Extreme Realism Mod

[Hasegawa_Taizou]

however, in russian press everybody were very surprised with this. It was almost sensation). No one expected britains will initiate such useless self-destruction attack. Every little boy, who helped soldiers to defend Sevastopol, had something from those britain soldiers' gear. I mean that situation is too clear to be funny. I may accept such situation in our army (we would deal with it) - thats almost usual for us))), not in european one. I'm almost sure somebody who ordered this, knew what he did. There can be no uncertainty in army orders you know) especially if it is real army like Great Britain's, armies of France or Russia. There can be only 1 reason - betrayal. During Napoleonic wars Austrians usually did that to russian armies under Suvorov's command.

Spoiler

another possible reason - bad scouts' work))

Sorry if we are too far from theme.

 

[PPQ_Purple]

however, in russian press everybody were very surprised with this. It was almost sensation). No one expected britains will initiate such useless self-destruction attack.

Hindsight is the best general.

Every little boy, who helped soldiers to defend Sevastopol, had something from those britain soldiers' gear. I mean that situation is too clear to be funny. I may accept such situation in our army (we would deal with it)), not in european one. I'm almost sure somebody who ordered this, knew what he did. There can be no misunderstanding in army orders you know) especially if it is real army like Great Britain's, armies of France or Russia. There can be only 1 reason - betrayal. During Napoleonic wars Austrians usually did that to russian armies under Suvorov's command.

Actually it had to do with the fact that at the time you could buy an officers commission. And young people from the noble gentry were expected to do so. So half the officers were incompetent twats who could not lead their men out of a paper bag. Whilst the other half were educated in the proper spirit of British army tradition that a subordinate should newer disobey orders. So when the messenger brought vague orders and when asked to clarify them gave misleading directions the troops just went with it.

It is reminiscent of the incident where half the British Mediterranean fleet plowed into the other half. And the military tribunal decided that no one was to blame because the admiral who gave the bad orders was dead and his subordinates who, by our standards should have known better could not be blamed for obeying their betters.

To quote the actual report:

'The court strongly feel that although it is much to be regretted that Rear Admiral Albert H. Markham did not carry out his first intention of semaphoring to the Commander-in-Chief his doubts as to the signal, it would be fatal to the interests of the service to say that he was to blame for carrying out the directions of the Commander-in-Chief present in person.'

And this is in 1893. 40 years after the cavalry action we are talking about.

 

[MariusThePaladin]

Warhorse in history should not be as strong as those medieval tank in vanilla mount&blade I agree, but to compare them to regular horse or racing horse these day would be a mistake also.

Those warhorse back in the days were basically a pack of buffed muscles on 4 legs.
Horses these days are more on lean and atheletic side. Kinda like comparing a body builder to a runner.

I don't know about Japanese warhorse though, but from what I've seen, they don't use cavalry tactic that much, and even when it comes to this

The Takeda clan's cavalry were feared because they held a patch of land that had stronger breeds of horses.

Cavalry would have been used to attack archers and slingers and arquebusiers and whatever other ranged troops might be arrayed on the battlefield.

I believe we all know how well it went for Takeda.

So Hedetora is probably right here. The Japanese weren't using regular warhorse, but more like those smaller horse or ponies.

 

[Scuba Steve]

Just to make a point, Japanese horses were small in comparison to modern horses, but they weren't that small. Not in comparison to other horses in Asia at the time. Korean horses are significantly smaller than Japanese horses at the same time period. As for cavalry actions, they weren't being used in the same manner as knights of the high middle ages, but cavalry actions in Japan were not all that different from Early medieval cavalry actions.

A more apt comparison would be the sort of thing that William the Conqueror did at Hastings. Samurai didn't couch their lances, but seemed to use them in a manner like the Normans used theirs (albeit they didn't throw them). There also weren't exactly large units of cavalry in every samurai army (the Takeda are one of the exceptions to this, and is one of the reasons why they were well known for the cavalry, they had a significant number of them). Cavalry charges in Japan were accompanied by retainers on foot. These weren't charges at the gallop, but more likely at a canter. But that's not to say these sorts of things are impossible. Mongolian ponies for example are not that much bigger than Japanese horses, and are just as sturdy and have comparable levels of stamina. Even Mongolian cataphract styled cavalry used these ponies. A massed cavalry charge in Japan would not be impossible.

The issue with using cavalry in Japan has more to do with the terrain not being especially suitable for cavalry actions (it's very hilly and mountainous [about 72%], there's a significant amount of rivers and tributaries and delta regions, there's artificial marshes [rice paddies] that are around for roughly seven months of the year, and at the time also had a significant amount of forest area [even today 68% of Japan is predominantly forests]) than the horses themselves.

 

[Zavel]

Hi Everyone,

Totally agree about cavalry charges, they are seriously under estimated by the general public. With the average weight of an adult man constantly rising(88kg 195lb usa source wiki )
people have a hard time believing that a horse can not only knock them over but send them flying.
Having had experience with horses and ponies i can say that they can pull you around by a rope as if you weigh nothing, or when they see a nice hay bale they can turn around suddenly and slam you into the wall.

Humans used to be very skinny those days even rulers remains sometimes show sings of malnutrition and associated diseases.
Having looked at the sizes of most japanese horse breeds it seems they ranged from 9-13 hands tall so around 200-350kg thats still 4-7 times the average man of those days.
Imagine 4-7 men running into 1 man, he will fall down maybe even fly a bit,  now turn does men in a horse and increase the speed to double.

A 16-18 warhorse can weigh 600+kg that like a smart car and capable of traveling at same speeds(60-70km/h) now imagine a couple hundred of smart car weighing horses crashing in a formation 8 men deep they will go through.

Even a pony sized horse be it Japanese or Mongolian weighs like a Motorcycle and they to are very capable of crashing into groups of pedestrains and send them flying.

I think the most realist depiction of a cavalry charge in a movie is Lotr 3 battle of Pelennor fields, lose formation, short weapons, no shields of the orcs helped but the cavalry did the most.
On the other hand i find it unrealistic that the orcs short bow killed horses 1 shot, not going to work,
its believed by hunters that it unethical to shot beyond 50 yards because of very inconsistent chance to kill a deer! Deer are much weaker and easier to kill than horses.

Will soon finish editing item and troops, thinking about slowing down travel speed on map to add more strategy, because riding form other side of japan in a day to save sieged castle is a bit too fast, not that i would like to make you walk for weeks just between two cities but a bit of realism cant hurt? 

Zavel

 

[Kentucky 『 ＨＥＩＧＵＩ 』 James]

I think the most realist depiction of a cavalry charge in a movie is Lotr 3 battle of Pelennor fields, lose formation, short weapons, no shields of the orcs helped but the cavalry did the most.

lolwut

In that scene, horses plough through thousands of individuals wearing armour and carrying weapons. They keep knocking human-sized creatures into the air without stopping or slowing down (because it's CGI and they just filmed a few horses running across a field).

Physics tells us that an object can't continue moving indefinitely if its kinetic energy is expended by crashing into things. I often use the analogy: how fast do you think you could sprint through a crowd of 10-year-olds? Probably not far once you get bogged down. The weight/strength ratio between a child and an adult is similar to that of an adult and a premodern warhorse.

Horses are not cannonballs. Their forward momentum is powered by their legs. If those legs get bogged down or cannot propel the horse (and the dozens of people it's crashing into) forwards, it will stop. For this reason the physics of cavalry charges in warband aren't too far from what I would expect if some psychopath managed to test how far a horse could penetrate into a human formation.

 

[PPQ_Purple]

On the other hand i find it unrealistic that the orcs short bow killed horses 1 shot, not going to work,
its believed by hunters that it unethical to shot beyond 50 yards because of very inconsistent chance to kill a deer! Deer are much weaker and easier to kill than horses.

A hunting bow is very different than a war bow, and so are its arrows. A hunting bow is weak intentionally since you do not want to completely wreck the piece of meat you hit. And for the same reason its arrows are not designed for optimal murdering capability. Instead you would the animal and than chase it with dogs until it bleeds out. A war bow on the other hand is much stronger and fires much heavier arrows. Firing proper war grade arrows it can and will go through European plate mail. So chances are it probably will murder a horse just fine, especially an unarmored one.

 

[Tuidjy]

The arrow matters a lot.  A hunting arrow, even a traditional one, would be a broadhead. Modern hunting arrows can be complex mechanical gimmicks that can can open a 5-6 cm wide wound, but even traditional hunting arrows could create massive wounds... against unarmored opponents. Against an armed opponent, you would be using a different kind of arrow - one that would be better at penetrating, but would not come close to creating the same kind of wound.

Furthermore, a broadhead arrow meant for killing humans would not be the best for killing horses.  If you will shoot at people, you align the head with the cock feather.  If you will shoot at four legged animals, you want to have the head perpendicular to the cock feather.

So, an archer expecting to shoot at armored infantry probably will not have the right kind of broadhead on his arrows.  This does not mean that he will not be able to bring horses down, just that shots will wildly vary in effectiveness, depending on where they hit. 

As for the scene in the lord of the rings, like most combat scenes, and pretty much every scene involving cavalry, it was total and utter crap.  The unreality of it all was very distracting for me.

 

[Zavel]

Hi everyone,

I've gotten stuck on some balance issues and have a question about companions and how the game treats them.

Are the companions instances of the "companion troop" meaning if i had two companions of the same troop they can have different equipment,
or changing their stats and equipment changes the troop? Also how many companions can there be in a party?

The idea behind this is make companion heavy gameplay until you become a lord, because you cant recruit in villages, mercs and samurai will be more expensive, and only way you can get a big army is by gathering companions. A long term goal is to give each companion a set of resolvable issues with others and you will have to complete a lot of quests to have a stable party.


Thanks in advance,
Zavel

 

[PPQ_Purple]

Companions are just companions. They have nothing to do with other troops. This really is a question you should ask in the regular M&B Warband forums as this mod changes absolutely nothing about how the companions are treated.

 

[IlluminaZer0]

May be a bit to the side but :

And more importantly why do you think armies went to such lengths to develop counter charge tactics and weapons such as pike squares and bayonets?

Why would infantry bring pikes and deployable obstacles if there wasn't actual danger of being charged?

Pikes were not specialized anti-cavalry. They were deployed against infantry to good effect. Pikemen were also used in aggressive charges. The Swiss in particular were known to be amazingly aggressive and could not only maintain pike formation in charge but quickly adapt to flanking maneuvers, the "hedgehog" allowing them to protect all sides at once.

There is a reason that the Swiss still serve as a personal bodyguard to the Pope from the reputation they built in the Pike square days... And its not due to the Pike being such a limited tool in warfare. Knights were losing their dominance on the battlefield long before firearms became standard. If anything, increasing popularity of firearms were more damning to Pikemen than they were Knights.

Spoiler: Pikemen

Spoiler: Pikemen

Spoiler: Pikemen... "Bad War"

Bayonets were also used long after cavalry became irrelevant. They are still standard issue to this day actually. Bayonets; as are spears and polearms in general, are very much intended for CQC.

Spoiler: Bayonet

Spoiler: Bayonet

Spoiler: Bayonet