What would the rennaisance have looked like without gunpowder?

[Celebrim]

Well, the big problem with catapolts is that the rigging gets in the way.

I was involved in a lengthy age-of-sail inspired campaign in which mangonels replaced cannon, but although this was quite fun, it isn't really all that realistic.

The problem is these ships were really wooden castles. So much so, that they really were all but immune to weapons of below a certain level. A SOL would essentially take no damage from 12 lb. shot fired from a cannon into its side. The ball would simply bounce. It would take realitively little damage in fact from a 24 lb. shot. Most ships were designed such that there wooden walls would resist the shot of any cannon smaller than the largest cannons that ship was itself capable of carrying.

So, you can imagine how much less damage such vessels would take in reality from a similar shot fired at velocity that would only allow the shot to travel 200-400 yards, rather than the mile and a half that cannons actually attained.

However, feel free to ignore that. It's fantasy.

Ramming is an interesting topic. Ramming is not really a ship to ship tactic. I mean you can do it, but where ramming really comes into its own is as a fleet tactic. The problem with ramming is threefold.

First, that even if you do it successfully, you open yourself up to a boarding action. You may cripple his ship, but you got to stop him from taking yours as a replacement. To be really successful with ramming, you need to be able to stop the boarding action (the purpose of that raised shield on the front of ram galleys), and disengage quickly. That is to say, reverse. Reversing implies oars. Oars imply either giving up sea worthiness or giving up ranks of artillery (or both). Oars also imply a vessel that is quite lightly built (more on this in a second). The easiest way to stop a boarding action is to have the help of some friends nearby firing missiles at whoever is trying to cross over.

The second is that it really is hard to outmanuever another ship completely in a one on one context. Especially if this ship is also agile and designed to be used as a ram. The best way to do it is coordinate your actions with someone else, and while your foe is distracted, gain an advantage on him so that either you or your ally has a ramming position. This requires fleet level tactics, and it is how the ram is actually used.

Lastly, in order to maximize the advantage of the ram, you need a quick agile ship. But a quick agile ship implies one that is lightly built. Being lightly built implies that in fact you are quite vunerable to being rammed yourself. That you need to oar your vessel only increases the problem. That you need to be light implies you can't carry alot of extra marines, which implies that you better be darn good at stopping those boarding actions.

If you can't counter a ram with a better ram there is another tradiational alternative. Build something so big and sturdy, that its not that vunerable to being rammed, and carry alot of troops on it so that you can force a boarding action. Equip the ship with boarding planks with spikes that when dropped nail themselves to your foes deck.

This is what a Quadrieme and latter a Galleon is for, so no, I don't think that naval evolution would have stopped with the ram if gun powder wasn't invented. Galleon weren't really cannon based vessel anyway, at least not as they were originally built. Mostly they carried alot of anti-personal type guns to stop enemy boarding actions (that was what those high charged castles on the ends were for). It wasn't until the English (and to a less well recognized extent the Dutch) came along that the cannon came into its own as a fleet weapon.

 

[jgbrowning]

whole bunch of good stuff ....

thanks for taking the time to say what i would've said....


joe b.

 

[kenjib]

I see, so you think that galleons would emerge, ramming would become less common than it was in the galley era, and naval battles would be fought mostly through boarding actions? However, a small ship can outrun these larger ships, so small fast ships are still necessary for intercept. With these smaller ships, ramming starts to become more of a possibility, but if they become immobilized they become vulnerable to the larger, slower, ships.

Is fire a potential weapon? Could something like greek fire be shot from a trebuchet like device (to avoid the trajectory problems with catapults)? Flaming arrows into the sails?

Taking it further, how does adding magic change things? For now, I'm going to assume that magic is rare, because once the magic levels get higher you start approaching the point where anything goes and deciding on technology just becomes a matter of aesthetics rather than practicality (that would also be fun to speculate on though).

A unique flagship and perhaps a couple other ships might have magical hulls/rams and propulsion enabling the production of a ramming galleon class ship -- with the increased mass of the ship, the impact would be devastating even to other large ships and there would be plenty of marines available to follow through with boarding. These would be the prize ships of the fleet (or pirates) and dreaded throughout the seas as invincible. Other extremely rare magical shipside weapons might exist as well, such as gouts of flame to repel boarders and set enemy ships/rigging on fire, the use of the ocean itself as a weapon with large waves and whirlpools. Taking on a ship armed in such a manner would be a very difficult task, but since such ships are extremely rare (only a few in existance, total) avoidance is perhaps the best policy when possible...

 

[herald]

The story behind the Spanish Armada is one that is overblown and over played.

Many of the ships that set sail for England during that fateful attack were in bad shape and poorly designed. Divers have been out to a few of those wreck and studied thier construction as best as they could. Some were lucky thay made it as far as they did. The Hurricane that took hit them swamped most of them out.

The Spanish also had a bad understanding of how fire arms worked in a naval situation. The didn't understand the idea of arch, (ironic since it is the sample priciple used in archery) and often just fired over the decks of thier enemies. The English had an easier time making a transition to firearms. Incedentally the English government had a monopoly on making gunpowder. This might explain how it controled the cost of it.

 

[Zaruthustran]

Field artillery

Wow! Great thread.

I retract my earlier statement about castle design, as it's true that the trebuchet is a mighty machine of war. But it's freakin huge and takes days to construct.

Cannon, on the other hand, are relatively light, manouverable, and are able to be set up and fired in a matter of minutes.

Cannon allowed the creation of quick, mobile armies that carried their artillery with them. You can't very well haul a fully-functional trebuchet around, but you can easily haul cannon.

Also: with cannon, you can have decisive artillery at non-siege battles. Without cannon, if two armies met in the field it was pretty much soldier vs. soldier, with artillery playing a minor role.

Yes, mobile artillery was around before the cannon but such primitive weapons as scorpion and light catapults just didn't have the same effect as cannon.

So take out cannon and what changes?

Well, battles would still tend to be centered on long sieges instead of engagements in the open field.

Warships would be mainly troop transports. You could not, for instance, shell a seaside town into oblivion (it's impossible to mount a trebuchet on a sea-faring ship, and only a trebuchet has a chance at quickly destroying castle walls).

The heavy crossbow would dominate long-range battle as the unskilled range weapon of choice.

The shield wall, and heavy armor, would still be relatively effective.

Argh--work calls.

-z

 

[kenjib]

Re: Field artillery

Warships would be mainly troop transports. You could not, for instance, shell a seaside town into oblivion (it's impossible to mount a trebuchet on a sea-faring ship, and only a trebuchet has a chance at quickly destroying castle walls).

What about monkeying with shipping lanes to cripple your enemy's economy? I still see privateers and blockades as effective strategies.

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

Allow me to clarify on my Meso-American comment.

The architecture and art I was reffering to was from the post-Aztec pre-great plagues period. Apparently the initial missionaries managed to organize the cultures that had been recently liberated from Aztec rule into building these incredible school/theatre/church structures with decorated with art that was an odd adaptation of 16th century styles with new world motifs. The plays and ceremonies that were performed in these buildings were supposed to be of unheard of opulence and they are so huge that the Pope used one as the setting for one of his recent visits.

If you get the chance I highly suggest looking them up. I was impressed at how much energy those in flux cultures had. Would have been really cool to see how they would have influenced history if small pox hadn't effectively eliminated their viability.

On another note, this is a great thread and the observations on naval warfare are dead on.

The only affective non-gunpowder naval weapon I can think of are Greek Fire tubes. Which are probably just stupid to use in any sort of weather and noone except the Byzantines had mastered.

But if Constantinople doesn't fall....

Privateers and blockades might work. Privateers would definitely be better than blockades. The knights of Rhodes drove the Turks crazy with four oared ships and a galleon.

Shore raiding and marine invasions are a lot more viable. During the middle ages noone really comes up with a method to prevent an army from landing. After firearms it becomes a lot more complicated.

On the Agincourt thing I did find a prof who said the English may have had more men actually fighting on the line than the French, who approached in waves which were very poorly suited to the English formation.

Shakespeare's history is always a little spotty on details and numbers or even the character of Richard III, depending on your sympathies, but the French certainly saw the battle as horrible disaster.

 

[jgbrowning]

Re: Field artillery

Wow! Great thread.

I retract my earlier statement about castle design, as it's true that the trebuchet is a mighty machine of war. But it's freakin huge and takes days to construct.
-z

From what i understand, they were also hard to make, considering that they usually had to be made on site and required fairly good sized trees. I think there was a way of making them with bound smaller trees, but i'd assume that that would be quite a bit less effective. This is just off the top 'o my head, if anyone knows better lemme know.

joe b.

 

[Lawrence of Arabica]

Re: Field artillery

Warships would be mainly troop transports. You could not, for instance, shell a seaside town into oblivion (it's impossible to mount a trebuchet on a sea-faring ship, and only a trebuchet has a chance at quickly destroying castle walls).

Actually trebuchets were mounted on ships. Presumably these were smaller ones, using
human pulling power rather than counterweights. You're right they weren't big enough to batter the walls, but I bet they could be effective against docks, docked ships, etc.