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Old 06-24-2019, 01:49 PM   #1
Michael Thayne
 
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Default [Low-tech] Charioteer loadouts and overloaded land vehicles

In GURPS Loadouts: Low-Tech Armor, the standard bronze-age charioteer loadout weighs 84.7 lbs. for the driver or 75.5 lbs. for the rider. This comes to a total of 160.2 lbs. Even if the archer only carries a dozen arrows in a shoulder quiver and no backup weapon, total loadout with a composite bow comes to 164.15 lbs. The light chariot only has a Load statistic of 400 lbs. Therefore, unless the charioteers weigh under 118 lbs. apiece, they'll be overloading the chariot.

What are the penalties for doing this? One model would be to treat the chariot as a character with ST equal to HP as long as it's being pulled by the normal wo ponies, and apply encumbrance penalties as usual. By that approach you wouldn't actually face any penalties until going over 451 lbs. You could also do something more complicated involving the rules for dragging, but the chariot statistics in the table appear unconnected to the pony statistics in Campaigns. I'm surprised by the difficulty of finding any sort of official rule on this—help?
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Old 06-24-2019, 04:22 PM   #2
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Default Re: [Low-tech] Charioteer loadouts and overloaded land vehicles

I don't think there are rules for this yet. I think we're all waiting for Pulver's book, though there might be something in the steampunk vehicle book. You could apply modest penalties to an overloaded vehicles: reduce Move as you would for going over Encumbrance levels, penalize driver skill, apply a penalty to vehicle HT rolls, and the like.

My recommendation, though, would be to ignore it or, if you like, increase the load of the light chariot to a sufficient value to accommodate the crew with their loadouts. The light chariot in Low Tech is clearly a repeat of the stats of the chariot from Basic. Back when Basic was first published, 400 lbs. was a reasonable guess for the weight of two men and some modest gear, so there was no strong reason for that stat to be changed when we wrote Low Tech. A total weight of gear and passengers in excess of that is a consequence of Dan researching that specific issue more closely in ways we didn't do for the main gear catalog. The stats for that chariot approximate the performance of a vehicle for which we don't have a lot of originals or reality checking and was never standardized anyway. Given Dan's instantiation in GURPS of charioteer loadouts, a chariot with a load of, say, 450 or 475 lbs. might be better to characterize a light war chariot.
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Old 06-24-2019, 04:44 PM   #3
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Default Re: [Low-tech] Charioteer loadouts and overloaded land vehicles

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Originally Posted by Michael Thayne View Post
In GURPS Loadouts: Low-Tech Armor, the standard bronze-age charioteer loadout weighs 84.7 lbs. for the driver or 75.5 lbs. for the rider.
I found in every culture from Mycenae right through to China that the driver was more heavily armoured than the archer. As Matt said, we need to revise the capacity of a light war chariot. There is a lot of good research available now that wasn't available when GURPS was first written. Littauer and Crouwel are the leading experts. I wrote a chapter on chariots in my Bronze Age book and covered their construction in detail but don't think I mentioned carrying capacity.

https://www.pen-and-sword.co.uk/Bron...uipment/p/3272
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Old 06-24-2019, 06:43 PM   #4
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Default Re: [Low-tech] Charioteer loadouts and overloaded land vehicles

Why is all that armor needed? The chariot is it's own corselet.

Now horse armor is needed as one horse going down smashes the whole thing. Not to mention protecting the wheels with those flimsy spokes. No wonder they switched to cavalry.
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Old 06-24-2019, 09:51 PM   #5
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Default Re: [Low-tech] Charioteer loadouts and overloaded land vehicles

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Why is all that armor needed? The chariot is it's own corselet.
Did historical people wear that armor while using chariots?
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Old 06-24-2019, 10:07 PM   #6
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Default Re: [Low-tech] Charioteer loadouts and overloaded land vehicles

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Originally Posted by jason taylor View Post
Why is all that armor needed? The chariot is it's own corselet.
Hardly. On some chariots there was protection from the waist down and on others there was no protection at all.

This is the Florence chariot
https://assets3.thrillist.com/v1/ima...in_desktop.jpg

This is one of the chariots found in Tut's tomb.
http://www.metroway.com/digonis_8182.gif
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Old 06-24-2019, 10:19 PM   #7
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Default Re: [Low-tech] Charioteer loadouts and overloaded land vehicles

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Originally Posted by ErhnamDJ View Post
Did historical people wear that armor while using chariots?
I wouldn't have put it in the loadouts book if they didn't.
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Old 06-25-2019, 08:19 AM   #8
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Default Re: [Low-tech] Charioteer loadouts and overloaded land vehicles

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Originally Posted by DanHoward View Post
Hardly. On some chariots there was protection from the waist down and on others there was no protection at all.

This is the Florence chariot
https://assets3.thrillist.com/v1/ima...in_desktop.jpg

This is one of the chariots found in Tut's tomb.
http://www.metroway.com/digonis_8182.gif
The loadouts in the loadouts book don't include lower leg protection for charioteers. Would that have been worn in cases when the chariot itself didn't provide it?
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Old 06-25-2019, 02:22 PM   #9
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Default Re: [Low-tech] Charioteer loadouts and overloaded land vehicles

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Originally Posted by Michael Thayne View Post
The loadouts in the loadouts book don't include lower leg protection for charioteers. Would that have been worn in cases when the chariot itself didn't provide it?
Depending from the age and the culture, yes, it's possible. Just look at the Dendra panoply and its bronze greaves (although the Dendra panoply isn't necessarily a dedicated charioteer suite of armor). Leg armor (in the form of a scale corselet reaching the ankles) was worn also by Mitanni charioteers, as shown by this reconstruction of Angus McBride for Osprey.*

https://www.akg-images.co.uk/Docs/AK...AKG3028791.jpg

* = Sometimes Osprey books contain errors, especially the old ones, but the average quality of most of the recently written books is very good.
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Old 06-25-2019, 05:36 PM   #10
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Default Re: [Low-tech] Charioteer loadouts and overloaded land vehicles

The Dendra Panoply is definitely charioteer armour. More specifically, I'm convinced that it was worn by the driver, not the archer (Mycenaean chariots were archery platforms just like everyone else's at the time). Only drivers wore neck and full arm coverage.

The Mitanni wore armoured skirts called dutiwa but we don't know how far down the leg they reached. Most likely they stopped at the knee. In the Loadouts book they cover the knee but not shin.
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