Got a Real-World Weapon or Armor Question? Mk. VI

[Mike_G]

Roughly how far would a broom-sized gun be able to shoot? Could you fit a rifle cartridge in there? I'm not so familiar with bullet sizes and effective ranges.

Quick Ammo for Dummies post.

If you look up bullet calibres, the number is the diameter of the bullet, in inches if it's "caliber" like a .22 caliber is .22 inches in diameter, or in millimeters, if it's expressed as such (9mm bullets are 9mm in diameter).

The length varies between types of rounds, and not all rounds tell you this. Some do, as in 7.62x39, which is 7.62 mm in diameter and 39 mm in length. Longer rounds have more propellant, and thus throw a projectile faster and further, but have more recoil. The general rule is that pistol rounds are shirt, and have a low velocity and short range, rilfe rounds are long, have high velocity and great range, and many assault rifles use an "intermediate round" like the AK-47's 7.62 x 39, which has less range than a true rifle, but less recoil, so it's better for automatic fire at close range.

Barrel length also effects range and accuracy, longer is better for both, but shorter is easier to manipulate in close quarters.

The idea of a gun disguised as a broom wouldn't need a very long range, since the point of disguise is to get close. You can usually get within a thousand yards of a person without much trouble, and could use a plain old sniper rifle. As a janitor, you should be able to get in the same room as the target.

If it was reloadable, it would be more accurate?

No.

But you'd have the option for a second try if you missed.

The accuracy issue with the broom is the lack of shoulder stock and sight. It's hard to be consistent without a good stock, and hard to aim without a sight. I don't see how you could disguise these features on a broom.

But, if you are sweeping the hallway as the Generalissimo walks past, it' no great challenge to point the broom at him and nail him in the back of the head at a range of five yards after he passes. You're not gonna score any hits form the Dallas Book Depository window with the thing.

[Fhaolan]

http://www.dself.dsl.pipex.com/MUSEU...ry/cutlery.htm

http://www.littlegun.be/curios%20et%...tolet%20gb.htm

http://www.littlegun.be/curios%20et%...fouet%20gb.htm

Never underestimate what some crazy person is willing to stick a gun into.

[fusilier]

You could easily be able to fit a broom handle with a cartridge/barrel combination that would have th ballistic potential to be dangerous out past a thousand meters, but it'd be awful hard for an assassin to be very consistently able to score hits, with any single shot weapon lacking a sight, past about 25 meters.

Recoil would be difficult to control. Aiming wouldn't be too hard, if the barrel is long. Many muskets lacked rear sights, and early ones often lacked front sights, you simply sight down the length of the barrel - or broomstick in this case. But without a proper grip or anything to hold the gun in a such way that you could sight down the barrel and control the recoil, it's probably best to use it point-blank. I really can't imagine why you would want to disguise a weapon, and then try to use it at long range.

[fusilier]

Concerning ammo. Modern rifle cartridges are usually necked, and pistol cartridges have straight sides. Sometimes rifle cartridges can be tapered, like the 8mm Lebel - being larger at the base than it is at the shoulder. So the 8x50mm Lebel, might have a greater charge than the Austrian 8x50mm round. And a gun chambered for one, won't necessarily take the other. Then there's bullet shape, material composition, etc. Oh, and the US and Europe measure caliber differently, so a 6.5mm European round, would measure as a 6.8mm round in the US. Some nations also had a tendency to round a little bit, like the German Mauser: 8mm, 7.9mm, and 7.92mm are all used to describe it.

[Mike_G]

Concerning ammo. Modern rifle cartridges are usually necked, and pistol cartridges have straight sides. Sometimes rifle cartridges can be tapered, like the 8mm Lebel - being larger at the base than it is at the shoulder. So the 8x50mm Lebel, might have a greater charge than the Austrian 8x50mm round. And a gun chambered for one, won't necessarily take the other. Then there's bullet shape, material composition, etc. Oh, and the US and Europe measure caliber differently, so a 6.5mm European round, would measure as a 6.8mm round in the US. Some nations also had a tendency to round a little bit, like the German Mauser: 8mm, 7.9mm, and 7.92mm are all used to describe it.

Pretty much why I condensed it to where I did.

[Raum]

Is it possible to design a gun that can be disguised as a broom?

It's possible, Google 'zip gun' for some ideas. However, it will be inaccurate, probably useless after a single shot, and very short range (probably not much beyond touch range). You can increase your number of shots before failure by using a steel barrel and increase accuracy by using a rifled barrel of the appropriate diameter. You can make it easier to aim by making it easier to hold and sight. But it's pretty much going to look like a gun at this point.

A rifle cartridge would likely split a wooden barrel - fairly catastrophically. It simply builds up too much pressure for the wood to hold.

[Galloglaich]

If you could put a detachable sight on it then it would be more accurate.

[erikun]

This may be a random question, but is there a weapon actually named a "shortbow"? Wikipedia just loops back to the general Bow article with their shortbow links.

I see a description of longbows, and the recurve bow is generally described as shorter. Are shortbows mainly recurve bows and/or early longbows, or is there a point to a simple, short bow?

[Dervag]

In real life, some bows just aren't very big. There are good reasons for this: heavier bows can be hard to draw, and you don't always need your arrow driven hard enough to go through an oak plank. Remember that bows aren't like guns; your muscles are doing all the work of storing energy in the bow to launch the arrow. If you don't feel like doing the extra work, you should get a lighter bow.

Thing is, those bows aren't generally called "shortbows" by people who actually use them. They're just bows. I take a bow to go rabbit hunting, it's probably a lot weaker than the bow of an English longbowman or a Mongol horse archer, because I'm hunting rabbits at close range and not armed men at long range. But I don't call it my "shortbow." It's just a bow.

"Shortbow" is probably just a D&D abstraction, sort of like "longsword;" it serves to distinguish between different weapons that have different mechanical effects.

[Norsesmithy]

Not in terms of scoring a first shot hit, but bullets are cheap, and the ability to fire more than one round at a time allows you to try again much sooner.

[Fhaolan]

This may be a random question, but is there a weapon actually named a "shortbow"? Wikipedia just loops back to the general Bow article with their shortbow links.

I see a description of longbows, and the recurve bow is generally described as shorter. Are shortbows mainly recurve bows and/or early longbows, or is there a point to a simple, short bow?

Nah, no shortbow. The problem here is that 'longbow' doesn't usually mean in RL what D&D says it means. It's a term for a kind of bow that has a D-shaped cross section. This differentates it from the 'flatbow', which has a flat cross-section. While flatbows can be made as long as longbows, it's usually not worth it because flatbows tend to weigh more (I have to avoid the term 'heavier', because in archery that means something else) because it takes more wood to achieve the same strength as a D-shaped longbow. Because of this D-shaped bows were able to be made longer (and stronger) than flatbows and still be operable, and they became known as 'longbows'. English and Welsh longbows took that to an extreme. Both longbows and flatbows are usually 'selfbows' meaning that they're made of a single piece of wood, which differentiates them from composite bows which are made of laminating different woods, sinews, horn, bone, etc. And then bows are usually described as 'Straight', 'Reflex', 'Deflex', 'Decurve', and 'Recurve', depending on how the limbs of the bow curve when unstrung. You then get terms describing how the bow is normally used, 'seigebow' for extremely heavy bows used to get heavy arrows over tall walls, and 'horsebow' vs. 'footbow' for whether the bow is to be used on horseback, or on foot (which sometimes gets confused because the term footbow is also used for an extremely powerful seigebow where the archer lies on his back with the bow limbs against his feet, pulling with both hands as if he's the body of a large crossbow.) So it's entirely possible to have a 4' Recurve Long Self Seigebow and a 6' Straight Flat Composite Horsebow... although both would be considered very strange and working against themselves most of the time.

The writers of D&D originally saw the mess of technical terminology around bows and latched onto the term 'longbow', creating 'shortbow' to be the opposite.

In the same way that historically there isn't a 'shortsword'. There *is* a 'small sword', but that's quite different from what D&D people call a shortsword. What is called a shortsword in D&D is usually just called 'sword' in whatever the RL local language/dialect is.

[fusilier]

I always thought the terms longbow and short bow were just relativistic terms to describe the length of the bow. With short bows generally being preferred on horseback (barring that weird Japanese longbow). I think I've seen such references in history books, but I can't think of any off the top of my head. As for swords -- historically there's no such thing as a "Flamberge Zweihander," it was called a "Flammard Doppelhander" (or something like that, I'm sure someone on this forum can correct me). A lot of sword classifications are modern and rather arbitrary. I've always considered anything like a Roman gladius to be a shortsword, but I can see how such a label could have arisen in modern times.

Out of curiosity, does "heavier" when talking about bows refer to the force required to draw the bow? Or, another way of saying it, the amount of force the bow generates when it is drawn?

[Crow]

Somebody posted a link to a maker of quality scandinavian-style axes in one of the older Real-World-Weapon-Armor threads, and now that I am in the market, I was wondering if someone could re-post that link? I can't find it.

Thanks in advance!

[Karoht]

In regards to the broomstick gun post.
A friend of mine found a cane that had the head of a dragon for a handle. It was ceramic, and easy to drill through, and he ended up making an improvised, short range flamethrower out of it. It had a small tank built into the walking stick portion of the cane (with a panel of wood that popped out to reinsert another cartridge of fuel), and a small button on the top of the head. Fuel was WD-40, in a cartridge about the size of a small CO2 canister.
One could easily have filled it with mace or pepper spray just as easily, and the ignition system had something to do with a bbq sparking mechanism, which could easily be removed.

Even spraying pepper spray, if the idea is to have guards posing as not-guards, pepper spray is more realistic if the campaign is modern. It would have a possibly longer range than the gun, possibly shorter, and the fumes still act as area denial if need be.

If the idea is to have assassins posing as non-assassins, the ole poison-dart-blowgun-in-the-pen trick works wonders, or the poison-injector-in-the-pen trick works equally well for a melee option, and is arguably more likely to succeed. Remember, guns are noisy, even something small would still likely garner unwanted attention, where the blowgun is just about as silent as one can get with a ranged weapon. Poisons are also easy to acquire, and are as common as household cleansers. I hear draino is particularly leathal if it makes it into your bloodstream, and none too easily traced.

Just saying.

[Fhaolan]

I've always considered anything like a Roman gladius to be a shortsword, but I can see how such a label could have arisen in modern times.

Yup. That's actually a perfect example: Gladius/gallius is just latin for 'sword'. The Romans did have other kinds of swords, but they usually derived from swords from other cultures and they retained the names they had there. The spatha, for example, is from the Greek spathe which is... wait for it... 'sword'.

Out of curiosity, does "heavier" when talking about bows refer to the force required to draw the bow? Or, another way of saying it, the amount of force the bow generates when it is drawn?

In archery circles, 'heavier' and 'lighter' refers to the power of the bow, and it usually also refers to the draw strength of the bow. It gets a bit confusing because the various curve shapes change the ratio between the amount of strength needed to pull the bow, and the force the bow imparts to the arrow. The pulley systems of compound bows take the same principles and extrapolate them to more extreme levels. To achieve the same things with non-compound bow would involve the bow staves curling in both directions enough to pass through themselves multiple times like some kind of insane Klein bottle.

[Matthew]

Somebody posted a link to a maker of quality scandinavian-style axes in one of the older Real-World-Weapon-Armor threads, and now that I am in the market, I was wondering if someone could re-post that link? I can't find it.

Thanks in advance!

Was it this sort of thing: Mammen Axe?

Yup. That's actually a perfect example: Gladius/gallius is just Latin for 'sword'. The Romans did have other kinds of swords, but they usually derived from swords from other cultures and they retained the names they had there. The spatha, for example, is from the Greek spathe which is... wait for it... 'sword'.

Indeed, though by a weird quirk of fate the Romans are one of the few to actually have an equivalent to "short sword" in their nomenclature with the "semi-spatha" of Vegetius' time (though exactly what it was is only guesswork). The "galdius" encompassed both the spatha and semi-spatha in his writings, from what I recall.

However, Japanese also has the distinction of dividing it's swords and bows into "short" and "long":

koyari (小槍) = short spear
ōyari (大槍) = long spear

hankyū (半弓) = half bow
kokyū/shokyū(?) (小弓) = short bow
daikyū (大弓) = long bow

tantō (短刀) = dagger (general)
shōtō (小刀) = short sword (general, includes kodachi, wakizashi, etcetera)
daitō (大刀) = long sword (general, includes tachi, katana, etcetera)

Whilst these are authentic terms, I have no idea as to how old they are or if they are modern inventions in Japanese.

[Crow]

Was it this sort of thing: Mammen Axe?

Nope, that wasn't it. The axes the sold didn't have inlay, and looked rather "functional" I guess would be the word. I think they made modern working axes as well.

[Spamotron]

Speaking of Bows I had an idea for a character in a Gurps Infinite Worlds campaign. A Welsh Longbowman who ends up joining ISWAT.

If you were to make a custom modern equivalent to the longbow for someone who can do a 100lbs.-ish pull how would you go about it? At first I thought about using a modern pulley assist but I vaguely recall some talk about such a thing being fine for sport shooting but the mechanism being too finicky and unreliable to trust your life to it in a combat situation.

Also what is the upper limit for pull multiplication using modern materials?

[Norsesmithy]

Nope, that wasn't it. The axes the sold didn't have inlay, and looked rather "functional" I guess would be the word. I think they made modern working axes as well.

http://www.gransfors.us/axes.html

Starts a 100 bucks for a hatchet, but their working and historical axes are second to none in terms of being heirloom quality tools.

Very sturdy, and half the weight of anything you'll find at a hardware store (and it isn't like they suffer in utility or splitting power for being lighter, at least when I got to use someone else's).

I've been wanting, and telling myself I don't need, one of their mid sized utility axes for canoe camping for three years now. I'll probably buy one once I've purchased a couple more guns.

[Crow]

That was them! Thanks man!

[Liliedhe]

http://www.darkhorse.com/Comics/Previews/15-929

Is that a special type of sword the guy in the foreground is using? Or just something the artist made up because it looked cool?

[Spiryt]

If you mean sword without almost any form of guard, then swords with very minimal ones existed, although I've never seen minimalism of StarWars level.

Sword as whole is of course made up, it's fantasy after all.

[Fhaolan]

If you were to make a custom modern equivalent to the longbow for someone who can do a 100lbs.-ish pull how would you go about it? At first I thought about using a modern pulley assist but I vaguely recall some talk about such a thing being fine for sport shooting but the mechanism being too finicky and unreliable to trust your life to it in a combat situation.

I've heard that too, but I have no proof whatsoever. I've found compound bows annoying to use myself, but that's probably because I have very little experience with them so I'm likely 'doing it wrong'.

Also what is the upper limit for pull multiplication using modern materials?

Huh. Don't actually know. Sorry.

http://www.darkhorse.com/Comics/Previews/15-929

Is that a special type of sword the guy in the foreground is using? Or just something the artist made up because it looked cool?

It's made up, but there's nothing particularly unreasonable about it. There were blades like that, guards like that, grips like that, and pommels like that. I've just not seen that particular combination in a historical piece.

[ashmanonar]

The roman empire was about as advanced as people in the 19th century, except that they didn't have steam power.
But I'd say in society and politics, they were on an equal level.
Though there are lots of problems with the term, it's called "Dark Ages" for a reason.

The Greeks did have steam power, they simply didn't do anything with it.

Similarly to atomic theory, which they pioneered, but didn't have the technology to do anything with.

[Liliedhe]

Thanks both of you. :)

I liked the look of it and wanted to take it for the sword of my priest in a fantasy campaign. Just needed to know if I'd have to specialise in something special or if calling it a "sword" is sufficient ;)

[Galloglaich]

Thanks both of you. :)

I liked the look of it and wanted to take it for the sword of my priest in a fantasy campaign. Just needed to know if I'd have to specialise in something special or if calling it a "sword" is sufficient ;)

That is essentially what I would call a spatha.



The distinction of a weapon of this type is: short single-handed grip, very little if any cross-guard, strait more or less parallel blade, double-edged, an organic or non-ferrous pommel which doesn't act as a counterweight.

Swords like this were used widely in Europe from the 1st Century BC through roughly the 7th Century, when they began to be replaced by the 'viking' type swords with a deeply fullered cutting blade, an iron pommel acting as a counterweight and a small cross for hand protection. These in turn were gradually replaced in the 10th -11th Century by proper arming swords which had more of a cross and were often pointier.

The Romans adapted the Spatha type swords in the 1st Century AD and
Swords similar to the Spatha were used in the Middle East, Persia, India (see the Khanda, particularly the earlier types), North Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa, and China (see Jian, though Jian could be single handed, hand and a half, or two-handed) from the early Iron Age well into modern times.

It's worth noting on a practical level, the lack of hand protection on a sword like this very generally means they were typically used in conjunction with a shield or a buckler.

G.

[Galloglaich]

Whilst these are authentic terms, I have no idea as to how old they are or if they are modern inventions in Japanese.

I think they are old terms, though they didn't always mean the same thing in each era. Musashi refers to the 'long sword' and the 'short sword' referring to the Katana or Tachi and the Wakisashe or something similar.

With terminology, it is tricky. Modern industrial concepts of categorization don't fit neatly with hand-made, pre-industrial artefacts. But if you are talking about a time period more than a generation or two you need to make some categories to understand weapons in different eras. That is why I believe it makes more sense from a modern standpoint to categorize weapons by functon and design, wheather you use ancient or modern terms is somewhat irrelevant. As pointed out upthread, the most typical designation for any kind of sword in historical documents was just 'sword', or spatha, mec, spada, schwert, and etc., which all mean the same thing.

That said they did distinguish between long and short swords in late Medieval and Renaissance era documents. The from circa 1400 on out the term 'long sword' ('langen schwert' etc.) referred to what most RPG's would call a Bastard sword, a hand-and-a-half strait sword around 4 feet long. Other specific terms were used: montante, spadona, epee a guerre etc. but that term is very common in the fencing Manuals and records of the time.

Also, it has gone back and forth but I think the term Zweihander is back in current use for the really big 16th century two-handed swords.

Short swords did also exist but often tended to have their own name, like the gladius, or the very similar Russian / Central Asian Kindjal. Some others include the akinakes, the Swiss baselard, the German Katzbalger, and the Cinquedea, just to name a few.

Re: longbows. You basically in period had two different broad categories of bows, a 'regular' bow similar to the type you might use for archery practice today (non compound) which would be called a bow but could reasonably be called a 'short bow' for modern purposes. These were for hunting essentially. Then you had military bows. Your long bow and war bow are military bows. Draw weight and length go up substatially, the former harder than most untrained people can handle (upwards of 120 - 150 lbs). As someone mentioned upthread you had a different shape. I also understand a lot of times the part of the bow stave which compresses was cut out and replaced with a different type of wood. These type of bows seem to have been known in Scandinavia as far back as the Bronze Age, show in Wales in early Medieval times and were adapted by the British in the Middle Ages shortly after the conquest of Wales.

On the steppe you have recurves of different strength, all dual-purpose weapons intended both for hunting and for warfare. The 'Composite bow' which incorporates different materials such as bone, sinew and horn is the most dangerous. The scythians, Parthians, the Magyars, the Huns, the Mongols, and the Turks all gained a good part of their reputation from these lethal and efficient weapons, very powerful and also small enough to shoot whle riding a horse.

Interestingly the European answer to these weapons was also made of composite materials, at least initially. The increasingly powerful Medieval Arbalest (a very heavy crossbow) which began to alarm people around the 11th century (though referred to in legal documents centuries before that) was made of composite materials. Eventually arbalests got steel prods which were less succeptible to weather.

The Indians were also formidable archers and they even made steel bows, somewhat similar to modern types (except without the pullies) Here is an image of one:

http://www.ancient-east.com/collection/bow-cls-web.jpg

G.

[Kurien]

Hello, this is my first time posting in this thread -- heck, this is my first time posting in this entire forum (Roleplaying Games), and I have a few questions to which my weak search fu cannot reveal the answer. (I didn't bother reading the entire thread because that take too long, so I just read the last few posts.)

(1) What is the practicality of using a sword that has room for two hands on the hilt? I assume that is the defining characteristic of a longsword, but what use is it on a lighter weapon such as arming sword size?

(2) What are the differences between a spatha and jian? Are later designs of swords superior to these weapons?

(3) When did basket hilts start to appear? Solid metal plates as a guard?

(4) What blades fit the bill of a medium sized sword with versatile attack options; suitable for both cutting and thrusting; a guard that can protect the hand; and a pommel that acts as a counterweight?

(5) I've read that katanas are renowned for their quality because the swordsmiths spent more effort making it to make up for poor iron in Japan. Therefore I would assume only the wealthy would own such swords because they are expensive, and common troops would be stuck with spears and the like. Would a european, middle eastern, or indian weapon be superior over the katana if the swordsmiths invested similar effort in making their weapons?

(6) Is a lenticular cross-section of a blade inferior to a diamond cross-section?

[Galloglaich]

Hello, this is my first time posting in this thread -- heck, this is my first time posting in this entire forum (Roleplaying Games), and I have a few questions to which my weak search fu cannot reveal the answer. (I didn't bother reading the entire thread because that take too long, so I just read the last few posts.)

Welcome to the forum Kurien, I'm kind of new here too.

(1) What is the practicality of using a sword that has room for two hands on the hilt? I assume that is the defining characteristic of a longsword, but what use is it on a lighter weapon such as arming sword size?

Generally speaking, if there is room for an extra hand it is because you want to sometimes use an extra hand to hold the sword, i.e. it is a 'hand and a half' weapon. Some shorter swords which had longer grips apparently because of the secondary advantage of a longer handle, namely leverage that you can use for hooking moves in disarms, locks and etc. which are used in various martial arts systems. You see these sometimes in South East Asian Martial systems such as Escrima / Arnis / Kali, Silat, and some of the Thai fencing systems using weapons like the Dha, as well as with the German Renaissance fencing with the Messer (which you can see in the fencing manuals) and probably the Turkish Yataghan.

The vast majority of swords which had a grip long enough for two hands were at least sometimes used two handed though. That includes the Katana and the European Longsword.

(2) What are the differences between a spatha and jian? Are later designs of swords superior to these weapons?

Both terms are pretty generic and both weapons were made in quite a range of quality and technical specification over the course of many Centuries. The Jian even existed in Bronze form. Some Jian were very sophisticated, featuring advanced metalurgy and sophisticated properties of balance, most of these were hand and a half weapons. Jian were associated with the Aristocracy and the high bureaucracy and became a civilian weapon in a niche somewhat similar to a Rapier during the late Renaissance (Ming Dynasty) They were restricted from use by common people. The Dao (saber) in various forms was the preferred weapon for issue to the military.

Similarly some very sophisticated Spatha were found, particularly some of those made by Germanic tribes during the Migration era. There seem to have been a large number made of very high quality, just a few weeks ago a horde was found in the UK which had over 80 beautifully worked gold sword hilts from what were very likely Spathae type swords. Most Spatha made for the Roman Army would be simple, but there were some very elaborate ones found made with sophisticated pattern welding using 'Norric Steel' from the Balkans.

(3) When did basket hilts start to appear? Solid metal plates as a guard?

Around 16th Century, evolving from so-called 'complex hilts'. Cup hilts and solid plates became more common in certain areas later in the 17th Century IRIC.

(4) What blades fit the bill of a medium sized sword with versatile attack options; suitable for both cutting and thrusting; a guard that can protect the hand; and a pommel that acts as a counterweight?

Most European swords from the 11th - 19th Centuries match these criteria. Most swords in other parts of the world, with a few exceptions, didn't have the same kind of pommel as European swords so usually had a balance point further down the blade.

(5) I've read that katanas are renowned for their quality because the swordsmiths spent more effort making it to make up for poor iron in Japan. Therefore I would assume only the wealthy would own such swords because they are expensive, and common troops would be stuck with spears and the like. Would a european, middle eastern, or indian weapon be superior over the katana if the swordsmiths invested similar effort in making their weapons?

Katanas really were not superior to the top quality European swords, that is a popular myth.

(6) Is a lenticular cross-section of a blade inferior to a diamond cross-section?

Neither, just different. Blade cross-sections, fullers etc. had different purposes for different types of swords.

G.

[Jacob_Gallagher]

(5) I've read that katanas are renowned for their quality because the swordsmiths spent more effort making it to make up for poor iron in Japan. Therefore I would assume only the wealthy would own such swords because they are expensive, and common troops would be stuck with spears and the like. Would a european, middle eastern, or indian weapon be superior over the katana if the swordsmiths invested similar effort in making their weapons?

Absolutely. Many of the defining traits of the katana, such as the folding technique in forging or the bent blade, were attempts to compensate for the quality of the iron that was used. Any finely-made European sword would best a katana in overall quality, not to mention versatility- the curved blade of a katana is suitable only for slicing, while a longsword can be used to stab and cut with both sides.