wotr handgunners - skirmish?

[Atheling]

Curiously enough, the Burgundian records make difference between two different grades of gunpowder (cannon powder and coulovrine powder), though it is not known what was the technical difference between these two. My uneducated guess would be that coulovrine powder might be ground into finer grains, but it might also be something completely different.

It would be interesting to find out what the late 15th Century reenactment community think 

They might have a vision as to why but I suppose if you're not shooting live ammunition regularly then it might be difficult to know as the difference might feel subtle but end result could be a biggie.

[Red Orc]

This is a really interesting discussion, and not my personal gaming or professional area of expertise, so any opinions offered can be taken with a healthy does of salt(petre). But it certainly looks to me like Cubs's contentions are basically right.

It seems the morale effect of gonnes may have been an important reason to use them, especially defensively (I'm assuming you're not thinking of staging a major siege with gonne-armed defenders on a city wall here). A charge of Knights being met with catastrophic bangs, clouds of smoke and flying lead would surely have spooked both horses and riders even before the effects of injuries are considered. In game terms this might be a significant morale effect.

Gonners would be vulnerable but also mobile (compared to cannon). The obvious way to use them defensively is as a short-ranged defence against charging Knights. This may come down to the rules you are using but a unit of say 40 footmen (halberdiers or pikemen or something?), including 10 Gonners, or two units of 30 footmen and 10 Gonners, utilising a tactic of blasting charging cavalry at close range and scuttling round the back to reload, seems reasonable (if the 40 men next door include 10 bowmen instead of Gonners, this starts to resemble Charles the Bold's Ord(i)nances, with ratios of 60:10:10 as opposed to 70:10:10 of general infantry, bowmen and gunners).

The other option is fielding massed units of Gonners, which the 300-500 Flemish handgunners might suggest. Perhaps in this case the number should be capped at something like 'no more than 1/6 of infantry may be Gonners' or something. Again their primary use is likely to be against charges. As discrete units however they're likely to be massively vulnerable, unless you have well-disciplined troops that can provide some sort of rolling volley fire: again in a 40-man unit, maybe 10 fire each turn to give the others time to reload. Depends on the relationship between your turn-system and reload rate I guess. There's also a relationship between range of gonnes and the charge-rate of Knights: all these need to be balanced I'd suggest, because there's a relationship between distance that can be charged, the distance a gonne was effective, and the time it takes to reload. That will give you the proportion of a unit of massed Gonners that can fire each turn, I'd suggest.

How visible were gonnes likely to be? Would a unit of Knights charging a foot formation know whether there were gonnes? Does that change if it's all gonnes, or only 1/4 gonnes? I can see a situation where charging Knights would be utterly surprised to find that the enemy facing them was armed with tiny cannons (even if it's only some of them). Again this looks likely to have significant morale effects, and it may be possible to have 'secret' Gonners. Knights charging suddenly find a unit is swapped out and reveals itself to be Gonners rather than some other sorts of troops. Again the effect might primarily be morale-based, but also it might mitigate against the enemy specifically targeting units of Gonners with archers/artillery even if they wouldn't 'actually' know which units had gonnes.

[happyhiker]

Once you get into modelling for rules it does seem odd. I'm writing some rules for home use( see a thread about counting arrows). I've made hand gonnes a shorter range, no penalty against plate mail, but hit on the same score as cross bows, with the logic that the noise and smoke make up for a loss of accuracy.(a hit being a kill or damage to morale) But apart from the aesthetics, it does raise the question of why use gonnes instead of crossbows. Shorter distance but better against plate mail, no real burning need to swap out all the crossbows there. But if you bring economics into it, if hand gonnes minis were much cheaper than cross bow minis, then maybe  I might field more gonnes...

[Griefbringer]

Regarding the logistics side, one aspect of handgonne usage is that loading it does not require much physical strenght, though some manual dexterity is involved. You just need to be strong enough to hold the gun steady when firing it. In comparison, with crossbow and especially bow you need to do mechanical work to pull the string, which then imparts energy to the projected missile. In case of crossbow, various loading mechanisms exist, but you still need to physically apply the energy, just the period of time is affected.

So the physical strenght of the handgunners is not an important issue. While the physical nature of most work would result in relatively strong bodies, urban centres still featured scribes, merchants and various craftsmen, who might lead less physically demanding lives. Furthermore, during times of malnutrion or disease (common in sieges and longer field campaigns) normally strong persons are not at their peak performance.

Still, the recoil of the handgonne gives quite an unpleasant kick. Some of the bigger handgonnes intended for use in fortified situations had for this purpose hooks under the barrel that could be placed over the edge of the wall, thus absorbing the recoil.

[Patrice]

the Burgundian records make difference between two different grades of gunpowder (cannon powder and coulovrine powder), though it is not known what was the technical difference between these two. My uneducated guess would be that coulovrine powder might be ground into finer grains, but it might also be something completely different.

It would be interesting to find out what the late 15th Century reenactment community think 
They might have a vision as to why but I suppose if you're not shooting live ammunition regularly then it might be difficult to know as the difference might feel subtle but end result could be a biggie.

There certainly was a difference in the 17th century between thin "pulvérin" (pulver?) that was put on the vent of muskets and cannons (to ignite the charge easily) and the coarse powder in bigger grains which was the main charge. Even with modern renactment black powder you can feel a difference between thin and big powder. I suppose it's probably what that means.

[Atheling]

There certainly was a difference in the 17th century between thin "pulvérin" (pulver?) that was put on the vent of muskets and cannons (to ignite the charge easily) and the coarse powder in bigger grains which was the main charge. Even with modern renactment black powder you can feel a difference between thin and big powder. I suppose it's probably what that means.

Thanks Patrice, that makes much more sense to me now 

[Griefbringer]

So my assumption about the different grinding levels might actually be correct? Need to check later on about what examples the book had about these different powder types in accounting.

As regards the urban militias, it came to my mind that these tended to be drawn mainly from the urban middle classes, who due to their wealth would have vested investments in ensuring the status of the town, and who would be also able to afford to purchase the required armament and armour. These included many artisans, whose work might be less physically strenuous than that of unskilled labourers, but who would be expected to have good manual coordination. Since they would have only limited time available for practice with weapons, ease of use would be beneficial.

Besides the weapons of the individual militia members, also the town council would directly purchase military equipment for the town, especially artillery pieces. Dedicated master gunners might be furthermore hired to look after the big guns,