Questions about Real life Ranged Combat

DKnight

I have been going over this in my head a number of times and I cannot put my number on it. Bows, crossbows, throwing daggers I can understand would be lethal in ranged combat. I still cannot understand slings being deadly. I mean it makes a bit of sense I guess if your throwing a rock of decent size AND you hit them in the head. But how would an expert sling user hurt someone who is wearing studded leather or anything above that armor. A fullplatemail user would probably laugh unless you got em in the head.

Maybe its just my misunderstanding, but I just would like to know from any of you that does know, what is the history with slings and bullets in medieval combat. Thanks.

OneAngryMushroom

Slings are deceptively good ranged weapons. Most bullets used for slings were either lead or stone and a skilled slinger could launch one up to 400 meters away. A sling bullet to the head would have either outright killed or disabled a warrior, hitting someone anywhere else would likely break a bone or some other serious injury. High velocity, low weight, high mass the exact same criteria we use for modern bullets.

Coutelier

Well, the sling is one of the earliest ranged weapons and was used a lot by Greek and Roman and middle eastern armies. It was faster than bows, and could be quite deadly since the 'bullet' suffers less air resistance than arrows and so delivers more kinetic energy to the target. Although most fatal injuries would come from broken bones and internal bleeding as the larger surface area meant it was unlikely to penetrate skin or indeed armor.

Other thing is, slings are actually one of the most difficult ranged weapons to use as well; it takes a lot more practice to hit things with any kind of accuracy than say, a crossbow. Slingers would have practiced since childhood (and so we give it to mages who should be spending more time practicing spells...). In ancient warfare you would obviously have many men launching at once so that a rain of stones fell on the enemy, and so individual accuracy is not so important. In any case, by medieval times due to advances in metallurgy and armor being more common, the bow and crossbow replaced it almost entirely in warfare.

Heres a full article.

Kaltzor

The thing with projectiles like rocks, metal balls and such used in slings is that even if you have armor, with a good enough hit, the armor won't can't completely stop it, it might not cause any serious injury, but they would still feel it and most people would react to pain in some manner... Anything that goes more for an impact between it and the person to deal the damage has that kind of effect.

DKnight

You guys are awesome and thanks a lot. There's still so much to learn about stuff and the cool thing is that I would have NEVER known any of that without wisdom. I gotta make me a halfling that uses one of those puppies, hehe.