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

[Blackhawk748]

"The Lakes" in my profile refers to the Great Lakes -- in the lake effect zone downwind of Lake Michigan.

The idea of a self-driving car in the next 50 years that can actually handle LIDAR-blinding blowing snow and an all-white environment is laughable.

But not as laughable as the idea of mass transit ever being viable for the rural areas and very small towns I drive through every day to the office and back (I work in the frozen and processed fruit industry, in inventory/production management).

Ya, i do cheese processing and i live in a town of like 100ish people and our County seat (the biggest "city" in the county) is 3500 people. So i live in nowhere and public transport is not gonna happen.

[Max_Killjoy]

Ya, i do cheese processing and i live in a town of like 100ish people and our County seat (the biggest "city" in the county) is 3500 people. So i live in nowhere and public transport is not gonna happen.

Just goes to show how different places in the same time and same polity can be.

Compare places like where we are, with LA or NYC or Houston... imagine what the differences might have been like before modern communications and transportation.

(Totally not a transparent attempt to make this side-conversation on-topic and relevant, really...)

(E: Also, it just makes me a bit mad when the metrocentric presume that the story of the city and the suburb is the entire history of American transportation, and somehow forget the other 90% of the country.)

[Haighus]

Just goes to show how different places in the same time and same polity can be.

Compare places like where we are, with LA or NYC or Houston... imagine what the differences might have been like before modern communications and transportation.

(Totally not a transparent attempt to make this side-conversation on-topic and relevant, really...)

Travelling was certainly rough! I cycled through Wales a few years back, and to avoid a busy A road we went along a cycle route which used an old coaching road. As in stage coaches. It was cobbled, and was clearly hardwearing enough to be in reasonable condition however many centuries after it was built despite coaching traffic, pedestrians, cyclists and modern farm vehicles. However cycling over it was like riding on a pneumatic hammer! Travelling any significant distance on that stuff would leave you pretty battered, I wouldn't be surprised if old coach drivers had a whole host of odd neuropathies and musculoskeletal issues as a result of constant micro-trauma.

In terms of other communications, I think towns played a much larger role as local hubs for information and resource sharing, as well as seats of power. I don't think it is a coincidence that so many old towns are market towns- having a market meant exerting power over the local populace, but also probably served to unite the local culture.

You can see some of the changes modern communications have made with how dialects and accents are becoming less pronounced and dying out. Most older folk in the UK have an obvious dialect and accent, but this is not being transferred through the generations and you get people like me with a mishmash accent that doesn't come from any one region.

[Vinyadan]

Since we are talking about roads and travel, something which surprised me a lot was that bridges used to be the equivalent of a central square in large cities. So the pont neuf of Paris, which now is just a road, was the centre of life in the city for centuries, with markets, showmen, shops, prostitutes, pickpockets, and a variety of people spending time there. Italy still has a couple such bridges, Rialto in Venice and the Ponte Vecchio in Florence contain shops.
It was very different from what we have now for bridges, with these very long roads, often almost deserted by pedestrians, and quite cold, wet, and windy.

The word hippotes was sometimes used, too (it's ancient Greek, originally meaning driver or rider of horses - not as a separate social or military class, though, except in the Boeotian dialiect where it was a synonym of hippeus).

But more often it was some derivative of the Medieval Latin caballarius (horseman), either directly or via a Romance language from thereabouts, usually Venetian. The spelling varied, and I'm not sure how to transliterate them best, but here goes: καβαλ(λ)άριος (kavallarios), καβα(λ)λάρης (kavallaris), καβελ(λ)άρης (kavellaris).

The similar καβαλιέρης (kavalieris) or καβαλιέρος (kavalieros) sometimes meant knight and sometimes meant squire.

I got all this from the Dictionary of Medieval Vulgar Greek Literature (1100-1669), which is online and searchable, but in Greek, so I don't know how useful it will be to you. Hope that helped. :)

Thank you very much, both for taking the time and for pointing out this resource! I am almost exclusively trained in ancient Greek (the few modern words I know are those from shampoo bottles), I'll see see if I can use the dictionary a bit.

If I have time I'll try to compare the different versions of the words with the different Italian dialects of the time.

Also, thank you guys for answering the Lone Wolf question!

[Deepbluediver]

(Totally not a transparent attempt to make this side-conversation on-topic and relevant, really...)

Lately I've been thinking that we need a "got a question about anything other than armor and weapons from ancient cultures?" thread.

Travelling was certainly rough!

Lately I was reading about the decline of the Roman Empire (again) and one of the big things they mentioned was a breakdown in trading routes that had criss-crossed the empire during the Pax Romana.
(and also a rise in the use of mercenary aka barbarian armies *cough* totally not an attempt to stay on topic *unconvincing cough*)

[snowblizz]

Lately I've been thinking that we need a "got a question about anything other than armor and weapons from ancient cultures?" thread.

Attempts have been made, they are never as robust as this series of threads.

Lately I was reading about the decline of the Roman Empire (again) and one of the big things they mentioned was a breakdown in trading routes that had criss-crossed the empire during the Pax Romana.
(and also a rise in the use of mercenary aka barbarian armies *cough* totally not an attempt to stay on topic *unconvincing cough*)

To be fair communications and roads have huge implications on real world weapons, armour and tactics questions . The higher the development level of a nation the more likely it is dependant on tradelinks. In the 1700s mostly for currency but today for just about everything connected to warfare.

A similar issue arose during the so-called "Bronze Age collapse", which isn't still widely understood and near mythical in description by now. But one theory is that the tradenetworks needed to supply civilizations with more diverse goods disappears, etire due to or causing the Collapse.

Even a thing like the availability and ubiquity of cars can be looked on from the perspective of how many raw recruits will be used to motorized vehicles. In WW1 not so many, in WW2 a much higher degree woulda've been able to drive a Jeep with little extra training.

[Haighus]

Attempts have been made, they are never as robust as this series of threads.



To be fair communications and roads have huge implications on real world weapons, armour and tactics questions . The higher the development level of a nation the more likely it is dependant on tradelinks. In the 1700s mostly for currency but today for just about everything connected to warfare.

It has smaller-scale tactical implications too- supposedly a significant amount of the deforestation of medieval North Wales occurred during the English occupation under Edward I, and happened mainly along roads to reduce the risk of ambushes. Prior to this North Wales was still largely untamed wilderness. Here good clear roads were vital to maintaining the campaign.

Another interesting aspect of that campaign was the English building their major castles on the coast, where they could be resupplied by shipping during rebellions and sieges. It is another example of how superior logistics were used to subjugate a hostile population.

A similar issue arose during the so-called "Bronze Age collapse", which isn't still widely understood and near mythical in description by now. But one theory is that the tradenetworks needed to supply civilizations with more diverse goods disappears, etire due to or causing the Collapse.

Even a thing like the availability and ubiquity of cars can be looked on from the perspective of how many raw recruits will be used to motorized vehicles. In WW1 not so many, in WW2 a much higher degree woulda've been able to drive a Jeep with little extra training.

Interesting point, although I wonder how much training would be required with the lack of robust standardised driving exams like we have now.

[Kiero]

Another interesting aspect of that campaign was the English building their major castles on the coast, where they could be resupplied by shipping during rebellions and sieges. It is another example of how superior logistics were used to subjugate a hostile population.

The English East India Company (and Dutch and French ones too) did the same thing in their competing conquests of India. Sea power was their strength, so they put their factories/fortresses on the coast and kept them supplied by sea if need be. They always had a beachhead to re-take territory, no matter what happened in the interior.

[Clistenes]

The English East India Company (and Dutch and French ones too) did the same thing in their competing conquests of India. Sea power was their strength, so they put their factories/fortresses on the coast and kept them supplied by sea if need be. They always had a beachhead to re-take territory, no matter what happened in the interior.

The Portuguese and the Spaniards did the same...

[Haighus]

Come to think of it, it is likely a common feature of all thalassocracies from Athens to Srivijaya. Makes absolute sense for maritime Empires and Polities.

I think it is interesting in the Wales example because England at the time was not a thalassocracy.

[Kiero]

The Portuguese and the Spaniards did the same...

Indeed, I was also thinking about the Portuguese, and forgot to include them. I don't think the Spanish were ever in India, were they? They got the Americas in the Treaty of Tordesillas, where the Portuguese got the "east".

[gkathellar]

I'm not sure it's a thalassocracy thing as much as it is a prudent way for any nation with a technological or productive advantage to eschew the hazards of land warfare. A lot goes wrong in land wars, just as a matter of course, and when it does, those advantages can end up meaning very little when it does. On the other hand, it's a lot easier to project that kind of power by sea, so long as you have the productive base required to do so. If you're dealing with enemy territory and you can get your supply lines off of the ground, you don't have much excuse not to.

[Max_Killjoy]

Come to think of it, it is likely a common feature of all thalassocracies from Athens to Srivijaya. Makes absolute sense for maritime Empires and Polities.

I was thinking as I read the previous posts that it reminded me of the Greek colonies in the Mediterranean and Black Sea coasts.

[Brother Oni]

Since we are talking about roads and travel, something which surprised me a lot was that bridges used to be the equivalent of a central square in large cities. So the pont neuf of Paris, which now is just a road, was the centre of life in the city for centuries, with markets, showmen, shops, prostitutes, pickpockets, and a variety of people spending time there. Italy still has a couple such bridges, Rialto in Venice and the Ponte Vecchio in Florence contain shops.
It was very different from what we have now for bridges, with these very long roads, often almost deserted by pedestrians, and quite cold, wet, and windy.

Old London Bridge was also quite famous for being virtually a shopping mall back in the day.

While cleaning up my computer, I found a link to this medieval price list, which lists the annual rent of 138 shops on London Bridge as 160 pounds and 4 shillings in 1365.

That's a lot of shops to squeeze into 300 yards (~275m):

Spoiler: Old London Bridge

Show

[Clistenes]

Indeed, I was also thinking about the Portuguese, and forgot to include them. I don't think the Spanish were ever in India, were they? They got the Americas in the Treaty of Tordesillas, where the Portuguese got the "east".

Nope, but they followed the same strategy in Africa, the Philippines and America (Mexico and Peru were exceptions because they were already empires and they just had to topple and replace their heads).

[LordEntrails]

Old London Bridge was also quite famous for being virtually a shopping mall back in the day.

Question I have is why? Why were bridges so popular for shops?
- Status? Limited real estate makes it desirable.
- Security? You only have to secure two ends at night etc.
- Refuse disposal meaning the streets weren't 'sloppy'?

[Vinyadan]

- Refuse disposal meaning the streets weren't 'sloppy'?

Yes in the case of Ponte Vecchio. The butchers had to move in there so that they could throw waste directly into the river, instead of dirtying the streets.

[Storm Bringer]

Question I have is why? Why were bridges so popular for shops?
- Status? Limited real estate makes it desirable.
- Security? You only have to secure two ends at night etc.
- Refuse disposal meaning the streets weren't 'sloppy'?

high traffic area. if you can only get across a river at three points inside the city, everyone who wants to cross the river must Pass your shop if your in or on the bridge.

convenient meeting point, for the same reason. "meet me at sundown by the Tower Bridge" is a workable plan in a pre-watch, pre-mobile world. again, this creates footfall and encourages setting up businesses on or near the bridges.

I don't think it is a coincidence that so many old towns are market towns- having a market meant exerting power over the local populace, but also probably served to unite the local culture.

pretty much the only type of town in pre-modern Europe. Generally, you were never more than about 10-15 miles form a market town, where you could go to sell wares or buy supplies. any further, it was too far to make a day-trip to and back, so people would start a new market closer to. since these towns had a greater footfall than the surrounding villages, they could support more specialised industries and traders. every village needed a blacksmith to make horseshoes and fix ploughs and such, but you only needed one apothecary or tailor for several villages, so they would set up in the market town.

[Martin Greywolf]

Question I have is why? Why were bridges so popular for shops?
- Status? Limited real estate makes it desirable.
- Security? You only have to secure two ends at night etc.
- Refuse disposal meaning the streets weren't 'sloppy'?

Location. Bridges are one of the only places you can comfortably cross over a river, so if you happen to have your shop on a bridge, pretty much everyone will have to pass by it. While bridge areas were usually rather pricey, I don't think they were the best anywhere - that would be near the town square (including a town hall and a church or a cathedral), wherever that happened to be.

It's also worth mentioning this only happened in cities that became pretty big, big enough to need two banks of a river (or bank and an island) for living space, smaller cities are almost always on one side only with the bridge serving as an entry point into a gatehouse.

[market towns are] pretty much the only type of town in pre-modern Europe.

Not by a long shot, though they are by far the most common by numbers. Towns can be roughly divided into three categories: market towns, fortress towns and natural resource towns. Since natural resource towns have been discussed, let's start with fortress towns.

Fortress towns aren't built on purpose - very few towns are, really, despite what Civilization taught you. They happen when two things coexist in one place - strategical chokepoint and trade route. Not every town on a trade route is a fortress town, though, to qualify, these places need to be specifically built as a defensive lynchpin in a region. Good examples of these are Constantinople or Belgrade, or on a much smaller scale, towns that are built near castles (Beckov, Nitra, Visegrad). These are very popular in fantasy for obvious reasons, with the chief example being Minas Tirith.

Natural resource towns spring up whenever there is an important resource, and their entire function and fortune are built around it - the most prominent of these are mining towns, but any resource can give birth to one of these. These towns are pretty well defended too, but their primary purpose is to serve as a base to exploit whatever their resource is. If they are important enough, they can give birth to other fortress towns as a consequence, because they attract both trade and conquerors. Hungary used several towns and fortresses during the peak of Ottoman wars just to slow down any attacks on its mining cities - and it worked! The mining cities themselves were besieged only once or twice IIRC, and never with a truly dedicated force.

[Marcus Amakar]

Hi all,

First I'd like to say that I'm a longtime lurker on this thread and it's been a pleasure to find such well-informed and interesting discussion. I'm a novice when it comes to history, and it's nice to not have to take wikipedia at it's word!

Second, I have a question regarding armour weights and costs, for my homebrew quasi-DnD setting/ruleset.
As usual it's anachronistic, but could roughly be described as 1250-1400 Western and Central Europe.
My currency schema is 10 copper pieces to 1 silver piece, 10 silver pieces to a gold piece, and a unskilled labourer can hope to earn about 1 silver piece a day (if work was just for cash).
My armours are: cloth, leather, mail shirt, hide, mail (full body coverage), breastplate, plated mail, half-plate, full plate.

What kind of baseline prices/weights would be appropriate?
Do I need to give anymore information? Is this too anachronistic to conform to realism at all or should I just focus on game balance (which is obviously a topic for another thread)?

Thanks all,
Marcus

[Berenger]

Not by a long shot, though they are by far the most common by numbers. Towns can be roughly divided into three categories: market towns, fortress towns and natural resource towns.

Would monastery towns count as another category?

[Haighus]

Would monastery towns count as another category?

The cynic in me would count that as a resource town :P

[Maquise]

Something I've been wondering: Was the practice of ransoming seen at all in feudal Japan?

[snowblizz]

Indeed, I was also thinking about the Portuguese, and forgot to include them. I don't think the Spanish were ever in India, were they? They got the Americas in the Treaty of Tordesillas, where the Portuguese got the "east".

The Spanish monarchy controlled Portugal from 1580-1640 so in a sense yes they were.

Interesting point, although I wonder how much training would be required with the lack of robust standardised driving exams like we have now.

Well most cars have a steering wheel, gearshift, accelerator and breaks. So anyone able to drive a car has a basis to learn how to drive military vehicles driving exams or no.

Come to think of it, it is likely a common feature of all thalassocracies from Athens to Srivijaya. Makes absolute sense for maritime Empires and Polities.

I think it is interesting in the Wales example because England at the time was not a thalassocracy.

I would note that all the listed examples are "invaders". There simply exists no other recourse for the mentioned nations to start projecting influence other than by first creating a foothold. The Wales/England thing works on a similar baseline just in a much smaller scale. It's just that for medieaval England the land route to Wales was equally difficult to cross as the oceasn for the 1700s nations.

I'm not sure it's a thalassocracy thing as much as it is a prudent way for any nation with a technological or productive advantage to eschew the hazards of land warfare. A lot goes wrong in land wars, just as a matter of course, and when it does, those advantages can end up meaning very little when it does. On the other hand, it's a lot easier to project that kind of power by sea, so long as you have the productive base required to do so. If you're dealing with enemy territory and you can get your supply lines off of the ground, you don't have much excuse not to.

Exactly. I wouldn't go so far as to say they eschewed land war. It just wasn't an option nor need at the time. We are in a period in the 1500s-1700s when it's enough for most nations to control generation of wealth and that happens primarily through trade. Few places are so naturally endowed they can sit on important land routes and dominate them. E.g. India was domestically powerful enough to resits the invaders until they focused resources and efforts and using the various factions managed to extend influence. It's not really until the 1800s that controlling territory and populations in itself becomes the goal and we see the mad scramble for colonies.

In North America the situation existed with a sort of power vacuum into which colonists moved eventually starting to claim territory. In South America similarly the Spanish found they had the means to control the land and the funds to do so. In contrst to India with relatively powerful indigenous powers. Similarly Africa p

The English East India Company (and Dutch and French ones too) did the same thing in their competing conquests of India. Sea power was their strength, so they put their factories/fortresses on the coast and kept them supplied by sea if need be. They always had a beachhead to re-take territory, no matter what happened in the interior.

It's probably not a conincidence that the initial tradingpost/strongholds were largely commercially organised whereas later on when the states themselves did it it focused more and more on controlling people and places. I woudl say it's largely a question of needs and means. The trading companies were in it for profit and there is only so much wealth you can get before costs become unbearable. The EIC sorta ran into this in India and was subsequently disbanded by the crown.

[wolflance]

Something I've been wondering: Was the practice of ransoming seen at all in feudal Japan?

IMO they sold the captives to the Europeans in exchange of materials used to make gunpowder/musket ball.

At least that's my very limited Sengoku knowledge have taught me.

[Kiero]

The Spanish monarchy controlled Portugal from 1580-1640 so in a sense yes they were.

Good point.

Exactly. I wouldn't go so far as to say they eschewed land war. It just wasn't an option nor need at the time. We are in a period in the 1500s-1700s when it's enough for most nations to control generation of wealth and that happens primarily through trade. Few places are so naturally endowed they can sit on important land routes and dominate them. E.g. India was domestically powerful enough to resits the invaders until they focused resources and efforts and using the various factions managed to extend influence. It's not really until the 1800s that controlling territory and populations in itself becomes the goal and we see the mad scramble for colonies.

In North America the situation existed with a sort of power vacuum into which colonists moved eventually starting to claim territory. In South America similarly the Spanish found they had the means to control the land and the funds to do so. In contrst to India with relatively powerful indigenous powers. Similarly Africa p

The English and French were making territorial acquisitions into the Indian subcontinent before the 1800s - they were fighting each other from the early-1700s with both Indian allies and indeed fielding armies of their own. Though the latter were comprised largely of European officers with native soldiers trained in the European way of fighting. Those proved very effective against native armies, which was part of the reason for their success in taking ground.

The English EIC took hold of a signficant part of India after the victories of Robert Clive, culminating in the battle of Plassey in 1757, when they helped themselves to the Nawab of Bengal's lands. From there it became a gradual extension of British influence as they added further dominions over the next century.

It's probably not a conincidence that the initial tradingpost/strongholds were largely commercially organised whereas later on when the states themselves did it it focused more and more on controlling people and places. I woudl say it's largely a question of needs and means. The trading companies were in it for profit and there is only so much wealth you can get before costs become unbearable. The EIC sorta ran into this in India and was subsequently disbanded by the crown.

Bear in mind John Company didn't surrender India to the British Crown until 1858 - they'd been ruling over a big chunk of it for just over a century by this point. They enjoyed a long period of dominance over India and independence from any government's interference.

[snowblizz]

IMO they sold the captives to the Europeans in exchange of materials used to make gunpowder/musket ball.

At least that's my very limited Sengoku knowledge have taught me.

A form of limited slavery existed yes from time to time, as you say by selling people to various parties, eg selling children and women to brothels. And how the peasants were treated were more or less serfdom. However, for "noble" captives, well, firstly a Samurai would be into the business of taking heads. Literally, to prove to his master he has done something. Defeated foes would take their own lives too to lessen their shame. And defeating someone often meant you killed as much of their family you could get your hands on to avoid future "revenges". As was demonstrated in the Taira vs Minamoto struggle.
Basically it would be rather dishonourable to the captive and his family and dependents to ransom them. So the captive would rather take his life, the family and retainers might as well if situation seemed hopeless or otherwise make a fight of it. There's little incentive to pay for live capture on either side of it.

Basically the European type of semi- or official ransoming did not exist as such in Japan.

[Deepbluediver]

Second, I have a question regarding armour weights and costs, for my homebrew quasi-DnD setting/ruleset.
As usual it's anachronistic, but could roughly be described as 1250-1400 Western and Central Europe.
My currency schema is 10 copper pieces to 1 silver piece, 10 silver pieces to a gold piece, and a unskilled labourer can hope to earn about 1 silver piece a day (if work was just for cash).
My armours are: cloth, leather, mail shirt, hide, mail (full body coverage), breastplate, plated mail, half-plate, full plate.

What kind of baseline prices/weights would be appropriate?
Do I need to give anymore information? Is this too anachronistic to conform to realism at all or should I just focus on game balance (which is obviously a topic for another thread)?

[I was just asking some very similar questions, so a lot of what I'm about to tell you is what other people told me]

We were discussing price, and the only real answer is that it's really kinda hard to tell. There are occasional price-lists (someone just linked one a few posts ago), but converting from one currency to another, adjusting for several centuries worth of inflation, and then taking medieval manufacturing techniques into account makes it really hard to put the price in any kind of terms that a modern non-historian can understand. The conclusion I came to was to count armor-crafters as skilled craftsmen, set what I wanted their wage to be, and then make my best-guesstimates for how long armor took to manufacture. Based on historical records, we do know that professional soldiers (i.e. non-peasent conscripts) could afford and did wear lots of armor. It wasn't as finely decorated or custom-fitted like a lot of what you see in museums, but neither was armor so expensive that only the wealthiest could afford it. And in some cases, such as Greece or Rome, non-impoverished citizens often fought in the army and supplied their own equipment, with your position was largely determined by how nice of stuff you could afford.
Another way to think about it might be to equate soldiers to skilled specialists, like a plumber, carpenter, or computer tech. These people need special tools, like a roto-rooter, a set of fine chisels, diagnostic software, etc; estimate about how much of their income such tools require, to purchase and maintain, and then figure out about what a soldier in your setting might earn, and work it backwards from there. I.e. a spear is one week's wages, a sword is 3, better armor might be a month, etc.

Second, what exactly are you picturing "hide" armor as? Again, from earlier discussions, I know that a lot of the D&D named-stuff is pretty nonsensical. If it's just leather-but-thicker, there are issues with that. Historians actually know a lot less about leather armor than metal, because it tends to degrade much faster than metal. Modern tests have had mixed results (there are some cool videos on youtube) and the all-over leather suit as presented by Hollywood probably didn't exist, at least not in that time period. Leather has to get very thick, and therefor heavy, so it was quite early on in history that metallurgy produced metal armor that provided better protection at lighter weight, especially for critical areas such as the chest. Leather was still used frequently as an underlayer, or for areas like wrists and ankle-greaves, for joints, or in combination with other types of armor. Combining different materials for different areas that required different levels of protection was fairly common as I understand it.

Now, I'm definitely not saying you can't have leather in your games- I have it in mine and it's a classic fantasy trope, but I went with a method that uses a bit more in the way of abstraction. I've got 2 types of each "weight" or armor (light, medium, heavy), and then I say a lot of stuff is equivalent to another. For example, a solid breastplate over clothing might be "equivalent" to a suit of mail. Just something to think about.

Finally, I have concerns about your currency system. Imagine a society where the only denominations are $1, $10, and $100 bills, and minimum wage is about $1 per hour. Now imagine trying to pay wealthy people, like the CEO of a big company or Rock-star celebrities, in $100 bills. And imagine people trying to buy things like houses, fancy equipment, or sportscars all with hundred-dollar bills. Rich people would have to hire teams of servants just to cart their money around when they go shopping.

I know the 1:10:100 delineation is very popular because it's easy to do the math for, but you might want to consider other materials and/or other value of coinage. For example "Talent" was a unit of money (and also weight, but that's not the relevant bit) in ancient Sumeria and Babylon. A talent was worth 60 minas, and a mina was worth 60 shekels. Plus some sources record other coinage as fractions of a shekel. Also, modern precious-metal prices (are highly volatile, but anyway) have a much larger difference. Last time I checked, the approximate ratios of copper to silver to gold was in the range of 70-80 times as much, i.e. silver was ~75 times as much as copper, gold was ~75 times as much as silver. I don't know what it was historically (and coinage often had problems with debasement) but if you are trying to make your setting "realistic", then I think it's something important to keep in mind.


Edit: Here is my homebrew. There's a bunch of video-game style quality improvements that you're obviously not obligated to follow, and the prices are still based on 3.5's completly bjorked economy, but if you want to see what I did for the basic armor, there it is.

[Blackhawk748]

So I'm planning a Savage World's game where the PCs are WWI soldiers and while they are fighting a temporal rift opens up and dumps out a bunch of Nazis from an alternate future. In this future the SS, Gestapo and the Thule assassinate Hitler and put a puppet in charge. They then go on a bloody rampage fueled by Thule blood magic and wind up conquering the world.

What I'm wondering is, what would Nazis tech look like in the 60s? Also feel free to get a but silly cuz they are using Magitech.

[Max_Killjoy]

So I'm planning a Savage World's game where the PCs are WWI soldiers and while they are fighting a temporal rift opens up and dumps out a bunch of Nazis from an alternate future. In this future the SS, Gestapo and the Thule assassinate Hitler and put a puppet in charge. They then go on a bloody rampage fueled by Thule blood magic and wind up conquering the world.

What I'm wondering is, what would Nazis tech look like in the 60s? Also feel free to get a but silly cuz they are using Magitech.

With magitech and 20 years, I think you want to concentrate on aesthetics and wild extrapolation.

Flying wings, big tanks, etc. Look up "Wunderwaffe", but remember that in real life, much of that stuff was fancifully ahead of the technology of the day or just plain stupid BS nonsense.

Some other links for inspiration:

Spoiler

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amerika_Bomber
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arado_E.555
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horten_Ho_229
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arado_Ar_234
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinkel_He_162
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junkers_Ju_287
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panzerkampfwagen_E-100
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H-clas...ship_proposals
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flettner_Fl_265
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flettner_Fl_282
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fritz_X
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl-Ger%C3%A4t
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun_gun
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FG_42
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturmgewehr_44
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zielger%C3%A4t_1229

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_propaganda -- maybe the most important one to keep in mind, so much of what people "know" about and popular media depiction of the Nazi military is still tainted by wartime propaganda and postwar nonsense.