Low-Tech Missile Weapon Range and Accuracy
 

In design for GURPS 4e, the decision was made for playability and heroism to allow low-tech missile weapon some pretty impressive stats. Bows have a very long range and exceptional accuracy, slings do Swing pi damage at very long range and for strong men they can strike harder than 9mm bullets, crossbows are more accurate than pistols and muskets, etc.

I don't intend to slam the basic GURPS rules for this. The design goal was adventure and heroism, not realism, so it makes sense for Legolas, Robin Hood and King David to have effective weapons.

But in a campaign where these missile weapons co-exist with early firearms (reasonably realistically modelled by GURPS), the 'heroic average' weapons perform much better than the historical weapons that should have replaced them. Neither PCs nor their enemies will reasonably want to exchange bows, crossbows and slings for 18th/19th century firearms, let alone earlier ones. Let's look at an example:

Composite Crossbow , ST 11 (typical soldier for much of history):
Acc 4, Damage 1d+4 imp, ROF 1(4), number of shots per minute with Fast-Draw: 25

Baker Rifle:
Acc 3, damage 3d pi++, ROF 1(30), number of shots per minute with Fast-Draw 3.

The crossbow delivers an average of 15 damage per shot to an unarmoured man vs. the Baker Rifle's 21, but that's cold comfort against the longer effective range and much higher rate of fire for the crossbow. Not to mention that it's possible to use a more powerful crossbow which allows a strong and trained man to exceed the damage of the Baker Rifle and still fire faster, more accurately and at a better range.

And a Baker Rifle is a much better weapon than early firearms.

Yes, I understand that a Baker Rifle is cheaper at a $100 vs. the Composite Crossbow $900, but that's at least partially due to the mass production of firearms at TL 5. An early musket competing with crossbows at TL4 doesn't have those advantages and will cost almost as much as the crossbow.

But, as I said, I'm not here to curse the darkness. Instead, I only want to know what reasonable stats for the thrown weapons, bows, crossbows and slings in GURPS would be. If they weren't 'heroic average' weapons, what would be their stats?

Just so an individual GM can correct them in his game, if he so chooses.

Re: Low-Tech Missile Weapon Range and Accuracy
 

AS I understand it, the adoption of early gunpowder weapons had more to do with politics that inherent superiority (this is 1500-16XX era, so TL 4). The advantage was that governments could control who had them more easily, because there were fewer gunsmiths around than people who knew how to make bows/crossbows, and few people could make significant quantities of powder on their own, while arrows/bolts are trivially easy for a person with the right skills to make.

Re: Low-Tech Missile Weapon Range and Accuracy
 

There were a lot of reasons.

But the fact remains that Acc 4 for a typical crossbow is astronomically high. I'm looking for a more reasonable number, for it and for all other GURPS missile weapons.

Re: Low-Tech Missile Weapon Range and Accuracy
 

If we assume that we're not looking to change the basic assumptions of GURPS, but just reduce ranged weapon stats down to more managable levels. Damage will still be based on the ST table, at least for me, and I'm just looking for stats that fit at typical human ST rates.

Reducing sling damage in exchange for making them pi++ is one thing that could be done. Your example fits a typical soldier using thr damage for his sling. The advantage of a sling over just throwing rocks would lie in the damage type, not damage dice. But that ignores the fact that slings probably have advantages over thrown rocks when it comes to penetrating armour as well.

Re: Low-Tech Missile Weapon Range and Accuracy
 

And then be prepared to restat punching/kicking (base sw/thr) damage, or else you can do that more effectively than you can strike enweaponed.

I'm not disagreeing with your overall observation, and re-statting ranged projectile weapons based on velocity and cross section would be quite doable.

For example this resource: http://slinging.org/index.php?page=t...hom-richardson puts sling velocity at 30-40m/sec. They're 15 to 18mm in diameter. Using my formulae for bullets, a 60g stone with 15mm cross section (diameter) and velocity of 40m/s should do about 2.2 points of penetration damage, with a wound modifier of 3.0.

In short, a sling thrown with those properties is about 1d-1 pi++

Arrows are faster and heavy as well, about 60g and 60m/s, with a smaller cross section for the shaft (call it 10mm). That represents a shot from a 150lb bow according to http://www.stortford-archers.org.uk/medieval.htm and would do about 3.8pts of damage (1d) and the shaft itself would have a wound modifier of about 1.9.

So about 1d impaling is about right for the 150lb warbow. A crossbow fires roughly the same velocity, but is much easier to aim and train and hit with, at the cost of long reload times.

Re: Low-Tech Missile Weapon Range and Accuracy
 

In your opinion, what's the GURPS ST required for a 150 lbs. warbow? And how long was the direct fire range of such a bow?

Re: Low-Tech Missile Weapon Range and Accuracy
 

Most warbows seem to have been fired indirect; 240m is the calculated range for the bow I talk about above.

I believe I've posted a conversion from ST to bow poundage in these forums before, and I'll go look and edit. I imagine that what we have is a ST12 bowman with +2ST for special exercises and one or two levels of Strongbow...likely that 150lb bow is ST16 or so, but let me go look.

Found it...draw weight is 2.25 x Basic Lift, so a 150lb bow would be ST18, and you'd need both +2 to draw ST from skill and +2 special exercises to be reasonable ST and draw this bow. Since I have a mental model of bench press being about 7xBL, ST14 would be a person who could press about 275. Strong, but not insane.

Re: Low-Tech Missile Weapon Range and Accuracy
 

Are the muscle powered weapon stats wrong?
I know long-bows were better than 18th century muskets. Wasn't it Washington who would have preferred his army be armed with them?
One of the reasons for the change from muscle-power to gun-powder was training time. Crossbows and muskets are DX/E, default DX-4; Bows are DX/A, default DX-5. I'd not heard the one about centralised production before - you learn something new every day.

Re: Low-Tech Missile Weapon Range and Accuracy
 

So, if it's a ST 18 bow, range is x15 ST.

Is there a compelling realism-based reason to avoid a simpler relationship to Basic Lift?

And, also, aren't most normal men capable of drawing bows of ca 60 pounds? Doesn't that argue that the relationship probably should be more like 3 x Basic Lift?

Hmmm... I imagined that with equipment and training, bench pressing 8 x Basic Lift was reasonable.

Otherwise, all my friends are ST 14+, with the exception of a few ST 12 weaklings.

Is that really reasonable?

Re: Low-Tech Missile Weapon Range and Accuracy
 

GURPS bows can punch through plate at over 200 yards and are no harder to use than muskets. Crossbows are actually easier to shoot accurately than 18th century muskets.

A soldier using a Brown Bess musket with 2 points in Guns (Musket) has skill 11 and fires at effective skill 13 after aiming. A soldier using a Composite Bow with 2 points in Bow has skill 10 and fires at skill 13 after aiming. The crossbow-using soldier with 2 points in Crossbow has skill 11 and fires at effective skill 15 after aiming.

Re: Low-Tech Missile Weapon Range and Accuracy
 

Dont forget muskets were more popular for most of TL5 as military weapons because they were faster to reload. (The rifleing made reloading difficult.)

You should compare the crossbow with a musket. IIRC the brown bess is stated at 4d pi++

Re: Low-Tech Missile Weapon Range and Accuracy
 

Well for too high acc:
You could just halve it(round down), like they basically did for firearms.

As for the damage:
The examples you give 3d pi++ and 1d+4 imp, the 3d is way better in many cases as it has a single shot kill probability against unarmored people and much more damage

Against unarmored average person:
the 3d pi++ has 50% probability of going over their HP and thus giving a kill probability.

The crossbow can still take him down well but no instant kill.

Now add a DR 5 breast plate and suddenly the crossbow can at best do the 10 hp to take the target to 0 at 1/6 probability(and no damage at all 1/6), whereas the rifle has 50% probability of doing that(and even a 5% probability of requiring death roll).
(make it a dr 7 corselet the crossbow is out of the running: only half the hits do any damage at all whereas the rifle still averages 7 hits and has a 25% probability of doing the 10 damage on single hit)

Also remember that if the target has a shield he can parry the bolts but not the bullets.

As for the range advantage, you really need a good skill to gain benefit of it as 100 yards is allready -10 to skill.

So with typical soldiers skills of say 12:
Probability to hit: Crossbow quick fire 1 sec aim/crossbow full aim 3sec/Crossbow quick fire halved acc/crossbow full aim halved acc/rifle full aim
20 yard: 10/12/8/10/11
50 yard: 8/10/6/8/9
100 yard:6/8/4/6/7
200 yard:4/6/2/4/2

(the rifle is set at aiming full as te few extra seconds are so much less than reloading time)
So even with the full acc firing at> 100 yards is kind of pointless with the crossbow unless you have unlimited ammo. With halved acc even more so.


The same at "low point" PC skill values: skill 15:
3sec/Crossbow quick fire halved acc/crossbow full aim halved acc/rifle full aim
20 yard: 13/15/11/13/14
50 yard: 11/13/9/11/12
100 yard:9/11/7/9/10
200 yard:7/9/5/7/5

At these skill levels you can actually fire out to 100 yards if you have plenty of ammo and time, but more than that requires the crossbow with the full acc.

Raising the skills to more heroic levels ofcourse changes probabilities so that you start hitting further and further out.

As for historically:
Hitting the broad side of a barn(=enemy unit standing there trading salvoes) in combat was a highly improbable event for any single shot even at fairly short ranges at TL 3-4, less so at tl 5 with the breech loading rifles and such.

Re: Low-Tech Missile Weapon Range and Accuracy
 

But the crossbow is more accurate than a rifle, faster to reload than a musket and the tradeoff is a slightly lower damage.

For a strong man (ST 15) with the Crossbow Finesse Perk, the average damage is the same as a Baker Rifle. Even for an average soldier (ST 11), it's possible to use a heavier crossbow to match that damage, at the same reloading speed as a musket, but more accurate.

Re: Low-Tech Missile Weapon Range and Accuracy
 

How many times? With good accuracy? Enough to draw, aim, and release?

Around here, in hunting-heavy minnesota, a 75lb bow is considered pretty heavy. Having ST10 be capable of casually using a 45lb bow seems reasonable to me; such bows aren't exactly light.

If your typical friends bench 125kg, then this is reasonable. The average person around has a hard time benching their own weight. My mental model of bench = 7xBL or so puts ST10 150lb average person benching their own weight, which seems about right. Pushing up 215lbs at ST12 doesn't seem that wrong, and ST20 at 7.5xBL = 600lbs, which for no extra effort is probably not TOO far wrong, since the no supporting equipment record is around 750lbs or so.

If I were to redo the lifting rules, what I'd probably do is set max bench press under perfect conditions as 10xBL (800lb max) and squat about 15xBL (1200lbs), and have lots of die rolls about subtracting from effective ST due to grip, footing, equipment, etc that would mean that even a ST20 person would only be able to expect 700-800lbs of bench under perfectly ideal conditions with a good roll; injury or failure in many cases otherwise.

Still, the warbow information I've seen suggests 110-180lb bows at the peak of archery's goodness. If we assume a 200lb draw upper end as a ST20 bow, and that's BL80, that's 2.5xBL, and I don't have an issue with that. That's 50lbs for a regular Joe, and a strong-ish man (ST12) with good skill (ST14) and special archery exercises (ST16) would draw a 125lb bow...that seems reasonable to me.

Re: Low-Tech Missile Weapon Range and Accuracy
 

This is only said by toxophiles who can't bare the fact that gunpowder weapons outclass any kind of bow in every aspect except rate of fire. It was for more than political reasons that virtually all the major powers of Europe bankrupted themselves to adopt the new technology.

Re: Low-Tech Missile Weapon Range and Accuracy
 

Well Arrows (and bolts) have a rather stable flight while the musket ball has not. There are accounts of group of 50-60 soldiers in each army during the Napoleon wars, firing at each other at ranges of less than 60 yards and only 1 in 10 or 12 shots would hit.

I have seen a Napoleon Era musket fired literally at a barn door at the range of 100 yards and not hitting the door.

Re: Low-Tech Missile Weapon Range and Accuracy
 

As far as I know, yes.

Must guides that I've read on selecting your draw weight recommend a weight of 55#-65# for a normal proportioned man (weighting between 150-180 lbs.).


From 110 kg to 150 kg.

The average person is overweight. Lean people with good technique shouldn't have much problem with it.

At 8xBL it's 640 lbs., which also sounds plausible.

In order to have the Strongbow Perk as well as two Special Exercises, that means a minimum of 30 CPs spent on an archery style and 10 points spent on Arm ST. That's... quite an investment for a bowman.

I'll buy it from a professional, life-long archer, sure. But I think that the majority of bow users do not have Special Exercises.

Re: Low-Tech Missile Weapon Range and Accuracy
 

Soldiers in combat never have a high hit probability. That's a human limitation, not a limitation of the weapon.

Reenactors can easily hit a human-sized target at 100 yds with minimal training.

But, I note, minimal training was often not possessed by the soldiers of the era.

Re: Low-Tech Missile Weapon Range and Accuracy
 

Yes I do realize that shooting at another living man was not something that one would like to do and many soldiers closed their eyes before taking the shot.

BUT even if today reeanactors can with their "modern" versions of the rifles hit a human target at 100 yards that does not change the fact that many of the late 18th century and early 19th century riflemen had not as good powder as we do today nor that the musket balls were not a perfect fit so the musket balls would wobble and their trajectory beyond 30-50 yards was unreliable at best.

Later bullets like the minié ball would drastically change accuracy of the basic infantry rifle.

My problem with Gurps Acc is the same as Icelander. I would think that a rather modern Rifle would have a better Acc than a basic Crossbow. On the other hand I would think that a standard pre 1840ish musket would have lower Acc than most basic Crossbows.

But a nice TL 7 or TL 8 hunting rifle would have better acc than a basic Crossbow.

Re: Low-Tech Missile Weapon Range and Accuracy
 

And isnt that also the describtion of an English Longbowman trained from childhood.
I vaguely remember that they found a ship full of longbowmen that had deformed skeletons from all that training. Also they where all quite tall for a man of that age and appeared to have been rather strong all of them.

So I think allso one of the really neat things about firearms was the fact that a soldier could now be ST11 and no longer had to be ST14+. This sure makes it alot easier to conscript soldiers.

The crossbow still seems a little to awesome tho, for this I have no explanation.

Re: Low-Tech Missile Weapon Range and Accuracy
 

As I understand it, the kind of bowmen likely to be firing 150 lbs. medieval warbows (a distinct minority of all people who fought or hunted with bows throughout history) trained hard from an early age in order to achieve the required arm strength. Skeletons of English longbowmen show quite scary 'deformities' caused by their unusually large arm and chest muscles.

Re: Low-Tech Missile Weapon Range and Accuracy
 

Absolutely.

But he was talking about the kind of people who fire #125 bows. And those aren't as scary.

An English longbowman, at least as I imagine him in my campaigns, has an effective ST of 15+ (any combination of ST, Strongbow and Arm ST).

But I note that using 3 x Basic Lift means that that remains true. Using 2.25xBL, however, means that anyone using a #150 warbow has to be ST 18!

I think that firing a bow of that draw should be difficult, but not impossible. ST 18, at least in my vision of the world, is rarer than hen's teeth (Lifting ST 18 is somewhat more common).

Re: Low-Tech Missile Weapon Range and Accuracy
 

Training, assuming you start with Joe Average, to be able to use a Longbow at a skill of 10 will take 5,200 hours. I believe Sundays were the traditional day for such training, in Wales of course. That's 6-12 years of training to get ST+1 and DX/A [2] 10. And then he'll do 1d+1 with Acc3 out to 165yds.

Muskets and Crossbows are DX/E. Grab your conscript and give him 4 weeks training and he'll have DX/E [1] 10. Assuming you give him a goats foot with his outsize crossbow, he'll manage 1d+4 with Acc4 out to 280 yds. With a musket it's 4d with Acc 2 out to 100 yds but he gets almost double the 1/2D range and that's twice the damage at treble the effective Longbow range. At TL4, you'll be using flintlocks; quicker reload and 2.5x1/2D range.

Versus armour? GURPS TL3 plate is DR7; with a Longbow, you'll need extra muscles and real good luck on your die rolls to do anything or am I reading the stats wrong? Crossbows penetrate plate with comparative ease, and muskets can ignore it. The only place where Longbows win is reload rate:(

So, Longbow man, 6-12 years training, for a weapon of no use against heavy armour v's crossbow/musket, 4 weeks training, for battlefield clearance...

Re: Low-Tech Missile Weapon Range and Accuracy
 

Reenactors with a Brown Bess, not a rifle.

I'm thinking that a gameable Crossbow would be Acc 2. Maybe Acc 3.

That's if we don't change anything else.

Re: Low-Tech Missile Weapon Range and Accuracy
 

Ability increases don't use the 1 CP = 200 hours mechanism.

Rasing ST doesn't take anywhere near 6-12 years. Just look at a lot of athletes throughout history who've gone up weight classes or improved their performance.

Re: Low-Tech Missile Weapon Range and Accuracy
 

I'd probably define anything over 75# as scary, but my knowledge of what power bows people usually hunt with (as opposed to go to war with) isn't that good.

Concur.

Here's a table, with draw weight as the quantity being calculated.
a 2.0 multiplier is clearly bogus; the median warbow in medieval times would thus be a ST20 bow, which doesn't work for me at all.

2.25 does indeed put it at a ST18 bow, but with up to +4 available with Arm ST (special exercises) and up to +2 more ST with strongbow bonus based on skill, ST14 for a professional archer trained from birth isn't all bad. Still, that's 40pts on ST and even more on exercises and a few more on skill.

2.5 puts a ST20 bow, at 200lbs (beyond the upper end of bow draw I've seen quoted of 180lbs). Seems OK, and having a typical person of ST10 be capable of drawing a 50lb bow (and a 70lbs bow being ST12) without training or special exercises works for me. Hunters with lots of practice can draw a hunting bow with DX+2 and ST10 of 70lbs. And ST10 with a bow ST of 14 with special exercises and DX-based skill with Strongbow is a legit archer build.

3.0 multiplier puts the upper end of the typical medieval bow at ST17. A 150lb bow would be ST16...which would only deliver 1d imp of damage based on the kinetic energy alone. If we think that a typical bow can punch through more than 1mm of armor, we need an armor divisor to compensate.

So maybe the 2.5 to 3.0 multipliers are six of one, half-dozen of the other, but the higher multiplier gives (on the one hand) VERY powerful bows more upper end in penetration (since the 150lb "reference bow" at 1d worth of KE for a target-style point would happen at a lower bow ST).

Re: Low-Tech Missile Weapon Range and Accuracy
 

The stats I saw today for medieval crossbows suggested that crossbow damage and longbow damage should be much closer to equivalent than not.

The velocity of a 100-150lb longbow projectile at 60g and a 780lb crossbow also with a 60g projectile were nearly identical in the comparison I saw. The longbow being much, much more efficient than the crossbow.

Something to think about.

Re: Low-Tech Missile Weapon Range and Accuracy
 

Since this is for personal use only, I don't mind complicating things a bit. In my view 2xBL is reasonable for someone unskilled, 2.25xBL for anyone with any training at all, 2.5xBL at DX-level, 2.75xBL at DX+1 and finally reaching 3xBL at DX+2.

Strongbow Perk is only for those who have 10 points or more in an archery style, which I'd say is rare for a modern man, but reasonable for a historical archer. It works normally in this scheme.

Do you have data about the experiment?

How good was the reproduction bow? How skilled and strong was the archer?

In other words, is this an absolute upper limit?

Do we think that longbows can punch through armour?

I think that the occasional high damage roll representing a lucky angle or hitting a weak point is fun and gamable, but I don't think that arrows historically penetrated armour at all.

I'd like to strike some sort of balance between 'impossible' and 'rare', though. Since ST damage is too high anyway, it's okay if we come out a little high too, as long as the relative effectiveness of weapons is plausible.

Re: Low-Tech Missile Weapon Range and Accuracy
 

I agree with that assessment.

But crossbows do allow some extremely high draw weights, up to #1200. That would be an unwieldly and heavy crossbow, but it might hit harder than a longbow.

Re: Low-Tech Missile Weapon Range and Accuracy
 

I thought it was Wellington who asked for longbowmen for his Peninsular Army. Same era, different man.

Re: Low-Tech Missile Weapon Range and Accuracy
 

Interesting. I hadn't thought to vary draw weight multiplier with skill. Increasing ST is the functional equivalent at constant multiplier, however, although I suspect your numbers above have more granularity than just (say) +1ST at DX and +2ST at DX+2 or something.

If we "believe" (or really, we wish to stipulate) the equivalent of +4 to ST through skill - or if we say that you can pull, say +40% heavier bow with special exercises and +40% with technique, rather than +2ST for each, then you could easily, say, give +10% to allowable draw weight at DX, with a +10% more per point of skill higher, capping at +40% at DX+4 or DX+5 in realistic campaigns. Likewise, charge 4pts per +10% for "special exercises" or something. Easier would be allowable up to +2 arm ST with the special Exercises perk and +1 at DX and +1 more at DX+2 or something.

Net/net, though, once you've spent the points in archery, presumably that's worth something as you say.


It wasn't an "experiment." I took my stats from the very useful article "The Physics of Medieval Archery" [http://www.stortford-archers.org.uk/medieval.htm] which give physics-based estimates for the strength of bows of the period, as well as estimating the velocity and mass of the projectiles themselves.

From this, using bullet impact formulae I derived in my article on GURPS bullet damage in Pyramid, I can calculate the points of armor a projectile of certain cross section and energy would penetrate. For a "muzzle velocity" of 60m/s and a weight of 60g, and a 1cm diameter shaft, you get about 3.8pts (1d) calculated penetration. This is complicated by the arrowhead, which has a MUCH lower cross section than the shaft, but even a cross-sectional area more accurately calculated (say, a trapezoid 4mm at its thickest and 30mm wide as a broadhead point) won't be less than about half that of the shaft, which only changes damage by 10% higher. (3.8pts goes to 4.2pts). What MIGHT drive that number higher is if the arrowheads were hardened or forged or something much harder than the jacketed lead or mild steel my model was built around. That would usually add an armor divisor...with good steel (semi-armor piercing) usually being worth a 1.25 to 1.5 armor divisor. That would typically make an arrow from this bow penetrate like 1d+1 (4.5pts) to 2d-1 (6.3pts). Given how much oomph I think we can all agree is required for a draw of 180-200lbs, having THAT bow eke out no more than 2d damage as a "ST20 bow" upper end would be fairly OK. That's thr or thr+1 using the ST table AS IS. But, it also requires the assumption of hard arrowheads and smaller cross section...which frankly ain't that bad.

Crossbows, apparently, have the benefit of not requiring so many points to eke out that same damage.


My impression, mainly from this forum, is that arrows would rarely punch through metal armor.

Re: Low-Tech Missile Weapon Range and Accuracy
 

I thought Benjamin Franklin was the proponent for the Continental Army...googling.

Yep. Franklin, 1776.

Problems with bows --
 

GURPS should not give a heavy crossbow 25 shots per minute. A light crossbow (no more draw weight than a small bow) perhaps -- but there wouldn't be much aiming.

As a number of sources, including the Royal Ordnance Museum (IIRC -- it was British gov't facility) have noted, longbows will not penetrate decently-made plate armor from c. 1450 on. Said outfit made repops of both bow & armor, (actually, armour, being British) fired A at B at a range of less than 10 meters, and arrows bounced without so much as denting the surface. I've seen the film; plate existed for a reason.

Heavy crossbows could -- but they were problematic. If you're holding a 1500 pound draw weight any flaw in the metal can & will be fatal. At least one monarch, a king of Scotland, died in a hunting accident when his crossbow went SPROING! and inflicted heavy injury.

In some ways a heavy (c. 1500# draw) crossbow is a more difficult manufacturing task than a musket. While the latter has to survive more peak pressure, no part of it has to be terribly hard AND have great tensile strength. The tips of the crossbow and the faces of the trigger mechanism thereof do require this. If the tips are soft, the bow-wire will cut into them and (if you're lucky) disable the crossbow. If you're not lucky the tip will separate. Given the geometry of the crossbow, if you're aiming it at the time a wire lash will hit you driven by c. 750# (a single bow-limb). Not good.

And, as stated, it was easier to train a man to use a musket than a longbow.

As far as accuracy, the Knights of St. John at Malta (1565 CE) noted that Turkish musketeers were inflicting hits on single targets (human) at over 100 yards in the siege of Fort St. Elmo. While they may no have been accurate by our standards they were accurate enough to be a problem.

Re: Low-Tech Missile Weapon Range and Accuracy
 

Crossbows definitely held on longer than bows. Magellen's expedition used a number of crossbows alongside their firearms.

Re: Low-Tech Missile Weapon Range and Accuracy
 

Crossbows don't refuse to fire when wet, unlike black powder. So they might have had a certain attraction to a naval expedition. As well, the raw materials for additional quarrels could be reasonably be trusted to be found all over the world; I could see an expedition planner worried about easily obtaining the raw materials for black powder in Terra Incognita.

Re: Low-Tech Missile Weapon Range and Accuracy
 

I feel those stats are correct and accurate. In a game perspective a hero with a xbow will kick ass but, rarely are these weapons used by heroes.

I've read up and discussed with some friends the studies about the bow, the xbow and the muskets (even the handgonnes). A friend (who lurks these forums) as told me about some calculations made to see how these two technologies would interact.

From his anecdote a program running a simulation of 13C longbowmen of 5,000 against an equal no. of Napoleonic Riflemen. Depending on the circumstance they can defeat each other quite soundly. Bottomline is basically the morale, the first to receive a terrible loss would be the loser.

Stat-wise, I find them correct. It is the context of what happens when the typically bad circumstances in war that alter what is theoretically probably from what will happen.

Food for thought. My friend who is reading up on many Chinese texts about their combined arms tactics found that they employed the Rotating Massed Volley Fire with their Heavy Xbows (contrast to the squad firing as quickly as they can, continuously), similar to those employed with early slow loading rifles. Between volleys, they would have archers step up and, with rapid fire, fill in these crucial gaps. An amazing sight IMO, if xbows use matured fully and combined with archery.

Re: Low-Tech Missile Weapon Range and Accuracy
 

Bowstrings are useless when wet. English archers stored spares under their helmets. Composite crossbows delaminate when wet. All bows lose distance and power when wet.

Re: Low-Tech Missile Weapon Range and Accuracy
 

Which is what happened during the Wars of the Roses. Both sides started out with longbow volleys. Those on the losing side of such an exchange charged first and usually lost because the enemy was in a prepared position

Re: Low-Tech Missile Weapon Range and Accuracy
 

Well, that was the prestigious royal flagship.

Re: Low-Tech Missile Weapon Range and Accuracy
 

Which, apparently, is a point in favour of bows over crossbows. It's easier to keep your bowstring in a dry place and then string the weapon the moment you expect action than it is to keep a war crossbow's string dry.

Re: Low-Tech Missile Weapon Range and Accuracy
 

All guides on the subject say that a new archer will find that he can draw a bow of about 10 more pounds once he's had a few days or weeks of practice. That suggests to me that even a single point in Bow ought to be worth something.

I also believe that a reasonably strong archer will have exercised different muscle groups than a very strong weight lifter. It seems fair to me that the archer could pull a bow more efficiently than the weightlifter.

Given that most hobby archers will be at DX+1 or lower (except the exceptionally dedicated ones), this also means that a normal man (ST 10-11) will use a bow of about #45-#75, with the higher numbers being reserved for thsoe who are fit and practise a lot.

People who practise sports that value upper body strength tend to develop a corresponding musculature. I find the Special Exercises (Arm ST) Perk reasonable and realistic. It's mostly whole body ST of 15+ that I find unrealistic, and that only because of the striking ST component.

So the best we can do is thr+1.

Question, what difference would composite bows make here? Enough for a +1 damage over a yew longbow? Another question, what if we postulate fantasy materials that are lighter, springier and better? Do we eke out more damage or are the limitations not related to the material used?

This is also my impression. But, then again, the same applies to single-handed swords. So at least a part of the problem is ST damage.

If we are not going to monkey about with that, we'd probably want to benchmark bow damage at ST 10 level and accept that high ST will give unrealistic results. Otherwise bows are artificially weaker than melee weapons, which monkeys with relative weapon power.

Re: Low-Tech Missile Weapon Range and Accuracy
 

The problem that I have is that the GURPS stats are... somewhat optimistic.

For example, according to the rules as written, it takes 4 seconds to load a crossbow. This is true, for the lighest hunting crossbows. But such crossbows can't reach the range or the damage given for the GURPS crossbow. A more realistic assessment for a war crossbow would be 8 seconds or more.

And the Crossbow in Basic is evidently supposed to be a TL2 selfbow. Everyone who is anyone at TL3 will be using the more efficient and powerful Composite Crossbow. Let's look a professional crossbowman. Crossbow at DX+2, Crossbow Finesse Perk and ST 11 wouldn't be out of place, would it?

He can fire his crossbow at a rate of 10-12 times a minute (equivalent to historical bows and more than twice as fast as the most optimistic estimates for historical war crossbows). He inflicts 1d+5 imp damage, which reliably penetrates plate armour and puts most lightly armoured foes down. His 1/2D range is 325 yards, which means that he can penetrate plate at over 300 yards. His maximum effective range is 450 yards.

But most jarring of all, his Acc is 4. That's right, any crossbow, whether TL2, TL3 or TL4 has a better Acc than a Baker Rifle. Even without effective sights, mind you.

Do we really believe that at a 300 yards range, it's equally difficult to hit a target with an M4 carbine and a historical crossbow? And that if the bullet hits, it's going to do an average of 16 points of damage against an unarmoured person vs. the crossbow's 17?

Very true, but not quite relevant. We know that the longbow was a tremendously effective military weapon when used by men who had grown up with them. Rifles and muskets, however, didn't require more than a few weeks of familitarisation. Huge difference. France could conscript millions of men with muskets, but there weren't ever millions of longbowmen.

The problem with the GURPS stats is that even a ST 11 soldier given a few lessons on how to use a Bow (1 point for a DX-1 level or a skill level of 9) will usually be more effective with a Composite Bow than any kind of musket or rifle before the 19th century. And the same applies with crossbows.

Granted, war is different from small-unit skirmishes, but that doesn't chance the fact that GURPS overstates Accuracy for low-tech weapons.

Yoink, stolen for some fantasy culture, haven't decided which one. I've already stolen jannissary tactics for my rising hobgoblin culture, so I'm not sure where to fit this...

;)

Re: Problems with bows --
 

I quite agree. But this is without aiming, with the Fast-Draw skill and no accuracy at all.

With aiming, a skilled crossbowman goes down to the 10-12 shots per minute mentioned above. Still too high, in my opinion.

Do you know of any research that indicates the approximate penetrating power of crossbows of various draw weights? That would be an invaluable source for benchmarking realistic crossbow stats.

A #1500 draw crossbow should be much more expensive to make than a musket. It should be about as expensive as a good sword.

That aspect, at least, is accurate enough in GURPS. As long as you assume that most medieval crossbows were steel or composite and cost $950 or more. The Basic Set crossbow is obviously a self-bow.

Very true.

As previously stated, I feel that muskets are realistic enough in GURPS. It's just that crossbows and bows weren't reduced in Acc with the edition change. Meaning that bows and crossbows are much more accurate in combat than they should be.

Re: Low-Tech Missile Weapon Range and Accuracy
 

Well I think denying an enemy the use of a shield is enough justification to use gunpowder weapons instead of crossbows.

Re: Low-Tech Missile Weapon Range and Accuracy
 

The shield still grants its DB and Dodges are allowed by RAW. Denying the use of the shield is a benefit, true, but at the cost of 2 points of Acc? That's ftwo times the effective range.

Re: Low-Tech Missile Weapon Range and Accuracy
 

Huh? A +2 to Acc is ×2 to range. Where's four times?

Re: Low-Tech Missile Weapon Range and Accuracy
 

Sorry, extra doubling there. ;)

That's more than two times, yes.

Re: Low-Tech Missile Weapon Range and Accuracy
 

Douglas, regarding the velocity number of 60 m/s, I've found sources (including The Knight and the Blast Furnace) that indicate that 50+ m/s is easily achievable with yew longbows of #75-#80 draw weight. I admit that this is using a 50g war arrow, but a 90g broadhead only slow it down by about 20%. Initial energy would be around 70J-90J.

Shouldn't a #150 yew longbow get more speed?

The same experimenters (McEwen et al) got a speed of 62 m/s with a #90 draw weight crossbow firing a modern target bolt. Energy with a 100g bolt would be 192J.

Can you spin these into GURPS damages?

Re: Low-Tech Missile Weapon Range and Accuracy
 

I was thinking that loading at the speed given in Basic Set would allow a crossbow with a draw strength of 2xBL. Using a stirrup allows up to 4xBL. I suppose that a two-footed stirrup could allow up to 6xBL, but would take more time than a belt-hook and be less comfortable.

Heavier draw weights require mechanical aids, such as the belt hook and stirrup. Those would allow 6xBL. A two-footed stirrup and a hook would possibly allow 8xBL and a goat's foot lever would probably reach the same.

That means that a ST 11 professional soldier can draw a war crossbow of #192, if he has the Crossbow Finesse Perk he reaches #272 and the strongest soldiers (ST 16 + Crossbow Finesse) were probably around #520.

I think that crossbows of #150 draw weight were historically used by Genoese mercenaries, but that might have something to do with them wanting to be able to draw them by hand. I'm having trouble finding good sources on Genoese crossbows. Testing was done on a #1200 model, but that's hardly a battlefield weapon.

A cranequin should probably be rated independently of the users ST, but perhaps the speed which the user can load is dependent on some combination of ST and skill.

The windlass isn't really ST-dependent.

Re: Low-Tech Missile Weapon Range and Accuracy
 

Okay.
You still need to find ST+1 recruits for bow use. Muskets and Crossbows don't require exceptionally strong recruits. They take half the time to train to a given standard. I'd take the RAW Bow stats as correct. About the only change I'd make is finding a way to handle the difference between arrow heads; target, broad, bowel-raker, blunt, etc. Muskets are powerful enough and they weren't renowned for accuracy. We do, however, have tales of accurate archery/ crossbow shooting. Time was, I could put an arrow in the cup at 50 yards with a borrowed practice bow and used target arrow while using a pin and cellotape for sights. Muskets were deemed remarkably accurate if they could hit a man-sized target at 100 yards.
Perhaps you're over-rating powder and under-rating muscles?

Re: Low-Tech Missile Weapon Range and Accuracy
 

Not really. The Composite Bow is ST 10 and is better in all ways than the Longbow.

And ST 11+ is pretty standard for professional soldiers throughout history. Not because they need it for fighting, but because soldiers have always had to carry a lot of heavy gear. That won't change no matter what weapons we stipulate.

So you think that Composite Bows are as accurate as modern target pistols? And that Crossbows, even in antiquity, were as accurate as the M4?

Musket stats are reality-checked. Bow and crossbow stats aren't. They're legacy code, retained for gameplay reasons and because of the perception that gamers want unrealistically effective missile weapons.

Find a hoplologist who's done the research and agrees with you.

Re: Low-Tech Missile Weapon Range and Accuracy
 

From what I have gathered from mild net usage, the Composite bow is merely smaller and easier to use from hoseback than yew longbows. It was not heavier draw (the amazing mongol comosite bow with draw strength as high as 160lbs, which isn't much different than the 110-180lbs estimate than warbows from Europe), but was more size efficient.

Re: Low-Tech Missile Weapon Range and Accuracy
 

Modern bows are vastly more efficient than their medieval counterparts, and modern arrow construction allows for better transmission of the energy even beyond the bow's inherent superiority, so I'd be careful there.

Still, I will run some numbers for arrows from 50-100g and impact velocities from 45 to 90m/s to get a range for things. I will assume 8 to 12mm cross sections, just for fun.

Re: Low-Tech Missile Weapon Range and Accuracy
 

In GURPS, it's better in all ways.

Whether that fits reality or not is what I'm trying to figure out with this thread.

I do, however, recall composite bows achieving a higher maximum range than yew longbows of the same draw weight. I've at least read that in a few places.

Re: Low-Tech Missile Weapon Range and Accuracy
 

This was using period reproductions, not modern equipment. The only modern thing there was the target bolt and the energy given for the crossbow assumes a historical war bolt.

Thanks.

Re: Low-Tech Missile Weapon Range and Accuracy
 

Composite bows are far more efficient that self bows. More of tthe energy is transferred to the arrow. It is likely that they are more accurate too since the hand and arm suffers less vibration. A composite bow archer would be able to pull a heavier bow than a longbow archer of a similar ST. I would allow a +1 ST for a composite construction compared to a self bow.

Re: Low-Tech Missile Weapon Range and Accuracy
 

Max damage for a 100g arrow at 100m/s is about 9pts, or 2d+2. A 9mm pistol bullet has 581J of energy. A .45ACP is 420J (2d, 11.43mm), and a 5.7x28mm is 514J (2d+3, 5.7mm). I think the 75m/s numbers, which go up to about 6.0 to 6.5pts of damage (about 2d-1) is about as good as you're going to get out of a bow.

Re: Low-Tech Missile Weapon Range and Accuracy
 

I'm having a hard time deciphering that table, sorry. It's missing damage and KE.

I'm fine with 2d-1 as a realistic damage from an English warbow. But what's the wound channel modifier? The same as your earlier calculation or more? Less?

Re: Low-Tech Missile Weapon Range and Accuracy
 

How efficient is a crossbow compared to a bow of the same draw weight? Roughly?

If necessary, answer seperately for crossbow self-bows, composite crossbows and steel crossbows.

Re: Low-Tech Missile Weapon Range and Accuracy
 

Nothing is missing. The five columns are, from left to right:

1. Arrow Weight
2. Impact Velocity
3. Arrow Diameter
4. Damage (pts)
5. KE

Units would be good, though.

Re: Low-Tech Missile Weapon Range and Accuracy
 

Actually Douglas Cole's table did have the "missing" values, he just didn't use enough tabs. This should be a bit more readable (I hope you don't mind me hijacking your table...)

Re: Low-Tech Missile Weapon Range and Accuracy
 

I stipulate this is true, and all the reading I did agrees - composite bows are much more efficient than self-bows. But unless there is evidence that the bows were actually higher absolute draw (rather than the archer simply being weaker for the draw he uses) I think that an upper limit for hand-drawn bows on the order of 180-200lbs seems historically accurate regardless of bow construction.

This obviously excludes crossbows, for which 700-1500# draw (but horrible efficiency) seems common, foot-bows which I've only seen in that Jet Li movie (Hero?), and modern composite and compound bows, which leverage pulleys and aluminum/carbon fiber arrows and stuff to get tremendous velocity out of much lower poundage bows relatively speaking.

Re: Low-Tech Missile Weapon Range and Accuracy
 

Guilty. Wound channel mod for an arrow is a function of diameter, KE, and momentum in a fairly complicated relationship (it's a geometric average of a wounding factor related to momentum and cross section, and a penetration factor related to KE divided by cross section, both to funky powers). The high mass and momentum of the arrows increases it relative to bullets of equal diameter. For the 8mm case, it's about 1.6; for the 12mm case, it's about 2.6. Note that GURPS rules as written would just call this pi+ and pi++, or perhaps even imp for both. Also, if you do the math on some of these arrows, it doesn't work out in the neighborhood of 1.0 for density (wood), but heavier. a 1m arrow massing 100g and a diameter of 8mm is basically solid aluminum.

Re: Low-Tech Missile Weapon Range and Accuracy
 

If the bow is more efficient, it is probably possible to build a composite with a higher absolute draw. Whether it was often done historically or not is beside the point.

ST 20 men probably weren't common historically. But if one did exist and he had 20 years of experience shooting bows, he could probably draw a pretty heavy composite bow that would yield a pretty good damage score.

Footbows weren't uncommon historically. Used for archery competitions in Europe as well as wuxia action in China.

The highest crossbow draw weight I've seen quoted was just above #3000. The highest I've seen quoted for one nocked by a goat's foot is around #550-#600.

Re: Low-Tech Missile Weapon Range and Accuracy
 

In a way I disagree. If ST20 bows (rather than the roughly ST17 that is given by your 3xBL suggestion) were commonly found, that means that (again, assuming 4-6pts of "bonus ST" from exercises, skill, and efficiency) ST14-16 archers were common.

A ST17 bow being common but upper end, and St15-16 (135-150lbs) a fairly typical warbow, then that's doable on ST9-12 overall (with the aforementioned 4-6pts of effective ST increase from various means), which is totally doable. You can be moderately strong (ST12), but have good training in archery (DX+2) and special exercises (Arm ST+2) and draw and shoot a 150# bow. That's on the order of 40pts, which seems quite reasonable to me. Toss in being low status and poor, and you're hovering at less than 25pts for conscript but skilled archers.

I think we're both correct here...you could potentially create a ST20 bow (like Ulysses bow, probably...only he could draw it) with some divine help (there are tech level based materials limits, likely), and that's fully appropriate for a ST14-16 Hero with lots of training, as above. But for Joe Average, it's important to note that you can do this guy on 25pts or so, and not even be skimping on ability (Bow-12, ST12, Arm exercises for +2 ST, Strongbow for +2ST, Poor, Status 0 or -1). This is important for worldbuilding, when you need to postulate a commander who can call to the field 5000 archers (as at Agincourt). If such a man is ST16 and must draw a ST20 bow to be useful...that's 5000 80-100pt dudes. Not necessarily likely? Of course, there are about 2500 Navy SEALS, and we peg them at 250pts or more...so perhaps it's not unreasonable.

Re: Low-Tech Missile Weapon Range and Accuracy
 

Others could draw it. Only Ulysses could STRING it.

Re: Low-Tech Missile Weapon Range and Accuracy
 

I'm absolutely not saying that ST 20 bows were common. And I acknowledge that 3xBL is optimistic. I think that people can draw a bow of that weight with training, but I don't think it's unreasonable to expect that historical archers often used bows that were closer to 2.75 x their Basic Lift. For one thing, I doubt that they had enough time and prime yew to make a new bow when their old one started to give a little.

Today, some reenactors can draw #190 bows and shoot them for research purposes, but since operating that close to their maximum capacity is a little too much work and not enough fun, the same men usually like to shoot a bow of #130-#150 when they're having fun. I suspect that Mark Stratton would also shoot a lighter bow for fun.

Apropos of nothing, I think that if some of the competitors for World's Strongest Man would spend years training period arhcery, we could see some heavy bows being shot. The #200 max is the maximum achieved by a very small community of mostly normally proportioned men. I don't think we can assume that in a society that had plentiful protein and good health care (like many fantasy worlds), but still valued archery as much as medieval England would have the same limit.

I agree with this. Well, except that those archers mostly had lives before their military career, so 20+ skill points related to their previous occupations, interests and lifestyles wouldn't be out of place.

And the ones who'd be accepted by the reputable mercenary captains would mostly be healthy, fit and not too dumb. So no stats at below 9, HT and DX preferably at 10+. And these are minimums, with many exceeding them.

I quite agree. The archers at Agincourt were not shooting ST 20 bows. They were mostly using ST 15+ bows, as I've noted earlier.

On the other hand, most Navy SEALS, despite their undoubted professionalism and access to much better training, do not have years of constant battlefield experience. I have no trouble with making some ancient and medieval soldiers on much more than 25-50 CPs. This is both because in a medieval world, the average person was a peasant and not a soldier, and because after years of battle, the point value of a survivor who has avoided crippling wounds might well have gone up.

Re: Low-Tech Missile Weapon Range and Accuracy
 

Only Ulysses could string it, so we never knew if anyone else could have drawn it. ;)

Re: Low-Tech Missile Weapon Range and Accuracy
 

At last it begins to philtre through my hyperdense skull:)

Thank you , Icelander, for persevering.

A simple change, for folk such as myself, might be to halve the Acc for muscle powered weapons - such would appear to match the change for guns from 3e to 4e.
Then the Perks allow even a moderately skilled bowman of ST11 to handle a ST15 bow. Strongbow [1], Special Excercises (Arm ST) [1], Arm ST+2 [10], Bow DX/A [8] DX+2. I can see whereof you speak of "bows punching through armor":)

Probably irrelevant but I cheered myself up by checking the contemporary armour from Agincourt period (would you believe they have Henry V on TV as I write?).

Palladium shows Men-At-Arms as better armoured about the limb than the torso; the nobles had all-over plate, DR6 (the Italian mercenaries hadn't arrived yet). In GURPS terms, MATs wore 96lb* of armour for DR5/3* on the Torso, DR from 9 to 12 on the limbs. The low torso armour, if correct, would help explain the slaughter meted out by 5,000 archers loosing into packed troops. *Armour weight is a different issue but they would still be heavily encumbered.

Re: Low-Tech Missile Weapon Range and Accuracy
 

Jacob Muller is right.

A simple fix is to drop all muscle-powered Acc numbers by half, rounding up. This does not affect Acc 1 or below, drops Acc 2 to 1, Acc 3 to 2 and Acc 4 to 2.

Crossbows thus have the same Acc as longbows and composite bows. I think that's fine. I'd allow a sight to be fitted to a crossbow for +1 Acc, which wouldn't be possible for a normal bow. Depending on TL, that sight might be finicky and only suitable for a crossbow that never suffers rough handling.

There are some individual weapons that I'd want to adjust the Acc for in that scheme.

I think that a Regular Bow should be Acc 2 just like Longbows and Composite bows. The damage and range differences are enough to differentiate them.

The Boomerang and Discus could retain their Acc 2. I think it's important to maintain the distinction that both weapons are considerably more accurate than the throwing stick and chakram respectively.

Re: Problems with bows --
 

We should remember that English longbowmen do not seem to have been typical expert archers. Many other military cultures emphasized accuracy, or sustained rate of fire, or other factors which required a bow well under 100 lbs draw. When the English began to colonize Virginia and New England, they noted that the natives were good shots but only used light bows (around 50 lbs based on the few extant examples).

This is a side point, but according to the only figures I've seen, guns were much more expensive than serviceable swords (although the sky was the limit for a fine sword). A sword appropriate for a militiaman cost around 40d in Elizabeth's reign, when you couldn't buy a caliver for less than 150d.

Re: Problems with bows --
 

Of course English archers aren't typical. They are, however, good models for the kind of extreme ST scores PCs often have.

In GURPS, you can easily buy a Cheap sword for a militiaman. And during the early states of any technology, it is always more expensive.

We only have good GURPS stats for muskets during the mature stage of the technology and during mass production.

Re: Low-Tech Missile Weapon Range and Accuracy
 

I'm sure someone probably mentioned this, but the posts are pretty long, so in case anyone hasn't...

I was under the impression that early gunpowder weapons weren't very accurate. Most historical info I could get about the brown bess, particularly the ones used in the Farrapo War here in my region, were that their accuracy sucked geometrically with distance. Hitting anything beyond 100m was nearly sheer luck.
Bows were used in targeting competitions, so I assume they were optimize for precision. And although the medieval period brought massed archers into the possible uses for the bow, the bow existed before that as a precision weapon for hunting and sport. While massed long range fire, which didn't need lots of accuracy was the breeding ground for early firearms. You fired them in formation, at formations.
Also, from what I understand bullets rely on the muzzle to stabilize them, while arrows are gyro stabilized, so they stay true for longer ranges. They're also pointy and more massive than bullets (although speed probably imparted a good deal of mass to bullets).

To me, a bow being more accurate than a brown bess is perfectly believable, even a given. I'm not sure about crossbows though, they came into existance in the massed-fire setting, and the main point was penetration (like Icelander said, bulky and potent, not necessarily accurate), but they were easy to use for the same reasons firearms are.

Re: Low-Tech Missile Weapon Range and Accuracy
 

A trained archer will outshoot a typical soldier, yes. But that's not because of the innate properties of the bow (which is notoriously difficult to aim), but rather because the trained archer has years of experience shooting his weapon whereas soldiers of the period often had no opportunity practising with their weapons.

French conscripts could easily be sent into battle having only fired their weapons once or twice during training. Most of the few weeks of training was spent on teaching them formation drill and the mechanics of loading quickly. Individual accuracy was utterly irrelevant for the kind of massed fire that was required on a Napoleonic battlefield.

In those rare cases where someone might have practised accuracy with a musket, hitting a target at 100 yards or beyond is far from impossible. Modern reenactors are able to do it consistently and easily.

Re: Low-Tech Missile Weapon Range and Accuracy
 

With a decent grade of powder and a carefully loaded musket such weapons can be quite accurate -- heck they were in use (in the form of a shotgun with a round ball load) well into the 20th century.

Most soldiers back in the day though were conscripts often badly trained ,armed with poor weapons and lousy powder trained to fire in mass formations.

hence bad accuracy

Re: Low-Tech Missile Weapon Range and Accuracy
 

Hmmm... do the rules from High-Tech for handloading match-grade ammunition apply to multi-part ammo weapons like muskets? If so, well-trained individuals could up the Acc of the Brown Bess to 3... which is still below the crossbow. Personally, I don't have a problem with muzzle-loading smoothbore weapons firing non-saboted rounds having lower Acc than the crossbow. Rifled muzzle-loaders should probably have the same base Acc as a crossbow, thus being able to have better Acc with a match-grade load. Simply dropping the Acc of most bows (excluding Short Bow) and the crossbow (only the crossbow, not the other two) by 1 strikes me as a decent fix, since the arrow itself can generally act as a mediocre sight.

Re: Low-Tech Missile Weapon Range and Accuracy
 

The rules do so allow.

If the crossbow has proper sights it might rate a similar Acc. OTOH, this was not true of many historical crossbows.

Re: Low-Tech Missile Weapon Range and Accuracy
 

Probably so, but since presence/absence of iron sights appears to have no bearing on Acc in High-Tech, such sighting systems are probably below the level of GURPS resolution. Using the tip and fletchings of the arrow/bolt could approximate sights closely enough that the effect can be effectively hand-waived, and any type of sights that would increase base Acc for a crossbow would likely be available for muskets/rifles as well. All else being equal, I suspect crossbows and early rifles would have the same accuracy - rifles just shoot further and pack a bigger punch.
Or at least they should.

Re: Low-Tech Missile Weapon Range and Accuracy
 

I retract my argument points, because when I talked to my reference again he had an entirely different opinion and it was parallel to yours. Although I did get the arrow volley right.

Re: Low-Tech Missile Weapon Range and Accuracy
 

Isn't the 1/2 range modifier based on Yards/M per Second?

edit. didnt see it was already up
edit 2. it seems everything has been concluded. Will we see a summary of stats?