Mounted Slingers

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by Icelander

It seems that you agree that using a sling on horseback is, to some extent, more awkward than using other missile weapons mounted. This would be reflected in an additional penalty. How large ought such a penalty be?

Honestly, if I were going to stick with Sling skill, I'd probably use the standard -4 for Horse Archery. The limitations seem like they'd reduce the energy content, i.e. the effective ST you can use, more than to make it vastly harder to hit something. You can after all turn your horse, at least if you aren't in some sort of formation, and slings aren't great for formed infantry either. The simplest approach for that might be to replace swing with thrust damage. For precedent note that bolas, which do sterotypically use a swing around grip sort of motion, use thrust. This also kills the otherwise huge damage advantage relative to bows, which helps preserve the historical reality of not so superior that everybody should have done this. Dividing ST might work too, but sling ranges are already degraded enough relative to bows I wouldn't like to reduce them further.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Kalzazz

I allowed mounted slingers in my fantasy republic setting without any issue

I don't specifically recall any instances of mounted slingers in history, but bolas and lassos are both used on horseback and seem to have similar methods involved

Yes, it is true that both bolas and lassos demand similar motions as sling use. On the other hand, the successful use of these from horseback is generally considered a bravura display of riding skill and the people who do it often self-identify as elite experts of their craft because they can do so. And that's under circumstances where no one is shooting back.

This suggest to me that there might well be a difficult Technique and/or a Style Perk involved. Maybe even both, for the best.

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by Icelander

Yes, it is true that both bolas and lassos demand similar motions as sling use. On the other hand, the successful use of these from horseback is generally considered a bravura display of riding skill and the people who do it often self-identify as elite experts of their craft because they can do so.

Stories about mounted archers that can actually hit specific targets tend to exude an "aren't I amazing" vibe too. Battlefield archery of any sort is an area effect weapon more than a targeted one.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by malloyd

Stories about mounted archers that can actually hit specific targets tend to exude an "aren't I amazing" vibe too. Battlefield archery of any sort is an area effect weapon more than a targeted one.

True, but as I noted above, I can understand why many commentators consider mounted sling use even harder than mounted bow use.

If I can find one or more of: historical evidence, modern enthusiasts who can do it or at the very least, someone who has seen it done, I would be overjoyed to feature mounted slingers in my game. But if it never happened in real history and I cannot find anyone who can actually do it even as a gimmick, my natural inclination is to believe that the reason it never happened is that it is either impossible or at the very least fiendishly impractical.

I don't doubt that it's possible to use a sling while sitting on a horse. Many otherwise impractical things are possible. I would like to know, however, if it is possible to use one on horseback with enough force and accuracy to engage targets at 100+ yards and whether such use is significantly more difficult than using a carbine or a bow from horseback.

GURPS rules, incidentally, make it equally difficult to use all weapons from horseback. This, obviously, is a simplification. Some weapons require a lot of space and/or require wholy body motion to use. Others, like pistols, fowling crossbows and short-barrelled carbines, are easily usable in a lot of different position and don't require much in the way of wholy body motion.

While I don't have enough experience to be authorative, I still have a fairly decent idea that it's harder to use bows than lever-action rifles from horseback. I also think it's harder to use slings than bows. As an official rule in a GURPS supplement, it may be too much trouble to differentiate between weapons. For home use, however, I don't mind giving penalties to more unwieldy weapons or ones where normal usage is constrained while sitting on a horse.

[Anthony]

Battlefield use would have relatively little to do with the difficulty of aiming, as area fire does not require exceptional accuracy. It's quite possible that the reason slings weren't used from horseback is just because (GURPS notwithstanding) bows were better, and if you could afford a horse, you could probably afford a bow.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Kromm

You could achieve this in the game by giving mounted slingers a lower basic TS to reflect a lower density of shot, as they're spaced out a lot.

While I'm sure that's valid for them as a missile unit, i.e. they might well have lower F value than an equivalent unit of horse archers, I'm not sure it applies to a typical encounter between light cavalry. Light cavalry units that clash while scouting or screening for their side are already going to be dispersed. No matter their armament, the horses aren't going to be touching or even be close. Light troops, cavalry as well as infantry, fight a lot of actions essentially as individuals that are backed up by other individuals who may be anywhere between 1-100 yds away.

The simple fact that slingers might need to be a yard and a half away from each other while using their weapons doesn't really make them any worse at scouting or fighting other scouts. That is, it shouldn't reduce their Rec rating. And given the loose formations that both sides probably fight in, it probably doesn't matter to the outcome of a missile duel either. And if it comes down to a knock-down fight, the missile weapons are going to be shelved in favour of swords anyway, no matter whether they are slings or bows.

Originally Posted by Kromm

Combining this with my earlier comments, the net result is that you would spend lots of money to raise a low-TS unit. About the only advantage this unit would have is cheap ammo, so in the very, very long term, a slightly lower cost to maintain might justify mounted slingers. Naturally, individuals would have different and often unrelated motivations, and may well do this even if no army does.

The best reason for doing this that I can see is if you have a lot of troops that have the Sling skill, but almost none who have the Bow skill.

You might have to teach horsemanship, which is expensive and time-consuming, but at least you won't have to teach two complete new skill sets, in addition to all the normal things a soldier has to know.

But that's only valid if teaching a guy who knows Sling the Riding skill results in him being able to use a sling on horseback with any useful effect. I know the game rules say that it does, just as they say that teaching an archer Riding makes a horse archer* . But is it, in reality and not in the game rules, as easy as that? Teach the grizzled old slinger to ride and he'll be able to wreak havoc with his sling from horseback right away?

*If a slightly limited one, if one uses the rules from Tactical Shooting, which is where I finally found some explicit support for vehicle shooting penalties applying for shooting while on a moving horse.

[ADAXL]

Might this help?

http://slinging.org/forum/YaBB.pl?num=1277558341

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Anthony

Battlefield use would have relatively little to do with the difficulty of aiming, as area fire does not require exceptional accuracy.

I know that battlefield use generally demands accuracy in terms of area and not point targets.

On the other hand, even when the front of an enemy line is 200 yds, the depth may only be 2-4 yds. And if that's 100-200 yds away from you, the margin for error is surprisingly small.

It's true that professional archers and slingers rarely aimed for point targets during battles, especially not at long range. But that doesn't mean that what they did wasn't skillful. If they hadn't spent so long learning to aim, they'd miss enemy formations by tens of yards, easily. Hell, an untrained man using a sling is lucky to manage to shoot in the right direction.

Originally Posted by Anthony

It's quite possible that the reason slings weren't used from horseback is just because (GURPS notwithstanding) bows were better, and if you could afford a horse, you could probably afford a bow.

It is possible, yes. If that is the case, then it makes perfect sense for there to be mounted slingers in my campaign. For one thing, since the recruits are already good at Sling skill, it cuts down on training costs.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by ADAXL

Might this help?

http://slinging.org/forum/YaBB.pl?num=1277558341

That's awesome!

Unfortunately, the modern enthusiast here is apparently an amateur at slinging, so the lessons learned are limited to: "If you are bad at using a sling on the ground, you will be worse while riding." Even while stationary, he had trouble hitting the right 90° arc.

Well, that seems to argue for a penalty for using a sling while mounted. On the other hand, this could just have been the unfamiliarity that Kromm mentioned that he would apply instead of making it a Technique. No way to know unless some other enthusiast, who must be an experienced rider, is prepared to train for ca 100 hours or so and see if he manages to become as good at sling-shooting from a stationary horse as he is on the ground.

[Hannes665]

Originally Posted by Icelander

Do you have any sources? Websites where I can get more information? Even printed books (or better yet, books available for Kindle).

I have it from a BBC travel show, were they showed the film crew some youngsters using slings on horse back hunting small animals. Could try to google BBC travel Tibet.