Javelin's and their effectiveness

[Spectral]

Name a battle occurring between the fall of Troy and the reign of Augustus that was decided by arrows or sling stones? Having trouble? So am I. Platea, Charonea, Issus, Granicus River, Cannae and all the rest . . . archers and slingers were a mere sideshow.

At least at Carrhae they played a very significant role, if not the most important one.


On the topic, sometimes the javelins feel like a bit underpowered, for example a peltast unit against a pezhetairoi one sometimes struggles to achieve even 1 or 2 kills...

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Well, if you read the Anabasis, you get a healthy impression about the sling stone's impact effect. Not so the arrow.

One problem we have with archery effect is that most of us have little personal knowledge of archery and many of us who do are thinking in terms of modern weapons.

Remember, during RTW's time-frame:

Compound bows were the exception and crossbows were not used outside of East Asia. Most folks went to war with the same bow they used for small game or one only slightly more powerful. There is a reason the AA and Chosens have more range and more killing power - they're using war bows.

Most of them were tipped with iron -- steel was expensive and rarely wasted on a disposable weapon -- and iron points will not pierce most plate (and even then will do so only at point blank range) [The history channel did a nice piece on this: in their test an arrow fired from an english Longbow would not pierce 1/8 inch of armor at 75 yards]. Therefore, in all likelihood, the greaves of a hoplite, the cuirass, most shields and helmets and a goodly portion of the mail even in this earlier period were strongly resistant if not altogether proof against arrows. This suggests that even though the number of hits may approach unity when firing at a mass of infantry from normal distances, the number of effective hits -- wounding in more than a cursory fashion -- is probably very low.

Arrows are bulky to carry without damaging the arrow -- so carrying enough to be decisive is tough. This would not be the case for a defender in a siege, who would -- if provisioned -- have buckets of the things nearby. Ancient records note their importance in sieges (as even the wounds of Alexander attest).

Sadly, if CA modeled the real effectiveness of archers, I suspect nobody would use them.

All-in-all, I disagree with up-powering the arrow, it should be decreased (if anything). Slings may be under-powered slightly, but javelins are probably pretty close to true.

[fallen851]

Well arrows played a very important role in the battle of Troy, due to the fact one went through a rather important man's heel...

I'm afriad this problem might solve (or one might be created, depending on how you see it) itself with the 1.5 patch port coming, unless Qwerty decides to not have archers firing on units in selected situations, archers will be getting a boost.

[Sdragon]

Javelins must be a pain to balance. Playing as Casse they deal great damage to the enemies I face. But in my Roman campaign firing at Greeks for example doesn't do much damage. Usually have to unload a few volleys into their backs to cause any real damage.

[Kralizec]

I think logic can easily explain why units were used in a harrassment role, they didn't have very much ammo.

When archers did have ammo, they were incredibly effective, at the battle of Carrhae, Persian archers firing from horseback with a basically infinite supply of arrows from a nearby baggage train put down 20,000 Romans, mostly with arrows... To be fair many were killed in the frantic retreat, but obviously arrows were effective enough to get them to route Roman Legionnaries, despite them being in a testudo. The fact is they were being killed at a fast rate.

I would think archers wouldn't be so effective because they didn't bring so many arrows to the battle, not because their arrows were ineffective. I don't think that even the most prepared archer brought anymore than 20 arrows... probably around 10-12 for most. And if 3/4 miss, that is only 4 arrows on target. So 2 archers put 8 arrows down on target, and I'd like to think one would kill.

A bit late, but I feel compelled to respond to this. I don't mean to crack you down, but this is a blatant inaccurate portrayal of facts.

Carrhae took days, not hours. As you said the horse archers (wich weren't drawn from Persians, correct me if I'm wrong) were so effective because they had an unlimited supply train of arrows. If you play EB or especially vanilla RTW with limited ammo off, it's easy to score a victory with negligable losses. That is, unless the Roman player is smart and brings in a good number of slingers and auxiliary archers, wich is exactly what the Romans did afterwards and enabled them to put up more of a fight against the Parthians in later battles.
A lorica hamata coupled with a scutum offers excellent protection against arrows, and when in a testudo formation legionaires would be nigh invulnerable to archers. The Parthian general realised this and charged with his cataphracts or just feigned charges, so to force the Romans to break up their testudo because it's a specialised formation that's no good in close combat, let alone warding off cavalry charges. The continuing cycle of charges of heavy cavalry, followed by massive barrages of arrows, proved exhausting to the Roman infantry and destroyed their morale.
I'm not entirely sure what happened after that, I think Crassus accepted a Parthian invitation to negotiate, but it was a trap...the Romans later tried to escape but were rolled over by the Parthian cavalry.

Crassus was a fool trying to fight an enemy that prefers horse archers with an army consisting almost entirely out of heavy infantry. The Armenian king actually tried to warn him I believe, but he ignored his advice. Horse archers are not an invincible force, but you have to bring along the right tools to fight them.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

A bit late, but I feel compelled to respond to this. I don't mean to crack you down, but this is a blatant inaccurate portrayal of facts.

Carrhae took days, not hours....Crassus was a fool trying to fight an enemy that prefers horse archers with an army consisting almost entirely out of heavy infantry. The Armenian king actually tried to warn him I believe, but he ignored his advice. Horse archers are not an invincible force, but you have to bring along the right tools to fight them.

Absolutely.

Heavy infantry without significant missile support and insufficient water in a desert environment.

Allowing most of the cavalry off on a "raid" when facing an all-cavalry opponent (cut off and chopped up as we know).

Insufficient scouting/use of irregulars.

Crassus set himself up for a beating.

Arrows annoyed and flustered the Romans for days -- wounding many and killing a few -- but it was heat, exhaustion, and heavy cavalry that broke them.

[O'ETAIPOS]

A lorica hamata coupled with a scutum offers excellent protection against arrows, and when in a testudo formation legionaires would be nigh invulnerable to archers. The Parthian general realised this and charged with his cataphracts or just feigned charges, so to force the Romans to break up their testudo because it's a specialised formation that's no good in close combat, let alone warding off cavalry charges. The continuing cycle of charges of heavy cavalry, followed by massive barrages of arrows, proved exhausting to the Roman infantry and destroyed their morale.

Not! Scuttum could be crushed with 1-2 special arrows if you use compound recurve bow. Chain mail do not protect against specialised arrow. HA's had lots of types of specialized arrows for different tasks. After few hours probably half of romans didn't have shield at all.

Cataphracts were there mainly to destroy gallic cav had Crassus had with.

[QwertyMIDX]

Kralizec has presented the orthodox, widely accepted narrative of the battle. In fact I have never encountered a piece of scholarship making an argument for a seriously different narrative. So for the moment O'ETAIPOS, your interpretation is doesn't hold water. If you could find some sort of support for it I'd be interested though.

[O'ETAIPOS]

Well I do not question the narrative, but I saw effect of test hold on our university during scientific meeting. I saw replica of scuttum so powerful that you can stand on to be crushed by 2 arrows, shot from replica of skytian bow (90cm long, 50-60kg draw power) it were arrows with heads being replica of special heavy skythian ones found during excavations in Ukraine. I was shocked :)

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Do you think they had Scythian weapons? Also, how hard were the arrow heads to make? Would you use them on massed infantry.

[conon394]

O'ETAIPOS

If the Scutum was so vulnerable to arrows, why was the improved testudo formation used by Rome after Crassus’ defeat in later campaigns against the Parthians effective?

More importantly can you describe this demonstration more completely? At what range was the shield shot, under what conditions. What was the shield’s composition?

[O'ETAIPOS]

O'ETAIPOS

If the Scutum was so vulnerable to arrows, why was the improved testudo formation used by Rome after Crassus’ defeat in later campaigns against the Parthians effective?

More importantly can you describe this demonstration more completely? At what range was the shield shot, under what conditions. What was the shield’s composition?

Maybe because they had more archers to protect the testudo? I dont know.
This is a short range arrow - head is big and heavy. If I found notes I made that time I will provide some more details. From what I remember - 20-30 metres (enough for HA to shoot and run away), shield was 3-4 layers, 1.2 cm thick (but i may be totaly wrong, as it was over a year ago)

Do you think they had Scythian weapons? Also, how hard were the arrow heads to make? Would you use them on massed infantry.

Those arrows are from 400 BC do you think steppe people decrease in theyre war abilities?
This head is useles for other use than shield crushing, if facing not massed inf, you could run around them and shot from unprotected side.

[a_b_danner]

If anything, I think arrows should be increased in power and javelins too against armored opponents. There was a reason that full plate mail became full plat mail. No matter how strong your breast plate is, hundreds of arrows hitting randomly will hit an uncovered spot. However, I can fire about 500 arrows into a group of guys with a cuirass, a helmet and a shield with their faces and next exposed and it won't kill barely any. Javelins are barely better.

Actually, i think the move to full plate in the middle-ages was because of the English Longbow with Bodkin (armor piercing) arrow heads, and to a lessor extent the Arbelest. That, and the Eurapean method of war, which to some extent was a gentlemens war, (ie; meet somewhere and have it out, with the loser often surviving in captivity), led to the full plate of the armored knight. Suiting up in Full Plate took time, and it couldn't be worn day after day on campaign. So it would be much less practicle to wear in non-gentlemens war.

Arrows in the roman period had low penetration compared to the Long Bow or arbelest. A case could be made that the composite bow had better penetration.

I think Javelins in EB could all be armor piercing, which would make them more useful, but this would detract from the relative effect of the Pilium.

[fallen851]

A bit late, but I feel compelled to respond to this. I don't mean to crack you down, but this is a blatant inaccurate portrayal of facts.

Carrhae took days, not hours. As you said the horse archers (wich weren't drawn from Persians, correct me if I'm wrong) were so effective because they had an unlimited supply train of arrows. If you play EB or especially vanilla RTW with limited ammo off, it's easy to score a victory with negligable losses. That is, unless the Roman player is smart and brings in a good number of slingers and auxiliary archers, wich is exactly what the Romans did afterwards and enabled them to put up more of a fight against the Parthians in later battles.
A lorica hamata coupled with a scutum offers excellent protection against arrows, and when in a testudo formation legionaires would be nigh invulnerable to archers. The Parthian general realised this and charged with his cataphracts or just feigned charges, so to force the Romans to break up their testudo because it's a specialised formation that's no good in close combat, let alone warding off cavalry charges. The continuing cycle of charges of heavy cavalry, followed by massive barrages of arrows, proved exhausting to the Roman infantry and destroyed their morale.
I'm not entirely sure what happened after that, I think Crassus accepted a Parthian invitation to negotiate, but it was a trap...the Romans later tried to escape but were rolled over by the Parthian cavalry.

Crassus was a fool trying to fight an enemy that prefers horse archers with an army consisting almost entirely out of heavy infantry. The Armenian king actually tried to warn him I believe, but he ignored his advice. Horse archers are not an invincible force, but you have to bring along the right tools to fight them.

I have no idea why I said Persian archers...

As to Carrhae taking days, that depends on how you look it. It didn't take more than a day for the Romans to give up and begin a retreat, but they were harrassed during their retreat.