javelin V phalanx

**QwertyMIDX** · 10-07-2007, 02:05

It's also worth noting that the 'battle' of Carrhae wasn't a pitched battle. It was more a march under fire and then a retreat under fire with the Parthian horse archers being resupplied with arrows regularly. It took quite awhile for the Parthians to whittle down the roman troops with missile fire and even then wounds seem to have been concentrated in the un- or under-protected extremities rather than killing wounds through armor. Since of the 20,000 or so roman troops killed at battle a large percentage seem to have been killed either during the retreat or as a fact of being cut off from the main army (this includes Publius' force, presumably 4-6,000 men, 4 cohorts cut off from the main army, 4,000 wounded who were killed rather than taken prisoner by the Parthians immediately following the battle proper, and thousands more killed during the retreat) it would seem that arrow fire during the battle proper killed at most a couple thousand roman soldiers. With about 9,000 archers presumably exhausting multiple quivers (hence the aforementioned camels) a ratio of 1 kill for 100 arrows seems a bit generous.

**Watchman** · 10-07-2007, 10:59

Yup. Mail-clad shield-toting Medieval infantry too seems to generally have weathered the intense and extended attentions of archers quite fine generally. For example I've read there was one phase in the Battle of Yarmuk where armoured Arab infantry was for an extended period subjected to Byzantine horse-archery; Muslim sources apparently know the episode as "the Day of Lost Eyes", succintly illustrating the most consipicious type of injuries sustained.

On the same vein the Crusader States used mail-clad heavy spearmen as a living wall to protect the cavalry horses from arrows.

On the other hand, in naval boarding actions for example archers could be a murder. Ottoman Janissary archers for example seem to have been able to cause real damage to even plate-clad Europeans at the distances involved.

**Charge** · 10-07-2007, 12:00

Well, we in RTW doesn't have unprotected areas, armor covers whole all sides and shield front and left. So it will be fairly to say that missiles are reduced heavily in damage..

**Tellos Athenaios** · 10-07-2007, 13:47

Not quite: there is a clear difference between hitting someone in the back; hitting someone at the shielded side; hitting someone in the unprotected side... Anyone who's been using missiles a lot will have noticed this.

**Charge** · 10-07-2007, 14:01

Yes, but I mean face, arms, legs... They all covered by armor from all sides, + from left and twice from front... If arrow hits armor there is no problem, but it cannot hit in face, which is instant death, or arms, legs, so he cannot continue fighting. Currently it seems that all men are like cataphracts, just packed in armour ))

**Tellos Athenaios** · 10-07-2007, 15:00

No not really. Perhaps you should experiment a bit with different difficulty settings (if you didn't use M battles that is) and perhaps experimenting with multiple missile troops; slingers would yield better results?

All I can say is that on M battle difficulty the archers + slingers combination can be really devastating.

**QwertyMIDX** · 10-07-2007, 18:36

Charge, everytime a man is goes down it means he was most likely hit in an unprotected spot. The way the stats work (roll to hit, roll attack against armor, roll for leathlity) are just abstractions but even in the abstract what do you think it means when the armor roll yields a success for the attacker? The vast majority should be thought to represent a hit on an unprotected spot rather than the penetration of armor. The fact that more lightly armored troops have lower armor values is a result of more unprotected areas as well as armor thats easier to penetrate (in fact linothorax was harder to penetrate with an arrow than chain mail, although the padding under the chain mail might have evened the odds so what).