Proposal for slingers

Doing some studies about slinging i came across and interesting article many of you might already know: The Sling by Robert Dohrenwend, published in Journal of Asian Martial Arts Volume 11 Number 2 - 2002.

In this essy Dohrenwend makes one espacially interesting remark about slings which is different from what we see in RTW and also EB 1.
He explains that there were "two very different tactical situations: (1) high trajectory "plunging" fire and (2) low trajectory "flat" direct fire." (page 37, Slinging ballistics)
Dohrenwend furthermore concludes that indirect fire was quite effective. But in EB and RTW slingers are portrayed as direct fire only units.

He suggests that indirect fire was used on a fortified postion and at the beginning of a battle (because of its superior range). (page 44, tactical considerations)
But the most interesting conclusion ist the following (same page):
Apparently there were two kind of slinger units:
1. The specialist slinger.
He has a cultural background of slinging and trained since his childhood (often herdsmen).
They fulfill a sniper role, using direct fire, hiding behind shields and moving in small units. Examples for such units are the famous Balearic and Rhodian slingers.
2. The untrained peasant
He uses the sling simply because he has not enough money for better equiptment. These low status levies have little training and are used for a hail of indirect sling fire, thus they need no protection (they couldnt afford it anyway) and are used en masse. An Example would be the Accensi from EB 1.


I hope this helps you developing EB 2 and that you consider changing slingers so that they portray one of the two types and, whats most important to me, make indirect fire with slings possible.

I post this because i repeatly read that slings can only be used in direct fire (i think there also was a slinging thread over at TWCFs.)

Very interesting post, Trve Leveller. We will certainly take a look at that article you mentioned.

Foot

thank you, i'd appriciate that.

keep the good work coming

This would be a very nice game feature.

Interesting read... the use as direct or plunging fire was already understood I think but does raise an interesting question of 2 different units using slings.

Untrained levees which could attain decent range but were limited in how heavy a projective they could release and low accuracy might be replicated in MTW2 but the more trained professional slingers are difficult to model as they were probably capable of even more extreme range and lethality releasing heavier bullets but also much more accurate in the short range.

Also the ability of slingers to out range archers would seem to be very impractical for game balance. It is easier to set the maximum effective range similar for the elite of both disciplines and let elevation make the largest difference as MTW2 already does with missile weapons.

Also I think the engine assumes slings are a direct fire weapon so using slingers to throw bullets over a wall or other obstacle isn't possible with much efficiency.

It does make me want to go out and try playing with slings again. I only tried using direct fire when I was younger because there was no incentive to try plunging fire and the difficulty of knowing precisely how far a stone in a grassy field had traveled was further disincentive. Now I'd love to try with gluing 4 paintballs together and trying to hit distant ranges. Quite light for a sling bullet even using 4 paintballs, about 14 grams with the heaviest paintballs but might be interesting.

That does sound interesting. Can you post a link?

I think this is the one he's talking about.

http://www.ipna.ie/documents/History...he%20Sling.pdf

yes, thats it

slingers could be made into indirect fire unit by merely gave their projectiles lower speed and more maximum angle (but not too low).

This might actually indeed be usefull.

of course, in fact, that works pretty well in RTW engine... you could see that pretty soon...

If this is put in the game, I will be using slingers more often.

Combining slinger direct fire and indirect fire in the same unit may not be possible in EB, due to units only having 2 attack modes, missile fire and melee - and not 3 attack modes, which is what we'd need to have 2 different types of missile fire.

How about having 2 different types of slinger? Direct fire slingers and indirect fire slingers.

Direct fire slingers have higher-speed missiles that do more damage (higher attack) and are AP (armour piercing). These are highly trained units like Rhodian slingers.
Indirect fire slingers have lower-speed missiles that do less damage (lower attack) and are NOT armour piercing - but they have a considerably longer range than the direct fire units. These are poorly trained units like Accensi.

well, thats basically what crossbows do in m2tw. If their is something in the way they point the crossbows almost strait up and fire in a huge arc. unrealistic for crossbows, but maybe this could be used for slingers as they normally shoots directly like crossbows. it is absurdly inaccurate when they fire up though, although that may be desired for the slingers.

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Originally Posted by antisocialmunky

This would be a very nice game feature.

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An impossible one, though, unless the engine in M2TW allows for a unit to have both weapon slots filled in as missiles (i.e. no dagger/melee weapon). In that case you could have both trajectories.

You will notice that in M2 TW archers and other missile units will arc their shots to fire over the top of engaged units. Therefore I think this is easily implemented. And yes, it looks stupid when crossbows fire almost 90 degrees upward to hit units underneath them on walls and such.

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Originally Posted by Brave Brave Sir Robin

You will notice that in M2 TW archers and other missile units will arc their shots to fire over the top of engaged units. Therefore I think this is easily implemented. And yes, it looks stupid when crossbows fire almost 90 degrees upward to hit units underneath them on walls and such.

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Poor programming of Newtonian Physics perhaps?

What about giving all slingers a higher shooting angle. This way they can use indirect fire.
Unprotected, poor slingers now get big units and a projectile "peasant bullet", which has less accuracy.
Shield-bearing "snipers" get smaller, mobile units and a projectile with more accuracy.

So all slingers can use indirect fire but it will be more beneficial to use the "snipers" for direct fire.

This solution seems the most realistic one to me and its also 100% doable with the game's engine

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Trve Leveller

What about giving all slingers a higher shooting angle. This way they can use indirect fire.
Unprotected, poor slingers now get big units and a projectile "peasant bullet", which has less accuracy.
Shield-bearing "snipers" get smaller, mobile units and a projectile with more accuracy.

So all slingers can use indirect fire but it will be more beneficial to use the "snipers" for direct fire.

This solution seems the most realistic one to me and its also 100% doable with the game's engine

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First and foremost, we all know that there are always two solutions to a trajectory problem: the higher and the lower. The higher trajectory causes the object to last longer above ground but the destination remains the same point.

I don't think trajectory is tied with accuracy in the Rome engine, especially due to the **** implementation of Newtonian Physics. Even if you're shooting at a moving target the units doing the shooting happen to know exactly where the enemy unit will end up by the time the bullet has reached its target. For this reason, even though the higher trajectory object lasts longer in the air, it still ends up at its target just about the same number of times as it would otherwise. Right?

I wonder if a skilled slinger could time on target multiple stones(fire many stones at different angles and have them all hit the same target at the same time).

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Originally Posted by antisocialmunky

I wonder if a skilled slinger could time on target multiple stones(fire many stones at different angles and have them all hit the same target at the same time).

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Assuming a non-quantum Newtonian basis, that's impossible. The time it takes to reach the target increases as the angle goes from right above zero degrees to nearing the limit of 90 degrees.

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Originally Posted by antisocialmunky

I wonder if a skilled slinger could time on target multiple stones(fire many stones at different angles and have them all hit the same target at the same time).

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Probably impossible for a slinger due to the time required to load and fire a second stone, I know this was a common tactic used by archers though.

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Originally Posted by vartan

Assuming a non-quantum Newtonian basis, that's impossible.

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No need to limit yourself to non-quantum physics, superpostion (and quantum effects in general) doesn't happen to objects the size of an arrow.

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Originally Posted by bobbin

No need to limit yourself to non-quantum physics, superpostion (and quantum effects in general) doesn't happen to objects the size of an arrow.

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That's what I keep telling my friend! Some silly physicists. By the way, did archers actually fire consecutive arrows to land at the same time? Why would they bother?

Actually I was technically wrong in saying that, things like bose-einstien condensates and superfluids do exhibit such effects (quantised angular momentum etc), but yes an arrow certainly won't.

Yes some did, it was used in in massed archery to allow 2 volleys to hit the enemy at the same time. The idea being that it effectively doubled the punch of the archers and was much harder to defend against, as you have two volleys coming in at very different angles and so cannot use a sheild to block them completely.

Does that imply that EB archers fire more slowly than real archers would in the heat of battle since have that long pause between shots?

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Originally Posted by antisocialmunky

Does that imply that EB archers fire more slowly than real archers would in the heat of battle since have that long pause between shots?

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Seeing that he said "some did" and not that it was a universal phenomenon, I wouldn't count on it.

@Vartan: I did not implied trajectory and accuracy are linked in the engine. I proposed to change trajectory and accuracy, as two different things to do.
And accuracy can be changed easily, I already did this for my personal modification (added 15.-17. century units) and it works. And IIRC trajectory is linked to speed in M2TW. (Have to confirm that later, I dont have m2tw on my pc right now, my external hard drive is dead).

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Originally Posted by Trve Leveller

@Vartan: I did not implied trajectory and accuracy are linked in the engine. I proposed to change trajectory and accuracy, as two different things to do.
And accuracy can be changed easily, I already did this for my personal modification (added 15.-17. century units) and it works. And IIRC trajectory is linked to speed in M2TW. (Have to confirm that later, I dont have m2tw on my pc right now, my external hard drive is dead).

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Oh well I wasn't referring to what you said, but alright. As for trajectory and how M2TW manages it, I don't know. I have never worked on M2TW. In fact, I've only played it a couple times. Trajectories of flying objects rely on initial launching force, launching angle of elevation, force of gravity, buoyant forces, and drag forces. I don't know whether or not M2TW physics engine includes some or all of these and I don't know which ones, if any, are modifiable.

Please do you a favour and don't take the cited article too seriously. The two firing modes are mere speculation. Perhaps interesting for a game however.

There is a big problem with this article, the sling ballistic performance on page 36 onwards as a base for the conclusions. Normally I don't use powerful words, but I have to do in this case: it is the greatest crap concerning ballistics I ever read in the last 20 years, I'm sorry to say. The statement alone that it takes an impact of 70 footpound to brake bones but 2 footponds to pierce the human body, is a horror to read for someone who has the slighest knowledge of terminal ballistics. Such statements make no sense for obvious reasons because the energy of a projectile is not the unit for measuring penetration power. Do you really believe that a soccer ball with 2 footponds energy would be able to penetrate the human body? You have to measure the energy per square footage to be able to say anything helpful for judging penetration capabilities.

Please believe me that a stone shot by a sling will never be able to reach the necessary energy to penetrate human tissue, let alone cloth or armor (it is nearly ridiculous to speak about such things). Why? Because a stone is a big projectile. You need 0,1 Joule/square-mm minimum of energy density to pierce human tissue. A simple cloth will multiply this. For example, a ball of 44 mm diameter will have an energy density of 0,085 J/square-mm when having an energy of 129 Joule (1 footpound is 1,36 Joule). Do you believe anything shot from a sling could penetrate with 2 footponds (2,72 Joule)?

That the article takes Hatchers RSP for judging sling bullet performance is as logical as irrelevant because the impact of a bullet has nothing to do with its effectiveness (ok, if you drive a car against a person, also the impact can be effective). All modern formulas use the energy as the factor for effectiveness.

A lead sling bullet could penetrate sometimes when it hit with an edge. Xenophon tells us about it. But don't thing that it could penetrate deep into the body and kill. Xenophon tells us too that it penetrates and disappears in the tissue. That means in many cases a superficial wound.

It is doubtful what energy a sling bullet could achieve. Data is very mixed, ranging from 30 Joule to 120 Joule. When we take the data of the article (two ounces bullet and 170 foot/second) we get an energy of about 63 Joule (with is in the range of an arrow shot by a heavier bow). Not nearly enough to penetrate deep into the body and not enough to kill an armored person. A normal .38 Special bullet has about 300 Joule, a .45. ACP about 500 Joule. That the author compares the sling with a .45 ACP pistol is only the peak of painfulness in this article.

Maybe you are not convinced. I sometime have the feeling that people like to have the sling as an ancient secret super weapon. It is not. There is a reason that slings were used only on small scales. Alexanders took with him javelinmen and archers from Crete but slingers were not explicitly labelled. Why, if it was an equivalent to modern handguns? There is a study of the U.S. Army Land Warfare Laboratory which gives us some data what non-penetrating projectiles like sling bullets can achieve, "dangerous injuries" between 40 and 120 Joule (f.e. contusions, broken ribs, blindness) and "severe injuries" about 120 Jolue (f.e. inner bleeding, broken skull). Look at the possible energies for sling bullets and you see that unarmored persons were in great danger. But add armor and shields ...

A last word: David was no ancient Jeff Cooper with a form of handgun against a dump ape named Goliath. He was a very brave young man, very good with his sling, and he hit his armored enemy at the one and only place that could win him the fight and save his live, the unarmored face of Goliath.

Edit: Unfortunately I don't have literature in English to cite. For those able to read German a look into Kneubuehl, Coupland, Rothschild, Thali "Wundballistik", 3. Aufl. 2008, S. 253 ff. would be helpful.

You're right geala, but there is one unfortunate fact regarding the Total War engines: they do not have an option for the modder to enter in impact area of projectiles. I don't even think it allows initial average velocity and average mass of projectiles.