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Alternate History General Discussion

I'd like to go into writing a story set during French Revolutionary times one day, and I like to think I know quite a lot about it.

Problem is, I'm not really sure how to translate those facts into a story. I'd fear that it'll just be me bragging about how much more I know about the revolution than anyone else with a bunch of matter of fact factoids.
 
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David Flin said:
3. Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves. Fire arrows do not have the range of ordinary arrows. The usefulness of fire arrows is marginal. They are also very specialised. Mary Rose had a number of longbows that were intended for use to shoot fire arrows at enemy sails. These were tested and found to have a draw of around 200lbs. I defy anyone to use such a bow with ease.
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In fact, flaming arrows don't exist in medieval times. Not really. The few mentions of it all bemoan that they are extremely slow, erratic and impractical. Not with extremely good accelerants to counter the flame being snuffed out by the wind and in very special circumstances like naval combat. Even gunpowder satchels don't really work, and good luck hitting a target with those hampering aim and speed. It needs fuel like gas to work. Which Hollywood has access to, and even then, I'm pretty sure prop masters moan about those arrows being a real pain to handle. The example chosen here, the Mary Rose is not medieval and is in naval combat indeed.
 
David Flin said:
Supplying 200 tons of food, and a similar amount of water, each and every day. Let's assume it's being supplied by cart, and its going on a 20 day jaunt (at a good speed, that'll be about 200 miles. 10 miles a day is a good pace cross-country). 200 plus 200 times 20 gives us 8000 tons of supplies. a typical period cart could carry around 2.5 tons (assuming good ground and strong horses - who are going to need feeding, but we'll ignore that). That means this army will need 3200 carts with it. A cart plus horses will be around 5 yards long, and we'll assume 5 yards between carts. That means the cart line will be nearly 20 miles long.
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I found this blog post to be useful in explaining this specific question of pace, when logistics and the scale of armies mean it isn't quite as simple as one person's walking speed. As the post itself acknowledged, the basic seemingly intuitive thing for authors without directly relevant experience to do is to multiply marching speed by time spend marching.

(I'm quite guilty of this one in the past, I'm sure).

Your supply train example is also a good illustration of why for larger pre-industrial armies, what might euphemistically be termed as "living off the land" was not just the result of amoral or cheap commanders but often the only practical option going if you didn't want a hungry, demobbed or mutinous unit taking matters into their own hands.
 
The correct answer is living off the river, because barges and boats can transport bulk items like grain in much greater quantities and more efficiently (boats don't eat oats). But that means you're quite closely tethered to a few places and the enemy can thus rather well foresee where you're going to attack. Otherwise, invest in mules, loads of them, like Philip and Alexander did.
 
I saw a post somewhere on how swords are meant to be light because you would need to potentially hold them over a sustained period, and I was all 'Mmm, not in my experience' (Of handling a genuine katana - in a controlled environment, under adult supervision, I should add) My experience was that the blade felt very light, but that the centre of the weight was all concentrated in the hilt, just in front of your hand, and that felt very heavy over sustained holding of it.

But I imagine it's different if you have, you know, any muscle in your arm/hand at all, which I didn't at the time. Archery is usually the thing where people often talk about physique, but I think that would all apply just as much if not moreso with swords. My experience was that you couldn't just be a normie or a kid and really expect to hold a sword for any length of time, even before we talk about technique. Which of course often crops up as a trope in fiction.
 
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Elektronaut said:
I saw a post somewhere on how swords are meant to be light because you would need to potentially hold them over a sustained period, and I was all 'Mmm, not in my experience' (Of handling a genuine katana - in a controlled environment, under adult supervision, I should add)
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That's probably an overcompensation from decades of fantasy media ludicrously overestimating the weight of weapons.
 
David Flin said:
Oh, and while continental archers drew the arrow back, British archers bent the bow. The one pulls the back of the arrow towards you, the other holds the arrow still and pushes the bow away.
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Is there a reason for this? What does pushing the bow accomplish vs pulling the arrow?
 
Medieval one-hander: eight hundred grams to a kilo and two hundred grams. Lighter than a fully-loaded Glock, and better balanced.

Late medieval two-handers: can reach the kilo and six hundred grams. Lighter than any rifle.

And on this, we know because we have thousands of the bloody things still available to us and we just have to weigh them and establish medians, modes and means. Plenty of textbooks as well discussing what works, what does not, etc.

But overall very-well balanced, so, much easier to handle than, say, a one-liter water bottle.

Funnily enough, rapiers are usually just as heavy if not heavier than medieval two-handers.

Whereas any propmaster looking to avoid an accident is going to deliberately blunt them, making the balance worse. They are also going to make them larger and longer because of the need to speak through a visual medium. That is also going to contribute to make them heavier and feel heavier than proper swords. And finally actors are going to make great big useless gestures with them which look more impressive but only hit air (because that's generally appreciated by the stuntpeople facing them, but in real life because it'd be pretty easy to dodge someone who shows their hand so clearly) and are much more tiring than smaller jabs and cuts which are better controlled.

We just have to look at sharp knives in the kitchen and ball-peen hammers to see the kind of damage they can work if they were used as weapons and the speed with which a practiced hand can move them. And they're not particularly heavy either.
 
David Flin said:
Having used one, I can confirm. Back, sides, hips, and legs all play a part in doing so. The thing is, it's not too hard to draw and fire one arrow. However, one would be expected to fire dozens of the damn things. If you're not used to it, that is exhausting. Trust me on this. After firing eight arrows, I was done for. And that was when I was fit.
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What was the law, again? Mandatory weekly practice by the whole village? With some skeletons (probably on board the already mentioned Mary Rose) found out to have differences in their arms akin to Rafael Nadal at the beginning of his career?
 
Avian Overlord said:
That's probably an overcompensation from decades of fantasy media ludicrously overestimating the weight of weapons.
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Probably, yeah.

I don't want to give the impression that it was fantasy-level heavy. It wasn't a clunk clunk how do I pick this off the floor thing. Absolutely not. I could hold it quite easily with one hand at first, and as I say, there's no weight taxing you from the blade, none at all. It's all in the hilt.

But believe me, if you're holding that weight continuously over many minutes with no sheathing of it, and no respite, and you don't have much muscle in your arms (as I did not) it becomes uncomfortable. It starts to wear on your hands, and wear on your arms. You would need some muscle there, some prerequisite strength, to actually wield it effectively, no question.
 
David Flin said:
In 1511, Henry VIII passed an "Act concerning shooting in Long Bows". This law provided that "All Sorts of Men under the Age of Forty Years shall have Bows and Arrows and practice using them."

In 1541, the act was extended to include men under 60, and mentioned games that were outlawed when archery should be practised.

The laws remained on the statute books until 1845, which repealed the law in respect of games of skill (but not, it seems, of chance).

The Statute Law (Repeals) Act 1969 tidied things up and basically repealed all the antiquated laws.

Shame.
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Imagine if, instead of learning how to bake sourdough bread, everybody had spent their lockdowns practicing with longbows.
 
David Flin said:
You bring bigger muscles into play, making it easier to use. Or, for the same effort, put more energy into an arrow.
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^^^ This.

At age 11, I could draw a 32 lb bow and shoot accurately (ish)[1], despite being a rather weedy-armed kid. Trust me, if it was all in the biceps of my right arm, I'd have had no chance.

[1] Accurate up to 30 yards (could get 4 golds/2 reds out of 6 arrows consistently), dangerous at 40 yards (1-2 golds, 3-4 reds, 0-2 blues) and could consistently loft arrows in at 130 yards within 5 yards of a central flag.
 
AndyC said:
^^^ This.

At age 11, I could draw a 32 lb bow and shoot accurately (ish)[1], despite being a rather weedy-armed kid. Trust me, if it was all in the biceps of my right arm, I'd have had no chance.

[1] Accurate up to 30 yards (could get 4 golds/2 reds out of 6 arrows consistently), dangerous at 40 yards (1-2 golds, 3-4 reds, 0-2 blues) and could consistently loft arrows in at 130 yards within 5 yards of a central flag.
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Speaking as a lapsed archery coach, that's not too shabby at that age.

The one thing with archery that gets me in films is how actors will draw and then hold for a minute or more.

Often, when teaching absolute beginners, I might draw them talk for quite a while, discussing the line of the arm, aiming points and all the rest. Now I'm not too weedy, in the grand scheme of things, but the point of the arrow would start to wander long before a minute. And this was a far more ergonomic bow than a curved stick, as my instructor called his longbow. So I would always relax, redraw, quick reminder, then loose.

But the average actor with a bow will draw, watch a five minute monologue without a tremor, then loose and shoot the bad guy in the eye socket.
 
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