Can’t reload while kneeling.
It’s the rear ranks that reload.
Same for muskets. Even breech loaders as depicted in this flick:
Last minute.
Extremely effective scene. I can practically smell the gun smoke. What movie was it?
But then ice isn’t a liquid either, obviously.
There’s no one margarine oil. It can be made from just about any plant oil, including olive.
I have a 1979 zoology text that groups Ailuropoda (the giant panda) in Procyonidae (racoons, etc.). It looks like this 1985 molecular study is what finally placed them “officially” with bears.
Musketry through the early 19th century rarely bothered with the front rank kneeling when firing in multiple rows - the rear rank just presses in. Only when you needed to present more bayonetage (i.e. forming a square) or weren’t going anywhere anytime soon might the front rank kneel.
I think that was “Zulu,” a 1964 movie with Michael Caine. (But not 100% certain.)
Longbows couldn’t penetrate articulated plate… well, in most cases it couldn’t. I suppose an extremely lucky shot on a weak part, that somehow bites into the steel,at very close range might… but it’s not really something that happened routinely.
Landing in an articulation, on the visor, or on mail armor, yeah, that would be dangerous.
EDIT: Argh, I respond to like the 5th post of a 4 page thread. Good one Kinthalis!
Once you hydrogenate the oil (causing it to be solid at room temp) and create artificial trans fats, it becomes pretty bad for you. Even if you use olive oil or mix some pure olive in, the trans fats will still be a problem.
I remember this classic: in a firing squad, only one shooter is fires a live bullet. The rest shoot blanks. Even as a kid I thought any shooter worth his salt should know the feel of a live bullet compared to a blank.
Another advantage of crossbows over longbows, which I don’t think has been noted, is that crossbows require not just less physical strength but less physical flexibility. Shooting a bow requires a much larger range of motion than a crossbow, especially one equipped with a crank. This means, essentially, that you can put a lot more armor on a crossbowman than you can on a longbowman.
Actually, I thought it was that only one shooter had a blank, the rest had live ammo. I’ll take your word for what the shooter will know after firing, but it seems they wouldn’t allow just one live round to be fired (suppose he misses?).
But ice flows. For example, glaciers. And ice is a crystalline solid, not an amorphous solid, like glass. So odds are glass can flow, too. Based on the evidence, however, it’s unlikely that it does to any measurable degree over historical timescales. My WAG is that you’d have to set up a 10 to 100 thousand-year-long experiment to see any measurable flow. Not exactly practical to resolve what is essentially a semantic point.
I’d heard the complete opposite; only one shooter has a blank. That way everyone can think “I may not be responsible for the death.”
I’ve never shot a gun - how does a blank feel different, is there less recoil? More?
There is considerably less recoil. Almost none, in fact. They also sound different in a way that I can’t really describe.
It’s not a matter of amounts. Aluminum foil can be specially treated to make it able to go into the microwave (invisible coating), but if it gets the tiniest rend, it will become active again: fireworks in the kitchen!
Better just not stick anything metallic in there.
That wasn’t really the point, the point was longbows effective range is greater than a crossbows. the_diego insists crossbows had a greater draw strength (which I’ll concede) and that is the only thing that needs to be taken into consideration (which I disagree with), which is like saying a motorboats top speed only depends on the horsepower of the engine and every other factor is irrelevant. Since he’s been unwilling or unable to provide a cite to back the claim he made, I looked, but could find nothing substantive either way.
And yes, that was* Zulu*, fantastic film, but currently fighting for it’s life in my mind with Guns at Batasi for best colonial military movie.
Shaka Zulu