're wondering why bows didn't get used more often, it has a lot to do with the training available, because yes, archery is a hard skill to learn. Secondarily it has to do with the archers' weakness in melee range; they were classic "glass cannons" in that they could do a hell of a lot of damage, so long as nobody got close to them. Archers weren't invincible. But neither were they ineffective against armored units. If they had been, then nobody would've used them, which is clearly not the case.

[Neonivek]

"I aws under the impression that a single layer was simply called ringmail"

Yeah This is the HORRORS of trying to get relevant terminology because back then there was no universal dictionary that said "All Rapiers are this" instead they were generalised with ranges. Today you say Nightstick or Taser and you know EXACTLY what they mean.

I thought a Single Layer Chainmail was actually called a Chainshirt (The Thing Frodo had was a Mithril Chainshirt doing something frankly... Impossible even for Adamantium unless it has shock absorbers).

So yeah I agree... it would be a good idea just to put out definitions of what people mean when they say "Chainmail" to stop this endless discussion based on two entirely different things.

[Sevrun]

Derakon... I could go on and on about how Chainmail would work just fine against _most_ volleys from archers... but there's really no point.  Everyone's got thier own view of it, and short of a time machine there's no way we're all going to get onto the same page.

Everyone, I'm honestly sorry I asked for suggestions.  I'll stick to learning from trial and error from here on out.  Didn't realize I'd start a bloody war.

[Neonivek]

Ehh don't worry Sevrun... Debates are fine...

It is only when people start using insults that it becomes bad thing.

And other then one, somewhat ignorable phrase... it hasn't happened so far.

I am actually enjoying this a bit

[Derakon]

As far as I know, there's no historical evidence for ringmail, in the sense of rings sewn onto a leather backing. That's purely a D&D invention. The closest I can think of would be brigandine, which is small metal plates sewn onto a leather or canvas backing.

Also, you don't gain any power by arcing your arrows. In fact, air resistance would cause you to lose power. Think about it - when you throw a ball up into the air, it comes down with exactly as much energy as it went up with. The only way to get gravity to work in your favor is to be above your target. What arcing is useful for is first, extra range, and second, indirect attacks. You get optimal range, assuming no air resistance, at a 45° launch angle (this is pretty basic ballistic physics).

As for different kinds of chain armor, pretty much you have shirts, hauberks, chausses, and coifs. Shirts just cover a more or less T-shirt-shaped area; hauberks include longer sleeves and flaps to cover the groin area (which are either split on the sides on in the front; the former for infantry and the latter for cavalry). Chausses are more or less the equivalent of DF "leggings" - chain armor designed to cover the legs. And coifs cover the head and shoulders with a maille hood. These are all one layer, though different pieces of the overall suit might have some small overlap - hauberks and coifs could both cover the shoulders, for example. More likely, though, you'd have a coif that hooked into the top of the hauberk.

This is all from what I know of historical armor, and I posit that I know more about the subject than most of you do.

Sevrun: sorry to hijack your thread like this. Don't be discouraged! It's a rare thread that makes it past a dozen posts without getting derailed anyway.

[Neonivek]

That and I think we answered your question about an Expanded military...

Unless you got something else that has come up