Outstanding, 2 people responding to one of my comments - must be a record for me :).
Nick Brooke commented in regards to the supply of arms
>But surely, given Repair spells, etc., there is less *need* for Empires to
>mass-produce replacement arms and equipment? This looks like a non sequitur
to
>me. I'd always prefer to assume that normal Gloranthan societies look
>*something* like their Earthly equivalents, if only to make my life easier.
Indeed, but true 'armies' of civilised powers, with standard drills etc tend to have/need relatively homogeneous equippage, to allow those standards - so a major campign that requires additional troops requires production. For that equipage alters over time as techniques/technology/practices change, so the empires would only be able to use limited amounts of their old production.
Before his march on China Timur had _at_1,000 Syrian craftsment producing weapons, blacksmiths producing iron wagons (never did find out what that meant since I have seen no references to Hussite style fighting from wagons, maybe they were just making particularly robust wagons for the trip through Afghanistan) etc as he mustered the resources of his Empire for the attack.
On the question of arm armour - I may be predjudiced as a kendo player where most strikes are to the wrist/forearm, not to the upper arm, but I have always wondered why the arm is so easily disabled and why arm armour is so essential in RQ, I can think of many periods in history where the arm was not armoured to the same extent as the torso.
While in regards to my comment that
'What the 'civilised' countries had was the ability to create armies worth of equipment in a short period of time by mobilising their economies'
sandy replied
>This is simply false, as even a brief look at the enormous
>difficulties civilized nations faced in creating their armed forces
>will show. The advantage that civilized nations held was that they
>could maintain their carefully-constructed armies for a long term by
>utilizing their economies to tax the population and keep the armies
>paid. In the early Dark Ages, the monetary system had gone all to
>hell, and it was a barter economy, which is hard to tax, hard to
>control, and nigh-impossible to maintain a standing army on. Instead,
>the vassal system was used.
Examples abound of organised states being able to create armies basically from scratch, from Philip of Macedon (who started with what could charitably described as a large militia) onwards
Look at Republican Rome - during the Hanibalic wars a generation was decimated, and their arms and armour lost to Rome in a series of gigantic defeats - yet the republic was able to raise whole new consular armies, and produce the arms and armour to equip them (while in the first Punic War they created a fleet that took control of the western Mediterannean from scratch). More than that the republican armies were created often for specific wars such as against pirates, and then demobilised after the campaign.
Or China - when they created their (admittedly very low quality) million man army for an abortive invasion of the Korean peninsula in sixth century.
Or the Achaemenids when faced by Alexander, who even re-armed troops with new weapon systems to try and hold the phalangite.
These efforts are beyond disorganised states or tribes, and the empires of the dark ages such as that of Charlemagne are not in much better shape.
On armour I said 'Armour that takes months of blacksmithing to make (or many
man
years) is a historical rarity' to which Sandy replies
> It's the norm. What armor _doesn't_ take an enormous long time to make?
> Chainmail? (Chainmail doesn't take that much skill, but it takes lots of
> toil.) Lamellar? Plate?
These are all metallic armours, in history most armour is non metallic. Only Europe/SW Asia and too a lesser extent NE Asia used much metallic armour. Only the elite in other areas (or no-one in the Americas and Australasia or before _at_2000 BC anywhere) were armoured in chain,plate or lamellar.
While on repair Sandy says
>IMO, Repair doesn't increase your total weight of metal. And
>the medieval ironworkers didn't throw away old stuff. So the total
>amount of metal isn't increased by Repair.
No, but less would be discarded after battles as unuseable, and less would be scrap/reforged into something else.
Aden
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