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Author Topic: The myth of the longbow or Adventure  (Read 3893 times)

Balbinus

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The myth of the longbow or Adventure
« Reply #30 on: September 04, 2006, 10:25:50 AM »
Quote from: Settembrini
And to great untapped gaming potential!
All those eras up to the development and widespread use of the rifle(d bore) are basically untapped, even though melee combat was still the most important part, at least for small number of men. Movies like "the patriot" with the ridiculous accuracy of pistols aren't helping either.


There's a scene in I think The Warhound and the World's Pain, by Michael Moorcock, in which the protagonist rides down on his enemies, fires each pistol then draws his sword and closes.

I love that feel, the characters fire then close for hand to hand, it feels gritty and deadly and is a much underexplored period.

That said, one of my players the other week said that playing Runequest had given him a new respect for missile weapons, which I also like.

Spike

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The myth of the longbow or Adventure
« Reply #31 on: September 04, 2006, 04:48:19 PM »
Quote from: Settembrini
And to great untapped gaming potential!
All those eras up to the development and widespread use of the rifle(d bore) are basically untapped, even though melee combat was still the most important part, at least for small number of men. Movies like "the patriot" with the ridiculous accuracy of pistols aren't helping either.



I was reading a book set in colonial India, Sharpes something or other I think and the commentary there about Muskets was that they really only worked because they were fired en masse at massed troops, as any given musket ball could be ten feet or more off of where it was aimed at within fifty feet.  It was quite a damning condemnation of their accuracy at any range.  That might explain why the British in the American Revolution were so appalled by the habit of minute men sniping officers.  It was impossible using military weaponry, and thus it was viewed as 'bad form'.
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cnath.rm

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The myth of the longbow or Adventure
« Reply #32 on: September 04, 2006, 09:19:10 PM »
Quote from: Spike
I was reading a book set in colonial India, Sharpes something or other I think and the commentary there about Muskets was that they really only worked because they were fired en masse at massed troops, as any given musket ball could be ten feet or more off of where it was aimed at within fifty feet.  It was quite a damning condemnation of their accuracy at any range.  That might explain why the British in the American Revolution were so appalled by the habit of minute men sniping officers.  It was impossible using military weaponry, and thus it was viewed as 'bad form'.
Later in the Sharpe series he is put in charge on a group of riflemen, and I believe that they were in limited use during the Napoleanic wars in actual history, just that the rifle had a lower rate of fire, and the British were not normally the first to innovate that that point in history. They still had troops using muskets till at least the american civil war if my memory serves.
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Samarkand

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The myth of the longbow or Adventure
« Reply #33 on: September 07, 2006, 08:10:26 PM »
The British had rifled muskets by the 1850's, ten years before the American Civil War.  In fact, the Enfield percussion rifle-musket was said to be the trigger for the Sepoy rebellion; the Indian sepoys rioted when rumours spread that the new minie-ball cartridges were greased with "unclean" beef or pork fat.
 

Zachary The First

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The myth of the longbow or Adventure
« Reply #34 on: September 08, 2006, 03:38:20 AM »
Quote from: Samarkand
The British had rifled muskets by the 1850's, ten years before the American Civil War.  In fact, the Enfield percussion rifle-musket was said to be the trigger for the Sepoy rebellion; the Indian sepoys rioted when rumours spread that the new minie-ball cartridges were greased with "unclean" beef or pork fat.

If I recall, the really tragic thing is that it was a false rumor, too.  Of course, ir wasn't like they didn't have plenty of other reasons for rebelling.
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