Arrows v artillary

[Kobal2fr]

4.) Casting field guns in iron wasn't available until around 1540

So what did they use ? Bronze ? I know the Japanese (and probably Chinese as well, since the people of Nippon basically nicked every bits and pieces of their culture) used wooden ones, and I've seen a leather mortar in the arsenal of Venice... That's right, leather reinforced with wood+metal. Huge caliber, too, maybe 40-50cm wide.
I wouldn't have fired that thing with a 10 ft. ceremonial pig poker :)

[Agent Smith]

So what did they use ? Bronze ? I know the Japanese (and probably Chinese as well, since the people of Nippon basically nicked every bits and pieces of their culture) used wooden ones, and I've seen a leather mortar in the arsenal of Venice... That's right, leather reinforced with wood+metal. Huge caliber, too, maybe 40-50cm wide.
I wouldn't have fired that thing with a 10 ft. ceremonial pig poker :)

Sorry, I should've said what the early material was!

They mainly used brass and wrought iron. Iron casting didn't come along until the date provided.

[Didz]

Need to say, the gunpowder units in M2TW are just for fun and bare basically no historical accuracy whatsoever.

Well not in the time frame represented by the game, anyway.

It looks as though there has been a bit of a time warp on the technology side, which actually comes back to the issue being discussed on another thread.

Oh! and another common misconception about solid shot artillery is that they shoot farther from high ground. In fact in most cases range is reduced, mainly because you lose the bounce effect. Fired at a low trajectory a solid shot will bounce several times and carry quite a distance (provided that the ground is firm and unobstructed). Likewise at a low trajectory these bounces are more likely to be below lethal height. Fired from a higher elevation. whether by angling the barrel or placing the gun on higher ground the shot travels farther before hitting the ground creating a zone of dead ground in front of the gun, but then does so at a steeper angle.

In doing so it has a greater chance of burying itself and so not travelling any further, and if it does bounce it will do so much higher reducing both the lateral distance travelled and the lethal zone along its point of travel by wasting kinetic energy in height rather than distance.

[Rozanov]

Quoth Didz

Probably not a good idea. The ports would be a serious defensive weakness and given that there are very good reasons for not having level ground in front of a castles walls it would not provide much benefit vis-a-vis the dead ground issue.

Please have a look here:

http://www.castlewales.com/rag_tr13.html

If you study the photos (they may take a while to load) you will notice ground level gun ports.

Defensively they were no more a weakness than arrow slits. Not a great arc of fire admittedly but handy for the odd shot at attacking forces.

[Didz]

Defensively they were no more a weakness than arrow slits. Not a great arc of fire admittedly but handy for the odd shot at attacking forces.

True, studying the overview image it appears these ports had a pretty poor field of fire but its interesting to see that some owners did insert gunports into the lower walls of their towers. Mind you looking at the overview image it seems that even here they were careful to place an apron wall around the tower to prevent the enemy getting too close. http://www.castlewales.com/raglan1.html

It says they were based upon French designs so perhaps this was more common on the continent.

However, if I am reading this site correctly the building of this castle was not started until 1435 and not completed until 1589, so its really one of those rare examples of a building designed and built on the fringes of a major technological revolution where tradition still held sway over common sense, and it only held out for eleven weeks under seige.

[SadCat]

"However, if I am reading this site correctly the building of this castle was not started until 1435 and not completed until 1589, so its really one of those rare examples of a building designed and built on the fringes of a major technological revolution where tradition still held sway over common sense, and it only held out for eleven weeks under seige." If my living room/bedroom held out 20min under seige I would be shocked. Ok I did forget the cannon ports but think this was a tower that expected a relief force soon. Not a castle expecting to stand alone. SadCat

[Didz]

If my living room/bedroom held out 20min under seige I would be shocked. Ok I did forget the cannon ports but think this was a tower that expected a relief force soon. Not a castle expecting to stand alone. SadCat

True, but I was comparing it to comparable seiges of the same period, such as that of Corfe Castle in Dorset which held out for almost three years under command of Lady Mary Bankes.

Lady Bankes fought to the bitter end, locking herself in her personal chambers and throwing hot coals out the window onto the attacking forces, in the final stages of the assault.

[SadCat]

Now that is my kind of a woman! SadCat

[Alsn]

According to wikipedia(albeit i admit, the article doesnt state a source for this information) Corfe Castle fell due to an inside betrayal after being besieged for only 2 months

During the English Civil War, the castle twice came under siege by Parliamentarian forces. Sir John Bankes was away from his estate attending to Charles I so defence of the castle was led by his wife Lady Mary Bankes — "Brave Dame Mary" as she became known.

The first siege, in 1643, lasted for six weeks before the Parliamentarians withdrew with the loss of 100 men. The second siege, in 1646, was resisted for two months before the castle was betrayed by a member of the garrison.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corfe_Castle

Dunno though, according to the article about the lady herself it says

However, because she showed such courage she was allowed to keep the keys of the castle, which are now held at Kingston Lacy near Wimborne, Dorset.

(this article also states that it was an inside job though) so there at least seems to have been fighting going on :P

[Didz]

According to wikipedia(albeit i admit, the article doesnt state a source for this information) Corfe Castle fell due to an inside betrayal after being besieged for only 2 months http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corfe_Castle

I was relying on this site for the information:
http://www.thedorsetpage.com/locations/place/C350.htm

On mayday 1643 a troop of republican horsemen entered Corfe to find the Castle barred. Corfe was held under siege for three years, finally falling on 27 February 1646.

I suspect it comes down to 'when is a seige not a seige', if the garrison are unable to leave the castle due to the presence of enemy troops are they still under seige even though the enemy are not actually attacking the castle.

The man who bretrayed Lady Bankes was one of her officers, Colonel Pitman, he led a party of Roundheads into the castle via a sally gate. The Roundheads had reversed their jackets and were mistaken as Royalists until it was too late.

[John_Longarrow]

One note on projectiles of the era; Stone cannon balls had a tendancy to shatter when they hit hard ground, often spraying shards through the front portion of a formation they were aimed at instead of bouncing through the formation. This was very effective when it happened, but was very hard to predict.

It would be very cool if some of our shots could "Shatter" and cut out a cresent of troops in an enemy force.

[Caliburn]

I bet we have to partially blame Ridley Scott for the historical inaccuracy of artillery in Rome and Medieval II - after seeing those catapults in The Gladiator, who doesn't want a battlefield with strong artillery.

Seriously, though, as a game balance issue I think they have to be useful enough for lugging around the battlefield, as they limit the movement of the army hugely and their support cost is relatively high. Good thing that most arty can't do such feats as Onagers used to in Rome.

They are fun when you're operating them, but get annoying when you have to wipe out 10-12 of any siege engines that the AI insists on mass producing.

[Didz]

I was surprised to hear a historian claim that Trebuchet were not very good at destroying castle walls. He reckoned that for the most part they were used to lob stuff into the castle rather than at it.

I'm not sure that he's right in fact, I'm sure that they were tested and shown to be pretty effective. (though not as effective as in MTW2, of course)

[Kobal2fr]

Well it would make *some* sense... I mean, castle walls probably took ages to build, not to mention the manpower required to get the stones, carry them all the way up the cliff/moutain/hill and then set them properly.
It would therefore be understandable that besiegers would want to keep them as intact as possible and opt to wait the defenders out, shortening said wait by lobbing flaming and/or diseased stuff inside and hoping to hit the granaries/wells/living quarters/arrow stocks etc...
Or, in short, target the people and most importantly their will, instead of the castle itself.

I'm not saying that's really what they did, nor that your historian is right in saying so, but it's not a preposterous idea either.

[Forward Observer]

Interesting conversation, especially for an old artillery buff like myself.

I posted this before about trebuchets, but it is worth repeating.

In reality trebuchets were probably the most accurate seige engine of all and that includes most of the the primitive smooth bore artillery. While its range was limited to about 300 yards, unlike other primitive artillery, the trebuchet's propelling energy relied on the absolute constant of the force of gravity. Unless one changed the position of the engine, the length of the throwing arm, the fulcrum position, or the size of the counterweight---a trebuchet would put a projectile of uniform size and weight in the same spot just about every time.

All of the other pre-gunpowder siege engines such as the catapult, onager, or ballista relied on tension as a propelling force and this was subject to the varibles of the strength, quality, and condition of the tortion material used.

Early smoothbore black powder weapons also suffered from many variables including weather conditions, the inconsistancies of barrel manufacture, and the extreme variables of the quality of the gunpowder used.

Cheers

[DesertEagle]

@ Caliburn - I tuned down the AI's use of siege engines by making them all 10x more expensive, both for gunpowder and non. I justify this by saying that they were an expensive endevour, having to hire out an engineer (or have one on retainer) and furthermore, it helps the computer not build as many. They'll have 2 or 3 in late game, when they have enough money to spare, but I figure that if they are bringing an army of spear militia, they probably won't be paying for an engineer.

@ Didz - I would imagine if there was any reason to doubt the efficacy of trebuchets, it would be their high acing trajectory. After all, catapults and ballistas, not to mention gunpowder siege engines all had a flatter more direct trajectory. This would result in more energy going into the wall, and less "sliding" or "glancing" off it as the projectile continues downward. They might be the most accurate, and more powerful in raw numbers, but as far as how that power is applied, it might be less effective. Just my personal opinion, I'm not a scientist or anything :P

[John_Longarrow]

Kobal,

Especially if you want to keep the walls as intact as possible, you would want to use a trebuche. It keeps hitting the same spot over an over, thus reducing the total amount of damage required while putting one hole in the wall. That would make it much easier to fix.

DesertEagle

Yes, the amount of energy transmitted compared to total potential is reduced a little by the downward angle. On the flip side a trebuche can generally throw a much heavier projectile than other siege weapons. Cannons had a hard time getting up over the 200-300 lbs weight limit due to pressure restrictions on the barrels. Catapults and Balista had a lower limit due to their method of manufacture. Trebuche were able to throw projectiles over a ton accurately. As such, even if it only delivered half as much energy per pound of projectile it would still be far more effective than other weapons.

The down side to real world trebuches is that they were not mobile. Unlike gunpowder or tortion powered siege weapons, trebuche relied on very heavy counterweights. Some of the counter weights were over 20 tons. As such the real heavy duty trebuche were not only built in place but aimed at a specific target when they were assembled. When ranging the weapon, projectiles of a known weight were used and the mass of the counter weight was adjusted based on where the projectiles landed. This trick also allowed the trebuche to hit at the top of the wall to begin with and work its way down, simply by removing a few of the stones from the counterweight.