Meteoric Iron Arrows

[jeff_wilson]

Originally Posted by Anthony

Iron requires the highest temperature to soften of any metal that was used at TL 3, temperatures that are hard to achieve with TL 3 forges, and thus it's relatively difficult to work. The easy way to create a metal tube is to just heat a metal sheet until soft and bending it around a rod, but iron requires too high temperatures to do that easily.

What about stamping and scoring instead, so you get a triangular prism tube?

And can't we use a plain wire as long as it's stout enough?

[Bruno]

Originally Posted by jeff_wilson

And can't we use a plain wire as long as it's stout enough?

I think you start getting into handling problems - damaging the bowstring and such - when the cross-sectional area gets too low and the density gets too high.

I'd just go with a heavier arrow and reduced performance. 10-to-the-pound is hardly the only way to make arrows; heavier arrows existed and clearly work or all the "tie a firecracker to the arrow! Wait, tie a steel cage filled with flaming oily rags to the arrow! wait, use a giant whistle for an arrow head!" trick arrows from throughout history would be in trouble.

I've found a wood arrow-shaft vendor who describes their shafts as such:
"All of our shafts are 31 5/8'' in length and are available in 5/16'', 11/32'' and 23/64'' diameters" which gives me nice comparisons to make some handwaves on. Using Deadly Spring to come up with guidelines, and comparing the larges diameter in ash with the smallest diameter suggested by Deadly Spring (1/5in for 72 lb bow), it seems to be about 1/2 range (1/2dam and max), +1 damage, 3x weight.

Which I'm actually pretty good with, if you want for a solid arrow, if that's not bad for the bow.

[Anaraxes]

Are those trick arrows from throughout real history, or just throughout gaming history?

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by jeff_wilson

And can't we use a plain wire as long as it's stout enough?

The force required to bend a wire varies with the cube of its diameter, so you need a quite thick wire before it's actually stiff enough. That gets us into the several hundred gram arrows mentioned up-thread.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Anaraxes

Are those trick arrows from throughout real history, or just throughout gaming history?

Low Tech doesn't cover fictional munitions, so I'd go with the former.

[jeff_wilson]

Originally Posted by Anthony

The force required to bend a wire varies with the cube of its diameter, so you need a quite thick wire before it's actually stiff enough. That gets us into the several hundred gram arrows mentioned up-thread.

Braided wire for larger effective diameter, so that bending becomes compressing/tensioning triangular subsections ?

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Anthony

Iron requires the highest temperature to soften of any metal that was used at TL 3, temperatures that are hard to achieve with TL 3 forges, and thus it's relatively difficult to work. The easy way to create a metal tube is to just heat a metal sheet until soft and bending it around a rod, but iron requires too high temperatures to do that easily.

DF has TL4 munitions plate. I think we can assume blast furnaces.

[DouglasCole]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

Low Tech doesn't cover fictional munitions, so I'd go with the former.

Real war arrows could hit1500 grains, or just over 0.2 lbs, and were much more efficient at capturing the energy from strong bows. The 0.1-lb. value for GURPS is probably a nice mix between flight arrows (which were and are very light) and heavy war arrows, which include the 0.2-lb. example above.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by DouglasCole

Real war arrows could hit1500 grains, or just over 0.2 lbs, and were much more efficient at capturing the energy from strong bows. The 0.1-lb. value for GURPS is probably a nice mix between flight arrows (which were and are very light) and heavy war arrows, which include the 0.2-lb. example above.

The rather exotic arrows Bruno referred to, which appear to be described on LT 73, might be heavier than even heavy war arrows. Certainly their range is substantially decreased compared to the standard. Sadly they don't give extensive information for Deadly Spring conversion.

[DanHoward]

Originally Posted by DouglasCole

Real war arrows could hit1500 grains, or just over 0.2 lbs, and were much more efficient at capturing the energy from strong bows. The 0.1-lb. value for GURPS is probably a nice mix between flight arrows (which were and are very light) and heavy war arrows, which include the 0.2-lb. example above.

There is one English author (Asham?) who complains that no longbowman in his time was capable of shooting half-pound war-arrows anymore - implying that, at one point, there were archers who could.