Handling Cavalry

[Cultist]

I would like to chime in with my views on cavalry, not just for total war games but games in general.
And i'm not taking any sides here, just stating some common sense observations.
Played a lot of games pertaining cavalry combat and to be honest i was very disappointed in how they were portrayed.
In reality the early medieval combat was very diverse and not at all uniformed. There is this wrong myth i believe that cavalry was invincible, at least in the early medieval period. It was not.
The way i see the ultimate combat pair of cavalry vs spear, and from what i've read from history and physics and such, cavalry has mainly two advantages, mobility and the lance.
It is unrealistic to think that a head on attack would work in reality against any spear that knows what a formation is and how to brace a spear, if and this is important, your spear is longer than the knight's lance. Even with a long enough lance the high velocity of the raider will cause it to hit the first man on the line, lose the lance and get bogged in the 2nd line often to his death, unless of course the spear line gets broken by the shock of the impact.
So yes, in reality frontal attacks worked only on peasants, which of course was the case for most of the battles and early feudal systems, where the goal was to break the enemy morale.
Any cavalry with a lance is called a shock cavalry for a reason, they were there to look terrifying and surrounded by myths.
This was mostly unheard of in the antiquity but then came the early dark ages and humanity had to re-learn stuff again.
Now to return to our game, no 30 man cavalry should kill more than 30 men in the first impact, it's only common sense. If the unit has poor morale, is undisciplined and low armor and short spear, by all means, they are quite terrified and see a last vision of their mothers before breaking off.
When faced with more professional troops, things should change, these are not warbands of peasants, they have decent enough equipment and probably know how to brace a long spear.
This was a game changer in reality, in early medieval warfare and cavalry was used for flanking. As a shock element. As it should be.
So, bottom line, any cavalry that has a lance should have a high piercing attack, but lower combat skill than a spearman to reflect the realities of the medieval combat. The only role that i'd assign a non lance cavalry would be to catch archers offguard and routing units or a very well timed (aka almost to the breakpoint enemy unit) from the behind attack.
Interesting thread this!! Keep it coming.
Also no horse could take the mass of a human being head on and be able to charge again, or do anything else for that matter. Looking at you Mount and Blade

[Dekhatres]

'EDIT: nevermind, you arent going to change mind anyway'

Change it to what? You have not put forward any detailed, convincing arguments at all, or shown any comparative tests with your proposed stats. All you have done is given your opinion that you believe its 'all wrong', because...thats what you believe, for some reason.

to what i've said previously, current secondary cavalry damage is unrealistic, unhistorical and unbalanced, Feudal Knights secondary attack changed from 11 in SS6.4 to 10 in the EDU that you gave me, oh my how dare i predict that cavalry will still be broken

yes i did put forward an argument, my argument was explained by Lindybeige in his video, the argument is that if if you sit in place on a horse there's nothing you can do against an enemy infantryman after he raises his shield above his head, he blocks all your possible attacks

dunno what you expect to happen in such situation, the knight to just cleave through shields ?

Hell, how many times have I seen this argument about spearman v cavalry in all my years on SS, it's almost as legendary as the Longbow moans.

love it, we keeping the tradition alive

longbow threads being more legendary ? really ? i think op cavalry has always been the more distinctive trait of SS, as someone said in a humour thread "You know you've played too much SS when in every other mod you play you think cavalry is too weak" more true words have never been spoken

[Point Blank]

Oh no, heaven forbid that I may not have taken a particular Lindybeige video into account!! But further to your example, the footman may not have a shield depending on his weapon. If he raises his shield (and shields come in various shapes and sizes, it isn't an umbrella) above his head to block downward blows, he may not be able to really see what sort of attack the horseman is employing. It depends what weapon the rider is wielding as well. If it is a spear or a sword, he could thrust it directly into the footman's face, since it will be on about the same level as the rider's weapon if held low (ie shields are used differently versus swings, thrusts and smashes). If the footman has even a little bit of separation from him (which would be needed in order to use most weapons effectively), he could strike obliquely down. Or, he gives a forehand or backhand swing, or a swing at some other angle. He could rise right up in the saddle and bring his weapon down with all his weight onto the shield (and cavalry swords tend to be more heavily weighted towards the striking end), possibly stunning his opponent or even breaking his arm. Or, he could direct his 500+kg (possibly armored) stallion to smash into him, trample him, or any of the these in some combination or other - if he has been training for years, this exact scenario has been a big part of it. But yes ok, you saw a - clearly - rather unimaginative video.

Note that RC2.0 has customized stats (attack, defense, heat, space required to wield effectively, formations used, attack delays, special attributes...) and animations for the entire range of both 1H and 2H weapons - cutting, thrusting, cut-and-thrust, spears, estocs, rapiers, hammers/maces, axes, polearms in both phalanx and non-phalanx versions, and more - in both foot and mounted variants (eg mounted hammers and maces receive a -1 attack penalty compared to foot versions because it is more difficult to generate the required force with a percussive weapon while seated). Thus, over time, you will see units such as Feudal Knights with arming swords employing mainly cutting strokes, whereas in later years Chivalric Knights with longswords will employ a mix of cut-and-thrust techniques. Many Eastern cavalry tend to have light slashing swords. In all cases the animations and stats reflect these differences.

Oh, and remember the horseman will not be alone. Particularly, Western heavy cavalry were trained to charge so that 'a slip of paper would not fit between them', or words to that effect.

I am also still waiting for you to constructively address some of the points I have raised in my previous posts, or indeed *any* of them, rather than just continuing to complain.

You do understand that we are constrained by a whole bunch of hardcoded game mechanics, and that these interact with the stats, animations and particular combat situations in complex and not always predictable ways? And that M2TW is a video game and not a Lindybeige video?

As has been repeatedly suggested, feel free to come up with your own ideal/perfect stat system, with customized Lindybeige-ed animations, and present it to us on a jeweled platter so that we may pay homage to your creation. You have my permission to mod RC to do that.

[Point Blank]

OK, just to keep everyone happy, in the upcoming RC2.0 release I have included an optional sub-mod that can be selected at game start-up called 'Extended Combat'. It reduces the melee, missile weapon and cavalry charge kill rates, as well as reducing the climate heat factor so units don't become prematurely exhausted by the longer combats.

I have also included another optional sub-mod called 'Reduced Cavalry Charge Effect' which lowers the mass of all mounts, but be advised that this will stack with 'Extended Combat' if you have them both checked.

There, now don't say I never do anything for you guys

[Dekhatres]

Oh no, heaven forbid that I may not have taken a particular Lindybeige video into account!! But further to your example, the footman may not have a shield depending on his weapon. If hr raises his shield above his head to block all downward blows, he won't be able to really see what sort of attack the horseman is using. It really depends what weapon the rider is using as well. If it is a spear or a sword, he could thrust it directly into his face, since it will be on about the same level as the rider's weapon held low. If the footman has even a little bit of separation from him (which he would need in order to employ most weapons), he could thrust obliquely down. Or, he give give a forehand or backhand swing, or swing at some other oblique angle. He could rise right up in his saddle and bring his weapon down with all his force onto the shield, possibly stunning his opponent or even breaking his arm. Or, he could direct his 500+kg (possibly armored) mount to smash into him, trample him, or any of the these in some combination or other - if he has been training for years, this exact scenario has been a big part of it. But yes ok, you saw a - clearly - rather unimaginative video.

Oh, and remember the horseman will not be alone. Particularly, Western heavy cavalry were trained to charge so that 'a slip of paper would not fit between them', or words to that effect.

I am also still waiting for you to constructively address some of the points I have raised in my previous posts, or indeed *any* of them, rather than just continuing to complain.

You do understand that we are constrained by a whole bunch of hardcoded game mechanics, and that these interact with the stats, animations and particular combat situations in complex and not always predictable ways? And that M2TW is a video game and not a Lindybeige video?

As has been repeatedly suggested, feel free to come up with your own ideal/perfect stat system, with customized Lindybeige-ed animations, and present it to us on a jeweled platter so that we may pay homage to your creation. You have my permission to mod RC to do that.

well ofc you conveniently didnt, further to my example the footman wont see the upper part of the knight's body but he will see enouth to understand what's going on, remember the footman isnt resting his shield on his head he is keeping it up, if the footman decided to discard the shield and go for a 2h weapon then that's even better as he wont even need to close in too much, i can see a knight with a lance being a thread to an enemy footman with a 2h weapon althrough the knight is still at big disadvantage since the footman can engage and disengage at will by moving 1-2 steps back or forward but against a footman with a shield the lance will be even more useless, the shield is too much in the way for any effective oblique hits and if the knight rises up from his saddle to deliver big swings then he is just asking for his blows to be dodged althrough even in the event that he suceeds the infantryman's shield is not resting on his head he is keeping it up so at best the knight will cause a bruising if he is using a mace or just a scratch on the shield if a sword or axe or nothing at all if the footman has padding on the shield to protect his hand. well i guess late english knights were a bunch of morons for not just using their horses to trample stuff left and right in melee, or swinging their poleaxes from horseback since apparently there isnt any drawback whatsoever
if that video was rather unimaginative you on the contrary are quite imaginative in coming up with these highly unlikely (to say the least) scenarios where cav always somehow win

dont remember to have said anything about the charge... really my only issue with cavalry is them killing hundreds in melee, with that fixed it's all good

i address your points when you actually address mine, like you did now (finally)

dude cav is op in your mod because you gave them crazy stats not because game mechanics constrained you, cmon

already did thank you very much

[Point Blank]

I repeat for the millionth time, come up with an alternative, superior stat scheme that systematically addresses the entire range of weapons and skill sets with your desired 50-70% reduced stats, leaving you only about 1-4 to work with.

Have you actually done any experimentation with the secondary attack stats? They make less of a difference than you might think. Some mods out there use values over 20.

And next time, you might want to put in even a single piece of punctuation or capital letter in your wall of text

Anyway, hopefully the two new optional sub-mods will go some way to making you happy

[Dekhatres]

no need, massive cut to sec attack does the job

yes i did and it worked wonderfully althrough i reduced all cav attack to 1, here i proposed only 50-70% cut since i think that would make both ppl like you and those who have a problem with cavalry happy
at this point i think i've played for like a year with this and i liked the results, knights would still wreck peasants/militias once they get a few chevrons but against units with high defence they struggle to get any kills without charging, though the pro spearman are also having trouble getting kills because of knights armor so combined arms tactics are required

walls of text are annoying regardless, dont post one and you wont get one

i genuinely thank you for that and all your work

[Strategos Autokrator]

I also feel that heavy cavalry is a bit overpowered in melee. They build up exp fast, and with only 2-3 as secondary attack, they usually have 4-6 attack after a few battles, and that is enough. When that's said, heavy cavalry dominated the battlefield in the middle ages.

To my knowledge there is not a single incidence of an infantry army with shield and spear defeating a balanced army with a large heavy cavalry portion during the early Middle Ages apart from Tours in 732, but they were arguably not heavy cavalry like knights. In order for this to happen you need either men with longbows, crossbows, javelins, pikes or halberds, and preferably both pikes and a ranged option at the same time. Every time an infantry army won it involved some of these weapons. Let's take a look at some key battles.
The battle of Cerami in 1063
The battle of Tinchebray in 1106
The battle of Legnano in 1176
The battle of Arsuf in 1191
The battle of Bouvines in 1214
The battle of Stirling Bridge in 1297
The battle of Falkirk in 1298
The battle of the Golden Spurs 1302
The battle of Mons-en-Pévèle in 1304*
The battle of Halmyros in 1311
The battle of Bannockburn in 1314
The battle of Morgarten in 1315
The battle of Cassel in 1328*
The battle of Laupen in 1339
The battle of Warns/Staveren in 1345
The battle of Crécy in 1346
The battle of Poitiers in 1356
The battle of Roosebek in 1382*
* = battles involving pikemen defeated by men-at-arms and a combined-arms approach.

The battle of Cerami.
Here 136 Norman knights routed an army several thousand men strong.

The battle of Tinchebray in 1106.
Henry ordered his men-at-arms to dismount and form a defensive line to strengthen the infantry. A cavalry charge decided the outcome in this battle in favor of Henry I when Elias I of Maine charged in with his cavalry reserve.

The battle of Legnano in 1176.
This battle had predominately a cavalry force, making up 75 % of the men. the cavalry decided the outcome.

The battle of Arsuf in 1191.
Here the sergeants with intermingled crossbowmen defeated horse archers, and could hold their line against cavalry of all sorts. Here a cavalry force decided the outcome.

The battle of Bouvines in 1214 .
This battle had many thousand infantry in support of the cavalry for them to form up behind. Eventually, a cavalry charge decided the outcome.

The battle of Stirling Bridge in 1297.
This battle involved pikemen (3.5-4 meter pikes) pushing the English back against the river after around half the army had crossed the bridge.

The battle of Falkirk in 1298.
This was among the first battles when infantry armed with pikes could stand their ground against heavy cavalry, but this was marshy ground and a prepared position. 6000-7000 Scottish pikemen against 2500-3000 mounted men-at-arms. The Scots lost the battle when English archers thinned them out.

The battle of the Golden Spurs in 1302.
This was the first defeat of large numbers of mounted knights, but this was on marshy ground against pikemen.

The battle of Mons-en-Pévèle in 1304.
here 3000 French men-at-arms and 10 000 infantry defeated 12-15 000 pikemen in the open. The casualties on both sides were around 7000 to 8000.

The battle of Halmyros in 1311.
The 4000 men strong Catalan company defeated 700 mounted knights and many thousand light cavalry and infantry with javelins. This also took place on marshy ground and in addition to this they had 2000 mounted archers assisting them.

The battle of Bannockburn 1314.
This was basically Scottish pikemen pushing the mounted men-at-arms back into the crowded infantry behind them on less-than-suitable ground for a mounted charge. When a general rout began, the English had to cross the bannock and the majority of the men drowned when they got trampled by those behind them.

The battle of Morgarten in 1315.
This was an ambush. Men armed with halberds descended down from the mountainside and attacked the vanguard of the Austrian army after they had blocked their passage along the lake -pushing them into the water.

The battle of Cassel in 1328.
French men-at-arms defeated Flemish peasants armed with the pike, but only with a combined force of cavalry and infantry. The peasants could hold their ground in a prepared position quite well. They lost 3000 out of 15 000 men.

The battle of Laupen in 1339
This was the first victory against mounted men-at-arms on open ground. This only happened because they decided to fight against them rather then flee. When the Swiss center division struck them in the flank they suffered heavy losses.

The battle of Warns in 1345.
This battle had two engagements. The attack on the disembarked flanking force is called the Battle of Staveren. Here a group of peasants armed with pikes and farming tools massacred 500 men-at-arms when they got trapped and pushed against the sea.

The battle of Crécy 1346.
This was the first victory of the longbow against a numerical superior force of mounted men-at-arms. This was a defensive position behind hedges, pits and the like. 1500 men-at-arms killed in front of the Princes' division and 4000 men-at-arms altogether. Many prisoners were taken and many, many thousand of the infantry died on the French side.

The battle of Poitiers in 1356.
This battle demonstrated that stationary dismounted men-at-arms with lances taking up a position in the open between hedges and marshy ground on the road could win against heavy cavalry when supported by archers on the flanks.

The battle of Roosebeke in 1382.
This battle demonstrated that French men-at-arms could defeat the Flemish militia with pikes on open ground.

The key to victory is a combined-arms approach. Shields to protect against missiles. Pikes and halberds to protect against cavalry and infantry. Halberds and polearms for sorties and flanking against stationary cavalry and infantry. Missiles to attack regular infantry, enemy ranged attackers and skirmishing cavalry. Heavy cavalry as a deterrent against heavy cavalry, to protect the flanks, and flank the enemy - but most importantly, maneuverability in order to destroy the enemy in detail by concentrating a bigger element of your own force on a weak spot.
It's clear that medieval commanders didn't fully understand this, or, they didn't have the resources or manpower or will to make balanced armies. For a long time the cumbersome heavy crossbow was the only real ranged option in the west against armored cavalry. Archery required many years of practice and came into play in England at the end of the 13th century. Javelins were limited to 3-4 pr. man and didn't have the range. The Catalan company did well with them, but they were probably on par with modern day athletes and could penetrate mail armour with ease because of training from childhood, as with longbowmen.
William Wallace had no initiative at Falkirk. The same was the case for the Flemish pikemen at Cassel, Mons-en-Pévèle and Roosebeke. Laupen is the only examples (on this list) of infantry attacking the enemy head on and winning in the open. The men-at-arms stood their ground and lost, so if they had retreated they would not have lost. The rest, Halmyros, Golden Spurs, Morgarten, Bannockburn, Stirling Bridge and Staveren have cavalry trapped by either water or marshy ground. Crécy and Poitiers are prepared defensive positions with mass ranged attack aimed at approaching enemies. Cerami, Tinchebray, Legnano, Arsuf and Bouvines was part of a combined-arms approach with a decisive cavalry charge at the end. Spearmen could hold their ground to an extent, and this was amplified by favorable terrain, but they couldn't kill the heavy cavalry to any meaningful extent. That required longbows, javelins, crossbows, pikes, halberds and poleaxes. Probably in that order if you separate ranged from melee weapons.
At the end of the 13th century/beginning of the 14th century, heavy cavalry had predominately mail armor. This made it possible for men with javelins, longbows and crossbows to defeat them. When plate armor had become common among men-at-arms in the 1380s, the pendulum shifted slightly from Flemish pikes and over to cavalry again. The exception was Swiss pikemen. They attacked in blocks of 2000 men and steamrolled their enemies head on. In addition they had halberdiers and crossbowmen in the center as a combined-arms approach.

When it comes to longbows, they could penetrate plate armor, as demonstrated by this spreadsheet based on research from the Warbow trials 2005, The Great Warbow, The Knight and the Blast Furnace, Piercing Plate Armour with Arrows and experimentation with high altitude Alpine yew bows and the kinetic energy they deliver. It depends on range, fracture toughness and thickness of the steel/wrought iron plate together with the bow and arrows. The plate in lindybeige's video had a thickness of 1.8 mm and a fracture toughness of 420 kJ/m^2, entirely anachronistic and unrealistic for anything prior to 1450. The 3 best Italian samples of armor we have is from 1435 with 395 kJ/m^2, 1395 with 374 kJ/m^2 and 1370 with 366 kJ/m2. Most of the armor was in the 150-210 kJ/m^2 category. From around 1450 this started to improve. Around 1400 it was around 54 % wrought iron, 33 % low-carbon steel and 13 % medium carbon steel armor. All the bascinets we have from Germany are inadequate protection. Only 2 of them could withstand arrows at 55 meters. At 20-25 meters they would have been pierced too enough to guarantee a kill.

[Judeman266]

Quote from @PointBlank:

FYI in the upcoming RC2.0 release I have included an optional sub-mod that can be selected at game start-up called 'Extended Combat'. It reduces the melee, missile weapon and cavalry charge kill rates, as well as reducing the climate heat factor so units don't become prematurely exhausted by the longer combats.

I have also included another optional sub-mod called 'Reduced Cavalry Charge Effect' which lowers the mass of all mounts, but be advised that this will stack with 'Extended Combat' if you have them both checked.

FYI the complete list of optional sub-mods is:

2 Turns Per Year (WiP)

Campaign AI: one of Lusted AI, Gracul AI, Savage AI (if anyone has any suggestions for new campaign AIs I am happy to consider them)

Byg's Grim Reality II or IV

KER (Kingdoms, Empires and Republics) or Next Heir Ancilliary

DEYY Real Rebellion

Rebel Generals Enhanced

Twinbird's Nobility Mod

Extended Combat

Garrison Script

Limited Activities

Longer Assimilation

Permanent Arrows

G5 ReallyBadAI Hardcore Edition

Reduced Cavalry Charge Effect

Son of X

The SS Launcher contains a full explanation of the effects of each.

Plus, of course, about a billion other included sub-mods which I would have to search waaay back to find.

Campaigns:

Early Era 1100

High Era 1220

Late Era 1370 (WiP)

Mini-campaigns, each with it's own custom map, events etc (still awaiting final debug, should be this week hopefully):

The Reconquista 1146

Italian City States 1280

The Hundred Years War 1337

The Italian Wars 1494

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk

[Point Blank]

no need, massive cut to sec attack does the job

yes i did and it worked wonderfully althrough i reduced all cav attack to 1, here i proposed only 50-70% cut since i think that would make both ppl like you and those who have a problem with cavalry happy
at this point i think i've played for like a year with this and i liked the results, knights would still wreck peasants/militias once they get a few chevrons but against units with high defence they struggle to get any kills without charging, though the pro spearman are also having trouble getting kills because of knights armor so combined arms tactics are required

walls of text are annoying regardless, dont post one and you wont get one

i genuinely thank you for that and all your work

Glad you got the results you were looking for. I wish the engine was more transparent so we could do all this with less guesswork, rather than constantly being ‘WiP’.

[Point Blank]

Strategos great post!

Did the above tests use a target with a bit of ‘give’ like a human, or were they attached to a hard and fixed backing? Of course many of the shots would hit at an angle and be deflected; well-made armors like breastplates would have a raised central ‘spine’ leading to increased slope on the rest of the plate and a significantly increased effective armor thickness.

Please see the latest posts in the following thread:
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...es-and-Changes

[Strategos Autokrator]

Strategos great post!

Need to also consider that something like a Gambeson was usually worn under other armor. Did the above tests use a target with a bit of ‘give’ like a human, or were they attached to a hard and fixed backing? Of course many of the shots would hit at an angle and be deflected; well-made armors like breastplates would have a raised central ‘spine’ leading to increased slope on the rest of the plate and a significantly increased effective armor thickness.

For the test in Piercing Plate Armour with Arrows, the breastplate they shot at had an arming doublet underneath. The target was a bag of beans. The arrow penetrated by 1.25-1.5 inches (3.175 - 3.81 cm) into the bag. The armour was 1.4-1-5 mm with 0.3-0.4 % carbon content. The arrow struck with around 152.6 Joules at 13 yards. 1 mm of modern air-cooled steel with 0.5 % carbon have a fracture toughness of 320 kJ/m^2 because of chromium and managnese, according to The Knight and the Blast Furnace p. 901, so that's too much. 0.3-0.4 % modern carbon steel probably have a fracture toughness between 240-320 kJ/m^2, but 240 kJ/m^2 is much too low, because 1 mm of air-cooled medieval steel with 0.7 to 1.9 % slag and 0.5 % carbon have a fracture toughness of around 240 kJ/m^2. This can be calculated (see p. 941 in TKATBF): 200 + 100 * 0.5 - 5 * 0.7^2 = 247.55 kJ/m^2
If this steel was slag free it would have a fracture toughness of 250 kJ/m^2. So with chromium and manganese in the steel it has to be higher than 250 kJ/m^2.

We know that an aketon requires around 40-50 Joules, depending on the layers of linen, while an arming doublet requires around 30 Joules. If the arrow strikes with 152.6 Joules you are left with around 122 Joules for the plate. 1.5 mm of 273 kJ/m^2 plate requires 122 Joules, according to the spreadsheet and formula for calculations. This was most likely the fracture toughness of the breastplate they tested.

The Great Warbow have good information on kinetic energy and velocities at point blank and maximum distance with an average Longbow. A 150 lb bow made of Oregon yew will give you 53 m/s with a 95.9 gram arrow. An Alpine yew bow of 140 lb, will in contrast give you 54.7 m/s with a 102 gram arrow. A heavy arrow like the 95.9 gram arrow will retain around 81.7 % of its velocity at max distance. So the 102 gram arrow will retain close to this, which is around 95-101 Joules at max distance.

In the Warbow Trials 2005 they tested a bow that shot an arrow at 92 Joules. Here they shot at a 1.15 mm plate and a 2 mm plate of good quality wrought iron. The arrow penetrated the 1.15 mm plate to a depth of 10 cm. With 92 Joules they couldn't penetrate the 2 mm plate. The plates had a Vickers hardness of 185 and 183 as average respectively. This is about the same as kJ/m^2 when dealing with medieval steel without managnese and chromium. If you take a look at the spreadsheet, a plate with a fracture toughness of 185 kJ/m^2, 2 mm thick requires 131 Joules. The arrowhead protruded out on the other side by 16 mm, but didn't go through. 131 - 92 = 39 Joules. Could the arrow have gone through with 39 Joules more? That is almost certain if the arrow already protruded out on the other side by 16 mm. This confirms the theory and formula in The Knight and the Blast Furnace. What they should have tested was a 1.6 mm plate. 92 Joules was chosen to demonstrate what arrows could strike with at longer range. They tested the plates at close range to maintain accuracy. It doesn't matter if you shoot at close range as long as you know the kinetic energy at long range and tailor the test to this. You do one part of the test each time and combine the results. You don't need an arming doublet underneath because you want to establish how much kinetic energy is needed for the plate only. You can do blind tests with an arming doublet afterwards, as have been done.

The Knight and the Blast Furnace have the formula for how to calculate the kinetic energy you need for penetration. You want to know exactly when the arrow goes through a specific thickness with a specific fracture toughness. Williams found that 1 mm of mild steel with 0.15 % carbon and a fracture toughness of 235 kJ/m^2 requireed 55 Joules with a Rosand IFW5 tester. This was with a square head. Triangular heads require about 42 Joules in comparison, so you can switch out 55 with 42 if you want to calculate this. A lozenge shaped arrowhead requires about the same as a square head even if the arrowhead is bigger, due to the cutting edges of the arrowhead. With this information you can calculate the rest.

55 * millimeter thickness^1.6 * fracture toughness/235

So if I want to know what 2 mm of 185 kJ/m^2 need I type 55 * 2^1.6 * 185/235 = 131.2 Joules

If the arrow strikes at a 20 degree angle, you do it like this: (55 * 2^1.6 * 185/235)/cos(20) = 139.67 Joules

With a steep angle like 45 degrees, the arrow will be defeated.

From this it is clear that a 100 % increase in fracture toughness will double the required kinetic energy, whereas a 100 % increase in thickness will triple the kinetic energy required. This holds true. 300 kJ/m^2 requires twice as much as 150 kJ/m^2 and 2 mm requires 3 times the kinetic energy of what 1 mm requires, and 4 mm requires 3 times the kinetic energy of what 2 mm requires. The spreadsheet visualizes this very well.

The arrow in the spreadsheet strike with 125.4 Joules at 55 meters. That's a 140 lb bow. 30 Joules are needed for the arming doublet. 95.4 Joules are left for the plate. The black line goes around 90 Joules or less. This is done to take into account the extra kinetic energy you need in order to penetrate at a 20 degree angle. For instance 1.5 mm of 200 kJ/m^2 plate: (55 * 1.5^1.6 * 200/235)/cos(20) = 95.29 Joules

[Point Blank]

Good stuff. I used The Knight and the Blast Furnace extensively when formulating the attack and armor values in RC. It’s a great resource and a really interesting read, if you like that sort of thing

If there is one thing I would change about the M2TW combat model if I could, it would be how low-energy projectiles have a too-high chance to penetrate armors they undermatch, and a correspondingly too-low chance versus armors they overmatch. So, even though a weak simple bow might have an attack of just 2, it can still penetrate something like plate armor with a value of around maybe 12. Conversely, a steel crossbow with attack 12 will not reliably penetrate padded armor value 2.

Ideally, the probability of penetration should be based on, under ideal conditions such as a straight-on hit at point blank range, the value is 50% if the impact joules match the joules of resistance of the armor. It then either decreases with an under match, or increases with an overmatch, using some kind of sigmoid curve with a standard deviation of maybe 2-3. The entire function should then be shifted to represent the likelihood of a glancing shot ie less penetration, and then in the other direction to depict the chance of striking thinner armor such as the helmet. The energy of the shot should of course decrease with range. If it does penetrate, the approximate residual energy could be calculated and fed into the function that works out damage to the armor wearer.

Or something like that