Funny Rules Lawyering Moments...

[C. Baize]

R. Lee Ermey? Standing over his shoulder?
Was he screaming at him, and insulting him?
That dude's pretty fearsome.

 

[Edward Kann@StoryART]

Wow that is pretty good to know. I have some black powder / gunpowder reference books here at home that make note of period comments about the old muzzle loaders.

One thing that really got my attention was that the weapons were not very accurate. Maybe the modern version of the musket has a much better "straight" bore to the barrel? Maybe the modern recreationist's lead ball shot is more even and round than a period musket ball would be?

The old command to fire was...

"Ready, Level, Fire..." The entire notion of aiming with an early musket was considered to be somewhat absurd, at least according to some of these books.

"A soldier must fire his enemies weight in lead in order to kill him." Was a complaint by one period General in the British army.

"A soldier might as well be shooting at the moon then try to hit an enemy more distant than 60 yards." Is another period quote.

Apparently the old muskets had a tendancy to dramatically gopher ( plow a round into the ground) or wiz rounds up and over the target's head when fired at distances greater than 70 or 80 yards or so. Or miss wide left or right.

This explains the strategy of marching a hundred soldiers right up close so they are practically pushing the muzzles of their guns into one another's chests (ok I'm over stating here) to insure that they had a chance to hit something.

Apparently they had the same problems with cannon, particularly on board ship where you have the constant pitch and roll of the ocean to make hitting anything at any range that much more difficult. This explains the British preference to close to yard arm's distance where the ends of the opposed ship's yard arms were practically touching before loosing a broadside.

Those old soldiers sure had some guts. I wouldn't be particularly crazy about firing several dozen cannon back and forth at one another at under fifty yards. Can you imagine?

So if we went with a more modern version of 20 or 30 seconds that would mean that a blackpowder weapon would take 4 or 5 full actions to reload. That would make blackpowder weapons definately the fire and wade in with your cutlass variety. Which is not so bad. It makes the genre more swashbuckling to have the blackpowder guns take longer to reload I think.

 

[Edward Kann@StoryART]

So now i'm thinking about black powder weapons a lot...

So maybe dramatically reduce the range increment. You don't want to make it impossible to hit something if you are able to walk up and stick the gun muzzle right up against something.

At the same time you don't want the musket beating out a Barrett Light Fifty sniper rifle for accuracy.

So the range modifier needs to be dropped to make the weapon practical only at close ranges. Maybe a range increment of 60 feet for muskets. Maybe a range increment of less like 30 feet for pistols?

 

[ragboy]

So the range modifier needs to be dropped to make the weapon practical only at close ranges. Maybe a range increment of 60 feet for muskets. Maybe a range increment of less like 30 feet for pistols?

Here's some stuff I've been reading. Some of it seems well researched, others seem pretty questionable.

Some un-qualified data...
http://www.napoleonguide.com/weapacc.htm
One man's test...
http://www.pcs.cnu.edu/~mblount/blkpwdr/wwwboard/messages/565.html
In-depth analysis of a smoothbore.
http://www.willegal.net/iron_brigade/musket.pdf
Some apocryphal data from the English civil war
http://www.fairfax.org.uk/main/soldiers/musket.htm
An article for wargaming accuracy. This one puts reload time at more than 2 minutes, which seems really out of whack.
http://www.miniaturewargames.com/musketry.htm
Here's a gem from a forgettable site:
At close range you were both in danger from the shot but also from the sparks that flew out of them which could set fired to anything nearby.

 

[Max]

So now i'm thinking about black powder weapons a lot...

You might want to check out Sidewinder: Recoiled. It is a western game based on d20 modern. They have several muskets included in their weapons along with the Winchesters and Colts. The musket reload times range from 6-10 rounds depending on the weapon. The ranges are comparable to other western guns on the list. I realize this is a different comparison than the one you are making to a modern gun. But I pass it along in case you find it interesting.

Max

 

[ledded]

Actually the 20-second figure is from watching a moderately-trained recreationist with a period weapon reloading and firing on my television.

--fje

Yeah, the 20-second is a decent figure for a very well trained individual using a modern, clean weapon without being shot at.

I've been researching this for a while now, and have found a little data here and there that I don't have with me but I'll try to post later.

The DMG ranges are *way* off, of course, and the time is *way* off also.

30 seconds, like someone said, is a decent average for an average period soldier, but there have been anecdotes I've uncovered of people doing it faster (but not in ordered formations).

Trying to fit some rules under this, I estimated that it took about 6 rounds to reload a musket (if powder was readily available), and you could take a rapid reload feat to reduce that by 2, and if combined with paper cartridges (in lieu of a powder horn) you could reduce that by a round, for a best-case of about 3 rounds.

But there are some qualifications that lead to the disparity in numbers that people throw around.

Older muskets (we'll saw flintlocks and after, leave out the matchlocks and wheellocks) that were unrifled had a pretty wide bore that the ball could reasonably easily fit down, provided it wasnt overly fouled after being fired 10-20 times in a row. Remember were not talking smokeless powder, but blackpowder, and it can leave a LOT of residue. But because the bore was wide, the accuracy at range sufferred.

Rifling a musket (the first 'rifles') helped a lot with accuracy and range, but took 50% or more above the normal loading times, as it was hard to force the ball into the barrel grooves, you had to use a metal ramrod (as a wood one would break easily) and any fouling made it much worse. As a result, you didnt see a lot of these for en mass soldiery.

But then inventions around the Civil War which saw use in that conflict help out. The Minie Ball was made so that it easily fit down the bore, but when fired a flange on the bottom of the ball would expand outwards and catch the grooves in the barrel, imparting spin and giving better accuracy/range. Best of both worlds for the rifled musket.

Also, older matchlock shooters would keep their ammunition in small wooden vials worn on a bandolier called apostles (since they typically carried 12 of them) which held enough powder for the shot and could be easily accessed. They of course made a lot of noise during movement and weren't perfect.

Later folks started using the first cartridges, the ball and powder rolled into paper. This way a soldier could take out a cartridge, rip the end off with his teeth, pour powder into the weapon, then stuff the ball and the paper as wadding into the barrel and use the rod to tamp it down.

There have been other variations meant to speed it up also. So a hunter using a powder horn and a older flintlock 'rifle' is going to load slower on average than a soldier using an unrifled musket that has a hip pouch full of paper cartridges. Fouling would also lead to a good bit of problems if you are trying to sustain fire over a period of time.

There are a lot of small innovations and things folks tried I'm leaving out and I've simplified it a bit based on the data and anecdotes I've uncovered, but I just wanted to toss that out. I am by no means an expert in these things.

The best stats I've seen for a well-trained squad of mean using an unrifled musket and prepared paper cartridges was in some firing tests done in Vienna in the 17th or 18 century or so, and it was shown that the men could fire something in the neighborhood of 8 shots a minute with reasonable accuracy (reasonable by musket standards, around 46% at 30-40 yards, and about 14% at 60) but the tests were also a bit flawed as they were firing at wooden targets without actually being shot at or rained on or what have you. If I can find that document at home I'll post it up.

 

[ledded]

So now i'm thinking about black powder weapons a lot...

So maybe dramatically reduce the range increment. You don't want to make it impossible to hit something if you are able to walk up and stick the gun muzzle right up against something.

At the same time you don't want the musket beating out a Barrett Light Fifty sniper rifle for accuracy.

So the range modifier needs to be dropped to make the weapon practical only at close ranges. Maybe a range increment of 60 feet for muskets. Maybe a range increment of less like 30 feet for pistols?

Like I said in my other posts, these weapons were notorious (especially unrifled) for firing at widely varying degrees of accuracy.

I did 10 feet for tiny (muff pistols or gentlemen's 'pocket' pistols), 15 feet for small (average belt pistols), 20 feet for medium flintlock pistols (cavalry and long duelling pistols), unrifled, as a baseline.

I also reckoned 40 feet for carbine muskets, 50 feet for long muskets.

Add rifling, and you can add 50% to the range (20 feet in the case of small flintlock pistols). Note that historically there weren't near as many examples of rifled pistols as there are long muskets.

 

[ledded]

R. Lee Ermey? Standing over his shoulder?
Was he screaming at him, and insulting him?
That dude's pretty fearsome.

I want you to LEAN into my hand Pyle! I want you to LEAN into my HAND and CHOKE yourself private PYLE! NOW!

 

[Captain Tagon]

Or you could always have 5-6 muskets pre-loaded, and have someone else reload for you. Still will run out eventually, but keeps you firing for a while.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Take a look at the range of the DnD longbow vs the Modern longbow. The Modern one has a much shorter range. Use the same formula