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Crossbow

2020-02-19T02:37:02Z

2601:280:5B7F:85C4:C03E:94B0:328F:3737: /* Loading Mechanisms */

[[image:crossbow.jpg|thumb|300px|right|An Arbalast Crossbow with an iron prod. Note the iron stirrup ring on the front; which the user could use in this case to hold down with his foot when pulling back the draw string or mounting a gaffe lever to push the string back]]
{{topquote|'''I waste him with my crossbow!'''|Bob Herzog, ''[[Knights Of The Dinner Table]]''}}

The '''crossbow''' is named for its cross-shaped design, as it is basically a [[Bows and Arrows|bow]] (in technical terms, called a prod) on a stock (alternatively called a tiller) that uses a locking trigger mechanism to hold and fire either an arrow (called a bolt or quarrel) or a small spherical stone or lead bullet (the latter usually being used for hunting). Bolts are arrows with a shorter shaft, and could range from being lighter than an average arrow to several times heavier. It operates on the same principle as the traditional bow in that a tough bowstring is pulled back to store potential energy in the bow, which upon release of the string, transfers it to a projectile.

While historians are unsure who first made the crossbow, the earliest known crossbows were found in [[China]] around 700 to 500 BCE. During the Warring States period, crossbows became a preferred ranged weapon of Chinese armies due to ease of use for conscripts and the use of crossbows certainly aided in the rise of the Qin Dynasty and the beginning of Imperial China. The Greeks and Romans experimented with hand-held crossbows, but they never made extensive use of them, although they did make extensive use of ballista (basically a crossbow scaled up to the size of an artillery piece, and often shot stone instead of scaled up arrows). The [[Asians|Chinese]] of these times, on the other hand, had crossbows of all types and shapes: from one-handed repeater crossbows, capable of launching dozens of (fairly weak, but often poisoned) arrows per minute, to absurdly heavy ones, designed to be pulled by legs, rather than arms, and launch arrows the size of small javelin, later with gunpowder-filled bombs on the heading at range, only rivaled by siege engines, though later they passed out in favor of multiple rocket launchers (yes, you read it right). Crossbows began to see widespread use in Europe around 1000 CE, at this time emerged crossbows with steel bow sections, more commonly called arbalasts.

The difference between a bow and a crossbow is that a bow's string needs to be pulled back and held by the user while aiming, while a crossbow has a mechanism that locks the bowstring in a readied state and only requires the user to operate the trigger to release the bolt upon sighting their target. The trigger mechanism evolved over time, as did aids for drawing the crossbow's string. The weight or size of the crossbow certainly had an effect on the mechanisms involved, as light crossbows could be reset by hand, but heavier version could end up using levers or crank-operated windlasses to pull back and cock the string, and tended to use more robust release mechanisms due to the increased stress involved.

In fantasy settings, technologically advanced races who don't (or in limitation) employ [[firearm]]s as their go-to weapon typically make heavy use of crossbows. It is also the ranged weapon of choice for richer and more experienced mercenaries.

For some reason in a lot of fantasy and medieval fiction it seems to be the preferred ranged weapon of whoever the bad guys are. Examples include A Song Of Ice and Fire (where it seems to be the favorite weapon of [[brundlepenis|King Joffrey]]), The Lord of the Rings ([[Ork|Uruk-Hai]] marksmen use crossbows) and different settings of DnD ([[Drow]] poisoned repeater crossbows). This may have something to do with crossbows being less relying on the wielder's strengths, stamina and personal skill, and thus regarded as "unfair" weapon compared to bow, it was at one point banned by the pope for use on Christians, although due to it's usefulness on the battlefield this was largely ignored.

The crossbow is also the favored ranged weapon of [[dwarves]] in most fantasy fiction, though in this case it may be more than just aesthetics; while it would be fitting for a race known for their technical expertise to use a more complex device, also keep in mind that dwarves would have a harder time using regular bows. A bow's power depends on its draw length, and having shorter arms, dwarves can't get as much power out of a bow. They also need a weapon that can be used more easily in confined spaces, which disqualifies longbows right away. What they do have going for them, though, is great strength, making a crossbow's high draw weight less of an issue for them.

==Use in warfare==
A major advantage of crossbows over regular bows is that because they're fired using a mechanism instead of depending on human strength to hold the bow in a ready-to-fire position, user fatigue is no longer such a huge factor Additionally, the heavier crossbows could generate more force than most humans thanks to the pulley systems used to cock the string, thus heavier bolts could be thrown, resulting in greater penetration of the target. Possibly its biggest advantage is that it was easier to train the use of a crossbow than bows since the weapon's operation is much less taxing.

Of course, the main drawback with crossbows is that they require a wider range of resources and skills to produce due to the mechanisms involved. Crossbows also generally have a lower rate of fire than bows. At best, a crossbowman can get off about eight shots a minute. More powerful arbalast crossbows that used windlasses could manage about three shots a minute, but could store more energy than a human could physically pull back with bare hands. For these reasons Crossbows excel in a siege situation where the ranges are long and you can duck into cover easily while you're reloading. And since sieges tended to be drawn-out affairs anyway, reload time wasn't as necessary.

That being said, despite crossbows being much more expensive than bows, they were much less demanding on user's skill and physique, meaning you can train as many crossbowmen as you have crossbows and replenish killed ones in just few months of training, while in order to train a bowmen you need to start with kids. So while a single bowman is much more effective than a single crossbowman, you can afford a half-dozen of crossbowmen for the cost of one bowman, and replace lost ones quickly as long as their weapon survives the battle. This is probably why they first took off in Warring States period China, where raising large conscript armies was the name of the game.

It should be noted that despite having much greater draw weights than contemporary bows (above 500 lbs in some cases), crossbows were not proportionally more powerful due to their very short draw length, translating into a much briefer energy transfer. More modern crossbows sometimes address this by using recurve bows, or even by using a bullpup configuration by turning the bow backwards and then pulling the string past the bow. Additionally, the reduced aerodynamic properties of crossbow bolts as compared to arrows mean that they very rapidly lose velocity after a relatively short distance, giving them great punch at short range but reduced effectiveness at longer ranges as compared to bows.

The fact that even relatively poorly trained men armed with crossbows could royally murder fully armored knights, made the crossbow one of the most hated pre-firearm weapons in the Europe, even more than the infamous flamberge. At some point it even came to the pope banning crossbows as unholy weapon not to be used on fellow Christians, but even then they remained popular among mercenaries, rich lords and Protestants. Proud knights could accept deaths from elite long/composite bowmen who like them were training from childhood, but not from some hastily drilled dirty peasant levies whose lord could afford few dozens of crossbows.

Crossbows are still occasionally used for military purposes; while a crossbow's bolts lack the stopping power of modern firearms, the bolts it fires are quieter than any "silenced" firearm and it can also be used for niche purposes such as launching grappling hooks or detonating tripwire-activated mines, and its lower projectile speed means it's much less likely to set off any worn explosives. While its comparatively lower ability to kill outright can be an issue you could use the same solution that the Indian Navy used for this problem and use Cyanide tipped bolts, or take the Rambo route and use bolts with explosive tips.

See Also: [[Katanas are Underpowered in d20#Crossbows are Underpowered in d20|Crossbows are Underpowered in d20]]

===Loading Mechanisms===
Because later crossbows were often too tough to simply pull back unaided, a number of devices were invented to allow the wielder rearm the crossbow via pulling back the string (in a process called spanning). The device used usually depended upon the draw weight of the bow, as heavier bows would require more advanced devices that required more time to pull back.

*'''Gloves and Stirrup''': Generally leather or some other material, good quality gloves (or some tough callouses) can save one some finger or palm bleeding from trying to pull it by the old fashioned way. Talking from experience, if one is to do it this way, put your entire upper back and arms into it, and pull. Either user placed both feet on the bow's span on each side of the stock or in the stirrup ring attached to the crossbow head. Most commonly associated way of reloading in popular culture besides the Cranequin and Windlass. First appearance: 700 to 500's BCE. Mechanical advantage: 1 to 1. Maximum draw weight: 150-300 lbs.
*'''Stirrup and Belt Hook''': Most crossbows you see have a stirrup ring towards the front end for putting your foot through to hold it steady. Combined with a belt worn around the waist with a hook attached to it, the wielder could use their whole body, rather than just their arms, to arm the crossbow. Could also use a belt-attached pulley configuration to lessen the strength to draw. First appearance: 1200's. Mechanical advantage: about 2 or 1 to 1 (depending on whether using pulley configuration). Maximum draw weight: 320-450 lbs.
*'''Goat's Foot Lever''': This was a fairly simple detachable metal lever that gave the user more leverage when pulling back the string. Composed of a rod attached to two curved prongs and two hinged hooks; it's shape had a resemblance to a goat's foot (obvious in the name). Mounts on two metal lugs on the body's sides near the trigger, pull drawstring back in one motion via two hinged hooks, place folded lever back on belt, load the bolt on the crossbow, and then shoot. This could arm the crossbow in a single motion with the lever's curved prongs making the drawing force decrease as the spanning distance increases. Very common for field portable bows and mounted crossbowmen. First appearance: Between 1300's to 1400's. Mechanical Advantage: from 5 up to 30 to 1 (depending on how far the lever is pulled). Maximum draw weight: 500-600 lbs.
*'''Gaffe Lever''': a two piece wooden lever held by a hinge and attached to the stirrup ring via metal hook. User pushed down on the lever to push the drawstring into the trigger before removing. More associated with nobles for hunting or shooting clubs after the gunpowder weapons appeared in the 1500's during the Renaissance. First appearance: 1500's. Mechanical advantage: up to 30 to 1. Maximum draw weight: 400 lbs.
*'''Lever-Action/Self Spanning''': Uses levers embedded into the crossbow body. The user unlocks catch holding the hinge firm before folding open the half of the crossbow body to catch the drawstring on a latch before pulling back to the trigger to arm the crossbow. Unlike the Asian equivalent in the Chu-Ko-Nu, these did not have a top magazine. This enabled users to aim after loading and pulling a trigger to shoot at the cost of having to load the bolt by hand. Besides the Scottish Border Reivers' latchet crossbow in the 1600's, two noted examples are Martin Löffelholz's armbrust in the Codex Löffelholz and Da Vinci's Balestra Veloce in the Codex Atlanticus. While [[Awesome|impressive]], lever-action crossbows were never mainstream or famous due to the transition to gunpowder weapons in the 1500's during the Renaissance. First appearance: 1500's. Mechanical advantage: up to 25 to 1. Maximum draw weight: 220 - 300 lbs.
*'''Windlass''': Like the Cranequin, this was a winding device, but it also came with a bulky pulley system that was mounted to the back of the crossbow. As a result, this was a tremendously powerful pulling system at the expense of needing a lot of time to arm. Along with the Cranequin, this was one of the strongest crossbow loading methods. Contrary to popular culture, it was more often used on large, heavy crossbows for stationary battles like trench warfare or sieges like modern anti-tank guns. On the other hand, usage on open battlefields (behind pavise shields) for support artillery wasn't unheard of. First appearance: 1400’s. Mechanical advantage: ~160 to 1. Maximum draw weight: 1500 lbs+ (limited by time and bow strength).
*'''Cranequin''': Also called the "Rack and Pinion," this device used gears and a crank to wind up the bowstring, requiring multiple turns to pull it all the way back. Device slid onto lugs mounted on the stock and was removed before firing. Along with the Windlass, this was one of the strongest crossbow loading methods. Contrary to popular culture, it was more often used on large, heavy crossbows for stationary battles like trench warfare or sieges like modern anti-tank guns. On the other hand, usage on mounted crossbowmen with lighter crossbows and by footmen on open battlefields (behind pavise shields) for artillery support wasn't unheard of. First appearance: 1500's. Mechanical advantage: ~600 or 840 to 1. Maximum draw weight: 2000 lbs+.

==Types of Crossbows==
As a general note, crossbows are not ballistas, despite their visual similarity. Unlike Crossbows which store energy in a set of arms which are bent back, Ballistas instead store energy in twisted rope that has a wooden beam pushed into it which is then twisted back farther before firing to store energy. That said, some ballistas are discussed here until a proper "[[Siege Weapon|siege]]" article is consolidated.

*'''Gastraphetes''': an early Greek crossbow, the Gastraphetes, or "belly bow", was cocked by resting the stomach on the bolt rest of the stock (which contained a sliding plank attached to the drawstring) and pushing down so that more energy can be stored then an archer could provide. The Gastraphetes worked slightly different from the classic crossbow, in that its arrow slot was two-piece, with the sliding inner plank attached to the rope. Thus, rather than drawing back the crossbow, you readied it by slamming it into the ground until the trigger catches onto a latch. While impressive, it was restricted to hip fire, was fired with a button-like trigger, and was more of a man portable siege weapon. A larger winch-spanned, tripod-mounted version, the Oxybeles, was in use as a stationary artillery weapon before being replaced by the ballista.

* '''Polybolos''': meaning “multi-bolt thrower” in Greek and also known as a repeating ballista, the Polybolos is more of a big cross bow since the arms are fixed to the "stock" and don't twist around to fire it. The repeating ballista was fired by turning a wheel connected to a chain back to cock it, the turning it the other way to load it again from a hopper on top of the stock.

* '''Chinese "Nu" crossbow''': unlike the European crossbow, which had a power stroke (drawing span) of about 7 inches; used a rolling nut latch held in place by a sear pushed by a long horizontal lever-like trigger in the middle of the stock; and used prods (bow pieces) made from simple wood, composite, and later with metal; the Chinese crossbow had a power stroke of about 21 inches; used a complicated two-piece vertical trigger at the very back of the stock (held together by tension and two pins at the very end of the stock) on a pistol grip; and used wood or composite prods (often salvaged from recurve bows and constructed for conscripts to use en mass instead of drilling archery skills into them). Thus, due to the longer power stroke via the trigger being placed further back and assuming all other factors are equal, the bolts fired by the Chinese bows (usually with draw weights of 380 lbs) were launched with comparable performance to an average European windlass crossbow (with a draw weight of 1,500 lbs). However, the Chinese crossbows themselves were rather large, cumbersome, and had to be reloaded with just stirrup rings, belt hooks, and/or gloves.

* '''Chu-Ko-Nu''': literally meaning “Zhuge’s Crossbow," classical legend associated it a Chinese noble named Zhuge Liang (2nd Century AD). Alternatively known as the Lian Nu (repeating crossbow), it's also known as the Chinese repeating crossbow and is one of the more common types of crossbow seen in fiction. In reality, it was invented during the Warring States Period (4th Century BC) in the State of Chu. The term "repeating crossbow" brings to mind some bastard combination of Assault rifle and crossbow, which it kinda is and is not. Without doubt, this thing could fire quickly; trained soldiers could loose ten bolts in fifteen seconds before having to reload. Mechanically, it consisted of a stock that the user secured on their hip with the bowstring sliding through a slit on each side of the sliding magazine/bolt rest. By pushing and then pulling the lever that secures the magazine to the stock, the user catches bowstring on a notch at the back end of the slits while loading the bolt by gravity onto the bolt rest. Once the lever is fully compressed down, a sliding lug nut at the base of the magazine pushes the string up off the notches and propels the bolt out. However, because of the mechanism's design, the pumping action that pulled the string back also fired the bolt at the same time while the magazine is built on top of the bow. Due to that, you could not pull the string back and then aim. Chu-ko-nu's were limited to hip fire; giving you almost ork levels of accuracy in exchange for an appreciable volume of fire. In layman's terms, it's the same as being restricted to hip-firing a pump action shotgun with the trigger permanently welded in the fire position. Additionally because you were pulling the string back one handed, the bolts had a lot less penetration power than those of a regular crossbow. However, the bolts (which fell down onto the stock from a hopper mounted on top) were often poisoned to make up for that (as seen with the [[Drow]], who make use of the weapon extensively). While no matter how strong the poison on your bolt is, you're not gonna kill a man instantly with a scratch. However, on the battlefield causing enough pain to make a person go into shock is as good as killing them outright, and poison delivers the last one in spades. The downside was you had next to no luck piercing good quality armor or thick leather that an enemy is wearing while you're using it.

* '''Balestra Veloce/Löffelholz Armbrust lever-action crossbows''': First mentioned in Leonardo Da Vinci's Codex Atlanticus (1478 to 1519) and Martin Löffelholz's Codex Löffelholz (1505), both versions of the said design used a stock consisting of of two wood and metal pieces on top of each other and hinged at the head of the crossbow. By unlocking a latch on the stock, the user can then swing forward the bottom half of the stock to extend a sliding latch to catch the drawstring. Once the drawstring is caught, the stock is then closed; locking the stock back together and bringing the latch (which is held firm by a spring-loaded sear) back into contact with the trigger on the lower half of the stock. User then loaded the bolt and pulled the trigger to compress the sear; letting the rolling nut release the crossbow string. Whether the German or Italian version came first is unclear; though the rapid fire crossbow pages in the Codex Atlanticus are dated back to 1485. Either codex's blueprints can be found online via an online archive created by "The Visual Agency" media company or a pdf scan hosted by Krakow's Jagiellonian Library respectively. While firing and reloading more rapidly than the mainstream "goats foot lever" crossbows, it was not widely used due to possibly three reasons.
** First, the amount of expert craftsmanship to make it and the extensive training to use it was cost prohibitive for a relatively complicated and delicately structured weapon. This meant that it was likely more of a special luxury weapon that only wealthy people could afford rather than a mass produced weapon for conscripts (the same reason why breech loading rifles existed since the 16th Century for hunting nobility but didn't replace muzzle-loading smoothbore muskets in mass use for militaries until the 1840's).
** Second, while quicker than spanning a crossbow with a goat's foot or gaffe lever, the draw weight is reduced to a mere average of 220 lbs. Being half of the maximum draw weight of gaffe and goat's foot lever crossbows, this meant weaker penetration and shorter ranges. This was likely to make the lever-action crossbow more easily rearmed without being too strong to either break the trigger lock or cock with your hands.
** Third, the introduction of gunpowder weapons alongside the volley fire from massed Pike and Shot square formations occurred during the Renaissance. Since these crossbows were developed right when gunpowder took over, this meant these lever-action crossbows already went obsolete the same way that heavy plate-armored cavalry and longbow archers did.

* '''Latch/Latchet lever-action Crossbow''': A light lever action crossbow popular with Scottish border raiders called Border Reivers in the 1600's to 1700's, it worked via swinging an internal metal lever forward from the top to push a sliding latch forward to secure the drawstring after unlocking the catch. The user then pushed the lever back into the body to arm the bow before loading and shooting. Popular to the Scottish in the region for home defense and raiding as they were small, easy to use, very quiet compared to a wheel-lock pistol, and took only 10 seconds to rearm and load. Their downside was their short range and being restricted to hip firing due to the trigger being a button on the top (a trade off to enable horsemen to fire one-handed from the saddle though you could tuck it into your armpit).

* '''Bed Crossbow''': A Chinese peculiarity, where multiple crossbows mounted on a static frame were combined to create an increased draw strength. A precursor to the compound crossbow.

*'''Bullet Crossbows''': Also referred to as pelletbows, stonebows, and ballesters, these were essentially the same as regular crossbows or similar to a slingshot in crossbow form, except they fired stone or lead shot instead of bolts. Usually used for recreational shooting and small game hunting.

*'''Crossbow pistol''': Small crossbows designed to be fired from one hand, with modernized versions commonly featuring a more modern pistol grip and trigger. While these did exist in the past, they were nowhere near as lethal as battlefield crossbows as the draw weights were far smaller.

*'''Arbalast''': As European armor improved with the development of steel plate crossbows with wooden bow sections were just not cutting the mustard anymore, as such they began making that part out of steel. This meant that the bow could store more energy and launch a projectile farther and faster, significantly improving armor penetration but it also increased the amount of energy required to draw it, often requiring various leavers and cranking mechanisms to reset it.

*'''Slurbow:''' A crossbow with a cover over its barrel and a small gap used to draw its string back. Arguably influenced by the pistol, the slurbow was mostly used for firing unfeathered quarrels or darts.

*'''Sauterelle''': The last apparition of a crossbow-like weapon in a modern battlefield for frontline work. In WWI, soldiers had a problem: all the artillery that existed was big and unable to drop explosives accurately into a trench, especially at close range. And on the other hand, thrown hand grenades had the precision but too limited range. As an interim solution the French invented the ''Sauterelle'' (grasshopper in French): basically a big crossbow built to lob grenades at around 150 yards distance. Worked decently enough but later in the war they were replaced by small, two-man team infantry mortars that were just as easy to move around and use but had three or four time the range and a better rate of fire.

*'''Compound Crossbow''': the modern version of the crossbow, which is basically a modern compound bow on a rifle stock. Many of these also come equipped with telescopic sights modified with cross-hairs that compensate for the effects of gravity, wind, elevation, and other factors that might affect a bolt's accuracy. They are primarily used for hunting, sport and (unusually) home defense in Britain since everything else has been banned. Also finds military (specifically special forces, not frontline grunts), espionage and law enforcement utility by being used to fire ziplines or grappling hooks, explosive, incendiary, poisoned or gas releasing projectiles, or simply well made darts for a silent kill. Some more recent exotic ones combine various technological concepts from past and present (such as the Cobra Adder brand; a bizarre chimera between the Chu-Ko-Nu's hopper magazine (which is detachable), the Balestra Veloce's lever action system, along with modern optics, grips, and compound, composite bow-pieces).

{{MedievalWeaponry}}

Crossbow

2020-02-19T02:35:28Z

2601:280:5B7F:85C4:C03E:94B0:328F:3737: /* Loading Mechanisms */

[[image:crossbow.jpg|thumb|300px|right|An Arbalast Crossbow with an iron prod. Note the iron stirrup ring on the front; which the user could use in this case to hold down with his foot when pulling back the draw string or mounting a gaffe lever to push the string back]]
{{topquote|'''I waste him with my crossbow!'''|Bob Herzog, ''[[Knights Of The Dinner Table]]''}}

The '''crossbow''' is named for its cross-shaped design, as it is basically a [[Bows and Arrows|bow]] (in technical terms, called a prod) on a stock (alternatively called a tiller) that uses a locking trigger mechanism to hold and fire either an arrow (called a bolt or quarrel) or a small spherical stone or lead bullet (the latter usually being used for hunting). Bolts are arrows with a shorter shaft, and could range from being lighter than an average arrow to several times heavier. It operates on the same principle as the traditional bow in that a tough bowstring is pulled back to store potential energy in the bow, which upon release of the string, transfers it to a projectile.

While historians are unsure who first made the crossbow, the earliest known crossbows were found in [[China]] around 700 to 500 BCE. During the Warring States period, crossbows became a preferred ranged weapon of Chinese armies due to ease of use for conscripts and the use of crossbows certainly aided in the rise of the Qin Dynasty and the beginning of Imperial China. The Greeks and Romans experimented with hand-held crossbows, but they never made extensive use of them, although they did make extensive use of ballista (basically a crossbow scaled up to the size of an artillery piece, and often shot stone instead of scaled up arrows). The [[Asians|Chinese]] of these times, on the other hand, had crossbows of all types and shapes: from one-handed repeater crossbows, capable of launching dozens of (fairly weak, but often poisoned) arrows per minute, to absurdly heavy ones, designed to be pulled by legs, rather than arms, and launch arrows the size of small javelin, later with gunpowder-filled bombs on the heading at range, only rivaled by siege engines, though later they passed out in favor of multiple rocket launchers (yes, you read it right). Crossbows began to see widespread use in Europe around 1000 CE, at this time emerged crossbows with steel bow sections, more commonly called arbalasts.

The difference between a bow and a crossbow is that a bow's string needs to be pulled back and held by the user while aiming, while a crossbow has a mechanism that locks the bowstring in a readied state and only requires the user to operate the trigger to release the bolt upon sighting their target. The trigger mechanism evolved over time, as did aids for drawing the crossbow's string. The weight or size of the crossbow certainly had an effect on the mechanisms involved, as light crossbows could be reset by hand, but heavier version could end up using levers or crank-operated windlasses to pull back and cock the string, and tended to use more robust release mechanisms due to the increased stress involved.

In fantasy settings, technologically advanced races who don't (or in limitation) employ [[firearm]]s as their go-to weapon typically make heavy use of crossbows. It is also the ranged weapon of choice for richer and more experienced mercenaries.

For some reason in a lot of fantasy and medieval fiction it seems to be the preferred ranged weapon of whoever the bad guys are. Examples include A Song Of Ice and Fire (where it seems to be the favorite weapon of [[brundlepenis|King Joffrey]]), The Lord of the Rings ([[Ork|Uruk-Hai]] marksmen use crossbows) and different settings of DnD ([[Drow]] poisoned repeater crossbows). This may have something to do with crossbows being less relying on the wielder's strengths, stamina and personal skill, and thus regarded as "unfair" weapon compared to bow, it was at one point banned by the pope for use on Christians, although due to it's usefulness on the battlefield this was largely ignored.

The crossbow is also the favored ranged weapon of [[dwarves]] in most fantasy fiction, though in this case it may be more than just aesthetics; while it would be fitting for a race known for their technical expertise to use a more complex device, also keep in mind that dwarves would have a harder time using regular bows. A bow's power depends on its draw length, and having shorter arms, dwarves can't get as much power out of a bow. They also need a weapon that can be used more easily in confined spaces, which disqualifies longbows right away. What they do have going for them, though, is great strength, making a crossbow's high draw weight less of an issue for them.

==Use in warfare==
A major advantage of crossbows over regular bows is that because they're fired using a mechanism instead of depending on human strength to hold the bow in a ready-to-fire position, user fatigue is no longer such a huge factor Additionally, the heavier crossbows could generate more force than most humans thanks to the pulley systems used to cock the string, thus heavier bolts could be thrown, resulting in greater penetration of the target. Possibly its biggest advantage is that it was easier to train the use of a crossbow than bows since the weapon's operation is much less taxing.

Of course, the main drawback with crossbows is that they require a wider range of resources and skills to produce due to the mechanisms involved. Crossbows also generally have a lower rate of fire than bows. At best, a crossbowman can get off about eight shots a minute. More powerful arbalast crossbows that used windlasses could manage about three shots a minute, but could store more energy than a human could physically pull back with bare hands. For these reasons Crossbows excel in a siege situation where the ranges are long and you can duck into cover easily while you're reloading. And since sieges tended to be drawn-out affairs anyway, reload time wasn't as necessary.

That being said, despite crossbows being much more expensive than bows, they were much less demanding on user's skill and physique, meaning you can train as many crossbowmen as you have crossbows and replenish killed ones in just few months of training, while in order to train a bowmen you need to start with kids. So while a single bowman is much more effective than a single crossbowman, you can afford a half-dozen of crossbowmen for the cost of one bowman, and replace lost ones quickly as long as their weapon survives the battle. This is probably why they first took off in Warring States period China, where raising large conscript armies was the name of the game.

It should be noted that despite having much greater draw weights than contemporary bows (above 500 lbs in some cases), crossbows were not proportionally more powerful due to their very short draw length, translating into a much briefer energy transfer. More modern crossbows sometimes address this by using recurve bows, or even by using a bullpup configuration by turning the bow backwards and then pulling the string past the bow. Additionally, the reduced aerodynamic properties of crossbow bolts as compared to arrows mean that they very rapidly lose velocity after a relatively short distance, giving them great punch at short range but reduced effectiveness at longer ranges as compared to bows.

The fact that even relatively poorly trained men armed with crossbows could royally murder fully armored knights, made the crossbow one of the most hated pre-firearm weapons in the Europe, even more than the infamous flamberge. At some point it even came to the pope banning crossbows as unholy weapon not to be used on fellow Christians, but even then they remained popular among mercenaries, rich lords and Protestants. Proud knights could accept deaths from elite long/composite bowmen who like them were training from childhood, but not from some hastily drilled dirty peasant levies whose lord could afford few dozens of crossbows.

Crossbows are still occasionally used for military purposes; while a crossbow's bolts lack the stopping power of modern firearms, the bolts it fires are quieter than any "silenced" firearm and it can also be used for niche purposes such as launching grappling hooks or detonating tripwire-activated mines, and its lower projectile speed means it's much less likely to set off any worn explosives. While its comparatively lower ability to kill outright can be an issue you could use the same solution that the Indian Navy used for this problem and use Cyanide tipped bolts, or take the Rambo route and use bolts with explosive tips.

See Also: [[Katanas are Underpowered in d20#Crossbows are Underpowered in d20|Crossbows are Underpowered in d20]]

===Loading Mechanisms===
Because later crossbows were often too tough to simply pull back unaided, a number of devices were invented to allow the wielder rearm the crossbow via pulling back the string (in a process called spanning). The device used usually depended upon the draw weight of the bow, as heavier bows would require more advanced devices that required more time to pull back.

*'''Gloves and Stirrup''': Generally leather or some other material, good quality gloves (or some tough callouses) can save one some finger or palm bleeding from trying to pull it by the old fashioned way. Talking from experience, if one is to do it this way, put your entire upper back and arms into it, and pull. Either user placed both feet on the bow's span on each side of the stock or in the stirrup ring attached to the crossbow head. Most commonly associated way of reloading in popular culture besides the Cranequin and Windlass. First appearance: 700 to 500's BCE. Mechanical advantage: 1 to 1. Maximum draw weight: 150-300 lbs.
*'''Stirrup and Belt Hook''': Most crossbows you see have a stirrup ring towards the front end for putting your foot through to hold it steady. Combined with a belt worn around the waist with a hook attached to it, the wielder could use their whole body, rather than just their arms, to arm the crossbow. Could also use a belt-attached pulley configuration to lessen the strength to draw. First appearance: 1200's. Mechanical advantage: about 2 or 1 to 1 (depending on whether using pulley configuration). Maximum draw weight: 320-450 lbs.
*'''Goat's Foot Lever''': This was a fairly simple detachable metal lever that gave the user more leverage when pulling back the string. Composed of a rod attached to two curved prongs and two hinged hooks; it's shape had a resemblance to a goat's foot (obvious in the name). Mounts on two metal lugs on the body's sides near the trigger, pull drawstring back in one motion via two hinged hooks, place folded lever back on belt, load the bolt on the crossbow, and then shoot. This could arm the crossbow in a single motion with the lever's curved prongs making the drawing force decrease as the spanning distance increases. Very common for field portable bows and mounted crossbowmen. First appearance: Between 1300's to 1400's. Mechanical Advantage: from 5 up to 30 to 1 (depending on how far the lever is pulled). Maximum draw weight: 500-600 lbs.
*'''Gaffe Lever''': a two piece wooden lever held by a hinge and attached to the stirrup ring via metal hook. User pushed down on the lever to push the drawstring into the trigger before removing. More associated with nobles for hunting or shooting clubs after the gunpowder weapons appeared in the 1500's during the Renaissance. First appearance: 1500's. Mechanical advantage: up to 30 to 1. Maximum draw weight: 400 lbs.
*'''Lever-Action/Self Spanning''': Uses levers embedded into the crossbow body. The user unlocks catch holding the hinge firm before folding open the half of the crossbow body to catch the drawstring on a latch before pulling back to the trigger to arm the crossbow. Unlike the Asian equivalent in the Chu-Ko-Nu, these did not have a top magazine. This enabled users to aim after loading and pulling a trigger to shoot at the cost of having to load the bolt by hand. Besides the Scottish Border Reivers' latchet crossbow in the 1600's, two noted examples are Martin Löffelholz's armbrust in the Codex Löffelholz and Da Vinci's Balestra Veloce in the Codex Atlanticus. Not as mainstream or well known due to transition to gunpowder weapons in the 1500's during the Renaissance. First appearance: 1500's. Mechanical advantage: up to 25 to 1. Maximum draw weight: 220 - 300 lbs.
*'''Windlass''': Like the Cranequin, this was a winding device, but it also came with a bulky pulley system that was mounted to the back of the crossbow. As a result, this was a tremendously powerful pulling system at the expense of needing a lot of time to arm. Along with the Cranequin, this was one of the strongest crossbow loading methods. Contrary to popular culture, it was more often used on large, heavy crossbows for stationary battles like trench warfare or sieges like modern anti-tank guns. On the other hand, usage on open battlefields (behind pavise shields) for support artillery wasn't unheard of. First appearance: 1400’s. Mechanical advantage: ~160 to 1. Maximum draw weight: 1500 lbs+ (limited by time and bow strength).
*'''Cranequin''': Also called the "Rack and Pinion," this device used gears and a crank to wind up the bowstring, requiring multiple turns to pull it all the way back. Device slid onto lugs mounted on the stock and was removed before firing. Along with the Windlass, this was one of the strongest crossbow loading methods. Contrary to popular culture, it was more often used on large, heavy crossbows for stationary battles like trench warfare or sieges like modern anti-tank guns. On the other hand, usage on mounted crossbowmen with lighter crossbows and by footmen on open battlefields (behind pavise shields) for artillery support wasn't unheard of. First appearance: 1500's. Mechanical advantage: ~600 or 840 to 1. Maximum draw weight: 2000 lbs+.

==Types of Crossbows==
As a general note, crossbows are not ballistas, despite their visual similarity. Unlike Crossbows which store energy in a set of arms which are bent back, Ballistas instead store energy in twisted rope that has a wooden beam pushed into it which is then twisted back farther before firing to store energy. That said, some ballistas are discussed here until a proper "[[Siege Weapon|siege]]" article is consolidated.

*'''Gastraphetes''': an early Greek crossbow, the Gastraphetes, or "belly bow", was cocked by resting the stomach on the bolt rest of the stock (which contained a sliding plank attached to the drawstring) and pushing down so that more energy can be stored then an archer could provide. The Gastraphetes worked slightly different from the classic crossbow, in that its arrow slot was two-piece, with the sliding inner plank attached to the rope. Thus, rather than drawing back the crossbow, you readied it by slamming it into the ground until the trigger catches onto a latch. While impressive, it was restricted to hip fire, was fired with a button-like trigger, and was more of a man portable siege weapon. A larger winch-spanned, tripod-mounted version, the Oxybeles, was in use as a stationary artillery weapon before being replaced by the ballista.

* '''Polybolos''': meaning “multi-bolt thrower” in Greek and also known as a repeating ballista, the Polybolos is more of a big cross bow since the arms are fixed to the "stock" and don't twist around to fire it. The repeating ballista was fired by turning a wheel connected to a chain back to cock it, the turning it the other way to load it again from a hopper on top of the stock.

* '''Chinese "Nu" crossbow''': unlike the European crossbow, which had a power stroke (drawing span) of about 7 inches; used a rolling nut latch held in place by a sear pushed by a long horizontal lever-like trigger in the middle of the stock; and used prods (bow pieces) made from simple wood, composite, and later with metal; the Chinese crossbow had a power stroke of about 21 inches; used a complicated two-piece vertical trigger at the very back of the stock (held together by tension and two pins at the very end of the stock) on a pistol grip; and used wood or composite prods (often salvaged from recurve bows and constructed for conscripts to use en mass instead of drilling archery skills into them). Thus, due to the longer power stroke via the trigger being placed further back and assuming all other factors are equal, the bolts fired by the Chinese bows (usually with draw weights of 380 lbs) were launched with comparable performance to an average European windlass crossbow (with a draw weight of 1,500 lbs). However, the Chinese crossbows themselves were rather large, cumbersome, and had to be reloaded with just stirrup rings, belt hooks, and/or gloves.

* '''Chu-Ko-Nu''': literally meaning “Zhuge’s Crossbow," classical legend associated it a Chinese noble named Zhuge Liang (2nd Century AD). Alternatively known as the Lian Nu (repeating crossbow), it's also known as the Chinese repeating crossbow and is one of the more common types of crossbow seen in fiction. In reality, it was invented during the Warring States Period (4th Century BC) in the State of Chu. The term "repeating crossbow" brings to mind some bastard combination of Assault rifle and crossbow, which it kinda is and is not. Without doubt, this thing could fire quickly; trained soldiers could loose ten bolts in fifteen seconds before having to reload. Mechanically, it consisted of a stock that the user secured on their hip with the bowstring sliding through a slit on each side of the sliding magazine/bolt rest. By pushing and then pulling the lever that secures the magazine to the stock, the user catches bowstring on a notch at the back end of the slits while loading the bolt by gravity onto the bolt rest. Once the lever is fully compressed down, a sliding lug nut at the base of the magazine pushes the string up off the notches and propels the bolt out. However, because of the mechanism's design, the pumping action that pulled the string back also fired the bolt at the same time while the magazine is built on top of the bow. Due to that, you could not pull the string back and then aim. Chu-ko-nu's were limited to hip fire; giving you almost ork levels of accuracy in exchange for an appreciable volume of fire. In layman's terms, it's the same as being restricted to hip-firing a pump action shotgun with the trigger permanently welded in the fire position. Additionally because you were pulling the string back one handed, the bolts had a lot less penetration power than those of a regular crossbow. However, the bolts (which fell down onto the stock from a hopper mounted on top) were often poisoned to make up for that (as seen with the [[Drow]], who make use of the weapon extensively). While no matter how strong the poison on your bolt is, you're not gonna kill a man instantly with a scratch. However, on the battlefield causing enough pain to make a person go into shock is as good as killing them outright, and poison delivers the last one in spades. The downside was you had next to no luck piercing good quality armor or thick leather that an enemy is wearing while you're using it.

* '''Balestra Veloce/Löffelholz Armbrust lever-action crossbows''': First mentioned in Leonardo Da Vinci's Codex Atlanticus (1478 to 1519) and Martin Löffelholz's Codex Löffelholz (1505), both versions of the said design used a stock consisting of of two wood and metal pieces on top of each other and hinged at the head of the crossbow. By unlocking a latch on the stock, the user can then swing forward the bottom half of the stock to extend a sliding latch to catch the drawstring. Once the drawstring is caught, the stock is then closed; locking the stock back together and bringing the latch (which is held firm by a spring-loaded sear) back into contact with the trigger on the lower half of the stock. User then loaded the bolt and pulled the trigger to compress the sear; letting the rolling nut release the crossbow string. Whether the German or Italian version came first is unclear; though the rapid fire crossbow pages in the Codex Atlanticus are dated back to 1485. Either codex's blueprints can be found online via an online archive created by "The Visual Agency" media company or a pdf scan hosted by Krakow's Jagiellonian Library respectively. While firing and reloading more rapidly than the mainstream "goats foot lever" crossbows, it was not widely used due to possibly three reasons.
** First, the amount of expert craftsmanship to make it and the extensive training to use it was cost prohibitive for a relatively complicated and delicately structured weapon. This meant that it was likely more of a special luxury weapon that only wealthy people could afford rather than a mass produced weapon for conscripts (the same reason why breech loading rifles existed since the 16th Century for hunting nobility but didn't replace muzzle-loading smoothbore muskets in mass use for militaries until the 1840's).
** Second, while quicker than spanning a crossbow with a goat's foot or gaffe lever, the draw weight is reduced to a mere average of 220 lbs. Being half of the maximum draw weight of gaffe and goat's foot lever crossbows, this meant weaker penetration and shorter ranges. This was likely to make the lever-action crossbow more easily rearmed without being too strong to either break the trigger lock or cock with your hands.
** Third, the introduction of gunpowder weapons alongside the volley fire from massed Pike and Shot square formations occurred during the Renaissance. Since these crossbows were developed right when gunpowder took over, this meant these lever-action crossbows already went obsolete the same way that heavy plate-armored cavalry and longbow archers did.

* '''Latch/Latchet lever-action Crossbow''': A light lever action crossbow popular with Scottish border raiders called Border Reivers in the 1600's to 1700's, it worked via swinging an internal metal lever forward from the top to push a sliding latch forward to secure the drawstring after unlocking the catch. The user then pushed the lever back into the body to arm the bow before loading and shooting. Popular to the Scottish in the region for home defense and raiding as they were small, easy to use, very quiet compared to a wheel-lock pistol, and took only 10 seconds to rearm and load. Their downside was their short range and being restricted to hip firing due to the trigger being a button on the top (a trade off to enable horsemen to fire one-handed from the saddle though you could tuck it into your armpit).

* '''Bed Crossbow''': A Chinese peculiarity, where multiple crossbows mounted on a static frame were combined to create an increased draw strength. A precursor to the compound crossbow.

*'''Bullet Crossbows''': Also referred to as pelletbows, stonebows, and ballesters, these were essentially the same as regular crossbows or similar to a slingshot in crossbow form, except they fired stone or lead shot instead of bolts. Usually used for recreational shooting and small game hunting.

*'''Crossbow pistol''': Small crossbows designed to be fired from one hand, with modernized versions commonly featuring a more modern pistol grip and trigger. While these did exist in the past, they were nowhere near as lethal as battlefield crossbows as the draw weights were far smaller.

*'''Arbalast''': As European armor improved with the development of steel plate crossbows with wooden bow sections were just not cutting the mustard anymore, as such they began making that part out of steel. This meant that the bow could store more energy and launch a projectile farther and faster, significantly improving armor penetration but it also increased the amount of energy required to draw it, often requiring various leavers and cranking mechanisms to reset it.

*'''Slurbow:''' A crossbow with a cover over its barrel and a small gap used to draw its string back. Arguably influenced by the pistol, the slurbow was mostly used for firing unfeathered quarrels or darts.

*'''Sauterelle''': The last apparition of a crossbow-like weapon in a modern battlefield for frontline work. In WWI, soldiers had a problem: all the artillery that existed was big and unable to drop explosives accurately into a trench, especially at close range. And on the other hand, thrown hand grenades had the precision but too limited range. As an interim solution the French invented the ''Sauterelle'' (grasshopper in French): basically a big crossbow built to lob grenades at around 150 yards distance. Worked decently enough but later in the war they were replaced by small, two-man team infantry mortars that were just as easy to move around and use but had three or four time the range and a better rate of fire.

*'''Compound Crossbow''': the modern version of the crossbow, which is basically a modern compound bow on a rifle stock. Many of these also come equipped with telescopic sights modified with cross-hairs that compensate for the effects of gravity, wind, elevation, and other factors that might affect a bolt's accuracy. They are primarily used for hunting, sport and (unusually) home defense in Britain since everything else has been banned. Also finds military (specifically special forces, not frontline grunts), espionage and law enforcement utility by being used to fire ziplines or grappling hooks, explosive, incendiary, poisoned or gas releasing projectiles, or simply well made darts for a silent kill. Some more recent exotic ones combine various technological concepts from past and present (such as the Cobra Adder brand; a bizarre chimera between the Chu-Ko-Nu's hopper magazine (which is detachable), the Balestra Veloce's lever action system, along with modern optics, grips, and compound, composite bow-pieces).

{{MedievalWeaponry}}

Firearm

2020-02-19T02:34:30Z

2601:280:5B7F:85C4:C03E:94B0:328F:3737: /* Modern Firearms */

[[image:Shotgun After Firing.jpg|thumb|450px|right|Nothing like the smell of burnt powder in the morning]]
About twelve hundred years ago in [[China]], some people figured out that certain chemicals mixed together (such as potassium nitrate, carbon, and sulphur) rapidly combusted when brought to spark, which became known as "black powder." After some experimentation, they discovered that a tube sealed off at one end could be used to contain the pressure of said combustion and focus it into an explosion to propel an object at high speeds. After a few centuries of refinement, and invention of the frag grenade, they managed to take that mechanical principle and apply it as a weapon of warfare which changed the game: the arquebus. Comparatively cheap, easy to make, easy to learn to use, and capable of penetrating all but the heaviest armor, this marked a transition away from close quarters to ranged warfare.

In modern times, firearms are the staple weapons of any nation. Speculative fiction showcases weapons that doesn't even fire solid projectiles, like [[lasgun|lasers]].

From an engineering standpoint, firearms had a big difference from previous weapons in that they don't require the user's muscle power to work. Swords, maces, and axes are swung, spears are thrust, and bowstrings need to be drawn. Even crossbows and siege weapons work by storing muscle power via tension until it's released. The energy required to accelerate a firearm's projectile comes from explosive propellants; all the user needs to do is to hold the weapon, aim, brace themselves and set off said explosive charge. The significance of this is illustrated in the American Proverb: "God made man, Sam Colt (the inventor of the first practical revolver) made them equal." Having a reliable repeating gun means that your simple brute physical strength does not mean as much in a fight as it would in a bare knuckle brawl or a swordfight (either defensively or offensively).

The firearm's bigger bro is the [[Cannon]] and its cousin is the [[Rocket]].

==How Traditional Guns Work==
For our non-firearm oriented friends, here's a brief, heavily condensed explanation of how these murdersticks work. These instructions will probably vary depending on the type of gun you're using.

[[image:Teppo.jpg|thumb|300px|right|Some Tanegashima matchlocks]]
===Olden Muzzle-Loading Guns===
====The Slow Way====
1. Put your musket in half-cock position. Take your powder flask, and pour a few grains into the flashpan. Pour some more down the barrel (amount can vary wildly; later powder flasks come with built-in measuring tools for ease of use and safety). Ram the powder, bullet, and cloth wad down the barrel of your gun. Ensure you're doing this in correct order because [[Not as Planned|putting the ball first, then powder, for example, can lead to hilarious and/or lethal results]].
 2. If you're using a matchlock gun: light up the fuse, aim and brace yourself, and lastly wait for the fuse to burn out. If you're using a flintlock gun: just cock the mechanism. With percussion caps, replace the explosive cap on the firing nipple after cocking the hammer. In any case, aim once you're done setting it up.
 3. Once the powder burns; the gasses from explosion of the black powder will send the bullet flying out of the barrel like a bat out of hell and penetrate into something or someone, and if you're lucky it might actually hit what you were aiming at. Also, hope you aren't downwind because guns during this time generated ''a lot'' of black smoke.
 4. Take stock of the situation. If you've managed to hit anyone or you're currently still in a shooting war; repeat step 1. If your firing line missed most of their shots and those barbarians are charging up your position; [[Imperial Guard|affix bayonets]].

====The Not-Quite-As-Slow Way====
1. Take your paper cartridge, and bite off the end with the powder in it. Carefully pour a few grains into the flashpan, and the rest down the barrel. Take the remainder of the cartridge, ball and paper, and ram it down the barrel.
 2. Follow steps 2 through 4 as above. Paper cartridges have the advantage of saving you a few seconds of precious time while reloading, which can mean the difference between life and death on the battlefield. Another advantage is that they can be made somewhat weatherproof with a grease coating. But if you're just hunting or can't find/afford paper, most people didn't bother with the time-consuming preparations.

===Single-Action Guns===
1. Load rounds into the magazine (or chamber if it's a single cartridge gun), remove the safety, work the action (pump the slide, rack the bolt, cock the hammer, et cetera) to chamber a round, and aim.
 2. Pull the trigger, this will cause the hammer to strike the primer on the chambered round and cause the powder inside the shell casing to ignite and explode; sending high-pressure gases screaming out of the barrel while propelling the solid bullet out at high speed towards whatever you were aiming at. If you're using single-action flintlock guns; see above for the result.
 3. Because the gun lacks a mechanism to re-chamber itself; you now have to work the action again to eject the spent shell (unless its a revolver, in which case you do that while reloading) and load another round into the chamber. How you do this depends on the gun in question.
 4. Repeat until you run out of bullets in the magazine if your gun has one or you have a spare moment where nobody's shooting at you, in which case either reload the magazine or load a new round (the default case if you're using a single round breechloader).

===Auto-Loading Guns===
1. Load rounds into the magazine, remove the safety, work the action to chamber a round, and aim.
 2. Pull the trigger and this causes the same effect as stated above.
 3. Because of the mechanism of the gun; it redirects some of the forces used to propel the bullet to work it's action, eject the spent shell (unless its a DA revolver), re-chamber another round, and allow you to shoot again by just pulling the trigger. The forces used depend on the gun in question, some use a gas block to redirect some of the gasses expelled by bullets, while other uses the force of the recoil itself, to work the action and chamber another round. Additionally, it could also re-chamber itself using a mechanical sequence (like revolvers) or is electrically operated.
 4. If you're using an automatic; hold the trigger down and only release it once you want to stop shooting (or are forced to do so due to lack of ammo). If you're using a semi-automatic; pull the trigger again to fire another round.
 5. Repeat until you run out of bullets or you have a spare moment where nobody's shooting at you, in which case either reload the magazine or load a new one.

==A Brief History of Firearms==
'''800's:''' Taoist monks attempting to find an elixir of immortality stumbled on the next best thing: a substance that would suddenly and violently make things very dead. They'd discovered potassium nitrate (alternatively called saltpeter), a white crystalline powder that burned with a purple flame. When mixed with powders of charcoal and sulfur the resulting substance would burn instantly and aggressively on exposure to flame. It didn't take long for the Chinese to start inventing ways to use it.

[[image:Firelance.jpg‎|thumb|150px|left|The Firelance, the Chinese invention that started this all]]
'''1000s to 1200s:''' The Chinese realize they can make barbarians shit their pants by shooting hollowed arrows packed with powder and bamboo tubes filled with powder and pebbles at them. Bamboo gradually gives way to cast iron and bronze.

'''1300s:''' Various gunpowder weapons begin to proliferate westward along the Silk Road, aided by the [[Mongols]]. Crude versions of hand cannons, grenades, rockets, and flamethrowers all see use. Despite considerable psychological effect and good armor penetration, most of these weapons are only marginally more likely to kill the target than the user and had a range of only twenty or so meters. As such, their use is not widespread. For the most part, these weapons were used by skirmishers and guards. The fact that they were so dangerous meant they were mostly used by low class soldiers, and in turn this meant that the smiths making them were generally not the most skilled artisans; which did little to improve quality even given the limitations of the day. Even so, the designs and methods of manufacture were gradually refined and improved by various early gunsmiths through trial and error.

'''1400s''': Hand cannons see continued and expanded use. Bit by bit from the crude handgonnes of previous centuries, the first "true" firearms evolve with the gradual development of the matchlock, taking on the basic shape of lock, stock, trigger, and barrel (which is where we get the saying from). By clamping a lighted wick into a flashpan via a trigger, the shooter is able to aim ''and'' fire at the same time, making him markedly less likely to blow his own jimmies off. Despite advances, the matchlock was unwieldy, unreliable, and generally inferior to a good bowman. The issue of course is that only England (in Europe) HAD good bowmen; bowmen were the scum of the army everywhere else. This didn't stop some inventive commanders from seeing their potential, particularly with poorly trained conscript soldiers. [[Weeaboo|Some forces]] made a go of it by carrying two or three guns at a time and just throwing the spent ones away like a really shitty Matrix movie. Note: while we use a "weeaboo" hyperlink up there, it's worth remembering that troops like cuirassiers and even pirates would do the same thing with pistols, carrying a whole brace of them, but they just did not exist yet. By the 1400's having more then one gun was the only way to have any real rate of fire before breechloaders existed.

'''1500s:''' Guns continue to evolve with the invention of spring-loaded firing mechanisms. The wheel-lock spins a steel plate against sulfide rocks to produce sparks (think cigarette lighters), which ignites powder a flash pan. This was revolutionary, allowing soldiers to prime their weapon in a matter of seconds instead of fucking around with a lit wick, and allowed calvary to use guns for the first time while on horseback, giving rise to the cuirassiers. It also means that for the first time, guns weren't completely fucked in the rain, just mostly fucked. They also cost a lot to make and were still not completely reliable, so most people stuck with matchlocks. Powder formulas had improved considerably, including the development of the more powerful, stable, and moisture-resistant corned powder made by wetting raw gunpowder, forming it into cakes, crushing them, and sieving them for size. Japan's Oda Nobunaga was particularly notable in the history of firearms for his heavy transition from blades to guns after discovering the novelty of matchlock guns. In fact, by the end of the 1500s, they had more trained arquebusiers in their armies and produced more matchlocks than any other country to date during that period and had the most guns per capita in the world. Meanwhile, virtually every army figured out how to use a combination of volley fire in dense square formations surrounded by pikemen (called Pike and Shot); making armored cavalry, crossbows, & longbows outdated. Accuracy still sucked but that was what the massed shooting was meant to compensate for.

[[image:FlintlockMechanism.jpg‎|thumb|200px|right|The flintlock mechanism. Now you did not need to light some string and put it into a serpentine before firing]]
'''1600s''' The wheellock is refined into the simpler and more reliable flintlock, though it would take some time to supersede the matchlock. Muzzle loading is simplified with the creation of paper cartridges, essentially the pre-measured cake mix of murder. Some German dudes came up with the idea of cutting spirals into the barrel, which they called "rifling," to spin-stabilize the bullet so that they wouldn't have to walk up right next to their targets to hit them, but this required a barrel tighter than a nun's cunt, a hammer to ram the ball in, and grooved bullets made for the gun so it could fit the rifling of the gun like the cap to a soda bottle. To put all that into perspective: well-trained musketeers could fire three to four shots a minute, while a rifleman could only manage one shot every minute. Not great, however the idea of spin-stabilisation hung around and payed off in later times. Breechloaders are invented alongside the flintlock in both Europe and China but the problem of hot gas leaking and burning shooters' hands made them limited in use and in number. Hence, while nobles such as King Henry could own a breech loading rifle for hunting ducks, said breech loaders were either expensive to make in good quality, leaked hot gas every time you shot a less finely crafted piece, or was of inferior performance to the basic muzzleloader.

'''1700s''': The French invent the bayonet, allowing their troops to be [[choppa|choppy]] while they were [[dakka|shooty]]. Thus, the Pike and Shot formation became the Bayonet and Shot formation. That and refinement of tactics led to the dense but slow and cumbersome square formations being reformed into thinner but more responsive rectangle formations. This is the point where gun infantry tactics become the dominant (though still not only) form of fighting when guns go from one a few common infantry weapons to the primary weapon used by most infantry. Formations of musketeers go from big square blocks to lines two or three ranks thick to put enough bullets in the enemy's ranks as quickly as possible.
[[image:Chassepot.jpg‎|thumb|200px|left|The mechanism of a French Chassepot, an early bolt action rifle, as well as its paper cartridge]]

'''1800s''': Pretty much everything that makes up a modern firearm is invented here. Some fool came up with an explosive that would go off if you slam a hammer into it, which led to the first explosive primers. So flintlocks transitioned to percussion caps. This basically involves putting explosives in ur explosives to explode your explosives. Eventually, standardized methods of making copper & later brass casings by the French and English replaced paper cartridges; making gas leakage in breech loading mechanisms a thing of the past. Cartridges that contain a primer, propellant, and slug, similar to modern-day bullets, are developed. With this, not only was loading ammunition simplified with a package that contained everything needed for a gun to fire, it also made it waterproof & easier for conscripts to load. Furthermore, the brass casings' small expansion when firing served to seal the firing chamber to prevent hot gases from leaking and burning users’ hands. Extracting the flush but stuck cartridge in the chamber was simply a matter of adding extraction pins that were manually pressed to kick them out by the rims on the bottom base. By this time, wars were largely fought using firearms rather than melee weapons, though also by this time firearms were also melee weapons as in the early 1800s the bayonet charge was still both an accepted and useful tactic.

By the late 1800 inventors had finally gotten the technology to contain the force of the gunpowder explosion with a tight seal and do so cheaply. Experiments that had been done earlier like the Puckle gun (1718), Ferguson rifle (1776), and even the bizarre 1780 Girandoni Air Rifle, [http://1d4chan.org/wiki/Steampunk which was an air gun with a 20 round magazine], all failed to create breech loading rifles cheaply. See, despite that it was well known that that slotting in bullets from the rear and using a mechanism to load it into the chamber is much simpler than spending about half a minute to ram it down a long barrel, the technology was just not there as without cheap steel (cheap is important for hand guns you are going to mass-produce), getting iron to contain the explosion without deforming and leaking gas, thus weakening the shot, was a nightmare. The Industrial Revolution, among other things, gave birth to the concept of "breech-loading" and later "magazines" and simpler mechanised feeding systems like tubes, slides, cylinders, and bolt-actions. The likes of pump-action shotguns, bolt-action rifles, and lever-action rifles, and revolver and semi-automatic pistols, are developed and/or developed upon, giving a glimpse on how weapons in the future would function. Near the end of the decade, some French guys worked out that they could both improve firepower and keep their guns considerably cleaner by replacing black powder with nitrocellulose, the first of many "smokeless powders." Also known as “guncotton/flash-paper,” it was first discovered by some German chemist who accidentally soaked a cotton apron in a nitric/sulfuric acid mix before trying to dry it by the fire; culminating with explosive results. After various explosive bouts of trial and error, the French managed to alter its formula to make it stable enough to use without blowing up its creators. Stabilizing it by soaking and drying it a second time in alcohol and adding stabilizer compounds made it safe to make without blowing factories sky high. And adding extra explosive compounds such as nitroglycerin served to make it more explosive for shells and artillery. The cleaner burn and threefold increase in power led to more powerful bullets and weapons.

Just as important as the new designs that came about during this period were the new methods of production. People like Eli Whitney worked out devices such as milling machines, which allowed for the quick production of finely tuned parts which were so close in size that you could take one bit off one gun, stick it on another from the same line, and it would work just as fine. Breech loading and repeating firearms had existed for centuries beforehand, but were not cost effective to mass-produce until the Industrial Revolution.
[[image:Lee-Enfield Rifle.jpg|thumb|200px|right|A British Lee-Enfield Bolt Action Repeating rifle]]
This is also the time where the first "automatic" guns were invented and put into production. The word "automatic" is in quotes because these early machine guns were not self-reciprocating; they did not load and fire themselves and were instead manually powered. The most famous (and successful) of these weapons is the Gatling gun, which saw limited action in the American Civil War, but became much more widely used the world over in subsequent wars. But while it was the most famous, the Gatling was not the only manual machine gun developed; dozens of different types were produced during the US Civil War alone on both sides, but because these guns tended to be mounted on cannon carriages they were treated like cannons instead of the close support weapon machines guns are, so it took some time for them to hit their stride.

'''1900-early 1930s''': The heyday of guns because of the advent of WW1. The idea of bolt-action rifles are popularized, along with semi-automatic and fully-automatic weapons. Bolt-action rifles meant that riflemen no longer had to be confined to shooting one round at a time before needing to reload as they could now load individual clips that contained 5-10 rounds a piece. Machine guns are now becoming more and more popular in the battlefields, drastically changing the way infantry would maneuver the battlefield as a single MG emplacement can effectively cripple platoons with the right positioning. Submachine guns, the first automatic infantry weapon, are developed by the German Empire and issued to their stormtroopers, giving the rest of the world an idea of the wonders of a lightweight fully-automatic weapon that could easily be used by infantrymen, which was previously restricted to crew-served heavy machine guns. Not liking to be one-upped, the Americans came up with the trench gun (a 6 shot, pump-action renforced shotgun with a bayonet that was pure murder in the confines of a trench) that ultimately evolved into the modern combat shotgun.

On the subject of the machine guns, if there was ever a weapon that represented this part of history it would be the heavy machine gun. To go back to an early quote "God made man, Sam Colt made them equal and John Browning (designer of a large number of machine guns including the m2 .50 cal or 12.7mm) made them civilized!". We talked about the hand powered machine guns above, and while good when used correctly, these weapons have their issues. In order to use most of them, you had to be standing up to turn the crank and sustained fire was tiring, but the hand cranked guns had one major advantage: the most successful of the hand-cranked guns, like the Gatling or Gardner, had multiple barrels meaning you can fire them with little or no need to stop to let the barrels cool down. At the dawn of the 20th century, this is what the early machine guns had to be compared to when European generals went window shopping. The solution was water-cooling, which allowed machine guns to fire for countless hours with little or no failures, but at the cost of weight rendering them truly static, though highly effective, weapons. If you could point to two developments that caused the First World War's trench warfare, you can point to water-cooled machine guns and barbed wire.

'''late 1930s-1940s''': At the start of World War II, all of the powers involved, France, England, Germany, and Russia, were armed with bolt action weapons. Over the course of the war, automatic and semi-automatic rifles started to become more common; however, only the Americans completely phased out bolt-action rifles for standard infantry by the time of the war (Marines and Army units in the Pacific Front were stuck with the old stuff for a few months due to the Germany First policy). Submachine guns are now becoming more popular with various armies around the world, making it the staple lightweight automatic weapon for infantry troops, totally redefining urban combat due to the weapon's great effectiveness in close combat. Nazi Germany invents the ''Sturmgewehr 44'', the first widely produced assault rifle (the Fedorov Avtomat was the first to be put into service, introduced in 1915, but production was limited due to costs). This weapon would later become the template for modern assault rifles used by the world over.
[[image:QBZ-95.jpg|thumb|200px|left|A QBZ-95 Assault Rifle, the current service rifle of the People's Republic of China, note bullpup configuration (the magazine feeds behind the trigger), thus saving space]]
'''1950s-1990s''': With World War II over, the armies of the world had a chance to study Germany's assault rifle and built their own. The key invention was selective fire, which allowed a single weapon to serve as a traditional rifle or a somewhat long and unwieldy submachine gun. Burst fire was also developed, intended to fire a grouping of rounds to defeat personal body armor but automatically stop before the recoil of fully automatic fire would have a significant impact on aim. The USSR's entry was the AK-47, which was powerful, easy to mass produce, and legendarily tolerant of mistreatment after briefly flirting with the SKS (a semiautomatic carbine fed by stripper clips). On the other side of the world, the US briefly experimented with an automatic version of the M1 known as the M14, before (mostly) getting their shit together and developing the M16, which was expensive, complicated, and notoriously finicky. One thing not to be underestimated is the standardization introduced by NATO and the Warsaw Pact. Gone were incompatible calibers unique to each nation, and in their place were a single pistol caliber (9x19 for NATO, unless you were an American snowflake, and 9x18 for Pact.), a single intermediate caliber (5.56x45 for NATO, 7.62x39 for Pact, later 5.45x39 in certain Pact countries), a single full power rifle cartridge (7.62x51 for NATO, unless you were a French snowflake, and the venerable 7.62x54 for Pact), and heavy machine gun cartridge (.50 BMG for NATO and 12.7×108mm for Pact) for small arms. Even before NATO standardization was officially a thing, many western countries eagerly armed themselves with American surplus M1 Garands and M1 Carbines, which greatly simplified things.

'''2000s''': With the invention of more advanced materials such as plastics and carbon fiber, along with numerous technological advancements of the modern world, firearms are... basically the same they've been for the last fifty years, just usually lighter and with more options. Serious efforts were made to look at new designs like caseless ammo and fused smart grenade bullets, but most went nowhere. The most significant development in firearm technology was the advent of practical ranged tasers; essentially wired dart launchers with high voltage capacitors, they're the first handguns ostensibly intended for less lethal force (occasional heart attacks not withstanding) that weren't a total joke (like pistol caliber tear gas rounds).

'''2010s''': Development of more robust weapons (such as the POF P416 and HK 416), modularity (FB MSBS, similar to the ACR with the variation count of a Lasgun), practical telescopic and caseless ammo (LSAT project), and ship cannon sized railguns (The Naval Research Laboratory currently working with a practical version, i.e. can reload at the same rates as an Abrams 120mm loader). Apparently, it can fires rounds with 32 megajoules of energy, or 23,601,988 foot-pounds.) So apparently even in 2017, we outpace the Imperium in development, makes you wonder what the Dark Age of Technology holds. Few of these have progressed far enough to get fielded and may just be dead ends. The main innovation at this time comes from optics, where even cheap sights makes the professional equipment of old look like crap. Also cheap rifle parts and market (at least for Americans) due to advances in manufacturing. No seriously, you can get a basic AR for $500 or even just make it yourself from parts for less than $400 (Firearms are taxed 10-11%, parts are not. Thus there is significant savings by only buying a small block of aluminum as a "firearm".), and that's if you aren't diving into sub-milspec stuff. New designer rounds to outpace rounds such as the 5.56 and .308 in performance are also coming out, such 6.5 Grendel, 6.5 MPC, .224 Valkyrie, .300 Winchester Magnum, and so on. These only see widespread uses among snipers however, as the cost of replacing existing guns and ammo for what is a marginal increase in performance is of questionable budget use.

[[File:LSAT telescopic ammo.png|150px|thumb|right| An example of humanity developing practical telescopic ammo. Designed to be light weight while not compromising muzzle energy, it'll bring much benefit to anyone needing to bearing the ammunition (assuming the kinks are worked out).]]

Many countries around the world are now looking for new ways to either improve or adapt combustion-based firearms as a whole, and are looking for ways to make what were once sci-fi-only ammo and weaponry, such as [[lasgun|laser]], [[plasma]], direct energy overall (involving the last two), [[gauss]], telescopic/caseless ammo, and more, a reality. While met with some degree of success, nobody (pardoning America, 'cause you gotta do something with that large budget) has found a way yet for these weapons to be man-portable (or cost-effective in the case of telescopic and caseless ammo) that a single soldier could carry these into combat or be affordable/reliable to an extent that it would be more feasible to make these instead of the traditional ballistic weaponry. There is also the problem that if you get a hard projectile (think tungsten and steel) going fast enough, it will just over-penetrate and go through a target, doing little actual damage as compared to our modern bullets that hit, create a temporary cavity the size of a dinner plate, then tumble going through the target sideways (which means that against unarmored targets your average 5.56 round would likely do comparable damage to a bolt round). Rounds that fragment and inbuilt post-penetration destabilization fix this, however the main point here is that there is little reason to equip your soldiers with some [[Bolter|fancy dandy overly complex and costing a half-million dollar gun and ammo]] when a [[Lasgun|good ol' service rifle and some traditional ammo costing a few hundred bucks]] will allow them to do their job just fine. Leading off from the previous statement, even if such projects were successful, there is a strong point to be made that, as least as far as infantry weapons are concerned, chemical-based firearms will remain both cost effective and lethal enough to last at least another century or two, if not longer. While elite units will certainly benefit from new developments, the ordinary grunt will have to wait until they become cheap enough to mass produce. Most modern work is either completely experimental, or fine tuning already present technologies with developments from other areas.

[[File:Textron Systems, General Dynamics, and SIG Sauer NGSW-R respectively.png|250px|thumb|left| NGSW system prototypes by different companies competing for the potential to become America's new service rifle.]]

'''2020s''': With the ever growing commonality of rifle resistant gear (i.e. body armor and helmets), need for reduction of weight and increased mobility, and ability to react to both close and extended range threats(ie 7.62×54mmR has a longer range than 7.62 NATO) , certain firearms development has begun to focus on new munitions. Namely looking to high power and reduced weight ammunition, be it polymer or reinforced, munitions that can reach out lengthy distance without being too cumbersome. In that regards, the NGSW system (which evolved from the previous LSAT program) is being developed, with competition with as of 2019 three corporations Textron Systems, General Dynamics, and SIG Sauer competing for the bid.
Currenlyt the US Army are looking at an 6.8mm round and .338 Norma Magnum(an 8mm bullet) to replace 5.56x45 and 7.62x51, respectively. The latter more so because American snipers found themselves outmatched by their European during international sniper competitions. As America is among the last of NATO countries to formally adopt .338 Lapua Magnum. A slightly longer and older round compared to 8mm Norma.

== GUN SAFETY ==
Should be self-evident, but to be frank it isn't. Between the movies having actors brandishing guns everywhere, the video games and toys like airsoft that make them look more harmless than they are and plain human ignorance and negligence; people forget that they're holding something that could easily scatter someone's brains or outright remove their skull.

That said, there are four main rules to gun safety.
*Muzzle sweep: Avoid this. Muzzle sweep is one when points or sweeps a gun in a direction onto people or objects that could get harmed. To avoid this, one should keep the gun's barrel pointed away from anything that you don't intend to destroy or value. This means one must be conscious of where they are pointing it. Or in other words, '''never point the gun at something you don't want to shoot!'''

*'''Treat every firearm as if they were loaded at all times.''' Even if you fully know the gun is empty after removing the magazine and checking the chamber, still treat it as if it wasn't. This creates a force of habit so that if you are ever in a rush/interrupted while handling your gun/given a weapon by someone else/whatever... you will avoid any mishaps and tragedies that could arise because you think the gun is empty where it actually isn't.

*'''Know the target, what's in front of the target, and what's behind the target.''' Remember, bullets are designed to punch holes in things. Even if you've got pinpoint accuracy, the bullet might go right through the target and kill some guy who's just minding his own business. This is why any self-respecting firing range has a thick wall or a pile of packed-down dirt behind the targets. Bullets that don't punch through the target and don't shatter (like frangible rounds made of sintered metal) can ricochet back at the shooter or others around them. For this reason, shooting at metal targets is usually done with the targets angled down.

*Trigger discipline: '''Never put your finger on the trigger unless you want to kill/destroy whatever you're pointing your gun at.''' Also pretty much self-explanatory.

Easy, right? Well... apparently not. Ask any gun enthusiast and they'll gladly tell you all sorts of horror stories that happened because [[That Guy|somebody]] failed to follow these simple rules.

And for the love of the God-Emperor, don't be a fucking tool and mix alcohol/drugs and firearms together. Doing so, very, very unsurprisingly results in the breaking of one or more of the aforementioned rules.

==Types of firearms==
Having been around for well over 1500 years there have been many types of firearms over the course of time. Humans are, if anything, very inventive when it comes to coming up with new and interesting ways to kill each other. A rough list are:

===Ye Olde Gonnes===
*Firelance: Oldest of the Oldschool guns, simple bamboo tubes stuffed with gunpowder and pebbles used in the Ten Kingdoms period and the Song Dynasty. One inaccurate spray of flaming fuck-off in close quarters, often tied to a spear.

*Handgonne: A catch-all term for a primitive gun without a lock that need their powder charges. Majority of these guns were handcannons, as in literal man-portable artillery pieces that had a 50/50 chance of either working or malfunctioning, the worst of which would be the gun exploding in the shooter's face.

*Arquebus - A basic matchlock Firearm. A note of clarification: 'Arquebus' and 'musket' are both used to describe firearms from this time and they are often used interchangeably. But if you want to be ''really'' technical in this period an Arquebus is a regular two handed matchlock firearm while a musket is a larger heavier gun firing a larger projectile, sometimes up to an inch in diameter. Latter (about 1700 onward) musket would refer to any muzzleloading long barreled handheld firearm used for mainly shooting solid shots. This is not too much of a big deal and is nothing to get mad about, but it is worth noting.

*Musket - Today, the musket is a catch-all term for all early smoothbore, shoulder-fired, muzzle-loaded firearms. Technically this isn't the case, the musket was an improved Arquebus, one of the earliest muzzle-loaded guns. However because of romanticism and literature; people who aren't acquainted with firearms will commonly refer to any muzzle-loaded long weapon as a musket (about the same reason why most people today refer to any automatic weapon as a machine gun). Muskets were inaccurate as people have yet to put serious research into firearm ballistics, lacked sights, generated a lot of smoke due to primitive gunpowder mixtures, and were temperamental to environmental conditions (rain will pretty much render a musket into an wet stick of wood), but still enjoyed a lot of popularity due to their lethality and ease of use compared to other man-portable ranged weapons at the time - and even their inaccuracy (they were after all, shooting at a bunch of guys standing shoulder-to-shoulder...) may have been more attributable to the generally-poor training given to the vast majority of soldiers of the time. Muskets were quickly phased out once rifles sufficiently improved (they co-existed for multiple decades, with rifles being reserved for light infantry who used their rifles to place accurate shots...at a fraction of the fire-rate of muskets who stayed in the hands of the line infantry, because the light infantry now had to shove the bullet in by the spiraled rifling) to do what a musket could do, but better. Muskets were categorized by what firing mechanism was used in the lock:
:*The earliest versions used matchlocks, which fired by poking a slow-burning fuse into the firing chamber. These were fairly unreliable and somewhat hazardous since you had a smouldering fuse close to the flashpan when you were reloading.
:* Flintlocks replaced matchlocks, which ignited by generating sparks when it struck the iron frizzen, igniting the powder in the flashpan. The flint would periodically break and need replacing, but it was still safer than a matchlock.
:**Fusils are early flintlocks (in fact "fusil" derives the Latin "foisil" , meaning a piece of flint), and like any early technology they were more expensive then there later derivatives. Therefore Fusils were given to elite higher trained troops, hence the english/french words 'fusileer' and 'fusillade'. The primary use of Fusils while they distinct from standard infantry weapons (matchlocks) were guarding artillery since the unlike matchlocks, Flint locks like the Fusil do not produce so many sparks, a major concern around barrels of gunpowder common around artillery trains!
:* With the invention of the percussion cap came the Caplock, or Cap & Ball. This was the final evolution before breachloading became widespread. The cap would be fitted onto a tube to the firing chamber after the musket was loaded. Caplock firearms did not generate sparks in and of themselves; rather, they used a simple hammer to strike the cap, which would in turn ignite the powder in the firing chamber. Far more contained than flintlock, until the fully self-contained cartridge superseded it entirely.

*Multi-barreled gun - In the olden days, people wanted more dakka launched at enemies, but things like magazines and self-loading weapons were still an alien idea during its time. So as an alternative people took a breach/muzzle-loaded firearm, slapped one or more barrels onto it, and reworked the trigger so they can fire more shots before needing to reload. This resulted in some particularly wacky times for guns. To this day, the only multi-barrel weapon still commonly used (disregarding military rifles with underslung grenade launchers, door breaching shotguns, or rotating barrel Gatling-style guns) is the double-barreled hunting shotgun. Some notable guns were volley guns called ribauldequin, which were a line of infantry dudes without most of the dudes. The problem was that this took very long to load, because you have 2 or two people ramming shit rather than 20 dudes each loading. So, that was a colossal fail in a long term artillery exchange, but quite effective for countering a charge when all you need is one volley to make mincemeat out of that cavalry coming at you.

===Modern Firearms===
*Handgun - Also called "pistols", handguns are small-sized firearms that can be comfortably fired in one hand (hence the name). Handguns are mainly used for close defense and as a sidearm, making them akin to daggers. Modern pistol calibers are commonly between 8mm and 11mm, although popular magnum rounds like the .50 GI and .50AE are also exist for handguns (albeit they tend to be large, heavy, and likely to fuck up your wrist from the recoil).
:*Machine pistol - A machine pistol is a handgun that can fire in either bursts or in full-auto. While they're commonly thrown into that category, machine pistols are not submachine guns due to their size and use. Machine-pistols are not in widespread use with traditional military forces as SMGs and PDWs do better damage and have a longer range, but they remain popular with personnel like bodyguards, who require a highly portable but powerful sidearm.
:*Derringer - Another case of the concept being named after its inventor, "derringer" refers to tiny pistols, often used as concealed or backup sidearms, that could fit into the palm of your hand. These things have been around since the 19th century and were single-shot, though could have multiple barrels to fire off more shots before reloading, which were fired in a sequence. Due to their size and intended use (i.e: shooting someone while literally next to them); derringers typically used small rounds like .22 and below. But if you ''really'' wanted someone dead (and your wrists obliterated); some packed larger shots like [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COP_.357_Derringer .357 magnum rounds].
:*Pocket Pistol - Modern versions of the derringer, those are really small handguns or revolvers that sacrifice range and ammo count in order to be as small and easily concealed as possible. Also called "subcompacts".

*Revolver - A revolving gun is any weapon that uses a revolving cylinder to load new rounds after every shot. While its commonly now relegated to pistols (a revolver typically meant a revolver pistol these days) the style is still used for some shotguns (like the Armsel Striker) and grenade launchers (like the MM1-Hawk). Revolvers are still in use for a few reasons: they're simple and cheap to make, can easily be used by left and right-handed shooters (since spent casings aren't automatically ejected like in the case of modern firearms) and is still pretty robust compared to today's modern weapons as fewer mechanisms means fewer points of failure. Downside is that they have very limited ammunition space (because the gun was made around the cylinder you can't expand it like how you can with detachable magazines, so you either had a gun with 5-8 rounds or a bulky gun with a 12-round cylinder) and reload time (revolvers in all generations were a pain in the ass to reload. If you had an old revolver with a loading gate; you had to eject each round by hand, ''then'' load new rounds. If you had a newer one; you had to empty the cylinder, load the rounds, then cock the hammer. This is in contrast to modern guns where you just had to eject the magazine, load a new one, and charge the weapon). Thanks to the American old west era and subsequent movies about it, revolver-styled handguns have achieved a kind of rustic yet sleek appeal to them. Revolvers come in generally the same calibers as handguns, from the modest .22 Long Rifle used for practicing and target shooting to the behemoth .500 S&W Magnum which can put down a bear. "Snubnose" revolvers refer to revolvers with shortened barrels in an attempt to make them more compact.
:* Top Break - A revolver with a hinged frame that opens to expose the cylinder. Top breaks were originally designed for cavalry, as they are very easy to load. However, the two piece frame is a weakness that limits the power of cartridge that can be used.
:* Swing Arm - By far the most common type of revolver, the swing arm mounts the cylinder on a moving arm known as a crane, which allows the cylinder to be exposed for loading. The chief limitation of the swing arm design is that the crane can bend over time and due to rough handling.
:* Gate Loading - Named for their loading gate, these revolvers can only expose one cylinder for reloading a a time, with the spent casing being pushed out through the gate by a long ejector rod. Gate loading revolvers are the earliest style for cartridge revolvers, dating back to conversions of percussion cap revolvers. Gate loading revolvers are now rare except for reproductions and revolvers designed to big cartridges. The fixed cylinder is the strongest possible configuration of revolver and thus the most tolerant of high power ammunition.

*Submachine gun - A submachine gun (abbreviated to SMG) is a fully automatic weapon that fires pistol cartridges instead of the larger rifle cartridges. One of the first true fully automatic infantry weapons outside of the machine gun, hence the name. The weapon fulfills a similar role of the carbine, striking a balance between firepower, recoil, and bulk. They also make good stealth weapons, as most pistol rounds are subsonic with heavier bullets and thus much quieter when suppressed.

:*Personal Defense Weapon - A PDW is a bit of a mix of a carbine and an SMG, firing specialized cartridges with rifle-like characteristics (usually in the 4-5mm range, shorter than a rifle cartridge but longer than a pistol cartridge) at the cost of additional weight. Its original role is as its name implies; a personal defense weapon for nonfrontline infantry, like artillery spotters, scouts, vehicle crews, commandos, etc. Back in the day PDWs weren't necessarily automatic; a pistol with a longer barrel and mounted stock could be classified as a PDW (This was done with the German C96 and Luger P07), today however these would qualify as "pistol carbines". These days PDWs are commonly lumped into the same category as SMGs, as they now fulfill similar roles.

*[[Shotgun]] - Shotguns are smoothbore weapons (as in the barrel is not rifled) designed to fire either shot (multiple steel or lead pellets) or slugs (a single, heavy projectile), although modern times have included other types of ammunition. The ability to fire multiple types of ammunition without modification is one of the main advantages to using a shotgun; converting an anti-infantry weapon into a door-breaching tool, a mini-flamethrower, or a less-lethal weapon with but a switch of the munitions. The vast majority of shotguns are pump-action or breech-loading, though as of 1905 shotguns can come in semi-automatic or fully-automatic configurations, but sheer variety of shell loads makes their reliability highly ammo dependant. For more information see the [[shotgun]] page. The most common bore size for shotguns is 12 gauge (about 18.5mm). Confusingly, higher gauges are lower in size because its based on weight of spheres of lead rather than diameter; a 20 gauge is about 15.6mm, while a 10 gauge is 19.7mm (.410 bore exists outside this and is .410 inch/10.4 mm/67 bore).

*Rifle - Rifles were originally shoulder-fired weapons that had their barrels "rifled" to increase precision, by putting spiral grooves into the barrel in order to have the bullet spin before leaving the barrel; reducing it's wind resistance (otherwise known as drag) and giving it more momentum as it leaves that muzzle. In ye olden days, these were specialist weapons given to marksmen while the common soldier carried a musket. However, because all modern non-shotgun non-explosive firearms now use rifling to improve ballistics, the term is usually reserved for a shoulder-fired long weapon, designed for accurate fire.
:*Assault Rifle - Assault rifles are a term given to any rifle that can be fired on full-auto and shoot intermediate-caliber rounds, typically in the 5mm range (or a shortened 7mm round if you're from the Eastern bloc). This is usually the standard weapon of a non-specialized front-line infantryman. The STG44 is considered to be the earliest one fielded in industrial quantity, though the idea has been around since at least the first World War.
:*Battle Rifle - Basically the assault rifle's big brother; battle rifles are bigger automatic rifles designed to fire high-caliber rounds, typically in the 7mm range. These were the mainstay for armies in the 1950s, but the US eventually found out that giving infantry rifles with smaller rounds is better since its lighter and can allow infantry to be more accurately engage enemies better due to lower recoil (albeit at the cost of power), so battle rifles were replaced by assault rifles for front-line use and battle rifles were relegated to specialists like marksmen or support gunners (who's job permits for a slower-firing but more powerful weapon). The M1918 BAR may count as one, though the first occurred no latter than 1942's FG42.
:*Carbine - A carbine is a compact rifle, primarily designed to be used in close quarters. In most cases, carbines are based from a parent rifle, and are scaled down by using lighter/smaller parts and shortening the barrel (such as in the case of the American M16 vs M4) or is its own weapon (like the Korean K1A). These are typically given to units who need to engage the enemy at close range and need a rifle for the job, like commandos, assault teams, or other specialist units, or given to units who are not expected to fight on the front but need a compact but decent weapon to defend themselves if the need arises, like pilots or vehicle crews. Carbine may also refer to pistol-caliber semi-automatic weapons that are longer than a pistol, but this is typically only used in the civilian market. The concept of a carbine predates modern firearms, though they existed primarily for cavalry.
:*Micro Assault Rifle - Even smaller than carbines; these are ultracompact rifles designed when someone needs a highly portable but powerful weapon. A MAR is basically a PDW that shoots actual rifle rounds. Much like carbines; a MAR can either be based on a parent rifle and scaled down or made as its own weapon. These tend to have low effectiveness for standard calibers, since those were designed for full length barrels, but the logistics of supply are superior.
:*Sniper Rifle - A sniper rifle is a special precision rifle, specifically designed to engage targets at extreme range with lethal efficiency. Many sniper rifles use standard 7.62mm rounds, but high-performance rifles will use more potent rounds up to 12.7mm rounds for extra range and stopping power. Preferably, sniper rifles should use match-grade ammunition to provide consistency and accuracy at high extended ranges. The vast majority are bolt-action for simplicity and power (much more reliable and because all the gasses are diverted into the barrel, rather than some being diverted to work the action; the gun can launch the bullet farther and faster), but there are also a decent number of semi-automatic ones. Sniper rifles are given to special marksmen called "snipers", who are capable of engaging the enemy from extreme distances, usually well away from the scrap.
:*Designated Marksman Rifle - A sort of compromise between battle rifles and sniper rifles, DMRs are precision weapons meant to be used by frontline infantry to accurately engage distant targets that regular infantry weapons cannot. Due to its role, it's generally more accurate than a rifleman's gun, but usually not as effective as an actual sniper's gun (DMRs are usually only effective within 1 kilometer, while SRs are typically effective beyond 1 kilometer). Generally speaking, DMRs avoid using the more high-performance rounds that snipers may use, as it may be detrimental for an infantryman's role.
:*Recoiless - Not a conventional gun in most senses; a recoilless gun (models with rifling are called "Recoiless rifles" though people often miss this distinction) is as the title suggest, a rifled weapon without (or at least reduced) recoil. It does this by basically being a cannon with the back taken off. When loaded the cartridge sits in an open back tube, there is no breach. When fired, the explosion propels the shell out the tube, but an equal amount of gas comes out the other side canceling out the recoil. This means that total muzzle velocity is lower than a cannon with a breech on it, but they make up for it by shooting bigger shells, and with HEAT shells (thanks to the nature of the Munroe effect) the wider the diameter of the shell the more effective it is, meaning even a large slow moving projectile can do a great amount of damage to tanks.
:*Anti-Tank/Materiel Rifle - Essentially modern elephant guns; these rifles are geared towards destroying tanks and hard objects, although they are very much still capable of demolishing infantry (albeit overkill since rifles of this type tend to outright cause body parts to explode by the sheer amount of force they carry.). Anti-tank rifles were the norm for years (From the 1910s to the late 1970s) as they were a cheap yet effective way of getting rid of tanks, but advancements in vehicle armor has largely rendered AT rifles obsolete (at least for anti-tank roles, these things can still royally murder lightly-armored vehicles and urban housing, thus why they can be seen in use today). Anti-materiel rifles however, are a bit of an offshoot of AT rifles, and are still in use today. They are often used to take out lighter vehicles, to detonate ordnance at a safe distance or fuck up anything valuable to the other side like radars, communication devices, heavy weapons, etc... They have been successfully used against light boats and even to down the occasional helicopter. Likewise, they have been used by both professional and paramilitary forces due in thanks to their ability to annihilate cover (and hopefully what's behind it) where most conventional small arms won't.
:*Elephant Gun - A rifle that fires a ludicrously heavy bullet, usually as a single shot but rarely as a bolt action. As the name implies, these were developed to bring down big game like elephants, but eventually became the precursors to anti-material rifles. Unlike the later, range or penetration aren't big concerns so much as delivering a massive amount of energy to a soft-skinned target. While hunting elephants may be illegal today, a large caliber weapon is still useful for defense against large predators like bears or lions, who would shrug off a smaller 5.56mm or 7.62mm to the body. Firing such a heavy weapon while standing or even sitting isn't a pleasant experience; without the right stance, it'll go flying once you pull the trigger.
:*Everything else - Except sniper rifles and most Designated Marksman Rifles, all of the above rifles are generally "military-grade" and thus are generally not available to the public (unless you are in '''The Great United States Of America'''*, *NFA restrictions apply). Any other type of rifle will typically be called a "sporting rifle" or "hunting rifle", etc and are either bolt-action or semi-automatic. Technically speaking, most "military-grade" firearms can be modified to become semi-automatic to allow for use within the public.

*Machine Gun - Colloquially a machine gun is a large automatic weapon (though technically anything fully-automatic, ranging from a machine pistol all the way up to auto-cannons), typically fed from a magazine or a belt (or both, as is the case with the M249) and meant to either be man-portable or fired from an emplacement or mount like a tripod or turret. The main difference between MGs and the rest of the automatic weapon family is that an MG is a gun meant to fire with longer continuous bursts as a support weapon; meaning that the machine gunner applies continuous suppression fire at the enemy to keep them down (and occasionally kill those stupid enough to not get the message), while the rest of the squad maneuver. Machine guns are generally heavier, not only because of the volume of ammo they carry; but their parts (such as the barrel) are made of heavier materials so that the gun can withstand the punishing amounts of bullets it puts downrange (firing hundreds of rounds without pause can cause guns to overheat and malfunction, even catch fire or explode in the worst of scenarios, unless they're built for such a task.) Even then, barrel changes occur frequently to change warped and damaged barrels.
:*Light Machine Gun - an LMG is a man-portable MG that fires the same intermediate rounds as assault rifles. They are intended to be almost as portable as a rifle (as in, they can be shouldered, but get better performance with a bipod) and allow machine gunners to provide suppressing fire at the squad level. Some LMGs are magazine-fed rifles with heavier barrels and modified bolts (such as the RPK), or else scaled-down MMGs (such as the M249 SAW).
:*Medium Machine Gun - an MMG is a man-portable MG that fires the same full-power rounds as battle rifles. These tend to push the limit of what's practical for a man-portable weapon, and when deployed are usually fired from a stationary position either on a bipod or tripod due to the recoil they generate. These weapons usually overlap with General Purpose Machine Guns and tend to be deployed at the company level or as a vehicle weapon.
:*Heavy Machine Gun (classic) - The definition of an HMG has changed a bit over the last 100 years so the catagory has been split up into two category's. The classical heavy machine gun is exclusively meant to be fired from emplacements and mounts like a tripod due to their large size and weight and was designed to be fired from a fixed position: constantly, just spitting out bullets for days. Often done with the aid of a water jacket which further increased the weight of the weapon. These are the guns that created the quagmire of the great war. Their heavy weight made them impossible for an infantryman to fire on the move (regardless of what you hear; even Hollywood couldn't make these monsters man-portable in their movies, and those fire low-powered blank rounds and is being held by the like of [[Sly Marbo|Sylvester Stallone]]). But that weight also greatly limited their maneuverability and forced them to stay in a static defensive position. Usage outside of vehicle mounts died off when artillery became more precise and could easily wipe out immobile emplacements. Unlike modern heavy machine guns, classical ones used a standard sized rifle cartridge, the vickers for example used the .303 bullet same as the standard rifle of the day, what made them 'heavy' was the focus on sustained shooting to throw back waves of attacking infantry. Examples include the Maxim gun, Hotchkiss Mle 1914 and the Vickers.
:*Heavy Machine Gun (Modern): a modern heavy machine gun is not designed to fire constantly, but to fire a big bullet. Only slightly too small to qualify for the definition of 'cannon' are weapons like the M2 browning .50 caliber, or 12.7 mm machine gun. Modern HMG's are powerful enough to penetrate light armor and damage fragile equipment on heavy armor (like scopes), making them formidable weapons. Examples of modern HMG's are the Russian DHSK and the American M2 Browning.
:*General Purpose Machine Gun - Essentially a machine gun that can perform multiple roles of the previous stated. Examples of this are the German MG34 (arguably the first of this concept) and MG42/MG3, or (from an American prospective) the American M60 and M240, which can reliably serve both infantry-level support weapon and mounted gun roles by fitting them with the appropriate parts. The first ones used the general rifle cartridge, while modern examples are in 7.62x51 NATO or its equivalents.
::*Squad Automatic Weapon - An attempt to make a GPMG that use the intermediate cartridges everyone else in the squad used. Despite the weaknesses of intermediate cartridges (limited range, low barrier penetration/destruction) being more noticeable in a machinegun role, they is still commonly used by virtue of their reduced logistical requirements and lighter weight compared to other man-portable LMG variants. The RPD, RPK and M249/SAW/MINIMI family are the main entries here, though it seems every modern assault rifle has tried to make a SAW variant with varying degrees of success.
:::*Infantry Automatic Rifle - A more recent concept that seeks to combine the continuous firing properties of a machine gun with an assault rifle's accuracy and ease of use. So far only attempted seriously by the US Marine Corp with the M27; while the higher-ups are pleased with it so far, there is considerable debate about whether its lower rate of fire compared to the M249 will make it less effective at providing suppressing fire.
:*Rotary Machine Gun - Originally known as the "Gatling gun", man's first known attempt to have enough [[dakka]]; a rotary machine gun is an automatic weapon that uses revolving barrels that interchange every time the gun fires off a round. The kicker to this is that it allows the gun to shoot with little threat of the barrels wearing out as they interchange between shots; giving them a small window to cool off before firing again. The end result is a gun capable of firing over 3,000 rounds per minute without fail, or in a smaller scope; 50 rounds per second. Modern rotary guns are electrically powered to allow them to reach such insane speeds, and are given ammo drums that contain thousands of rounds to be able to sustain that amount of bullets being fired; so they're confined to static emplacements and vehicles (unlike what the media constantly portrays; these things are not even close to being man-portable without assistance from powered armor.) These types of guns are used almost exclusively on aircraft or anti-aircraft emplacements, as they're the only non-missile weapon that can reliably hit fast-moving aircraft. But a rotary gun that fires 30mm rounds is powerful enough to tear tanks in two, as well (metaphorically, they only have to penetrate top armor and rate of fire helps). Unlike what the movies would tell you a rotary machine gun does not need a long spinup time to get to full speed: when the trigger is pulled the gun starts to spin and fire immediately.
:*Chain gun - A chain gun is a machine gun that is fed using an electric motor. Instead of relying on the gasses from the bullet to work the action to cycle a new round; a machine automatically ejects and loads a new round in after firing a shot. Chain guns have the benefit of never jamming due to feeding failures, as even if the round is not discharged; the machine pops it out and loads a new one regardless. However, it is also not man-portable as it requires an electric motor to function, so it is only found on fixed emplacements or vehicles. Can easily fuck up any poor shmucks day by perforating the boat or car they are in. People sometimes use the words "chain gun" and "rotary machine gun" interchangably, but chain guns are typically single-barreled, as they don't need the high rate of fire that rotary guns do outside of anti-air guns.

===Actions===
"Action" refers to how ammunition is loaded into the weapon.

*Single-shot: The first and oldest of all; a single-shot weapon is when users manually load rounds into the chamber. This can be anything from loading a new round, cocking the weapon every shot, or pumping the action.
**Muzzle-loaded: The earliest form of how weapons were loaded. This meant you had to load a new round directly into the muzzle, which is where the bullets come out. In its earliest form; muzzle-loaded guns were complicated to arm; you had to fuck around with a wad, powder, and slug. In the heat of battle, you had to ram these down the barrel of your gun in the correct order, light the wick, then aim before the gun goes off. And you had to do all this while standing in the open within firing range of your enemy.
**Breach-loaded; An upgrade over muzzle-loading and developed shortly after cartridges were invented; breach loaders are where the back of the barrel can be opened so that you can load a new round into it. Many muzzle loaders were converted to breech loaders in workshops near the end of the Industrial Revolution. It is still a popular setup for multi-barreled shotguns. Certain revolvers are breach-loaded as well, but given the size and design of the revolver, this gives them a notable weak point at the top of the weapon where the parts connect together. Most come in flavors such as break action (popular with simple shotguns), trapdoor mechanisms, rolling blocks, falling blocks (attached to levers), or bolt action.
**Bolt-action: This type of action is where you pull the charging handle of a weapon, every time you shoot so that a new round can be chambered. Originally starting off as single shot rifles, they eventually added magazines to reduce the amount of loading required. These were pretty popular in WW1 and continues to be used today for precision rifles.
**Lever-action: The cool kid of the single-action club; lever-action weapons are those where you have to use a lever to chamber a new round, which was usually mounted near the trigger. This type was made popular by Winchester during the frontier age of the Wild West and even more by Arnold Schwarzenegger when he used a lever-action shotgun during Terminator 2.
**Pump-action: A pump action is where you had to pull the "pump" of the weapon to cycle a new round. This is the most common action used by shotguns. A few rifles used this setup as well (but only with round bullet heads as pointed bullets have the risk of setting off the primers), and there is one instance of a bunch of madmen creating a pump-action 3+1 (three in the tube, one in the chamber) 40mm grenade launcher.
*Automatic action/Self-loading: Unlike single-shot weapons, it uses gasses expelled by the cartridge or recoil to power a mechanism that automatically chambers a new round after each shot. Generally speaking, the semi-automatic to fully-automatic action is determined by the trigger sear, which may either inhibit the hammer from hitting against until the trigger is let go (semi-automatic), stops firing after a certain number of rounds have been fired (burst-fire), or continuously fires until ammo is expended (fully automatic).
**Semi-automatic: A semi-automatic weapon is any weapon that can fire after every trigger pull, with the user only needing to work the action after reloading a completely empty gun. Most handguns and many rifles are semi-automatic.
**Burst-Fire: A setting sometimes included on automatic weapons, each trigger pull fires three (or sometimes two) rounds in rapid succession. This is used as a way to allow automatic capability without wasting bullets, as keeping the trigger held too long on anything other than a mounted weapon tends to cause it to lose accuracy very quickly.
**Fully-automatic: A fully-automatic weapon is any weapon that can fire automatically, so long as the trigger is depressed, rather than pulled each time like how semi-autos work. Automatic weapons tend to be banned for civilian use and are only available to military.

===Ammo Storage and Feeding===
This refers to how ammunition is given to the weapon. Also the topic of a /k/ommando's greatest sources of rage; the clip vs magazine misconception. This section will give a short explanation for both.

*Pepperbox - basically the bastard child of a break-action long gun and a revolver; a pepperbox gun has 3 or more barrels loaded and ready to fire, with the gun rotating between the loaded barrels to fire in relatively quick sucession. As this was one of the only ways to get more than a single shot in less than a minute without resorting to carrying multiple guns; the design was wacky but popular during the olden ages (and still today to a limited extent for some pocket pistols). The Empire's Outriders are armed with these weapons if you want a visual of what they looked like. Most pepperboxes where smoothbore since they were made on the cheap and never intended for more than point blank fire.

*Volleygun - A variant of the olden multi-barrel family, the volleygun foregoes single, accurate shots in favor of alpha-striking to saturate the area in lead, having anywhere between 2 to 20 barrels (and you can go well beyond this if your contraption can handle it) and the size ranging anywhere from a pistol to a full-sized artillery piece. As the name describes; it fires all of it's payload in a single volley, basically making it a one-man firing line. This style of weaponry gradually fell out of disuse as more modern firearms were developed (mainly self-loading weapons, which were more reliable and accurate), but is notably still used for the "Metal Storm", a prototype weapon with truly absurd number of gun barrels that go off simultaneously to shred the ever-living fuck out of it's target. The only types still in use today are double barreled shotguns and derringers.

*Superposed load - the disadvantage to using a multi-barreled firearm is that it adds a lot of weight to the firearm. One alternative was to simply stack multiple bullets and charges into the same barrel, and then have the firearm set them off sequentially. The early version of this mechanism was prone to failures, as the bullets were not self-contained and a poor gas seal could result in multiple charges going off, destroying the gun (and the user if unlucky enough) if it was not designed to handle the stress. However, this setup was revived with the invention of caseless bullets and electronic triggers used most prominently in Metal Storm weapons. If combined with multiple barrels, a metal storm weapon can have a bewildering rate of fire. So far the technology is mostly used in multi-shot grenade launchers.

*Bullpup - A bullpup is any weapon where its action is located in the behind the trigger, instead of in front. Bullpups have the advantage of being more compact, compared to the traditional setup, as most of the gun's mechanism is located in the stock area. but has the disadvantage of not being ambidextrous (being that the shell ejection port is directly beside the shooter's face, left-handed shooters are forced to shoot from the right to not get their faces burned off) unless specifically designed to be so. This is usually resolved by cutting out ejection ports on both sides and swapping parts over, or else ejecting bullets downward or forward. And typically suffer from poor triggers due to the distance from trigger to action, though there are aftermarket kits for many that can mitigate it a good deal. Modern pistols and many SMGs that feed from inside the grip are ''technically'' bullpups, since their magazine and action are behind the trigger and connected by a transfer bar, but they generally aren't counted as such.

*Clip - A clip is a device, used for bundling bullets together for immediate use. Guns cannot use clips by themselves, they have to be loaded into a magazine first to be used by a gun. The most common version were "stripper clips": each clip held about five bullets, and to load the rifle you placed the clip on top of the magazine, then squeezed the bullets off the clip into the magazine. Another type, en bloc, was used by the M1 Garand and held eight bullets in a 2x4 configuration. The entire clip was put in the magazine, with the clip being ejected after being emptied. The last kind is the moon (or half-moon) clip, used specifically for revolvers, which holds bullets in a circular formation for loading the chamber up in one go. Clips are still used today, but exclusively to speed up loading external magazines. Filling external magazines generally requires a small disposable tool, which is included in any ammo lot packaged on stripper clips.

*Speedloader - A speedloader is essentially a clip that has moving parts, usually to aid with holding and/or loading ammunition. Two common types exist. The first is similar to a moon clip in that it holds bullets so that they can all be loaded into a revolver simultaneously, but use a locking mechanism to secure the bullets while they are being carried, then release them once they are loaded into the cylinder. While not as fast as a moon clip, it still makes loading revolvers considerably faster. Another type of speedloader is the magazine loader, which is designed to reduce the spring pressure in a magazine, making it faster and easier to load.

*Magazine - The magazine is part of the weapon that houses and feeds actual ammo into the weapon. In the olden days, many guns had magazines that were built into the weapon itself and were fed using clips of ammo that were loaded after the gun ran out of ammo. Built-in magazines, however, severely limited the potential ammunition capacity of guns as they cannot be expanded without significantly making the gun larger and was a pain in the ass to reload (such as in the case of revolvers). To counter this; people designed guns whose magazines were detachable from the gun itself. This allowed people to easily expand the ammo cap of a gun, as they only needed to ensure that the extended magazine will fit into their gun and cycle properly, they no longer needed to re-work the entire structure of the gun to enlarge a built-in magazine. It also greatly increased a person's reload speed, as instead of fumbling around with several clips to ram down the gun: they just had to detach a magazine, pull one out of their vest/bag, load it in (charge the gun if needed), and they're good to go. High-capacity magazines tend to take on weird shapes rather than the standard flat box; the most common variant is the drum magazine, but there are also double drums, caskets, and helicals. Typically the weakest part of any firearm. A large part of the misconceptions of the M16 were related to the fucktarded idea that it should be issued with DISPOSABLE MAGAZINES! They were initially not intended for repeated use, empty the mag. Drop it, crush it under your boot, reload a brand new never used mag. Worked well till some bureaucrat ordered reusing them which alongside some other bureaucrats skipping the chrome lining for the barrel and issuing really shitty ammo made with spare parts caused regular failures. Newer iterations of the magazine have since addressed these issues.

*Belts - The belt is what it is; a long belt filled with bullets, which can either take the form of a cloth belt or linked by metallic chains. Belts are the common loading method of most machine guns, who typically have ammunition capacities well beyond 100 rounds. The reason for this is that it simplifies the operation of the gun (since belts do not require them to be fed to the gun with a mechanism like in traditional magazines) and makes them less prone to malfunctions (with a gun designed to shoot continuously; you wanna make sure that there's less critical moving parts to fuck up as it's firing it's 300th round at the enemy). Belts are also much easier to transport, as the belt can be folded several times to make it more compact, versus a solid magazine. This is mostly because until H&K put out their steel high reliability 5.56 nato mag, most magazines couldn't keep up with the fire rate and were too flimsy(The Soviet counterparts that used magazines, used AK pattern magazines which you can open a beer with and then load into the gun). Pretty much every man issued a M249 with the magwell adapter, will attest to how dire you must be for bullets in the air to use it.

==Ammunition themselves==
To call a round or cartridge "a bullet" would be the equivalent of calling of calling a magazine a clip. Bullets are the projectiles that are or to be launched, while the "round" is the entire thing. To do otherwise would summon the wrath of the /k/ommando.

===Composition of the modern round/cartridge===

*Casing - The metal jacket that houses the propellant, primer, and to an extent the bullet (pardoning telescopic munitions which house the bullet completely.) Usually made from brass, they can be made from steel or plastics (at the detriment of the gun itself, unless designed for such).

*Propellant - Powder that is used to propel the bullet/slug/projectile. In the good ol' days, it used black powder, but those clouded the air with black smoke, left soot in the gun, were corrosive, and weren't powerful. Most modern rounds use a double base powder (generally gun cotton/nitrocellulose and nitroglycerin, may include a variety of stabilizers (to improve shelf life of the round) and deterrents (to prevent the cartridge from being too "hot" and prematurely combusting or shattering the barrel from overpressure). For artillery, they make good use of triple base propellants, which is smokey as hell but burn well.

*Primer - What activates the powder in the rounds themselves. Generally a firm dent is enough to activate the munitions. Modern commercial ammo generally use non-corrosive compression sensitive materials, though many governments kept using corrosive primers well into the Cold War.

*Bullets - What people get tripped up on in naming munitions. Being the projectile, anyone loading the munitions has a vast choice of what can be used as a bullet. Generally, lead, steel, and tungsten make the core of the round (thanks to their weight) while the outer coat for the round could be lead (since it is also very malleable), copper, and nickel, though Teflon and certain plastics can also be used. If you're feeling lucky, you can load a variety of other materials into the rounds (or shells for shotguns). Take for example salt, which doesn't kill, but you can mark people and they sting like hell. Alternatively, if you're riot police trying to suppress a crowd without killing them, you'd use bullets or shotgun shells loaded with rubber, foam, plastic, bean bag rounds, or tear gas with reduced propellant. If it hits you in the head or in an unlucky spot, you might die from blunt force trauma but it's less lethal than an actual bullet.

===Types of bullets===
As a short note on bullets, its important to know that just because a bullet can easily penetrate armor doesn't mean its a definite upgrade over everything else. If a hard bullet like the FMJ or AP penetrates the human body and exits in the same shot; its gonna hurt like hell but unless that bullet was in the 12.7mm (.50 caliber) category or it hit something important like a lung or the head; the target has a good possibility to survive through a combination of medical aid, hormones (adrenaline in fight or flight), and willpower (with the side possibility of stimulants), and even still continue to fight onwards if they're that dead 'ard. That said, if a 12.7mm round came tearing through your body; it has enough momentum to potentially rupture a good chunk of your insides which is ''very'' lethal, but 12.7mm guns are generally not mainstay (these are guns like the Desert Eagle, M2 Browning, or M82 Barrett), so unless you're a real-life action hero, a turret gunner, or a counter-sniper; its unlikely for you to have access to these behemoths.

Likewise, if a soft bullet like the JHP or SP penetrates the body, then which expands, fragments, and/or tumbles inside; in short internal and external bleeding would be the most urgent of the target's concerns, with ruptured organs and torn muscles leaking like a broken sewage pipe, thus making HP lot more lethal and debilitating. That said, soft bullets fragment easily and body armor proportionate to it's caliber can reliably stop soft round. That said even if armored; the target is still gonna feel the impact of the bullet's force hitting against his body, and that still has the potential of killing someone if the circumstances are right (although its still unreliable).

In the end, a bullet is either specialized where it's only effective against either armored or unarmored targets, or a special combination that renders it effective against both types (although these require an experienced smith to manufacture properly).

*Ball - though if we start talking bullets we need to start with the first bullet: the lead ball, from where we derive the common term for bullets as 'rounds'. It's. . .just a lead ball though, not much to say about it. The balls were hand made, often by soldiers themselves since lead has such a low melting point, with the molds often being unique to each gun. This used largely the same process that was used for [[Sling]] bullets since antiquity. These early bullets would be smaller then the barrel and so would often 'rattle' down the barrel due to the ill fitting, which combined with a lack of riffling would mean early guns were horribly inaccurate. If one used a larger bullet that better fitted the gun, one could use rifling, but this required, (see above) hammering the bullet into place to make sure that there were no gaps.

*Minié ball- The first bullet we would know as a 'bullet', and the first truly distinct from a lead ball. A Minié ball is a conical bullet with a concave hole in the base. When fired the base flared out from the pressure of the blast, letting it engage with the rifling of the gun. This meant that it formed a seal with the barrel making it incredibly accurate, while not needing to be tightly hammered down the barrel. The best of both worlds. Combined with it's large size these things were lethal on the battle field maiming and crippling an entire generation of soldiers during the US civil war.

*Full Metal Jacket (FMJ)- Generally a lead or steel bullet encased in a soft metal such as copper. Acts a sort of lube as well as preventing fouling of the barrel. Depending on design, has a potential to fragment post impact, shredding internal organs.
**Synthetic Jacket- FMJ ammo with a plastic jacket, which has the advantage of reducing cleaning requirements and safer when hitting steel at the cost of various things not really relevant in practice ammo. Currently only in handgun calibers and only made as practice/match ammo (though some hollow points and AP rounds do also use polymer jackets).

*Hollow point (HP)- The hollow section in the center makes the bullet expand on impact, creating a bigger hole in its victim at the expense of being less effective against armored targets. That being said, the decreased penetration also makes it safer to use in situations where over-penetration could be dangerous (e.g. on an aircraft). Certain designs have bladed tips on expansion, causing additional cutting and bleeding too. It was banned from military use by the Hague Convention of 1899, so restricted to police, civilians, and, as of 2017, the United States Armed Forces (The US didn't sign that provision, but previously stuck with FMJ even after mass production became feasible for the sake of NATO compatibility).

*Semi jacketed Hollow point (SJHP)- Same as a hollow point, but has a copper jacket to help reduce fouling.

*Jacketed Hollow Point (JHP)- Same as above, but fully covers the bullet down to the tip.

*Wad cutter (WC)- Flat tipped bullet. Not very aerodynamic but it leaves a big hole to help tell you where you hit the target. Generally for closer range paper targets as they lose velocity very quickly due to the drag on them.

*Semi Wad Cutter (SWC)- Like the wad cutter, but more aerodynamic.

*Armor Piercing (AP)- As name implies, intended to penetrate armor, be it person or equipment. However, this ultimately depends on what gun you're shooting from and what armor you're shooting at. A 9x19mm AP steel round coming from a 4" barrel will do diddly to NIJ Level IIIA, where as a 7.62x51 AP flying out of a 24" barrel will punch through it easy as you please. Modern AP rounds are often jacketed in plastic, but this is purely to protect the barrel (turns out sending something meant to destroy steel through a steel barrel results in a wrecked barrel) and adds no armor piercing quality.

*Saboted light armor penetrator (SLAP)/Saboted bullets- Think of the discarding sabots fired from a M1 Abrams or a saboted slug of a shotgun, but redesigned to be fired like a standard rifle round. The sabot is designed to the grip the rifling until it leaves the barrel, then discard after leaving the barrel. This would leave the penetrator or bullet with a high velocity while providing a sufficient spin to the bullet to keep it stabilized in the air. With a higher density and/or thinner bullet, they can potentially penetrate better than potentially even APHE. Likewise for handcrafted bullets, they provide higher velocity for a smaller bullet in a cartridge intended for a larger caliber. G

*High Explosive incendiary (HEI)- Explosive tipped munition. Generally for larger rounds (think 7.62 and beyond), they typically are meant for non-infantry targets such as light vehicles, light aircraft, and barriers, showering those inside with speeding shrapnel. Despite their implication, they might not work as well as one might think against hard target.

*Armor Piercing Incendiary (API)/Armor Piercing High Explosive (APHE), High Explosive Incendiary Armor Penetration (HEIAP)- Designed with the intentions of penetrating hard targets that HE rounds can't do alone and being anti-material in general, API and HEIAP are the answer to those targets. Generally have sufficient power in and behind the bullet (think Raufoss Mk.211), it will penetrate body armor and light vehicles with awe-inspiring ease.

*Soft point or semi jacketed - Like a FMJ, except the tip is exposed. Designed to have the reduced drag of a FMJ, while expanding upon hitting a target similar to a hollow point. Generally designed for hunters in mind.

*Ballistic tip - Similar in performance to the semi-jacketed bullet, but rather than being a solid core of lead it is designed like a hollow point, but with a plastic tip at the end to reduce drag and ensure expansion.

*Ratshot - made for smaller-caliber guns and is basically birdshot for rifled barrels. The tip is a plastic cap that contains a small amount pellets, typically within the 1.5mm range. As the name implies; the gun is primarily designed for shooting pests and small animals like rodents and grass snakes. You can use it to shoot at larger pests like coyotes or humans, but it's woefully underpowdered for the job.

*Tracer - a regular bullet coated in pyrotechnic coating that ignites when fired. These are most commonly used with machineguns (every fifth round in a belt, to be exact) since it's useful for the gunner to accurately see where all his bullets are going, as well as make it clear to any enemies he's suppressing just who he's aiming at. Similarly rifle magazines are often loaded with tracers at certain intervals to provide indication of remaining ammo. Of course, the caveat is "tracer's work both ways" as they can give away your position; this can be mitigated by using "dim" tracers that can only be seen through night vision goggles. Sometimes also used by spotters or commanders to mark a specific target. They can potentially set fire to objects, if the incendiary compound hasn't burned out yet on impact.

*Less-lethals - Commonly known as 'rubber bullets' even though they're made of other substances such as plastic, foam, and beanbag rounds for shotguns these days. Used in riot control and such, where the shooter isn't allowed to kill. The key word is "less", however. They hurt like a sonovabitch and can still kill in the wrong circumstances when they hit you in the head or a sensitive area, though. Airsoft this ain't.

*Silver - Pure fantasy, but common in there to counter supernatural creatures weak to silver. Silver bullets would suffer from many problems that rarely get mentioned in fiction. Chief among these are the cost, that silver shrinks when cast (so it's really hard to get the right size and shape), and that silver is too soft to engage rifling so even if you get the right size accuracy will be terrible. [[Monster Hunter International|More /k/ aligned works]] solve these issues with solutions like sabots (which helps accuracy but still worse than real bullets), ballistic tips made of silver and frangible bullets filled with powdered silver (instead of the typical competitively cheap metal).

===Types of Rounds===
Apart from the traditional type of rounds, here are some unique ones for reference.

*Blanks - What you commonly see loaded in movies. Blanks are basically that; the round has a primer and powder, but the bullet is just a paper or plastic sheet designed to keep the powder in, so you get the sound of a gun going off, but not the damage. That said, blanks ''can'' still kill people, the gasses used to propel the bullet forward are still there (just not launching any bullets); and its powerful enough to liquefy organs and break bones if you were dumb/desperate enough shoot someone with a blank at close range. Movie armorers make a point of demonstrating this with things like fruit before letting anyone touch blank firing guns. This is why instead of blank-firing guns, actors will use flash paper guns at close range for safety. There's also blank ammo specifically designed to make as much noise as possible for the purpose of disorienting and intimidating people in an area. In a military sense blanks do have a use: typically for turning your rifle into a grenade launcher, using the expanding gasses to launch a grenade held at the muzzle by a cup.

*Caseless - An old but futuristic concept, a caseless round has everything required for the bullet to be launched, inside the bullet itself. This removes the need for guns to eject spent shell casings after every shot, reducing weight and ammo costs. While this has been pioneered since WW2 and a few prototype examples for it were already developed (like the G11); caseless rounds are still determined to be unreliable for field combat use in comparison to traditional ammunition, so as of today their use is largely limited (mainly to grenade rounds like the Russian VOG-25 grenade).

*Gyrojet - A unique but largely impractical cartridge in the gun circuit, WH40K's famous [[bolter|boltguns]] run on the same concept as the gyrojet. Basically, the bullets are miniature rockets that build up speed as they travel, capable of exceeding the speed of sound after traveling 60ft. While the idea sounds cool; gyrojets were ''required'' to gain minimum distance to achieve their full effect (if you fired at point-blank for example, they didn't really do much), had a design flaw in their propulsion system that made the rockets prone to corkscrewing off-course, and were highly temperamental to environmental conditions, not to mention the costs. At the end the concept was a bust as it didn't really do a lot that couldn't be achieved with traditional small arms for cheaper. Still GeeDubs thought it was nice and became the basis of how boltguns work, where it's largely the same but with more techno-flubdubbery and "because future".

*Magnum - Unlike what vidya gaems portray, magnums aren't really super-mega handguns of death. A magnum round is basically a parent cartridge that's been enlarged so it does more damage due to a combination of larger mass and more powder used (so it flies faster and hits harder), and this can be anything from the .357 magnum handgun round used by revolvers, to the large caliber .338 Lapua and Winchester magnum rounds used for precision sniper rifles.

*Overpressured - Designated as "+P", overpressured rounds still uses the same cartridge (unlike the magnum), but is loaded with higher-pressure powder that releases more energy when fired. It sounds like a nice way to up your damage, but guns have a level of pressure they can tolerate, and if your gun isn't designed to do such and you use +P rounds; you run the very high risk of destroying your gun (and the rest of your body if you're that unlucky). There are guns that are proofed to fire +P and +P+ ammo but it typically used in SMGs. Certain batches of surplus ammo will blow up guns because they were made to be used in more robust SMGs and not commercial pistols, poorly stored, or just plain poorly made.

===Types of shotgun loads===

*Buckshot - The shell is filled with lead or steel pellets, each of which is typically around 15mm each (it ultimately depends on the bore), that spread out once discharged. Poor at penetrating armor and limited effective range comparison to other firearms as the pellets scatter and the pellets are too small to do serious damage individually (Although do note that unlike what the vidya gaems portray; a decent 12G shotgun loaded with buckshot is effective upto 30-50m, not just in point-blank range); but they do cover a fairly large radius and the force of 8-12 pellets impacting against your body will send you tumbling and rolling on the floor in agony, even if they don't penetrate.

*Birdshot - Similar to buckshot and more pellets, but the pellets are smaller (5mm and less, although still depends on the bore). As their name describes; the ammo is designed to pelt down birds by [[Ork|throwing as many bullets at the target and hoping atleast a few of them hit]]. You can use them against non-avian targets aswell and they'll do something, but they don't pack the punch you'd like and don't expect them to dent body armor too much. Their ineffectiveness against human targets [[Wikipedia:Dick Cheney hunting accident|was demonstrated by a (possibly drunk) Vice President of the United States]] when he shot an old guy in the face with some and the only lasting damage was the voice.

*Slug - Instead of multiple pellets; the gun fires a single, heavy lead projectile, similar to how traditional ammo works. Because shotgun barrels are not rifled; slugs do not have the range nor accuracy rifles do, but because of their weight and the shotgun's fairly large caliber; they're fully capable of crushing their way through armor at close range. Slugs are typically used for hunting large game in areas where rifle ammunition isn't allowed due to the risk of overpenetration.

*Breaching - A specialized variant of the slug round, breaching rounds are designed specifically to destroy door locks at extremely close range. Generally composed of very dense powdered steel held together with wax.

*Less-lethals - Designed for riot control where the shooter isn't allowed to kill; the bullet is either made of rubber, paint, or beanbags designed for minimal penetration, while the powder used in the rounds is less to reduce the projectile's velocity. The end result is a bullet designed to simply cause shock and pain to the target in order to incapacitate them long enough to be arrested and not rejoin the fight in the meantime. That said, you're still talking about launching an object at someone at speeds similar to cars speeding on a highway; so hitting vulnerable parts of the body like the head, neck, or ribs can still result in a fatality. On the flip side, anyone wearing bullet-resistant armor won't be affected too much.

*Chain-shot - Typically reserved for olden cannons, the chain-shot is two cannonballs linked with a chain. The spinning contraption was intended to tear through a ship's mast and sails. Obsolete as fuck, but it is still possible to replicate this with shotgun ammo. Basically you tie two pellets or slugs together so that when they're discharged; they're basically flying garrotes. Awesome, but because of how unpredictable bullets are while in flight, it's highly impractical for combat use.

*Flechette - Buckshot, but instead of pellets; the shell is loaded with small metal darts. They achieved better penetration and range than traditional buckshot; but because shotguns aren't really designed as precision weapons; they were highly impractical for combat applications. They destroyed barrels and tended to deflect off really silly things like raindrops.

*Explosive Rounds - The shell contains an slug that explodes upon impact, capable of using anti-armor or anti-personnel shells, basically turning the shotgun into a portable grenade launcher. Not as powerful as the real thing, but invaluable when you need accurate explosions but not the excessive collateral damage or restrictive weight and mass. Has seen some use in rifle rounds on the eastern front of World War II as well as in .50 BMG (officially for use on objects, not people).

*Dragon's Breath - An odd type of ammo. DB shells are loaded with magnesium pellets. When discharged; they create a short but hot burst of fire that burn at temperatures upto 1,600°C. While not really used much for conventional combat due to its status as an incendiary weapon (which would give a warcrimes committee a field day); blasting a person with this at close range will create about the same results as a giant fire-breathing lizard incinerating an unlucky knight to death, hence their name. Also destroys barrels, as dragon's breath burns hotter than the melting point of steel, and close to the melting point of chromium (two of the most common metals used in gun parts).

*Misc - Shotguns aren't really picky with ammo since they are manually operated and don't depend on a gas seal as much; just about ''anything'' can be used for bullets if worse comes to worse/you're bored. Could be lego pieces, could be old hard candy, solid scrap,frozen meat [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-n4bxxn9gA or even glass]. Hell, it can be a Sly Marbo tabletop figure if you could fit him inside a shell and prevent him from disintegrating from the force while exiting the barrel, the choice is yours. (More likely blow up your gun as Sly refuses to die and gives you the finger for trying.) Incidentally this unfastidious in ammunition also means that in a fantasy setting you can basically load anything you want down the barrel of a shotgun to deal with basically any monster that had a weakness. Wooden stakes for vampires, Cold iron for fae, silver for werewolves, the aforementioned dragon breath for flame vulnerable monsters, salt if that's a thing demons hate in your mythos, freeze holy water into ice and you could still likely shoot it with a sabot. Basically shotguns should be the go to for the modern murder hobo.

==Manufacturing of Firearms==

===Brief Overview===

The production of firearms historically speaking has been an, err, interesting path. The first firearms were little more than metal (or whatever other material one so chose) cylinder with with one hole for the ignition of the powder and one for the projectile to be projected. As time passes on manufacturing techniques got more advanced, leading to triggers which frees up one hand from having to push a hot object into the powder. Most used a sort of striker to ignite the powder, be it flint or rope. Around the early to mid 19th century, self-containing cartridges became a possible reality. As such the firearm had to change too, with an action either simply accepting a round into the barrel or an action that would be worked to put it in. Near the end of the 19th century and start of the 20th, auto-loading firearms became possible, but the actions had to become more complex to automatically feed the round by means of either recoil or gas. After that, guns haven't exactly changed too drastically (still major changes) in the current 21st century, pardoning the much higher efficiency of the modern weaponry. The complexity of modern firearms however doesn't interfere with how cheaply they can be produced. As such, there are endless aftermarket gun parts for sale around in places such as the USA.

===DIY===
[[image:.45 ACP ISB SMG.png|thumb|175px|left|.45 ACP ISB SMG designed from a STEN, but has many parts that differ. According to the designer "I like to think of it as a cross between an FG-42, a Welrod and a Sten."]]

First and foremost: guns are not toys, and should never be treated as such.

It comes as no secret that one can manufacture their own guns in one's own home so they chose to ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khyber_Pass_copy Just ask the Afghans]). Depending on the skill of the user, the manufacturing tools used, material quality of the parts being used and/or made, design of the gun, and so on, a DIY can range from a explode-in-your-hand zip gun all the way up to high-quality rifles that have a minute of angle (MOA) of 1 or less. All one need is one's [[Ork|imagination]] and a [[Techpriest|firm understanding on how a gun works from the inside out and machining]]. In addition to that, the internet has a broad data base on the knowledge and schematics of guns.

[[image:Homemade_gun_exploding.PNG|thumb|150px|right| Careful you might blow your eye out]]
That said, DIY-guns require a decent understanding of physics, chemistry, and mechanical engineering to manufacturer at all, so unless you're a [[Mekboy]] with all the know-wotz implanted in your brain; its highly recommended you read up first, lest your firearm's first unwitting victim is you.

[[image:Stormbolter_IRL.jpg|thumb|223px|right|If a modern rifle was a stormbolter.]]

Examples of DIY are:

*Zip gun: Usually a metal tube attached to a piece of wood or object, within it some sort of trigger and striker. One example of this is a slam fire gun. Generally a 12 gauge shotgun shell loaded into a 3/4 inch tube that can be shoved into a 1 inch tube that has cap containing a nail at the end. When shoved in, the cap's nail will be more than enough to set off the shell, making the tubes effectively a shotgun.

*Experimental design: Every line of guns started out as a experiment somewhere. Some catch on, some don't, some just are there because why the heck not? Want to have dual barrels on your gun? Go for it! Add a counterweight to the gas block so that the recoil is next to nothing? Makes shoot a breeze! Add a round cam to your bolt so you can have a smooth action and reduce wear on the gun? No reason not to! The choices are endless if with time, diligence, and a bit of imagination.

*CNC Manufacturing: Avoiding the painstaking effort of machining it by hand [[Machine Spirit|a machine do it for you?]] A Computer numerical control (CNC) machine can easily mill out receivers and whatever other parts you need assuming you have the plans on the computer and the materials to be drilled out. The downsides of that CNC are a bit pricey relative to their hand milling machine counterpart. However some go for as low as $1200, which is roughly the same price as a mid-tier intermediate rifle in the USA.

==Relations here==
Most fantasy writers tend to exclude firearms. There are a variety of reasons for this, such as:
*Most fantasy comes from [[Tolkien]], who, being a naturalist who largely despised industrialization, did not put guns in Middle-earth, although gunpowder does exist, used by the wizards (Gandalf's Fireworks and Saruman's Fires of Orthanc) and by the orcs.
*Most fantasy (whether copy-catting Tolkien or not) is based on medieval Europe. Depending on your definition of "medieval," Europe did ''technically'' have firearms towards the very end (crude and unreliable ones, but firearms nonetheless), but most authors base their fantasy on earlier medieval Europe.
*As in real life, firearms mean that vulgar, dirty, peasant conscripts can take down the author's Mary Sue noblemen [[knight]]s that trained ''so'' hard in the arts of swordsmanship and melee combat, though if the writer had any historical knowledge they would know that armor can be made "proof" against early firearm bullets (which is partly what spurred the development of full-body plate mail to begin with, as a sidenote) or that a crossbow or longbow can just as easily (in fact, MORE easily due to the general shitty performance of old guns) turn an armored man into swiss cheese.

All that being said, most fantasy authors are much more open to cannons, which became viable on the battlefield long before smaller firearms anyway. Some even make room for crude rocket launchers, especially if there is a not-China/not-Korea in their setting. (Laugh, but a big firework rocket will put a sod on fire and ruin his day just fine, doubly so if the morons are in wooden fort.)

Generally speaking, if a world has both the "stock" fantasy races and guns, there will a strict hierarchy of who uses them, from most to least likely:
*[[Dwarves]]: They almost always have the best, most plentiful guns. If only one race gets firearms, it's likely going to be them.
*[[Gnomes]]: As tinkerers, they're frequently on a different tech level from everyone else, including firearms.
*[[Human]]s: Unlike the other races, which are usually an all-or-nothing deal, different human nations have different likelihoods of having guns. Italian and East Asian analogues, as well as the "industrious" or "scientific" nations, are much more likely to have them. Your barbarians, guys keen on knights and chivalry, and the more conservative less so. If the nation is Post Renaissance, expect pike and shot style IRL analogue armies.
*[[Orc]]s: Orcs would probably love guns if they could actually build some. However, they're usually either incapable of building things or have a hard time organizing themselves to the point that large-scale firearm and powder production is possible. Even so, they could still obtain them them by other means such as fighting as mercenaries for guns and stealing them off the corpses of the fallen and similar. They are higher on the list if they are more like Tolkienian orcs, which can be fairly well organized and "delight in explosions" enough to manufacture their own gunpowder, if only for simple bombs. If Orcs are of the more Chaotic Evil variety then they will barely have crossbows, let alone guns. If Orcs are of the Klingon variety, as in the violent tendencies are normal enough that the civilization can function, then they will LOVE big guns.
*[[Elves]]: Being arrogant pricks, they see guns as crude, inaccurate, foul-smelling contraptions that are no substitute for a bow. However, they'll still use them when necessary, even if they don't like it. That said, elves also had a good reason to not use them, namely most firearms in a fantasy settling are arquebus-type single-shot smoothbore weapons, which are outranged by longbows. Longbows are even decent against most kinds of armor ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Agincourt ask the French]). The main advantage of firearms, even early ones, is ease of use and armor penetration though armor could be made that could stop an early handgun. The main problem with longbows is that it takes years to learn, which is not a problem for long-lived elves. Between a smoothbore handgun and a longbow, the bow is simply a better choice to an elf. The problem of course is that longbows are about as good as bow technology can get while handguns can be improved to rifles, against which bows only have rate of fire as an advantage, then Repeating Rifles, which bows have no advantage at all against. So while Elves may have an advantage to sticking with there longbows well into the age of pike and shot, if they're not careful their Longbows will end up fighting against Springfields and Winchesters and they will end up the worse in that exchange. If tech reaches that point, expect the Archer/Hunter stereotype to turn into Snipers/Mad minute riflemen.
*Wood Elves and other Fey/Nature types: They'd rather die than use a firearm, even if the rest of the world has moved onto biplanes, bolt-action rifles, shell-firing cannons, and tanks. If this happens, this means they either have powerful magic (so the actual weapons used are unimportant), they are ''really really'' good shots with a bow, they have much stronger friends (Think like the amish) or they're about to get colonized. That said: the problem they have are not guns themselves, but making them as mass production always has some environmental costs they can not stand for. If they could get there hands on some way to make guns that did not harm the environment in the process, at least anymore then making a sword does they might go small for small scale fire arm production, but this is rarely explored in fiction.

For how this conservative attitude tends to apply to tech in general for fantasy settings, see [[Medieval Stasis]].

Of course, sci-fi writers almost exclusively use firearms, seeing as how it's THE FUUUUUUTTTTTUUUUURRRREEEE. The exceptions are [[Warhammer 40,000]] and ''[[Dune]]'': although guns are the main combat implement in 40K, close combat is still alive and well, and most armies have at least one elite, close-combat unit wielding weapons that are distinctly not firearms; in ''Dune'', guns are pretty much dead as a weapon of war, as personal-scale force fields stop fast-moving matter (like bullets) from crossing them, but slower matter (like swung knives) can pass through, and if a lasgun blast touches the field, at least one end of the equation comes out "BOOM!!!". Most sci-fi universes do have close combat weapons on the scale we see in modern warfare, though, like in Mass Effect, where, as the Reaper forces (who are basically [[Necron]]s and [[Tyranids]] combined) invade the galaxy, people begin developing their Omnitools to snap-produce a white-hot blade of hard metal above the wearer's hand... And then there's the Krogan, who are too bloodthirsty and too large to properly take cover, so they headbutt things instead of using guns.

== Rules ==

Most fantasy RPGs deal with firearms the way they deal with lots of things that threaten their [[Medieval Stasis]]: terror, suspicion, and shitty rules. If you have the option of using a firearm in most games, it probably has one shot that's weaker than a bow, then takes an entire encounter to reload, and is illegal everywhere in-setting in case you didn't get the hint.

[[D&D#Basic_Dungeons_&_Dragons|BECMI]] Dungeons & Dragons doesn't have rules for firearms, but there were one or two adventure modules that incorporated a crash-landed spaceship, with weapons the players could loot. They were treated as magic wands and staves. A few issues of Dragon magazine offered rules for early cannons and hand cannons.

[[Advanced Dungeons & Dragons]] mentions guns in a tucked-away subsection on importing TSR's Cowboys & Indians game Boot Hill to AD&D (DMG, pg113). Revolver pistols and Gatling guns would do as much damage as a longsword; shotguns as much damage as a two-handed claymore, a (thrown) stick of dynamite does 4x the damage of a short sword. The rules insist "...when gunpowder is brought into the fantasy world it becomes inert junk, ergo, no clever alchemist can duplicate it." To reinforce this concept, the ''Manual of the Planes'' included rules for factors of prime material planes, one of which determined if complex (read: setting destroying) chemical compositions like blackpowder would even work in said plane. If you have any knowledge of chemistry, you may cry now. Notably, [[Greyhawk]] had a [[Murlynd|god of firearms]], and his paladins were basically Wild West sheriffs.

[[Advanced_Dungeons_%26_Dragons#AD.26D_2nd_Edition|Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Second Edition]] included the arquebus in the Players Handbook, where they were depicted as slow, powerful and expensive (500 Gp!). They were also potentially dangerous to the user as the result of a bad roll. It was painfully stressed that the inclusion of firearms in the campaign was the call of the DM. Firearms were a bit more common in the [[Spelljammer]] setting. Moving away from the classic fantasy background, there was the historical campaign sourcebook ''A Mighty Fortress'' that introduced rules for firearms of the 16th and 17th centuries and the ''Masque of the Red Death'' setting for [[Ravenloft]] pushed everything into a gothic horror version of the 1890's.

[[Dungeons_&_Dragons_3rd_Edition|D&D third edition]] has a section on advanced technology (DMG, pp162-164) for Renaissance-era, 20th century, and futuristic weapons. The weapons are more powerful than what can be found among ranged weapons in the Player's Handbook, but also heavier and more expensive. You're better off with magic crossbows.

[[Pathfinder]] greatly over complicates guns: they have shorter range than bows without magical items, take longer to reload, and have at least a 1/20 chance to break or explode every time you fire it, and use up more expensive ammunition. As though this wasn't enough, they have a stiff feat tax needed to make use of them and the fact that there's really only one major gun factory in the land, the Gunworks of the small nation of Alkenstar, and they keep most of their guns to themselves. In return they hit harder, have a ''terrifying'' 4x crit modifier, and ''use touch AC'' in the first range increment, effectively ignoring armor when fired close up. A specialized class, the [[gunslinger]], is centered around the use of firearms. [[Lasgun|Energy weapon]] specialists in Iron Gods have it a bit better, though ammo is limited for most of the adventure.

[[Dragonmech]] has guns, sort of kinda, as well. Only instead of using gunpowder, they use steam to propel the bullet like an airsoft gun. they can only be fired once every other round as the pressure needs to build up. There Treated a bit like crossbows that do more damage and can shoot a little further.

[[Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition]] includes a section on firearms in the ''Dungeon Master's Guide''. They hark back to 2nd edition in terms of stats, fitting the general tone of the game, but aren't quite as punishing for a player to learn to use and make. And with the increased emphasis on houseruling and homebrewing, modding the Crossbow Expert feat to work for them seems a simple leap of logic. The "race builder" guide in the back even suggests changing around the dwarf weapon proficiencies to include them! Furthermore, if you want to get your [[Expedition to the Barrier Peaks]] on, it includes some futuristic guns as well, like lasers and disintegrators.

[[Warhammer Fantasy]] features firearms based on early real-world equivalents, like flintlock pistols, musket rifles and the blunderbuss. Although deadly and still on the experimental side, they're also considered very unreliable and are prone to misfire and sometimes even to explode. Rpg-wise, firearms were already included in the core rulebook of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 2nd Edition, but were later somewhat expanded in the Old World Armoury supplement. Some variations that function like firearms were also added as weapons to some Skaven classes in the Old World Bestiary supplement. Generally speaking, firearms require more costs in order to be used, as each shot requires a firearm shot (bullet) and additional gunpowder. Except for the obvious disadvantages of becoming useless once getting wet and longer reloading times, firearms deal more damage than bows and crossbows, with more complex models even having a repeater function, but obviously longer reloading times for each barrel to be loaded again.

{{MedievalWeaponry}}

Crossbow

2020-02-19T02:33:00Z

2601:280:5B7F:85C4:C03E:94B0:328F:3737: /* Loading Mechanisms */

[[image:crossbow.jpg|thumb|300px|right|An Arbalast Crossbow with an iron prod. Note the iron stirrup ring on the front; which the user could use in this case to hold down with his foot when pulling back the draw string or mounting a gaffe lever to push the string back]]
{{topquote|'''I waste him with my crossbow!'''|Bob Herzog, ''[[Knights Of The Dinner Table]]''}}

The '''crossbow''' is named for its cross-shaped design, as it is basically a [[Bows and Arrows|bow]] (in technical terms, called a prod) on a stock (alternatively called a tiller) that uses a locking trigger mechanism to hold and fire either an arrow (called a bolt or quarrel) or a small spherical stone or lead bullet (the latter usually being used for hunting). Bolts are arrows with a shorter shaft, and could range from being lighter than an average arrow to several times heavier. It operates on the same principle as the traditional bow in that a tough bowstring is pulled back to store potential energy in the bow, which upon release of the string, transfers it to a projectile.

While historians are unsure who first made the crossbow, the earliest known crossbows were found in [[China]] around 700 to 500 BCE. During the Warring States period, crossbows became a preferred ranged weapon of Chinese armies due to ease of use for conscripts and the use of crossbows certainly aided in the rise of the Qin Dynasty and the beginning of Imperial China. The Greeks and Romans experimented with hand-held crossbows, but they never made extensive use of them, although they did make extensive use of ballista (basically a crossbow scaled up to the size of an artillery piece, and often shot stone instead of scaled up arrows). The [[Asians|Chinese]] of these times, on the other hand, had crossbows of all types and shapes: from one-handed repeater crossbows, capable of launching dozens of (fairly weak, but often poisoned) arrows per minute, to absurdly heavy ones, designed to be pulled by legs, rather than arms, and launch arrows the size of small javelin, later with gunpowder-filled bombs on the heading at range, only rivaled by siege engines, though later they passed out in favor of multiple rocket launchers (yes, you read it right). Crossbows began to see widespread use in Europe around 1000 CE, at this time emerged crossbows with steel bow sections, more commonly called arbalasts.

The difference between a bow and a crossbow is that a bow's string needs to be pulled back and held by the user while aiming, while a crossbow has a mechanism that locks the bowstring in a readied state and only requires the user to operate the trigger to release the bolt upon sighting their target. The trigger mechanism evolved over time, as did aids for drawing the crossbow's string. The weight or size of the crossbow certainly had an effect on the mechanisms involved, as light crossbows could be reset by hand, but heavier version could end up using levers or crank-operated windlasses to pull back and cock the string, and tended to use more robust release mechanisms due to the increased stress involved.

In fantasy settings, technologically advanced races who don't (or in limitation) employ [[firearm]]s as their go-to weapon typically make heavy use of crossbows. It is also the ranged weapon of choice for richer and more experienced mercenaries.

For some reason in a lot of fantasy and medieval fiction it seems to be the preferred ranged weapon of whoever the bad guys are. Examples include A Song Of Ice and Fire (where it seems to be the favorite weapon of [[brundlepenis|King Joffrey]]), The Lord of the Rings ([[Ork|Uruk-Hai]] marksmen use crossbows) and different settings of DnD ([[Drow]] poisoned repeater crossbows). This may have something to do with crossbows being less relying on the wielder's strengths, stamina and personal skill, and thus regarded as "unfair" weapon compared to bow, it was at one point banned by the pope for use on Christians, although due to it's usefulness on the battlefield this was largely ignored.

The crossbow is also the favored ranged weapon of [[dwarves]] in most fantasy fiction, though in this case it may be more than just aesthetics; while it would be fitting for a race known for their technical expertise to use a more complex device, also keep in mind that dwarves would have a harder time using regular bows. A bow's power depends on its draw length, and having shorter arms, dwarves can't get as much power out of a bow. They also need a weapon that can be used more easily in confined spaces, which disqualifies longbows right away. What they do have going for them, though, is great strength, making a crossbow's high draw weight less of an issue for them.

==Use in warfare==
A major advantage of crossbows over regular bows is that because they're fired using a mechanism instead of depending on human strength to hold the bow in a ready-to-fire position, user fatigue is no longer such a huge factor Additionally, the heavier crossbows could generate more force than most humans thanks to the pulley systems used to cock the string, thus heavier bolts could be thrown, resulting in greater penetration of the target. Possibly its biggest advantage is that it was easier to train the use of a crossbow than bows since the weapon's operation is much less taxing.

Of course, the main drawback with crossbows is that they require a wider range of resources and skills to produce due to the mechanisms involved. Crossbows also generally have a lower rate of fire than bows. At best, a crossbowman can get off about eight shots a minute. More powerful arbalast crossbows that used windlasses could manage about three shots a minute, but could store more energy than a human could physically pull back with bare hands. For these reasons Crossbows excel in a siege situation where the ranges are long and you can duck into cover easily while you're reloading. And since sieges tended to be drawn-out affairs anyway, reload time wasn't as necessary.

That being said, despite crossbows being much more expensive than bows, they were much less demanding on user's skill and physique, meaning you can train as many crossbowmen as you have crossbows and replenish killed ones in just few months of training, while in order to train a bowmen you need to start with kids. So while a single bowman is much more effective than a single crossbowman, you can afford a half-dozen of crossbowmen for the cost of one bowman, and replace lost ones quickly as long as their weapon survives the battle. This is probably why they first took off in Warring States period China, where raising large conscript armies was the name of the game.

It should be noted that despite having much greater draw weights than contemporary bows (above 500 lbs in some cases), crossbows were not proportionally more powerful due to their very short draw length, translating into a much briefer energy transfer. More modern crossbows sometimes address this by using recurve bows, or even by using a bullpup configuration by turning the bow backwards and then pulling the string past the bow. Additionally, the reduced aerodynamic properties of crossbow bolts as compared to arrows mean that they very rapidly lose velocity after a relatively short distance, giving them great punch at short range but reduced effectiveness at longer ranges as compared to bows.

The fact that even relatively poorly trained men armed with crossbows could royally murder fully armored knights, made the crossbow one of the most hated pre-firearm weapons in the Europe, even more than the infamous flamberge. At some point it even came to the pope banning crossbows as unholy weapon not to be used on fellow Christians, but even then they remained popular among mercenaries, rich lords and Protestants. Proud knights could accept deaths from elite long/composite bowmen who like them were training from childhood, but not from some hastily drilled dirty peasant levies whose lord could afford few dozens of crossbows.

Crossbows are still occasionally used for military purposes; while a crossbow's bolts lack the stopping power of modern firearms, the bolts it fires are quieter than any "silenced" firearm and it can also be used for niche purposes such as launching grappling hooks or detonating tripwire-activated mines, and its lower projectile speed means it's much less likely to set off any worn explosives. While its comparatively lower ability to kill outright can be an issue you could use the same solution that the Indian Navy used for this problem and use Cyanide tipped bolts, or take the Rambo route and use bolts with explosive tips.

See Also: [[Katanas are Underpowered in d20#Crossbows are Underpowered in d20|Crossbows are Underpowered in d20]]

===Loading Mechanisms===
Because later crossbows were often too tough to simply pull back unaided, a number of devices were invented to allow the wielder rearm the crossbow via pulling back the string (in a process called spanning). The device used usually depended upon the draw weight of the bow, as heavier bows would require more advanced devices that required more time to pull back.

*'''Gloves and Stirrup''': Generally leather or some other material, good quality gloves (or some tough callouses) can save one some finger or palm bleeding from trying to pull it by the old fashioned way. Talking from experience, if one is to do it this way, put your entire upper back and arms into it, and pull. Either user placed both feet on the bow's span on each side of the stock or in the stirrup ring attached to the crossbow head. Most commonly associated way of reloading in popular culture besides the Cranequin and Windlass. First appearance: 700 to 500's BCE. Mechanical advantage: 1 to 1. Maximum draw weight: 150-300 lbs.
*'''Stirrup and Belt Hook''': Most crossbows you see have a stirrup ring towards the front end for putting your foot through to hold it steady. Combined with a belt worn around the waist with a hook attached to it, the wielder could use their whole body, rather than just their arms, to arm the crossbow. Could also use a belt-attached pulley configuration to lessen the strength to draw. First appearance: 1200's. Mechanical advantage: about 2 or 1 to 1 (depending on whether using pulley configuration). Maximum draw weight: 320-450 lbs.
*'''Goat's Foot Lever''': This was a fairly simple detachable metal lever that gave the user more leverage when pulling back the string. Composed of a rod attached to two curved prongs and two hinged hooks; it's shape had a resemblance to a goat's foot (obvious in the name). Mounts on two metal lugs on the body's sides near the trigger, pull drawstring back in one motion via two hinged hooks, place folded lever back on belt, load the bolt on the crossbow, and then shoot. This could arm the crossbow in a single motion with the lever's curved prongs making the drawing force decrease as the spanning distance increases. Very common for field portable bows and mounted crossbowmen. First appearance: Between 1300's to 1400's. Mechanical Advantage: from 5 up to 30 to 1 (depending on how far the lever is pulled). Maximum draw weight: 500-600 lbs.
*'''Gaffe Lever''': a two piece wooden lever held by a hinge and attached to the stirrup ring via metal hook. User pushed down on the lever to push the drawstring into the trigger before removing. More associated with nobles for hunting or shooting clubs after the gunpowder weapons appeared in the 1500's during the Renaissance. First appearance: 1500's. Mechanical advantage: up to 30 to 1. Maximum draw weight: 400 lbs.
*'''Lever-Action/Self Spanning''': Uses levers embedded into the crossbow body. The user unlocks catch holding the hinge firm before folding open the half of the crossbow body to catch the drawstring on a latch before pulling back to the trigger to arm the crossbow. Unlike the Asian equivalent in the Chu-Ko-Nu, these did not have a top magazine. This enabled users to aim after loading and pulling a trigger to shoot at the cost of having to load the bolt by hand. Besides the Scottish Border Reivers' latchet crossbow in the 1600's, two noted examples are Martin Löffelholz's armbrust in the Codex Löffelholz and Da Vinci's Balestra Veloce in the Codex Atlanticus. Not as mainstream or well known due to transition to gunpowder weapons in the 1500's during the Renaissance. First appearance: 1500's. Mechanical advantage: up to 25 to 1. Maximum draw weight: 220 - 300 lbs.
*'''Windlass''': Like the Cranequin, this was a winding device, but it also came with a bulky pulley system that was mounted to the back of the crossbow. As a result, this was a tremendously powerful pulling system at the expense of needing a lot of time to arm. Along with the Cranequin, this was one of the strongest crossbow loading methods. Contrary to popular culture, it was more often used on large, heavy crossbows for stationary battles like trench warfare or sieges like modern antitank guns. On the other hand, usage on open battlefields (behind pavise shields) for defensive artillery wasn't unheard of. First appearance: 1400’s. Mechanical advantage: ~160 to 1. Maximum draw weight: 1500 lbs+ (limited by time and bow strength).
*'''Cranequin''': Also called the "Rack and Pinion," this device used gears and a crank to wind up the bowstring, requiring multiple turns to pull it all the way back. Device slid onto lugs mounted on the stock and was removed before firing. Along with the Windlass, this was one of the strongest crossbow loading methods. Contrary to popular culture, it was more often used on large, heavy crossbows for stationary battles like trench warfare or sieges like modern antitank guns. On the other hand, usage on mounted crossbowmen with lighter crossbows and by footmen on open battlefields (behind pavise shields) for defensive artillery wasn't unheard of. First appearance: 1500's. Mechanical advantage: ~600 or 840 to 1. Maximum draw weight: 2000 lbs+.

==Types of Crossbows==
As a general note, crossbows are not ballistas, despite their visual similarity. Unlike Crossbows which store energy in a set of arms which are bent back, Ballistas instead store energy in twisted rope that has a wooden beam pushed into it which is then twisted back farther before firing to store energy. That said, some ballistas are discussed here until a proper "[[Siege Weapon|siege]]" article is consolidated.

*'''Gastraphetes''': an early Greek crossbow, the Gastraphetes, or "belly bow", was cocked by resting the stomach on the bolt rest of the stock (which contained a sliding plank attached to the drawstring) and pushing down so that more energy can be stored then an archer could provide. The Gastraphetes worked slightly different from the classic crossbow, in that its arrow slot was two-piece, with the sliding inner plank attached to the rope. Thus, rather than drawing back the crossbow, you readied it by slamming it into the ground until the trigger catches onto a latch. While impressive, it was restricted to hip fire, was fired with a button-like trigger, and was more of a man portable siege weapon. A larger winch-spanned, tripod-mounted version, the Oxybeles, was in use as a stationary artillery weapon before being replaced by the ballista.

* '''Polybolos''': meaning “multi-bolt thrower” in Greek and also known as a repeating ballista, the Polybolos is more of a big cross bow since the arms are fixed to the "stock" and don't twist around to fire it. The repeating ballista was fired by turning a wheel connected to a chain back to cock it, the turning it the other way to load it again from a hopper on top of the stock.

* '''Chinese "Nu" crossbow''': unlike the European crossbow, which had a power stroke (drawing span) of about 7 inches; used a rolling nut latch held in place by a sear pushed by a long horizontal lever-like trigger in the middle of the stock; and used prods (bow pieces) made from simple wood, composite, and later with metal; the Chinese crossbow had a power stroke of about 21 inches; used a complicated two-piece vertical trigger at the very back of the stock (held together by tension and two pins at the very end of the stock) on a pistol grip; and used wood or composite prods (often salvaged from recurve bows and constructed for conscripts to use en mass instead of drilling archery skills into them). Thus, due to the longer power stroke via the trigger being placed further back and assuming all other factors are equal, the bolts fired by the Chinese bows (usually with draw weights of 380 lbs) were launched with comparable performance to an average European windlass crossbow (with a draw weight of 1,500 lbs). However, the Chinese crossbows themselves were rather large, cumbersome, and had to be reloaded with just stirrup rings, belt hooks, and/or gloves.

* '''Chu-Ko-Nu''': literally meaning “Zhuge’s Crossbow," classical legend associated it a Chinese noble named Zhuge Liang (2nd Century AD). Alternatively known as the Lian Nu (repeating crossbow), it's also known as the Chinese repeating crossbow and is one of the more common types of crossbow seen in fiction. In reality, it was invented during the Warring States Period (4th Century BC) in the State of Chu. The term "repeating crossbow" brings to mind some bastard combination of Assault rifle and crossbow, which it kinda is and is not. Without doubt, this thing could fire quickly; trained soldiers could loose ten bolts in fifteen seconds before having to reload. Mechanically, it consisted of a stock that the user secured on their hip with the bowstring sliding through a slit on each side of the sliding magazine/bolt rest. By pushing and then pulling the lever that secures the magazine to the stock, the user catches bowstring on a notch at the back end of the slits while loading the bolt by gravity onto the bolt rest. Once the lever is fully compressed down, a sliding lug nut at the base of the magazine pushes the string up off the notches and propels the bolt out. However, because of the mechanism's design, the pumping action that pulled the string back also fired the bolt at the same time while the magazine is built on top of the bow. Due to that, you could not pull the string back and then aim. Chu-ko-nu's were limited to hip fire; giving you almost ork levels of accuracy in exchange for an appreciable volume of fire. In layman's terms, it's the same as being restricted to hip-firing a pump action shotgun with the trigger permanently welded in the fire position. Additionally because you were pulling the string back one handed, the bolts had a lot less penetration power than those of a regular crossbow. However, the bolts (which fell down onto the stock from a hopper mounted on top) were often poisoned to make up for that (as seen with the [[Drow]], who make use of the weapon extensively). While no matter how strong the poison on your bolt is, you're not gonna kill a man instantly with a scratch. However, on the battlefield causing enough pain to make a person go into shock is as good as killing them outright, and poison delivers the last one in spades. The downside was you had next to no luck piercing good quality armor or thick leather that an enemy is wearing while you're using it.

* '''Balestra Veloce/Löffelholz Armbrust lever-action crossbows''': First mentioned in Leonardo Da Vinci's Codex Atlanticus (1478 to 1519) and Martin Löffelholz's Codex Löffelholz (1505), both versions of the said design used a stock consisting of of two wood and metal pieces on top of each other and hinged at the head of the crossbow. By unlocking a latch on the stock, the user can then swing forward the bottom half of the stock to extend a sliding latch to catch the drawstring. Once the drawstring is caught, the stock is then closed; locking the stock back together and bringing the latch (which is held firm by a spring-loaded sear) back into contact with the trigger on the lower half of the stock. User then loaded the bolt and pulled the trigger to compress the sear; letting the rolling nut release the crossbow string. Whether the German or Italian version came first is unclear; though the rapid fire crossbow pages in the Codex Atlanticus are dated back to 1485. Either codex's blueprints can be found online via an online archive created by "The Visual Agency" media company or a pdf scan hosted by Krakow's Jagiellonian Library respectively. While firing and reloading more rapidly than the mainstream "goats foot lever" crossbows, it was not widely used due to possibly three reasons.
** First, the amount of expert craftsmanship to make it and the extensive training to use it was cost prohibitive for a relatively complicated and delicately structured weapon. This meant that it was likely more of a special luxury weapon that only wealthy people could afford rather than a mass produced weapon for conscripts (the same reason why breech loading rifles existed since the 16th Century for hunting nobility but didn't replace muzzle-loading smoothbore muskets in mass use for militaries until the 1840's).
** Second, while quicker than spanning a crossbow with a goat's foot or gaffe lever, the draw weight is reduced to a mere average of 220 lbs. Being half of the maximum draw weight of gaffe and goat's foot lever crossbows, this meant weaker penetration and shorter ranges. This was likely to make the lever-action crossbow more easily rearmed without being too strong to either break the trigger lock or cock with your hands.
** Third, the introduction of gunpowder weapons alongside the volley fire from massed Pike and Shot square formations occurred during the Renaissance. Since these crossbows were developed right when gunpowder took over, this meant these lever-action crossbows already went obsolete the same way that heavy plate-armored cavalry and longbow archers did.

* '''Latch/Latchet lever-action Crossbow''': A light lever action crossbow popular with Scottish border raiders called Border Reivers in the 1600's to 1700's, it worked via swinging an internal metal lever forward from the top to push a sliding latch forward to secure the drawstring after unlocking the catch. The user then pushed the lever back into the body to arm the bow before loading and shooting. Popular to the Scottish in the region for home defense and raiding as they were small, easy to use, very quiet compared to a wheel-lock pistol, and took only 10 seconds to rearm and load. Their downside was their short range and being restricted to hip firing due to the trigger being a button on the top (a trade off to enable horsemen to fire one-handed from the saddle though you could tuck it into your armpit).

* '''Bed Crossbow''': A Chinese peculiarity, where multiple crossbows mounted on a static frame were combined to create an increased draw strength. A precursor to the compound crossbow.

*'''Bullet Crossbows''': Also referred to as pelletbows, stonebows, and ballesters, these were essentially the same as regular crossbows or similar to a slingshot in crossbow form, except they fired stone or lead shot instead of bolts. Usually used for recreational shooting and small game hunting.

*'''Crossbow pistol''': Small crossbows designed to be fired from one hand, with modernized versions commonly featuring a more modern pistol grip and trigger. While these did exist in the past, they were nowhere near as lethal as battlefield crossbows as the draw weights were far smaller.

*'''Arbalast''': As European armor improved with the development of steel plate crossbows with wooden bow sections were just not cutting the mustard anymore, as such they began making that part out of steel. This meant that the bow could store more energy and launch a projectile farther and faster, significantly improving armor penetration but it also increased the amount of energy required to draw it, often requiring various leavers and cranking mechanisms to reset it.

*'''Slurbow:''' A crossbow with a cover over its barrel and a small gap used to draw its string back. Arguably influenced by the pistol, the slurbow was mostly used for firing unfeathered quarrels or darts.

*'''Sauterelle''': The last apparition of a crossbow-like weapon in a modern battlefield for frontline work. In WWI, soldiers had a problem: all the artillery that existed was big and unable to drop explosives accurately into a trench, especially at close range. And on the other hand, thrown hand grenades had the precision but too limited range. As an interim solution the French invented the ''Sauterelle'' (grasshopper in French): basically a big crossbow built to lob grenades at around 150 yards distance. Worked decently enough but later in the war they were replaced by small, two-man team infantry mortars that were just as easy to move around and use but had three or four time the range and a better rate of fire.

*'''Compound Crossbow''': the modern version of the crossbow, which is basically a modern compound bow on a rifle stock. Many of these also come equipped with telescopic sights modified with cross-hairs that compensate for the effects of gravity, wind, elevation, and other factors that might affect a bolt's accuracy. They are primarily used for hunting, sport and (unusually) home defense in Britain since everything else has been banned. Also finds military (specifically special forces, not frontline grunts), espionage and law enforcement utility by being used to fire ziplines or grappling hooks, explosive, incendiary, poisoned or gas releasing projectiles, or simply well made darts for a silent kill. Some more recent exotic ones combine various technological concepts from past and present (such as the Cobra Adder brand; a bizarre chimera between the Chu-Ko-Nu's hopper magazine (which is detachable), the Balestra Veloce's lever action system, along with modern optics, grips, and compound, composite bow-pieces).

{{MedievalWeaponry}}

Armor

2020-02-19T02:22:21Z

2601:280:5B7F:85C4:C03E:94B0:328F:3737: /* Types of Body Armor */

'''''Armor''''' (also spelled Armour) is a protective layer of material used to protect something from damage. Some types of armor includes armor for buildings, armor for vehicles and armor for personnel (generally referred to as body armor). Putting armor on people or putting them in [[Rhino|metal boxes]] to keep them safe is important because we can be [[Rip and Tear|killed]] by sharp rocks or branches or basically anything else at all except grass and leaves. In fact not [[Wikipedia:Bamboo#Weapons|even]] [[Wikipedia:Toxicodendron_radicans|those]]. This is because because our skin is not armor and it [[FAIL|sucks]]. This article will focus mostly on body armor.

[[File:ERA man.jpg|thumb|350px|right|Here you see a highly advanced tactical soldier well equipped for battle with the latest in ERA technology]]

== Types of Body Armor ==
Numerous forms of body armor have been developed over the millennia by civilizations with various levels of technology and resources on hand.

*'''Leather armor''' - not just any leather would do; soft leather offers no protection against blades. You need hard, boiled leather to be effective. It's a matter of heated debates whether it actually even existed historically, as it's highly impractical and too expensive compared to padded cloth while offering largely the same or even lower level of protection. The general consensus is that it surely didn't have any noticeable presence in Europe, and while in the East (both middle and far) it did exist, it wasn't that much popular and widespread either. On the Central Asian steppes or in areas with large amounts of livestock, the leather was often made into boiled and lacquered pieces to make lamellar or scale armor. This was likely a matter of resource availability as the nomadic tribes had little access to metal outside of trading and would prioritise using it for swords, speartips, and arrowheads instead. In the Americas, where metalworking was noticeably diminished or not present, leather armor was relatively common. Another name for this is "cuir bouilli" or "cuirbouille". Metal studs can also be driven into these, and the padded cloth armors below, to add additional protection and structural reinforcement. These became more prevalent as metalworking became more accessible. While phased out as as a primary form of protection, Buff coats were still made of leather and retained to act as cushioning underneath metal breastplates. It also served as slashing protection for exposed joints or in cases where wearing metal armor was inconvenient.
*'''Padded cloth armor''' - Cloth bundled in sufficient thickness was one of the first forms of armor, since bronze armors tended to be too expensive or too heavy to be widely used. Cloth continued to be used mostly as padding underneath metal armor (called a Gambeson), to help absorb blows and all through the middle ages continued to be the go to protection for men-at-arms in lieu of expensive metal plate or mail. Despite what you might think it (obviously) provided one of the best protection against percussive strikes, second only to full plate (which have padded cloth integrated into it), surprisingly high level of protection against slashes and swings, unless the blade is razor sharp (most historical blades weren't that sharp) and while it barely ever provides full protection against piercing weapon heavier than a shortbow arrow, it does lower the depth of penetration, often turning instantly lethal wounds to survivable if debilitating, or even surface damage, with an added bonus of often catching enemy weapon (although given most times blades get stuck in padded cloth they pierce deep enough to kill, it's more to the benefit of your companions than yours). Sometimes confused with Brigandine armor (which externally appeared to be made of cloth with metal studs but also contained overlapping metal pieces). Besides the Gambeson, some other historical examples include:
** The distinctive ancient Greek armor called "Linothorax" (literally meaning linen torso): believed to be made out of quilted linen and is presumed to fall under this category, though historians can't be entirely sure as no full examples survived the centuries.
** A hard quilted form of cotton armor, used by the Mesoamericans, such as the Aztecs and the Tlaxcalans, called ”Ichcahuipilli.” Often hardened with substances like brine salt, it was effective against obsidian-edged Macuahuitl/Macana sword-clubs and arrows. Similar thickly padded cotton tunics were worn by Incan nobles in battle.
** An early bulletproof form of cotton armor worn by the 19th century Joseon Koreans called “Myeonje baegab.” It was invented when they confronting Western armies at the same time the Western powers began probing expeditions into Qing China and Tokugawa Japan. While effective against low velocity bullets, it was prone to being burned from incendiary hazards like explosions or red-hot shrapnel.
** Various early forms of pistol-proof armor were documented that were made from layers of silk but were usually expensive and restricted to wealthy politicians or nobles.
*'''Paper armor''' - this one sounds crazy, but apparently it was actually a thing in ancient China. The Mythbusters tested it out and it might have been actually effective... at least, so long as it does not get wet. Indeed citizen, this is testable by you! Obtain a notebook and ensure it is tightly closed. Then, stab it with a knife as hard as possible.
*'''Scale armor''' - <s>an early form of mail</s> {{BLAM}}{{BLAM|HERESY!}}an early form of armour, sporting overlapping metal (cuirbouille and lacquered leather were also used) plates arranged in a similar fashion to roofing tiles, which were riveted/sewn onto a backing cloth or leather and oftentimes loosely laced together in rows. One of the earliest examples of armour, used predominantly in Eastern cultures, most distinctly used to deck out their early heavy cavalrymen and horses both in this. These "Cataphracts" were said to be able [[Awesome|to get showered in arrows without getting hit]]. Made a small, unsuccessful comeback in Dragon Skin
*'''Bamboo armor''' - basically wooden armor, but with the advantage in that you can shape bamboo more easily. Bamboo is also notable in the sense that it has a high strength weight ratio. It also is rather weather resistant.
*'''Mirror armor''' - an early form of plate, this was a small round bronze plate attached to the torso. Besides physical protection, it was also believed to ward off the supernatural. The plate itself was frequently a supplement over a suit of mail, but plenty of poor warriors throughout ancient history made due with hoping that no one would hit them around the single non-encompassing plate they strapped to their chest (beats having no armor..).
*'''[[Mail]]''' - the iconic armor made of interlocking rings. One of the most common and effective type of armor from the ancient world to the middle ages. Flexible and easy (though time-consuming) to make, it was widely used by many cultures. It was also significantly easier to repair, as a break could easily be mended by replacing a few rings, whereas a hole in plate armor might require a complete replacement. While fairly effective against foot soldiers, the crossbow and the lance charge required knights to wear extra armor over mail for additional protection. In the modern era, they are used for non-combative roles, such as shark suits and dealing with high-power electrical wiring (because electrons "slide" along the mesh rather than penetrate", admittedly the mesh must be very tightly made). Some nations still use mail armor to supplement riot gear. Note that it MUST be backed with leather or something stiff, otherwise knives will drive it into the body. Just for the love of god: don't get shot. The British tested this in WW1 and the bullets ends up dragging the links into the body with it.
*'''Plated Mail''' - this is not what some sourcebooks refer to as platemail, which is basically just plate armor worn over a mail hauberk. Plated mail integrates metal plates into the rest of the mail pattern, ranging from large rectangular plates on areas like the chest, to small plates arranged like fish scales on areas that require more dexterity, such as near the shoulders and back. This was popular with medieval Persians and Indians.
*'''Laminar armor''' - armor made from bands of metal. The most famous example is the ancient Roman [[wikipedia:Lorica_segmentata|Lorica Segmentata]], though it was less prevalent among the Romans than is usually portrayed and mail remained in use among the Romans' frontline infantry, even in the Segmentata's heyday. Other examples existed during the Renaissance such as the armor by the Polish Hussars but those were held together by sliding rivets rather than leather strips and leather laces.
*'''Lamellar armor''' - armor made from overlapping pieces of leather or metal, each piece being laced side-by-side to create semi-rigid rows, which then are laced together to form a complete suit of armour. This form differs from other "overlapping plates" types of armour in that it is self-contained and does not rely on backing material to keep the all the pieces together. Again it is one of the oldest types of armour and was still in use as recently as 1930s.
*'''[[Samurai]] armor''' - depending on the period, it could be lamellar, laminar, or even western plate (but not wood. That has no basis in history). The helmet (kabuto) had a distinct shape that often featured ornaments and even a removable facemask (Darth Vader's helmet is said to be a hybrid of a kabuto and a German stahlhelm).
**'''Ashigaru armor''' - Worn by conscripts, it featured the same kinds of breastplates, a lesser helmet and some minor stuff but was overall less complete than samurai armor.
*'''Brigandine''' - a.k.a "Corazzina/Coat-of-plates". <s>Similar to lamellar, except the pieces of metal are riveted into a leather jacket rather than laced together.</s> Very close, but not quite. A "brig" is built from overlapping plates of various sizes and shapes, riveted onto a leather or cloth "jacket", but it differs from other "overlapping plates" armours in that A) the plates are *usually* bigger and shaped according to where they go on the armour (scale and lamellar mostly use same-sized, same-shape plates), B) they are riveted inside the leather/cloth and not on the outside and C) the plates are '''not''' linked together in any fashion and fully rely on backing to keep them where they're supposed to be. Brigandine is a "poor man's plate" and was quite popular in medieval Europe while also being seen as spread out as Turkey, India, Russia, China, and even Japan. Often confused with "studded leather armour" or the padded cloth gambeson.
*'''[[Plate armor]]''' - armor made from single, solid pieces of metal. Bronze plate armor had been used in ancient times, but was limited to helmets and sometimes breastplates due to the weight of the armor. Full suits of plate armor were not possible until improvements in smithing allowed for large bars of steel to be hammered out into single pieces. A popular misconception about full plate is that it's very hard to move in, to a point it's exclusive to cavalry. While this is true for a '''tourney plate''' specifically designed for maximum protection in jousting tournaments, an actual battle plate was designed with maximum mobility in mind, and it was not uncommon for a knight (or later an officer) to do a somersault or dance with his lady while testing his new plate armor. Technically speaking, modern body armor for many nations use are in sense partially plate armor, with a carrier holding a solid plate.
*'''Jack Chains''' - if you were too poor to afford proper plate armor, you could at least add some metal reinforcements to your gambeson called Jack Chains. These attached to the arms so that one could, at bare minimum, block slashes to their sides without getting cut, or use it as a improv shield against incoming sword attacks.
*'''Makeshift Armor''' - Not really a set of armor in the traditional sense, generally makeshift armor is what ever one could scrounge up to make a protective wear. In the modern day, this is a protestor (think 2014 Ukraine Revolution) go to for long term engagement. Generally, motorcycle and safety helmets alongside heavy thick jackets would be the go to, as well as whatever one can strap to themselves. Don't be wearing something that might shatter easily though if you expect to be shot at, because that might manage to injure you even worse with the flying bits.
*'''Flak Jackets''' - The first modern body armor to be developed, Flak Jackets were developed in WWII out of high-strength nylon to protect aircrews from fragments fired from flak cannons in conjuncture with manganese steel plates. While good against shrapnel and pistol rounds, it was still ineffective against rifle bullets. Before the invention of Kevlar and ballistic vests, this was the only kind of body armor available to modern soldiers expected to walk.
*'''Early 20th century armor''' - in WW1 and 2 many nations began experimenting with various forms of body armor to deal with shrapnel. This included steel breastplates, lamellar and steel plates in canvas carriers. This was more experimental than anything else. The biggest users of body armor in WW2 were the soviets who issued "steel bibs" to their soldiers. These could stop shrapnel fire and pistol bullets but were on the heavy side and were restricted to urban warfare or vehicle carried infantry.
*'''Ceramic armor''' - typically, high-strength ceramic plates (typically made from boron carbide) are used as an energy-absorbing component in some ballistic vests. A common myth is that Ceramic trauma plates shatter after only a 1-2 hits. This is false, especially with the advance of armor. These are some of the best plates for infantry.
*'''Ballistic vests''' - "bulletproof" armor vests able to stop bullets of varying sizes and speeds. For "soft" armor, the use of high-strength fibers that "catch" the projectile, thereby slowing them down enough to prevent them from penetrating, are used, typically for security guards, low-intensity combat areas jobs, and cops. For "hard" armor, ceramic/metal/ultra-high-strength plastic/combination-of-the-previous may be used in the form of solid plates. Body armor may come in as either a standalone vest (i.e. "soft" kevlar vest) or a carrier (which can further more simply be a holder for a solid plate or a combination of "soft" and "hard" armor). Options of groin, neck, and shoulder protection may be included with the vests.
*'''Blast suits''' - full-body armors capable of absorbing the heat and shrapnel of a bomb blast. The only part that isn't protected are the hands, since wearing thick gloves is detrimental to manual dexterity. So if a bomb goes off, you may be maimed and lose parts of your hands - but at least you're not dead or torn to ribbons by shrapnel! May also include a closed air supply in the case of biological or chemical bombs. Commonly worn by EOD technicians.
*'''[[Power Armor]]''' - As of current, we already have prototype exoskeletons, but they're one of the many inventions that isn't in common use purely because of limits on battery power. There isn't as much a need for such strength in direct combat like in fiction, as it's designed more for load-bearing in mind, allowing for bigger, heavier guns and/or more ammo. However, that could include allowing the user to wear heavier armor as well. Generally speaking, the servos and external components are rather exposed. Think STALKER's exoskeleton for modern military exoskeleton prototypes.

== Modern Body Armor ==
With modern technology and all it's amenities, a large choices of body armor exists on the market (the NIJ level approved list for body armor products consumes 212 pages on a PDF file). That said it is good to know what levels of protection for both ballistic and melee threats are.

[[image:NIJ Ballistic Protection Rating.JPG|thumb|250px|right|NIJ Ballistic Standard]]
[[image:UL 752 Bullet Resistance Chart.PNG|thumb|250px|right|UL 752 Ballistic Standard]]

*'''Ballistic threats''' Aka bullets most of the time. Soft body armor (aka Kevlar, UHMW Polyethylene, Dyneema, etc) that is rather flexible, but also vulnerable to high velocity threats. Thus most body armor of that class is relegated between II to IIIA. From there on out, it's hard body armor, which usually consists of some sort of metallic (usually steel, but titanium and high-strength aluminum are options too), ceramics, and composites. NIJ Standard III to IV stop those threats. Technically, though only rated up to 30-06 AP rounds (IV), some plates of body armor offer higher than IV. Some have even shown to stop a .50 BMG round, though the likely hood of one surviving such a shot is in question. Standard helmets only go up to level III
** Since some common threats are ''just'' above certain ratings, like 55 grain 5.56 from a 20 inch barrel penetrating level III or 5.7 pistols beating most soft armor, the NIJ system is currently undergoing an overhaul. While most western countries use NIJ rating standards, at least as a secondary, Russia has its own completely unconnected system for rating armor.

*'''Stab threats''' Protects against low energy stabbing objects (aka knives and maybe some small swords). Stab and piercing vest should not be trusted for higher level threats such a two handed weapons such as an pickaxe, sledgehammer, axe, spear, and even affixed bayonets. Even a knife in the hands of someone who can put an unusually high amount of force into stabbing can defeat a stab vest. However it is still great for stuff people would likely to conceal where rapid quick jabbing is likely to occur. Of course there is probably protective gear such as riot gear that could be more withstanding of heavier two handed threats, but it's likely best to not take a pickaxe to the chest in the first place.

Overlap between the two categories is minimal. Metal ballistic plates will stop knifes, though said plate covers minimal body area and is typically heavy. Soft armor is one or the other, though one could be worn over the other at the cost of bulk.

[[image:NIJ Stab level.PNG|thumb|200px|right|NIJ Stab standard]]

==Anatomy of armor==
[[File:HenryVIIIArmor.jpg|right|thumb|300px|You thought we were joking about the dick armor?]]
Basic terminology of the different parts of armor. Unless you were very wealthy, such as a knight, not everyone had every part of their body covered in armor.

*[[Helmet]] - protects the head, one of the most common pieces of armor.
*Gambeson - padded cloth armor suit worn underneath metal armor to absorb blunt force and protect the wearer from the armor itself (metal and boiled leather aren't nice to unprotected humans skin, especially under extreme temperatures). Later variants often reinforced with sown-in mail in places actual metal armor above it have gaps and joints.
*Cuirass - protects the torso. If its made from a single piece of metal, it is a breastplate. Most breastplate are associated with full-body steel plate armor, but ancient Greeks had a bronze version called the "heroic Cuirass", or the Roman "Lorica Musculata", often molded with fake muscles and various decorations.
:*Plackart - lower torso reinforcement that would overlap with a breastplate for extra protection, and connected to the faulds. The reason for this reinforcement is to act as a cushion for blows to the chest, as there is enough space between the plackart and curiass that it acts as additional padding to prevent soft tissue damage underneath.
:*Faulds - a metal skirt attached to the breastplate, allowing some leg protection while offering mobility.
*Gorget - protects the neck. With certain helmets, such as the Sallet, the gorget protected the lower head where the helmet did not.
*[[Pauldrons]] - protects the shoulders. The real life versions are nowhere near as big as those on space marines.
*Gauntlets - protects the hands.
**Manica - Armor that covers an arm, used primarily by the Romans. Typically used to protect the sword arm when it leaves the safety of a shield, but gladiators are known to have worn just it and the attached pauldron.
*Greaves - protects the legs.
*Sabatons - protects the feet (you don't want some smartass spearman stabbing at your unarmored feet now, would you?)
*Codpiece - Yes, believe it or not, you could get dick armor too. Ordinarily this was just to armor the [[Slaanesh|groin area]] like an athletic cup, but some people like King Henry VIII made [[Kaldor Draigo|massive codpieces]] to show off how well-endowed they were.
*Tabard - Technically not armor, but was the decorative sleeveless coat that would drape over the armor of knights. Besides being used as an identifier through the knight's [[Imperial Knight|heraldry]], it also shielded armor from the desert sun so that the knight wouldn't boil in their own armor.
**Sashimono - Japanese equivalent. Essentially a way for armor to hold a small flag. Associated more with ashigaru armor than samurai, but samurai did wear them as well.

== Warhammer 40k ==
*[[Flak Armor]]: This is actually a ballistic vest, not Flak armor. Think an ESAPI (or the new XSAPI)plate modeled off of a cuirass. It can withstand stubber fire all across, up to rifle caliber, so if you were to magdump 20 7.62x39mm rounds into the plate, it could stand up to it. That's about it though. Anything higher, and SHING!, slices through. Unfortunately for the Imperial Guard, a ''lot'' of stuff can be considered "higher".
*[[Carapace Armor]]: Better flak armor (the 40K kind which is a ballistic vest) but with much more coverage and better quality materials. Generally [[Neckbeard|heavier and cumbersome]], but only issued really to those more capable of making the most use out of it.
*[[Power Armour|Powered armor]]: Space marine general issue, as well as several powerful Imperial organizations. Comes with both long term and short term necessities, with high grade ceramite and admantium for protection, stabilizing and targeting gear to assist, and general life support if the being inside doesn't already have some. Very fancy. Honestly it has it's own article for a reason and this list section would do it no justice.

== Armor in Fiction ==

==Gallery==
<gallery>
Image:Musclecuirass.JPG| Greek bronze Muscle Cuirass
Image:Linothorax.jpg| Greek Linothorax, a bronze-reinforced linen armor
Image:Roman Soldier mail.jpg|Roman Mail
Image:LoricaSegmentata.jpg|Roman Lorica Segmentata, a type of Laminar
Image:MirrorArmor.JPG|Mirror armor over a mail shirt
Image:ScaleArmor.JPG|Indian Scale armor
Image:Plated mail.jpg|Indian Plated Mail
Image:Bechter.jpg|Close-up of Eastern-European plated-mail pattern
Image:Koryak.jpg|Koryak warriors wearing traditional lamellar armour
Image:Lamellar.JPG|Japanese Lamellar
Image:Samurai armor.jpg|Japanese Laminar
Image:Gambeson.jpg| European Gambeson, a padded cloth armor used by both commoners and knights
Image:Brigandine.jpg|European Brigandine
Image:visby.jpg|Inside view of some DIYfag's homemade "Visby-pattern" brigandine
Image:Plate armor.jpg|European Plate
Image:FlakJacket.png| Flak Jacket
Image:BallisticVest.JPG|Ballistic Vest
Image:Bombsuit.jpg|Bombsuit
Image:IOTV_(OCP_variant).jpg|Improved Outer Tactical Vest
Image:SPS_(Soldier_Protection_System).jpg|Soldier Protection System, set to replace the IOTV in 2019. Designed with both mobility and protection in mind.
</gallery>

== See also ==
*[[Fantasy Armor]] for one of the usual flame wars involved in "armor".
*[[Armor Save]]

{{MedievalWeaponry}}

[[category: History]]

Armor

2020-02-19T02:20:34Z

2601:280:5B7F:85C4:C03E:94B0:328F:3737: /* Types of Body Armor */

'''''Armor''''' (also spelled Armour) is a protective layer of material used to protect something from damage. Some types of armor includes armor for buildings, armor for vehicles and armor for personnel (generally referred to as body armor). Putting armor on people or putting them in [[Rhino|metal boxes]] to keep them safe is important because we can be [[Rip and Tear|killed]] by sharp rocks or branches or basically anything else at all except grass and leaves. In fact not [[Wikipedia:Bamboo#Weapons|even]] [[Wikipedia:Toxicodendron_radicans|those]]. This is because because our skin is not armor and it [[FAIL|sucks]]. This article will focus mostly on body armor.

[[File:ERA man.jpg|thumb|350px|right|Here you see a highly advanced tactical soldier well equipped for battle with the latest in ERA technology]]

== Types of Body Armor ==
Numerous forms of body armor have been developed over the millennia by civilizations with various levels of technology and resources on hand.

*'''Leather armor''' - not just any leather would do; soft leather offers no protection against blades. You need hard, boiled leather to be effective. It's a matter of heated debates whether it actually even existed historically, as it's highly impractical and too expensive compared to padded cloth while offering largely the same or even lower level of protection. The general consensus is that it surely didn't have any noticeable presence in Europe, and while in the East (both middle and far) it did exist, it wasn't that much popular and widespread either. On the Central Asian steppes or in areas with large amounts of livestock, the leather was often made into boiled and lacquered pieces to make lamellar or scale armor. This was likely a matter of resource availability as the nomadic tribes had little access to metal outside of trading and would prioritise using it for swords, speartips, and arrowheads instead. In the Americas, where metalworking was noticeably diminished or not present, leather armor was relatively common. Another name for this is "cuir bouilli" or "cuirbouille". Metal studs can also be driven into these, and the padded cloth armors below, to add additional protection and structural reinforcement. These became more prevalent as metalworking became more accessible. While phased out as as a primary form of protection, Buff coats were still made of leather and retained to act as cushioning underneath metal breastplates. It also served as slashing protection for exposed joints or in cases where wearing metal armor was inconvenient.
*'''Padded cloth armor''' - Cloth bundled in sufficient thickness was one of the first forms of armor, since bronze armors tended to be too expensive or too heavy to be widely used. Cloth continued to be used mostly as padding underneath metal armor (called a Gambeson), to help absorb blows and all through the middle ages continued to be the go to protection for men-at-arms in lieu of expensive metal plate or mail. Despite what you might think it (obviously) provided one of the best protection against percussive strikes, second only to full plate (which have padded cloth integrated into it), surprisingly high level of protection against slashes and swings, unless the blade is razor sharp (most historical blades weren't that sharp) and while it barely ever provides full protection against piercing weapon heavier than a shortbow arrow, it does lower the depth of penetration, often turning instantly lethal wounds to survivable if debilitating, or even surface damage, with an added bonus of often catching enemy weapon (although given most times blades get stuck in padded cloth they pierce deep enough to kill, it's more to the benefit of your companions than yours). Sometimes confused with Brigandine armor (which externally appeared to be made of cloth with metal studs but also contained overlapping metal pieces). Besides the Gambeson, some other historical examples include:
** The distinctive ancient Greek armor called "Linothorax" (literally meaning linen torso): believed to be made out of quilted linen and is presumed to fall under this category, though historians can't be entirely sure as no full examples survived the centuries.
** A hard quilted form of cotton armor, used by the Mesoamericans, such as the Aztecs and the Tlaxcalans, called ”Ichcahuipilli.” Often hardened with substances like brine salt, it was effective against obsidian-edged Macuahuitl/Macana sword-clubs and arrows. Similar thickly padded cotton tunics were worn by Incan nobles in battle.
** An early bulletproof form of cotton armor worn by the 19th century Joseon Koreans called “Myeonje baegab.” It was invented when they confronting Western armies at the same time the Western powers began probing expeditions into Qing China and Tokugawa Japan. While effective against low velocity bullets, it was prone to being burned from incendiary hazards like explosions.
** Various early forms of pistol-proof armor were documented that were made from layers of silk but were usually expensive and restricted to wealthy politicians or nobles.
*'''Paper armor''' - this one sounds crazy, but apparently it was actually a thing in ancient China. The Mythbusters tested it out and it might have been actually effective... at least, so long as it does not get wet. Indeed citizen, this is testable by you! Obtain a notebook and ensure it is tightly closed. Then, stab it with a knife as hard as possible.
*'''Scale armor''' - <s>an early form of mail</s> {{BLAM}}{{BLAM|HERESY!}}an early form of armour, sporting overlapping metal (cuirbouille and lacquered leather were also used) plates arranged in a similar fashion to roofing tiles, which were riveted/sewn onto a backing cloth or leather and oftentimes loosely laced together in rows. One of the earliest examples of armour, used predominantly in Eastern cultures, most distinctly used to deck out their early heavy cavalrymen and horses both in this. These "Cataphracts" were said to be able [[Awesome|to get showered in arrows without getting hit]]. Made a small, unsuccessful comeback in Dragon Skin
*'''Bamboo armor''' - basically wooden armor, but with the advantage in that you can shape bamboo more easily. Bamboo is also notable in the sense that it has a high strength weight ratio. It also is rather weather resistant.
*'''Mirror armor''' - an early form of plate, this was a small round bronze plate attached to the torso. Besides physical protection, it was also believed to ward off the supernatural. The plate itself was frequently a supplement over a suit of mail, but plenty of poor warriors throughout ancient history made due with hoping that no one would hit them around the single non-encompassing plate they strapped to their chest (beats having no armor..).
*'''[[Mail]]''' - the iconic armor made of interlocking rings. One of the most common and effective type of armor from the ancient world to the middle ages. Flexible and easy (though time-consuming) to make, it was widely used by many cultures. It was also significantly easier to repair, as a break could easily be mended by replacing a few rings, whereas a hole in plate armor might require a complete replacement. While fairly effective against foot soldiers, the crossbow and the lance charge required knights to wear extra armor over mail for additional protection. In the modern era, they are used for non-combative roles, such as shark suits and dealing with high-power electrical wiring (because electrons "slide" along the mesh rather than penetrate", admittedly the mesh must be very tightly made). Some nations still use mail armor to supplement riot gear. Note that it MUST be backed with leather or something stiff, otherwise knives will drive it into the body. Just for the love of god: don't get shot. The British tested this in WW1 and the bullets ends up dragging the links into the body with it.
*'''Plated Mail''' - this is not what some sourcebooks refer to as platemail, which is basically just plate armor worn over a mail hauberk. Plated mail integrates metal plates into the rest of the mail pattern, ranging from large rectangular plates on areas like the chest, to small plates arranged like fish scales on areas that require more dexterity, such as near the shoulders and back. This was popular with medieval Persians and Indians.
*'''Laminar armor''' - armor made from bands of metal. The most famous example is the ancient Roman [[wikipedia:Lorica_segmentata|Lorica Segmentata]], though it was less prevalent among the Romans than is usually portrayed and mail remained in use among the Romans' frontline infantry, even in the Segmentata's heyday. Other examples existed during the Renaissance such as the armor by the Polish Hussars but those were held together by sliding rivets rather than leather strips and leather laces.
*'''Lamellar armor''' - armor made from overlapping pieces of leather or metal, each piece being laced side-by-side to create semi-rigid rows, which then are laced together to form a complete suit of armour. This form differs from other "overlapping plates" types of armour in that it is self-contained and does not rely on backing material to keep the all the pieces together. Again it is one of the oldest types of armour and was still in use as recently as 1930s.
*'''[[Samurai]] armor''' - depending on the period, it could be lamellar, laminar, or even western plate (but not wood. That has no basis in history). The helmet (kabuto) had a distinct shape that often featured ornaments and even a removable facemask (Darth Vader's helmet is said to be a hybrid of a kabuto and a German stahlhelm).
**'''Ashigaru armor''' - Worn by conscripts, it featured the same kinds of breastplates, a lesser helmet and some minor stuff but was overall less complete than samurai armor.
*'''Brigandine''' - a.k.a "Corazzina/Coat-of-plates". <s>Similar to lamellar, except the pieces of metal are riveted into a leather jacket rather than laced together.</s> Very close, but not quite. A "brig" is built from overlapping plates of various sizes and shapes, riveted onto a leather or cloth "jacket", but it differs from other "overlapping plates" armours in that A) the plates are *usually* bigger and shaped according to where they go on the armour (scale and lamellar mostly use same-sized, same-shape plates), B) they are riveted inside the leather/cloth and not on the outside and C) the plates are '''not''' linked together in any fashion and fully rely on backing to keep them where they're supposed to be. Brigandine is a "poor man's plate" and was quite popular in medieval Europe while also being seen as spread out as Turkey, India, Russia, China, and even Japan. Often confused with "studded leather armour" or the padded cloth gambeson.
*'''[[Plate armor]]''' - armor made from single, solid pieces of metal. Bronze plate armor had been used in ancient times, but was limited to helmets and sometimes breastplates due to the weight of the armor. Full suits of plate armor were not possible until improvements in smithing allowed for large bars of steel to be hammered out into single pieces. A popular misconception about full plate is that it's very hard to move in, to a point it's exclusive to cavalry. While this is true for a '''tourney plate''' specifically designed for maximum protection in jousting tournaments, an actual battle plate was designed with maximum mobility in mind, and it was not uncommon for a knight (or later an officer) to do a somersault or dance with his lady while testing his new plate armor. Technically speaking, modern body armor for many nations use are in sense partially plate armor, with a carrier holding a solid plate.
*'''Jack Chains''' - if you were too poor to afford proper plate armor, you could at least add some metal reinforcements to your gambeson called Jack Chains. These attached to the arms so that one could, at bare minimum, block slashes to their sides without getting cut, or use it as a improv shield against incoming sword attacks.
*'''Makeshift Armor''' - Not really a set of armor in the traditional sense, generally makeshift armor is what ever one could scrounge up to make a protective wear. In the modern day, this is a protestor (think 2014 Ukraine Revolution) go to for long term engagement. Generally, motorcycle and safety helmets alongside heavy thick jackets would be the go to, as well as whatever one can strap to themselves. Don't be wearing something that might shatter easily though if you expect to be shot at, because that might manage to injure you even worse with the flying bits.
*'''Flak Jackets''' - The first modern body armor to be developed, Flak Jackets were developed in WWII out of high-strength nylon to protect aircrews from fragments fired from flak cannons in conjuncture with manganese steel plates. While good against shrapnel and pistol rounds, it was still ineffective against rifle bullets. Before the invention of Kevlar and ballistic vests, this was the only kind of body armor available to modern soldiers expected to walk.
*'''Early 20th century armor''' - in WW1 and 2 many nations began experimenting with various forms of body armor to deal with shrapnel. This included steel breastplates, lamellar and steel plates in canvas carriers. This was more experimental than anything else. The biggest users of body armor in WW2 were the soviets who issued "steel bibs" to their soldiers. These could stop shrapnel fire and pistol bullets but were on the heavy side and were restricted to urban warfare or vehicle carried infantry.
*'''Ceramic armor''' - typically, high-strength ceramic plates (typically made from boron carbide) are used as an energy-absorbing component in some ballistic vests. A common myth is that Ceramic trauma plates shatter after only a 1-2 hits. This is false, especially with the advance of armor. These are some of the best plates for infantry.
*'''Ballistic vests''' - "bulletproof" armor vests able to stop bullets of varying sizes and speeds. For "soft" armor, the use of high-strength fibers that "catch" the projectile, thereby slowing them down enough to prevent them from penetrating, are used, typically for security guards, low-intensity combat areas jobs, and cops. For "hard" armor, ceramic/metal/ultra-high-strength plastic/combination-of-the-previous may be used in the form of solid plates. Body armor may come in as either a standalone vest (i.e. "soft" kevlar vest) or a carrier (which can further more simply be a holder for a solid plate or a combination of "soft" and "hard" armor). Options of groin, neck, and shoulder protection may be included with the vests.
*'''Blast suits''' - full-body armors capable of absorbing the heat and shrapnel of a bomb blast. The only part that isn't protected are the hands, since wearing thick gloves is detrimental to manual dexterity. So if a bomb goes off, you may be maimed and lose parts of your hands - but at least you're not dead or torn to ribbons by shrapnel! May also include a closed air supply in the case of biological or chemical bombs. Commonly worn by EOD technicians.
*'''[[Power Armor]]''' - As of current, we already have prototype exoskeletons, but they're one of the many inventions that isn't in common use purely because of limits on battery power. There isn't as much a need for such strength in direct combat like in fiction, as it's designed more for load-bearing in mind, allowing for bigger, heavier guns and/or more ammo. However, that could include allowing the user to wear heavier armor as well. Generally speaking, the servos and external components are rather exposed. Think STALKER's exoskeleton for modern military exoskeleton prototypes.

== Modern Body Armor ==
With modern technology and all it's amenities, a large choices of body armor exists on the market (the NIJ level approved list for body armor products consumes 212 pages on a PDF file). That said it is good to know what levels of protection for both ballistic and melee threats are.

[[image:NIJ Ballistic Protection Rating.JPG|thumb|250px|right|NIJ Ballistic Standard]]
[[image:UL 752 Bullet Resistance Chart.PNG|thumb|250px|right|UL 752 Ballistic Standard]]

*'''Ballistic threats''' Aka bullets most of the time. Soft body armor (aka Kevlar, UHMW Polyethylene, Dyneema, etc) that is rather flexible, but also vulnerable to high velocity threats. Thus most body armor of that class is relegated between II to IIIA. From there on out, it's hard body armor, which usually consists of some sort of metallic (usually steel, but titanium and high-strength aluminum are options too), ceramics, and composites. NIJ Standard III to IV stop those threats. Technically, though only rated up to 30-06 AP rounds (IV), some plates of body armor offer higher than IV. Some have even shown to stop a .50 BMG round, though the likely hood of one surviving such a shot is in question. Standard helmets only go up to level III
** Since some common threats are ''just'' above certain ratings, like 55 grain 5.56 from a 20 inch barrel penetrating level III or 5.7 pistols beating most soft armor, the NIJ system is currently undergoing an overhaul. While most western countries use NIJ rating standards, at least as a secondary, Russia has its own completely unconnected system for rating armor.

*'''Stab threats''' Protects against low energy stabbing objects (aka knives and maybe some small swords). Stab and piercing vest should not be trusted for higher level threats such a two handed weapons such as an pickaxe, sledgehammer, axe, spear, and even affixed bayonets. Even a knife in the hands of someone who can put an unusually high amount of force into stabbing can defeat a stab vest. However it is still great for stuff people would likely to conceal where rapid quick jabbing is likely to occur. Of course there is probably protective gear such as riot gear that could be more withstanding of heavier two handed threats, but it's likely best to not take a pickaxe to the chest in the first place.

Overlap between the two categories is minimal. Metal ballistic plates will stop knifes, though said plate covers minimal body area and is typically heavy. Soft armor is one or the other, though one could be worn over the other at the cost of bulk.

[[image:NIJ Stab level.PNG|thumb|200px|right|NIJ Stab standard]]

==Anatomy of armor==
[[File:HenryVIIIArmor.jpg|right|thumb|300px|You thought we were joking about the dick armor?]]
Basic terminology of the different parts of armor. Unless you were very wealthy, such as a knight, not everyone had every part of their body covered in armor.

*[[Helmet]] - protects the head, one of the most common pieces of armor.
*Gambeson - padded cloth armor suit worn underneath metal armor to absorb blunt force and protect the wearer from the armor itself (metal and boiled leather aren't nice to unprotected humans skin, especially under extreme temperatures). Later variants often reinforced with sown-in mail in places actual metal armor above it have gaps and joints.
*Cuirass - protects the torso. If its made from a single piece of metal, it is a breastplate. Most breastplate are associated with full-body steel plate armor, but ancient Greeks had a bronze version called the "heroic Cuirass", or the Roman "Lorica Musculata", often molded with fake muscles and various decorations.
:*Plackart - lower torso reinforcement that would overlap with a breastplate for extra protection, and connected to the faulds. The reason for this reinforcement is to act as a cushion for blows to the chest, as there is enough space between the plackart and curiass that it acts as additional padding to prevent soft tissue damage underneath.
:*Faulds - a metal skirt attached to the breastplate, allowing some leg protection while offering mobility.
*Gorget - protects the neck. With certain helmets, such as the Sallet, the gorget protected the lower head where the helmet did not.
*[[Pauldrons]] - protects the shoulders. The real life versions are nowhere near as big as those on space marines.
*Gauntlets - protects the hands.
**Manica - Armor that covers an arm, used primarily by the Romans. Typically used to protect the sword arm when it leaves the safety of a shield, but gladiators are known to have worn just it and the attached pauldron.
*Greaves - protects the legs.
*Sabatons - protects the feet (you don't want some smartass spearman stabbing at your unarmored feet now, would you?)
*Codpiece - Yes, believe it or not, you could get dick armor too. Ordinarily this was just to armor the [[Slaanesh|groin area]] like an athletic cup, but some people like King Henry VIII made [[Kaldor Draigo|massive codpieces]] to show off how well-endowed they were.
*Tabard - Technically not armor, but was the decorative sleeveless coat that would drape over the armor of knights. Besides being used as an identifier through the knight's [[Imperial Knight|heraldry]], it also shielded armor from the desert sun so that the knight wouldn't boil in their own armor.
**Sashimono - Japanese equivalent. Essentially a way for armor to hold a small flag. Associated more with ashigaru armor than samurai, but samurai did wear them as well.

== Warhammer 40k ==
*[[Flak Armor]]: This is actually a ballistic vest, not Flak armor. Think an ESAPI (or the new XSAPI)plate modeled off of a cuirass. It can withstand stubber fire all across, up to rifle caliber, so if you were to magdump 20 7.62x39mm rounds into the plate, it could stand up to it. That's about it though. Anything higher, and SHING!, slices through. Unfortunately for the Imperial Guard, a ''lot'' of stuff can be considered "higher".
*[[Carapace Armor]]: Better flak armor (the 40K kind which is a ballistic vest) but with much more coverage and better quality materials. Generally [[Neckbeard|heavier and cumbersome]], but only issued really to those more capable of making the most use out of it.
*[[Power Armour|Powered armor]]: Space marine general issue, as well as several powerful Imperial organizations. Comes with both long term and short term necessities, with high grade ceramite and admantium for protection, stabilizing and targeting gear to assist, and general life support if the being inside doesn't already have some. Very fancy. Honestly it has it's own article for a reason and this list section would do it no justice.

== Armor in Fiction ==

==Gallery==
<gallery>
Image:Musclecuirass.JPG| Greek bronze Muscle Cuirass
Image:Linothorax.jpg| Greek Linothorax, a bronze-reinforced linen armor
Image:Roman Soldier mail.jpg|Roman Mail
Image:LoricaSegmentata.jpg|Roman Lorica Segmentata, a type of Laminar
Image:MirrorArmor.JPG|Mirror armor over a mail shirt
Image:ScaleArmor.JPG|Indian Scale armor
Image:Plated mail.jpg|Indian Plated Mail
Image:Bechter.jpg|Close-up of Eastern-European plated-mail pattern
Image:Koryak.jpg|Koryak warriors wearing traditional lamellar armour
Image:Lamellar.JPG|Japanese Lamellar
Image:Samurai armor.jpg|Japanese Laminar
Image:Gambeson.jpg| European Gambeson, a padded cloth armor used by both commoners and knights
Image:Brigandine.jpg|European Brigandine
Image:visby.jpg|Inside view of some DIYfag's homemade "Visby-pattern" brigandine
Image:Plate armor.jpg|European Plate
Image:FlakJacket.png| Flak Jacket
Image:BallisticVest.JPG|Ballistic Vest
Image:Bombsuit.jpg|Bombsuit
Image:IOTV_(OCP_variant).jpg|Improved Outer Tactical Vest
Image:SPS_(Soldier_Protection_System).jpg|Soldier Protection System, set to replace the IOTV in 2019. Designed with both mobility and protection in mind.
</gallery>

== See also ==
*[[Fantasy Armor]] for one of the usual flame wars involved in "armor".
*[[Armor Save]]

{{MedievalWeaponry}}

[[category: History]]

Armor

2020-02-19T02:20:22Z

2601:280:5B7F:85C4:C03E:94B0:328F:3737: /* Types of Body Armor */

'''''Armor''''' (also spelled Armour) is a protective layer of material used to protect something from damage. Some types of armor includes armor for buildings, armor for vehicles and armor for personnel (generally referred to as body armor). Putting armor on people or putting them in [[Rhino|metal boxes]] to keep them safe is important because we can be [[Rip and Tear|killed]] by sharp rocks or branches or basically anything else at all except grass and leaves. In fact not [[Wikipedia:Bamboo#Weapons|even]] [[Wikipedia:Toxicodendron_radicans|those]]. This is because because our skin is not armor and it [[FAIL|sucks]]. This article will focus mostly on body armor.

[[File:ERA man.jpg|thumb|350px|right|Here you see a highly advanced tactical soldier well equipped for battle with the latest in ERA technology]]

== Types of Body Armor ==
Numerous forms of body armor have been developed over the millennia by civilizations with various levels of technology and resources on hand.

*'''Leather armor''' - not just any leather would do; soft leather offers no protection against blades. You need hard, boiled leather to be effective. It's a matter of heated debates whether it actually even existed historically, as it's highly impractical and too expensive compared to padded cloth while offering largely the same or even lower level of protection. The general consensus is that it surely didn't have any noticeable presence in Europe, and while in the East (both middle and far) it did exist, it wasn't that much popular and widespread either. On the Central Asian steppes or in areas with large amounts of livestock, the leather was often made into boiled and lacquered pieces to make lamellar or scale armor. This was likely a matter of resource availability as the nomadic tribes had little access to metal outside of trading and would prioritise using it for swords, spears, and arrowheads instead. In the Americas, where metalworking was noticeably diminished or not present, leather armor was relatively common. Another name for this is "cuir bouilli" or "cuirbouille". Metal studs can also be driven into these, and the padded cloth armors below, to add additional protection and structural reinforcement. These became more prevalent as metalworking became more accessible. While phased out as as a primary form of protection, Buff coats were still made of leather and retained to act as cushioning underneath metal breastplates. It also served as slashing protection for exposed joints or in cases where wearing metal armor was inconvenient.
*'''Padded cloth armor''' - Cloth bundled in sufficient thickness was one of the first forms of armor, since bronze armors tended to be too expensive or too heavy to be widely used. Cloth continued to be used mostly as padding underneath metal armor (called a Gambeson), to help absorb blows and all through the middle ages continued to be the go to protection for men-at-arms in lieu of expensive metal plate or mail. Despite what you might think it (obviously) provided one of the best protection against percussive strikes, second only to full plate (which have padded cloth integrated into it), surprisingly high level of protection against slashes and swings, unless the blade is razor sharp (most historical blades weren't that sharp) and while it barely ever provides full protection against piercing weapon heavier than a shortbow arrow, it does lower the depth of penetration, often turning instantly lethal wounds to survivable if debilitating, or even surface damage, with an added bonus of often catching enemy weapon (although given most times blades get stuck in padded cloth they pierce deep enough to kill, it's more to the benefit of your companions than yours). Sometimes confused with Brigandine armor (which externally appeared to be made of cloth with metal studs but also contained overlapping metal pieces). Besides the Gambeson, some other historical examples include:
** The distinctive ancient Greek armor called "Linothorax" (literally meaning linen torso): believed to be made out of quilted linen and is presumed to fall under this category, though historians can't be entirely sure as no full examples survived the centuries.
** A hard quilted form of cotton armor, used by the Mesoamericans, such as the Aztecs and the Tlaxcalans, called ”Ichcahuipilli.” Often hardened with substances like brine salt, it was effective against obsidian-edged Macuahuitl/Macana sword-clubs and arrows. Similar thickly padded cotton tunics were worn by Incan nobles in battle.
** An early bulletproof form of cotton armor worn by the 19th century Joseon Koreans called “Myeonje baegab.” It was invented when they confronting Western armies at the same time the Western powers began probing expeditions into Qing China and Tokugawa Japan. While effective against low velocity bullets, it was prone to being burned from incendiary hazards like explosions.
** Various early forms of pistol-proof armor were documented that were made from layers of silk but were usually expensive and restricted to wealthy politicians or nobles.
*'''Paper armor''' - this one sounds crazy, but apparently it was actually a thing in ancient China. The Mythbusters tested it out and it might have been actually effective... at least, so long as it does not get wet. Indeed citizen, this is testable by you! Obtain a notebook and ensure it is tightly closed. Then, stab it with a knife as hard as possible.
*'''Scale armor''' - <s>an early form of mail</s> {{BLAM}}{{BLAM|HERESY!}}an early form of armour, sporting overlapping metal (cuirbouille and lacquered leather were also used) plates arranged in a similar fashion to roofing tiles, which were riveted/sewn onto a backing cloth or leather and oftentimes loosely laced together in rows. One of the earliest examples of armour, used predominantly in Eastern cultures, most distinctly used to deck out their early heavy cavalrymen and horses both in this. These "Cataphracts" were said to be able [[Awesome|to get showered in arrows without getting hit]]. Made a small, unsuccessful comeback in Dragon Skin
*'''Bamboo armor''' - basically wooden armor, but with the advantage in that you can shape bamboo more easily. Bamboo is also notable in the sense that it has a high strength weight ratio. It also is rather weather resistant.
*'''Mirror armor''' - an early form of plate, this was a small round bronze plate attached to the torso. Besides physical protection, it was also believed to ward off the supernatural. The plate itself was frequently a supplement over a suit of mail, but plenty of poor warriors throughout ancient history made due with hoping that no one would hit them around the single non-encompassing plate they strapped to their chest (beats having no armor..).
*'''[[Mail]]''' - the iconic armor made of interlocking rings. One of the most common and effective type of armor from the ancient world to the middle ages. Flexible and easy (though time-consuming) to make, it was widely used by many cultures. It was also significantly easier to repair, as a break could easily be mended by replacing a few rings, whereas a hole in plate armor might require a complete replacement. While fairly effective against foot soldiers, the crossbow and the lance charge required knights to wear extra armor over mail for additional protection. In the modern era, they are used for non-combative roles, such as shark suits and dealing with high-power electrical wiring (because electrons "slide" along the mesh rather than penetrate", admittedly the mesh must be very tightly made). Some nations still use mail armor to supplement riot gear. Note that it MUST be backed with leather or something stiff, otherwise knives will drive it into the body. Just for the love of god: don't get shot. The British tested this in WW1 and the bullets ends up dragging the links into the body with it.
*'''Plated Mail''' - this is not what some sourcebooks refer to as platemail, which is basically just plate armor worn over a mail hauberk. Plated mail integrates metal plates into the rest of the mail pattern, ranging from large rectangular plates on areas like the chest, to small plates arranged like fish scales on areas that require more dexterity, such as near the shoulders and back. This was popular with medieval Persians and Indians.
*'''Laminar armor''' - armor made from bands of metal. The most famous example is the ancient Roman [[wikipedia:Lorica_segmentata|Lorica Segmentata]], though it was less prevalent among the Romans than is usually portrayed and mail remained in use among the Romans' frontline infantry, even in the Segmentata's heyday. Other examples existed during the Renaissance such as the armor by the Polish Hussars but those were held together by sliding rivets rather than leather strips and leather laces.
*'''Lamellar armor''' - armor made from overlapping pieces of leather or metal, each piece being laced side-by-side to create semi-rigid rows, which then are laced together to form a complete suit of armour. This form differs from other "overlapping plates" types of armour in that it is self-contained and does not rely on backing material to keep the all the pieces together. Again it is one of the oldest types of armour and was still in use as recently as 1930s.
*'''[[Samurai]] armor''' - depending on the period, it could be lamellar, laminar, or even western plate (but not wood. That has no basis in history). The helmet (kabuto) had a distinct shape that often featured ornaments and even a removable facemask (Darth Vader's helmet is said to be a hybrid of a kabuto and a German stahlhelm).
**'''Ashigaru armor''' - Worn by conscripts, it featured the same kinds of breastplates, a lesser helmet and some minor stuff but was overall less complete than samurai armor.
*'''Brigandine''' - a.k.a "Corazzina/Coat-of-plates". <s>Similar to lamellar, except the pieces of metal are riveted into a leather jacket rather than laced together.</s> Very close, but not quite. A "brig" is built from overlapping plates of various sizes and shapes, riveted onto a leather or cloth "jacket", but it differs from other "overlapping plates" armours in that A) the plates are *usually* bigger and shaped according to where they go on the armour (scale and lamellar mostly use same-sized, same-shape plates), B) they are riveted inside the leather/cloth and not on the outside and C) the plates are '''not''' linked together in any fashion and fully rely on backing to keep them where they're supposed to be. Brigandine is a "poor man's plate" and was quite popular in medieval Europe while also being seen as spread out as Turkey, India, Russia, China, and even Japan. Often confused with "studded leather armour" or the padded cloth gambeson.
*'''[[Plate armor]]''' - armor made from single, solid pieces of metal. Bronze plate armor had been used in ancient times, but was limited to helmets and sometimes breastplates due to the weight of the armor. Full suits of plate armor were not possible until improvements in smithing allowed for large bars of steel to be hammered out into single pieces. A popular misconception about full plate is that it's very hard to move in, to a point it's exclusive to cavalry. While this is true for a '''tourney plate''' specifically designed for maximum protection in jousting tournaments, an actual battle plate was designed with maximum mobility in mind, and it was not uncommon for a knight (or later an officer) to do a somersault or dance with his lady while testing his new plate armor. Technically speaking, modern body armor for many nations use are in sense partially plate armor, with a carrier holding a solid plate.
*'''Jack Chains''' - if you were too poor to afford proper plate armor, you could at least add some metal reinforcements to your gambeson called Jack Chains. These attached to the arms so that one could, at bare minimum, block slashes to their sides without getting cut, or use it as a improv shield against incoming sword attacks.
*'''Makeshift Armor''' - Not really a set of armor in the traditional sense, generally makeshift armor is what ever one could scrounge up to make a protective wear. In the modern day, this is a protestor (think 2014 Ukraine Revolution) go to for long term engagement. Generally, motorcycle and safety helmets alongside heavy thick jackets would be the go to, as well as whatever one can strap to themselves. Don't be wearing something that might shatter easily though if you expect to be shot at, because that might manage to injure you even worse with the flying bits.
*'''Flak Jackets''' - The first modern body armor to be developed, Flak Jackets were developed in WWII out of high-strength nylon to protect aircrews from fragments fired from flak cannons in conjuncture with manganese steel plates. While good against shrapnel and pistol rounds, it was still ineffective against rifle bullets. Before the invention of Kevlar and ballistic vests, this was the only kind of body armor available to modern soldiers expected to walk.
*'''Early 20th century armor''' - in WW1 and 2 many nations began experimenting with various forms of body armor to deal with shrapnel. This included steel breastplates, lamellar and steel plates in canvas carriers. This was more experimental than anything else. The biggest users of body armor in WW2 were the soviets who issued "steel bibs" to their soldiers. These could stop shrapnel fire and pistol bullets but were on the heavy side and were restricted to urban warfare or vehicle carried infantry.
*'''Ceramic armor''' - typically, high-strength ceramic plates (typically made from boron carbide) are used as an energy-absorbing component in some ballistic vests. A common myth is that Ceramic trauma plates shatter after only a 1-2 hits. This is false, especially with the advance of armor. These are some of the best plates for infantry.
*'''Ballistic vests''' - "bulletproof" armor vests able to stop bullets of varying sizes and speeds. For "soft" armor, the use of high-strength fibers that "catch" the projectile, thereby slowing them down enough to prevent them from penetrating, are used, typically for security guards, low-intensity combat areas jobs, and cops. For "hard" armor, ceramic/metal/ultra-high-strength plastic/combination-of-the-previous may be used in the form of solid plates. Body armor may come in as either a standalone vest (i.e. "soft" kevlar vest) or a carrier (which can further more simply be a holder for a solid plate or a combination of "soft" and "hard" armor). Options of groin, neck, and shoulder protection may be included with the vests.
*'''Blast suits''' - full-body armors capable of absorbing the heat and shrapnel of a bomb blast. The only part that isn't protected are the hands, since wearing thick gloves is detrimental to manual dexterity. So if a bomb goes off, you may be maimed and lose parts of your hands - but at least you're not dead or torn to ribbons by shrapnel! May also include a closed air supply in the case of biological or chemical bombs. Commonly worn by EOD technicians.
*'''[[Power Armor]]''' - As of current, we already have prototype exoskeletons, but they're one of the many inventions that isn't in common use purely because of limits on battery power. There isn't as much a need for such strength in direct combat like in fiction, as it's designed more for load-bearing in mind, allowing for bigger, heavier guns and/or more ammo. However, that could include allowing the user to wear heavier armor as well. Generally speaking, the servos and external components are rather exposed. Think STALKER's exoskeleton for modern military exoskeleton prototypes.

== Modern Body Armor ==
With modern technology and all it's amenities, a large choices of body armor exists on the market (the NIJ level approved list for body armor products consumes 212 pages on a PDF file). That said it is good to know what levels of protection for both ballistic and melee threats are.

[[image:NIJ Ballistic Protection Rating.JPG|thumb|250px|right|NIJ Ballistic Standard]]
[[image:UL 752 Bullet Resistance Chart.PNG|thumb|250px|right|UL 752 Ballistic Standard]]

*'''Ballistic threats''' Aka bullets most of the time. Soft body armor (aka Kevlar, UHMW Polyethylene, Dyneema, etc) that is rather flexible, but also vulnerable to high velocity threats. Thus most body armor of that class is relegated between II to IIIA. From there on out, it's hard body armor, which usually consists of some sort of metallic (usually steel, but titanium and high-strength aluminum are options too), ceramics, and composites. NIJ Standard III to IV stop those threats. Technically, though only rated up to 30-06 AP rounds (IV), some plates of body armor offer higher than IV. Some have even shown to stop a .50 BMG round, though the likely hood of one surviving such a shot is in question. Standard helmets only go up to level III
** Since some common threats are ''just'' above certain ratings, like 55 grain 5.56 from a 20 inch barrel penetrating level III or 5.7 pistols beating most soft armor, the NIJ system is currently undergoing an overhaul. While most western countries use NIJ rating standards, at least as a secondary, Russia has its own completely unconnected system for rating armor.

*'''Stab threats''' Protects against low energy stabbing objects (aka knives and maybe some small swords). Stab and piercing vest should not be trusted for higher level threats such a two handed weapons such as an pickaxe, sledgehammer, axe, spear, and even affixed bayonets. Even a knife in the hands of someone who can put an unusually high amount of force into stabbing can defeat a stab vest. However it is still great for stuff people would likely to conceal where rapid quick jabbing is likely to occur. Of course there is probably protective gear such as riot gear that could be more withstanding of heavier two handed threats, but it's likely best to not take a pickaxe to the chest in the first place.

Overlap between the two categories is minimal. Metal ballistic plates will stop knifes, though said plate covers minimal body area and is typically heavy. Soft armor is one or the other, though one could be worn over the other at the cost of bulk.

[[image:NIJ Stab level.PNG|thumb|200px|right|NIJ Stab standard]]

==Anatomy of armor==
[[File:HenryVIIIArmor.jpg|right|thumb|300px|You thought we were joking about the dick armor?]]
Basic terminology of the different parts of armor. Unless you were very wealthy, such as a knight, not everyone had every part of their body covered in armor.

*[[Helmet]] - protects the head, one of the most common pieces of armor.
*Gambeson - padded cloth armor suit worn underneath metal armor to absorb blunt force and protect the wearer from the armor itself (metal and boiled leather aren't nice to unprotected humans skin, especially under extreme temperatures). Later variants often reinforced with sown-in mail in places actual metal armor above it have gaps and joints.
*Cuirass - protects the torso. If its made from a single piece of metal, it is a breastplate. Most breastplate are associated with full-body steel plate armor, but ancient Greeks had a bronze version called the "heroic Cuirass", or the Roman "Lorica Musculata", often molded with fake muscles and various decorations.
:*Plackart - lower torso reinforcement that would overlap with a breastplate for extra protection, and connected to the faulds. The reason for this reinforcement is to act as a cushion for blows to the chest, as there is enough space between the plackart and curiass that it acts as additional padding to prevent soft tissue damage underneath.
:*Faulds - a metal skirt attached to the breastplate, allowing some leg protection while offering mobility.
*Gorget - protects the neck. With certain helmets, such as the Sallet, the gorget protected the lower head where the helmet did not.
*[[Pauldrons]] - protects the shoulders. The real life versions are nowhere near as big as those on space marines.
*Gauntlets - protects the hands.
**Manica - Armor that covers an arm, used primarily by the Romans. Typically used to protect the sword arm when it leaves the safety of a shield, but gladiators are known to have worn just it and the attached pauldron.
*Greaves - protects the legs.
*Sabatons - protects the feet (you don't want some smartass spearman stabbing at your unarmored feet now, would you?)
*Codpiece - Yes, believe it or not, you could get dick armor too. Ordinarily this was just to armor the [[Slaanesh|groin area]] like an athletic cup, but some people like King Henry VIII made [[Kaldor Draigo|massive codpieces]] to show off how well-endowed they were.
*Tabard - Technically not armor, but was the decorative sleeveless coat that would drape over the armor of knights. Besides being used as an identifier through the knight's [[Imperial Knight|heraldry]], it also shielded armor from the desert sun so that the knight wouldn't boil in their own armor.
**Sashimono - Japanese equivalent. Essentially a way for armor to hold a small flag. Associated more with ashigaru armor than samurai, but samurai did wear them as well.

== Warhammer 40k ==
*[[Flak Armor]]: This is actually a ballistic vest, not Flak armor. Think an ESAPI (or the new XSAPI)plate modeled off of a cuirass. It can withstand stubber fire all across, up to rifle caliber, so if you were to magdump 20 7.62x39mm rounds into the plate, it could stand up to it. That's about it though. Anything higher, and SHING!, slices through. Unfortunately for the Imperial Guard, a ''lot'' of stuff can be considered "higher".
*[[Carapace Armor]]: Better flak armor (the 40K kind which is a ballistic vest) but with much more coverage and better quality materials. Generally [[Neckbeard|heavier and cumbersome]], but only issued really to those more capable of making the most use out of it.
*[[Power Armour|Powered armor]]: Space marine general issue, as well as several powerful Imperial organizations. Comes with both long term and short term necessities, with high grade ceramite and admantium for protection, stabilizing and targeting gear to assist, and general life support if the being inside doesn't already have some. Very fancy. Honestly it has it's own article for a reason and this list section would do it no justice.

== Armor in Fiction ==

==Gallery==
<gallery>
Image:Musclecuirass.JPG| Greek bronze Muscle Cuirass
Image:Linothorax.jpg| Greek Linothorax, a bronze-reinforced linen armor
Image:Roman Soldier mail.jpg|Roman Mail
Image:LoricaSegmentata.jpg|Roman Lorica Segmentata, a type of Laminar
Image:MirrorArmor.JPG|Mirror armor over a mail shirt
Image:ScaleArmor.JPG|Indian Scale armor
Image:Plated mail.jpg|Indian Plated Mail
Image:Bechter.jpg|Close-up of Eastern-European plated-mail pattern
Image:Koryak.jpg|Koryak warriors wearing traditional lamellar armour
Image:Lamellar.JPG|Japanese Lamellar
Image:Samurai armor.jpg|Japanese Laminar
Image:Gambeson.jpg| European Gambeson, a padded cloth armor used by both commoners and knights
Image:Brigandine.jpg|European Brigandine
Image:visby.jpg|Inside view of some DIYfag's homemade "Visby-pattern" brigandine
Image:Plate armor.jpg|European Plate
Image:FlakJacket.png| Flak Jacket
Image:BallisticVest.JPG|Ballistic Vest
Image:Bombsuit.jpg|Bombsuit
Image:IOTV_(OCP_variant).jpg|Improved Outer Tactical Vest
Image:SPS_(Soldier_Protection_System).jpg|Soldier Protection System, set to replace the IOTV in 2019. Designed with both mobility and protection in mind.
</gallery>

== See also ==
*[[Fantasy Armor]] for one of the usual flame wars involved in "armor".
*[[Armor Save]]

{{MedievalWeaponry}}

[[category: History]]

Crossbow

2020-02-19T02:19:17Z

2601:280:5B7F:85C4:C03E:94B0:328F:3737: /* Types of Crossbows */

[[image:crossbow.jpg|thumb|300px|right|An Arbalast Crossbow with an iron prod. Note the iron stirrup ring on the front; which the user could use in this case to hold down with his foot when pulling back the draw string or mounting a gaffe lever to push the string back]]
{{topquote|'''I waste him with my crossbow!'''|Bob Herzog, ''[[Knights Of The Dinner Table]]''}}

The '''crossbow''' is named for its cross-shaped design, as it is basically a [[Bows and Arrows|bow]] (in technical terms, called a prod) on a stock (alternatively called a tiller) that uses a locking trigger mechanism to hold and fire either an arrow (called a bolt or quarrel) or a small spherical stone or lead bullet (the latter usually being used for hunting). Bolts are arrows with a shorter shaft, and could range from being lighter than an average arrow to several times heavier. It operates on the same principle as the traditional bow in that a tough bowstring is pulled back to store potential energy in the bow, which upon release of the string, transfers it to a projectile.

While historians are unsure who first made the crossbow, the earliest known crossbows were found in [[China]] around 700 to 500 BCE. During the Warring States period, crossbows became a preferred ranged weapon of Chinese armies due to ease of use for conscripts and the use of crossbows certainly aided in the rise of the Qin Dynasty and the beginning of Imperial China. The Greeks and Romans experimented with hand-held crossbows, but they never made extensive use of them, although they did make extensive use of ballista (basically a crossbow scaled up to the size of an artillery piece, and often shot stone instead of scaled up arrows). The [[Asians|Chinese]] of these times, on the other hand, had crossbows of all types and shapes: from one-handed repeater crossbows, capable of launching dozens of (fairly weak, but often poisoned) arrows per minute, to absurdly heavy ones, designed to be pulled by legs, rather than arms, and launch arrows the size of small javelin, later with gunpowder-filled bombs on the heading at range, only rivaled by siege engines, though later they passed out in favor of multiple rocket launchers (yes, you read it right). Crossbows began to see widespread use in Europe around 1000 CE, at this time emerged crossbows with steel bow sections, more commonly called arbalasts.

The difference between a bow and a crossbow is that a bow's string needs to be pulled back and held by the user while aiming, while a crossbow has a mechanism that locks the bowstring in a readied state and only requires the user to operate the trigger to release the bolt upon sighting their target. The trigger mechanism evolved over time, as did aids for drawing the crossbow's string. The weight or size of the crossbow certainly had an effect on the mechanisms involved, as light crossbows could be reset by hand, but heavier version could end up using levers or crank-operated windlasses to pull back and cock the string, and tended to use more robust release mechanisms due to the increased stress involved.

In fantasy settings, technologically advanced races who don't (or in limitation) employ [[firearm]]s as their go-to weapon typically make heavy use of crossbows. It is also the ranged weapon of choice for richer and more experienced mercenaries.

For some reason in a lot of fantasy and medieval fiction it seems to be the preferred ranged weapon of whoever the bad guys are. Examples include A Song Of Ice and Fire (where it seems to be the favorite weapon of [[brundlepenis|King Joffrey]]), The Lord of the Rings ([[Ork|Uruk-Hai]] marksmen use crossbows) and different settings of DnD ([[Drow]] poisoned repeater crossbows). This may have something to do with crossbows being less relying on the wielder's strengths, stamina and personal skill, and thus regarded as "unfair" weapon compared to bow, it was at one point banned by the pope for use on Christians, although due to it's usefulness on the battlefield this was largely ignored.

The crossbow is also the favored ranged weapon of [[dwarves]] in most fantasy fiction, though in this case it may be more than just aesthetics; while it would be fitting for a race known for their technical expertise to use a more complex device, also keep in mind that dwarves would have a harder time using regular bows. A bow's power depends on its draw length, and having shorter arms, dwarves can't get as much power out of a bow. They also need a weapon that can be used more easily in confined spaces, which disqualifies longbows right away. What they do have going for them, though, is great strength, making a crossbow's high draw weight less of an issue for them.

==Use in warfare==
A major advantage of crossbows over regular bows is that because they're fired using a mechanism instead of depending on human strength to hold the bow in a ready-to-fire position, user fatigue is no longer such a huge factor Additionally, the heavier crossbows could generate more force than most humans thanks to the pulley systems used to cock the string, thus heavier bolts could be thrown, resulting in greater penetration of the target. Possibly its biggest advantage is that it was easier to train the use of a crossbow than bows since the weapon's operation is much less taxing.

Of course, the main drawback with crossbows is that they require a wider range of resources and skills to produce due to the mechanisms involved. Crossbows also generally have a lower rate of fire than bows. At best, a crossbowman can get off about eight shots a minute. More powerful arbalast crossbows that used windlasses could manage about three shots a minute, but could store more energy than a human could physically pull back with bare hands. For these reasons Crossbows excel in a siege situation where the ranges are long and you can duck into cover easily while you're reloading. And since sieges tended to be drawn-out affairs anyway, reload time wasn't as necessary.

That being said, despite crossbows being much more expensive than bows, they were much less demanding on user's skill and physique, meaning you can train as many crossbowmen as you have crossbows and replenish killed ones in just few months of training, while in order to train a bowmen you need to start with kids. So while a single bowman is much more effective than a single crossbowman, you can afford a half-dozen of crossbowmen for the cost of one bowman, and replace lost ones quickly as long as their weapon survives the battle. This is probably why they first took off in Warring States period China, where raising large conscript armies was the name of the game.

It should be noted that despite having much greater draw weights than contemporary bows (above 500 lbs in some cases), crossbows were not proportionally more powerful due to their very short draw length, translating into a much briefer energy transfer. More modern crossbows sometimes address this by using recurve bows, or even by using a bullpup configuration by turning the bow backwards and then pulling the string past the bow. Additionally, the reduced aerodynamic properties of crossbow bolts as compared to arrows mean that they very rapidly lose velocity after a relatively short distance, giving them great punch at short range but reduced effectiveness at longer ranges as compared to bows.

The fact that even relatively poorly trained men armed with crossbows could royally murder fully armored knights, made the crossbow one of the most hated pre-firearm weapons in the Europe, even more than the infamous flamberge. At some point it even came to the pope banning crossbows as unholy weapon not to be used on fellow Christians, but even then they remained popular among mercenaries, rich lords and Protestants. Proud knights could accept deaths from elite long/composite bowmen who like them were training from childhood, but not from some hastily drilled dirty peasant levies whose lord could afford few dozens of crossbows.

Crossbows are still occasionally used for military purposes; while a crossbow's bolts lack the stopping power of modern firearms, the bolts it fires are quieter than any "silenced" firearm and it can also be used for niche purposes such as launching grappling hooks or detonating tripwire-activated mines, and its lower projectile speed means it's much less likely to set off any worn explosives. While its comparatively lower ability to kill outright can be an issue you could use the same solution that the Indian Navy used for this problem and use Cyanide tipped bolts, or take the Rambo route and use bolts with explosive tips.

See Also: [[Katanas are Underpowered in d20#Crossbows are Underpowered in d20|Crossbows are Underpowered in d20]]

===Loading Mechanisms===
Because later crossbows were often too tough to simply pull back unaided, a number of devices were invented to allow the wielder rearm the crossbow via pulling back the string (in a process called spanning). The device used usually depended upon the draw weight of the bow, as heavier bows would require more advanced devices that required more time to pull back.

*'''Gloves and Stirrup''': Generally leather or some other material, good quality gloves (or some tough callouses) can save one some finger or palm bleeding from trying to pull it by the old fashioned way. Talking from experience, if one is to do it this way, put your entire upper back and arms into it, and pull. Either user placed both feet on the bow's span on each side of the stock or in the stirrup ring attached to the crossbow head. Most commonly associated way of reloading in popular culture besides the Cranequin and Windlass. First appearance: 700 to 500's BCE. Mechanical advantage: 1 to 1. Maximum draw weight: 150-300 lbs.
*'''Stirrup and Belt Hook''': Most crossbows you see have a stirrup ring towards the front end for putting your foot through to hold it steady. Combined with a belt worn around the waist with a hook attached to it, the wielder could use their whole body, rather than just their arms, to arm the crossbow. Could also use a belt-attached pulley configuration to lessen the strength to draw. First appearance: 1200's. Mechanical advantage: about 2 or 1 to 1 (depending on whether using pulley configuration). Maximum draw weight: 320-450 lbs.
*'''Goat's Foot Lever''': This was a fairly simple detachable metal lever that gave the user more leverage when pulling back the string. Composed of a rod attached to two curved prongs and two hinged hooks; it's shape had a resemblance to a goat's foot (obvious in the name). Mounts on two metal lugs on the body's sides near the trigger, pull drawstring back in one motion via two hinged hooks, place folded lever back on belt, load the bolt on the crossbow, and then shoot. This could arm the crossbow in a single motion with the lever's curved prongs making the drawing force decrease as the spanning distance increases. Very common for field portable bows and mounted crossbowmen. First appearance: Between 1300's to 1400's. Mechanical Advantage: from 5 up to 30 to 1 (depending on how far the lever is pulled). Maximum draw weight: 500-600 lbs.
*'''Gaffe Lever''': a two piece wooden lever held by a hinge and attached to the stirrup ring via metal hook. User pushed down on the lever to push the drawstring into the trigger before removing. More associated with nobles for hunting or shooting clubs after the gunpowder weapons appeared in the 1500's during the Renaissance. First appearance: 1500's. Mechanical advantage: up to 30 to 1. Maximum draw weight: 400 lbs.
*'''Lever-Action/Self Spanning''': Uses levers embedded into the crossbow body. The user unlocks catch holding the hinge firm before folding open the half of the crossbow body to catch the drawstring on a latch before pulling back to the trigger to arm the crossbow. Unlike the Asian equivalent in the Chu-Ko-Nu, these did not have a top magazine. This enabled users to aim after loading and pulling a trigger to shoot at the cost of having to load the bolt by hand. Besides the Scottish Border Reivers' latchet crossbow in the 1600's, two noted examples are Martin Löffelholz's armbrust in the Codex Löffelholz and Da Vinci's Balestra Veloce in the Codex Atlanticus. Not as mainstream or well known due to transition to gunpowder weapons in the 1500's during the Renaissance. First appearance: 1500's. Mechanical advantage: up to 25 to 1. Maximum draw weight: 220 - 300 lbs.
*'''Windlass''': Like the Cranequin, this was a winding device, but it also came with a bulky pulley system that was mounted to the back of the crossbow. As a result, this was a tremendously powerful pulling system at the expense of needing a lot of time to arm. Along with the Cranequin, this was one of the strongest crossbow loading methods. Contrary to popular culture, it was more often used for stationary battles like trench warfare or sieges though usage behind pavis shields on open battlefields wasn't unheard of. First appearance: 1400’s. Mechanical advantage: ~160 to 1. Maximum draw weight: 1500 lbs+ (limited by time and bow strength).
*'''Cranequin''': Also called the "Rack and Pinion," this device used gears and a crank to wind up the bowstring, requiring multiple turns to pull it all the way back. Device slid onto lugs mounted on the stock and was removed before firing. Along with the Windlass, this was one of the strongest crossbow loading methods. Contrary to popular culture, it was more often used for stationary battles like trench warfare or sieges though usage on mounted crossbowmen with lighter crossbows and behinds pavis shields on open battlefields wasn't unheard of. First appearance: 1500's. Mechanical advantage: ~600 or 840 to 1. Maximum draw weight: 2000 lbs+.

==Types of Crossbows==
As a general note, crossbows are not ballistas, despite their visual similarity. Unlike Crossbows which store energy in a set of arms which are bent back, Ballistas instead store energy in twisted rope that has a wooden beam pushed into it which is then twisted back farther before firing to store energy. That said, some ballistas are discussed here until a proper "[[Siege Weapon|siege]]" article is consolidated.

*'''Gastraphetes''': an early Greek crossbow, the Gastraphetes, or "belly bow", was cocked by resting the stomach on the bolt rest of the stock (which contained a sliding plank attached to the drawstring) and pushing down so that more energy can be stored then an archer could provide. The Gastraphetes worked slightly different from the classic crossbow, in that its arrow slot was two-piece, with the sliding inner plank attached to the rope. Thus, rather than drawing back the crossbow, you readied it by slamming it into the ground until the trigger catches onto a latch. While impressive, it was restricted to hip fire, was fired with a button-like trigger, and was more of a man portable siege weapon. A larger winch-spanned, tripod-mounted version, the Oxybeles, was in use as a stationary artillery weapon before being replaced by the ballista.

* '''Polybolos''': meaning “multi-bolt thrower” in Greek and also known as a repeating ballista, the Polybolos is more of a big cross bow since the arms are fixed to the "stock" and don't twist around to fire it. The repeating ballista was fired by turning a wheel connected to a chain back to cock it, the turning it the other way to load it again from a hopper on top of the stock.

* '''Chinese "Nu" crossbow''': unlike the European crossbow, which had a power stroke (drawing span) of about 7 inches; used a rolling nut latch held in place by a sear pushed by a long horizontal lever-like trigger in the middle of the stock; and used prods (bow pieces) made from simple wood, composite, and later with metal; the Chinese crossbow had a power stroke of about 21 inches; used a complicated two-piece vertical trigger at the very back of the stock (held together by tension and two pins at the very end of the stock) on a pistol grip; and used wood or composite prods (often salvaged from recurve bows and constructed for conscripts to use en mass instead of drilling archery skills into them). Thus, due to the longer power stroke via the trigger being placed further back and assuming all other factors are equal, the bolts fired by the Chinese bows (usually with draw weights of 380 lbs) were launched with comparable performance to an average European windlass crossbow (with a draw weight of 1,500 lbs). However, the Chinese crossbows themselves were rather large, cumbersome, and had to be reloaded with just stirrup rings, belt hooks, and/or gloves.

* '''Chu-Ko-Nu''': literally meaning “Zhuge’s Crossbow," classical legend associated it a Chinese noble named Zhuge Liang (2nd Century AD). Alternatively known as the Lian Nu (repeating crossbow), it's also known as the Chinese repeating crossbow and is one of the more common types of crossbow seen in fiction. In reality, it was invented during the Warring States Period (4th Century BC) in the State of Chu. The term "repeating crossbow" brings to mind some bastard combination of Assault rifle and crossbow, which it kinda is and is not. Without doubt, this thing could fire quickly; trained soldiers could loose ten bolts in fifteen seconds before having to reload. Mechanically, it consisted of a stock that the user secured on their hip with the bowstring sliding through a slit on each side of the sliding magazine/bolt rest. By pushing and then pulling the lever that secures the magazine to the stock, the user catches bowstring on a notch at the back end of the slits while loading the bolt by gravity onto the bolt rest. Once the lever is fully compressed down, a sliding lug nut at the base of the magazine pushes the string up off the notches and propels the bolt out. However, because of the mechanism's design, the pumping action that pulled the string back also fired the bolt at the same time while the magazine is built on top of the bow. Due to that, you could not pull the string back and then aim. Chu-ko-nu's were limited to hip fire; giving you almost ork levels of accuracy in exchange for an appreciable volume of fire. In layman's terms, it's the same as being restricted to hip-firing a pump action shotgun with the trigger permanently welded in the fire position. Additionally because you were pulling the string back one handed, the bolts had a lot less penetration power than those of a regular crossbow. However, the bolts (which fell down onto the stock from a hopper mounted on top) were often poisoned to make up for that (as seen with the [[Drow]], who make use of the weapon extensively). While no matter how strong the poison on your bolt is, you're not gonna kill a man instantly with a scratch. However, on the battlefield causing enough pain to make a person go into shock is as good as killing them outright, and poison delivers the last one in spades. The downside was you had next to no luck piercing good quality armor or thick leather that an enemy is wearing while you're using it.

* '''Balestra Veloce/Löffelholz Armbrust lever-action crossbows''': First mentioned in Leonardo Da Vinci's Codex Atlanticus (1478 to 1519) and Martin Löffelholz's Codex Löffelholz (1505), both versions of the said design used a stock consisting of of two wood and metal pieces on top of each other and hinged at the head of the crossbow. By unlocking a latch on the stock, the user can then swing forward the bottom half of the stock to extend a sliding latch to catch the drawstring. Once the drawstring is caught, the stock is then closed; locking the stock back together and bringing the latch (which is held firm by a spring-loaded sear) back into contact with the trigger on the lower half of the stock. User then loaded the bolt and pulled the trigger to compress the sear; letting the rolling nut release the crossbow string. Whether the German or Italian version came first is unclear; though the rapid fire crossbow pages in the Codex Atlanticus are dated back to 1485. Either codex's blueprints can be found online via an online archive created by "The Visual Agency" media company or a pdf scan hosted by Krakow's Jagiellonian Library respectively. While firing and reloading more rapidly than the mainstream "goats foot lever" crossbows, it was not widely used due to possibly three reasons.
** First, the amount of expert craftsmanship to make it and the extensive training to use it was cost prohibitive for a relatively complicated and delicately structured weapon. This meant that it was likely more of a special luxury weapon that only wealthy people could afford rather than a mass produced weapon for conscripts (the same reason why breech loading rifles existed since the 16th Century for hunting nobility but didn't replace muzzle-loading smoothbore muskets in mass use for militaries until the 1840's).
** Second, while quicker than spanning a crossbow with a goat's foot or gaffe lever, the draw weight is reduced to a mere average of 220 lbs. Being half of the maximum draw weight of gaffe and goat's foot lever crossbows, this meant weaker penetration and shorter ranges. This was likely to make the lever-action crossbow more easily rearmed without being too strong to either break the trigger lock or cock with your hands.
** Third, the introduction of gunpowder weapons alongside the volley fire from massed Pike and Shot square formations occurred during the Renaissance. Since these crossbows were developed right when gunpowder took over, this meant these lever-action crossbows already went obsolete the same way that heavy plate-armored cavalry and longbow archers did.

* '''Latch/Latchet lever-action Crossbow''': A light lever action crossbow popular with Scottish border raiders called Border Reivers in the 1600's to 1700's, it worked via swinging an internal metal lever forward from the top to push a sliding latch forward to secure the drawstring after unlocking the catch. The user then pushed the lever back into the body to arm the bow before loading and shooting. Popular to the Scottish in the region for home defense and raiding as they were small, easy to use, very quiet compared to a wheel-lock pistol, and took only 10 seconds to rearm and load. Their downside was their short range and being restricted to hip firing due to the trigger being a button on the top (a trade off to enable horsemen to fire one-handed from the saddle though you could tuck it into your armpit).

* '''Bed Crossbow''': A Chinese peculiarity, where multiple crossbows mounted on a static frame were combined to create an increased draw strength. A precursor to the compound crossbow.

*'''Bullet Crossbows''': Also referred to as pelletbows, stonebows, and ballesters, these were essentially the same as regular crossbows or similar to a slingshot in crossbow form, except they fired stone or lead shot instead of bolts. Usually used for recreational shooting and small game hunting.

*'''Crossbow pistol''': Small crossbows designed to be fired from one hand, with modernized versions commonly featuring a more modern pistol grip and trigger. While these did exist in the past, they were nowhere near as lethal as battlefield crossbows as the draw weights were far smaller.

*'''Arbalast''': As European armor improved with the development of steel plate crossbows with wooden bow sections were just not cutting the mustard anymore, as such they began making that part out of steel. This meant that the bow could store more energy and launch a projectile farther and faster, significantly improving armor penetration but it also increased the amount of energy required to draw it, often requiring various leavers and cranking mechanisms to reset it.

*'''Slurbow:''' A crossbow with a cover over its barrel and a small gap used to draw its string back. Arguably influenced by the pistol, the slurbow was mostly used for firing unfeathered quarrels or darts.

*'''Sauterelle''': The last apparition of a crossbow-like weapon in a modern battlefield for frontline work. In WWI, soldiers had a problem: all the artillery that existed was big and unable to drop explosives accurately into a trench, especially at close range. And on the other hand, thrown hand grenades had the precision but too limited range. As an interim solution the French invented the ''Sauterelle'' (grasshopper in French): basically a big crossbow built to lob grenades at around 150 yards distance. Worked decently enough but later in the war they were replaced by small, two-man team infantry mortars that were just as easy to move around and use but had three or four time the range and a better rate of fire.

*'''Compound Crossbow''': the modern version of the crossbow, which is basically a modern compound bow on a rifle stock. Many of these also come equipped with telescopic sights modified with cross-hairs that compensate for the effects of gravity, wind, elevation, and other factors that might affect a bolt's accuracy. They are primarily used for hunting, sport and (unusually) home defense in Britain since everything else has been banned. Also finds military (specifically special forces, not frontline grunts), espionage and law enforcement utility by being used to fire ziplines or grappling hooks, explosive, incendiary, poisoned or gas releasing projectiles, or simply well made darts for a silent kill. Some more recent exotic ones combine various technological concepts from past and present (such as the Cobra Adder brand; a bizarre chimera between the Chu-Ko-Nu's hopper magazine (which is detachable), the Balestra Veloce's lever action system, along with modern optics, grips, and compound, composite bow-pieces).

{{MedievalWeaponry}}