Firearms discussion

[Acarin]

Maybe I've just seen a series of lucky shots then... any chance someone could check? I wonder if this got fixed when melee aiming was fixed and if it uses the same code.

[Bryce]

I never aim for the eyes, head, or neck. Chest for me, when I'm going for a kill. Easiest to hit, might as well put all your damage where you know you'll have a good chance of actually hitting them, and you can easily follow up on the same spot if the first shot doesn't do enough damage to kill.

Of course anyone who wears armor pretty much always has their heaviest armor on their torso, but those targets I just don't bother with unless I've got someone with me to help. Stupid armor-wearers.

[Vertebrate]

Vertebrate, you make a few interesting claims about armour verses firearms. Could you cite your sources? I will start from the beginning of your comments.

Armor was rendered obsolete by firearms. I thought everyone knew this. Do you cite anything to show otherwise? I suppose cannons may have eliminated armor. I'll look into it.

Flint lock pistols while easy to use, and moderately accurate on non moving targets within five to seven feet were very poor to use against a target that was moving or a smaller target. This was because rifling had yet to exist which made shots very inaccurate. In addition, most of the shots varied in amount of powder used resulting in it being very difficult to know how much of the powder was even used per shot, setting aside damp powder from humid locations. A unprotected limb shot with a flint lock would only be about as damaging as a short bladed thrust dagger strike, the bullet did not actually penetrate that deeply into the body from low velocity, resulting in much of the damage being from the shock and cavitation within the body.

If I am getting attacked, slashes are debatably preferred over puncture wounds, and clean punctures from steel are preferred over ragged ones from lead. A musket ball caused cavitation in addition to ragged, messy wounds filled with bits of clothing and lead, as well as pulverizing bone into additional shrapnel. Veins naturally restrict and clot when sliced cleanly, but they do not when abraded or ripped. I’ve seen clean severe lacerations close up and stop bleeding within moments-- or even not bleed at all. Swords do have the extreme advantage over firearms of causing instant dismemberment. By the Revolutionary War, musket balls were passing right through human bodies, center mass. It was actually preferred for it to pass through from a medical standpoint. A smoothbore flintlock at close range (where you can actually hit something with decent MV) is probably more dangerous than a short bladed dagger strike. And by the way, hunting flintlocks were rifled even in the 1600s and enjoyed a higher MV & accuracy for it.

While firearms changed wars and battles that was not until post rifling and post available blacksmith crafted armour. From the sixteenth to the nineteenth century, knight and knight like armour was a ready defence against firearms. This is because firearms of pre twentieth century normally did not have high enough sustained velocity to penetrate plated armour outside of near point blank ranges(plate armour was slowly phased out during this era to lighten the weight of foot soldiers leaving mostly commanders and important officers well protected).

Rifled barrels were not common or extremely advantageous until the 1800s. Armor was on its way out in the 1600s. By the mid-1700s it was gone. Didn’t see much armor in the art of the French and Indian Wars, Revolutionary War, or 1812. You’re saying armor went out because blacksmiths stopped crafting armor? I think I’ve actually heard that argument before, now that I think about it.

In addition, Drayla's comment perked my interest. The amount of damage a bullet, even during WWI did was minimal compared to the damage inflicted by a melee weapon such as a sword. The firearm's advantage was the same as bows, range. The advantage over bows was rate of fire and ease to instruct in its use to use it well. A firearm in fact does less physical damage than even a bow from its lack of mass and surface area, the bow was simply phased out as it was easier and quicker to train a physically weak person to be a rifleman than it did to train them into a competent archer.

WW1 was the first modern war. Almost nobody took swords alone into battle. There was use of German scouts carrying lance and wearing armor, but they were not for fighting, they were for scouting. These were honor guards invoking tradition and forsaking combat effectiveness to deliver a sense of morale and prestige along the German roads, as the Imperial forces rolled up behind them. Even the French, other than their horrific little blue and red outfits, were fully modernized by the time the rail guns started shelling the Belgian countryside.
The bow’s rate of fire is higher than the musket. Muzzle loaders take about 15 seconds. Supposedly the longbow had a more effective range than a smoothbore, but as you’ll see below, the stopping power of shot compared to an arrow is important:
My Springfield 1903A3 is chambered in 30.06 and this cartridge is perhaps the American west’s premier hunting cartridge. It is a WW1 era weapon accurate at well over 500 yards and still effective at 1000 on animals larger than humans. You say the amount of damage from this cartridge is minimal compared to a melee weapon? I will admit I don’t know much about sword wounds, but I have seen things pretty slashed up go on living & fighting for a long time, especially when arteries are not opened. I wouldn’t want to get hit with either.
Firearms less damaging than bows? Many of my friends bowhunt, and I’ve considered it and studied it. Not only do you typically have to get within 10 meters with a traditional longbow, but you have to be extremely precise to hit the lungs or heart. The 30.06 will knock a bull elk down with a shoulder or flank hit, while a broadhead in those areas will not; they just run away with your arrow. Now, obviously smoothbore black powder fired .60-.80 caliber musket balls have much less energy (500-700 FPS) than a 180 grain .30 caliber spitzer (2,700 FPS), but I think they are both equally devastating (bows and flintlocks) although the one defeats plate armor and the other doesn't. Ironically, it is the modern, post Hague, small caliber FMJs that cause lighter wounds than a sword.
Bullets (including musket balls) both: defeat non-ballistic armor, and cause at least equal if not more grievous wounds to unarmored flesh than daggers, even at close range with a pistol. I’ve worn ballistic armor in 9x11 plates, and ballistic armor is not for melee, but for runnin’ and gunnin’, and it only covers vital organs unlike all those limbs and arteries that lighter thinner full plate does.

[You]

Rifled barrels were not common or extremely advantageous until the 1800s. Armor was on its way out in the 1600s. By the mid-1700s it was gone. Didn’t see much armor in the art of the French and Indian Wars, Revolutionary War, or 1812. You’re saying armor went out because blacksmiths stopped crafting armor? I think I’ve actually heard that argument before, now that I think about it.

Just to weigh in on a topic where I do know a little, there was an economic factor to the use of armor or lack of use of armor as well. Armies got larger during the High Middle Ages, and continued to get larger all the way through to the World Wars. You can't afford to outfit everyone in plate.

Knights are exceedingly expensive to keep, and are only worth having on the field when they are the unstoppable juggernauts they were during their heyday. However, plenty of battles showed (I'm looking at you, Agincourt) that massed arbeques or cannon were capable of stopping a cavalry charge at range. Long guns were certainly capable of penetrating plate, especially artillery pieces.

However, pistols are another matter. Pistols have smaller charges than long-arms, for the simple reason that the firearm, being smaller, cannot take as much stress. I'm not sure that anyone has tested their penetration against plate, but a quick search shows relatively poor ballistic penetration against mild steel. (Relative to long guns or. of course, later-generation cartridges.) If I had to guess, I'd say that it would have a decent chance of penetrating at point blank range.

If I am getting attacked, slashes are debatably preferred over puncture wounds, and clean punctures from steel are preferred over ragged ones from lead. A musket ball caused cavitation in addition to ragged, messy wounds filled with bits of clothing and lead, as well as pulverizing bone into additional shrapnel. Veins naturally restrict and clot when sliced cleanly, but they do not when abraded or ripped. I’ve seen clean severe lacerations close up and stop bleeding within moments-- or even not bleed at all. Swords do have the extreme advantage over firearms of causing instant dismemberment. By the Revolutionary War, musket balls were passing right through human bodies, center mass. It was actually preferred for it to pass through from a medical standpoint. A smoothbore flintlock at close range (where you can actually hit something with decent MV) is probably more dangerous than a short bladed dagger strike. And by the way, hunting flintlocks were rifled even in the 1600s and enjoyed a higher MV & accuracy for it.

Swords aren't sharp. Especially in the era of heavy armor, swords are more like thin metal bars you beat people to death with. Certainly, if your opponent is unarmored you will cut them - causing ragged lacerations, or large punctures, or any manner of nasty wounds. The wound trauma from a sword or even a knife is much worse than that from a ball, and in fact the disparity has increased with time. The primary advantages of firearms in wounding aren't greater general injury, but greater penetration, which means greater chance of reaching vital organs, and greater chance of death by complications. The primary wounding factors of a black powder ball are, I imagine, the relatively large hole compared to later calibers, greater energy delivery in some circumstances due to lower velocity, and a high chance of fragmentation.

[Nootau]

Armor was rendered obsolete by firearms. I thought everyone knew this. Do you cite anything to show otherwise? I suppose cannons may have eliminated armor. I'll look into it.

Even using Wikipedia's sections on Armour disagrees with your stance. Though for more detail you should look into metmuseum, it even has a FAQ directly commenting on the fall of armour and the rise of firearms.

By the Revolutionary War, musket balls were passing right through human bodies, center mass. It was actually preferred for it to pass through from a medical standpoint. A smoothbore flintlock at close range (where you can actually hit something with decent MV) is probably more dangerous than a short bladed dagger strike. And by the way, hunting flintlocks were rifled even in the 1600s and enjoyed a higher MV & accuracy for it.

Smoothbore barrels, while invented in the sixteenth century were not used for firearms outside of special cases simply from the high cost to produce them, the few that were rifled were not the loose powdered style from the residue of the burning powder(save for breech loaders which Clok does not have). Rifling was only really used for weapons which used shells, not ball and powder. Though I do admit I mispoke, it did exist, but it was simply rarely if ever used for common use.

You say the amount of damage from this cartridge is minimal compared to a melee weapon?

You have missed the point completely. The rounds you mention are modern(I would be bold enough to really say any standardized shell would be modern for firearms). The question was about loose powder rounds, which were much slower rounds, which lacked penetrative power for its dimensions compared to modern rounds. As for your friends, if they need to be within ten meters to secure a kill of a deer in an open area, it speaks more to modern physique rather than the limits of a long bow, in older periods long bows had a lethal up to three hundred-fifty meters according to Oakeshott's work on ancient weapons.

[Rithiel]

Maybe I've just seen a series of lucky shots then... any chance someone could check? I wonder if this got fixed when melee aiming was fixed and if it uses the same code.

It's exactly the same.

[Bryce]

Let me know who's getting all those eye shots, I'm not too proud to ask for some lessons or tutoring.

[Bryce]

Hey, if you're holding a handgun while you're meleeing with the other, you should get a pistol whip. Accuracy based on half firearms, half brawling?

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pistol-whipping)

Pistol-whipping should be done with the gun held in an ordinary manner, hitting the target with an overhand strike from either the long, heavy barrel of the gun or the side of the gun in the area of the cylinder. It was a fairly common and highly successful way to knock a man unconscious (assisted by the heavy weight of the handguns of the day), and was known as "buffaloing", with the verb form being "to buffalo". This form of pistol-whipping with an 1860s-style revolver was tested on the Spike TV television show Deadliest Warrior. The testers showed that using the long barrel of a Colt revolver in a whipping motion produced enough force to fracture a skull and could potentially kill a man with a single blow.

And yes, I think we should be able to use long guns for ... wait for it, Jaster ... butt-stroking.

[Acarin]

Let me know who's getting all those eye shots, I'm not too proud to ask for some lessons or tutoring.

It was Jaster in the arena. I thought it was after the changes to aiming, but I'm probably entirely mistaken on that...

[Jaster]

I don't recall getting many eyeshots, but certainly if you get one it's almost a guaranteed kill. The same goes for any of the other 'vital' hit locations if they are unarmored and I'm using tactics marksman.

[Vertebrate]

I've been looking around a little. It seems that armor had to be proofed against shot, starting in the 16th century. Proofing was usually accomplished by adding thickness to plate armor which was usually about 2mm thick for melee. It seems that shot-proofing required twice the thickness at least, and some developed a laminating technique with iron and lead layers, up to 9mm thick. It does seem like a very gray area, lots of speculation ,lots of modern experts coming down on both sides, lots of renaissance authors coming down on both sides... and pistols seem to be an especially gray area, but muzzle velocity seems to be pretty high at point blank out of a flintlock pistol. It does seems that armor went out for many reasons, again with lots of speculation.

I think the fact that armorers were proofing their armor makes it pretty conclusive: flintlock pistols should be defeating armor in Clok, at least until you can buy proofed armor in Clok.

[Aerotine]

Considering we still use armor to stop bullet rounds, I think it's safe to say that CLOK armor should be able to, at least lessen the impact or stop the round all together.

The last post raises an interesting idea for further work at the merchant's guild and a newer quality of armor....OR as a possible ability for the eventual Engineer guild to add to armor. Padding to lessen the damage of projectiles.

In response to the thickness or padding you were talking about below. A lot of people where chain mesh under the metal pieces to help deflect in the pivot areas. So that means you would have, not only a breastplate covering the chest, but also another layer of protection past that to stop a round or slow it down enough (depending on range) to cause little damage.

[Lun]

So I'm going to pull the good ol' necro bump, since firearms were recently buffed with adjusted damage to account for the removal of tactics marksman.

Being one of those blokes who're dumb enough to throw massive amounts of riln into acquiring more than two revolvers, and having tested the new damage with some several thousand rounds, I think that the additional *BANG* per buck (at the moment, each shot has the ability to do UP TO 80 damage (highly infrequent. Damage can fluctuate to this range but tends to remain between 20 and 60 like the good ol' days.) Still not enough to instantly murder the target, but good for making swiss cheese) is definitely an improvement for the pistol-type weapons. One of my largest issues prior to the damage update was simply the fact that I needed to unload over 30 or 40 shots at a target in order to kill them, and with this I can usually down an enemy in 6-25 shots. Varies wildly, from the lucky eye-shot to the "Oh, I hit every body part except any vitals? Wonderful."

I have yet to fight an armoured target, but I disagree with allowing pistol shot to pierce through armor as if it wasn't there. Early pistols simply lacked the power to punch through armor plating. If it was a cannon or a musket, I could see piercing being a good chance, but there's also the fact that the shot might just ricochet harmlessly off the armor (unless it's sculpted boob plate.)

I've still got my hopes on pistol-whipping gun-fu being implemented for firearms-primary users.