At 03:01 PM 9/1/98 -0500, Randax wrote:
>
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>At 10:51 PM 8/27/98 -0700, Tim Nutting wrote:
>>Nice calc's Pieter. But I ran similar calcs on a unit of knights and was
>floored by the cost. Even assuming that a "unit"
>>is only 25 men on horseback - the cost is still outrageous and far more
>than the 6GB muster cost. What was the must cost
>>calced by? Don't know, but certainly not by the cost of making things and
>equipping the men and paying them. The equipment
>>must come from elsewhere....
>>
>The argument that I found convincing about the low cost of combat units, was
>that you are recruiting men who are already equipped. For example to make a
>unit of knights, you are recruiting from the younger sons of local barons,
>etc., who already have their own personal arms and armour etc. However, I
>don't see any individual owning a personal cannon, especially as cannon will
>be the latest newly developed weapon. At which point, your going to have to
>supply your own.
>
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>
>The exact same could be said for artillery units. Why do they cost only 4GB?
>No one has a personal catapult at home. I was forced to conclude the unit had
>only one or two of each seige engine (the unit should include cats, a seige
>tower and the like since it allows one to siege a castle). Even at that it was
>woefully underpriced- seige engines aren't cheap. I don't think bombards
should
>be either- esp. at the beginning. Then again, they're about 3 times more
>effective.
>
Was it not common practice for artillery to be built on-site at the siege,
as in those days, it was an utter bitch to transport. With the skills of a
siege engineer/artillerist, a sufficient supply of labour, and raw materials
(rope, carpentry equipment, and a local forest or buildings to pillage beams
from) it is relatively simple to make field artillery, rams, etc. It seems
a much simpler process to build the artillery on site, rather than transport
it to the siege site given the common quality of roads back then.
Unfortunately, it is much more difficult to hide a cannon foundry in ones
back pocket.

Pieter A de Jong
Graduate Mechanical Engineering Student
University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Canada