Early gunpowder weapons?

Story & Setting
#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.

#33

I want to dual wield handgonnes.

#34

The warfare of the hussites resembled rather a siege than an open field battle. It took them about two hours to create their Wagenburg. 1) Klučina 2011, 36f. And yes they used handgonnes and artillery to defend those Wagenburgs.
But that was a siege-like situation.

In the course of the 16th century the military value of the gunpowder weapon played a keyrole in the outcome of a battle. 2) Schlunk/Giersch 2009, 145.
Until then the bow and crossbow were the preferred ranged weapon, because they were liable, efficient and significantly less expensive than the gunpowder weapon. 3) Funcken 2008, 73f.

That said I don’t want to see handgonnes in the first act at all. Maybe in the act 2,3 depending on the year the story represents. But then only as part of a siege not a regular weapon for our protagonist. As that wouldn’t be historically acurate.

Sources:

  1. Klučina 2011 Klučina, Husitské vojenstvi. The Hussite Warfare, in: V. Zdeněk (Red.), The Hussites, on theway to understanding the hussite middle ages, words – images – things, (Tabor 2011), 31-47.
  2. Schlunk/Giersch 2009A. Schlunk/R. Giersch, Die Ritter. Geschichte – Kultur – Alltagsleben, (Stuttgart 2009).
  3. Funcken 2008 L.u.F Funcken, Historische Waffen und Rüstungen. Ritter und Landsknechte vom 8. bis 16.Jahrhundert, (München 2008).
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#35

Well you wanted to see a source of peasants/gunmen killing knights with handguns of that period and here you have it. Handguns did actually get popular before the 16th century with

I quote http://www.myarmoury.com/feature_armies_burg.html (I will dig through JSTOR if you want academic sources but prefer not to)

> The Infantry of the Ordinance were organized in 1,000 man companies, which were possibly tactical units, though in 1476, when Charles divided his army into eight battles, six of these consisted of a center of 500 infantry with cavalry wings. The infantry, as distinct from the mounted archers, were probably supposed to be of equal numbers of pikemen, hand-gunners, and crossbowmen, but in 1472 at least, the pikes were up to strength, but the hand-gunners only a third, and the archers only half, their number. On occasion the pikes and archers were intermingled, by fours, in action, though the pikes were also trained to form up in front, kneeling down, with the archers shooting over them.

By the 1470s handguns were already popular enough to warrant 1/3 of theoretical force composition. They were used to some extent in the English war of the Roses. The popular image that firearms drove armored knights from the battlefield in a mere decade or so are not correct. The truth is that armored Knights and firearms coexisted on the battlefield for almost two centuries (170 years at least), sadly this is almost never portrayed in popular media.

Anyways back to the topic of guns in this game. They already confirmed there won’t be guns in the first act and I am fine with that. Though I would certainly not mind seeing some in the later acts as long as they have an accurate reload time and are condemned in usage by the higher classes.

#36

I’m not sure about others, but personally i would prefer guns to not be in the game… They take away from the seriousness of battle, and they destroy the feel of actually defeating your enemy because you’ve bested them, not because you have a superior weapon… :confused: Maybe a DLC with guns for those who want it could be cool, or a mod would be better, that way the DLC isn’t required.

#37

I don’t see how a lethal weapon makes a battle less serious.

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#38

When you’re up close fighting someone in hand to hand contact. It’s more personal than shooting a firearm from a distance so far they don’t even know who exactly shot them.

#39

As was mentioned here (I think with a source) by Thomas Aagaard who studies medieval archeology, the long range weapons used by the hussites (that is ca 15-20 years after the game events, i.e. the technology was about the same) consisted of about 75% crossbows and about 25% guns. In fact, the word they used for a gun was “píšťala” which in czech means “pipe” (as in the kind used in an organ, not a sewage pipe). And that word eventually mutated to the word “pistol” which is used internationally today.

As far as the penetrating abilities of a píšťala (or a handgonne…that is the same thing), there is again a link by Thomas a little bit up this thread. I did not think it was as effective as that, but apparently it was. Check out the beginning of this thread.

#40

They didn’t fight whole battles with handguns alone and if you see an army standing on the other side of a field I don’t really think you care who of the 200 shot a bullet that hit you.

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