black powder and the British weather...

[Hobbit]

I was there and waiting to go onto the battlefield. If the wind had been blowing in the opposite direction the fire would have swept through the campsite too with great potential for much nastiness. Fortunately there were no injuries and the damage was limited to the insurance policy.

[Mister Rab]

Fire in a campsite will utterly destroy good order among troops.

I was taking part at the Tewkesbury reenactment about, oh, four or five years ago and experienced just that. It was blazing hot and we were all mustering to take the field when someone tripped over a camping stove and knocked it into a tent. Whoosh! Several tents went up straight away because they were so close together. Blokes half into their armour dashing about trying to get water or pulling tents out of the way, the rest of us already formed up trying to figure out what was going on. Mayhem! And that was without actually being under attack or in fear of our lives.

I think that would make an excellent skirmish scenario 

[fastolfrus]

Also for hot weather, remember that horses get heatstroke too.

Fog features in a few battles.
It affects sound as well as vision.

Prolonged good weather might see high desertion rates as farmers go home to harvest crops etc.

[Patrice]

Whoosh! Several tents went up straight away

I'm happy this did not happen in France (yet?).

Under French law we can keep our black powder in our own tents... near our straw beds...

[Big Martin]

I was also at Witney - we'd gone on early for skirmishing before the main armies arrived. We did consider going to help put out the fire, then reconsidered as we were carrying around half a pound of powder each!
I've been involved in a battle in a thunderstorm following the Lord General waving my sword on high when the heavens opened. I decided that brandishing an iron bar over my head whilst lightning flashed all around was a bad idea. IIRC after all these years, we had only one cannon firing on the parliament side in no time at all and they got a special commendation as nobody knew how they managed it.
I've had a massive raindrop fall onto my just-opened matchlock pan and not been able to fire a thing thereafter due to the black goo that clogged everything up. The other consideration is the fact that the saltpetre in match absorbs moisture when it's wet and the match goes stiff and burns poorly.
In my re-enacting experience, battles in bad weather are miserable affairs and I suspect real life actions in the wet weren't a lot different.

[Hobbit]

Reminds me of my mate who used to be the resident knight at Warwick Castle. Alegedly they used to run up to the top of the towers during thunderstorms and shout "all gods are bar stewards" (I think that's what he said anyway).

On an SK battlefield I think "trail your pike" was the usual order of the day during storms. Studley Castle, 91/92ish was in a thunderstorm as I recall.

[FifteensAway]

All this talk of black powder and stormy days and not a word yet about bayonets?   Come now, this is why they remained popular for so long.  Plug or socket, as you choose, gentlemen - fix 'em and advance.

[OSHIROmodels]

Not really in use during the ECW though. Like the long bow, they were there but never really used in significant numbers.

Night firing could be interesting. Our regiment did some last year and it looked rather good but obviously your eyes go a bit due to the muzzle flash.

cheers

James