MISSILE WEAPONS

Author's note: Most role-playing games include a fairly extensive list of the types of weapons and armour available in their particular setting. Providing information on medieval weapons therefore seems redundant - your own particular game or world-book probably contains information more relevant than I can provide. This site therefore deals with the less well-covered topic of Renaissance weaponry.

Bows & Crossbows

Old fashioned missile weapons were still in used in the sixteenth century, albeit less so than in medieval times. The old debate about the relative merits of the longbow and the crossbow had by now been eclipsed by debates about the suitability of traditional versus gunpowder weapons. The gunsmiths argued that their weapons were much easier to learn to use, so that highly skilled archers were no longer required. The principal argument on the other side was that traditional weapons had a much greater rate of fire than gunnes. Another argument, put forward by a Tory MP in the British House of Commons, was that the youth of today were becoming layabouts and hooligans because they were no longer being taught the manly, character-building pursuit of archery on the village green as they had in his younger days.

Handgunnes

The first hand-held gunpowder weapons were devised as early as the late fourteenth century. These hand-cannons consisted of a long tube of metal, closed at one end and with a small hole in the middle. A lead pellet was placed inside the tube and steadied with wadding. Gunpowder was then poured through the hole and ignited.

There were three principal problems with this design. Firstly, in order to fire the weapon, you had to be looking at the hole, not the target - so aiming at a moving object was out of the question. Secondly, they had a disturbing tendency to explode when used. Finally, you couldn't really move the weapon around, because the powder would just fall out of the hole.

Advances in metallurgy eased the second problem (although it wasn't quite eliminated), and the addition of a pan around the charge-hole solved the third. The problem of aiming proved rather more intractable, and these early hand-cannons were consequently of little use except for frightening horses and perhaps firing at massed ranks of the enemy.

The problem was finally solved in the mid fifteenth century with the introduction of the matchlock mechanism. These gunnes worked by plunging a burning wick into the pan holding the powder. The wick was attached to a long lever which could be operated by the user without having to look away from his target. It was at this point that the gunne began to seriously challenge the traditional missile weapons.

The next advance, in the late fifteenth century, was the arquebus, a matchlock weapon which incorporated a trigger for the first time. This was an improvement over the lever mechanism, in that it was now easier to hold the weapon steady whilst firing it.

The weak points of these weapons were the long time it took to load them and the problem of the fuse. Often made from sulphur-impregnated cord so that it would light easily, the fuse had to be extinguished, adjusted (via a screw-clamp) and then re-lit every time the weapon was used. If this was not done, it would burn down and become too short to reach the pan. It also meant that the weapon gave off a visible glow before firing, making it somewhat ineffective in an ambush.

SIEGE WEAPONS

In the middle ages, there were essentially two types of siege engine: catapults and ballistae. Catapults are by far the older of the two, and come in a variety of different forms from the small onagers to the huge trebuchets. Apart from boulders, fire pots and dead animals are frequently used as ammunition (the latter to spread disease inside a besieged castle or town).

Ballistae are effectively gigantic crossbows, sometimes with multiple heads capable of firing more than one missile at a time. Their construction is generally more complex than catapults, and they are less likely to be constructed on site, and instead have to be carried to the field of battle.

Once gunpowder came on the scene, a range of new weapons appeared. By the sixteenth century, catapults and ballistae had been entirely replaced by cannons. Like ballistae, these usually have to be pre-built if they are to be at all safe to the user.

Grenades and similar bombs were used from very early days, although they were not particularly efficient or safe to use at first. One form was the petard, a grenade with a great spike attached to it. The user had to run up to the enemy's gates, ram the petard into it, and then run away again before it could explode (or the defenders could shoot him). Petards had the unfortunate tendency to explode when rammed home, thus 'hoisting' the petardier. For understandable reasons, these weapons were not terribly popular with the troops.