Armour in combat

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AlanCutner
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Armour in combat

Post by AlanCutner »

Just a thought, and it would be interesting to see other peoples views. We all 'know' that more armour leads to better protection, and this is reflected in the POA awarded for better armour class in melee. But historically many troops chose to wear lighter or no armour because it restricted movement and caused greater fatigue - this could imply that the advantages of lighter/no armour could at least balance the greater protection armour gave.

The matter of fatigue suggests that any armour advantage reduced the longer a melee lasted. And the greater flexibility of movement is also likely to matter more once the two sides have become intermingled in melee.

If this is the case does it mean the POA's offered for armour in FoG are the wrong way around? Currently there is no POA at impact, but a + for every melee round no matter how long the combat lasts. Perhaps the + should be at impact and, possibly, the first melee round only; after that no POA's for armour at all.
philqw78
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Re: Armour in combat

Post by philqw78 »

IMO troop quality is far more important than armour. Armour should help a bit but currently its more important than quality. So perhaps thats where its going wrong.

But that would take a lot of rewriting
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AlanCutner
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Re: Armour in combat

Post by AlanCutner »

I'm not sure any suggestions we make here will find their way into the rules.

However....I completely agree that troop quality should rank higher than armour. My suggested change would be a move toward that by taking armour POA's out of the equation completely after the first round of melee.
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Re: Armour in combat

Post by bbotus »

Troop quality is in the rules.

Armor isn't as heavy as people tend to think. I've seen people in full body armor jump up easily from the ground. I've worn a full kit of Roman Legionary armor for re-creations. It wasn't that bad and I wasn't used to wearing it. If you train in armor, it gets a lot easier to use.

Also, remember that the shield is your primary defense, armor is secondary but it is still helpful in deflecting strikes.

And, finally, the authors account for differences by fudging the armor factor in army lists to account for how they fought and the historical record, so I'm told. I personally like the V2 change to the armor POA. Isn't that enough?
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Re: Armour in combat

Post by ravenflight »

philqw78 wrote:IMO troop quality is far more important than armour. Armour should help a bit but currently its more important than quality. So perhaps thats where its going wrong.

But that would take a lot of rewriting
Hi Phil,

I think you will find that RBS would disagree with you. I remember when RBS and PB co-operated with DBM and the quality was pushed closer together. I can't remember how it went but something like (I) only counted when they won and (S) only counted when they lost. When RBS left the DBM team it then went to (S) counting when they won, and (I) counting when they lost, exacerbating their loss/victory.

Given how Superior and Poor work in FoG, I'd say it is RBS's influence that has made the quality not as massive as you would like.

I'm not quite sure where I sit in the opinion. When DBM made (I) 'less bad' I liked it... perhaps because I ran Syracusans with 12 compulsory (I), but I also know there is a MASSIVE difference between something like the battle hardened troops and raw militia. Perhaps the problem lies more with too many similarly styled troops being rated similarly, when in reality they aren't. Just because a guy is carrying a Hoplon and a long spear does NOT make him a Hoplite (poor or otherwise). Perhaps we should see more 'mob'
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Re: Armour in combat

Post by dave_r »

bbotus wrote:Troop quality is in the rules.

Armor isn't as heavy as people tend to think. I've seen people in full body armor jump up easily from the ground. I've worn a full kit of Roman Legionary armor for re-creations. It wasn't that bad and I wasn't used to wearing it. If you train in armor, it gets a lot easier to use.

Also, remember that the shield is your primary defense, armor is secondary but it is still helpful in deflecting strikes.

And, finally, the authors account for differences by fudging the armor factor in army lists to account for how they fought and the historical record, so I'm told. I personally like the V2 change to the armor POA. Isn't that enough?
Have you ever tried to lift a Hoplon? I reckon I could carry it for 30 minutes tops and I'm fairly fit. It was bloody heavy.

When I spoke to the re-enactor he reckoned somebody who had trained with it (for years) could carry for 2 hours before becoming fatigued (i.e. unable to lift the thing properly)
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lawrenceg
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Re: Armour in combat

Post by lawrenceg »

I think you will find that historically, anyone who could afford armour wore armour, usually the best they could afford. Also that the best quality professional troops had the best armour (legionaries, knights, ghilman etc).

The only exceptions would be troops who needed to lighten their load to carry out some function that involved a lot of running around, or the occasional case of "supernatural" armour (berserkers, gaesati and even gaesati had shields).

Yes, there are limits to what people can carry, but if you had the option, people would wear as much armour as they could carry.

As a hoplite with a slave to carry the shield most of the time, 30 minutes would normally be ample for the actual combat phase of the battle. And these guys used to spend half their time at the gym.
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Re: Armour in combat

Post by zoltan »

"Just because a guy is carrying a Hoplon and a long spear does NOT make him a Hoplite (poor or otherwise)."

Erm, isn't the primary requirement to be a Hoplite the fact that you are carrying a hoplon?

Just as to be a Peltast you must be carrying a pelta?

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Re: Armour in combat

Post by hazelbark »

dave_r wrote:
Have you ever tried to lift a Hoplon? I reckon I could carry it for 30 minutes tops and I'm fairly fit. It was bloody heavy.

When I spoke to the re-enactor he reckoned somebody who had trained with it (for years) could carry for 2 hours before becoming fatigued (i.e. unable to lift the thing properly)
I think this is entirely missing the point of the ancient world. These folks endured pretty sever hardship for long periods...like from birth. The human body in conflict is pretty remarkable. Consider the trials of a solider on the eastern front in WW II or trenches of WW I. Or ... or... We have countless examples in history of pretty amazing endurance to the wear of war. I think comparing the modern raw body however fit is very dangerous. In the Falklands there are stories about the fit units struggling more with the environment than the less fit higher body fat support troops. And so forth.

I suspect that many of us would be far more willing to stand all day in the sun holding a pilum in armor after 10 years of watching anyone who didn't get decimated.
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Re: Armour in combat

Post by philqw78 »

hazelbark wrote:there are stories about the fit units struggling more with the environment than the less fit higher body fat support troops.
Are you calling me fat?

At least there was air con in the desert.
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philqw78
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Re: Armour in combat

Post by philqw78 »

Also hand to hand wasn't constant, just like a game of rugby. People battered each other for a bit and if they didn't break through they traded places with rear ranks troops (if any were willing) or broke off and swapped insults for a few minutes
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Re: Armour in combat

Post by spike »

There are different solutions that could have been used. FoG uses the rational that armour reduces the chances to hit- Its fine and works ok, the v2 amendements make it a less vital PoA than under v1.
An alternative way of defining the effect of armour, could be used to reduce the chances of base losses- so under current FoG rational that would amending the death roll number.

From my reinactor experiance armour you wear is less cumbersome than you think, Mail (Chain-mail to the uninitiated) armour spreads its weight evenly across your frame, so it does not affect you. Shields however as Dave said are different- try swinging a 3 kg weight (3 bags of sugar in a bag) around at arms length for 5 minutes to find out how tiring it is !
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Re: Armour in combat

Post by ravenflight »

zoltan wrote:"Just because a guy is carrying a Hoplon and a long spear does NOT make him a Hoplite (poor or otherwise)."

Erm, isn't the primary requirement to be a Hoplite the fact that you are carrying a hoplon?

Just as to be a Peltast you must be carrying a pelta?

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Yeah, that's right. So if a Taliban picks up a hand-grenade that used to belong to a Pommy solider he is a Queens Grenadier :roll:

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Re: Armour in combat

Post by philqw78 »

He's a grenadier. But he needs to hope for better timing than the 'pommie'
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lawrenceg
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Re: Armour in combat

Post by lawrenceg »

spike wrote:There are different solutions that could have been used. FoG uses the rational that armour reduces the chances to hit- Its fine and works ok, the v2 amendements make it a less vital PoA than under v1.
Yes vs shooting, but not in close combat.
In melee it merely makes you more confident than the other guy if he has less armour.
In impact it makes no difference at all.

Also I think it is now more vital in V2 than V1.
In V1 "protected" was little use as nearly everyone chose armoured or heavily armoured troops to do their fighting. Now at least protected stops armoured troops from getting a 2nd POA. Not that being a POA down all the time is particularly useful.
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AlanCutner
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Re: Armour in combat

Post by AlanCutner »

So, going back to my original question, what I'm getting from the re-enactors amongst you is that armour doesn't cause much fatigue or restriction in movement, and a prolonged +POA makes sense. So I have to assume that where there was a switch to lighter or no armour (eg. early vs later hoplites, early vs later legionaries) it was more of a financial consideration?
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Re: Armour in combat

Post by Vespasian28 »

Is there not also a consideration about the strategic change in warfare? I thought hoplites lightened their armour during the Peloponnesian war because greater mobility was required. Similarly during the Thirty Years War the armoured pikemen ditched their armour because of the distances they were covering and they got fed up with lugging it around. If everyone, including your likely opponent, does the same thing then you are not at a disadvantage tactically.
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Re: Armour in combat

Post by MikeHorah »

Isn't the point in FOG(AM) re protection in melee about " relative " protection? And the V2 changes make armour less critical as does the treatment of heavy weapons in both versions.

The other point is the problem of out-of-era protection versus out-of-era weapons ( or out-of-region) . Earlier bonze age bows and arrowheads and hand-to-hand weapons were less robust or effective than the later bronze age and of course iron age ones. But the relative point/edge versus protection gearing may not have been the same in different eras . So for example early bronze and copper scale armour, or even thick fabric and leather protection may have been relatively more effective against the limited weapons used against them than the equivalent pairings a millennium later ( I have had some exchanges with a researcher and writer in the US who has examined Hittite bows and and arrow heads in the museum of his institute suggesting they were pretty ineffective and that thick sheepskin would stop them!). But these subtleties are easily missed in widely drawn rules sets rules for obvious and quite understandable reasons.

Re mobility and armour and fatigue once one goes down that road there are many other factors to consider - blown horses, thirst , the weather - how far troops marched prior to the engagement ( the Eqyptians at Kadesh). Many of these may be better handled in skirmish level games or better still scenarios rather than standard games . And there is the relative impact if the two opposing forces are broadly similar in many respects and have experienced identical conditions (eg at Towton) so they could be treated as numismatically worthless in terns of the outcome.
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Re: Armour in combat

Post by Vespasian28 »

Re mobility and armour and fatigue once one goes down that road there are many other factors to consider
Just to clarify I mentioned mobility as a factor in why hoplites may have lightened their armour, aside from financial considerations, rather than something the rules need to consider.
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Re: Armour in combat

Post by MikeHorah »

Of course mea culpa - I suspect we are in vigorous agreement on that score re these rules . I was trying to broaden it as part of a general issue -and not just re hoplites . and consider how and when we ( wargamers in general) might want to consider battle field fatigue in game design. Why hoplites ( and Etruscans and early Romans) went for lighter armour later is an interesting issue . There must be some research literature .... doh I see another project coming on and yet more books....
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