Why fantasy avoids gunpowder?

[Marduk]

We know it is useful, but not as useful as even early bombs. They were used as a weapon during WW1, by several countries.

WWI darts dropped from biplanes onto German trenches

British War magazine, The War Illustrated, noted at the time the Royal Flying Corps’ aversion to using the projectiles, called flechettes.

www.dailymail.co.uk

That time pilots dropped terrifying darts out of their planes at the enemy

Before the war, troops had no idea of the true devastation that a tank or fighter pilot could bring. And then they discovered evil darts.

www.wearethemighty.com

 

[Bear Ribs]

So, how useful would dropping darts be? I asked my husband to do some calcs for me and he said that if we had some sky cavalry flying at about 500m or 1640ft then a dropped dart might be going as fast as 220mph when it got to the ground, maybe less depending on air resistance. Bigger, heavier, skinnier denser darts will be less affected by air resistance. Maybe we can make them out of lead, with iron tips maybe, and fletching to make them fall straight and tip down. This is faster than even the fastest modern arrows which max out at around 200 mph. But an arrow is about 1/10 of a pound while these darts could be a lot heavier, maybe a pound or more. I could imagine a metal dart going faster than any long bow arrow but weighing 10 times as much or more could pose serious risks to even heavily armored knights, or penetrate roofs that aren’t specially armored as well.

Super-dependent on the kind of armor the targets are wearing. As pointed out above, even rocket-powered arrows from a Hwacha have trouble getting through a shield and full plate. Full plate armor was resistant to some surprisingly energetic attacks.

Gaining that much altitude would probably be exhausting for the mount, like a hard gallop for a horse. This might be a once a day sort of attack. Would it be worth it? I think it would depend on the circumstances. I think the sky cavalry needs a secure place to land after conducting their attack. If they don’t, normal cavalry might be able to follow them, catch them as they are forced to land from exhaustion, and would tear them to pieces.

That's a good point. Another aspect is going to be scouting and communicating. Thirty or 40 miles an hour isn't particularly fast as birds go (Condors are fairly slow gliders and still beat 50mph routinely). A harpy or pegasi platoon would be able to cover a lot of land and spot from the sky, readily detect any army at a great distance compared to land-bound scouts on foot. They would also be able to transport reports and orders overland at a distance of hundreds of miles in one day, allowing for a much shorter OODA loop and more complex maneuvers than any historical army had before the invention of radio.

 

[ShieldWife]

You know, I think maybe griffins or winged horses are overkill when it comes to what sky cavalry would most useful for. What if we just had trained eagles, or eagles that are extremely intelligent, controlled by a wizard or druid, or maybe are magical familiars.

According to this link, some eagles can carry over 10 pounds. Imagine having a bunch of eagles each carrying 10 of the darts I described. They are far smaller, far cheaper to raise and feed, and likely much better fliers. They are also (assuming high intelligence or some mental connection) even better at reconnaissance. This would also work with small fantasy flying creatures too, who could actually fly without violating laws of physics.

 

[ShadowArxxy]

To take a historical example, Roman war darts -- plumbata or martiobarbuli -- were effective skirmishing weapons. They generally only caused light wounds, but they had a longer range than the relatively small warbows carried by cavalry, and they were light and compact enough that every legionnaire could carry five of them clipped to the inside of the shield.

Similar darts dropped by flying cavalry could be used to the same purpose -- not accurate enough to be an anti-armor weapon, but a skirmishing tool that serves to harass and wound an advancing enemy formation without effective reply.

 

[Bear Ribs]

So what kind of tactics might the ground forces use to protect themselves from flying cavalry/bomber eagles/pixie slingers?

Helmets are obviously a must but most soldiers already really want to have helmets. Large shields that could be raised to provide a quick tetsudo-like protection would help but soldiers already want to have shields too. Obviously you'll want your own flying cavalry to counter them but you also couldn't count on that always succeeding and would want to make an effort to counter them in other ways.

Would it be possible to have a squad carry something like a big leather umbrella or four guys hoisting a pavilion over the rest? Possibly not carrying it open at march if that's too much, but something that would be raised quickly when they stopped? Would wagons similarly have something like a boiled leather or brigandine top to keep flaming darts from landing in the supplies and burning them or would that be too heavy to transport?

 

[Doomsought]

The roman tortoise formation works for heavy infantry.
The other solution is fortification: thick wooden roofs, wooden roofs covered in furs or thick thatch.

 

[S'task]

So what kind of tactics might the ground forces use to protect themselves from flying cavalry/bomber eagles/pixie slingers?

Helmets are obviously a must but most soldiers already really want to have helmets. Large shields that could be raised to provide a quick tetsudo-like protection would help but soldiers already want to have shields too. Obviously you'll want your own flying cavalry to counter them but you also couldn't count on that always succeeding and would want to make an effort to counter them in other ways.

Would it be possible to have a squad carry something like a big leather umbrella or four guys hoisting a pavilion over the rest? Possibly not carrying it open at march if that's too much, but something that would be raised quickly when they stopped? Would wagons similarly have something like a boiled leather or brigandine top to keep flaming darts from landing in the supplies and burning them or would that be too heavy to transport?

You'd likely see a lot more use of cover in battles too. Keeping forces in forests until they must engage, or engaging in forests.

You may also see looser formations depending on exactly how common flyers are. Loose formations are much less susceptible to the types of weapons air cavalry can deploy, though a loose formation makes you more vulnerable to heavy infantry and ground calvary. You can mitigate the danger from ground cavalry by doing things to disrupt charges such a digging trenches and such (and if we're assuming fairly high fantasy, you could easily have a wizard or two summon earth elementals to move earth quickly and easily...

So you might actually see some sort of proto-trench warfare develop to hold ground against the combination of ground and air cavalry. Trenches would disrupt ground cavalry charges while allowing looser formations that are less susceptible to air attack. Well-developed defenses might even include underground bunkers that allowed near complete safety against air cav.

 

[Bear Ribs]

You'd likely see a lot more use of cover in battles too. Keeping forces in forests until they must engage, or engaging in forests.

You may also see looser formations depending on exactly how common flyers are. Loose formations are much less susceptible to the types of weapons air cavalry can deploy, though a loose formation makes you more vulnerable to heavy infantry and ground calvary. You can mitigate the danger from ground cavalry by doing things to disrupt charges such a digging trenches and such (and if we're assuming fairly high fantasy, you could easily have a wizard or two summon earth elementals to move earth quickly and easily...

So you might actually see some sort of proto-trench warfare develop to hold ground against the combination of ground and air cavalry. Trenches would disrupt ground cavalry charges while allowing looser formations that are less susceptible to air attack. Well-developed defenses might even include underground bunkers that allowed near complete safety against air cav.

Hmm, that would suggest the mortar would stay active as well. Mortars were invented around the 5th century after all, but fell out of service because they were harder to aim and less effective that direct cannon shells. They came back in the trench warfare of WW1 because direct fire wasn't as effective against trenches.

And due to firing high into the air, mortars set for airburst might be more effective against flying cavalry as well, though this presumes the PBI on the ground are able to time a fuze well enough to make the mortar burst at remotely the right altitude, not a good bet unless there's magic detection/aim spells or some kind of blessing effect in action. Probably there would be doctrine about firing in ripples and having the platoon set each of their mortars to a slightly different elevation in order to increase chances of one of the shells sending some shrapnel through a wing.

Still a flak mortar shell would have better odds of hitting an attacking harpy squadron than a direct cannonball and better range than grapeshot.

 

[Navarro]

Depending on the magic system, mages could also be effective against flyers, via weather manipulation. defensive shields over troops and magical projectile deployment.

 

[ShieldWife]

I don’t know if leather umbrellas or even shields would stop one of these darts if they, as I described, go faster than any longbow arrow but weight 10 times as much. I would be worried even in plate armor. Roofs could be reinforced with really thick wood, but it would increase the cost of buildings quite a bit.

I think that military formations that were being targeted by this sort of attack would be motivated to move and/or spread out. The darts wouldn’t be very accurate, so dense slow moving formations would be the most vulnerable. If the units are moving spread out, then they likely won’t take that many casualties.

This is an advantage in some way for the air cavalry. Their darts may not kill that many enemies, but by forcing them out of formation, making them move out of a good position, or causing chaos in the ranks can allow ground allies to win. For example, we could have some pike units set of in a way that make them effectively invulnerable to enemy cavalry or even hard for infantry to tackle. But, you send up sky cav (or intelligent eagles, harpies, etc.) to harass those units, it might force them to move enough to disrupt their highly organized pike formation.

Alternatively, if shields are strong enough to stop the darts, then forcing an enemy unit into a testudo formation will keep them from moving quickly and allow the enemy to outmaneuver them.

 

[Aldarion]

 

[ATP]

I don’t know if leather umbrellas or even shields would stop one of these darts if they, as I described, go faster than any longbow arrow but weight 10 times as much. I would be worried even in plate armor. Roofs could be reinforced with really thick wood, but it would increase the cost of buildings quite a bit.

I think that military formations that were being targeted by this sort of attack would be motivated to move and/or spread out. The darts wouldn’t be very accurate, so dense slow moving formations would be the most vulnerable. If the units are moving spread out, then they likely won’t take that many casualties.

This is an advantage in some way for the air cavalry. Their darts may not kill that many enemies, but by forcing them out of formation, making them move out of a good position, or causing chaos in the ranks can allow ground allies to win. For example, we could have some pike units set of in a way that make them effectively invulnerable to enemy cavalry or even hard for infantry to tackle. But, you send up sky cav (or intelligent eagles, harpies, etc.) to harass those units, it might force them to move enough to disrupt their highly organized pike formation.

Alternatively, if shields are strong enough to stop the darts, then forcing an enemy unit into a testudo formation will keep them from moving quickly and allow the enemy to outmaneuver them.

If i remember correctly,british planes used such darts instead of bombs against germans in the beginning of WW1,killing few and creating myth about angels of Mons.