Explosive Arrows and Ancient Rockets

[stranger38]

Hello my friends, hope y'all having a nice world cup!

Help me once again:

In Low tech there are two ancient chinese powder weapons: Explosive arrow and rocket

Both use serpentine powder. What would the damage be if using corned (TL4) or improved Black Powder (TL5)?

The rocket is 1.15 lbs and causes 2d+2
The arrow has a one ounce charge and does 1d-1.

I'll admit, my math skills are on par of an caveman.

[sir_pudding]

The Hale Rocket is on GURPS High-Tech p. 150.

[stranger38]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

The Hale Rocket is on GURPS High-Tech p. 150.

Isn't the hale rocktet high explosive? something like dynamite?

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by stranger38

Isn't the hale rocktet high explosive? something like dynamite?

Well yes, but at TL5 there is no good reason to use black powder as an explosive filler.

[stranger38]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

Well yes, but at TL5 there is no good reason to use black powder as an explosive filler.

Fair point.

but i remember seeing a cannon in adventure guns that used black powder shells. the "pom-pom" gun if i'm correct

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

Well yes, but at TL5 there is no good reason to use black powder as an explosive filler.

Mid TL6. Even at early 6 you see black powder filling. You see it in the WWI "potato masher" grenade. High explosives were invented at very late tL5 but many practical developments had to wait until TL6.

Another early TL6 oddity is "Dynamite Guns".....

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamite_gun

.....before c.1900 High explosives were _not_ stable enough to be used in conventional artillery so compressed air guns of up to 15 inches were tried. With their low muzzle velocities they might be better thought of as mortars.

The Wiki article mentions that the shells were light but misses that this lightness was in the casing. Like other mortars the tubes were unrifled and between that and the low muzzle velocity the shell cases could be light. The Vesuvius' 15" shells had half of their total weight as filler. That was equal to multiple hundreds of pounds of TNT.

[stranger38]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

Mid TL6. Even at early 6 you see black powder filling. You see it in the WWI "potato masher" grenade. High explosives were invented at very late tL5 but many practical developments had to wait until TL6.

Another early TL6 oddity is "Dynamite Guns".....

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamite_gun

.....before c.1900 High explosives were _not_ stable enough to be used in conventional artillery so compressed air guns of up to 15 inches were tried. With their low muzzle velocities they might be better thought of as mortars.

The Wiki article mentions that the shells were light but misses that this lightness was in the casing. Like other mortars the tubes were unrifled and between that and the low muzzle velocity the shell cases could be light. The Vesuvius' 15" shells had half of their total weight as filler. That was equal to multiple hundreds of pounds of TNT.

Thought that, by the time they've invented high explosives and smokeless powder, black powder all but vanished

[RyanW]

Originally Posted by stranger38

Isn't the hale rocktet high explosive? something like dynamite?

I doubt it. Hale invented the thing more than twenty years before dynamite was around, and seven years before nitroglycerin.

[The Colonel]

Originally Posted by stranger38

Isn't the hale rocktet high explosive? something like dynamite?

Well then, didn't GURPS Napoleon have stats for the Congreve rocket ... which definitely was black powder?

[Dalillama]

Originally Posted by stranger38

Isn't the hale rocktet high explosive? something like dynamite?

No. Nobody had high explosives that were stable enough for the purpose until pretty much the 20th century. Hale rockets were black powder.