Got a Real-World Weapon, Armor or Tactics Question? Mk. XXIII

[Roxxy]

As always, here's our resource for RPG players and gamemasters to learn and teach about weapons and warfare.

A few rules for this thread, to copy the great Thiel verbatim:

This thread is for asking questions about how weapons and armor really work. As such, it's not going to include game rule statistics. If you have such a question, especially if it stems from an answer or question in this thread, feel free to start a new thread and include a link back to here. If you do ask a rule question here, you'll be asked to move it elsewhere, and then we'll be happy to help out with it.

Any weapon or time period is open for questions. Medieval and ancient warfare questions seem to predominate, but since there are many games set in other periods as well, feel free to ask about any weapon. This includes futuristic ones - but be aware that these will be likely assessed according to their real life feasibility. Thus, phasers, for example, will be talked about in real-world science and physics terms rather than the Star Trek canon. If you want to discuss a fictional weapon from a particular source according to the canonical explanation, please start a new thread for it.

Please try to cite your claims if possible. If you know of a citation for a particular piece of information, please include it. However, everyone should be aware that sometimes even the experts don't agree, so it's quite possible to have two conflicting answers to the same question. This isn't a problem; the asker of the question can examine the information and decide which side to go with. The purpose of the thread is to provide as much information as possible. Debates are fine, but be sure to keep it a friendly debate (even if the experts can't!).

No modern real-world political discussion. As the great Carl von Clausevitz once said, "War is merely the continuation of policy by other means," so poltics and war are heavily intertwined. However, politics are a big hot-button issue and one banned on these boards, so avoid political analysis if at all possible (this thread is primarily about military hardware). There's more leeway on this for anything prior to about 1800, but be very careful with all of it, and anything past 1900 is surely not open for analysis. (I know these are arbitrary dates, but any dates would be, and I feel these ones are reasonable.)

No graphic descriptions. War is violent, dirty, and horrific, and anyone discussing it should be keenly aware of that. However, on this board graphic descriptions of violence (or sexuality) are not allowed, so please avoid them.

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Thread XXII

[Roxxy]

I'll repeat an earlier question, since the other thread ran out. If we're dealing with Eberronish tech, and armor is being mass produced, what armors do you think would best lend themselves to this? I'm assuming the biggest issue is fitting the armor to the wearer properly, so I'm guessing that gambesons and maybe brigandine are easiest because you can manufacture them in general sizes and then tailor them to fit the wearer, maybe followed by mail for the same reason, but I'm no armorer or tailor.

On a related note, I posit that, back when there were nobles in my world, they typically studied magic because they had the resources to send their children off to such schools and naturally want access to that power. So, knights knew magic, even if they also knew how to swing a sword. This being D&D, where magic and heavy armor rarely mix, I'm wondering if there's any reason for full plate or three-quarter plate to ever really have been a common thing. The people with the money to buy that armor outright were wearing lighter armor so they could easily cast spells, and mass producing full plate seems a recipe for a lot of problems fitting it.

[PersonMan]

On a related note, I posit that, back when there were nobles in my world, they typically studied magic because they had the resources to send their children off to such schools and naturally want access to that power. So, knights knew magic, even if they also knew how to swing a sword. This being D&D, where magic and heavy armor rarely mix, I'm wondering if there's any reason for full plate or three-quarter plate to ever really have been a common thing. The people with the money to buy that armor outright were wearing lighter armor so they could easily cast spells, and mass producing full plate seems a recipe for a lot of problems fitting it.

Some notes:

1. Depending on how much time it takes in your world to study magic, knights may not have the time to become masters of martial combat as well as magic - so you may have someone who has basic proficiency with a few weapons, but is primarily user of arcane power.

2. Heavier plate was, I've read, generally a response to developing firearms. Without those, you might not see the "full plate" designs really come into play, unless there's some sort of cheaply-available anti-magic metal to protect you from spells as well.

[snowblizz]

I'll repeat an earlier question, since the other thread ran out. If we're dealing with Eberronish tech, and armor is being mass produced, what armors do you think would best lend themselves to this? I'm assuming the biggest issue is fitting the armor to the wearer properly, so I'm guessing that gambesons and maybe brigandine are easiest because you can manufacture them in general sizes and then tailor them to fit the wearer, maybe followed by mail for the same reason, but I'm no armorer or tailor.

To be honest, mass producing armour (even up to advanced plate) and mass customizing it was done IRL. Think of armour as off the rack clothes. The padding underneath the armour will "cover sins" so to speak. The absolute best would indeed be custom fitted, but you get quite far by mass made items and minor modifications. People aren't that different, esp with padding.

2. Heavier plate was, I've read, generally a response to developing firearms. Without those, you might not see the "full plate" designs really come into play, unless there's some sort of cheaply-available anti-magic metal to protect you from spells as well.

Well, firearms and crossbows. Generally speaking it's a positive feedback loop. You increase protection a bit (better metallurgy gives a minor boost in armour, say can make plates in relevant enough sizes), and someone makes a better can-opener, so you improve armour again. It's a process that takes some time. Almsot 2 centuries to get to fully plated IIRC and guns were only at the end of it reaching the point where they were poised to suppleant other firepower.

[The_Jette]

Well, firearms and crossbows. Generally speaking it's a positive feedback loop. You increase protection a bit (better metallurgy gives a minor boost in armour, say can make plates in relevant enough sizes), and someone makes a better can-opener, so you improve armour again. It's a process that takes some time. Almsot 2 centuries to get to fully plated IIRC and guns were only at the end of it reaching the point where they were poised to suppleant other firepower.

You've kinda got that backwards. Crossbows were developed as a way to counter plate armor, which was used because the plates spread the force of a blow across the entire surface. Crossbows would focus all of the strength of the shot into one tiny area (the tip of the bolt) and puncture the plate armor. Firearms were actually developed as siege weapons, and slowly became smaller to deal with cavalry. Plate armor was developed to deal with big freaking swords, and other weapons like the flail and mace. Those weapons were developed to counter chain mail. And, so on, back to the point that people would simply wear thick leather clothes in an attempt to make it harder for people to stab them.

[Max_Killjoy]

You've kinda got that backwards. Crossbows were developed as a way to counter plate armor...

Considering that the crossbow as a weapon of war in Europe predates "full plate armor" by centuries... probably not.

[Unoriginal]

You've kinda got that backwards. Crossbows were developed as a way to counter plate armor

Not really, no. Roman and Chinese soldiers had crossbows centuries before the plate armor.

Unless you meant "they improved crossbows to make them able to take on plate armor"

and other weapons like the flail and mace. Those weapons were developed to counter chain mail.

Actually, mace is a counter for plate armor.

[Vitruviansquid]

Flails were adapted agricultural implements.

Maces have existed long before both mail and plate armor.

[Unoriginal]

Flails were adapted agricultural implements.

Maces have existed long before both mail and plate armor.

Well, sure, but just like for crossbows, the mace's design turned out to be pretty handy against plate. Sometime with slight changes.

[Incanur]

If you can mass produce armor, plate armor of hardened steel would the best for at least heavy cavalry and heavy infantry. Without gunpowder weapons to worry about, you would make it reasonably thin and thus light. While sizing is an issue, infantry plate armor (up to three-quarters harness) was mass produced in 15th/16th-century Europe, so this model works.

Brigandines (again, ideally of hardened steel) allow for more comfort and convenience if that's what you're into.

I've never quite been able to wrap my head around the D&D notion of spell failure. Unless somatic components involve serious acrobatics, armor beyond gauntlets and maybe arm harness shouldn't be an issue. I can see how many gauntlets would make precise hand motions difficult, but that's about it.

So I guess the prevalence of armor among magically trained knights would depend on system specifics. In 3.x, most would might simply rely on mage armor or mithral mail shirts if they could afford them.

[Snails]

While there surely was a feedback loop with respect to crossbows and better metallurgy making it practical to build larger & heavier armor pieces, your 10th century knight proudly wearing mail over padding was already acutely aware of the potential benefits of additional protection for key areas. The incentives already existed to experiment with pieces over the chest, hips, neck, shoulders, elbows, wrists, in addition to some kind of grieves to cover the more vulnerable lengths of arms and legs.

The original question was whether you could make it from metal such that it was actually worth the additional coin compared to hardened leather or small plates sewn into leather. The original context was additional supplemental pieces over the mail and padding already there.

As overlapping plates became robust enough, it becomes obvious that you could save a lot of weight by foregoing mail underneath -- if you dare.

Crossbows existed long before plate, as their value against mail is obvious. What plate armor encouraged were experiments with much heavier crossbows than anyone would have otherwise bothered with.

Maces were first a counter for mail armor, as a solidly connecting blow with a heavy weapon could deliver force sufficient to break a bone right through the mail, without the implied energy expenditure of shattering numerous metal rings that a sword cut required. The obvious defense to the mace is larger plate pieces or interlocking plate pieces in the most vulnerable areas to distribute the force, like the shoulders, where very powerful downward blows could be delivered.

As plate pieces become more valued and more common, then the mace developed further, as a specifically anti-plate weapon. Flanging is a useful development here from circa 12th century. It actually predates full plating, but, as already discussed, various kinds of plating on the shoulders were already being experimented with.

[Max_Killjoy]

I've never quite been able to wrap my head around the D&D notion of spell failure. Unless somatic components involve serious acrobatics, armor beyond gauntlets and maybe arm harness shouldn't be an issue. I can see how many gauntlets would make precise hand motions difficult, but that's about it.

It's a reverse-justification for restricting access to armor for "wizards", which goes back to nothing more than early D&D's primitive notions of game balance and recreating tropes/archetypes.

[Incanur]

The narrative in the (in)famous book From Sumer to Rome is the helmet displaced the single-handed mace in ancient Egypt and surroundings. Rather than being good against helmets, the single-handed mace by this account was good against unprotected human skulls and fell out of use after decent helmets became common. Their test mace weighed 1.8lbs and their test helmet was 2mm of copper plus 4mm of leather (a pretty serious helmet).

Now, From Sumer to Rome has lots of issues, but I bet there's some truth to this account. As far as I know, nobody in the 15th/16th century in Western Europe suggested single-handed mace for infantry to use against their helmeted foes. Light single-handed maces, clubs, and cudgels rarely appear as infantry weapons except for reasons of poverty and/or cultural significance. The Germanic warriors who wielded club and shield (sometimes with a sword at the belt!) fall into the latter category, though they seem to have had some success with their clubs, including against armored cavalry. I don't know how to explain that beyond sheer badassery.

It was specifically in the hands of cavalry that short maces, axes, hammers, and such like impact weapons saw use against armor. By at least the 15th and 16th centuries, these tended to rather pointier and heavier than their ancient counterparts, so that perhaps made the difference as well. Men-at-arms also apparently at times struck two-handed blows with their short (usually around 2ft) maces, at least according to Sydney Anglo's reading of Pietro Monte (IIRC).

So yeah, the idea that maces arose to counter armor might be kind of true in certain periods, but there's likewise evidence that the light one-handed mace initially emerged as cheap and easy way to shatter unprotected skulls.

[oudeis]

Didn't plate armor in the strictest sense exist long before the medieval period? I'm thinking of the bronze armor worn in classical Greece and the iron lorica segmentata (banded mail, to us D&D types) of the Roman legions. Wasn't the 'muscle cuirass' made of iron as well?

[Incanur]

Didn't plate armor in the strictest sense exist long before the medieval period? I'm thinking of the bronze armor worn in classical Greece and the iron lorica segmentata (banded mail, to us D&D types) of the Roman legions. Wasn't the 'muscle cuirass' made of iron as well?

Yes, you even had impressive suits like the Dendra panoply in antiquity (or is circa 1400 BCE pre-antiquity?). It wasn't as good as 15th/16th-century European plate armor, but still offered solid protection and mobility.

[oudeis]

The images I found of the Dendra make the user look like a two-legged Dalek, especially the modern recreations.

[Tiktakkat]

If we're dealing with Eberronish tech, and . . .

Well, I would note that in Eberron material they do manage a considerable amount of plate armor even with mid-level spellcasters available.
And with low-level "artillery" available in some cases (magewrights equipped with eternal wands of fireball or magic missile).
And one kingdom relies heavily on armored spellcasters (duskblades).

So those designers at least felt the combination was "functional".
Which means to some extent your question might also be posed to the optimizers, who I am sure will inform you that while a duskblade is good, CoDzilla is always better, and so on.
And they might note that part of why it "works" is that Eberron sort of caps out around 10th level or so, which limits the power of magic.

I would suggest the best real-world comparison is as I said on the thread about introducing D20 Modern guns to a regular campaign: treat them as funky magic items, as they certainly aren't realistic, keeping the inverse in mind.
That is, strong enough magic is just weird technology.
So . . .
What would be the effect if people had access to modern semi-automatic and automatic rifles, auto-grenade launchers, body armor, and the like along with magic?
Would they make "ordinary" people, arms, and armor, obsolete?
What is ASF% for ceramic plate body armor?

Which really suggests that what is missing from most RPGs is "anti-magic" with a cost and effect similar to that of plate armor to regular weapons.
But I worry how thread-relevant such musings would be.

[snowblizz]

Didn't plate armor in the strictest sense exist long before the medieval period? I'm thinking of the bronze armor worn in classical Greece and the iron lorica segmentata (banded mail, to us D&D types) of the Roman legions. Wasn't the 'muscle cuirass' made of iron as well?

The muscle cuirass was bronze or leather IIRC, and basically for show. Other regions used similar armours though.

And yes there were sort of plate armours earlier (closer to coat of plates really). But there's no real line of descent from them to the European late medieval full plate. The Romans essentially stopped using the Lorica Segmentata e.g. and mostly used chainmail. And that's really from where the late medieaval plate armour is developed.

[Telok]

Some notes:

1. Depending on how much time it takes in your world to study magic, knights may not have the time to become masters of martial combat as well as magic - so you may have someone who has basic proficiency with a few weapons, but is primarily user of arcane power.

D&D features magic items that require spellcasting ability to use, some useful spells that last for hours, and a number of spells that require only verbal and material components. So the use of magic while wearing armor is quite possible within the rule set.

If plate was developed in your setting then it will be used. Since your setting has magic, that will be used. The ability of the two to complement each other on the battle field may be imperfect but if it grants any advantage then it will be used.

I would also note that the magic mentioned is quite useful off the battle field too.

[rrgg]

Didn't plate armor in the strictest sense exist long before the medieval period? I'm thinking of the bronze armor worn in classical Greece and the iron lorica segmentata (banded mail, to us D&D types) of the Roman legions. Wasn't the 'muscle cuirass' made of iron as well?

Bronze could be made by casting, but the problem with iron was that up until the mid to late middle ages there was a lack of bloomeries capable of making a large enough piece of iron. So you had armor made out of smaller iron plates, and mail with iron plates incorporated into it, but nothing the size of a single, solid breastplate.

There's also the fact that the price of iron began to drop dramatically in the late middle ages.

[Mike_G]

Found a pretty good video on the effectiveness of 18th century smoothbore musketry.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Cw8ktmlF1A

It's long, but if you skip to about the 11 minute mark, they do a test whee first one trained marksman fires three shots at each of four distances at a single man sized target, and the results are not good. Then they have five men fire volley fire at the same distance against six man sized targets in line, with much better results (duh)

It's just a good illustration that the Brown Bess, with field loads and a lack of backsight, was totally inadequate for picking off individuals, but effective in its role as a volley weapon against enemy formations.

One of the better tests I've seen.

[rrgg]

I think the fact that the first marksman didn't have much experience shooting muskets or aiming without a rear sight was probably an issue. As a result he was still making guesses about how much he needed to compensate up or down and left or right at the very end of the experiment. Murphey's Muskets has videos where he's managed to achieve much better results with smoothbore muskets. Given that, Col. Hanger's claim that a good shot with a good musket could hit a single target at 80-100 yards seems to hold true.

The volley tests were interesting. Accounting for the fact that they didn't count hits against white space, the results seem somewhat similar to historical trials which involved volley fire against a battalion target. But they still drastically outperformed what was typically expected in combat.

[gkathellar]

I've never quite been able to wrap my head around the D&D notion of spell failure. Unless somatic components involve serious acrobatics, armor beyond gauntlets and maybe arm harness shouldn't be an issue. I can see how many gauntlets would make precise hand motions difficult, but that's about it.

Well, if we're desperate to justify the rule, it's easy enough to say that somatic components consist of physically manipulating arcane energy with body movement, and that armor causes distortions and variations in the flow of energy across the skin or whatever. Or say it's all mudras? There's various answers, fwiw

But as has been said, it's a reverse-justification for something better addressed with simple non-proficiency.

[Lemmy]

I've never quite been able to wrap my head around the D&D notion of spell failure. Unless somatic components involve serious acrobatics, armor beyond gauntlets and maybe arm harness shouldn't be an issue. I can see how many gauntlets would make precise hand motions difficult, but that's about it.

Well... Armor also make you nearly twice as likely to fail at horse-riding... D&D only cares about "Hollywood Realism", after all.

[Galloglaich]

You've kinda got that backwards.

I don't think he does...

Crossbows were developed as a way to counter plate armor,

Ah, no. Crossbows actually pre-date plate armor by centuries. The first Church and Imperial laws against the use of crossbows actually pre-dated full coverage with ("chain") mail armor.

which was used because the plates spread the force of a blow across the entire surface. Crossbows would focus all of the strength of the shot into one tiny area (the tip of the bolt) and puncture the plate armor.

It's a plausible sounding theory, but as far as I know there is no evidence that crossbows were invented to be armor-piercing weapons per-se. They were just more accurate, more powerful missile weapons.

Firearms were actually developed as siege weapons, and slowly became smaller to deal with cavalry.

They did start out as siege weapons... in the 9th Century in China. Firearms were being used to kill in sieges in the 13th Century in Europe in several documented occasions, and this was before you had true plate armor.

Plate armor was developed to deal with big freaking swords,

From all the testing done to date, swords really couldn't cut or stab through mail armor, so there wasn't really any reason to upgrade from mail because of swords. Swords were being used against men armored in mail since probably 800 BC.

Swords aren't really armor-piercing weapons unless you are talking about special swords like the edgeless estoc / kanzer family, or longswords (et al) used with special techniques (i.e. halfswording).

and other weapons like the flail and mace. Those weapons were developed to counter chain mail.

The flail, at least the two-handed military one which saw wide use, was actually developed partially to counter plate armor.

And, so on, back to the point that people would simply wear thick leather clothes in an attempt to make it harder for people to stab them.

There is very little evidence of leather being used as armor in Europe.



If you have a DnD game and you want to limit the appearance of plate armor, simply limit the social / economic system so that they don't make blast furnaces or large bloomery forges. That probably never would have happened without city-states, guild system, and certain key technical discoveries like water-wheel (or wind-mill) powered bellows, crank shaft, trip-hammer etc.

But you probably don't get two handed swords either if you do that.

G

[Pauly]

Maces that predated plate armor were basically a metal (or stone) ball on the end of a stick. Plenty of examples from around the world from South America, to the Pacific Islands to Babylonia/Sumeria to the Indian sub-continent.

The designs that came about in Europe to deal with plate armor were significantly different. They had spikes, flanges and faceted heads. All of these design features are there to impart energy into rounded metal surfaces. You do not see these designs in regions that did nit have plate. At best you have small knobs on the head.

The mace, as we commonly think of it today, is specifically engineered to be an anti-plate armor weapon. It is not a minor adaption to pre-plate maces. In fact maces had basically droppedout of use in Western Europe, as lacking in functionality compared to a sword, prior to the introduction of plate armor

[Haruspex_Pariah]

Kind of speculative/sci-fi: if there was a drone with a short control range that required the operator to be on the battlefield, would the operator be considered a combatant? As in could you shoot that person even if all they had on them was a drone control device?

[oudeis]

If the operator is controlling a vehicle that serves a military objective then attacking him would be no different than targeting any other combatant.

[Tiktakkat]

As in could you shoot that person even if all they had on them was a drone control device?

The act of carrying a personal weapon is irrelevant to the status of combatant.
An unarmed cook or musician who is part of the military is a legitimate target, even if you "bring" the battlefield to him by breaking into a rear area.

[Pauly]

Kind of speculative/sci-fi: if there was a drone with a short control range that required the operator to be on the battlefield, would the operator be considered a combatant? As in could you shoot that person even if all they had on them was a drone control device?

Short answer is yes.

Longer answer, yes if it is a combat drone, but probably not if it seves a non combat purpose.