Fighting 11 Trimundin Elephant units with er.. more elephants reinforcement. ouCh!!

[pike master]

your not taking into consideration that not only does the projectile have to make it through 6 inches of tough hide but then it has to make it through significant amounts of muscle tissue. then IF it makes it through all that it will have a very good chance of hitting the shoulder blade or a rib.

muskets were not elephant guns and would take numerous shots to weaken the elephant through blood loss too bring one down.

even in the modern era some elephant hunters experimented trying to take down elephants with .303 british enfields with shots to the head. they came to the conclusion it was not a good idea.

even when elephants are slammed with calibers like the .460 wm, 375 h&h, and 458 win. mag. it often times requires a second or third shot to finally bring them down. they are very tough to kill.

and these are not even armored like war elephants with the various types of armor they covered them with. i would say many musket balls would have gotten stuck between the armor and the outer layer of the hide.

[phonicsmonkey]

So, as Venice, my best chance is flaming arrows fired from a ridge or hilltop? without stakes, what can I use to screen them? if spears or pikes, won't they get blown apart by elephant cannons?

I want to take these Timurids on in a fair fight, no bridge battles or passive siege AI for me...just like the Mongols I just waved goodbye to

[anders]

your not taking into consideration that not only does the projectile have to make it through 6 inches of tough hide but then it has to make it through significant amounts of muscle tissue. then IF it makes it through all that it will have a very good chance of hitting the shoulder blade or a rib.

muskets were not elephant guns and would take numerous shots to weaken the elephant through blood loss too bring one down.

even in the modern era some elephant hunters experimented trying to take down elephants with .303 british enfields with shots to the head. they came to the conclusion it was not a good idea.

even when elephants are slammed with calibers like the .460 wm, 375 h&h, and 458 win. mag. it often times requires a second or third shot to finally bring them down. they are very tough to kill.

and these are not even armored like war elephants with the various types of armor they covered them with. i would say many musket balls would have gotten stuck between the armor and the outer layer of the hide.

wont the pure system shock of getting hit with a salvo of heavy, expanding lead balls be enough to take the animal down without actually hitting any vital organs? I mean, the salvo might not hit any important parts of the elephant, but the added effect of all those hits should cause enough damage to bring the animal into shock, and the blood loss should get lethal pretty quick. also, you dont have to take em out, only take em down, couple of rounds in knees or ankles should do that.

[dellis]

Well Ander you have to remember that an average elephant weighs in at 15000 lbs. The average human is 150lbs so and elephan has 100x the mass of a human. You then compare bullets. So lets take you slow moving .75 cal ball. (by the way, huge difference between a brown bess and a medieval musket firing non corned gunpowder) Lets drop the mass down 100 percent, and you are looking at something with comparativly the same weight in birdshot. Even the vice president can tell you that you can spray someone all day with bird shot and not kill them.

[pike master]

on mythbusters they tested the theory about bullets making people fly through the air when they got it. myth busted.

remember that despite the elephants size arqs and muskets that were used on the battlefield used loose fitting balls instead of tighter fitting more accurate balls for ease of loading and were lucky to even hit a mass of soldiers hundreds strong let alone a elephant in its legs.

not sure how elephants tolerate pain but i would think they are pretty resilient considering the romans had to literally pincushion them with pilums during one of pyrhuss battles to get them to panic.