New Unit - Carthaginian Slingers

[Barkhorn1x]

at the .COM

Looks good to me - I'll wait for the inevitable feedback.

[The Blind King of Bohemia]

So they can pick up stones on the battlefield. Looks good imo

[Alexander the Pretty Good]

Quote[/b] ]So they can pick up stones on the battlefield. Looks good imo

Hopefully they CAN pick up stones (and therefore have a way to replenish ammo on rocky terrain). But it just might be one of those things that is said to make the unit sound good and realistic, but is never implemented.

As a unit, it looks fine to me (though I am no expert).

[The Blind King of Bohemia]

You could be right there. It would be a nice touch though but would the unit run out of ammo? Say in the desert you would get less rocks than a more mountainous area. They could do it though http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/ceasaryes.gif

[Sjakihata]

cool a slinger

makes me think of David vs Goliath

[Longshanks]

I wonder if these are dumbed down version of Balearic slingers (outstanding Iberian slingers recruited by Carthage and later Rome), or if Balearic slingers are another, more elite unit.

[The Blind King of Bohemia]

In TC the balearic slingers looked quite a bit different appearance wise so hopefully they will be totally different. I reckon they will be atleast 5 or 6 different slinger types. I hope they don't overload on them though and waste the chance of some really diverse and different units and bifs we can mess about with http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-2thumbsup.gif

[Sjakihata]

Was archery not invented at that time? Why throw a stone 5 feet when you can shoot an arrow 200?

[The Blind King of Bohemia]

Maybe they couldn't be bothered to make a bow http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

[Barkhorn1x]

Quote[/b] (Sjakihata @ June 25 2004,13:52)]Was archery not invented at that time? Why throw a stone 5 feet when you can shoot an arrow 200?
The key word in the Unit description is SLING. This contraption allowed it's (well trained) user to deliver a lead shot over quite a long distance.

The weight of this shot would often do damage to armored men that could just shrug off an arrow strike.

Barkhorn.

[hundurinn]

Well it looks good, hopefully it will do good.

[Sjakihata]

Quote[/b] (Barkhorn1x @ June 25 2004,22:11)]The key word in the Unit description is SLING.
Sling throw whatever, Im just saying that it cant be as long, precise and effective as a bow.

Well, I'm no expert, but it would just surprise me if it was better to throw stones at each other, instead of raining arrows. Also I imagine that the rate of fire for an arrow is much better, you dont need a lot of time working up momentum, just pull and fire.

[Steppe Merc]

I'm with you Sjakihata, but if they used real ammo, not just pebbles it could do some damage, especailly against unarmoured troops.

[Sir Moody]

actually slingers at the time could accuratly hit targets 100+ft away with terrific power which was much better than the average bow of the time (tho the Easern Bows were better)

a blow from a Sling shot would break bones with ease

[Basileus]

very nice unit, i like it and at last we got to see something diffrent besides pikes and inf units...a cav next would be sweet http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/bigthumb.gif

[Julius Caesar]

A Cataphract

[Alexander the Pretty Good]

About bows vs. slings, I should think slings would be cheaper to make (sling = leather + rocks; bow = wood + string + fletching + more time ).

And slings might have been more popular among the commoners in some places, like balearic slingers. And maybe, if slingers can replenish ammo with rocks, they could be better than archers in some circumstances even when both are availible. Who can say (besides CA, of course)?

[The_Emperor]

Looks good.

So they can pick up stones huh? Could come in handy if they do...

[The Wizard]

Slingers of good quality, which were tough and had good morale, were very dangerous, especially to tightly packed heavy infantry.

The sling pellets they fired came on hard, disrupted formations, and were very dangerous to both the loose formations of archers (including horse archers) and the heavy armor of, for instance, cataphracts and legionaries.

Balearic slingers, as well as Anatolian ones, were not mofo's you should mess with.



~Wiz

[Leet Eriksson]

Anatolian slingers could also melee i hear...

[RisingSun]

A sling beats a bow 90% of the time. Look at it this way- What would you rather get hit with: an arrow, or a flying lead ball?

[Ragss]

A flying lead ball...If my arm or some ribs break, chanses are its not going to get gangreene...

And what kind of speeds were these shot flung at? And what kind of weight? Im thinking a 3-5 pound lead shot going about 80mph could easily crack the skull, but an arrow could also go through...

[TigerVX]

Quote[/b] (Ragss @ June 25 2004,23:39)]A flying lead ball...If my arm or some ribs break, chanses are its not going to get gangreene...

And what kind of speeds were these shot flung at? And what kind of weight? Im thinking a 3-5 pound lead shot going about 80mph could easily crack the skull, but an arrow could also go through...
But remeber, they're very good against heavy armor. If a legionare is hit on the head with an arrow, it will most likely bounce off. But if a lead ball smashes on his head... Lets just say it won't be pretty.

[Ragss]

Well I have never really examined a helmet from this era, but helmets in ww2 would often deflect bullets...

[Catiline]

it's nothing like 3 pounds of weight for slingshot. And though they used stones when it came down to it the best slings always used shot. The things are easy to make in a mass produced fashion. That's important because it's key to the accuaracy of the shot to have the same sive missile each time, and not just any old random pebble.

You make them by pressing your thumb into the dirt up to the first knuckle. do that a few time and fill up the holes with molten lead. The lead sets pretty fast, and the you dig up your shot. Bingo, all pretty much the same size and shape ready to rain down on your enemies.

I can't remeber enough maths to work out the angular velocity they leave the sling at, but try seeing how fast a bit of string with a couple of ounces at one end will go spin round, then come back and tell me you'd not be worried about slingers.

As has been mentioned most bows were crap. Even (or especially) the good ones are useless in the wet, and the arrows are far more susceptible to wind than lead pelets or pebbles, making judgement of range and accuracy much harder.

Most soldiers of this period had plenty of flesh on show even if they had any sort of armour. You're just as likely to be pierced by a lead pellet at the sort of speeds they're travelling at, and the things don't make nice wounds (if only because leads malleable and flattens on impact - it's not the same shape when it goes in as it started.

[ah_dut]

Quote[/b] (Sjakihata @ June 25 2004,23:22)]
Quote[/b] (Barkhorn1x @ June 25 2004,22:11)]The key word in the Unit description is SLING.
Sling throw whatever, Im just saying that it cant be as long, precise and effective as a bow.

Well, I'm no expert, but it would just surprise me if it was better to throw stones at each other, instead of raining arrows. Also I imagine that the rate of fire for an arrow is much better, you dont need a lot of time working up momentum, just pull and fire.
it is, a sling a)outranges a bow b)is far more effective against a bow c) is cheaper but d) takes a lot more practice to master

[The_Emperor]

Excellent posts.

The Sling is a highly misunderstood weapon.

Here is something I managed to dig up on a site...

The sling is very easy and cheap to make. Most in the past were made of leather, some being rush or twisted cord. The amount of material needed is minimal, and anyone who knows what a sling should look like could make one in a few minutes. Bows take far more materials, and rarer materials too. Bows take more maintenance, can break when you fall over, take far more time and skill to make, and are more cumbersome. A slinger could carry half a dozen spare slings easily, while an archer would worry about damage to his one bow.

A sling might be carried without ammunition, with the thought that some could be found when needed. Bows take very specialist ammunition which needs to be well-made in advance, and maintained. An archer would want to recover as many of his arrows as possible after use. Arrows are expensive, and can warp in damp weather. Arrows are long things need to be carried in an awkward quiver which flops about as the carrier runs. A pouch of sling stones can be a neat bundle, a more manageable load.

It is well known how bows are affected by weather. Battles have hinged on whether one side, with superior archers, has been able to make use of its bows effectively. Even quite light wind will blow arrows off course badly, and rain will spoil bow strings, and drag arrows down from the air. Slings, while still adversely affected by wind and rain, suffer not nearly so much from bad weather. This may explain why armies with archers often valued having slingers as well.

Slingers are generally more mobile than archers. They find it easier to shoot on the move and have the great advantage of needing only one hand to shoot, which allows them to use a shield in their free hand to protect themselves.

Arrows can be seen raining down upon an enemy, and even when they are flying on a fairly flat trajectory, are visible to an enemy expecting them. Sling stones are much more difficult to see in flight, especially from a distance. It is also more difficult to judge which way they are going, as they are seen as a dot rather than a line. Sling bullets, which are cast lead shot, are especially difficult to see. It has been speculated that this difficulty of seeing the stones in flight might be both advantageous and disadvantageous. A cavalry formation charging into a shower of arrows, might be broken up or slowed down when the riders look up to see the arrows and try and avoid them. Slings would not break up formations this way so readily, but might gain from allowing less evasion.

One advantage that the bow has over the sling is that bows can be used more easily in deep formations of troops. Archers could angle their bows to shoot safely over the heads of their fellows in front of them. While slinging over the heads of friendly troops is possible, it is much more dangerous and was seldom attempted.

[DemonArchangel]

Chinese Xbows are MUCH better than slingers

[Aymar de Bois Mauri]

Although I like the unit, it seems strangelly similar to what would be expected from a Balearic Slinger, except for the lack of the Falcata and the Coetra. I'll just have to wait for other slinger units to comment on CA's depiction more accuratelly...

[USMCNJ]

a sling is better then bow.
evidence: it's still being used today

look at a news coverage of a riot. Chance are you will see some pissed of rioter using a sling, you will never see some one take out a bow.

side note:
I think that we will see a lot of sling units in regions that rebel.

[Ragss]

On the contrary to what USMCNJ said, if sling were so much more versatile than bows, why weren't they used into the middle ages to any significance? Or were bows in Roman days that terrible?

[The_Emperor]

here is something that may explain it.

"The use of the sling declined during the Roman Imperial period and this decline continued after the fall of the Empire. The last outpost of sling use was Britain. The reason for this change is probably the most usual reason for all military changes in the pre-gunpowder period: fashion. At first, there were proud units of specialist slingers who gained great skill with the weapon. Later, the sling became used more and more by "amateurs" as a secondary weapon, and it began to be regarded as a barbarian weapon beneath the dignity of professional soldiers."

[swe_gamer]

Some more notes on slings:

The effective range of slings seems to be in excess of 360 yards. Assyrian reliefs show slingers attacking cities from further away than the archers. Perhaps this is because the archers were used to shoot straight at defenders on the walls, while slingers dropped stones into the city, or perhaps it is just another clue to the greater range of slings.

Writers tell of the terrible wounds that slings would inflict, especially bullets. The Romans developed a special pair of tongs designed for getting bullets out of people. Arrows, unless barbed and deep in the victim, are easier to extract. There was also a belief, presumably false, that sling bullets got white hot as they flew through the air. Julius Caesar writes about clay shot being heated before slinging, so that it might set light to thatch.

Sling units were employed in the auxiliaries in the Roman army in the Republican period. The use of the sling was part of the basic training of all soldiers.

[Steppe Merc]

I'd still take one of my Steppe horse archers over your slingers any day. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

[Medieval Assassin]

If you want to die.

[Maedhros]

It might come down to weather.

[Rosacrux]

Good posts regarding slingers. The way I see it, slings have a couple of major disadvantages towards bows and that's why they were removed pretty early from the battlefields.

The most prominent disadvantage being lethality.

Slings are not nearly as lethal as arrows. With all the advantages they posses over arrows (The_Emperor has done a great job describing them) that one little disadvantage sealed their fate. They are kind-of lethal if used against troops with little or no shield and light or none armour. Anything above that, renders them practically useless in the mission of actually inflicting losses to your opponent. They might incapacitate a few, render dizzy many others, create several wounds and many, many serious bruises, but that's it.

Let's not forget that the helmet was primarly "invented" to protect from slinger "fire". A decent helmet covers 90% of the lethal blows a slinger can inflict - a round "bullet" without a tip and with low starting speed, is not lethal when the impact is on any body part other than the head.

Decent headgear, regular armor and a decent shield should render any soldier invulnerable to slinger fire.

Of course unarmored units without large shields, should suffer tremendously under slinger fire.

[The Wizard]

Actually, Rosacrux, the Parthian cataphracts (and their Armenian cousins) were quite in danger of slingers.

Hard to detect in flight, and difficult to dodge, sling pellets could stun, maim or even kill, and were extremely dangerous even to armored troops.

Steppe Merc:

At the battle of Taurus in 36 BC, the Parthian horse archers were held at bay by massed slingers under Roman command, while the cataphracts were unable to break the Roman cohorts stationed on elevated ground.



~Wiz

[shingenmitch2]

My understanding of the sling, is that when used with the lead bullet, it was very lethal and caused terrible, flesh-penetrating wounds. The velocity was quite high by a practiced slinger. The major disadvantage to the sling was that it required years of training to be good, so that producing massed formations would be difficult. Thus it phased out vis-a-vis bowmen, who were comparatively easier to produce. I'm sure improvements in bow technology also played a big role (as the bow became more powerful, it began to equal or surpass the sling in penetrative power/ range... thus the bow became at least the equal to the sling AND the troops were easier to train... slings become obsolete).

A similar fate happended to bows later on. The bowmen were phased out by the gun, not because the early guns/muskets were so much better than bows (in most respects they were worse than bows), but because gunners could be trained in a day or two while a decent archer took much longer. (eventually the rifled gun did surpass the bow in range/accuracy and that was ultimate death knell).

[Rosacrux]

The lethality of the sling is only a small fraction of the lethality of the bow and that's quite a given. It is not right that it's easier to produce bowmen than slingers - it's equally hard. Indeed it wasn't common to have good slingers, but the same was true for the bowmen in the areas where the bow was not a traditional weapon of choice (outside the middle east, that is).

In Greece, for instance, there was only one area that produced high quality archers - Crete. And another one that produced high quality slingers - Rhodes.

Also, don't forget that the sling was used in everyday life too: by children, for hunting animals etc. It wasn't some exotic weapon but an everyday tool for many.

[The_Emperor]

Also interestingly, there is the case of the Spanish conquests of South America against the Aztecs.

The weapon the Armoured Spanish mostly feared were the Aztec slingers, who could damage and injure them with the sheer impact power of their projectiles. Arrows in comparison glanced off quite harmlessly off their armour.

Personally I think that ever since the Sling was regarded as a general "Barbarian Weapon" by the Romans it has been frowned upon and its use declined.

The advance in quality of bow design through from the Fall of Rome to the Middle Ages was probably enough to ensure its complete extinction.

At any rate they will be really fun weapons for us to use... http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/bigthumb.gif