Low-Tech Missile Weapon Range and Accuracy

[Tinman]

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++

[weby]

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.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Tinman

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++

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.

[DouglasCole]

Originally Posted by Icelander

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?

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.

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?

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.

[DanHoward]

Originally Posted by DAlillama

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.

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.

[Hannes665]

Originally Posted by Icelander

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.

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.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by DouglasCole

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

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.).

Originally Posted by DouglasCole

If your typical friends bench 125kg, then this is reasonable.

From 110 kg to 150 kg.

Originally Posted by DouglasCole

The average person around has a hard time benching their own weight.

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

Originally Posted by DouglasCole

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.

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

Originally Posted by DouglasCole

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.

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.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Hannes665

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.

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.

[Hannes665]

Originally Posted by Icelander

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.

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.

[Lorka]

Originally Posted by Icelander

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.

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.