ANST - Another idea
Keith Hood
keith_dell at hotmail.com
Tue Feb 8 08:09:55 PST 2000
Hello again. More stuff about increasing effectiveness at the fort battles
at Gulf War. I tried proposing this before and I still think it would work.
We didn't get a chance to try it last year, obviously.
This year we may face a serious ammunition problem. In previous years we
have had archers run dry in the middle of the fort battles, and we cannot
afford to have that happen again. So, what we need to do is set up a system
to rearm during the fighting using captured arrows.
I propose we set up an arrow inspection point outside the castle area, and
have an inspection process running during the fighting. We have people
picking up the Trimaran arrows shot at us during the fight, carrying them to
the inspection point, and then redistributing to the archers those shafts
which pass the inspection. Those who are standing around waiting for the
ground attacks to begin, could help by picking up spent shafts and handing
them to the ammo runners (make sure you keep the shields up at the same
time, of course).
Rather than trying to actually get new arrows to each individual archer, it
would probably be more effective to set up three or four points where we
dump the inspected arrows in a basket, and archers who have emptied their
quivers go back to those distribution points. I'll supply the baskets and
some way to mark them so they're easy to see.
This would be a way to contribute to the fighting effectiveness of the
Ansteorran forces for people who would like to add their efforts, but for
some reason cannot do so in some other way. If there is an archery marshal
who for some reason cannot shoot in the battle, we could use you to run the
inspection point. This would also be a useful fallback mission for injured
archers. If you lose an arm so you cannot draw the bow anymore, and you
don't want or can't switch to fight heavy, then you'd be a natural for
running arrows to and from the inspection station. Volunteers for ammo
runners from among heavy fighters who figure they haven't got anything
better to do for the moment would be greatly appreciated.
There is one problem--we would have to give some consideration to the
freedom of movement needed by the ammo runners. We'd have to see to it that
there are lanes left open between the inspection point and the distribution
point. But I would think that shouldn't be too hard. It would only involve
one-man width lanes and would not be required the entire length of the
fight. Or maybe if everybody understands how this idea works and where the
resupply points are, other people could help pass the inspected shafts to
the distribution baskets.
Obviously, this idea becomes invalid once the ground attack on the walls
begins. At that point, the heavy fighters will be moving around so much
there would no longer be a chance for resupply to take place. So this idea
would be useful only during the first half or so of each fort battle. But
during those stretches it could do a lot to keep up our rate of fire. And
remember that it is legal to glean and refire golf tube arrows and ballista
bolts without having them inspected by a marshal.
Tomonaga
--
A long bow and a strong bow,
And let the sky grow dark.
The nock to the cord, the shaft to the ear,
And a foreign king for a mark!
-- Stolen from "The Song of the Bosonian Archers" --
By Robert E. Howard, who should be
the patron saint of Ansteorra
______________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
============================================================================
Go to http://lists.ansteorra.org/lists.html to perform mailing list tasks.
More information about the Ansteorra
mailing list