How did guns change medieval societies?

[TheAuldGrump]

Guns revolutionized warfare for two reasons and--as others have said--accuracy was not one of them. Early firearms were notoriously inaccurate (to say nothing of being prone to misfires, and slower than hell to reload).

1) Guns were powerful. Armor was all but useless.

FALSE! Good armor stopped a bullet at least as well as it stopped a crossbow bolt, and a steel bodkin or awl point on a crossbow bolt actually did better at penetrating armor than a soft lead bullet.

2) Guns were easy to use. If you have two dozen conscripts, and give them two dozen guns, they can make use of them with at least some effectiveness with very little training. If you take those same two dozen conscripts, and give them longbows, you're looking at two dozen corpses if you try to field them in battle.

TRUE! There was an old saying that if you wanted to train a longbowman you start with his grandfather. In my estimation longbow fits the definition of Exotic Weapon much better than a gun.

That is, incidentally, why the crossbow was considered such a devastating weapon when it was first created. It was powerful, and it was easy to use. People were so scared of the crossbow, the Roman Catholic Church attempted to have them declared illegal--and, IIRC, even a sin to use, though I could be mistaken about this last part.

TRUE! Silly, but true. And as you might expect nobody paid a whole lot of attention to the Pope on this one. William Tell by the way was a crossbowman, not an archer.

In addition to the above guns and bullets were not expensive, but CHEAP! it was easier to make a matchlock gun than it was to build a crossbow. Wheellocks, with their ability to be kept ready until you pull the trigger (the match on a matchlock continues to burn whether or not you pull the trigger) were complex and expensive, the snapaunce and flintlock, once they are invented, make the wheel lock obsolete, being both more reliable and easier (cheaper) to make. Bullets were easier to make than either arrows or bolts, and powder was easy to make in large quantities, so the ammunition was also cheaper for the gun than either the crossbow or the bow. A soldier generally had his own bullet molds, and cast his own - because there were no standardized calibers it was a requirement - you couldn't just buy premade bullets. On the other hand lead ingots are cheap.

The inaccuracy of matchlocks was due in part to the fact that you closed your eyes while pulling the lever - the charge vented out the touch hole as well as the muzzle, many gunners lost eyes if they had them open.

Guns were also faster to load than a heavy crossbow. While a goatsfoot could be used relatively quickly on a light crossbow a cranquin for an arbalest or heavy crossbow took over a minute to use.

One of the other factors, and why the gun did start ending the age of the mounted knight - a horse is a whole lot easier to hit than the rider is.

The Auld Grump

 

[Brother MacLaren]

An early arquebus shoots a 45-gram lead ball at 300 m/s (~1000 ft/s). A crossbow shoots a 125-gram bolt at 45 m/s (~150 ft/s). That's 2000 joules of kinetic energy versus 127. And that's why soft, blunt, lead balls can go right through a steel breastplate (at short range).

But kinetic energy isn't everything - the hardness and sharpness of the projectile matters in some circumstances, as well as what the armor is designed to withstand. In modern times, Kevlar amor is specifically designed to take advantage of the fact that bullets deform upon impact - but its fibers can be severed and the vest pierced by a modern crossbow. (At least, that's what a gun-hobbyist police officer told me a dozen years ago).

Interesting point about guns - I've heard that one tactic of the British Army in Revolutionary times was to have the formation fire, inflict some casualties, make a whole cloud of smoke, then charge through the smoke and bayonet the surviving opposition. One could have a smokestick effect resulting from each arquebus shot... good defensive measure.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

An early arquebus shoots a 45-gram lead ball at 300 m/s (~1000 ft/s). A crossbow shoots a 125-gram bolt at 45 m/s (~150 ft/s). That's 2000 joules of kinetic energy versus 127. And that's why soft, blunt, lead balls can go right through a steel breastplate (at short range).

However proofed armor was not at all uncommon, and would stop the bullet quite well, but remained vulnerable to the triangular cross sectioned bodkin point bolt or arrow. A round awl point was more likely to be bent than the sturdier triangular head. (I was going to comment on your muzzle velocity, but then noticed you were using KPS not MPS... Doh! That would have made a BIG difference to my numbers...)

However while the bodkin point bolt or arrow was more likely to penetrate armor it generally did less damage when it penetrated than a bullet, which would pulverize the bone for several inches at the point of impact. Dealing in fact more tissue damage than a faster modern bullet.

Later the shape of armor was changed, so that it deflected rather than blocked the shot, being crested toward the front.

The Auld Grump

 

[Mouseferatu]

All righty, I concede that in my attempt to simplify, I misspoke, and thus gave false information. My apologies.

Let me rephrase.

1) Armor of the time when guns first came into common use was not powerful enough to protect. Yes, people did make armor strong enough to stop pistol balls and the like, but--as others have pointed out--that armor was both unwieldy and more expensive.

So it's true that gunpowder marked the disappearance of armor. It just took longer, and many more steps, than I implied. Sorry about that.

I stand by my use of the term "easier" when comparing firearms to bows, however. While the procedure for firing a bow may be simpler, it's a lot harder.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

All righty, I concede that in my attempt to simplify, I misspoke, and thus gave false information. My apologies.

Let me rephrase.

1) Armor of the time when guns first came into common use was not powerful enough to protect. Yes, people did make armor strong enough to stop pistol balls and the like, but--as others have pointed out--that armor was both unwieldy and more expensive.

So it's true that gunpowder marked the disappearance of armor. It just took longer, and many more steps, than I implied. Sorry about that.

I stand by my use of the term "easier" when comparing firearms to bows, however. While the procedure for firing a bow may be simpler, it's a lot harder.

Okay, this I will concede. And for the common foot soldier armor (in the form of a buff coat) was more to protect against incidental damage (splinters, flying rocks from a near miss, etc.) than a direct hit. Though the placart (the portion of the breastplate that covers the gut) remained in common use until the 17th century.

The Auld Grump

 

[Planesdragon]

OK, I know this has been discussed before. I've found some great sources for how to introduce guns into D&D, but very little about how guns change a fantasy world.

Screw a question about real-world history. (Guns, btw, were just the latest in a line of massed-army fighting that ended the medieval way of life. The pike and the longbow did as much to end medieval chivalry as the flintlock--and firearms were around even during chivalry's peak. They just sucked.)

The more opportune question is "how would a flintlock rifle change the presumed D&D culture?" I see three answers:

* Not at all. Magic already is as effective or more than a flintlock, and firearms have the nasty trait of being the only way a simple cantrip can kill a dozen men at once.

* Not at all. Massed armies have used flintlocks many times in the past, but they have been discarded again and again either due to their expense or their incompatability with magic. Why bother with flintlocks when you have flaming arrows?

* A great deal. Flintlocks give rise to a need for standardization, which gives rise to mass production and interchangable parts, which dramatically alters every way of life.

 

[Wilphe]

A longbow is a better weapon than a firearm at any point up to Waterloo.

The drawback is that bows take training and strength to use and are only as deadly as the person using them.

Pretty much any peasent can be trained to use a firearm, so large and effective armies become possible as opposed to small, relativly elite forces.

Firearms also require complex drills to use effectively and are so connected with the rise of organised, regular forces with established structure.





The most immediate real change to society that gunpowder made though wasn't with handheld firearms; it was with siege weapons.
Cannon were complex and expensive and could only be financed by the richest states; building a castle and maintiaining a few mercenaries was easy for a dissident noble. However the king could now bring up some cannon and blast a way into your castle. The effect of this is to be greatly increase the power of central government. The central government can then raise taxes better, become more efficient and build better and more efficient cannon.

This meant that there was a sorting out of the power structure in Europe - either you crushed your provincial nobility and formed the beginnings of a modern state or you got thrown onto the scrapheap of history.

France and Spain won this race. Italy was one of the losers that remained fragmented and the independent states were essentially crushed as too small to compete.
In the march on Naples French mobile artillery destroyed castles in days that had resisted sieges of years before.

The next stage is to rebuild all your castles into forts; which again is complex and expensive and only the richest states can afford to do it.

See a pattern here?

It sorts out the "haves" from the "have nots" in the same ruthless way the A-Bomb did post 1945, either you had it or you didn't; and if you didn't, don't mess with anyone who does.

 

[Wilphe]

How is this going to affect the world?

Well a medieval world (and that of a standard D&D set up - if such a thing can be said to exist), is one of elites.
Knights who have trained since birth.
High level wizards who have devoted thier life to their craft
A greatly fragmented power structure where every two bit bandit king, warlord and evil wizard has his own private stronghold somewhere.

Gunpowder begins the process of turning that society into one of masses, where one man is as good as another because the weapons they wield are equally deadly regardless of skill*
The military and social consequences of that take you to the French revolution and beyond.


* No really, you are volley firing. Skill consists of loading, firing and moving in unision.Aimed fire is for specialists and considered vaugley subsersive.

 

[Aust Diamondew]

HIstorically:
The invention of gunpowder did not end the use of bows (paticuarly crossbows) or armor both of which were used by the Spanish Conquistadors when they invaded America. As of others have said it wasn't until such weapons developed to such a point that armor and bows fail completely out of use.

I remember reading in the book Samurai William (about the English attempts to trade with Japan during the 1600s) that Osaka castle with stood cannon fire for a long time. It had very thick stone walls. In the end the Shogun used trickery rather than his artillery to take it.

In a fantasy setting I think gun powder wouldn't change the world much at all, unless you start getting into rifled firearms.

 

[Nareau]

Wow! This is a lot of great info. Thanks, all!

I've got a lot to think about.

For one, I want to keep the rules simple. I don't want to create any new rules for firearms. I also don't want to have to learn too much about the specific differences between different firearm technologies. But it sounds like I might have to, in order to figure out which version I want to represent in my game.

For the most part, it sounds like guns really changed things because of the impact they had on armies, not on heroes:
1) They were cheaper to make than longbows
2) Any peasant could be conscripted, handed a rifle, and sent to war
3) Armies could carry more ammo, and thus outlast their bow-wielding enemies

Unfortunately, my D&D game focuses on the heroes much more than the armies. So a lot of this won't apply to the PC's in my specific game.

I'm thinking of trying to abstract firearms to D&D rules in one or more of the following ways:

Firearms are simple weapons. Anyone can pick one up and fire it decently well.

Firing a gun requires a ranged touch attack. Unless a suit of armor is specially (magically?) treated, it is ineffective. Things like dex, dodge, deflection still count, though.

2d8 to 4d8 damage. Guns produce a great force that can be very dangerous.

x4 or maybe even x5 critical. Guns can be extremely deadly, as they aren't stopped by bone.

Ability damage. Probably just on a critical hit. A gunshot will do 1d6 damage to a physical ability. I'm not sure if it should be CON or DEX, but I'm leaning towards CON.

Fear. The smoke and fire from a firearm strikes fear into your enemies, requiring a Will Save DC 15 to avoid becoming Shaken. This effect only works within 30' of the shooter.

All of these things taken together would obviously make guns COMPLETELY deadly. But I'm less interested in "balance" than I am in grabbing the right "feel" of guns.

I'm not interested in running a simulationist game. I'm interested in running a game where the invention of guns represents a major shift in the battlefield. A new era of combat, if you will. It represents an era where heroes begin to fade away, replaced by masses of untrained people with deadly boom-sticks.

Thanks again for all your input. It's given me a lot of things to think about--things that I hadn't even realized I should explore. Both combat-specific AND societal issues.

Spider