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Message: <blockquote data-quote="TheAuldGrump" data-source="post: 5442890" data-attributes="member: 6957">Speaking as someone who has fired mediaeval weapons - yes, armor works against big, soft, slow lead balls. An exception is chainmail, which comes apart, with the links driven into the flesh. (We used a dead pig.)The ball will penetrate soft leather, but goes less distance into the meat, so the armor still qualifies.Plate armor was not invented until after the gonne. It was often 'proofed' - the armorer taking ten strides from the armor then shooting it with a pistol. Source of the term 'bullet proofed'.If you really want to see something penetrate armor then shoot a crossbow - a square headed bolt will be buried to the fletching in the pig. It pretty much ignores chainmail.A hangonne/arquebus is faster to load and fire than a heavy cranquin wound crossbow, but penetrates less and has a much shorter range.And, for the record, on a foggy day blackpowder weapons stink like the Devil's own flatulence.Gamers vastly overestimate the power of the early guns, but also vastly over rate the rate of fire of a heavy crossbow. Guns won out not because of their relative power but because of ease of training and rate of fire. The longbow took time to train (if you want a longbowman then start with the grandfather) while crossbows were easy to learn, but slow to fire. Gonnes were a compromise.The Auld Grump</blockquote>