Gulf Wars discussion - Archery

[Scott White]

>I had a blast playing with all the projectile stuff. The archers were
>pretty effective, I got popped in two of the battles by archery fire (Both
>open field battles) 

I'd never been shot by an arrow in battle before Gulf War. At Gulf, I was
hit by four.

When the battles were over, the gleaning piles would stand three feet high
and seven or eight feet wide. Sure kept you on your toes!

My ballista was also 'destroyed' by a catapult rock -- never saw who threw
it, but nice shot!

>The ballista fire was way cool. There was lots of it coming out at  my
>position, but they just didn't have the repeatability to nail my
>position.

I didn't bother shooting at other siege weapons because ballista bolts
weren't allowed to destroy them. Elephants, though ... that's another story
.... ;) And I did spear plenty of pavises!

>One thing that I was not real happy about was the idiots who put pieces of
>rebar(!**^%&^$) in their ammunition.

I know, that really irked me ... it's only gonna take one boneheaded
judgement call like that to get siege weapons banned from combat, or, worse
yet, hurt someone.

>We *really* need a set of standardized projectile rules 

Funny you should say that ... 

There's a lively discussion about that very thing going on in the Medieval
Siege Weaponry List <SIEGE at morgan.ucs.mun.ca> even as we speak! The
discussion is being led by the society archery marshall. Subscribe in the
usual way.

>One knight -I am
>so bad with names, to my shame - was firing duct tape wrapped rolls of TP
>with a small handful of beans inside. He graciously let be borrow some
>ammunition for a test on Thursday. The stuff seemed safe, so I was curious
>why the Marshals made him stop using it in the fort battles.

I wondered about that, too; I think he was a victim of the post-rebar
hysteria. The beanie-TPs seemed safe enough.

Gnith
<swhite at cimedia.com>