Re: Glorantha Digest V1 #238

From: Styopa <liebx004_at_maroon.tc.umn.edu>
Date: Wed, 12 Apr 95 22:24:33 CST


>
>>There was a mention of heavy cavalry with swords and axes, but no lances.
>
>No stirrups.
>

THe Mongols DID have a psuedo-heavy cavalry force used mainly as the "anvil" of large-scale sweeping movements. They were frequently armed with the lance & axe, in lieu of bow, lance, and knife. They also rode relatively bigger, slower mounts.

>Peter M.
>>I thought the Mongols did use overarm lances which were not as
>>effective as the european ones. Or are you saying the heavy cavalry
>>did not use these?
> The Mongols had lancers which were _far_ more effective than
>the European ones. Not that their weapons were any better, but the
>Mongols were. I don't think the Europeans had a single solitary
>advantage over the Mongols except for numbers, which was insufficient
>to save them.
>

I can think of a few: Armour. The crossbow, allowing any dork peasant to be able to kill at 150 paces (ok, well, maybe 50 paces) without the lifelong training of a mongol. Sturdier mounts by far, forcing the mongols (by and large - recognition is made of the huge generalization here..) to evade melee unless overwhelmingly outnumbering their foe (the Hungarians come to mind here). Interior lines of communication. Hmmm. I guess the proof is in the pudding - I don't see any Mongol states around in 1995, do you?

>>Composite bows are not overrated in RQ. The availiblity is
>>somewhat overrated, but the lethality and range are somewhat less
>>than what the effects obtained by earth bow using cultures.
> Not long ago there was an article in the journal _Materials
>Characterization_ on this subject, and it proved fairly conclusively
>that longbows were unable to pierce chest armors even at point-blank
>range. Coupled with the fact there is _no_ extant armor which
>contains a hole conclusively made by an arrowhead, this implies that
>no arrows fired from any bows was able to pierce plate. Even chain
>would have been tough. Despite mighty tales of woe from Agincourt and
>Crecy, it seems pretty clear that the arrows themselves didn't kill
>the French knights. There are accounts of Crusaders walking around
>"like pincushions" with ten or more arrows sticking out of their
>armor, unwounded. These were composite bows, too.

True, the victors write the histories, and thus the Agincourt & Crecy stories are certainly a bit overstated. However, despite the fact that a clothyard shaft might not penetrate the plate, doesn't mean that longbows weren't tremendously effective against armoured characters. I think the RQ relationship of arrow damage being d8+1 vs Plate armour being 9 AP is just right. Equally, this places the Cbow bolt at the right spot too, IMO, with a heavy bolt of 2d4+2 having a reasonable chance of actually punching thru the plate.
By the way, these were YEW LONGBOWS. Homogenous construction with perhaps a layer of bone or other wood near the grip to prevent splitting. In no sense were these composite bows.

Steve Lieb
liebx004_at_maroon.tc.umn.edu
Cologne, MN

....still looking for that killer .sig


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