how to redesign the pilum

[King Leonidas]

after what experimental archaeology. the Pilum seems like an AP javelin designed to penetrate the shield and the armour it. and bending was just a side affect of how hard it was to remove. How should we reflect this in stats? an armour division seems like a plausible thing. or simply higher damage?

[Varyon]

GURPS Low Tech Companion 2: Weapons and Warriors introduces the Armor-Piercer modifier for impaling weapons, representing making the striking point out of hardened steel. Technically that's TL 3, but plenty of people prefer to treat Rome as largely TL 3 anyway, so you're probably in the clear there. If you want to represent the difficulty in removing them, adding the Barbed modifier (which makes even thr imp weapons get stuck just like a sw imp one would) is also an option. You could even come up with some rules for attempts to remove it having a chance of bending the softer iron backing - this would have the same effect as a critical failure ("permanently" stuck). Note this will make pila more expensive than typical javelins! You might be able to justify bringing the price back down with a modifier to add in the increased chance of getting "permanently" stuck (and being rather damaged when this happens - even if you remove it from a dead foe after the fight, it won't really be usable until repaired) when trying to remove it, however.

[King Leonidas]

Originally Posted by Varyon

GURPS Low Tech Companion 2: Weapons and Warriors introduces the Armor-Piercer modifier for impaling weapons, representing making the striking point out of hardened steel. Technically that's TL 3, but plenty of people prefer to treat Rome as largely TL 3 anyway, so you're probably in the clear there. If you want to represent the difficulty in removing them, adding the Barbed modifier (which makes even thr imp weapons get stuck just like a sw imp one would) is also an option. You could even come up with some rules for attempts to remove it having a chance of bending the softer iron backing - this would have the same effect as a critical failure ("permanently" stuck). Note this will make pila more expensive than typical javelins! You might be able to justify bringing the price back down with a modifier to add in the increased chance of getting "permanently" stuck (and being rather damaged when this happens - even if you remove it from a dead foe after the fight, it won't really be usable until repaired) when trying to remove it, however.

the armour-piercing seems to have to do more with the way the tip and mass of the pila. i saw an ¨unhistorical¨test do not know the quality of the pila, where it penetrated 16 gauge mild steel. which is 1.291.
one could say the pila is the bodkin of throwing spears?
https://youtu.be/FjJJt9w0jmU?feature=shared&t=236
there have been a lot of other tests versus shields and mail armour

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by King Leonidas

the armour-piercing seems to have to do more with the way the tip and mass of the pila. i saw an ¨unhistorical¨test do not know the quality of the pila, where it penetrated 16 gauge mild steel. which is 1.291.
one could say the pila is the bodkin of throwing spears?
https://youtu.be/FjJJt9w0jmU?feature=shared&t=236
there have been a lot of other tests versus shields and mail armour

I'm getting a few thicknesses for 16 gauge, but we'll go with the highest, 0.06 inches. Pyramid #3/52's armor design article notes its "Iron, Cheap" is equivalent to modern mild steel, and that has DR 52 per inch, so we're looking at around DR 3. The pilum technically doesn't even need to be armor-piercing to reliably manage that (particularly when tossed by someone as beefy as Dash), but a lot of that is because GURPS rather overestimates armor penetration by muscle-powered weapons - note Dash wasn't able to get through it with a normal spear.

So I'd say a (2) armor divisor is probably alright (technically something lower may be more appropriate, but GURPS doesn't have intermediate armor divisors between 1 and 2), so the Armor-Piercer modifier should work fine (note that does have a -1 to damage as well, functionally making it a bit less than a (2) AD as I suggested, and also means less initial wounding... which I'd say tracks for the pilum).

I'll stick with my suggestion to make it a Javelin with Armor-Piercer and Barbed, with the option of reducing price by making it more likely to get "permanently" stuck when trying to remove it. Offhand, I'd have that halve the CF of the Armor-Piercer modifier, maybe rename it "Armor-Piercer, Fragile" or similar.

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by Varyon

I'll stick with my suggestion to make it a Javelin with Armor-Piercer and Barbed, with the option of reducing price by making it more likely to get "permanently" stuck when trying to remove it. Offhand, I'd have that halve the CF of the Armor-Piercer modifier, maybe rename it "Armor-Piercer, Fragile" or similar.

As they were mass-produced, you could also cut the price by making them Cheap (which would also justify them bending when removal is attempted).

[pawsplay]

Well, it was designed specifically to penetrate armor, so that fits.

And it was definitely cheap. During the height of its use, each soldier carried two, expending to use both and retrieve neither.

[DanHoward]

The primary purpose of the pilum was to deliver a shock attack. It emulated the shock that heavy cavalry typically delivered. There were only a few seconds between the enemy receiving the second pilum volley and the infantry making contact.

The pilum definitely wasn't designed to penetrate armour. It might occasionally pierce armour but that wasn't what it was designed for.

They did retreive them afterwards. It was a simple matter to repair most of them for reuse.

[pawsplay]

Originally Posted by DanHoward

The primary purpose of the pilum was to deliver a shock attack. It emulated the shock that heavy cavalry typically delivered. There were only a few seconds between the enemy receiving the second pilum volley and the infantry making contact.

The pilum definitely wasn't designed to penetrate armour. It might occasionally pierce armour but that wasn't what it was designed for.

They did retreive them afterwards. It was a simple matter to repair most of them for reuse.

It had a pyramidal tip, which is usually associated with penetrating armor. Why wouldn't it have a leaf-like blade if it was just supposed to wound?

[DanHoward]

Originally Posted by pawsplay

It had a pyramidal tip, which is usually associated with penetrating armor. Why wouldn't it have a leaf-like blade if it was just supposed to wound?

A pyramidal head is more aerodynamic. Range and accuracy is better than a leaf-type head. A weapon designed to punch through armour typically had a hardened steel tip.