Leonardo da vinci units

[Nautilus]

I was wondering if there is anybody who has created any units inspired by da vinci's work. Such as his tank, war scythe,or even his helicopter?

[mamrey]

Hmm That's an interesting idea. It would be awesome to see. *wishes he could mod*

[Nautilus]

I am currently in the process of learning to mod, and once this is done, I plan to work on a mod that takes place in late 14th century to late 15th century, and one of the things that Milan will be abl to build, is Leonardo's workshop. once this is done, you would be able to build leonardo's inventions, then eventually upgrade them to make them better. This will kind of be like an alternate history but I like the idea.

[mamrey]

I hope it come out well. Really cool idea.

[Inuyasha12]

UHHHH?? What? I don't think that would work very well in a real medieval battlefield.

I mean it's great artwork, but..

[Oaty]

Quote[/b] (Inuyasha12 @ July 24 2004,05:55)]UHHHH?? What? I don't think that would work very well in a real medieval battlefield.

I mean it's great artwork, but..
Believe me anything will work I've seen screenshots of starwars units (including flying units) on the battlefield and if that can work anything will it just requires a little extr work. At least the star wars mod justifies the jedi generals https://forums.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

[massamuusi]

Alternative history?
You mean, stuff like, if chinese had managed to reach moon with their (powder powered) rocket, and make space station and conquer the earth.
Also, Atlantis people would be very good with their flying vehicles.
Not to mention amazons, who'd want to kill an amazon? Whole armies asking to be their prisoners...
Medieval tanks that have squirrels as a power source, they run in wheels that make the exterior wheels move. Also, they could easily make machineguns and dreadnoughts and aeroplanes.
That helicopter could fly if they tied enough birds to it.

Also, never forget the mighty fly- operated smallpox spreading bomber
http://img29.exs.cx/img29/6024/fly.jpg
And it has been suggested that bee's or wasps would be more powerful engines.

[Tomassi_Rossino]

lol That is seriously funny but knowing that it is a smart man who designed such ideas I will not laugh so much but wonder if it would work. Flies are small creatures remember, and a wooden frame would be too heavy - more like a small plane in our terms.

[zelda12]

lol

[R'as al Ghul]

https://forums.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/bigthumb.gif
Take hornets and you have a jet.

Back up a few meters.......

Cheers

[ah_dut]

genius my friend but may i suggest the tiger mosquito https://forums.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

[Louis VI the Fat]

That fly-powered plane is hilarious https://forums.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/bigthumb.gif


On-topic. Somebody please do a Da Vinci mod I really dig those unit ideas...

[Nautilus]

No i'm talking Alternate history in that Ludovico Sforza, the Duke of Milan, Backed Leonardo's inventions and dished out sufficent funding to create stuff like da vinci's 8-barreled organ gun, or his 33-barrel organ gun, his armoured tank, etc.

[Nautilus]

On a second note, since I can't edit my posts, That fly powered airplane is hilarious.

[massamuusi]

Armoured tank:
you can have a ballistae and arbalests inside for maximum firepower. However, it is very hard to move, without horses, horses are easy to kill, and immobile targets are easy to destroy. Then again, I think it has nice damage potential.

Helicopter:
Poor steering, and no power source. You can't get this thing flying prior to combustion engine. Also, it wouldn't hurt to have some very good quality plane fuel for it. No stabilizers, mostly wooden, it may be strong enough, as Da Vinci was good engineer, but most certainly you can't lift it until late 1800 early 1900. Even then it's vulnerable to rifles, machineguns, and doesn't have much firepower, and is too expensive compared to its benefits. Also can't carry but few men, and not very good as a transport.

Massive ballista:
This was done I think, not sure though, very good range, very little damage potential, biggest factor was the sheer size of the weapon and it's moral impact.

Organ gun:
Has nice firepower, ideal use if you have 2 or more of these defending a castle gate. Takes long to reload, however. Also, the amount of barrels limits it to be able to be used only against the few men at the front. Relatively short range, inaccurate.

Chinese had by year 1000

Repeating crossbow:
It had 1 armed and 10 extra bolts in a clip, it was quick to reload (1-2seconds), but it was not very powerful, and the user would get tired rather quickly, depending on the power. Overall improves the firepower a lot against softer enemies, rather unuseful against armored enemies.

Hand grenade:
Hand grenades in china came in many varieties, there were something like 10+ different kinds of powder, with different effects, one could be HE, one would emit blinding smoke, etc.
The grenades were often loaded with powder that included poisons, and as the grenade exploded it released a smoke cloud, which could blind or poison the enemy.

Fire-stick:
Short spear with a fire-cracker like fire&shrapnel emitting rocket like thing attached to it, you could lit it and kill your first enemy with a cloud of fire and sharp objects. Also this weapon could be boosted with poisons. After the shot it would be used like a common spear, due to the size it would be easy to throw, and best used like pila, use and throw, as short spears are not very good for close combat. Some say similar weapons were used in europe.

Rocket thrower:
Wooden container that contains several short spears that are powered with rockets, and designed to fire one at a time continuous fire. Could shoot 10-30 short spears at enemy rapidly, and also some versions were equipped with poisons and/or explosive (fuse) warheads.

Flamethrower:
A pump system powered fluid pump that pumped flammable liquid towards enemies. Also had a small igniter just underneath the tube. Unlike the byzantine version, this was able to fire continuous spray of burning liquid. Different sizes were used, with different maximum ranges and fuel capacities.

Colossal siege weapons:
Chronicles mention enormous ballistae and throwing weapons that needed 100+ people to operate.

Combat gas:
Small buckets would contain poisonous elements and slowly burning fuel, causing poisonous smoke to erupt in large quantities. Several of these could be used against sieged cities, although the direction of wind can always change, and thus it wasn't highly popular weapon. Was also reportedly used against tunneling enemy.

Just some combat inventions I could right now remember.. Maybe I missed something, don't know. Hope it's enjoyable readin though.

[Nautilus]

Here is a link to a site wher you can learn about Da vinci's inventions. http://www.museoscienza.org/english/leonardo/ (copy paste)

[HicRic]

Oh on earth would you mod these things into the game? https://forums.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/confused.gif The engine doesn't have any kind of flying unit, so I don't see how they could be put in. I wouldn't have thought the game had the mechanics for it. As for flying things in a Star Wars mod-I'd love to see it Can you give me a link?

[Nautilus]

I don't really care about the helicopter, I mean sure it could be used as a scout thing, but it would have no real use in warfare, I more interested in his ground units.

[massamuusi]

Basically, many of his ground based inventions could be done, and many couldn't be done.
Also, if you had known this, you could've sent a scientific expedition to china, they could've brought back as many designs and instructions as possible, the trip could take something like 5-30 years, when they got back you could construct like a building oriental copies or something unimaginary, and build those inventions there, each level of the building granting access to more powerful chinese inventions, for example, level 3 building together with bowyer workshop could produce repeating crossbow units, etc...

[Oaty]

Quote[/b] (HicRic @ July 25 2004,04:51)]Oh on earth would you mod these things into the game? https://forums.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/confused.gif The engine doesn't have any kind of flying unit, so I don't see how they could be put in. I wouldn't have thought the game had the mechanics for it. As for flying things in a Star Wars mod-I'd love to see it Can you give me a link?
I have no link but I've seen apache helicopters and star wars units posted in pics. Gee gullable me, they could have been photoshopped and probably were. Well if you are that interested about it just make a topic called

Star wars mod?

I'm guessing it is photoshopped otherwise the mod would be downloadable

[Sociopsychoactive]

Actually massamusi, the helicopter would work, and when they recently built it (last year I belive) straight out of his designes with no external help, it flew. It needed either a cliff or a very good run up (with the aid of horses) to get into the air, but flew without a fuel source for quite a long period of time on basically springs and clockwork. Take the principal of a hang-glider and give it rotrs instead of a wing, there you go.

Almost all of what he designed works, most modern attempts to recreate them failed because they tried to use different materials, saying that instead of light yet strong wood they could use plastic and so on, when the machine was very carefull balanced and the change in weight stopped it working at all.

If you were going to mod it in then it would be interesting to say the least, and many of what you said about was in use in one form or another, as you said, but things like poisons are not efective as they are extreamly difficult to obtain in anything other than miniscule quantities, no use for a throwing weapon then. The grenades? We have naptha throwers already, greek fire or an equivilant would be nice, though I don;t belive there was ever a land based version made.

[massamuusi]

Ah- sorry, I wasn't aware that it had stored energy- sorry, my limited thinking does not match his ingenuous one. Of course, you can get around the combustion engine by storing mechanical energy What a fool I am..

I have seen half dozen his inventions rebuilt, all failed, for one reason -they didn't follow the original drawings, they thought they were smart enough to adjust the plans, and what do you know? They failed.
All those that were done exactly according to original plans (in cases the originals have survived intact) they have worked.

[Sociopsychoactive]

I completely agree, if you try to improve or adjust the work of an as-yet unparralelled genious then you will never have the original work, and leonardo's machines were VERY precise on what they needed, balance, materials working against each other in the right way, pieces that were designed to be just flexible enough to provide an altering form, but solid enough to hold together. None of that can be achieved with modern thinking as we always go on exacts and extreams, we don;t allow room for thinking tht he got it just right the first time.

[massamuusi]

Chinese and Byzantines both had also land based versions.
One such was used against the turkish tunnelers, they would have water buckets all over the city, and locate the tunnel with the waves on the water, and open the tunnel and shoot greek fire into the tunnel. Very very nice for the tunnelers, having to spend months without a pause digging tunnels, occasional collapses, constant threath of dying to lack of oxygen, and then on top of it the greek fire.

[massamuusi]

Also, the reconstruction teams cheat very often, and their work is overall sloppy, and very unprecise, they are mathematicians and others who aren't obsessed with detail, and that's why they suffer from stuff breaking up and so on.
They should be master carpenters, master axemen (as they are known here, we have almost university grade studies available for carpenters), people who understand wood, and who can read detailed plans, and who can follow the plans to the smallest detail.