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

[rrgg]

With the earlier start and extra divisions freed up by not having to defend in the west, fight in Africa, and help the Italians in the Balkans, it's very possible that the Germans roll the Soviets so far back that there's no recovering for the Soviets.

On the flip side, if there's no eastern front... Hiroshima is probably not the first city hit with an atomic weapon.

It's possible, but not likely. More men doesn't ensure that an army moves any faster if supply lines are strained as it is. Meanwhile the Soviets could keep moving their people and industry farther east while they put together a defense, and there was no way they were going to capitulate once it became clear that the Germans were waging a literal war of extermination against the Russian people.

The US probably could have beaten Nazi Germany as well. WWII essentially boils down to one crazy guy and his rogue state declaring war against the whole world. It's already a miracle that the Axis lasted as long as it did in the first place.

[Duff]

Yes, the last version of D&D I played was the Red Box edition, so pre-dating even AD&D.

God I feel old now...

Red box had electram coins too

[Mr Beer]

I don't think this is true for a few reasons. First, I think there may not be as much supply of steel for making armor, but there is simply a larger supply of armor. In modern times, there is less expertise around for making armor because it's not a practical or desirable skill for most people, driving down supply. In medieval times, there is a larger supply of people able and willing to make armor because it was a relevant and important profession, driving up supply. As well, there must have been more armor simply floating around because armor seems likely to survive its owner, and then be passed on to someone else, and this should raise supply. As well, in modern times, it seems like armor is a very niche good that sellers will charge more for because there is only a limited pool of buyers and those buyers tended to want to spend more on it. In medieval times, armor would've been a necessity, and with more suppliers and more purchasers, there are more people who are willing to shop around for quality at a lower price and more people who are willing to compete with each other to provide it.

I think wages were generally comparatively lower as well, back in the day. Obviously machinery is generally more efficient than even cheap modern human labour but my guess is that doesn't help a great deal with modern armour production.

[snowblizz]

1. The rate of fire for bows and crossbows was not considered that much of a big deal for bowmen and crossbowmen. Arrows and bolts are not bullets, and are much larger and more difficult to carry. These weapons are also man-powered rather than chemical-powered. As a result, you are only generally getting some number of shots out of every archer or crossbowman before they had to re-supply or they became too tired to be effective shots, and that evened out the "rate of fire" for these weapons even if the bowman was shooting X number of shots for each shot that the crossbowman was shooting. Sure, you can re-supply everyone with arrows, but they would have to go to an arrow stash or cart or something, or an arrow stash or cart would have to be attached to the unit and slow it down, or they would have to waste manpower on people going to fetch arrows for the shooters.

It does kind of matter because battles could be over rather quickly too sometimes. If the enemy is advancing on you you want to make sure your 36 arrows are all downrage doing something to reduce or ideally stop the enemy advance.

2. This one I saw on the "Metatron" youtube channel here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgRjGlzoRvk. Metatron makes the point that medieval soldiers who were able to equip themselves with full plate armor were filthy rich. He makes this point by discussing how a modern-day replica suit of armor for something like re-enactment costs an enormous sum of money, and is also produced with efficient modern tools and using cheaper, more abundant modern materials. Therefore, a medieval suit of armor must be even more comparatively expensive for a knight trying to acquire one than a modern suit of armor would be for a re-enactor trying to acquire one.

Utter bunk. And it's brought up many times in this thread with pricelists and wage earning comparisons. The picture isn't complete but in all examples good armour is available essentially to those who want it.
Really, a better comparison would be with cars in the modern day. There's a huge industry working en masse to produce a car just for you. It's not throw away cheap brand new but there are ways to cut the cost of entry (and having done that, soldiery could be fairly well paying profession, so you'd in reasonable time be able to afford the best). Also there are the massmarket versions and the handmade artisanal cars.

What that guy on youtube is doing is equivalent to looking at Lamborghinis and saying there's no way any normal person can afford a Kia Ceed because cars are clearly too expensive to make.

It's possible, but not likely. More men doesn't ensure that an army moves any faster if supply lines are strained as it is. Meanwhile the Soviets could keep moving their people and industry farther east while they put together a defense, and there was no way they were going to capitulate once it became clear that the Germans were waging a literal war of extermination against the Russian people.

However it does ensure that the substantial losses you've taken to trained personnel and materiel, and in the ww2 German case, especially the Luftwaffe are available at the start. And that maybe, just maybe a bit more logistical planning goes into the operation.

Let's not overstate the Soviet position either. Stalin was sitting on a precarious construction held in check by his abiltiy to inflict terror, remember the Soviet union was a lot more than just Russians who tended to occupy a similar position vis a vis the others as had been the case during previous regimes. There was less patriotic outcry until around 1942 when they figured out to appeal to Mother Russia instead of the beloved *ahem* socialism. Many of the Soviet republics may well have broken off. The Baltic states were rearing to go, Ukraine and Azerbadjan could have decided they were happy to be rid of their oppressors, several central Asian ones might also reconsider positions given a topplign regime. Of course it's unlikely the WW2 Germans could have not become the oppressors themselves, so that's uncertain. It becomes a tossup between meaningfully shaking the Stalin edifice and starting a terror of their own making I think.
It's not a given that the Soviets could have moved all industry away either in a situation with a stronger Luftwaffe, more German troops and materiel available to cover distances and less troops and materiel of their own. The move caused massive disruptions which very largely covered with outside help. It was very close that the Baku oilfields were lost, and even more importantly the equipment and expertise, without which the Soviet union could not have functioned after 1942. Consider how a weakened Great Britain sent convoys of stuff to their ally, it wasn't just a marketing gimmick, that's how badly the Soviet union needed essential supplies.

And Stalin himself wasn't popular by any stretch. Even though he was good at eliminating rivals and plots and so, it's not inconceivable that desperation would drive someone to get rid of him to change the game, maybe look at a peace. Had the Germans stood in Moscow in june 1941 instead of just starting out it would be a much different war. Had they managed to push into Leningrad and Moscow in 1941 Stalin might well have been sitting very losely and those fabled Siberian divisions might not have cared to obey orders anymore.

When we look after the fact ww2 Germany vs Soviet Union looks very uneven on paper, and we know how it turned out when a weaker Germany and supported Soviet union fought it out. But all totalitarian states have that inherent flaw that they are really only some random shock away from a crack forming that topples it. And that would have mattered more than all the land you can supposedly retreat from.

Of course all this speculation also hinges on a more pragmatic Germna leadership which I'm also not convinced was possible. I don't like to be deterministic but some things are hard to see not happening.

[wolflance]

I'm not sure where you heard this, but it's incorrect.

Here's a replica 1250lb draw crossbow that Tod Todeschini is shooting and in the comments, the bolt weighs 90g and initial velocity is ~55m/s, for an overall KE of 136J. Other papers I've read on similar draw weight crossbows place them in the 100+ J range.

Meanwhile those same papers put a 140lb longbow putting out arrows at between 75-95J, depending on the type of arrow being shot (bodkin, lozenge, etc). I can't see a yumi outperforming an English longbow by much as it's generally the same bow type, despite the normal laminated composite construction.

A recurve bow (particularly a turkic/mongolian composite design) is an different beast - they can usually shoot the same weight arrows as a long bow, but typically about 30-50fps faster, so ~106-160J if I've done my math right for a 140lb recurve, all other things being equal to that 140lb longbow.

Edit: I should include my source as per the OP: A report of the findings of the Defence Academy warbow trials Part 1, Summer 2005; Arms and Armour Vol 4, No.1 2007; Bourke and Whetham.

Sorry for the delayed reply. The English Warbow I said before is actually 156 joules (not 160), and is found in "The Old English Warbow, parts 1&2&3" Primitive archer Volume 9, Issue 2 & Volume 9, Issue 4, written by Pip Bickerstaffe.

Unfortunately I don't have original source, although I've read other sources that quote it. (such as this one)

Looking back, maybe I should treat this as outlier as well?

While I agree that the yumi does appear recurved, nothing in the literature I've found indicates it has the same performance as one. I'm more than happy to be proved wrong if you have something that says otherwise.
I agree that all other variables being equal, the higher draw weight would indicate greater stored energy, but a yumi would be tillered (constructed) so that that you would achieve maximum draw weight at full extension, which would give a lower gradient force/draw curve (easier and smoother to draw) rather than greater stored energy.

I've made a mistake here as well, when I said "recurved", what I meant was "reflexed", in that the bow bends away from the user when unstrung. This allows the bow to be pre-stressed (storing energy) when strung, before it is even drawn.

For the Yumi's performance, I will just copy these quotes from Myarmoury wholesome. Note that the efficiency number is not an estimate, but just a rough outline on why Yumi outperforms longbow (of the same draw weight).

It(Yumi)'s a reflex-recurve bow, but only moderately reflexed, rather than with the tips almost touching (might have 1-2 feet from a line between the tips to the furthest point on the belly, unstrung, for a 7' yumi). Made from laminated bamboo strips, or bamboo and wood, often with a covering for weather protection.

A late Medieval Japanese warbow would probably exceed 100lb in draw weight (based on thickness of modern yumi limbs and old warbow limbs). It's also a long draw bow, with the drawing hand ending up in front of the rear shoulder - a 35" draw length would not be unusual. The long draw and the reflex-recurve should give a 100lb yumi about the same energy as a 150lb English longbow. A military yumi is large and heavy-limbed, and arrows are usually very heavy (e.g., 125g). Because the arrows are so heavy, they're not very fast, and long-range performance isn't very good. But the bow delivers a lot of energy at close range.

The area under the force-draw curve is equal to the energy stored in the bow. If the bow acted as a linear spring, the force-draw curve would be a straight line (that's the "linear" part), and the energy would be
E = 1/2*(draw weight)*(draw length - brace height).
Note that (draw length - brace height) is the distance the string is drawn back from the starting point. (Formula above is the area of a triangle.) If the bow is very, very long, and a straight stick when unstrung, and bends uniformly, the force-draw curve will be close to that linear curve. For a realistic length for such a bow, the force-draw curve is concave. The shorter, the more concave, and the longer, the straighter.

How can you store more energy? Equivalently, we can ask how to increase the energy under the force-draw curve? You can increase the draw weight, or you can increase the draw length, or you can change the shape of the curve, typically to something convex rather than concave. Recurved limbs will make the force-draw curve flatten out later in the draw (the tips of the limbs stay further apart, giving better leverage, so less force is needed). Reflex will strain the bow more when strung. Strung and undrawn, it's bent a lot more from its starting shape than a straight stick longbow. This means that the string is under more tension. This means that the slope of the start of the force-draw curve is steeper. Combine these two, and you have a convex force-draw curve.

For the yumi, (draw length - brace height) is about 25% than for a longbow, so 25% more energy. A reflex-recurve bow can give about 20% more energy from the convexity of the force-draw curve. Combine these, and you have about 50% more energy. Yes, the yumi counts as recurve.

If the bow stacks towards the end of the draw, the end of the force-draw curve will be concave. This is common, giving a S-shaped force-draw curve for many recurve bows. A gently S-curve is normal for a slightly reflexed and/or recurved longbow.

One problem is that there doesn't appear to be anybody interested (at least nothing published in English) in verifying the historical performance of high draw weight yumi (Kyudo practitioners use 30lb draw bows apparently). Some other research also indicates that yumi draw weights didn't get up to the same heights as Mongol/Chinese/English bows, mostly because there wasn't a need for it; gusoku even with a nanban dou (western style one piece steel cuirass), wasn't as protective as plate harness, despite what all the rapid fans claim.

Indeed Kyudo practitioners used very low draw weight bows (up to 60 lbs maximum, I think), however there are no historical sources that suggest Yumi to be weaker in draw weight compared to Chinese/Mongol bow - the opposite appears to be true, based on Chinese sources I came across.

It should be noted that Japanese armor is mostly inferior to European full plate harness in terms of COVERAGE, the armored parts are still protected with good iron plates, so there's definitely needs of high powered bow that can punch through armor.

While you would expect an efficiency improvement with using the correct projectile weight for the draw weight, I can't find a precise value for crossbows (pretty much everything I can find is for modern crossbows). While I agree that a bow is always going to be more efficient than a crossbow in terms of stored energy to projectile energy conversion, whether that can be used as an indicator of superior performance is more debatable.

Indeed, I can't find one either, and even the modern ones appear to be suggestions more than anything.

However, there's one crossbow test that shows incredible power (488 joule!) because they tested with a significantly heavier bolt. I am not sure if bolts that heavy are historical though, medieval bolts tend to be fairly light as far as I am aware.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nY2untEwCnU

While hunting around, I found this test by Joe Gibbs of the English Warbow Society with a 180lb Tartar bow and it shot a 63.3g arrow at 211 fps, which converts to 133J.

Although the comments in that video indicate that this performance is surprisingly poor, I personally think that it is quite good. Maybe the bow can shoot with greater joules if he switched to a heavier arrow, but then the range will likely suffers.

[wolflance]

I haven't actually missed out bows because it's clear they aren't drivers towards platearmour either in Europe, Japan or anywhere else for that matter. If bows were so armourpiercing then logically better armour would have been developed earlier surely? And what would the point of the crossbow be seeing that an archer can shoot what a dozen arrows for the crossbowman's one? If bows are per definition more powerful and more armour piercing than crossbows?

Makes absolutely no sense to me at all.

As Galloglaich has noted before, crossbows and guns were often used to proof armours. Not so much bows.

While not plate armor per se, it appears to me that heavier armor did develop (or spread) earlier in cultures where archery reigned supreme. The ancient equivalent of armored tank - the cataphract, originated from Iran, and spread eastward, and remained almost exclusively "Eastern". Thus it can be argued that bows & arrows did drive the advancement of heavy armor.

For comparison, European didn't appear (to me at least) to be seriously pursuing heavier protection until sometime around 10 or 11th century...

(BTW, People didn't "prove" armor with bows probably for the same reason they didn't prove it with couched lance. Hiring the archer/knight cost extra money, why not just shoot it with something everyone can use?)

[Vinyadan]

Putting numbers aside for a moment, I don't think that war on the Western Front was normal. It might have been for the expeditionary forces of the Allies, which were rather humanely treated. But the Nazi deported millions of civilians for forced labour, and destroyed whole villages, killing all of the residents, sometimes hundreds at a time. They also kept the murder of Jews, Gypsies, and many others going.
Yes, it was better than in the East, but it wasn't a normal war by Western standards, especially since the concept of war crimes and protection of civilians had been floating around since the late XIX century, and "civilized" nations were expected to abide by it.

[gkathellar]

However it does ensure that the substantial losses you've taken to trained personnel and materiel, and in the ww2 German case, especially the Luftwaffe are available at the start. And that maybe, just maybe a bit more logistical planning goes into the operation.

Let's not overstate the Soviet position either. Stalin was sitting on a precarious construction held in check by his abiltiy to inflict terror, remember the Soviet union was a lot more than just Russians who tended to occupy a similar position vis a vis the others as had been the case during previous regimes. There was less patriotic outcry until around 1942 when they figured out to appeal to Mother Russia instead of the beloved *ahem* socialism. Many of the Soviet republics may well have broken off. The Baltic states were rearing to go, Ukraine and Azerbadjan could have decided they were happy to be rid of their oppressors, several central Asian ones might also reconsider positions given a topplign regime. Of course it's unlikely the WW2 Germans could have not become the oppressors themselves, so that's uncertain. It becomes a tossup between meaningfully shaking the Stalin edifice and starting a terror of their own making I think.
It's not a given that the Soviets could have moved all industry away either in a situation with a stronger Luftwaffe, more German troops and materiel available to cover distances and less troops and materiel of their own. The move caused massive disruptions which very largely covered with outside help. It was very close that the Baku oilfields were lost, and even more importantly the equipment and expertise, without which the Soviet union could not have functioned after 1942. Consider how a weakened Great Britain sent convoys of stuff to their ally, it wasn't just a marketing gimmick, that's how badly the Soviet union needed essential supplies.

And Stalin himself wasn't popular by any stretch. Even though he was good at eliminating rivals and plots and so, it's not inconceivable that desperation would drive someone to get rid of him to change the game, maybe look at a peace. Had the Germans stood in Moscow in june 1941 instead of just starting out it would be a much different war. Had they managed to push into Leningrad and Moscow in 1941 Stalin might well have been sitting very losely and those fabled Siberian divisions might not have cared to obey orders anymore.

When we look after the fact ww2 Germany vs Soviet Union looks very uneven on paper, and we know how it turned out when a weaker Germany and supported Soviet union fought it out. But all totalitarian states have that inherent flaw that they are really only some random shock away from a crack forming that topples it. And that would have mattered more than all the land you can supposedly retreat from.

Of course all this speculation also hinges on a more pragmatic Germna leadership which I'm also not convinced was possible. I don't like to be deterministic but some things are hard to see not happening.

It's hard to speculate on, because the whole set of political calculations would have been very different in the absence of two fronts. What I've been given to understand is that Stalin's "great mistake" was failing to prepare for a war with Germany following the 1939 Nazi-Soviet pact, and in the absence of a Western front I think that may have played out very differently, if it had played out at all.

It should be noted that Japanese armor is mostly inferior to European full plate harness in terms of COVERAGE, the armored parts are still protected with good iron plates, so there's definitely needs of high powered bow that can punch through armor.

Point of agreement: extant Sengoku-period swordsmanship (TKSR, in particular) treats armor as pretty much impenetrable, and generally focuses on striking gaps between the plates when dealing with an armored opponent. Kenjutsu looks very different when it's aiming for people's underarms and elbows.

[Incanur]

However, there's one crossbow test that shows incredible power (488 joule!) because they tested with a significantly heavier bolt. I am not sure if bolts that heavy are historical though, medieval bolts tend to be fairly light as far as I am aware.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nY2untEwCnU

Bolts around that weight are historical: there's one listed in the book A Deadly Art. Edit: Actually, it was only 177g. However, at 23lbs, over 4ft long, and nearly 5ft across, that's a rather awkward weapon. I'm not sure it could be effectively shot without something to prop it on. (Later target crossbows of similar or even greater weight apparently were shot from a standing position with any rest or prop, but they're more compact.)

Accounts of great crossbows shooting through multiple people go back well into the medieval period.

I do love the idea of big honking crossbows used as nongunpowder muskets for a fantasy setting. It might be possible with that design: 488 J would defeat most plate armor at close range. The width of the prod would make concentrated shooting formations a lot harder, though.

Additionally note that this crossbow isn't very efficient. The best historical crossbows might have performed much better. There are steel crossbows today (not historical designs) that look to have the same or better efficiency (38%) at higher velocity (71 m/s or 233 fps). And Ralph Payne-Gallwey's refurbished 15th-century crossbow probably performed even better if it really shot 440-460 yards.

Although the comments in that video indicate that this performance is surprisingly poor, I personally think that it is quite good. Maybe the bow can shoot with greater joules if he switched to a heavier arrow, but then the range will likely suffers.

It really isn't good if you compare it to Adam Karpowicz's Turkish bow tests. His 136lb bow managed about 141 J at 210fps.

With both simple wooden and composite bows there's a wide range of performance based on quality. An excellent self bow will perform better than a poor composite bow.

[Martin Greywolf]

1. The rate of fire for bows and crossbows was not considered that much of a big deal for bowmen and crossbowmen. Arrows and bolts are not bullets, and are much larger and more difficult to carry. These weapons are also man-powered rather than chemical-powered. As a result, you are only generally getting some number of shots out of every archer or crossbowman before they had to re-supply or they became too tired to be effective shots, and that evened out the "rate of fire" for these weapons even if the bowman was shooting X number of shots for each shot that the crossbowman was shooting. Sure, you can re-supply everyone with arrows, but they would have to go to an arrow stash or cart or something, or an arrow stash or cart would have to be attached to the unit and slow it down, or they would have to waste manpower on people going to fetch arrows for the shooters.

We can't known for sure - not a lot of field handbooks left from 15th century - but that arrow resupply? It was most likely done, and very efficiently at that. If we go to 100 years war again, most of the battles where archers had their day were defensive in nature - English had enough time to set up defensive fortifications. That means it is very likely they set up carts/barrels of arrows at regular intervals among their archery positions.

Another example is Crecy, where English had time to set up, whereas crossbowmen on the French side didn't. I imagine things like this are what could make or break a battle easily.

On a somewhat related note, this makes mounted archers pretty useful, even if they don't shoot from the horseback - they can carry a lot of arrows with them.

2. This one I saw on the "Metatron" youtube channel here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgRjGlzoRvk. Metatron makes the point that medieval soldiers who were able to equip themselves with full plate armor were filthy rich. He makes this point by discussing how a modern-day replica suit of armor for something like re-enactment costs an enormous sum of money, and is also produced with efficient modern tools and using cheaper, more abundant modern materials. Therefore, a medieval suit of armor must be even more comparatively expensive for a knight trying to acquire one than a modern suit of armor would be for a re-enactor trying to acquire one.

I don't think this is true for a few reasons. First, I think there may not be as much supply of steel for making armor, but there is simply a larger supply of armor. In modern times, there is less expertise around for making armor because it's not a practical or desirable skill for most people, driving down supply. In medieval times, there is a larger supply of people able and willing to make armor because it was a relevant and important profession, driving up supply. As well, there must have been more armor simply floating around because armor seems likely to survive its owner, and then be passed on to someone else, and this should raise supply. As well, in modern times, it seems like armor is a very niche good that sellers will charge more for because there is only a limited pool of buyers and those buyers tended to want to spend more on it. In medieval times, armor would've been a necessity, and with more suppliers and more purchasers, there are more people who are willing to shop around for quality at a lower price and more people who are willing to compete with each other to provide it.

I agree with snowblizz on this one. Metatron on the whole has a problem of insufficient research - it seems like he sees an article somewhere and rushes to present it in a video as THE truth. A bit like Lindybeige, though Lindy is more knowledgeable on the whole and pretty much the best popular source for Hannibal and ancient Rome/Greece (his video on Ochs is still a disaster, though).

Tying the prices to modern re-enactors is just silly - these are luxury items for us with low demand. As for how modern production would look, I have one more point to add to your description - imagine something like modern large automobile plants, only with plate armor.

Modern bulletproof (anti-rifle grade) vest, which we can say is comparable to cuirass without backplate, will set you back about $500 and up, which is one to three months for most of the people in the richer countries. That's remarkably similar to the medieval cost.

However, there's one crossbow test that shows incredible power (488 joule!) because they tested with a significantly heavier bolt. I am not sure if bolts that heavy are historical though, medieval bolts tend to be fairly light as far as I am aware.

I can give you some personal recollection on this. See, one day we made a ballista. Starting like that, you know this story is gonna be good.

We didn't do any speed tests, mostly on account of not having the equipment, but we did find out one very important thing - the lighter the bolt, the worse it was, in a way that was really remarkable. We made a few bolts from really light wood, and those had a range of maybe 30-50 meters, even with fins - we used those against other armored people after adding padding to the top.

Spoiler: The beastie in action

Show

What we discovered, though, was that once you loaded something heavier, like, say, a brick, the performance improved dramatically. Said brick flew over a line of trees and into the middle of a river (don't worry, we checked both for people beforehand), achieving a distance of 60-100 meters.

The reason for this is, I think, that the bow itself has a max speed at which it straightens out, and this speed depends mostly on material, steel seems to be a lot slower than wood. However, the maximum weight that can be dragged depends on raw poundage, which in the end means that a crossbow maxes out the speed it can achieve faster, but can get heavier projectiles up to it. Which is a pretty good property for armor piercing weapon when we're talking about plate and mail.

Which makes the absence of all metal bolts rather curious, but I wonder if that isn't related to them being metal and therefore very meltable if you need that extra bit of iron, while the small wooden bolt heads are usually not worth the trouble.

[gkathellar]

Wouldn't an all-metal bolt have very different aerodynamic characteristics due to the weight of the shaft relative to the weight of the head?

[DrewID]

The reason for this is, I think, that the bow itself has a max speed at which it straightens out, and this speed depends mostly on material, steel seems to be a lot slower than wood. However, the maximum weight that can be dragged depends on raw poundage, which in the end means that a crossbow maxes out the speed it can achieve faster, but can get heavier projectiles up to it. Which is a pretty good property for armor piercing weapon when we're talking about plate and mail.

When you loose an arrow or bolt, the projectile isn't the only thing being moved; there is also the bow arms. And while they move less (the tips move something like half the distance of the projectile during the acceleration phase; the center moves essentially not at all), they have orders of magnitude more mass. And at the low end, the mass of the projectile is so small in comparison that changes in mass almost leave the energy equation unchanged. An article in a science magazine I read in the 80's pointed this out, and said this was one of the big advantages of the compound bow with its pulleys; the bow arms themselves move so very little that far more of the energy that you expended drawing the bow is transferred to the arrow upon release.

DrewID

[wolflance]

Bolts around that weight are historical: there's one listed in the book A Deadly Art. Edit: Actually, it was only 177g. However, at 23lbs, over 4ft long, and nearly 5ft across, that's a rather awkward weapon. I'm not sure it could be effectively shot without something to prop it on. (Later target crossbows of similar or even greater weight apparently were shot from a standing position with any rest or prop, but they're more compact.)

Wait, is the bolt 177g, or 23 lbs????? Both are much heavier than the heaviest one I am aware of previously. Are these bolts meant to be shot from handheld crossbow like the one Tod tested?

It also brings into question on why others didn't test on heavier bolts.

Accounts of great crossbows shooting through multiple people go back well into the medieval period.

I do love the idea of big honking crossbows used as nongunpowder muskets for a fantasy setting. It might be possible with that design: 488 J would defeat most plate armor at close range. The width of the prod would make concentrated shooting formations a lot harder, though.

Additionally note that this crossbow isn't very efficient. The best historical crossbows might have performed much better. There are steel crossbows today (not historical designs) that look to have the same or better efficiency (38%) at higher velocity (71 m/s or 233 fps). And Ralph Payne-Gallwey's refurbished 15th-century crossbow probably performed even better if it really shot 440-460 yards.

It also likely depend on the quality of the plate. The recent NOVA documentary plate can probably resist it.

Come to think of it, maybe the advanced quenching / heat treatment was/is the major factor that makes full plates to appear so invincible...

It really isn't good if you compare it to Adam Karpowicz's Turkish bow tests. His 136lb bow managed about 141 J at 210fps.

With both simple wooden and composite bows there's a wide range of performance based on quality. An excellent self bow will perform better than a poor composite bow.

Agreed on this one.

[RifleAvenger]

Hello all. I know next to nothing about guns. I'm looking to add a bit of flavor to a game I'm preparing, near modern in setting, where the players are essentially a supernatural SWAT team. What kind of real life guns and equipment would resemble standard issue for this organization?

Looking for things that support customization (types of ammo, etc.) to be adaptable to fighting both other humans and different supernaturals, handles well in confined spaces and CQB (indoors, urban, thick forests, cave systems, often at less than 100 yards), and has some stopping power behind it (some of the stuff they fight still has quite a bit of mass even after the "DR" is dealt with). Would enjoy suggestions on at least a handgun and a combat rifle model.

I apologize if this is a stupid question.

[wolflance]

We can't known for sure - not a lot of field handbooks left from 15th century - but that arrow resupply? It was most likely done, and very efficiently at that. If we go to 100 years war again, most of the battles where archers had their day were defensive in nature - English had enough time to set up defensive fortifications. That means it is very likely they set up carts/barrels of arrows at regular intervals among their archer positions.

It should be noted that during 17th century Toshiya contests, individual participants sometimes shot over 10,000 arrows over the course of 24 hours.

While it is implied that the bows they used for the contest were weaker than traditional Japanese warbow, they still appears to be fairly powerful, able to propell an arrow to a range of 120m consistently without requiring arching shot.

I can give you some personal recollection on this. See, one day we made a ballista. Starting like that, you know this story is gonna be good.

We didn't do any speed tests, mostly on account of not having the equipment, but we did find out one very important thing - the lighter the bolt, the worse it was, in a way that was really remarkable. We made a few bolts from really light wood, and those had a range of maybe 30-50 meters, even with fins - we used those against other armored people after adding padding to the top.

Spoiler: The beastie in action

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What we discovered, though, was that once you loaded something heavier, like, say, a brick, the performance improved dramatically. Said brick flew over a line of trees and into the middle of a river (don't worry, we checked both for people beforehand), achieving a distance of 60-100 meters.

The reason for this is, I think, that the bow itself has a max speed at which it straightens out, and this speed depends mostly on material, steel seems to be a lot slower than wood. However, the maximum weight that can be dragged depends on raw poundage, which in the end means that a crossbow maxes out the speed it can achieve faster, but can get heavier projectiles up to it. Which is a pretty good property for armor piercing weapon when we're talking about plate and mail.

Which makes the absence of all metal bolts rather curious, but I wonder if that isn't related to them being metal and therefore very meltable if you need that extra bit of iron, while the small wooden bolt heads are usually not worth the trouble.

Wowww, this is indeed good...well, aren't shooting something that light more akin to dry-firing your ballista? This can't be good for your ballista prod...

A metal bolt of the same weight as its wooden counterpart probably will be much thinner, making it too thin to fit into the crossbow groove. OTOH, something the same size as a wooden bolt, but made of metal, is probably too heavy? (I am not sure if metal bolt really doesnt exist though, just my guessing)

[Storm Bringer]

Hello all. I know next to nothing about guns. I'm looking to add a bit of flavor to a game I'm preparing, near modern in setting, where the players are essentially a supernatural SWAT team. What kind of real life guns and equipment would resemble standard issue for this organization?

Looking for things that support customization (types of ammo, etc.) to be adaptable to fighting both other humans and different supernaturals, handles well in confined spaces and CQB (indoors, urban, thick forests, cave systems, often at less than 100 yards), and has some stopping power behind it (some of the stuff they fight still has quite a bit of mass even after the "DR" is dealt with). Would enjoy suggestions on at least a handgun and a combat rifle model.

I apologize if this is a stupid question.

most real life swat teams use M-16/M4 variants, normally the semi-only civilian types. police snipers elements tend to use conventional bolt action rifles (Remington 700, M-40. etc). semi auto shotguns like the Benelli M4 are often carried by one or two members of a team.

A huge range of pistols are used, mostly 9mm types like the Glock 17, Beretta m92/M9 ect.

beyond that, its really a matter of what your facing this mission, as a lot of the loadout can be altered for the job in hand,

[snowblizz]

most real life swat teams use M-16/M4 variants, normally the semi-only civilian types. police snipers elements tend to use conventional bolt action rifles (Remington 700, M-40. etc). semi auto shotguns like the Benelli M4 are often carried by one or two members of a team.

A huge range of pistols are used, mostly 9mm types like the Glock 17, Beretta m92/M9 ect.

beyond that, its really a matter of what your facing this mission, as a lot of the loadout can be altered for the job in hand,

I've heard/read the MP5 is one of the more popular police tacticla unit wepaons too. Wiki says it's the most widely used in SWAT teams in the US. Most will be using a weapon with some kind of bullpop design due to compactness.
You want a good, semi/automatic weapon but one that's not too powerful so that most bullets will stay in target and not pass through people and walls. I believe this is one reason for the 9mm MP5 being so popular. Though some heavier battelfield grade rifles have been added in case of armoured resistance.
If I understood it right a 9mm is larger than the 5.56mm round but slower, so you could have more room for specilised ammunition vs supernatural things.

[Blackhawk748]

Hello all. I know next to nothing about guns. I'm looking to add a bit of flavor to a game I'm preparing, near modern in setting, where the players are essentially a supernatural SWAT team. What kind of real life guns and equipment would resemble standard issue for this organization?

Looking for things that support customization (types of ammo, etc.) to be adaptable to fighting both other humans and different supernaturals, handles well in confined spaces and CQB (indoors, urban, thick forests, cave systems, often at less than 100 yards), and has some stopping power behind it (some of the stuff they fight still has quite a bit of mass even after the "DR" is dealt with). Would enjoy suggestions on at least a handgun and a combat rifle model.

I apologize if this is a stupid question.

Go with the P90. Large magazine, compact design, plenty of stopping power.

[Mr Beer]

Hello all. I know next to nothing about guns. I'm looking to add a bit of flavor to a game I'm preparing, near modern in setting, where the players are essentially a supernatural SWAT team. What kind of real life guns and equipment would resemble standard issue for this organization?

Looking for things that support customization (types of ammo, etc.) to be adaptable to fighting both other humans and different supernaturals, handles well in confined spaces and CQB (indoors, urban, thick forests, cave systems, often at less than 100 yards), and has some stopping power behind it (some of the stuff they fight still has quite a bit of mass even after the "DR" is dealt with). Would enjoy suggestions on at least a handgun and a combat rifle model.

I apologize if this is a stupid question.

Compact rifles or submachine guns are used in buildings as mentioned above. I think backup pistols are a good idea. In real life, someone will overwatch with a rifle so as to snipe foes, in game that is boring for that player so maybe have an NPC do it or skip this.

Given you are fighting supernatural creatures, someone on the team may well be using shotguns. Reason is that the large capacity of a 12 gauge slug and the nature of a smooth barrel allows for a huge variety of ammunition. A shotgun is inferior to a rifle for fighting (I believe, which is why urban assault teams use rifles) but your shot gunner might have loads like heavy shot suspended in holy water gel, hollow point solid slug cast in silver, dragons breath rounds, two slugs connected with chain to decapitate foes etc. etc.

The GURPS supplements Monsters Hunters which are a setting entirely on this topic, make a lot of use of monsters that are bullet resistant. Consequently you generally need someone who has a big sword. This is a mechanic you might consider using as well, it means sword guy is inferior to gun guys a lot of the time but when your monster laughs at most bullets, sword guy is invaluable.

On that note, everyone should have a back up knife or other melee weapon.

Grenades are very popular with soldiers that have to clear houses but generally they are frowned upon in urban areas. It depends what kind of leeway your monsters hunters have. If they are allowed grenades, they will use them.

[Haighus]

I thought urban clearance teams brought a shotgun not so much for combat, but as a universal key :D so they would likely have a shotgun anyway? Ideally with frangible ammo at least for blowing out locks and hinges, plus crazy monster hunter types.

[rrgg]

Lately I've once again been think about how different melee weapons compare, particularly for unarmored single combat.

Of historical sources, George Silver provided the clearest and most comprehensive weapon hierarchy.

Writing a couple decades later, Joseph Swetnam vehemently disagreed with his assignment of the short sword (baskhilt or backsword) against the long rapier, instead assigning odds to the latter. However, despite technique differences, Swetnam like Silver gave the staff (7-8ft for Swetnam, 8-9ft for Silver, with a sharp point for both) the advantage against most or all other weapons.

Almost a hundred years earlier in 1531, Antonio Manciolino offered the general principle that longer weapons trump shorter ones, specifically recommending the partisan over the two-handed sword and the lancia (12-14ft or so) over the spiedo (8ft or so).

The idea that staff weapons have the advantage against swords and the like comes up in a wide variety of sources.

Then you get Donald McBane, an experienced fighter who argued for the superiority of the smallsword over the broadsword and gave advice for how to defeat broadsword and targe with smallsword alone. And various other authors across the 18th and 19th centuries argued for the smallsword's advantage against broadsword, sabre, etc. Others disagreed. Folks argued endless about the merits of thrusting vs. cutting. And so on.

Note that 18th/19th century swords were generally shorter and lighter than 16th-century swords: Silver thought a 37-40in blade made for a short sword while 18th/19th-century smallswords, broadswords, and sabres tended to have 30-33in blades. Silver's method was revived in the hopes of military use at the end of the 19th century, but I don't know that anybody was using it was blades quite as long as he recommended. (The most famous modern Silverists, the Stoccata folks, use a conservative interpretation of Silver's measuring position and thus use slightly short blades than Silver specified.)

I've been YouTube commenting back and forth with Nick Thomas about this subject. A skilled fencer, he claims that the longsword has no advantage over the sabre for unarmored single combat. From my 16th-century perspective and Silverist perspective, this seems bizarre. Silver didn't even take weapons like the sabre seriously, lumping them into the broad category of weapons shorter than perfect length. Similar swords existed in the 16th century, like the messer, but they didn't get too much attention in either the civilian or military context. What was everybody doing with those longswords and single-handed swords with 36+in blades if a glorified messer/falchion would serve just as well?

From an RPG perspective, as I mentioned to Nick, if the longsword and sabre are even in an unarmored duel then the sabre is better for that purpose because is less of an encumbrance, both shorter and lighter. That's possible, but seems odd. It's this dynamic, as well as evidence from 21st-century sparring, that's really been making me doubt Silver's claim that the longsword has the advantage over the sword and target. A target (rotella/rodela) is bulky and heavy (6-9lbs). It's considerably more trouble than wearing a somewhat heavier sword with a somewhat longer handle.

In Silver's system, the longsword seems a bit overpowered. Even sword & buckler, which Silver says the longsword also beats, strikes me as a little more trouble to wear than a longsword, though it's close. The target here functions strictly as a weapon for the field, for fighting in formation and/or in armor.

By contrast, in contemporary sparring, sword & shield usually looks to have significant odds over the longsword. Sometimes this combination even appears competitive with staff weapons, though of course those are harder to simulate safely.

From a balance perspective, aligning advantage with difficulty of carry makes a lot of sense. Obviously this only goes so far if we want to match reality: a 50lb bag of manure doesn't beat a dagger. But for widely used weapons, I think it's got some merit. I remain deeply skeptical that sabres and smallswords are just as good as any other sword. I suspect they're optimized for both martial effectiveness and convenience. The same goes for the katana.

As an extreme example of the it-comes-down-to-skill position, Tom Leoni, an excellent fencer, years ago argued that halberd vs. dagger was an even fight. It's all a bit vexing and confusing.

You've made a lot of good points, thanks!

I agree that Silver's hierarchy probably isn't concrete. You can find plenty of dissenting opinions and examples where it doesn't really fit. Although as far as shields go at least, they are heavier and less convenient but they might be more useful if you are expecting to face a lot of missile weapons. If you wear a breastplate it's only going to protect your chest from missiles, but even with a small shield you can protect almost your entire body as long as you're paying attention and the enemy isn't shooting too many arrows at once.

I wonder if another way of looking at it is weapons cycling through various "metas" depending on the time period and culture, in other words some weapons become more effective just because they are more popular and thus people are more familiar with handling them and the techniques involved with them? From a gaming perspective it might make sense to have the weapons strengths fit into the theme. For instance if the game is set in 1066, imperial rome, or 1490 iberia you might want to make sword&shield stronger, if the game is set in sengoku japan or 1599 Silver's backyard you might want to make two handed swords a bit stronger.

On the larger scale, one thing I've noticed is that while some early modern military treatises distinguish somewhat between shorter, heavier halberds that are better for a pell mell and longer, lighter halberds that are better for skirmishing, most seem to consider all the "short weapons" (halberds, bills, partisans, battleaxes, longswords, sword&shield) more or less interchangeable. William Garrard even suggested that lightly armored pikemen could be mingled in with the skirmishers to serve essentially the same role as John Smythe's "extraordinary halberders".

At Ravenna in 1512, Spanish targeteers managed to make their way inside a formation of landsknects armed with pikes and halberds, inflicting massive casualties. One year later at Flodden English billmen badly defeated Scottish pikemen who were well-armored and many of whom were carrying swords and targets for close combat.

The specific weapon being used probably plays a relatively minor role.

[Mr Beer]

I thought urban clearance teams brought a shotgun not so much for combat, but as a universal key :D so they would likely have a shotgun anyway? Ideally with frangible ammo at least for blowing out locks and hinges, plus crazy monster hunter types.

Yeah I forgot that, shotguns are used to open locks as well, I think they have a special round for it. My main point with shotguns is that fighting weird monsters gives the GM a chance to make all kinds of crazy rounds useful, which I think makes for more interesting combats.

Monster vulnerabilities also give the team boffin an important role, researching exactly what type of greeblie they are up against. If it's werewolves, everyone loads up with silver; vampires might require incendiary ammo; wraiths need holy water grenades etc. Otherwise everyone just turns up with the same weapons and specialisations, 4 guys with indentical carbines and flak jackets can get boring.

Another thing is armour, if monsters don't have guns, bullet resistant vests might be less important but stab-proof vests suddenly become very useful. Maybe everyone gets supplied with torso armour + helmet (with comm gear built in). Torso armour is resistant to knives, pistol ammo and fire (lots of monsters are fought with fire) and might have a special weave in it, say silver, so werewolves are put off clawing the team.

[Haighus]

Yeah I forgot that, shotguns are used to open locks as well, I think they have a special round for it. My main point with shotguns is that fighting weird monsters gives the GM a chance to make all kinds of crazy rounds useful, which I think makes for more interesting combats.

That is the frangible rounds :) They fragment upon hitting the lock and have really poor penetration once they've hit it, so they have reduced lethality to anyone on the other side.

[rrgg]

Indeed, I can't find one either, and even the modern ones appear to be suggestions more than anything.

However, there's one crossbow test that shows incredible power (488 joule!) because they tested with a significantly heavier bolt. I am not sure if bolts that heavy are historical though, medieval bolts tend to be fairly light as far as I am aware.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nY2untEwCnU


Although the comments in that video indicate that this performance is surprisingly poor, I personally think that it is quite good. Maybe the bow can shoot with greater joules if he switched to a heavier arrow, but then the range will likely suffers.

This is true. Generally the heavier a projectile is the more kinetic energy it will have after being shot from the bow until it nears 100% efficiency. I suspect many of the modern reproduction crossbows which seem to be under performing would have no problem peircing armor at close range if loaded with a thick, heavy bolt made of solid iron or lead. The problem is that this sacrifices a lot of velocity.

With less velocity you not only get less range but it becomes much harder to aim as you have to account for a much more pronounced trajectory and lead a moving target by much more. Against an animate target such as a human who is moving unpredictably or can see your arrow in flight hitting at range can become practically impossible.

If the kinetic energy of medieval crossbows did underperform so much even with military bolts I suspect that the idea was to instead maximize the initial velocity to improve accuracy and make it easier to snipe someone in a skirmish while still doing a resonable amount of damage.

At the far end of the spectrum you have various "stone crossbows" which were an increasingly popular hunting/sporting weapons which were made to shoot a small bullet made of clay or stone. The poor aerodynamics of a round ball meant the maximum range was limited and it wasn't considered very leathal against humans or large game, but the initial velocity was very high with a very straight trajectory, meaning that a good shot could pull off stunts such as striking a playing card at 50 yards or even killing a bird in mid-flight.

[Incanur]

Although as far as shields go at least, they are heavier and less convenient but they might be more useful if you are expecting to face a lot of missile weapons.

Yes, for my own system that was always the balancing factor I was assuming, that a medium shield (target) or large shield is better against missile weapons than anything else. I'm not sure that's enough and, as previously mention, there's a fair amount of evidence from contemporary sword & target has the advantage against longsword.

From a gaming perspective it might make sense to have the weapons strengths fit into the theme. For instance if the game is set in 1066, imperial rome, or 1490 iberia you might want to make sword&shield stronger, if the game is set in sengoku japan or 1599 Silver's backyard you might want to make two handed swords a bit stronger.

For resolving ambiguous questions of advantage, I'd absolutely recommend this approach. Just don't get carried away and make the dagger actually a match for a halberd for single combat in the open.

On the larger scale, one thing I've noticed is that while some early modern military treatises distinguish somewhat between shorter, heavier halberds that are better for a pell mell and longer, lighter halberds that are better for skirmishing, most seem to consider all the "short weapons" (halberds, bills, partisans, battleaxes, longswords, sword&shield) more or less interchangeable.

Various 16th-century military authors did claim targetiers were better than halberdiers, while others at least implicitly favored halberdiers. And except for partisans, those are all weapons considered the best for field: halberd/bill/battleaxe, sword & target, longsword. And I don't of any 16th-century armies that used partisans in large numbers. Raimond de Fourquevaux said they weren't so good against armored troops and that he'd tolerate a few partisans among halberdiers.

The specific weapon being used probably plays a relatively minor role.

I agree, but only within that small set of good battlefield weapons. In a committed infantry melee, short halberd or sword & target strike me as the best; I'd guess the former. There probably isn't a big different between long halberds, short ones, sword & target, and large longswords as far as heavy infantry goes. The question of short weapons against pike gets more complicated.

In any case, the range of successful weapons and troops didn't extend indefinitely. You didn't see units with bat'leths or meteor hammers or rocks in socks or simple wooden clubs winning infantry melees. (Okay, you do have some examples of units with simple wooden clubs doing well in antiquity. That doesn't extend to 15th century or 16th century as far as I know.)

Across the world in the 15th/16th century, rather few weapons dominated militarily:

Pikes
Bows
Handheld firearms (arquebus, musket, handgonne, etc.)
Lances
Crossbows
Single-handed swords (arming swords, sabers, backswords, broadswords, etc.)
Shields
Shorter spears
Two-handed swords (some sidearms, some primary weapons)
Halberds/bills/pollaxes
Long cutting polearms (partisans, glaives, naginata, etc.)
Shorter single-handed swords (baselards, katzbalger, wakizashi, cutlass, etc.)
Short impact weapons (maces, hammers, axes)
Javelins
Daggers

The details could vary a lot, but many fundamentals remained about the same.

[Martin Greywolf]

Wowww, this is indeed good...well, aren't shooting something that light more akin to dry-firing your ballista? This can't be good for your ballista prod...

Perhaps, but once the ballista was built, we faced a problem of what the hell do we do with it? We can't exactly put it into our archery range for the civilians, not only do you need to know how to use it more than a bow, there is no way to make it safe at 30 meters if you are firing proper ammo. So we used it when we could, and if we have to replace a bit of it, so be it.

A metal bolt of the same weight as its wooden counterpart probably will be much thinner, making it too thin to fit into the crossbow groove. OTOH, something the same size as a wooden bolt, but made of metal, is probably too heavy? (I am not sure if metal bolt really doesnt exist though, just my guessing)

The short answer is we have no idea since we never tried. And to answer the questions that were brought up in this discussion, we'd need a far more powerful ballista, something like a few thousand pounds. That may actually need really heavy bolts to shine.

As for aerodynamics, well, yeah, they'd be different, so the bolt shape would have to be changed.

All I can conclude in the end is that, when it comes to high poundage crossbows, standard weight bolts might be underperforming a lot. To know if that is the case, we'd need to test it, and I don't think there's any authentic replica crossbow around with that kind of poundage.

[snowblizz]

Something I ponder occasionally. What would happen if a very early and late medieval(ish) army met in battle. Say a combination of both sides of Hastings (so we have a reasonable mix of troops) vs their descendents at the height of the War of the Roses. Just to keep it in the family. We'll imagine a typical kitchensink "medieval" world to make it happen and naturally exclude firearms because *everyone* knows they did not exist then.

Obviously the, let's call them Anglo-Normans, are totally hosed (shields, spears and chainmail against a fairly well equipped plate army). But is there some force numbers or various strengths where it could at least be something of a fight? Would the later longbows massacre the early army outright? Could their archery meaningfully contribute at all? How would a pollaxe armed force break a shield-wall? Anything else interesting you can think of such a confrontation? (Other than this is so unhistorical and can't have platearmour without guns and waaah waah waah) Or is it just not feasible at all there's a decent but doomed battle?

[gkathellar]

I thought urban clearance teams brought a shotgun not so much for combat, but as a universal key :D so they would likely have a shotgun anyway? Ideally with frangible ammo at least for blowing out locks and hinges, plus crazy monster hunter types.

One issue that arises with shotguns in inhabited areas is their potential for collateral damage. Using them around civilians, especially hostages, can be disastrous.

However, it's also worth noting that structurally, a shotgun will do a great job of accommodating disparate ammunition types. If you're going the whole supernatural SWAT angle, this could be important - one big monster trope is harming them with special materials like silver or pure iron, so this could be a worthwhile advantage.

Shotguns also might be very useful for dealing with supernaturally fast targets, due to the scatter effect. Not so sure about that, but it occurs to me as a possibility. Maybe someone else here can address it.

[Haighus]

One issue that arises with shotguns in inhabited areas is their potential for collateral damage. Using them around civilians, especially hostages, can be disastrous.

I thought that special breaching ammuntion was used for door clearance, that was designed to minimise that risk. Not to mention that prison riot looks like an all-round terribly managed situation, and quite different from typical breach and clear operations.

[Incanur]

Obviously the, let's call them Anglo-Normans, are totally hosed (shields, spears and chainmail against a fairly well equipped plate army). But is there some force numbers or various strengths where it could at least be something of a fight?

If the Anglo-Normans have a significant numerical advantage, decent leadership, and the battle happens in terrain suitable for leveraging those numbers, sure.

Would the later longbows massacre the early army outright?

I strongly doubt this. If handled by a decent commander, however, it would presumably enable the English to compel the Anglo-Normans to either advance and attack (as French armies did various times) or to retreat, in bother cases in some disorder. It probably wouldn't be good for the Anglo-Normans to just sit there and let the English shoot all their arrows at them, and it's unlikely they could win an archery duel (see below).

Could their archery meaningfully contribute at all?

Remember that there's little clear technical superiority here. Norman archers probably used broadly similar bows and arrows to mid-15th-century English archers. The latter were rather more famous for their archery and put more focus on it institutionally, but we don't have concrete evidence that their bows were dramatically stronger or anything like that.

I suspect Norman archers and crossbowers could contribute, but that, like so many missile forces opposed to 15th-century English archers, they'd lose the contest with English archers. War-of-the-Roses-era English armies additionally tended to be much heavier on the archers than this combined Anglo-Norman force. (The Normans had maybe a quarter of their troops as archers or crossbowers, and the Anglo-Saxons had basically none.) English archers would therefore most likely trump their counterparts both in numbers and in quality.

How would a pollaxe armed force break a shield-wall?

If necessary, probably just by walking up and giving blow at the head and thrust at the face. Mid-15th-century English dismounted men-at-arms in white harness would be all but invulnerable to Anglo-Norman weapons, and many had experience in extended melees. By contrast, pollaxe blows and thrusts would be dangerous to even the best equipped Anglo-Norman troops. The Anglo-Normans could potentially beat dismounted men-at-arms into submission with axe blows, knock them over with shield bashes, and/or grapple them, but such tactics would be unlikely to succeed without significant numerical advantage.

Honestly, I'm not sure there's any close-combat heavy infantry from any time or place I'd rate above mid-15th-century dismounted English men-at-arms for a straight melee. You could argue that a well-armored Swiss force of pikers and halberdiers that went heavy on the latter would do better or that some other nation's dismounted men-at-arms were superior, but that's about it.

Lighter English troops would do less well against a Norman shield wall, but I guess troops in bill, jack, and sallet about evenly matched with the best Anglo-Norman ones in terms of kit.

Note that the English didn't use all that much cavalry in the War of the Roses, but the cavalry they did use seems to have been pretty good.