New 3d unit: Naffatun

[TB666]

New unit is up at the .com
http://www.totalwar.com/en/medieval2...its/index.html
This week it is the naffatun.
These guys looks nice.

[Ultras DVSC]

Hm, I don't cast doubts on the effectiveness of that naphta, but I really do on the authenticity of these warriors who did not have any single secondary weapons...

[Duke John]

A cookie for TB666 for pointing out news and providing a link to it!

[R'as al Ghul]

Looks nice. Very much better than the pink guys from M:TW.

[danfda]

Hm, I don't cast doubts on the effectiveness of that naphta, but I really do on the authenticity of these warriors who did not have any single secondary weapons...

Did these really exist in this time anyway? I don't know myself, but with CA's tendency to put in pseudo-historical units (though I've not heard any "whinging" about them) I wouldn't doubt it.

Also, who in their right minds would carry a collection of fragile ceramic pots filled with fiery naptha into battle? With or without a sword or dagger?

EDIT: that's a sad looking bomb smilie..

[Ibn Munqidh]

Hm, I don't cast doubts on the effectiveness of that naphta, but I really do on the authenticity of these warriors who did not have any single secondary weapons...

MM, how do you know? What if they were caught in a melee fight? Would they just fold up and die. I would think that such units carried a dagger with them, or a shortsword.

[Tamur]

The detail and texturing on this one is, again, brilliant. Very nice, cheers to the modelers & texture artists!

And before charging CA with pseudo-history danfda, please do some research.

http://www.infinityfoundation.com/EC...hnamaframe.htm

http://www.saudiaramcoworld.com/issu...il.weapons.htm

http://www.historynet.com/wars_confl...tml?page=3&c=y

http://www.maritimeasia.ws/topic/shiptypes.html

http://www.hiddenengland.org/British_history_4.asp

http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/basis...alexiad04.html

Naphtha weapons, and specifically groups who threw brass canisters filled with naphtha, were not a rarity.

[Lord Adherbal]

naptha throwers as actual units obviously didn't exist, but neither did "sword" or "spear" units. Naptha was used mostly in sieges tho, but it's not an unrealistic unit. Certainly not up to the degree of RTW's "wardogs" or "arcanii"

[SaberHRE]

The detail and texturing on this one is, again, brilliant. Very nice, cheers to the modelers & texture artists!

And before charging CA with pseudo-history danfda, please do some research.

http://www.infinityfoundation.com/EC...hnamaframe.htm

http://www.saudiaramcoworld.com/issu...il.weapons.htm

http://www.historynet.com/wars_confl...tml?page=3&c=y

http://www.maritimeasia.ws/topic/shiptypes.html

http://www.hiddenengland.org/British_history_4.asp

http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/basis...alexiad04.html

Naphtha weapons, and specifically groups who threw brass canisters filled with naphtha, were not a rarity.

If i may add, the Europeans used them TOO. Check out Schilling Chronicles, were you can see Burgundian Troops, the "Grenadiers" using the "bombs"

[danfda]

The detail and texturing on this one is, again, brilliant. Very nice, cheers to the modelers & texture artists!

And before charging CA with pseudo-history danfda, please do some research.

http://www.infinityfoundation.com/EC...hnamaframe.htm

http://www.saudiaramcoworld.com/issu...il.weapons.htm

http://www.historynet.com/wars_confl...tml?page=3&c=y

http://www.maritimeasia.ws/topic/shiptypes.html

http://www.hiddenengland.org/British_history_4.asp

http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/basis...alexiad04.html

Naphtha weapons, and specifically groups who threw brass canisters filled with naphtha, were not a rarity.

Well, thats why I asked. I did not know if they had truly existed in history, and I figured one of you gents would, so this was my research. And insofar as psuedo-history goes, I've read countless threads rehashing the historical validity of arcanii and wardogs, and incendiary pigs and cannon elephants...those were the "units" I was referring to. So, you answered my question, tamur, and then...well, I'll just stop right there.

My orginal post was the question followed by text meant to be interpreted with a smile, wink, and nod. I guess next time I will load it up with emoticons so I am not misunderstood.

[Kourutsu]

I remember those guys. Never messed with them because the pots blew up on them all the time.

[Tamur]

My apologies, danfda. I did appear to bite your head off, didn't I? I'll read more carefully next time, and reply to the post rather than my interpretation. Foolish Tamur.

[TB666]

A cookie for TB666 for pointing out news and providing a link to it!

mmm me like cookies

[hoetje]

They look cool,deadly,but...
Never played with them before so I don't know how to handle them :P

[Midnight]

Pin target unit with cheap spears... and throw! Ka-BOOM!

Looks good to me!

[Beelzebub]

They were pretty good if you were defending a hill. They got better range on a steep hill, and the attacking units came up slowly so if you placed them on the frontline they could unload most of their grenades then withdraw.

[Leet Eriksson]

naptha throwers as actual units obviously didn't exist, but neither did "sword" or "spear" units. Naptha was used mostly in sieges tho, but it's not an unrealistic unit. Certainly not up to the degree of RTW's "wardogs" or "arcanii"

They did, the naffatun specifically did exist, not sure about wether other armies used them, but the ommayads, and abassids utilised them as units. They were emphasised in history books here as seperate units as well since the caliphate armies had 4 types, Al Kashafa(scouts), Al Sariya(main army), Naffatun (naptha slingers), and al Manjaniq(Siege weapons, Manjaniq = Mangonel, sometimes they refer to the ballista as a manjaniq, probably to the similiarity in the mechanics, the arabic manjaniq is much like a roman onager as opposed to a trebuchet).

[Myrddraal]

If i may add, the Europeans used them TOO. Check out Schilling Chronicles, were you can see Burgundian Troops, the "Grenadiers" using the "bombs"

Naptha was a different thing to the Grenadiers. Off the top of my head, Naptha was a substance that burned on contact with air. Ceramic pots of the stuff can be thrown, and on breaking they exploded, (a bit like petrol bombs).

The grenades of the Grenadiers were lit before throwing (I think) and were designed to explode above the enemies heads, raining shrapnel on them.

Besides, the grenadiers came a lot later than naptha did.

[Randarkmaan]

Nearly all Islamic forces contained a 'fire-corps' of soldiers armed with incendiary weapons, these were professional soldiers who were held in high esteem rather than being viewed as rabble like most other infantry, professional or not, skilled or not...

[Ringeck]

Different incendiary weapons were common all thorough medieval history all over europe - oil, fire and burning pitch are frequently mentioned in medieval norse sagas, and the "Kings's Mirror" of 1250, after listing a long line of fanciful weapons to use for ship-to-ship combat (including several varieties of burning oil and pitch), adds that "the best of all these is still Coal and Sulphur" (which is the same wording the norse sources often use for gunpowder - this would be very early for gunpowder weapons, but between 1294 and 1296 the following events transpired at the king's hall in Bergen: "During christmas Trond Fisiler amused himself by making Hærbrest (lit. "army-boom"/"war-boom"). This makes such a loud boom (brestr) that few can bear to hear it. Pregnant women can lose their foetus when they hear the boom, and men fall of their chairs and onto the floor and twitch in different ways. Trond told Laurentius (the bishop, and the "main character" in the saga) that he should stick his fingers in his ears when the boom came. Many in the king's hall couldn't stay on their feet when the boom came. Trond showed Laurentius what was needed to make such a boom: Fire, sulphur, parchment and stry " (which means something that burns but cannot be extinguished easily) "One often uses such army-booms in war so that those unfamiliar with it, shall flee in all directions" - I just love those sources - they illustrate that gunpowder in different forms had come into common use considerably earlier that most scholars accept)

Whether they were frequently grouped into units that flung what looks like dynamite sticks at each other on the field is of course another matter (re. the Arcani and War Dogs and medieval Katyusha rocket artillery we see in the M2TW demos) - If one stretches the bar long enough, one can argue for naked noblewomen riding horses backwards organized into 50-woman units, causing confusion among the troops

I would be more worried about the screenshots that show mongol infantry tending to Mons Meg - Style bombards, or the Katyusha-style rocket artillery in one demo. Those are based on really flimsy evidence, or lack of it - we hardly know anything about the gunpowder weapons used by the mongols, except a few snippets here and there that mention them and the japanese marine finds of canister for similar psychological effect-weapons as those described above.

[Randarkmaan]

When it comes to the use of gunpowder, it is recorded that some form of it wa also used early in Mamluk Egypt where the word Naft (Naphta) had become synonymous with another mixture which was very similarto gunpowder and which would have exploded.

[Ringeck]

Yep, plenty of "early" examples of gunpowder use all over europe and the middle east. Of course, for effective widespread use of it (what I think should be the criteria of a M2TW unit) we have to go well into the 14th century - in many regions much later, and for it to really start to be the decicive wall-breaker it became, we have to go into the 15th century and beyond. Real battlefield field artillery, as opposed to scare tactics for novelty value or badly mobile emplacements, is mostly beyond the scope of M2TW's time period.

I am a bit worried about the M2TW guys' seeming obsession with gunpowder weapons we see in the screens and videos - correct me if I am wrong, but isn't there a screenshot of Richard I's army with some sort of Culverin in it somewhere? That's pretty optimistic.

[Tittils]

Very nice unit!

[SaberHRE]

Naptha was a different thing to the Grenadiers. Off the top of my head, Naptha was a substance that burned on contact with air. Ceramic pots of the stuff can be thrown, and on breaking they exploded, (a bit like petrol bombs).

The grenades of the Grenadiers were lit before throwing (I think) and were designed to explode above the enemies heads, raining shrapnel on them.

Besides, the grenadiers came a lot later than naptha did.

Not really sure about the 'grenades' being designed to explode. From what i remember they were used mainly in skirmishes and sieges, being an effective weapon of close combat. It was meant to be thrown a group victims.

So therefore 'grenades' as such probably resembled much of the molotov cocktails

[Afro Thunder]

Also, who in their right minds would carry a collection of fragile ceramic pots filled with fiery naptha into battle? With or without a sword or dagger?

I dunno, that sounds like an exciting job to me.

[hoetje]

I dunno, that sounds like an exciting job to me.

Yea,you never know in which battle these pots will explode in your hands...
Will it be the first one? Or the second one?

[professorspatula]

I'd prefer to throw pumpkins at the enemy. Less chance of them exploding in my hand, plus they're still quite a hefty object to hit your foe with. Plus after the battle, there's pumpkin pie for everyone!

[Callahan9119]

i remember playing AMP in a game and him stretching out his long lines of byz inf tying up my whole army and him just lobbing bombs on me with his naptha throwers, there wasnt an army that dude couldnt make unstoppable

i'm looking forward to hearing the pops of naptha again

[Shamo]

look nice, i think it comes from the mongols, do u guys remember naptha( or smth like this) thrower in STW MI ?

[hoetje]

I'd prefer to throw pumpkins at the enemy. Less chance of them exploding in my hand, plus they're still quite a hefty object to hit your foe with. Plus after the battle, there's pumpkin pie for everyone!

Wahahahhahahhahaa