Sling The most powerful pregunpowder weapon

[Phoynix]

I find the lack of slings in most fantasy destressing, and the fact when included they are often pathetic underpowered things.

 

This thread will most likely fade into obscurity yet some may find the information interesting if for no other reason that they thought the sling was a toy(like I did, I used to assume the sling was a toy and had little combat value.)

 

Facts about Slings(and other related weapons)

 

Power

A Sling is a length of string with a pouch in the middle and as such is a simple leaver, yet such leavers are the most efficent human powered projectile weapons, has more power then any bow, and more power then most crossbows.(assuming one doesnt goto extremes and start slinging 2kilo glands... watching them hit stuff can be fun but.. )

While a sling stone contains more energy them most other single man projectile weapons before gunpowder, it was there momentum that was important.

Unlike other projectile weapons they didnt need to penetrate armor to kill, they could crush bone and damage internal organs without penetrating armor due to percussive effects. However roman medical text for example specificly stated the slings effectiveness agasint armor even when arrows had little effect, and explained how to extract sling glands from soldiers.

 

Range

Slingers outranged bows(when using lead glands) untill the longbow, many accounts of classical battles survive and place the slingers behind the archers, and yet the slingers still openend fire first before the enemy was in range of the archers. Slingers from historal accounts have between 300-400m+ range.

 

Accuracy

The slings accuracy/range is such, that they outranged the effective range of smooth bore gunpowder weapons as Europeans found out in the Asia and Spanish in South Americas.

 

 

Now people maybe wondering why slings were replaced by bows if it was such a great weapon.

 

It had disadvantages.

1.IT couldnt be used in thick scrub or very high grass.

2.Slingers had to stand meters apart from each other resulting in far less dense fire then archers.

3.The level of skill to operate slings at a level where they performed better then other projectile weapons required training from birth.

 

To see a sling in action

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XEuVnZq2BMA&feature=relmfu

 

If you want more information... or to learn how to make your own.

 

http://slinging.org/

 

PS-If you dont understand the point of the post.. I WANT SLINGS in Peoject Eternity, and considering how simple the model is.. it couldnt be all that much work.

Edited September 19, 2012 by Phoynix

[Kopi]

Wow it looks very cool. If they decide not to implement it, l'll sure do it in a mod! I'd love to do the animation and this video is an excellent sample for it.

[Phoynix]

btw that crack in the video is a sonic boom

[the proctophantasmist]

I like this, give us an original take on a mostly useless weapon in CRPGs (when implemented). And from your description seems like a perfect weapon for a small band.

[Kilroy_Was_Here]

Wouldn't slings be much less effective against people in armor? In order to get any kind of range you'd need to mass-fire the bullets into the air and arc them back to the ground; would that velocity be enough to cause damage? I'm honestly asking... I'm not an expert on medieval weaponry.

 

I thought the most powerful pre-gunpowder weapon was the mace because it actually did more damage to an armored opponent. One hit to his dominant arm and he was done for, one hit to the head and... well it wouldn't be pretty. And swinging a mace is pretty easy compared to a sling or bow.

[Jarmo]

Effective against armour (but not as effective as bow against unarmored opponents) and long range..

but pretty slow rate of fire, needs an area to swirl, and very inaccurate compared to almost anything.

 

Sling held its ground for a long while, but it was replaced almost everywhere with bows and crossbows.

Not because the ancient people were really stupid like that, but because it's not as good a weapon.

 

Still... cheap firepower, easily portable, I'd like to see them in game.