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

[Conners]

Well, all I can say is that with muskets, I think the British had a goal of firing "three rounds a minute" which would mean reloading and firing in 20 seconds. Supposing from t hat, most soldiers wouldn't be able to fire 3 rounds a minute and would need to practice--then, you probably got a few who could reload and fire a round in 15 seconds or whichever.

That's all assumption, don't take what I say about muskets as hard facts. Might be worth considering or googling, is all.


Recap on the gender thing. So, when it comes to sniping, women are actually worse at shooting moving targets and telling targets from the background? But, they're also more aware of their surroundings (their peripheral vision).

With men being more resistant to alcohol--would the same work against drugs, venoms, poisons...?


@Dienekes: How much is the difference, though? Like, the woman being on the ground paralysed while the man can crawl for miles? Or, one lasts a few more seconds before going into shock?


Come to think of it... how well-adapted are women to social circumstances in comparison to men, genetically? I mean, society trains women to do more society-based things, while men tend to do meat-headed things perfectly acceptably. But on a genetic level, are women better at manipulating people or hiding their emotions or some-such?

[Martin Greywolf]

Gunpowder weaponry:
Cannons: Which cannons are we talking about? Early hussite era bombards? It really makes a lot of difference, I recall reading about a siege of a city by hussite army with big bombards that could fire only once or twice per day because they needed to be cooled (no, dumping a bucket of water on it wouldn´t work, it would explode in your face with the next shot).

British 3-rounds-a-minute: Well, they could, but from what I know, they used a rather dangerous practice of loading bullets smaller than the gun´s calibre. You fire faster, but damage the barrel more.

As for reload time of early handcannon, we have record of 56 seconds between two shots. We did not train with it (only use it for kids shows, as we reenact teutonic knights of 13th century).

[Fhaolan]

British 3-rounds-a-minute: Well, they could, but from what I know, they used a rather dangerous practice of loading bullets smaller than the gun´s calibre. You fire faster, but damage the barrel more.

There's also the difference between military and civilian when it comes to black powder. Civilians tended to load their guns with loose powder from a horn or tin, adjusting the load on-the-fly depending on the conditions. Military started to use paper cartridges in the 16th century or so, and by the 17th pretty much every military in Europe was using them. The paper cartridge greatly speeds up loading, but you're dealing with a fixed load, and you have to have reasonably consistant guns for your troops.

[Martin Greywolf]

Well, I stay out of women vs men debates, unless someone wants historical evidence, so...
One link that you may find interesting:
http://www.coldsiberia.org/monwomen.htm
As for europe, it was not unheard of for a woman to use a sword in civilian fight. Take for example the last play of I.33 (woman is the one on the left and manual actually gives her name, saint Walpruga):
http://www.thehaca.com/Manuals/i33/65.jpg
What was never, or almost never seen were women as actual soldiers. Famous counterexample is Joan of Arc (I heard that she was actually a daughter of milita leader in her hometown).

[fusilier]

Anybody familiar with old black powder weaponry? I've got a bunch of questions, mostly about cannons.

Roughly how long did it take to reload and fire a cannon? How much of an impact did the size of the cannon have on reload time? Roughly how much faster could a highly skilled gun crew reload then a poorly trained one?

How many shots could be fired in rapid succession before cooling became an issue? Once again was it dependent on size? What methods were used to help cool the cannon?

What was the average reload time for a musket? A pistol? And how much influence did training have on reload time?

Any input at all would be much appreciated.

As others have pointed out the kind of cannon and the time period matter, but generalizations can be made.

Three aimed shots a minute is often cited as what could be expected from a well trained infantry man with a musket. This is using paper cartridges and a flintlock or percussion lock weapon (a match lock would be much slower). In practice, 2 shots or less was more common. Nevertheless, I've personally seen someone do almost 5 shots in a minute with a percussion weapon. It's claimed that the British could get something like 6 shots a minute with flintlocks -- but that's using several unreliable tricks. Mainly not ramming the ball (spitting down the barrel), and not *priming* (the vent holes were oversized and would allow powder from the main charge to leak into the priming pan).

A single shot, muzzle-loading pistol would probably have a similar loading time. The shorter length might make it a little bit quicker, but it won't matter too much. You typically wouldn't reload such a pistol in the middle of a battle anyway. If any of the weapons are rifled, it can take significantly longer, unless using a minie-ball or equivalent (even that could add a little bit of time).

Cannons are another story. Every competition we've had, the artillerymen always beat the infantry. While there are more steps to loading a cannon, they have five people doing the work of one.

A cannon crew is typically five, regardless of the size of a cannon. More people can be helpful, but won't necessarily speed up the rate of fire. Two is the minimum number of crewmen to operate a cannon. Very large, or very small cannon may have different requirements, but only in extreme cases.

Cannons are cooled in a couple of ways. First the bore is swabbed with water between shots. This is primarily to extinguish any burning embers from the previous shot, but does serve to cool the barrel as well. The other way of cooling is just to not fire the gun for a while. I remember reading about a Russian battery in the Crimean War, that, under extreme pressure, only swabbed the bore after every fifth shot and fired so hot and so rapidly that the bronze was starting to run at the muzzles!! That's an extreme case, but it was possible to overheat the guns -- this could lead to serious safety issues, and even bent/drooping barrels, so it's usually avoided.

In the 16th and 17th centuries, sometimes a sheepskin soaked in vinegar was laid over the vent in order to aid in cooling. [Vinegar was also used to swab the bore during that time period.]

Perhaps the biggest issue with black powder cannon isn't the time it takes to reload the gun, but the fact that the cannon has to be relaid after each shot (re-aimed). Only if the enemy was very close, and aiming didn't matter could they get away without re-aiming the gun. Seacoast and naval carriages might make relaying the gun fairly simple.

Also, hurried loading tended to affect the accuracy. It was typically better to take the time and do everything carefully than to rush.

Sorry I can't give you hard numbers, but only generalizations. As for a trained vs rookie crew, I would suspect that reload times could be considerably different. Lots of practice will speed things up, and an experience master gunner with a familiar gun will do a much better job of hitting the target. In a sense, that alone will make the gun "faster" as it will require less shots to get it on target.

Generally speaking, older cannons tended to be slower to load: over time the designs got lighter, and the drill more refined. Bigger cannons tend to be slower to load: there's more cannon that has to be manhandled back into battery, and the shot is heavier, etc. Also, bigger cannons tended to use the old fashion method of using a ladle for the powder, and placing the ball in afterwards. Smaller cannons could use a cartridge that had the projectile strapped to a cloth bag of powder. (Although that didn't become common until the 18th century).

Also the differences between cannon in similar roles should not be much. I would expect a 6 pounder and 12 pounder field-gun, to reload just as fast as a 24 pounder field-howitzer. But a massive 8-inch seacoast gun, I would expect to take much longer.

Hope that helps.

[fusilier]

Cannons:

Found some more information buried on this forum:
http://community.discovery.com/eve/f...8/m/1891939499

It's topic is supposed to be about guns "leaping" (an effect of how they recoiled), but it spreads off in many directions. I haven't finished reading the whole thing, and it gets into a fairly technical discussion, but some of the information you are looking for is there. For land cannons you should probably look for a copy of Gibbon's Artillery Manual, that has information like this:

To quote Gibbons: "But this rapid firing is very injurious to pieces, especially bronze guns, which heat rapidly, soften, and lose their resistance." There is a quote attributed to Napoleon explaining his reasons for a standard rate of one round per minute. "It is the rate which preserves barrels and destroys armies." At Leutzen, the French artillery fired for 9 hours at the rate of one round per gun every 3 minutes. The French Guards artillery fired for 2 hours at a rate of one round per gun every 1.5 minutes.

Hence, Gibbons (1859) also says this: "For field-guns, 30 or 40 seconds are required for the 6-pdr., and one minute for a 12-pdr. The mean rate is about one shot per minute, but when close pressed, and firing at objects not difficult to hit, two or three shots per minute can be fired."

Here, the concern is overheating. So the practical rate of fire for a cannon (especially bronze ones it seems) was mostly limited by overheating issues, rather than the theoretical maximum speed at which the cannons could be loaded and fired. This does make it difficult to research, as practical rates of fire don't represent how fast the gun can be loaded -- and it can be unclear what is being reported. I read somewhere on-line that a 9-inch naval cannon could be loaded in 40 seconds (it fires a 90 lb ball), which seems really fast, but, in practice, would it be fired as quickly as it could be loaded? Seems unlikely.

Using Gibbons information as a guideline, you can come up with some arbitrary ratios for larger/smaller guns, or older guns (Gibbons is writing just before the Civil War, the climax of muzzle-loading artillery).

[If anyone is interested, the discussion on "leaping" missed two points that have to do with the placement of the trunnions, I can fill in more information if desired]

[Yukitsu]

Well, I stay out of women vs men debates, unless someone wants historical evidence, so...
One link that you may find interesting:
http://www.coldsiberia.org/monwomen.htm
As for europe, it was not unheard of for a woman to use a sword in civilian fight. Take for example the last play of I.33 (woman is the one on the left and manual actually gives her name, saint Walpruga):
http://www.thehaca.com/Manuals/i33/65.jpg
What was never, or almost never seen were women as actual soldiers. Famous counterexample is Joan of Arc (I heard that she was actually a daughter of milita leader in her hometown).

While rare, Onna Bugeisha in Japan were women who fought in wars as samurai retainers. This would be the same as a woman being knighted and granted a high rank in the court as a vassal lord in Europe. A few famous ones stick out for killing a hole ****egob of dudes.

[randomhero00]

Sorry, this isn't a *real* world question. But I am working on a novel, and would love feed back. How do you all think an energy/crystal system would work (in place of gunpowder)? As in the guns use energy loaded crystals but still fires lead. How quick do you think that'd go? How long to load?

So far I have the crystals able to go off multiple times. So I have a squeeze method of ammo locked in the chamber. However once one needs to reload its the standard 6, either than or they will replace the entire circular clip thing.

[Martin Greywolf]

Killing a lot of guys is not that hard in certain situations. There was a templar grandmaster who killed over 50 saracens in one battle (or so the chronicles say, but I am willing to believe this). Since he was a grandmaster, he had so much armor on him that he was the closest thing to Ironman without being Ironman and was probably mounted.
Samurai in battles, as I was led to believe, fought as horse-archers. Not that hard to kill dozens of spera-armed peasants, but I don´t know that much about japanese warfare and tactics.

Back to the point, Joan of Arc also killed quite a few people, but since she was a puppet, she was also armored head to toe and she likely was not allowed to go where the battle was really heated. It was not that uncommon to let important nobles (firstborn sons of kings and the like) fight only weak soldiers.

Also, women as soldiers brings a whole load of problems, beginning with menstruation (a part of your army is in really cranky mood no matter what) and ending with possible pregnancy. Also, there is repopulation, and from that viewpoint, men are just so much more expendable...

Crystal guns:
This really does not belong here, try the fantasy armor and weapons thread:
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=196139

[Yukitsu]

Killing a lot of guys is not that hard in certain situations. There was a templar grandmaster who killed over 50 saracens in one battle (or so the chronicles say, but I am willing to believe this). Since he was a grandmaster, he had so much armor on him that he was the closest thing to Ironman without being Ironman and was probably mounted.
Samurai in battles, as I was led to believe, fought as horse-archers. Not that hard to kill dozens of spera-armed peasants, but I don´t know that much about japanese warfare and tactics.

It was during the 1500s that this tended to happen, since so many people were at war, women would often pitch in, or be forced to defend their home from invading samurai. Due to this defensive role, their favoured weapon tended to be the halberd, which is still considered to be a more a woman's weapon. I would agree they probably used the longbow, but it's not what they are semi-famous for.

It's unlikely that these warriors wore the same degree of armour as a templar grand master, since by this period, guns had forced them to wear full suits of plate that were practically impervious to conventional weapons of the time. In Japan, gunpowder technology was around, but lacking until the late 1500s to early 1600s (after which I'd agree, practically impervious plated armour), after Oda Nobunaga began using matchlock equipped peasants in a European style. I don't suspect it would have been enough to wade into combat with reckless abandon swinging away without getting killed.

[Norsesmithy]

Sorry, this isn't a *real* world question. But I am working on a novel, and would love feed back. How do you all think an energy/crystal system would work (in place of gunpowder)? As in the guns use energy loaded crystals but still fires lead. How quick do you think that'd go? How long to load?

So far I have the crystals able to go off multiple times. So I have a squeeze method of ammo locked in the chamber. However once one needs to reload its the standard 6, either than or they will replace the entire circular clip thing.

What is your tech level as far as other devices go?

If your setting is a circa 1960s tech level setting, you can, with a little bit of fudged materials science, fluff the weapons as coil guns or rail guns. To that end, in addition to the power supply (crystals) you are going to need some method of feeding the projectiles, and your rate of fire will be limited by how quickly you can reliably feed projectiles, how quickly your rails heat up, and what kind of duty cycle the crystals have as a power supply.

Good luck making this fresh and original. You are going to need it.

[Thiel]

Cannons:
I read somewhere on-line that a 9-inch naval cannon could be loaded in 40 seconds (it fires a 90 lb ball), which seems really fast, but, in practice, would it be fired as quickly as it could be loaded? Seems unlikely.

Naval and Coastal artillery had a number of advantages that field artillery hadn't.
First off, by the time the Inch system began to be introduced the traditional wheeled mounting had largely been replaced with the inclined sled type. This meant that the gun could easily be returned to it's original position after each shot with a fair degree of accuracy.
Coastal artillery also had a number of aids that neither field nor naval artillery had, the foremost being shot trolleys. This was a small trolley that carried a single shot at approximately the height of the muzzle, making it far easier to load the heavy guns.
As for rate of fire, naval engagements during the age of sail took place less than 1000 yards, and they were shooting at some pretty big targets.

[fusilier]

Sorry, this isn't a *real* world question. But I am working on a novel, and would love feed back. How do you all think an energy/crystal system would work (in place of gunpowder)? As in the guns use energy loaded crystals but still fires lead. How quick do you think that'd go? How long to load?

So far I have the crystals able to go off multiple times. So I have a squeeze method of ammo locked in the chamber. However once one needs to reload its the standard 6, either than or they will replace the entire circular clip thing.

Not quite sure I follow all the details, but I will try to help.

First, think about how the crystal actually launches the projectile. Second decide how good the technology is, and how that might effect design.

If the technology level is close to early muskets:

1. The crystal emits a pressure wave like exploding gunpowder. In this case guns can suffer from gas leakage. So breech loading guns could problematic. This could probably be worked around with careful engineering, or later technology. The Giandoni air rifle from Napoleonic era would be a good example of a multi-shot weapon.

2. The crystal impels the projectile by some sort magnet like power (you don't need to provide an actual scientific reason). In this gas leakage becomes irrelevant, and even fairly primitive techniques could make workable breechloader.

Those are two ideas I just thought up.

[Odin the Ignoble]

Thanks for the cannon help.

The reason I was asking is I'm planning a campaign that has modern characters dropped into a fantasy setting. The idea being that they'd start kingdom building using knowledge about stuff like steam power, gunpowder, the printing press along with ideas like democracy, free speech and equal rights.

So as far as cannons and such go, they'd probably start off with crude bronze or even wooden cannons and move up to more advanced canons from there. By the end they may even have developed breach loaders and rifled cannons, depending on how much effort they put into it.

I'm not sure if they'll think about it, but they might use rockets, and grenades as well. All in all hopefully it should be a fairly interesting game.


Also I've got additional questions. Roughly how much protection did different medieval armors provide against early fire arms? Are there any accounts of the reactions of horses to the first uses of firearms, namely would a volley have a high probability or spooking enough trained warhorses to stall a charge?

I have a feeling at some point the pc's newly minted musket armed peasants are going to go up against some ticked of knights and nobles.

If I recall correctly, the reason that plate mail and heavy cavalry disappeared was the use of trained halberd and pike formations, not gunpowder.

[Martin Greywolf]

Yukitsu:
Well, any samurai was probably less armoured than even well-equiped templar sargeant (mail and helmet)...
By the way, what do you mean by halberd? I have not heard of anything like that in japan... closest thing I can think of is naginata.

Firearms and cavalry:
Oooh boy. This is filled with misconceptions. What really destroyed heavy cavalry charges as known during, say, 12th century were not early firearms, but well trained pike and crossbow (later pike and shot) formations, such as tercio. Any cavalry charge against infantry that is determined to stand ground is pretty much doomed. Thing is, in 12th century, such infanttry formations were almost unheard of...

As for armor and firearms, it was very effective. Armor was even tested with firearms (fire a pistol at it from 12 paces, if it holds, its good armor). What was more important was, at first, psychological effect.

War horses are really good at adapting to that kind of noise, I heard a story from napoleon wars where a cavalry unit had horses creeped out by cannon noise in one battle. They didn´t even notice it in the second one, although I´m unsure if those vere really warhorses, or even if it´s true.

If you want peasants to beat knights to a bloody pulp, use wagenberg:
http://www.suite101.com/content/wago...arfare-a105094
Actually, hussites are a place to go to for early firearm tactics, as words we use for firearms today are derived from their words:
Howitzer - houfnice.
Pistol - píšťala (whistle).

[Yora]

The Japanese didn't have any plate armor, but when guns first showed up, they immediately became the new super weapon. Even swordmen of legendary fame said "whenever possible, use a musket".
While plate armor might offer some protection against early guns, the vast majority of soldiers did not have such armor. If you introduce muskets into a society that didn't have any before, you gain a massive advantage, even if they couldn't hurt the enemy commanders and nobles.

If you want peasants to beat knights to a bloody pulp, use wagenberg:
http://www.suite101.com/content/wago...arfare-a105094
Actually, hussites are a place to go to for early firearm tactics, as words we use for firearms today are derived from their words:
Howitzer - houfnice.
Pistol - píšťala (whistle).

The Czechs were hardcore. So where the Poles, but since they got completely defeated in World War 2, nobody in Western Europe seems to remember anything about that.

[Spiryt]

If I recall correctly, the reason that plate mail and heavy cavalry disappeared was the use of trained halberd and pike formations, not gunpowder.

Plate armor and heavy cavalary stand pretty strong trough the whole 16th century, while pike formations were prevalent before that time too.

It continues to charge trough the 17th century on lesser scale, while in Poland on pretty big scale.....

So, disappear of armor and heavy shock cavalry is a matter of centuries, and many different causes.

[profitofrage]

This is a bit of a silly questionm but i have always wondered about it.
Would it be possible to make a boltgun from warhammer 40k.
Obviously a Mortal equivilent...the ones humans would carry stated as being 75 calibur rounds (or something like that) firing what are basically tiny rockets.

If it is possible..how would it work? could this weapon of destruction actually be created without the need for magical myth materials?

[Spiryt]

This is a bit of a silly questionm but i have always wondered about it.
Would it be possible to make a boltgun from warhammer 40k.
Obviously a Mortal equivilent...the ones humans would carry stated as being 75 calibur rounds (or something like that) firing what are basically tiny rockets.

If it is possible..how would it work? could this weapon of destruction actually be created without the need for magical myth materials?

I see no reason why weapon in roughly personal size firing small rockets couldn't be made.

Obviously, it would be terribly complicated, expensive, delicate, and what not to actually make it work.

So I would guess that is the reason why nobody even cares with trying to build something like that.

[profitofrage]

I see no reason why weapon in roughly personal size firing small rockets couldn't be made.

Obviously, it would be terribly complicated, expensive, delicate, and what not to actually make it work.

So I would guess that is the reason why nobody even cares with trying to build something like that.

Its not really as simple as small rockets, heres a more in depth quoted description.

Spoiler

Show

The Bolter is a large, .75 calibre assault rifle. It has a much greater mass than most standard-issue rifles such as the Lasgun, although it is slightly shorter in length. Unlike most rifles, it lacks a stock, resulting in a grip much like a pistol's or a submachine gun's. A Space Marine's bulky power armour would make shouldering a stock an awkward experience, but power armour is most likely also able to compensate for vibrations and oscillation, making a stock redundant. Stocks are sometimes used, however, with an extended barrel and an M40 Targeter System to transform the bolter into a sniping weapon system. These sniper-bolters are most often used with Stalker Silenced Shells.
Bolter ammunition (a bolt) is primarily a solid slug. Conventional solid slugs utilize a propellant charge contained in a casing that, when ignited, forces the bullet out of the barrel. In contrast, a bolt is self-propelled; it features its own integrated solid propellant which propels the bolt at high speeds, essentially acting like a miniature rocket. The propellant itself is shaped to control the bolt's direction and speed; however, this method of rocket propulsion would normally warp the barrel due to gas pressure. The Bolter uses an ingenious method to prevent this.

As well as the rocket propellant, a tiny amount of conventional charge is also utilized. This charge is just strong enough to force the bolt out of the barrel and ignite the bolt's propellant. The rocket-propellant is carefully fused to ignite just after leaving the barrel, alleviating any possibility of pressure build-up. The bolt then accelerates away towards the target under its own power.

The standard Bolter ammunition is designed to penetrate the target and then detonate, causing immense damage to the target and leaving little opportunity for survival.

So my question is, in terms of real weaponry is this possible? could somone make this thing?

[Fhaolan]

So my question is, in terms of real weaponry is this possible? could somone make this thing?

Yes. Normally this is called a gyrojet. However, that doesn't mean it is effective. Just that it 'works'. There have been attempts to make this an effective weapon since the 1960's. Unfortunately, the difficulty with this system is guidance of the mini-rocket after leaving the barrel. With 1960's production tech the gyrojet accuracy was abysmal due to too much variation in propellent loading and in the mounting of the venturi nozzel plate. As anyone who has messed around with model rockets can tell you, solid propellent is 'twitchy' and can do some wild things if there is a flaw in the propellent load and if there is a flaw in the nozzel... all bets are off.

There is also the problem that gyrojets are only effective at range. You shoot someone who is 5' away with a gyrojet, and it won't work so well as the projectile hasn't gotten up enough speed to be lethal. In fact, that cartoon trick of sticking your finger in the barrel of a gun? It hurts a bit, but it actually works as the gyrojet just vents. The projectile of the 1960's gyrojet reached full velocity at about 70 yards.

There has been a more recent attempt called the DeathWind project. The last time it was updated was 2004 with a call for additional funding, and I haven't heard anything further.

[Duaneyo1]

The purpose of small one shot rocket launchers like the At4 is to give the infantry a small, portable weapon to use against armor and buildings. They come pre-loaded with various rounds and at a 4 figure price tag are inexpensive. It would be to impractical to have a hand held multiple shot launcher. You'd have the weight of the extra barrels and heavier materials since it would need to be reusable. I don't think they could make one that operated like a semi auto firearm, as you'd have to find somewhere for the blast to go....

[profitofrage]

So in order for a bolter to work wed need some kind of very reliable propelant / bullet design to keep it accurate. While also getting it to top speed in the same time frame as bullets.

The post above mentions blast...I suppose a system that redirected said force to further accelerate the projectile would be useful / needed...if it was possible.

So basically while the principals work, we just havnt found a way around its glitches 1) being accuracy 2) being speed and 3) durable enough to be automatic and reusable.
Have I got the situation right?

[Autolykos]

A mixed approach (as done with artillery - e.g. Rocket Assisted Projectiles and Base Bleed) might work better than 'pure' gyrojet. But still, the main question is if the increase in range is worth the loss in precision. It also tends to make the ammunition rather large and bloody expensive (for small arms ammo - with artillery shells, the calculation looks different), which is bad from a strategic standpoint - and usually even from a tactical one (would you rather have 20% more range or twice as much ammo?).

[Conners]

Here's a question: How well do swords and spears work against animals--like wild boars, elephants, crocodiles, etc.?

[Dienekes]

Here's a question: How well do swords and spears work against animals--like wild boars, elephants, crocodiles, etc.?

You generally hunt wild boars with a spear so rather well in that case. If a crocodile gets you, that probably means your swimming so swinging a weapon probably won't do much to help you. As for elephants I somehow doubt one on one will be reasonable, but if memory serves (which it probably wont) Caesar's 10th(?) Legion asked to be placed against elephants and tore them down with swords and spears. So you can beat them with such weapons if you have a legion, specifically one known for it's bloodthirsty nature and drunkenness.

[Yora]

Spears were the primary weapon to hunt boars in Europe. The famous (though I don't know how common) practive was to crouch, brace the spear against the ground, and have the boar charge right into it. You actually need a crossbar below the blade, or the spear would just come out of the boars back and crash into you at full speed. Same thing if the spear broke. But since it's very hard to see a spear when the tip is pointed right at your face, it's probably quite effective. Though I imagine also quite dangerous.

Don't know about crocodiles or elephants, but I think spears would be the best chance you have against them. Piercing their hide would be much easier to manage than slashing it with a sword or axe. And with elephants you also have to get your weapon pretty deep into the body to hit vital organs. Just injuring the fat and muscles won't kill them fast enough to keep them from crushing you to death.

[Norsesmithy]

Our prehistoric ancestors hunted all three animals with spears, so it's pretty certain that spears would work.

And if forced to try and do it alone, I think I'd like a good long spear with a huge and spatulate blade, to try and reach the vitals and do a ton of damage before the animal can reach me.

But if hunting as part of a band, I can see the utility of a sword for hunting any of these animals, For instance, with the Elephant, you get one guy with a spear to stick the thing in the face, and keep it's attention, and then you have two friends come in from the flanks and hamstring him.

Once he sinks to the ground, the guys with the swords can probe for the Femoral artery, and the guy in front can take another couple of runs with the spear.

Sword hunting for bore is not that rare of a practice either, you get a dog or a peasant to bait the boar, while another grabs the boar from behind (often by the testicles when using a dog), and the hunter runs up and thrusts for the arteries in the neck. This is also done commonly with knives. Of course, on this sort of hunt in the modern era, you typically have a guide with a powerful handgun making sure that if the boar breaks loose that it gets killed before anyone gets gored too badly.

With crocodiles, getting the thing out of the water, and getting it focused on someone who it can't reach (due to spear, etc) is important if you think that you want to get within tail range to make a blow with a sword, and as a reptile, it will be much much slower to bleed out than the elephant or the boar, so this might be the most dangerous animal to get up close and personal with. Were I to hunt them as part of a band, I say surround it, and everyone sticks him at once, with spears. Aim for the lower half of his side, and the inside of his mouth.

Maybe have one guy use a harpoon instead of a spear so if he runs for the water, you've got a line to haul him out again with.

[Incanur]

Nineteenth-century Arabs hunted elephants with the sword. Sasha Siemel killed around three hundred jaguars with the spear.

[Yukitsu]

Yukitsu:
Well, any samurai was probably less armoured than even well-equiped templar sargeant (mail and helmet)...
By the way, what do you mean by halberd? I have not heard of anything like that in japan... closest thing I can think of is naginata.

Actually, the o-yoroi was made of composite plates which were superior to mail in terms of protection, but more restrictive than either proper plate armour or mail. The only reason it was inferior to full plate, was the angle of deflection on the chest plates meant bullets could penetrate it. It was as far as I know, only used by dedicated horse archers who fought with spears on foot, while lighter armour was favoured by anyone using other weapons.

I am indeed referring to the naginata. I refer to most Japanese weapons by their english equivalent, just for the benefit of people who aren't sure what the weapons are called. For instance, I don't say "yari" instead of spear, I just say "spear".