From my suggestion, Deon put stone tip + wooden shaft bolts into Genesis mod, stone age tech, for better "bulk ammo" bolts so don't waste precious armor-making metals. I had fun shooting up all the wildlife.
That sounds pretty cool. However, to be more realistic, I'd think one would have to be somewhat picky about the type of stone used. For instance, I'd think some types of stone are too brittle or too difficult to carve into a nice sharp
arrowhead. (See
the Wikipedia article for more.) Some rocks such as chalk, talc, and sandstone can fall apart easily.
Stone arrowheads were primarily made from flint, obsidian, and cherts (similar to flint). But, quartz, onyx, granite, and possibly others were used, too. From what I've read, the sharp edges were usually made by applying pressure to the stone edge until part of the stone flaked off. This works well enough with stones like flint and obsidian. But not all types of stone chips in that way.
That said, from
this article about ancient super concrete, the Ancient Romans and perhaps the Ancient Egyptians knew how to make a much superior (to modern) concrete. Not that there's any evidence that they did, but I'm thinking they
could (perhaps) have used it to make stone weapons or
cement smaller stone pieces together for such. (Both civilizations had access to metal, which was much superior to stone weapons.)
As for glass in arrows and bolts, I'd say it would probably work OK for the tip. Pound for pound, modern quality glass is stronger than steel. In fact, glass can be used as the primary material in a bridge. See
The Glass Bridge (Grand Canyon Skywalk) for an example. (I've also read an article in Popular Mechanics that discussed a
proposal to build a giant suspended bridge from glass but, alas, I couldn't get Google to turn up much about that.)
Of course, the problem with glass is that it is brittle. That means that, sooner or later, a bladed glass weapon used in battle is going to either shatter or get chipped and loose it's edge. But for arrows and bolts, it's not as big a deal because you'd probably only use them once or twice anyway. If the tip breaks inside your target, so much the better.
I always liked the idea of hollow obsidian-tipped bolts filled with acid that would shatter when they hit bone. I don't think they'd actually work particularly well in practice because the tip would shatter in the wrong direction and the blood would dilute the acid, but they'd be an amusing novelty.
I think acid is highly overrated as a weapon. It just takes
way too long to do the deed. That said, even native peoples and ancient civilizations knew about
poisons. Some types of naturally found poisons are quite deadly and fast acting.
Blood diluting acid? You need more acid in those bolts, the blood should spread the acid and cause massive hemorrhaging. Increase concentration, think acidic salt, the salt is dangerous when dissolved in say the targets blood.
If the ancient world knew about
anti-coagulants, I suppose that stuff might be coated on a bladed or piercing weapon to cause the target to bleed to death. I know leeches and some types of insects and bats use
anti-coagulants. Perhaps there are some plants from which a powerful version can be derived? Then again, a strong poison is still probably faster acting.
Yeah actually, salts of an acid would be awesome. I'd thought of Hydrogen Fluoride, but that didn't sound very practical. Be pretty good against rapidly regenerating creatures, I guess.
I assume we're still theorizing about weapons in Dwarf Fortress? How could the ancient world possibly know about a super-modern chemical? (Nevermind how
the Nazi's used Fluoride to keep concentration camp prisoners docile.)
Use something like the alien's acid. (Xenomorph)
I assume you're proposing that some Dwarf Forge creature has a natural acid like the xenomorph blood in Aliens? And that the dwarfs can somehow harvest it to use in their weapons? Perhaps. But that's too fantastic and too sci-fi for my taste. (That's mixing genres.) No acid in
real life is anywhere near as strong or fast acting as "Cosmic Acid."
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Topic: Glass Crossbow Bolts (Read 5986 times)