Early gunpowder weapons?

Story & Setting
#13

They became more powerful than bows and crossbows toward the middle of the 18th century, but started becoming he armament of choice in the late 16th. It was far more practical to replace a peasant who could be trained to fire a firearm in a few weeks than a hunter who had been learning to use a bow for the last 10 years, and in prolonged wars the nobility needed to replace their men. Really until the advent of the mini ball a longbow was more accurate, had a longer range, could be reloaded faster, and with a Bodkin arrowhead penetrate most armor and shields of the day at 50m or less, not that many even wore armor in the mid 19th century. During the US revolution Benjamin Franklin asked Congress to approve the purchase and training of several hundred longbows to act as an elite force in the continental army.

Anyways as to the topic- no. firearms in the 1400s had been little more than an exotic novelty that was rarely even used in battle. These “cannons” and later “Hand cannons” had been siege weapons, not the personal firearms we would see later. The Ottomans had been the first to adopt a corpse of firearm wielding soldiers in the early 1500s, but that isn’t the setting of the game. Practical firearms didn’t start to appear in Central Europe until 1520s and 30s. Besides, adding firearms would require an entire ballistics system and models that only would be valid to perhaps the player and one other person out there given the rarity.

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#14

Will it actually take place during the Hussite wars? That is quite a leap from the time of the first game. The hero would suddenly be at least 15 years older (assuming that the act I itself covers some period of time) than in the first act. I thought they said the acts were supposed to be close together timewise, 15 years is not what I see as “close together”, that is about a quarter of a lifetime for an average medieval person (who survived childhood).

Also, thanks about the weapons reply. The arrows and crossbow bolts have a slight advantage of being pointed, so the pressure is more concentrated. But probably not 4 times as much.

So I guess the advantages of each type of weapon go like this:

Bows - faster firing speed, good even in rainy weather, easier to maintain
early handguns - easy to train, more power (and reach), psychological effect on animals and (at least in the very early use when the opponent was potentially not acquainted with those guns) enemy soldiers, easier to use in cramped space (such as the wagon wall of the hussites)
crossbows - slower than bows, faster than guns, easier to train than bows

#15

What you are writing is simply very very fare from the truth.
As early as the battle of Poiters (1356) the longbows have problems with penetrating the best armour worn by the Frence… and armor kept improving, the longbow did not.
The numbers i showed you show that by 1500 the gun was very likely allready more powerfull in terms of energy,

Also a simply gun like the Tannenberggun can be made by a village blacksmith… making it a lot easier to make large numbers of it compared to crossbows… and if was a lot cheaper.
A written source tell us that 25% of the handheld range weapons used by the Hussite was handguns. (the rest crossbows)

I used the name Tannenberg gun a few times. It is a gun found in an excavation of the ruins of the Tannenberg Castle destroyed in 1399. (So naturally it have to have to be made before this)
Illustration from the Hussite war show the same type in use and a few weapons of the same type have bin found at a site used as a base of operations by the Hussite.

So you simply cant get around the fact that handheld firearms was used by this time. (or at least by the Hussite wars) And they where not that rare.

But they where used as a weapon on the battlefield. Not something you carry around loaded. (you need a lighted slow burning match cord to fire the thing…)

about act two. hmm can’t find where I read it… will try to find it.

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#16

Again, thanks for the correction. I did not say they were rare during the Hussite wars, though. But are there any records of their mass use prior to that? I know they existed but I am not sure if they were already widespread enough. And I thought your data were persuasive, I just pointed out (no pun intended) that with the pointy end, the arrow has a slight advantage over a bullet. But not enough to compensate the 4 times higher velocity of the bullet.

Still, rain was a problem was it not? During rain you can use bows (maybe it negatively affects them, especially composite bows i think…but not immediately) and crossbows as usual, but wet gunpowder is useless. I know they had special pouches for that which were probably water resistant, but you had tu manually load the gunpowder into the weapon and during that process you could get it all soaked.

#17

The Teutonic Knights are supposed to have had 100 field artillery pieces at the battle of Tannenberg in 1410. I understand they were deployed right across the front line with infantry behind and used to try and disrupt any orderly charge.

#18

suggest you read this topic:

The role of the church
#19

Even they don’t need to be in by the release date would I like to see gunpowder weapons in the game with all the dangers and uncertainty which comes with it.
I remember on my visit in Schloss Braunfels in Braunfels in Germany the very impressive armory which has a lot of weapons including gunpowder weapons and you realized how very dangerous and messy it must have been to use them as NOTHING was standardized like we are used from modern arms with pre-determined calibers. Every weapon was a unique piece and it was an art of its own to learn how to handle it, load it and use it without destroying the gun in the process and yourself.
Because they were all unique handmade pieces they all had their own quirks and issues, figuring out how much powder it needs to operate without creating cracks which eventually lead to a disastrous misfire one day. They were far from being elegant, mostly metal tubes of different materials which could do easily more harm to the handler then the enemy. Basically cannon tubes with wooden poles which could come in all kind of sizes.

Because hey were cumbersome and gunpowder was dangerous in handling and storing they were most of the time just used in stationary battles like sieges or on battle fields. Check out the Russian movie ‘1612’ which can give some idea about a siege with melee and gunpowder weapons even some designs there are of course too advanced for KC. But there are not many good examples in movies, just check on YT for ‘1612 battle scene’.

A lot of people got maimed and/or died from explosions of insecure handling of gunpowder and storing it safely as well. IT is hard to find some good examples of gunpowder explosions as we are all used to Hollywood explosions with black, billowing clouds which is ever indicating gasoline and other petrochemicals involved. Gunpowder creates big white clouds. Just search on YT for ‘realistic gunpowder explosion’.

So if KC will introduce powder weapons I am sure they will do their homework and present us with the whole experience of this non-standardized and still highly dangerous invention.

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#20

No. Sorry. I just flat-out disagree. Not gunpowder weapons of any sort please.

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#21

Earliest European contact with gunpowder weapons is often cited to be the Mongol Invasion of Europe - and notably Hungary which is relevant to the game - this was about mid, early 13th century. These would of been single-shot hand-cannons dubbed ‘firelances’. More a weapon to scare beast and men, than to kill them. Also single and multi-staged rockets, possibly.

Possible they could of traded for lethal working gunpowder through the middle east or India, but if a recipe for working gunpowder was known in the area, it would of been under strict Royal control.

#22

I can understand very well where the fear and discomfort comes from about early gunpowder weapons as fantasy games, silly movies (if they ever used any pre-flintlock or matchlock weapon anyway) and the problems with modern firearms shakes people ‘romantic’ view have about fantasy but also medieval ages. In games they keep firing gunpowder weapons in ridiculous belt-fed speeds and eve if they could reload them magically in a second the powder would go off right away by the loading process as the gun would be simply too hot.

But you have to keep in mind that way before the inventions of the weapons mentioned above that powder weapons were extremely dangerous but with time cheaper to produce and people easier to train then some archer with a longbow which reacts like a modern firearm in a controlled way so that a skillful archer can replicate a good single shot much better than anyone could with one of those early brute, crude ‘hand cannons’ .

The other big fear comes from other players using their knowledge of science and modern weapons on such early powder weapons and rampaging with them through the game. But I think this fear can be easily countered by remembering that those weapons had no standardized ammunition and production standards.
Players which try to use gunpowder weapons without any skill for it would have a very high risk to injure themselves with every try and/or maybe even start a fire in the process.
IF they would put points into that skill then that would not help them much either as those weapons were almost exclusively used just in sieges and battle fields because they were damn heavy and cumbersome and powder supply would be VERY difficult outside any army and the danger for the powder going bad through rain and storage reduces that risk significantly.
If some players would really create several characters with their hands maimed by exploding fire arms they might try to find something else to waste their time with.

So besides the known issues with those contraptions I think the biggest problem some have is the romanticized look they have of fantasy and medieval game worlds and any gun no matter how primitive is seen as an immersion breaker. Frankly, I have the same issue with those stupid Gnomes in most fantasy games with their gadget obsession for mechanical devices as they remind me of modern day age and the smart phone and i-pottie craze which I would like to forget when playing a fantasy game. But luckily the world is large enough and they are rare enough to avoid them.

And if I ran into one anyway I just ignored my feelings about them as they are part of the world I like to play in and treated them like anybody else. So if I have to choose between historic accuracy and personal preference then I prefer accuracy and I have the strong feeling that most history buffs tend to see it the same way.

Time will tell, it would not kill me if they are left out but it would feel wrong like chainmail bikinis and ‘perfect’ hairstyles for people on KC’s fields and villages.

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#23

I again suggest that you use this topic: It have replies from the devs and a debate about what weapons was actually in use during this period.

#24

For convenience’s sake:

The time period of the game was pre-matchlock, which didn’t appear until the middle of the centuries, the only types of firearms that would be available would be simple hand gonnes.

And the Devs have said that firearms would not be present in the first part, but aren’t ruling them out for the second or third.

#25

I’m a big fan of the implementation of early gunpowder weapons, they were present in the time period, and they add an extra niche in the game, powerful but innacurate short range weapon, that should leave a huge cloud of smoke. Realistically implemented with exceptionally long reload times they would be very fun to use.

#26

Very difficult to implement though. As has been marked the gunpowder weapons of the time where hand-cannons or handgonnens or at best very primitive blunderbuss like weapon though not related to actual blunderbusses. These had rather long fuses, used unreliable powder, where unwieldy and produced more smoke than deadly firepower.

Still used in large numbers, the smoke, noise and overall cacophony they created certainly had their use. And they where not thrown pebbles if they actually hit something.

#27

This is a difficult topic I assume. Ive read books like medieval weapons from kelly devries and robert douglas smith to the topic. Almost all sources say that yes there were gunpowder weapons but those were mostly stored by the kings and higher lords. It’s unlikely that a blacksmithson would own such a gunpowder weapon. Furthermore saltpeter the most important ingredient of the gunpowder was mostly imported from china (Saltpeter was called Chinese Snow at that time) and the costs of transportation made it a luxury good.

There are several movies where the scarcity of saltpeter is described. The borgias (1492-1503), maybe not the best source, but there was described that guns were expensive and only the wealthies lords and kings could afford to deploy them on the battlefield. And we talk about an era about 80 years earlier.

And it’s not delivered whether those early versions of handguns/guns changed the outcome of a siege.

I think guns are nice but they should be ONLY(if at all) implemented in large scale sieges. KC is a RPG and mostly 1v1 or small skirmishes. Nobody would have brought a gunpowder weapon to a skirmish at that time. Expensive, not reliable, slow, (until they developed grain) short range.
I don’t know how fast a handfire gun could fire but given the fact that you have to load it at the front, that you have to fill in the powder and then the projectile, that you had to lighten the long fuses, I think it’s save to say that an experience logbowman could at least shoot up to 20 arrows in that time. It’s reported that an experienced musketeer (18th century) could fire up to 3 times a minute. Ive read that the best longbowman at Poitiers could loose about 18 arrows a minute. And the muskete is a weapon far more developed and deadlier than the early handguns.

EDIT: @ThomasAagaard where have u read that the longbowman could not penetrate french armor at Poitiers. 1/3 of the english army were longbowmen. Thus they had to have an enormous impact on the outcome of the battle. Afaik Poiters was one of the most humiliating battles for the french. The French outnumbered the English almost 2:1. The english men were starving and exhausted. In the end up to 2500 dead french and 50 dead englishmen. Most of the french lords where taken prisoner and France had to pay huge ransoms. The longbow was of lesser use at poiters because the french did not charge with cavalry, but tried to walk the distance and shield themselves against the arrows. nevertheless it was still a deadly weapon the french king feared.

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#28

All true as far as I know, except the firing rate of longbowmen. 12-13 off the cuff, meaning not properly aimed shots a minute. That is the more conservative number and even so a very optimistic conservative number. Of course it depends on the source you read.

#29

That might have been an exaggeration of a certain author. Even if we take only 10 arrows a minute - in a skirmish a longbowman would still be a way more dangerous foe than a silly guy with an early handgun. The chances the handgunner would miss are that high that you could probably walk up to him and knock him out with a rolling pin.

#30

In a battle, you don’t have to aim very much. You just point your gun at a group of enemies and it will likely hit one of them. You would have to be extremely clumsy to miss if your target covers several square meters or rather dozens of square meters. Also a knight wearing good quality full plate armour would be hard to kill by arrows, but a bullet penetrates quite easily. Even the early handguns were equalizers in that now a peasant with little training could kill a knight with expensive equipment who spend a qood deal of his life training or fighting. Not in a one to one combat but quite possibly in a battle.

For a longbowman to be able to penetrate armour like that it takes a lot of training because the weapon is powered by your muscles and specific ones for that. That is why the hussites, who consisted mostly of peasants and people with little military training, used crossbows and firearms instead.

#31

I’d like to see some sources on peasants killing knights with handguns at that time. Its a cannon on a stick not a fabricated rifle. Ive read several books but none of them mention handguns as widespread as it is stated in this thread. They are mentioned but mostly as part of the siege equipment of rich lordlings and kings. You are a son of a blacksmith, not some lordling.

The Bow and crossbow were the dominant range weapon at that time because saltpeter was so expensive only kings and really rich lords could afford greater amounts.

I don’t like quoting movies as a source. But maybe you have watched the last samurai. In the first fight with muskets vs horsed samurai the muskets all fire too early or miss their target because they are affraid of the attacking samurai. And those musketeers had some basic training and the weapons were way better than those you speak of.
Imagine now a scared peasant with a weapon that takes a shitload of time to reload. The Knight in fullplate will attack on a strong horse. The peasant shits himself at that moment, 300 knights in fullplate are a terrifying view. He will fire one shot (probably way too early because he wants to kill the enemy) and most likely miss and then the knight will chop his head of and the whole battleregiment will be routed.

#32

Peasants didn’t go to fight wars unless it was some sort of a revolution.

In that case I point you to the Hussite wars where peasants did use firearms and crossbows and artillery to great extent and effect.

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