missile units

[Watchman]

Longbows are pansies compared to composites.

As regards the ammunition, stones and lead bullets are small and would presumably be easy enough to carry around. But I'll admit I find the low ammunition capacity of many archers to be rather odd. Sure, 15-20 arrows would be downright excessive for hunting, but you'd think they brought a lot more along into war - AFAIK some infantry quivers could hold closer to 40 arrows or so... arrow expenditure on the battlefield tended to be pretty massive after all.

[Sakkura]

Longbows are pansies compared to composites.

As regards the ammunition, stones and lead bullets are small and would presumably be easy enough to carry around. But I'll admit I find the low ammunition capacity of many archers to be rather odd. Sure, 15-20 arrows would be downright excessive for hunting, but you'd think they brought a lot more along into war - AFAIK some infantry quivers could hold closer to 40 arrows or so... arrow expenditure on the battlefield tended to be pretty massive after all.

My guess is it is lower due to the lower scale of the battles, to model battles lasting significantly longer than what we see in game.

[Watchman]

Nahh, doesn't hold water. Assorted javelineers' ammo reserves for comparision depend more or less solely and directly on what the individual warrior carries, and horse-archers have pretty deep quivers. The same goes for the ammo-pouches of slingers. Why would infantry archers be the sole exception, all the more so as they habitually recycled enemy arrows (then again that really goes for javelineers too...) ?

[Sakkura]

Nahh, doesn't hold water. Assorted javelineers' ammo reserves for comparision depend more or less solely and directly on what the individual warrior carries, and horse-archers have pretty deep quivers. The same goes for the ammo-pouches of slingers. Why would infantry archers be the sole exception, all the more so as they habitually recycled enemy arrows (then again that really goes for javelineers too...) ?

Well battles in real life lasted a heck of a lot longer than they do in EB. So each EB arrow might correspond to 3 real life arrows? And perhaps the gameplay has played a part too...

[Watchman]

Like I said, that argument would be inconsistent with the ammunition allowance of all missile-armed troops besides foot archers.

[geala]

We should do some calculations, please.

The most common glandes weighted between 50 and 80 gr.. Ranges up to 300metres might possibly be reached with it. Please take a look to www.slinging.org if you want more infromation.

Not to use complicated formulars one can estimate the velocity of the bullets: it must be under, but perhaps near 50 m/s (that is really very much, heavier glandes of course did not reach this velocity). With an 80 gr. glandes you get an E0 of 100 Joule ( I don't think the energy was really as high but this is not so important now). That is the energy niveau of a strong .22 lfb bullet. Let's add the half and imagine a glandes with 150 J.

Let's also put the natural laws aside and presume that magically the projectile has that E0 also at the end of its trajectory and hits a soldier at 250 metres with 150 J energy. You need at least 20 J per qcm or 120 J per square inch to fracture the human skull at the forehead. I have not measured what is the amount of square inches with what the glandes would hit, but maybe 3 qcm or 0,5 square inches would be a conversative estimation.

With this as a result it is rather probable that a soldier without a helmet would receive a severe head wound, or a skull fracture, which could easily be deadly. But the soldier with a metall helmet with soft padding inside would even not be knocked unconscious. The helmet delivers the energy of the projectile to a much greater area, making it worthless. The US Army regards an energy of nearly 800 J necessary to render a soldier unconscious or wound him if the helmet is hit. Ancient helmets would have performed worse but the relation is clear.

If you are not convinced because of the ancient reports being in your mind please consider this: an arrow from a strong longbow normally reaches an energy level of 80 to 120 J. By coincidence the arrows weight about the same as a sling missile and travel with roughly the same velocity. It is no surprise that it hits soldiers with the same energy (and btw the same momentum, if you want to bring into play this obsolete theory). So it is no difference wether you get hit by an arrow or a sling missile: if the arrow is stopped and does not penetrate the body all energy is transformed as blunt energy, but nobody claims that this blunt energy of arrows is devastating.

Now a word to the 1 lb glandes traveling with 100 mph. That would be 453 gr. with a speed of 45 m/s (I am used to the metric system, sry), resulting in a E0 of 458 J. I think you have the Balearic slingers in mind, using big stones of 1 mnai weight (about 436 gr.) and saving some day for the Carthaginians. I really doubt that anybody in the world would receive this velocity with that heavy load but even at lower velocities such heavy projectiles would be very effective of course. But you cannot reach 200 metres with it in a world with an atmosphere and gravity. Therefore my thought to reduce the range of the EB slingers if the AP attribute is kept. (because I rely strongly on my Greek sphendonetai that would be a catastrophy for me too btw )

I think at a range of 200 metres the sling missiles were not more armour piercing than the bullets of the Napoleonic soldiers which travel much faster and could not pierce a (very thick) cuirass at 50 metres. Both cannot knock out armoured soldiers.

[Imperator]

That's a very compelling, albeit confusing, argument

[Sakkura]

By coincidence the arrows weight about the same as a sling missile and travel with roughly the same velocity.

Arrows and bullets (particularly lead bullets) do not travel at roughly the same velocity. Arrows have far more air resistance slowing them down, which is why they rely on a sharp point to concentrate their smaller impact on and achieve penetration.