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

[Raunchel]

Nova made a close replica of some 16th C. tempered Greenwich armor, with some legit people involved.

The replica stopped a musket ball at short range.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/ancient...ng-knight.html

Unfortunately I can't seem to view it because of the rights. Does anyone know if there is a summary somewhere?

[Max_Killjoy]

Nova made a close replica of some 16th C. tempered Greenwich armor, with some legit people involved.

The replica stopped a musket ball at short range.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/ancient...ng-knight.html

I've got that on my DVR, haven't had a chance to sit down with a notepad and really immerse in it. I wanted to watch it before posting about it.

Since you're speaking positively of it, I'll move it up my priority list.

[Galloglaich]

Unfortunately I can't seem to view it because of the rights. Does anyone know if there is a summary somewhere?

basically they were looking at this 16th century Greenwich armor, they made one replica with modern steel, and another far more laborious one with medieval methods, made by armorers who knew what they were doing (very rare people in other words). The 'traditional' one was medium carbon steel with a good heat-treatment. The metal crystalization didn't look quite as good as the antique under electron microscope but it was in the ball park.

Then they took a fairly large looking 16th century style musket (though fusilier is right, they didn't get into the specs on it) and shot it at both breast plates from what looked like about 20 feet away.

• The one with modern steel got a hole shot right through it, which was to be expected.
• The one with the traditional methods shattered the musket ball and just had a small dent on the plackard.
• Then they went back and did the goldwork and bluing of the armor so it looked just like the antique.

As I have pointed out before, at least in earlier generations - armor of this quality (tempered medium carbon steel) was affordable to ordinary people, so nobles like the owner of the armor they were studying had their armor embellished with gold scrollwork and so on.




Unless there is something drastically wrong with the test, it looks like I have to revise my understanding of how effective top quality plate armor was. I knew it could stop smaller firearms like handgonnes, arquebus and pistols, but I had always assumed a musket (which was originally an armor-piercing weapon) could punch a hole through one. Now I'd have to say, it looks like maybe not. helps explain why people who could afford it still had this kind of armor made in the 1570's (when the original that the show was based on was made).

And it kind of changes our whole perception of the way warfare changed between the late medieval and early-modern era, the reasons for the collapse of the armor making industry which moved from large industries in city-states like Augsburg and Milan to very small royal armouries with 'pet' craftsmen working for Kings in Innsbrook and Greenwich. The reason we were told for many years that armor goes away was because guns. I have been saying for a long time already that I think it was a combination of cannon and massive socio-economic changes in Europe largely caused by the opening of the Atlantic / Pacific and discovery of the New World. To me this short documentary and test reinforces that view.

It also reinforces my long-standing view that the people living 4 and 5 centuries ago were very smart and the craftsmanship and material culture of the time was far more advanced than we had once thought. We have always been able to see this in the architecture from that time. We have already learned this about swords in the last 10-15 years, and about their martial arts, and we are increasingly learning it about armor. I've also seen considerable evidence on guns too.

But it's just one test, so before we changing too much about how we perceive the era we should do more tests like this.

Also, we know "back in the day" they also used iron bullets in muskets too sometimes for extra armor-piercing power. An iron bullet would have probably shot right through it. And as Fusilier alluded, there was a fairly wide range in the power of muskets. Generally these 16th century ones were much more hard-hitting than later muskets say in the 18th / 19th century, and the one they used looked like a 16th Century type to me, but we didn't get a lot of info about the musket itself. It also depends on the powder and the size of the bullet and how the gun is loaded and etc.

Hopefully NOVA or Toby Capwell who has links to the HEMA scene will publish some of the data. It is the most interesting experiment of this type that I know of since the Graz tests in the 80's

G

[fusilier]

Also, we know "back in the day" they also used iron bullets in muskets too sometimes for extra armor-piercing power. An iron bullet would have probably shot right through it. And as Fusilier alluded, there was a fairly wide range in the power of muskets. Generally these 16th century ones were much more hard-hitting than later muskets say in the 18th / 19th century, and the one they used looked like a 16th Century type to me, but we didn't get a lot of info about the musket itself. It also depends on the powder and the size of the bullet and how the gun is loaded and etc.

Generally speaking, my feeling is that they tend to think "a musket is a musket." They put an impressive amount of effort in to understanding the technical capabilities of the armor and how it was made, but there's little evidence (in what's presented in the show) that they spent that much time considering the historical firearm.

From what I could tell, the musket looked like a decent replica of what you would find on the market today for reenactors. It appeared to be about .75 caliber. The barrel looked modern, i.e. straight walled, without taper. Spanish muskets of the time period tended to be heavy, around .85 caliber, and they often had a strong taper, making them very thick at the breech (this actually causes some complications in construction, as the priming pan has to be dove-tailed into the breech). There's also evidence that they used significantly more powder than would be used today.

A footnote in Gunpowder and Galleys sums up the issue succinctly:

In tests conducted at the H. P. White Laboratory, Eel Aire, Maryland, on 1 July 1970, an 85 caliber lead ball of 890 grains (about 2.3 ounces), driven by 215 grains of black powder (0.49 ounces), typically produced a muzzle velocity of about 1,100 feet per second. Sixteenth century Spanish musketeers almost certainly used a considerably larger powder charge, as heavy as the weight of the ball according to Jorge Vigon, Historia de la Artilleria Española (Madrid, 1947), Vol. I, p. 236.

Incidentally, that's the same lab that did the ballistics tests in the NOVA episode. I suspect that the tests done in the episode used the manufacturer's recommended powder charge, and weren't overcharging the piece.

I think it's still very impressive what the show presents, and how much better the laminated armor performed. It's just a shame that they didn't put the same amount of effort into the "other side of the equation".

I still run into people who think that arquebuses and muskets were so inaccurate that their primary effect on the battlefield was to scare horses. :-/

[Galloglaich]

I still run into people who think that arquebuses and muskets were so inaccurate that their primary effect on the battlefield was to scare horses. :-/

yes, I think we have to realize that not only armor and swords were better than we thought, and bows and crossbows, but also early firearms and that needs to be revised going all the way back to the 14th century.

I saw a fascinating study about some experiments done on an exact replica (via lost wax casting) of three 14th century bronze handgonne barrels, and they actually performed much better (and objectively, significantly well) with the older types of gunpowder formula. I remember one in particular, a copy of a Danzig handgonne barrel with a chambered barrel, performed about the same as a 9mm with modern powder but equivalent to a 44 magnum with the older type powder.

Performance was measured as penetration of mild steel plates and moving a heavy iron pendulum.

When you see a handgonne which looks like a zip-gun on a stick, you tend to assume that it's incredibly crude and even weak in terms of performance, but in reality even with some of the oldest handgonnes you have a fairly long barrel there (equivalent to 6" I think for the Tannenburg gun) with a large caliber bullet, and it hits pretty hard, with overall performance not that different from an 18th century pistol.

Spoiler: Tannenburg gun

Show

By the 15th century handgonnes look similar but have 20" or even 25" barrels so they perform more like a modern shotgun.

G

[fusilier]

I saw a fascinating study about some experiments done on an exact replica (via lost wax casting) of three 14th century bronze handgonne barrels, and they actually performed much better (and objectively, significantly well) with the older types of gunpowder formula. I remember one in particular, a copy of a Danzig handgonne barrel with a chambered barrel, performed about the same as a 9mm with modern powder but equivalent to a 44 magnum with the older type powder.

Yes, I've seen that study (or a similar one). The long chambered bore performed much better with the old fashioned serpentine powder (i.e. the simple mixed, non granulated kind).

I remember reading another experiment where they were using serpentine powder in a cannon. They found that the powder produced very little force, until they tried packing the powder tightly -- which the old manuals instructed -- then they found it generated almost as much force as using a later "corned" powder.

[Mr Beer]

I still run into people who think that arquebuses and muskets were so inaccurate that their primary effect on the battlefield was to scare horses. :-/

I know the 'common sense' test doesn't always apply to historical studies but it seems to me that if your aim to is make a loud noise which will 'scare horses', then developing a firearms industry would be a lot more onerous than simply making a bunch of firecrackers.

[Gideon Falcon]

Thanks a ton, guys! You had some fantastic ideas, as well as places for me to research later. Some ideas don't apply, as the general in question is actually a necromancer, and as such logistics and training are more aspects of the magic system, but that's more than made up for by the overwhelming advantages in those areas inherent to the archetypal undead soldiers (as I learned last time). So, again, thanks a bunch.

[Mike_G]

It also reinforces my long-standing view that the people living 4 and 5 centuries ago were very smart and the craftsmanship and material culture of the time was far more advanced than we had once thought. We have always been able to see this in the architecture from that time. We have already learned this about swords in the last 10-15 years, and about their martial arts, and we are increasingly learning it about armor. I've also seen considerable evidence on guns too.

G

I think this is just the way we look at technology in our age. Over the past few centuries, tech has gotten objectively better.

The line of flintlock musket from the American Revolution to the percussion lock rifled musket from the civil war to breechloaders of the late 19th century to bolt action Springfield of WWI to the semi automatic M1 and so on shows a continuous line of improvement. Our cars are safer and more fuel efficient that they were 30 or 20 or even ten years ago, the improvement in phones, computers and so on is exponential.

So, for us, the idea that technology was better a century earlier is really alien.

I know I grew up believing that technology was improving on more or less a continuing upward trend. That hard to shake.

[rrgg]

@Galloglaich

Without knowing the specs about the musket they used it's really hard to draw conclusions. Tests like this generally aren't willing to load the musket with a full 600 or 800 grains of powder like Sir Roger Williams was recommending.

Guns didn't render armor completely useless, and there occasionally are accounts of individuals who seem to be fairly well protected from bullets in their armor. However in general military writers from the period tend to stop putting much faith in the ability of armor to keep its wearer alive against firearms, even "proofed" armor. It seems to be more the case that once there was no guarantee that armor would even keep you alive the downsides of carrying heavy, uncomfortable armor started to outweigh the benefits in the eyes of most soldiers. In the eyes of military thinkers in the late 16th century armor remained essential for soldiers expected to engage in melee such as pikemen or cavalry, but if arquebusiers and musketeers had to march everywhere and fight in metal armor, there was a serious risk that they would be defeated by exhaustion more often than a lack of protection.

[Max_Killjoy]

I really suspect that the decline of armor was at least as much socioeconomic as it was about the rise of the gun.

(Based in part on things I've learned here.)

[KarlMarx]

I really suspect that the decline of armor was at least as much socioeconomic as it was about the rise of the gun.

(Based in part on things I've learned here.)

Definitely.

1. After the Black Death, in many European nations, peasants began gaining much greater control over their labor. The sudden rarity of common people made their labor a commodity in high demand, enabling many to begin working for their own benefit rather than those of feudal overlords. This freed many to move to cities, which rapidly became the focus of economic power rather than feudal estates. Cities produced much more portable wealth, enabling them to either higher mercenaries for their own armies (as in Italy and the German Free Cities) or pay for mercenaries in the royal armies (as in England). These mercenaries were most cost-effective as pikemen, crossbowmen, or (when from England or Wales) longbowmen, rather than mounted knights, who occupied a niche role and represented a significant investment. Thus, knights found both a decline in their economic base and loss of demand for their skills during the era, leading to their decline as a warrior class as many became professional soldiers (HRE Reiters, French Gendarmes, etc.) in royal service--but in an increasingly auxiliary, rather than central, role.
1A. However, in countries where the feudal system, having been established, didn't break down, this change was much less evident. The Polish-Lithuanian Winged Hussars, after all, were essentially a direct continuation of knightly tactics, and in Russia the druzhina and boyars, though not a 'genuine' feudal institution, played a major role in military affairs until Pyotr I forcibly modernized the country.

2. As has been mentioned somewhat, tactics evolved to respond to the mounted knight and take advantage of the much more common (even after the plague) commoners. The Scots, Flemings, Germans, and Swiss adopted the Pike, the English adopted the longbow, and pretty much everyone adopted the crossbow. All of these troops, in the right circumstances, could defeat armored knights, as at Bannockburn, Coutrai, or Agincourt. The introduction of gunpowder accelerated this trend, as it required even less training than the prior weapons, but under the circumstances it is hard to see these circumstances reversing, especially given the economic conditions observed above.

[fusilier]

I know I grew up believing that technology was improving on more or less a continuing upward trend. That hard to shake.

This is why people tell me that early firearms were only good for scaring horses.

People look at how inaccurate Napoleonic muskets were, and assume that two or three centuries earlier they must have been much, much worse. Technically there isn't much difference in terms of accuracy, and practically there's evidence that they may have been more accurate.

[Max_Killjoy]

This is why people tell me that early firearms were only good for scaring horses.

People look at how inaccurate Napoleonic muskets were, and assume that two or three centuries earlier they must have been much, much worse. Technically there isn't much difference in terms of accuracy, and practically there's evidence that they may have been more accurate.

I would guess that there was an earlier peak in quality and accuracy when they were still a more specialized and rare weapon used by highly-prized and well-trained soldiers.

[fusilier]

I would guess that there was an earlier peak in quality and accuracy when they were still a more specialized and rare weapon used by highly-prized and well-trained soldiers.

That was probably a factor. The weapons were typically hand crafted and provided with bullet molds specific to the weapon. The tolerances on mass-produced muskets were quite poor well into the 19th century.

Soldiers appear to have been able to make decisions about how to load their weapons. A smoothbore musket's accuracy can be greatly improved by using a tight fitting ball (or an undersized ball with a patch). It does however make loading take longer.

By the time armies started to mass produce and issue ammunition to their troops, a close range volley was the preferred method of firing. Speed of fire was emphasized over accuracy, so undersized ammunition was standard. The effect of undersized ammunition became interpreted as an "inherent" fault of smoothbore weapons. That assumption is bad enough, but combined with the above tendency to assume that weapons were always improving technologically, and that's where we get ideas about earlier guns being ridiculously inaccurate.

It's not that technology wasn't improving, but those improvements mainly applied to ignition systems - matchlock->wheellock->flintlock. Which do have an impact on overall effectiveness of the weapon. A lot of those technologies were actually figured out quite early, but took sometime for refinement and adoption.

[rs2excelsior]

There's also evidence that they used significantly more powder than would be used today.

A footnote in Gunpowder and Galleys sums up the issue succinctly:

In tests conducted at the H. P. White Laboratory, Eel Aire, Maryland, on 1 July 1970, an 85 caliber lead ball of 890 grains (about 2.3 ounces), driven by 215 grains of black powder (0.49 ounces), typically produced a muzzle velocity of about 1,100 feet per second. Sixteenth century Spanish musketeers almost certainly used a considerably larger powder charge, as heavy as the weight of the ball according to Jorge Vigon, Historia de la Artilleria Española (Madrid, 1947), Vol. I, p. 236.

Oh wow... the blanks we make for our muskets when reenacting are 60 grains of powder (granted for a .58 caliber rather than a .85, and without a bullet loaded, of course), which is the period load according to the Gilham's manual. You can really tell when someone in the line is firing "hot" cartridges with 100-120 grains. From my own experience accidentally double-loading (first cartridge didn't ignite, load a second on top of it) a 120 grain charge starts to give a little bit of kick even without a ball in front. I can't begin to imagine firing a two-hundred grain charge, much less nearly nine hundred.

[Gnoman]

There's also the "what is quality" factor.

For an example, there was a firearm from the mid-19th century that saw service in the American Civil War that was fairly accurate (minute of angle at 500 yards) even by the standards of today, and absurdly accurate in comparison to the weapons of the era. It was not adopted on a large scale by any army, although some (like the Confederacy) used it in a small specialist role, and was a major commercial failure. This is because the weapon was obscenely expensive to produce with the available technology, and fouled much quicker than other rifle muskets. Was this a quality arm or not?


Weapons (like all tools) evolve to suit the needs of their era, and sometimes that evolution will produce models that seem "inferior" to those that came before.

[Mr Beer]

There's also the "what is quality" factor.

For an example, there was a firearm from the mid-19th century that saw service in the American Civil War that was fairly accurate (minute of angle at 500 yards) even by the standards of today, and absurdly accurate in comparison to the weapons of the era. It was not adopted on a large scale by any army, although some (like the Confederacy) used it in a small specialist role, and was a major commercial failure. This is because the weapon was obscenely expensive to produce with the available technology, and fouled much quicker than other rifle muskets. Was this a quality arm or not?

Weapons (like all tools) evolve to suit the needs of their era, and sometimes that evolution will produce models that seem "inferior" to those that came before.

Sounds like a similar reason that apparently lead to the ubiquity of the AK47 and various knock-offs: it wasn't the 'best' rifle around, but it was cheap and easy to make in large quantities, durable and easy to maintain.

[fusilier]

Oh wow... the blanks we make for our muskets when reenacting are 60 grains of powder (granted for a .58 caliber rather than a .85, and without a bullet loaded, of course), which is the period load according to the Gilham's manual. You can really tell when someone in the line is firing "hot" cartridges with 100-120 grains. From my own experience accidentally double-loading (first cartridge didn't ignite, load a second on top of it) a 120 grain charge starts to give a little bit of kick even without a ball in front. I can't begin to imagine firing a two-hundred grain charge, much less nearly nine hundred.

I regularly use ~100 grains in my .69 smoothbore (110 is the regulation load), and if I ram the paper and wadding, I'll feel a little bit of a kick.

I've actually been at a reenactment where a reenactor was injured by overloading his musket (and he may have injured those around him too). So blackpowder can be pretty serious stuff.

Keep in mind those large caliber muskets weighed up to 20 lbs which would help handle the recoil -- also using the correct granulation of powder would be a factor. I too am skeptical that they charged them to that point, however, artillery of the era was known to have used a lot more powder (sometimes over half the weight of the projectile). In fact, it looks like they charged their artillery pieces to the max -- any more powder would have actually have resulted in a reduction in muzzle velocity.

[redwizard007]

I think this is just the way we look at technology in our age. Over the past few centuries, tech has gotten objectively better.

The line of flintlock musket from the American Revolution to the percussion lock rifled musket from the civil war to breechloaders of the late 19th century to bolt action Springfield of WWI to the semi automatic M1 and so on shows a continuous line of improvement. Our cars are safer and more fuel efficient that they were 30 or 20 or even ten years ago, the improvement in phones, computers and so on is exponential.

So, for us, the idea that technology was better a century earlier is really alien.

I know I grew up believing that technology was improving on more or less a continuing upward trend. That hard to shake.

I rarely post in this thread, but am constantly amazed at the quality of discussions. I do have to take a moment and chime in here. What Mike posted got my wheels spinning a bit, and I felt the need to throw out some context.

Much of the technological advancements that have been made throughout history have actually reduced the quality of top end goods, but have raised the median quality in significant ways. The conversion from bronze to iron in weapon and armor manufacturing would be a good example. Assembly line production over hand crafting would be another. Speed or ease of manufacturing can drive industry in directions where top notch quality is not the most important factor, and it is easy to assume that this means that what we have now is better, when quite often what we have is more.

Example:
A Beretta 451-E handmade shotgun runs over $18,000 and is said to be one of the best shotguns on the market, but for the same price, you could arm 10 men with ATI Road Agent shotguns. Which is a "better" gun? Which would make a "better" hunting party?

[fusilier]

A footnote in Gunpowder and Galleys sums up the issue succinctly:

In tests conducted at the H. P. White Laboratory, Eel Aire, Maryland, on 1 July 1970, an 85 caliber lead ball of 890 grains (about 2.3 ounces), driven by 215 grains of black powder (0.49 ounces), typically produced a muzzle velocity of about 1,100 feet per second. Sixteenth century Spanish musketeers almost certainly used a considerably larger powder charge, as heavy as the weight of the ball according to Jorge Vigon, Historia de la Artilleria Española (Madrid, 1947), Vol. I, p. 236.

I found a description of a contract for arquebuses made in 1535 in one of my sources. It specifies a lot of information about the weapons. The ball was supposed to weigh a little more than 3/4 of an ounce (approximately .60 caliber), and it specified that the weapons were to be proofed with a ball, and two charges: each charge of powder was to weigh as much as the ball as thats how they are used in service.

It also specified the weight (almost 15 pounds!), and that the arquebuses should be made to the same size so that in an emergency they could share balls.

[Galloglaich]

@Galloglaich

Without knowing the specs about the musket they used it's really hard to draw conclusions. Tests like this generally aren't willing to load the musket with a full 600 or 800 grains of powder like Sir Roger Williams was recommending.

Guns didn't render armor completely useless, and there occasionally are accounts of individuals who seem to be fairly well protected from bullets in their armor. However in general military writers from the period tend to stop putting much faith in the ability of armor to keep its wearer alive against firearms, even "proofed" armor. It seems to be more the case that once there was no guarantee that armor would even keep you alive the downsides of carrying heavy, uncomfortable armor started to outweigh the benefits in the eyes of most soldiers. In the eyes of military thinkers in the late 16th century armor remained essential for soldiers expected to engage in melee such as pikemen or cavalry, but if arquebusiers and musketeers had to march everywhere and fight in metal armor, there was a serious risk that they would be defeated by exhaustion more often than a lack of protection.

What you are describing here is a good, succinct summary of 19th through late 20th Century thinking on this subject.

However, as is usually the case, especially when it comes to anything High to Late medieval or Renaissance, the reality is much more complex.

In honor of your nicely concise summary, and in the spirit of Oscar Wilde's maxim "Brevity is the Soul of Wit", I'll keep my reply short here rather than my customary 11 paragraphs.

These are the five points I think you should consider:

1) Armor quality was such by the 15th century that tempered steel armor allowed it to become very light. Full harness went from ~80 lbs (transitional harness including mail) in the 14th century to as little as ~35 lbs (Gothic harness) by the mid 15th. A half armor (typical for infantry) might be as little as ~15-20 lbs.

2) Armor also got a lot cheaper in this period so as to be affordable by common soldiers. However it should be noted that in this period common (esp. mercenary) soldiers were high-skilled paid a lot and common artisans and merchants made a very good income compared to later periods.

3) Changes in the armor industry, including serious political / military problems in the main centers like Milan and Augsburg, led to a rapid decline in the scope and scale of armor production, leading to increased prices and declining overall quality.

4) By the late 16th Century armor made of simple wrought iron began to become much more common, while armor of the earlier level of quality, like the armor in the NOVA special, became increasingly luxury items.

5) By the 17th century, due to the threat of firearms (especially pistols for cavalry, who were the main troop type still wearing armor) the simple wrought iron armor got a lot thicker to compensate. Weight went way, way up. To the point that a single breast and back plate combo might weigh as much as ~50 lbs and still not offer very good protection against firearms. meanwhile pay for (often low-skilled) soldiers and for commoners in general was in steep decline.


I hope this makes sense, I know it's a bit twisty / fiddly. But these are the facts.

G

[rrgg]

That was probably a factor. The weapons were typically hand crafted and provided with bullet molds specific to the weapon. The tolerances on mass-produced muskets were quite poor well into the 19th century.

Soldiers appear to have been able to make decisions about how to load their weapons. A smoothbore musket's accuracy can be greatly improved by using a tight fitting ball (or an undersized ball with a patch). It does however make loading take longer.

By the time armies started to mass produce and issue ammunition to their troops, a close range volley was the preferred method of firing. Speed of fire was emphasized over accuracy, so undersized ammunition was standard. The effect of undersized ammunition became interpreted as an "inherent" fault of smoothbore weapons. That assumption is bad enough, but combined with the above tendency to assume that weapons were always improving technologically, and that's where we get ideas about earlier guns being ridiculously inaccurate.

It's not that technology wasn't improving, but those improvements mainly applied to ignition systems - matchlock->wheellock->flintlock. Which do have an impact on overall effectiveness of the weapon. A lot of those technologies were actually figured out quite early, but took sometime for refinement and adoption.

As near as I can tell accuracy was pretty similar at both the high end and low end between 16th century and napoleonic smoothbores. What's more even a typical napoleonic musket would have been accurate enough to make linear tactics pretty much suicide in the right hands. "Musket trials" from the period tend to show that a volley could hit a battalion-sized target ~50% of the time at 100 yards, but in actual combat the accuracy at that distance seems to have only been 0-5% at best.

The real issue tends to be the soldiers themselves. In a massive engagement involving 10s of thousands it turns out that very few men are actually able to keep their cool in the face of all the noise, smoke, and imminent death and even well-trained troops resort to firing as fast as they can without aiming or simply shooting into the air. This is how you end up with accounts of troops literally failing to hit anything beyond 10 yards.

There's another persistent myth that the widespread adoption of rifles during the US Civil War suddenly made napoleonic tactics obsolete. In reality most fighting was still done from around 100 yards away and the minie rifle doesn't seem to have improved practical accuracy outside of specific sharpshooters and small-scale skirmishes.

For some more data I would recommend looking up "The Rifle Musket in Civil War Combat
Reality and Myth" by Hess.

I found a description of a contract for arquebuses made in 1535 in one of my sources.

Out of curiosity, can you name what book that's from? I might need to add it to my library.

[Mike_G]

I rarely post in this thread, but am constantly amazed at the quality of discussions. I do have to take a moment and chime in here. What Mike posted got my wheels spinning a bit, and I felt the need to throw out some context.

Much of the technological advancements that have been made throughout history have actually reduced the quality of top end goods, but have raised the median quality in significant ways. The conversion from bronze to iron in weapon and armor manufacturing would be a good example. Assembly line production over hand crafting would be another. Speed or ease of manufacturing can drive industry in directions where top notch quality is not the most important factor, and it is easy to assume that this means that what we have now is better, when quite often what we have is more.

Example:
A Beretta 451-E handmade shotgun runs over $18,000 and is said to be one of the best shotguns on the market, but for the same price, you could arm 10 men with ATI Road Agent shotguns. Which is a "better" gun? Which would make a "better" hunting party?

Kinda.

But that's not what I'm getting at.

A normal modern rifle pulled out of the middle of a production run is objectively far far far better (in terms of accuracy, range, rate of fire, etc) than the finest musket ever made. Ditto for any economy car today compared to the finest car of 1920, in regards to reliability, fuel efficiency etc. A modern M1 tank can take out a dozen WWII Tigers or T 34s without breaking a sweat.

And we have to be cautious about what's better about top line gear. How much of the 18K shotgun goes into making it a better gun, as far as accuracy, reliability, and so on, and how much is a gorgeous burled walnut stock, scrollwork on the metal, and so on?

And I'm talking the basic weapon you issue to the infantry. The 1860 Springfield rifled musket is objectively more accurate, more reliable and has better range than the Brown Bess of a century earlier. The Springfield 03 is an order of magnitude better than the 1860. The past two centuries have shown dramatic improvements in standard firearms in every practical application.

So, unless you really study the stuff, it seems that from 1500 to 1700, they should have been getting better, not worse. Even when that's not the case, it's hard for not to think that way.

[Galloglaich]

Definitely.

1. After the Black Death, in many European nations, peasants began gaining much greater control over their labor. The sudden rarity of common people made their labor a commodity in high demand,

I agree with most of this, but I think too much emphasis is being put on the Black Death as the instigator of this change. it was already well underway centuries before the Black Death - in fact the Black Death itself may have been in part due to the rapid population expansion in the 13th and early 14th century as well as the extension of power Eastward by European (esp. Italian) city-States. The first European casualties of the Plague were Genoese from their colonies in the Crimea fighting a siege against the Mongol Golden Horde. The Plague hit the Mongols and they catapulted the heads of their own dead soldiers over the walls into the Genoese fortified towns. Then plague hit hard there and Genoese fled back to Europe on ships.

Many scholars believe the Plague would have gotten to Europe anyway, but the start was definitely in the Crimea.

Population growth in the 13th Century, triggered in large part by the rapid rise of the towns in the 12th-13th (which some people call the 'First Renaissance') meant that the population was more exposed to famines in the early 14th (notably 1315-1322) which may have caused a downward spiral of malnutrution in some areas. Starvation / malnutrution typically preceeded plague outbreaks throughout pre-industrial history including specifically Bubonic Plague.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_...315%E2%80%9317

The main point though is that the re-urbanization of Europe is really what triggered the rapid economic changes and growth of the high-to-late medieval period. The European economy (and population) was actually a lot larger in say, 1280 than it was in 1380 or even 1480. As you can see in this chart on England, population is huge ~ 1300, takes a bit dip with the famine, then plunges catastrophically from the 1350's, only to begin recovering about 100 years later.

Recovery was much faster in the more developed areas like Italy, Flanders, South Germany etc., but you the same kind of dip. And in both cases, the period of 1100-1300 is where the most rapid growth occurs.



Here is another similar chart which shows the overall European population



This is another interesting chart which gives us some insight into cultural growth. Notice stagnant manuscript production from Carolingian to beginning of High medieval, then very rapid increase (200% per century) from 1100-1300, then a modest growth in the 14th century, and then doubling again in the 15th.



I think mid to late 20th Century scholars seized on the idea of the Black Death as the easiest way to explain the onset of the period of intense cultural and technological genesis we call today The Renaissance (after the esteemed and magisterial though not always well understood Historian Jakob Burckhardt) but as usual with these things, it's more complex. The simple TL : DR is that the Renaissance had really already started in the 11th Century with the ultimately successful campaign for independence by the Lombard League in Northern Italy.

I do think the Crusades and Reconquista, and the sack of Constantinople in the IVth Crusade, all did contribute to the stimulus.

And the Black Death did shake things up as well, of course, but probably caused as many problems as it alleviated.

G

[Galloglaich]

Kinda.

But that's not what I'm getting at.

A normal modern rifle pulled out of the middle of a production run is objectively far far far better (in terms of accuracy, range, rate of fire, etc) than the finest musket ever made. Ditto for any economy car today compared to the finest car of 1920, in regards to reliability, fuel efficiency etc. A modern M1 tank can take out a dozen WWII Tigers or T 34s without breaking a sweat.

And we have to be cautious about what's better about top line gear. How much of the 18K shotgun goes into making it a better gun, as far as accuracy, reliability, and so on, and how much is a gorgeous burled walnut stock, scrollwork on the metal, and so on?

And I'm talking the basic weapon you issue to the infantry. The 1860 Springfield rifled musket is objectively more accurate, more reliable and has better range than the Brown Bess of a century earlier. The Springfield 03 is an order of magnitude better than the 1860. The past two centuries have shown dramatic improvements in standard firearms in every practical application.

So, unless you really study the stuff, it seems that from 1500 to 1700, they should have been getting better, not worse. Even when that's not the case, it's hard for not to think that way.

We go through periods of technological, economic and cultural genesis, periods of stagnation, and periods of decline.

Cultural genesis is often described (usually in retrospect by admirers of much later generations) as a "Golden Age", so for example in and near Europe we have

Some kind of "Minoan Golden Age" which seems to have been ended by a massive Volcano ~ 1200 BC
the "Golden Age" of Athens and of many other Greek city states, kind of twinkling on and off in different polis like fireflies ~ 5th Century BC
a smaller, sort of mini Hellenistic "Golden Age" triggered by the dissemination of Hellenistic culture in the wake of Alexander the Great (and influence of Persian, Egyptian etc. culture going back the other way) ~ 3rd Century BC
A Roman "Golden Age", or arguably two of them (one Republican one Early Imperial) ~ 2nd Century BC and ~ 1st Century AD
The Muslim Golden Age - like the Greek one breaking out and then being suppressed in one place and then another; Persia, Damascus, Baghdad, Cordoba
The High Medieval period ~11th - 14th Centuries
The Renaissance starting in Italy in the late 14th Century and spreading to Flanders, Germany and beyond in the 15th
A far more muted, Mini-Renaissance in France, England, Spain, Russia etc. in the 16th Century (largely triggered by imported Italian scholars)

then some pretty intense periods of decline in the various wars of Religion and especially the 30 Years War 1620-1648, interrupted by short 'Golden Ages' and more generally, stagnation.

and then more decline and stagnation, mostly, broken up by the enlightenment, short but intense ups and downs with the French Revolution, then the beginning of the Industrial Revolution in England and Flanders, the Belle Epoch in France and then the rise of the United States and Pax Americana (with more short but historically beyond catastrophic events of WW 1, WW2 and other mass murder / destruction eruptions of the20th Century)

During periods of a Golden Age, the effects may be more technological, more cultural, or more economic + military. For example the Athens / Greek Golden Age was largely cultural and technological, but not as important economically and militarily, (the Greeks mostly continued to live pretty simple lives in spite of their great knowledge) while the Hellenistic and Roman were more about increasing technology and economic / military power.

Periods of stagnation usually include continued technological development, but not necessarily in a way that is dissemminated efficiently. For example per your analogy, in the 17th and 18th Century firearms technology did increase rapidly, with fine tuning of wheellocks, rifling, metal cartridges, breach loading and the flint lock, even revolvers becoming invented, but most soldiers in the field were still being equipped with fairly crude muzzle-loading smoothbore match-lock weapons and knowledge of advanced techniques was not always shared.

Meanwhile, I can show you breach loading firearms and rifled firearms from the 15th century, and i can show you revolvers and metal cartridges from the early to mid 16th.

Kind of like, you can see devices like the Antikythera mechanism from the Greek Golden Age, which do not seem to be widely disemminated, and we can see the Persians, Arabs and Moors developing Greek ideas like the cam shaft, cam slider and reduction gear but not doing that much with them in the 8th-11th Centuries, while in Latinized zones of Catalonia and Italy these same techniques (derived from the Greeks via the Arabs) are almost overnight made into the basis of new mechanized iron, wood, textile and paper industries.

In the US, we have been, since probably the 1850's or 1830's, in a pretty rapid and continuous period of technological innovation, a tech "Golden Age" if you will.

When you have periods of rapid technological advancement without corresponding cultural development however, that can contribute to problems.


I think you could make an argument that for example WW I is a good example of a situation in which economic and military / technological development outstripped cultural genesis.

G

[fusilier]

As near as I can tell accuracy was pretty similar at both the high end and low end between 16th century and napoleonic smoothbores. What's more even a typical napoleonic musket would have been accurate enough to make linear tactics pretty much suicide in the right hands. "Musket trials" from the period tend to show that a volley could hit a battalion-sized target ~50% of the time at 100 yards, but in actual combat the accuracy at that distance seems to have only been 0-5% at best.

The real issue tends to be the soldiers themselves. In a massive engagement involving 10s of thousands it turns out that very few men are actually able to keep their cool in the face of all the noise, smoke, and imminent death and even well-trained troops resort to firing as fast as they can without aiming or simply shooting into the air. This is how you end up with accounts of troops literally failing to hit anything beyond 10 yards.

There's another persistent myth that the widespread adoption of rifles during the US Civil War suddenly made napoleonic tactics obsolete. In reality most fighting was still done from around 100 yards away and the minie rifle doesn't seem to have improved practical accuracy outside of specific sharpshooters and small-scale skirmishes.

For some more data I would recommend looking up "The Rifle Musket in Civil War Combat
Reality and Myth" by Hess.

Yes, the tactics used and the training are factors in terms of battlefield performance. However, it's important to establish a baseline -- how accurate is the weapon under ideal conditions? Then ask how do the tactics, training, and battlefield conditions affect that. 16th century tactics and training (and probably battlefield conditions) were different from the 19th century.

The theoretical performance of the muskets across different centuries is going to be very similar. (Although I doubt a brown bess could handle a 600 grain charge) In practice, a Napoleonic soldier could only use loose fitting ammo. Whereas, a 16th century soldier might have an option. When and how often they used that option, is unknown to me.

Out of curiosity, can you name what book that's from? I might need to add it to my library.

It's James Lavin's A History of Spanish Firearms. I can quote the whole section about the contract if you would like.

[Galloglaich]

Yes, the tactics used and the training are factors in terms of battlefield performance. However, it's important to establish a baseline -- how accurate is the weapon under ideal conditions? Then ask how do the tactics, training, and battlefield conditions affect that. 16th century tactics and training (and probably battlefield conditions) were different from the 19th century.

The theoretical performance of the muskets across different centuries is going to be very similar. (Although I doubt a brown bess could handle a 600 grain charge) In practice, a Napoleonic soldier could only use loose fitting ammo. Whereas, a 16th century soldier might have an option. When and how often they used that option, is unknown to me.


It's James Lavin's A History of Spanish Firearms. I can quote the whole section about the contract if you would like.

I think you may concur with me on the Fusilier, but i have noticed that in Late Medieval shooting contests, they seem to have had fairly high expectations of accuracy - and not with an infinity of time to shoot either as shooting was usually timed with a mechanical clock. A ~10" target at roughly 70 - 100 meters seems to be fairly common (not always certain because you have to look at the actual invite to determine what the precise unit of measure is for each contest, as it varied from town to town and from year to year). Target distances as far away as 200 meters are not unheard of for the elite tier (elimination round etc.) of a contest.

And in battle there always seems to be a minority of shooters who could hit human targets as far away as 200-300 meters. In the Siege of Malta for example both the Ottomans and Spanish / Hospitaliers seemed to have some guys who could hit targets much further away than average.

Seems like these guys customized their guns, cast their own bullets and sometimes made their own powder, used special wadding, and did a lot of other special things to arrive at this kind of accuracy, but I've seen a lot of evidence that you had people with these capabilities.

Some maybe had rifled guns too since i know Augsburg was already banning them from shooting contests (as they were considered cheating) as early as 1401.

G

[rrgg]

What you are describing here is a good, succinct summary of 19th through late 20th Century thinking on this subject.

However, as is usually the case, especially when it comes to anything High to Late medieval or Renaissance, the reality is much more complex.

In honor of your nicely concise summary, and in the spirit of Oscar Wilde's maxim "Brevity is the Soul of Wit", I'll keep my reply short here rather than my customary 11 paragraphs.

These are the five points I think you should consider:

1) Armor quality was such by the 15th century that tempered steel armor allowed it to become very light. Full harness went from ~80 lbs (transitional harness including mail) in the 14th century to as little as ~35 lbs (Gothic harness) by the mid 15th. A half armor (typical for infantry) might be as little as ~15-20 lbs.

2) Armor also got a lot cheaper in this period so as to be affordable by common soldiers. However it should be noted that in this period common (esp. mercenary) soldiers were high-skilled paid a lot and common artisans and merchants made a very good income compared to later periods.

3) Changes in the armor industry, including serious political / military problems in the main centers like Milan and Augsburg, led to a rapid decline in the scope and scale of armor production, leading to increased prices and declining overall quality.

4) By the late 16th Century armor made of simple wrought iron began to become much more common, while armor of the earlier level of quality, like the armor in the NOVA special, became increasingly luxury items.

5) By the 17th century, due to the threat of firearms (especially pistols for cavalry, who were the main troop type still wearing armor) the simple wrought iron armor got a lot thicker to compensate. Weight went way, way up. To the point that a single breast and back plate combo might weigh as much as ~50 lbs and still not offer very good protection against firearms. meanwhile pay for (often low-skilled) soldiers and for commoners in general was in steep decline.


I hope this makes sense, I know it's a bit twisty / fiddly. But these are the facts.

G

Thanks, I think we've discussed the curious decline in armor quality during the 16th century before, but conversely prior to then most armors weren't really being made with firearms in mind. Even from the early 1500s for example you have Paolo Giovio's account of Pavia where he claims that the muskets used by the Spanish were able to kill two French men-at-arms with one bullet and in Jacapo's The Preceptes of Warre he describes gunners on horseback like this: "For no sorte of souldyers, is more profytable thā they nor yet doth more myschife and hurte. For no man is so well harnaysed, that can be saulfe from them: such a vyolence is in that warlye instrumente"

20-35 lbs is still quite a lot of weight. We know that the 20+ lb muskets seem to have had a lot of issues and it could be difficult to get musketeers to march long distances without wagons to help carry their weapons. Often the decision to abandon armor seems to have begun with the soldiers themselves, rather than some penny-pinching higher-ups. In 1600 ireland for example English troops were apparently leaving behind even helmets and breastplates in piles everywhere they went. In 1632 John Cruso was still complaining about carbineers who preferred to wear just a buff coat instead of a breastplate and backplate.

The whole knight=helpless turtle thing is a modern myth, but weight and encumbrance were a real problem and could even negatively impact combat performance. I suspect part of the issue was shift to more self-sufficient or lower class troops who couldn't afford multiple servants or draft animals to help carry the weight of their gear. Even when it comes to cavalry Sir Williams makes a distinction between true "men at arms" who require five horses each, and lancers, which he considers just as effective and more versatile while only needing the one horse. He wanted a horseman's armor to be pistol proof at the foreparts but otherwise to be made as a light as possible so that the horse could endure the weight up to ten hours.

[fusilier]

So, unless you really study the stuff, it seems that from 1500 to 1700, they should have been getting better, not worse. Even when that's not the case, it's hard for not to think that way.

They evolved to fit the environment they were in. Armor was no longer an issue by 1700, so a heavy musket using a huge powder charge was no longer necessary. The tactics of the day (which were employed because they were successful) emphasized close-range massed volley fire, so rate of fire became more important than accuracy.

A musket of 1700 would have been lighter, and more reliable than one of 1500 (or 1550). It would have been able to take a bayonet. In terms of accuracy . . . well that wasn't stressed at the time. In a theoretical sense, provide both with ammo of the same windage, and they will probably have similar accuracy. Practically speaking, militaries at least, weren't issuing tight-fitting ammo, and their muskets were no longer made with rear-sights.

A musket of 1550 would probably have been more powerful, in terms of armor penetration, and maximum effective range. It would also have had a slower rate of fire.

We can talk objectively about accuracy and armor penetration -- but whether or not that made a weapon better or worse is subjective, because it depends upon what we choose to measure. When we talk about things like accuracy and armor penetration, we are choosing to focus on certain aspects. We often end up ignoring the entire system that the weapon was a part of -- including things like training and tactics.

A 1550s musket would have been too heavy and slow loading for a battlefield in 1700. A 1700's musket would have had some benefits on a battlefield in 1550 -- but probably would lack the armor penetration expected of such weapon.