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[Shakes]

Equal skill and toughness would dictate that the goblin moves slower than the dwarf. The dwarf could evade then trip the goblin to the ground, this wouldn't even require a weapon, just some wrestling skill. Once the goblin is downed the dwarf could stab him with the bayonet conveniently stuck on the end of his crossbow.

So hold on, a dwarf carrying a heavy crossbow could wrestle a weapon armed goblin to the ground? Think of that situation in real life and i think you'll realise how wrong it is.

1. A crossbow with a bayonet attached is infinitely better than just a crossbow and no bayonet. Since these are dwarves we are talking about, a "bayonet" would be a shortsword to them. A shortsword is a stabbing weapon and mounting it on the end of a crossbow simply improves your reach with it.

..and makes it even more awkward to carry and use for its intended purpose. I never argued a bayonet would not improve it, but that it would still be nowhere near as effective as a real weapon. I really can't see you have anything to argue with there.

2. A crossbow with a bayonet welded to it is a spear that happens to fire bolts and not a crossbow. Proper bayonets are detachable and only fixed to the gun when needed. Most bayonets also double as fighting knifes, the rest are usually spikes of some sort.

Cmon man, read what you just wrote. A crossbow with a bayonet attached is not a spear. It is an awkward, heavy thing with still half the reach of a spear, no matter what you want to protest. You just cant stab with a crossbow like you can with a spear.

Im definitely not against dwarves being able to carry a backup weapon. Easily detachable bayonets sound a little advanced for this 'time period' i think.

3. So the shorty dwarves stumble over their spears where the goblin and human spearmen don't? BS. Goblins are even smaller than dwarves. They have the same size modifier AND thier equipment is considered "narrow" and will not fit even dwarves. Being able to run and fight with a long pointy object is a matter of discipline and skill. If the bayonet severely unbalanced the crossbow then maybe, but that would only be a problem if you made them out of lead. (or mounted a hammer, hehehe)

I never claimed a dwarf would trip over their spear. Have you ever carried a crossbow or a rifle? You can't exactly carry them like a spear...

Its hard to say which the dwarves would use, and some crossbows in the middle ages didn't even have grips. They simply had a straight stock with a bent lever sticking out the bottom as a trigger.

You've just re-argued my own point for me. How do you stab effectively with something like that? Making contact with plate armour would likely result in the crossbow freeing itself from your hands, rather than penetrating the plate that even a hand held knife would not necessairly make it through.

6. Finally, what about the terrain here? Dwarf fortresses are made of tunnels and lots of them. ANY object that is very long will be extremely difficult to maneuver and fight with indoors. Currently this is not taken to account. A marksdwarf meeting a spearman in a tight tunnel could simply drop the bow and use the bayonet on its own. The spearman does not have this luxury.

Meh. You're fighting one way through a tunnel (i e towards the enemy). Reach would still be the main factor here, especially with no room for flanking. Spearmen should have backup knives for tight situations too, as was always the case in real life.

[Draco18s]

Where's the grip?

[Tamren]

Apart from the blade that thing is nothing BUT grip. Where the handle?

So hold on, a dwarf carrying a heavy crossbow could wrestle a weapon armed goblin to the ground? Think of that situation in real life and i think you'll realise how wrong it is.

Your forgetting something, this is dwarf fortress, not real life. Dwarf wrestlers in adventure mode can snap the neck of things that are too big to hug let alone lock and twist. It may not make sense in real life, but it does make sense in the context of the game as dragons and giants have necks to be snapped and size is not yet defined.

Even if this was a situation in real life, there are just too many factors to make a blanket statement. Whats the terrain? What armour are both participants wearing, whats it made of, how heavy is it and how balanced is it? Does the dwarf still have bolts even if he can't fire them? Is the goblin weapon a spear or something else?

There are plenty of situations where the dwarf gets the short end of the stick. But I can think of many where the dwarf comes out on top. What if a stealthed dwarf hunter with crossbow in tow was hiding in a tree. Lone goblin comes along (for whatever reason) and the dwarf jumps on him. Having an armed and armoured weapon carrying dwarf drop 10+ feet onto your shoulders is not something you can shrug off, so we can reasonably assume that the goblin in this case is knocked flat.

At which point the dwarf is free to stab the prone goblin. Now you could argue at this point that dwarf doesn't need to mount the bayonet onto something before using it. But since the bayonet is mounted on something with enough room for two hands the dwarf can use both arms to power that stabbing tip. Which is handy if the dwarf has to get through plate armour.

..and makes it even more awkward to carry and use for its intended purpose. I never argued a bayonet would not improve it, but that it would still be nowhere near as effective as a real weapon. I really can't see you have anything to argue with there.

If you get into melee, being able to fire your crossbow effectively is the least of your worries. At that point you will want every advantage you can get. Range and power are a big plus. And its only ackward if you haven't been trained to use it or you construct it poorly.

Cmon man, read what you just wrote. A crossbow with a bayonet attached is not a spear. It is an awkward, heavy thing with still half the reach of a spear, no matter what you want to protest. You just cant stab with a crossbow like you can with a spear.

An unloaded crossbow with a bayonet attached is nothing less than a short spear with a really big crossguard.

Im definitely not against dwarves being able to carry a backup weapon. Easily detachable bayonets sound a little advanced for this 'time period' i think.

Utter bs. Dwarves have the manufacturing skill to make a chain with a hammer and anvil. A 2 foot spike of metal is easy cake. And the mounting mechanism is probably less complex than the one that powers the crossbow trigger. People have been using rifle bayonets for hundreds of years now, and they still do. Spears were probably invented before FIRE. Its not rocket science.


(keep in mind that my skills with paint result in a caricature of the real thing)

I never claimed a dwarf would trip over their spear. Have you ever carried a crossbow or a rifle? You can't exactly carry them like a spear...

Yes you can.

You've just re-argued my own point for me. How do you stab effectively with something like that? Making contact with plate armour would likely result in the crossbow freeing itself from your hands, rather than penetrating the plate that even a hand held knife would not necessairly make it through.

Are you joking? The fact that it DOESN'T have a rifle grip makes it even easier. A bayonet is not a cake spatula. Put a spike bayonet on the end of something heavy which you can thrust with BOTH ARMS and you can defeat plate armour quite handily.

Meh. You're fighting one way through a tunnel (i e towards the enemy). Reach would still be the main factor here, especially with no room for flanking. Spearmen should have backup knives for tight situations too, as was always the case in real life.

Spears long enough for a reach advantage are simply not for tunnel fighting. I do agree heartily about backup weapons which have been mentioned here since even before DF had Z levels. Its coming eventually.

[Shakes]

Even if this was a situation in real life, there are just too many factors to make a blanket statement. Whats the terrain? What armour are both participants wearing, whats it made of, how heavy is it and how balanced is it? Does the dwarf still have bolts even if he can't fire them? Is the goblin weapon a spear or something else?

There are plenty of situations where the dwarf gets the short end of the stick. But I can think of many where the dwarf comes out on top. What if a stealthed dwarf hunter with crossbow in tow was hiding in a tree. Lone goblin comes along (for whatever reason) and the dwarf jumps on him. Having an armed and armoured weapon carrying dwarf drop 10+ feet onto your shoulders is not something you can shrug off, so we can reasonably assume that the goblin in this case is knocked flat.

At which point the dwarf is free to stab the prone goblin. Now you could argue at this point that dwarf doesn't need to mount the bayonet onto something before using it. But since the bayonet is mounted on something with enough room for two hands the dwarf can use both arms to power that stabbing tip. Which is handy if the dwarf has to get through plate armour.

I don't really know where to begin here. For starters I was never talking about some rare situation involving a dwarf ambushing with his crossbow from a tree (why would he give up his advantageous position if he had a missile weapon?? Plus i dont think attempting to drop 10 feet onto an enemy  whilst holding a crossbow is a good idea for anyone, skilled or unskilled). You keep trying to tell me to consider more factors such as terrain and whatever else but the whole point im trying to get across is that all else equal, dwarf and goblin, equal fighting ability, one on one, a dwarf with a crossbow should get obliterated 9 times out of 10 by a weapon armed goblin.

You can throw any obscure little factor you want in but the bottom line is this - for the purpose of melee, a dwarf carrying a proper weapon in any situation should fare a whole heap better than he would carrying a crossbow, bayonet or no. An occasional lucky critical hit here or there should be about it, and probably standard damage even lowered.

An unloaded crossbow with a bayonet attached is nothing less than a short spear with a really big crossguard.

...which would itself be a whole lot more unwieldy than one with a normal crossguard if that statement were even nearly true. You can keep repeating yourself but it doesn't make it the truth. If really big weird crossgaurd spears were the same thing as normal corssguard spears, why not put really big weird crossguards on all spears? In fact, why not just make all spears be able to shoot bolts while we're at it...

Utter bs. Dwarves have the manufacturing skill to make a chain with a hammer and anvil. A 2 foot spike of metal is easy cake. And the mounting mechanism is probably less complex than the one that powers the crossbow trigger. People have been using rifle bayonets for hundreds of years now, and they still do. Spears were probably invented before FIRE. Its not rocket science.

Yeah im not so sure. Crossbows were invented sometime around the 4th century or before, and bayonets didn't make it in till around the 16th century. I guess this is pretty subjective with DF, but personally I just feel that considering the other technology a quickly unmountable bayonet doesn't fit.

Are you joking? The fact that it DOESN'T have a rifle grip makes it even easier. A bayonet is not a cake spatula. Put a spike bayonet on the end of something heavy which you can thrust with BOTH ARMS and you can defeat plate armour quite handily.

Just go and look at some pictures of early crossbow designs. They just don't give the appearance of being able to get a good grip on them in a spear like sense. And even if you could, theres still no way in the world they could be wielded with the speed and agility of an actual weapon designed for thrusting.

I think you're missing my main point here overall, which i tried to make from the start:
1) A crossbow with bayonet, while not completely useless, is a last resort weapon. The user    should get beaten in melee more often than not by an equally armoured/skilled opponent with a melee weapon.
2) It can never be as effective as a proper melee weapon, and this should be reflected in the game via a fair bit less melee damage, including often rendering the crossbow useless for firing until repaired.

[Derakon]

So...to drop all the realism arguments, and looking at this from a game-balance perspective, crossbows are ridiculously overpowered as it is. Being able to put an at-all useful melee weapon on them would just make things worse (heck, the 70 bludgeoning damage they do in melee makes them too powerful as it is). Rebalance the missile aspect of the weapons, and then maybe bayonets would be balanced, but as it stands, crossbowdwarves need something to make them not be Unstoppable Gods of War.

[Tamren]

I think you're missing my main point here overall, which i tried to make from the start:
1) A crossbow with bayonet, while not completely useless, is a last resort weapon. The user    should get beaten in melee more often than not by an equally armoured/skilled opponent with a melee weapon.
2) It can never be as effective as a proper melee weapon, and this should be reflected in the game via a fair bit less melee damage, including often rendering the crossbow useless for firing until repaired.

You and Derakon are both spot on. But there is one last factor you guys haven't taken into account, discipline.

As of now our soldiers are not actually soldiers. They are just mobs of dwarf warriors tasked with killing everything they see on sight. In this situation something like bayonets would not work because they are very specialized weapons which rely on things like formations and the like to make them useful. Crossbows are much the same way.

Rifle bayonets in the napoleonic era were for charging OTHER lines of rifle bayonets and for forming pike squares. In our case here with DF the crossbow bayonet is a secondary weapon for marksdwarves if they get caught in melee. Now when we get proper discipline in the game, something hostile reaching your marksdwarves means that they got flanked or your front line was breached. In such a case secondary weapons like daggers would not be sufficient. This is very true when the enemy they face is mounted.

As for the crossbows breaking. Why not pull a pin or something and detach the bow? upon mounting something like a spike bayonet what you have is a true spear. And even if you do break something, who gives? Your in combat, your life is at stake here and now, some doodad on your weapon breaking is the least of your problems.

In game terms crossbows are defined as melee weapons that deal 70 bash damage. The problem with this is that damage is multiplied by quality AND material modifier. This rapidly ups damage to ridiculous levels. So even with your 70 bash damage, if you make the bow out of steel that 70 becomes 115, almost equal to an iron longsword. On top of that the quality modifier kicks in and multiplies that 115 with everything from 1 to 5.

Once the damage system becomes more realistic, bashing someone with a crossbow should not be effective, or at least effective against armoured opponents. At that point we would need to arm our dwarves with secondary weapons. This is where things like bayonets come into play. Especially when you add fun stuff like walls of sharpened stakes and pit traps.

[slMagnvox]

haha Tamren, back in action.

While dwarves already menace everything they make with spikes, a crossbow bayonet is hardly a quantum leap.  It's effectiveness is what worries me.

If we are gonna discipline our dwarves, I'd rather my marksdwarves would grab more ammo and hold their post (if I forget to stockpile any bolts nearby, no one's fault but my own) like a good ranged unit should, instead of rushing into the fray.  If you'd rather have a single unit capable of both ranged and melee I like the idea of secondary weapons alot.

As it stands, if you do what the dwarven thing like Tamren suggests and make your crossbows out of steel while cross training your makrsdwarves in a couple levels of hammer, they will hit awful hard in melee.  And bludgeon damage is generally more effective against most threats (goblins and undead) where a melee attack with crit boost wouldn't be necessary.

And since we are waxing hypothetical, perhaps dwarven made xbows already have a secondary configuration.  I could easily image a release to fold away the arms transforming the crossbow into more of a hammer.  Which makes perfect sense considering current game mechanics.

EDIT:  Also

You keep trying to tell me to consider more factors such as terrain and whatever else but the whole point im trying to get across is that all else equal, dwarf and goblin, equal fighting ability, one on one, a dwarf with a crossbow should get obliterated 9 times out of 10 by a weapon armed goblin.

9 out of 10 the crossbow loses?  Hah, I can't image a situation where the goblin would beat a marksdwarve (ignoring game mechanics entirely) would beat a crossbow with nothing but melee unless our melee goblin had a lot of terrain to his advantage, or spawns right on top of the marksdwarf.  Ranged units historically trump infantry on any level playing field.  Need cavalry or an ambush/bad terrain to beat missile troops

[Drakale]

I do not like the crossbow bayonet idea, it doesnt make sense. Bayonets where used on guns only because on the rare occurance they would be used as a melee weapon, the people on the receiving end where either disarmed or helpless. Thats right they where used to finish of the wounded and the unarmed(if you consider a soldier reloading his weapon disarmed).

In the context of medieval warfare, the enemy is likely to have a better melee weapon than a bayonnet and armor good enough to make it unlikely to wound seriously. In my opinion it make much more sense to give your dwarves basic training in short swords and give each crossbowdwarf medium/low quality swords to be used when things get hairy. if threatened in melee or out of bolts, the dwarves would just switch to swords and still have some tactical use.

[Tamren]

I do not like the crossbow bayonet idea, it doesnt make sense. Bayonets where used on guns only because on the rare occurance they would be used as a melee weapon, the people on the receiving end where either disarmed or helpless. Thats right they where used to finish of the wounded and the unarmed(if you consider a soldier reloading his weapon disarmed).

At the time rifle bayonets were in full swing the battles of the time relied almost completely on cavalry, pike formations and rifles with the odd cannon here and there. The cavalry had the advantage over rifles because of their speed and power. The rifles had the advantage over the pikes because the pikes couldn't shoot back. And the pikes could fend of cavalry with ease because of their reach. No one wore much armour, plate armour especially went out of style because none of it could stop the high powered rifles. A little later on pikes started to be replaced with rifle bayonets which served the same purpose. These were very long, the regulation length of rifle and bayonet was around 5 or 6 feet, I don't remember exactly. This was needed so that men on foot could attack riders on tall horses. Those particular bayonets didn't actually look like a knife. They had a very thin or no blade at all and were extremely long, they mounted to the rifle with a ring bracket.

Bayonet charges happened quite a bit. If you got charged yourself, the response was to take out your bayonets and form a wall of pikes. Most soldiers apparently dreaded this even more than getting shot at because the bayonets usually gave infected wounds.

---
So here we are in DF.

I think eventually we will be able to make different types of crossbows. We could change things like size, toughness and power. Size would affect what you could do with it. Very short crossbows lack power. Longer rifle sized crossbows are tougher and could double as a spear in a pinch. Tougher crossbows could be specifically reinforced for hitting people. At the very least we should have two types that come in different sizes. Low power crossbows that you can reload by hand. And larger high powered xbows that require some sort of mechanical aid to pull the string back.

The high powered bows would shoot FAR slower than what we have now because reloading them takes so long. But when they do hit the effect will be devastating. Lower powered crossbows are faster, but the only missile weapon you should be able to "machinegun" is a bow with proper training.

Low powered xbows would require a backup weapon. Since high powered bows are so heavy and bulky, it makes sense to mount something on them so that they can be used as a backup weapon in a pinch. Nothing fancy, just a big spike. In any case they would probably only be used if the marksdwarves were protected by other soldiers or behind fortifications and the like.

Bayonets wouldn't turn marksdwarves into do-all infantry. Its more of an emergency backup tool like a fire extinguisher. Even soldiers today still carry knifes and bayonets. You probably will never need it. Hope you will never need it. If you do things right you WILL never need it. But you had better damn well carry one just in case.

[Drakale]

Read a little on bayonet after reading your post and some armies did use them as pike walls, but in most cases the cavalry/infantry charging them had very little armor. The length of the crossbow, like you mentioned, is also too short for creating a useful pike... I just dont see it as a very logic option for crossbows and medieval warfare...

[loser]

It is not possible to construct a gun or crossbow or bow without recoil.

Wrong, junior.  You are a big boy now and you should get out of that armchair.  It is time for schooling.

It's just a matter of balancing the device so that the vectors of each ejected particle of mass net to zero.

Seriously, how could a bunch of gamers, and therefore war nuts, and therefore fans of WWII-era technology forget about this important development in anti-tank and anti-anything-big-and-relatively-predictable technology?

How do you think we planned to use man-pack nuclear launch systems if the man-portable gear it's firing from had to deal with enough unmitigated recoil to get something so heavy so far away that when it gets so dirty, the poor sods hauling the thing around have a chance to dying of old age.

Get off my lawn.

[Mephansteras]

EDIT:  Also

You keep trying to tell me to consider more factors such as terrain and whatever else but the whole point im trying to get across is that all else equal, dwarf and goblin, equal fighting ability, one on one, a dwarf with a crossbow should get obliterated 9 times out of 10 by a weapon armed goblin.

9 out of 10 the crossbow loses?  Hah, I can't image a situation where the goblin would beat a marksdwarve (ignoring game mechanics entirely) would beat a crossbow with nothing but melee unless our melee goblin had a lot of terrain to his advantage, or spawns right on top of the marksdwarf.  Ranged units historically trump infantry on any level playing field.  Need cavalry or an ambush/bad terrain to beat missile troops

Umm...no, not really. Yeah, they'll probably be minced at long range before they get in close, but that's not the point of this discussion. We're talking about what happens when a melee goblin fights a crossbowdwarf after he gets in close. Or if the dwarf is out of ammo. Once the melee fighter gets into close range, an archer is TOAST. Seriously. A crossbow is really pretty clumsy to use. Very good for the point and shoot aspect, but too cumbersome to use as a weapon effectively in close range. Even with a bayonet on the end. A shieldman against an archer at close range is pretty much guaranteed to win. Oh, and if the string on a crossbow breaks while you're wielding it as a weapon, the arms of the crossbow are likely to hit you HARD. Probably in the face. Not exactly a good choice for a melee weapon.

I've done enough historical recreative fighting, from both sides, to know that much.  Especially since, in period, Crossbows were VERY slow weapons to reload. A skilled archer using a bow could get off a dozen arrows for every one fired by a crossbowman. I've actually seen this demonstrated in person, pretty impressive.

The main reason that cavalry was used in period to take out enemy arches is that they can get close fast enough to just steamroll the archers without taking heavy losses. That, and having horses bear down on you is VERY intimidating, and most crossbowmen were fairly unskilled peasants. More likely to break and run when faced with a knight in armor then to stick around and try to fight.

My take on the issue? Give the crossbow dwarves a secondary. Short sword, light hammer or axe, even a dagger, and have them use that. Crossbow dwarves should only fight in melee if they're charges. Otherwise, they should fall back and try to stay at range as much as possible. And, when out of ammo, they should go get more if it's reasonably close.

[Tamren]

quote] Wrong, junior.  You are a big boy now and you should get out of that armchair.

You call ME junior and you link to wikipedia in the same post? 

We are talking about rifles and crossbow here. Not antitank launchers. They might call it a recoiless rifle but what they mean is "caseless bullet in a tube" and they have almost nothing in common to infantry rifles other than you load them with bullets and point them at the bad guy.

My point was that it is SCIENTIFICALLY IMPOSSIBLE to make a gun or crossbow without recoil (the force). You can do many things to negate, redirect or manage that recoil but you can never prevent it from being generated in the first place.

[Techhead]

A bit of research showed that the recoil in a crossbow is very different than the recoil of a gun. Crossbows exhibit a soft normal recoil on the firing, followed by a sharp reverse recoil.

Here is a quote:

...The crossbow has reverse recoil. By this, I mean when you pull the trigger the limbs travel forward to there relaxed position. This forward movement of the limbs pulls the bow forward away from your shoulder. If you do not hold the bow tight against your shoulder, it will tend to drop forward and down before the arrow has completely left the bow. This can mean a badly placed shot on an animal.

And second source here:

A crossbow recoils both back and forwards. The net is normal recoil (as you'd expect from conservation of momentum), but the "reverse recoil" occurs in a shorter period of time and so you feel it as more jarring. The reverse recoil is actually caused by the stopping of the shot - i.e., you feel normal recoil as the bolt is accelerated, and then reverse recoil as the bow-part and string come to a sudden halt.

Nonetheless, the original claim that x-bows don't have recoil (or don't have significant recoil) is untrue.

[Draco18s]

I think the original claim was that they pulled forward and down and someone said that that person was stupid because all projectile firing devices pushed back.