Dazim
Faction 2
Posts: 67 
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Post by Dazim on Oct 18, 2014 21:21:50 GMT
So i have some ideas to capitalise on our strengths at our current tech level that could bring us more on par with the other factions most of these ideas are based in history some are concepts that never saw much use but i feel would work for us.
The first is a weapon somtimes refered to as an impact lance.
The basic concept of an impact lance is an impact detonated(you can also put a trigger on the handle of the spear but this is the basic design) charge on the end of a spear or lance these charges are usually shaped direct much of the foce forwerd for a harder hitting impact. That combined with the speed the rider is going translate into one hell of a punch that may penetrate others behind the hit target. These are single use untill reloaded after battle and i doubt a single horseman could carry many but an effective weapon. Now our land yachts could carry a few but theirs would need to be longer and i would not recomend using them in this way as they are better as mobile armoured shooting platforms in my opinion.
Now there are two general types of impact lance
Type 1: Is basicly a small smoothbore barrel on the end of a spear and an impact trigger mounted to it, normally loaded with buckshot. This is a good anti infantry option since the proximity combined with speed of impact will tear through all but vehicle armour.
Type 2: Is a larger barrel or even group of barrels that fire anything from AP rounds for vehicles to masses of infantry. These are less usefull against infantry as the angle of the spear from rider to target will mean it wont hit many at all beyong the first however i am confident a good hit from somthing like this will take out most trucks/apc's and depending on the tank 2-3 well placed hits could kill the crew.
Ill post more details later but i have general outlines of:
Laminated metal-leather Armour with silk undershirts
Scout balloons(yes you can build these with that kind of tech the general construction is actually easy if you understand the concept)
Bamboo morters/bamboo rpg tubes(Including tactics to maximised effect)
Chariots(And why we need them even with land yachts)
Edit: bolos and bolo rounds for cc
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Post by Admin on Oct 18, 2014 21:33:08 GMT
Awesome, and all believable  |
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Dazim
Faction 2
Posts: 67
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Post by Dazim on Oct 18, 2014 21:39:49 GMT
Im trying to think of what i would want if i were a general of the khanate and how to achieve results with the level of tech available.
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Post by Admin on Oct 18, 2014 21:44:47 GMT
Well I like it |
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Dazim
Faction 2
Posts: 67
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Post by Dazim on Oct 19, 2014 9:52:15 GMT
If you want me to go into any more detail on any of this just ask i have some stuff in my notebook that i can reference.
Scout balloons have taken my fancy so ill skip to that proposal for now.
If a horse is a matter of personal pride then a scout balloon(or several) would be the pride of a tribe(family? i don't know the word for a small group of tribesman). Originally used to keep watch over wandering herds of livestock and slaves(serfs? im not sure how slave like they are) they allowed a relative few to do the work of many by tracking horse thieves, scouting passes to move livestock through and watching for bandits and invading tribes from the air.
There is little standardisation between any two balloons but they all use the same principle a "bag" made of treated cloth or animal product with a vent to allow for a rapid decrease in height, a basket with room for 1-3 people and a heating device used to heat the air in the bag to allow flight. I would think the earliest use of these devices by the khanate were pre war recreation hot air balloons and that over time more would be built out of composite materials (textiles, light woods,bamboo maybe some metal salvaged from city's/aircraft if its light enough) do to the advantages granted to any tribe able to own and maintain one.
Now i hear you asking "Dazim would the advantage be almost gone by the time the balloon hit the ground to reveal their info" and to you i say yes if the balloon had to land to impart urgent knowledge that would be a problem, however if you consider that these people are far from dumb and that fireworks are about as entrenched in the general areas history as can be the solution is simple for any urgent matters such as an impending invasion or raid an appropriate coloured firework can be launched in the direction of the attackers giving time for defences to be set up without having to keep and maintain a large amount of listening posts. As for tracking thieves, livestock and wild game simply hovering above or near the target can show the rest of the hunters the way. And if details are still needed written warnings(assuming they can write) could perhaps be put on a device akin to a colourful frisbee and thrown great distances to be retrieved and read(now that i think of it if they were built right a frisbee bomb might just work).
Any one have any comments or ideas? I am loooking forwerd to seeing what we can field in the name of the khanate.
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Post by Admin on Oct 19, 2014 11:37:17 GMT
That is very well detailed and makes a lot of sense. Also, if you have a trained messenger bird or anything you could write a note and send a note down. And I would love this level of detail on everything you're planning. Basically, this level of detail will help me as I GM the game to be able to decide your idea works and doesn't just fail |
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Dazim
Faction 2
Posts: 67
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Post by Dazim on Oct 20, 2014 4:31:55 GMT
I somehow overlooked the most simple thing of all. Hunting horns:  Horns such as this were made out of bone or wood(to preferance/availability) and emitted a low pitched sound when blown into. I would be very surprised if the Mongolians of old did not use things such as this for communication. Horns like this come in a variety of shapes and sizes limited on their intended purpose, large ones designed the bring tribesmen in from their duties in the valley and inter-tribe communication to smaller ones designed to be used by scout balloons as well as those carried by officers to order troops on the field. Other size and shapes may be used for musial means. These are an old concept so i will refrain from going into too much detail. Drums: Almost every culture has some form of drum but the most common are hollow wooden tubes or bowls with a skin pulled taunt over one of the exposed ends. Uses are mostly musical however drums have been shown as effective tools to regulate the rhythm in groups allowing complex synchronisation in trained forces. Drums are also effective at boosting moral by not only giving solders something to concentrate on other than fear but also covering up certain noises detrimental to moral aswel as the less tangible "pumped up" effect. As above this concept is very old so i will leave it at that for now. Update to impact lance: It occurred to me that the impact lance impact trigger could be built with spare rifle parts/old worn out firearms(assuming pre-modern/simple firearms) The wheel-lock or hammer parts could be simply triggered by a pole being moved back onto a inbuilt trigger. This would not only make the impact lance a lot easier to build and maintain but that since the hammer/lock would have to be pulled back to arm before the rider charges the device chance of accidental discharge drops sharply. |
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Post by Admin on Oct 20, 2014 12:33:29 GMT
Nice simple communication that may be harder to intercept and decode than radio transmissions, nice |
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Post by castiel on Oct 20, 2014 13:40:59 GMT
Wow, I have a busy weekend and miss all this?! So so cool, the amount of thought you've put into this! Loving it!
I think the idea of balloons and horns is brilliant. Really practical, and would give a massive tactical advantage. I'd also add hang gliders or parachutes to the mix too, as they've enough peaks to throw themselves off - Also, way sneakier and could add small bombs too! Chaos and confusion to our enemies! Mwahahaha! (Oops, slipped into character again! Lol)
The impact lances sound cool. I see them being useful against tanks and armour suits especially. The other 'old-tech' thing I remember about Mongols is the recurve bow and mounted archers...you can get a hell of a lot of power behind these if used right. I don't think they'd be any use against the big suits, but they could still do some damage to the average squaddie, if sharp tipped and used with skill. Besides, if they are familiar with this sort of skill, then they'll be a decent shot with a rifle from horseback too (and we know horses can be trained for this sort of duty, as they have been for centuries). And they'll have the long term practice from protecting herds from predators.
I'll post more as I think of it. =)
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Dazim
Faction 2
Posts: 67
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Post by Dazim on Oct 20, 2014 14:04:03 GMT
I never thought about gliders off the mountains, love to see where you could take that thought. As for the Mongols and their bows there is a very interesting thing about them in that the Mongols had a very early but still quite advanced form of composite bow made of horn and wood the wood would allow it to bend to store power and the horn made it rigid enough to hold large amounts of force in a comparatively small frame making it easier to fire on horseback but still able to pierce the armour of its day. And would fare quite well against kevlar and other bullet resistant armours since they are designed for spreading the force of a blunt object over a large area and have little effect on arrows. I find this as more proof that the Mongols of that time and thus of this time were clever in the ways that mattered to them.
Now i may be prattling on but if i remember my history classes the Australian light horse was part of one of the last if not the last horse charge of a modern military. And if i remember correctly problems faced by horses in combat included shrapnel(from grenades and artillery fire), machine gun fire, poison gas and disease(both illness and infection from wounds). These are some of the things we must find solutions for. However i feel that general illness would be at a minimum due to the care provided by the proud owners.
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Post by castiel on Oct 21, 2014 15:58:59 GMT
What about mail barding? Would lose some of the speed, but gain a lot of protection.
Don't want to go too far into armouring tho, or we'd lose the speed, manoeuvrability and flexibility of the horse. Same applies to the sail buggies.
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Dazim
Faction 2
Posts: 67
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Post by Dazim on Oct 21, 2014 16:07:34 GMT
I have been looking into armour and will share my thoughts after this smite game. it took me this long as its not somthing i normally follow.
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Post by castiel on Oct 22, 2014 15:10:59 GMT
Lol, none of this is what I normally follow...so far out of comfort zone it's funny, but I'm still interested to see how things pan out.
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Dazim
Faction 2
Posts: 67
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Post by Dazim on Oct 27, 2014 14:35:10 GMT
So for armour I am thinking of a few different types depending on their purpose.
Take note that most of these are meant to be used with a silk gambeson or for the lesser troops(conscripted slaves/serfs)might have one made out of cloth or a simple silk undershirt. This is a last line of defence that will soak up anything that makes it through the other armour and is thus slowed. On a second note Genghis Khan was said to issue silk shirts to his troops as they don't tear easily allowing you to pull an arrow out of a chest by pulling the shirt taunt as the barbs were tangled in the silk.
The first is a variant of Lamellar with the plates being thin metal covered on the inner edge with woven silk and the outer edge by hard treated leather. The leather will soak the energy from blunt and low speed objects as well as slowing down shrapnel and high speed objects while the thin metal and woven silk combined will stop or slow down almost all shrapnel. This has some advantages in that it allows movement in the arms while still protecting them and is fairly light weight while still being a low tech solution. Of course a bullet that hits dead on will go right through the thing but it is hopefully slowed enough for it not to penetrate bone and vital organs. Bullets not hitting dead on might glace away under some circumstances. This would be used by front line tribesman and i belive would stop protect them greatly from flak and indirect hits.
The second is for horses and deals mostly with flak and shrapnel it is a caparison barding made out of woven silk with leather stitched in around the neck, chest sides and other vital areas. Ideally the leather is stitched in mid way through so that any object getting that far would have to travel through atleast one layer of silk to get to the leather. This serves a dual purpose not only does it ensure a greater chance for shrapnel to be stopped without tearing any silk or ripping any leather but it does not reveal the horse(and its vulnerable points) under the caprison giving a small chance for a shot to miss even with a gunman aimed at the caprison.
Simple layered leather and cloth jerkins should suffice for those in the back lines, in otherwise armoured environments(certain chariots, supply wagons) or slaves.
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Post by castiel on Oct 27, 2014 15:25:23 GMT
Again, good believable tech level, and the silk can be traded for with China if we're lucky. Leather is available to us, through the tribes and metal should be accessible, or something we can trade for. The caparisoned boarding is what I had in mind really, once you described it, but could only think of the Mail kind when I posted. Lamellar has the added advantage over mail or othe armours in that it's is quieter. Less warning on fast raids!
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