Helmets

imperatorzor wrote:In "Off Armageddon Reef" they said that Charisian Marines wore breastplates and helmets and that Cayleb's helmet was similar to that of a morion


Zor

In HFD, the scout snipers were described as wearing soft hats with one side turned up (ala Aussie bush hats) to accommodate the longer barrels of their rifles.

Another thing to consider is that untill "light weight" ballistic armor like Kevlar was invented a helmet was more for giving the troops a sense of protection. It was the US army IIRC who did tests, showing that soldiers who wore some sort of head covering were more willing to hop up and attack than those who did not have any. Helmets of the WWII era were good at stopping ricochets or shell fragments. But a round would generally punch through them. Especially after the soldiers, after being told not to use them as cooking pots, used them as cooking pots.

unlucky caz wrote:Another thing to consider is that untill "light weight" ballistic armor like Kevlar was invented a helmet was more for giving the troops a sense of protection. It was the US army IIRC who did tests, showing that soldiers who wore some sort of head covering were more willing to hop up and attack than those who did not have any. Helmets of the WWII era were good at stopping ricochets or shell fragments. But a round would generally punch through them. Especially after the soldiers, after being told not to use them as cooking pots, used them as cooking pots.

Sometimes it's hard to get soldiers to keep their gear. They can darn well use cooking pots in the field. If they can conveniently keep their pots on their heads otherwise, it's one less thing on their backs or trusted to their hands, and if it even makes them more willing to hop up into harm's way, it's win-win before it stops a single bit of harm.

Obviously all these helmet references went right over my head.

Randomiser wrote::oops: Obviously all these helmet references went right over my head.

If you are like me, you are asking, "what head am I talking about?"

Don

-

Considering the compressed nature of the 'timeline' of Safehold's weapons development, I doubt that helmets have ever not been in use.

Charis jumped from early 17th Century smoothbore matchlocks to rifled flintlocks (1800+/-) shooting Mine balls (1848) pretty much overnight with percussion caps, breech loading, the metallic cartridge and the metallic cartridge repeating arm following at an almost impossible pace. At the beginning of the war, they were fighting like it was 1600. In the last 2 books, they were fighting like it was 1880 (breech loading metallic cartridge single shots) with 1890-1900 (metallic cartridge repeaters) well in sight for next year's fighting season. We've seen the almost 300 years of firearms evolution (and the tactics to use them) happen in about a decade.

See what I mean about compressed?

On Earth, they went away gradually over a few centuries just like body armor. As firearms got better, any protection they may have given were outweighed by their weight and awkwardness. on Safehold, there hasn't been time for them to wither away.

The better question would be what kind of helmets are they using?

There hasn't been enough time for much natural evolution from those 1600's style helmets they started with. Even if somebody reinvents the modern infantry helmet overnight, where's the steel to make them (or the industrial capacity) going to come from? That's a low priority compared to making rifles, bayonets, cannon, mortars, ammunition, etc.. Most likely, they are using prewar designs or modified (probably based on field modifications) versions of the same. There were, historically, several designs that would be 'functional' for use in the current situation. They may not be the best answer to the problem but they would be readily available (it's not like all those pikemen need them any more).

jtg452 wrote:Considering the compressed nature of the 'timeline' of Safehold's weapons development, I doubt that helmets have ever not been in use.

Charis jumped from early 17th Century smoothbore matchlocks to rifled flintlocks (1800+/-) shooting Mine balls (1848) pretty much overnight with percussion caps, breech loading, the metallic cartridge and the metallic cartridge repeating arm following at an almost impossible pace. At the beginning of the war, they were fighting like it was 1600. In the last 2 books, they were fighting like it was 1880 (breech loading metallic cartridge single shots) with 1890-1900 (metallic cartridge repeaters) well in sight for next year's fighting season. We've seen the almost 300 years of firearms evolution (and the tactics to use them) happen in about a decade.

See what I mean about compressed?

On Earth, they went away gradually over a few centuries just like body armor. As firearms got better, any protection they may have given were outweighed by their weight and awkwardness. on Safehold, there hasn't been time for them to wither away.

The better question would be what kind of helmets are they using?

There hasn't been enough time for much natural evolution from those 1600's style helmets they started with. Even if somebody reinvents the modern infantry helmet overnight, where's the steel to make them (or the industrial capacity) going to come from? That's a low priority compared to making rifles, bayonets, cannon, mortars, ammunition, etc.. Most likely, they are using prewar designs or modified (probably based on field modifications) versions of the same. There were, historically, several designs that would be 'functional' for use in the current situation. They may not be the best answer to the problem but they would be readily available (it's not like all those pikemen need them any more).

Actually Charis has progressed through about 50 years of firearms development in roughly 5 years.

IIRC
Flintlock 1670-1830's
Percussion cap 1830's-1860's
Metallic Cartridges 1850's- present day
Repeating firearms pistol late 1840's- present day e.g. Colt S&W and Remington
Repeating firearms rifle late 1850's- present day e.g. Spencer Sharps and Henry

jtg452 wrote:There hasn't been enough time for much natural evolution from those 1600's style helmets they started with. Even if somebody reinvents the modern infantry helmet overnight, where's the steel to make them (or the industrial capacity) going to come from? That's a low priority compared to making rifles, bayonets, cannon, mortars, ammunition, etc.. Most likely, they are using prewar designs or modified (probably based on field modifications) versions of the same. There were, historically, several designs that would be 'functional' for use in the current situation. They may not be the best answer to the problem but they would be readily available (it's not like all those pikemen need them any more).

Well it's been noted multiple times that Charis has a lot of excess steel production capacity to the point that they make rifles entirely out of steel (Church still uses iron most places) and still have enough left over for frills like lighters.

Between that and the Inner Circle's access to Old Earth records, I'm fairly confident that Charisian troops (or at least the line troops) will have steel helmets. If not a completely modern design, a simple bowl shaped helmet minus the frills decorations common to Napoleonic era helmet designs would be issued. They might even have suspension webbing.

And even if they don't stop bullets, simple shrapnel protection is nothing to sneer at in an age of exploding artillery rounds. I think the Army minded Inner Circle members would be well aware of that.

saber964 wrote:Actually Charis has progressed through about 50 years of firearms development in roughly 5 years.

IIRC
Flintlock 1670-1830's
Percussion cap 1830's-1860's
Metallic Cartridges 1850's- present day
Repeating firearms pistol late 1840's- present day e.g. Colt S&W and Remington
Repeating firearms rifle late 1850's- present day e.g. Spencer Sharps and Henry

Read the post again.

I laid out what my benchmarks were for arriving at those numbers and I based those numbers on when in Earth history you would find an issue or mass produced arm exactly like Charis is using, not just when innovations X and Y were introduced.

They started with smoothbore matchlocks just like everyone else was using. That is comparable with the early to mid 1600's.

They immediately jumped to flintlock RIFLES using Minie balls to speed loading. First, that's actually a big anachronism since the Minie ball is a development from the percussion era. Flintlock rifles didn't see issue in the military in great numbers until the "Experimental Corps of Riflemen" was formed by the British in 1800.

Percussion conversion of the rifles would move them forward to something comparable with the rifled muskets of the Civil War Era- the '58 Enfield and the '61 Springfield. Call it 50 years, just for argument's sake, because the guns developed in the 1840's like the 1842 Springfield were still smooth bore.

The jump to the metallic cartridge breechloaders moves things into the late 1860's to early 1870's. Yes, there were metallic cartridges in the 1850's. They were like the .22BB and .22CB caps, little more than primers with a bullet stuffed in the open end. Even the rimfires used in the Henry and Spencer are grossly underpowered in comparision to what Charis started with out of the gate. That round is centerfire, large bore and has a large powder capacity. That moves things to the post Civil War era since the round is close to the .50-70 of the Allin conversions and the .45-70 of the 1873 Trapdoor.

The next move, to large bore, bolt action, detachable box magazine fed, repeating rifles is good for another 20 or so years. While bolt action repeaters were available in the late 1870's (ie., the Reemington-Keene in 1878), they used tubular magazines. The detachable box magazine used in guns shooting comparable ammunition (note that part- just because a .30 caliber rifle was built in 187-something doesn't mean that the action would scale up to a .45 and I didn't stop until I found an exact comparison) pushes it into the 1880's or 1890's.

evilauthor wrote:

jtg452 wrote:There hasn't been enough time for much natural evolution from those 1600's style helmets they started with. Even if somebody reinvents the modern infantry helmet overnight, where's the steel to make them (or the industrial capacity) going to come from? That's a low priority compared to making rifles, bayonets, cannon, mortars, ammunition, etc.. Most likely, they are using prewar designs or modified (probably based on field modifications) versions of the same. There were, historically, several designs that would be 'functional' for use in the current situation. They may not be the best answer to the problem but they would be readily available (it's not like all those pikemen need them any more).

Well it's been noted multiple times that Charis has a lot of excess steel production capacity to the point that they make rifles entirely out of steel (Church still uses iron most places) and still have enough left over for frills like lighters.

Between that and the Inner Circle's access to Old Earth records, I'm fairly confident that Charisian troops (or at least the line troops) will have steel helmets. If not a completely modern design, a simple bowl shaped helmet minus the frills decorations common to Napoleonic era helmet designs would be issued. They might even have suspension webbing.

And even if they don't stop bullets, simple shrapnel protection is nothing to sneer at in an age of exploding artillery rounds. I think the Army minded Inner Circle members would be well aware of that.

With a large existing stock of usable helmets, how big of a production priority would a new design be?

While Charis didn't have a tradition of keeping large standing army, about everyone else on the planet did. Open faced helmets were common for pikemen on Earth during the time period most similar to where Safehold started at the beginning of the books. Many of the popular designs from that period on Earth would be functional in the current tactical environment with little or no modification.

My point is why tie up production and R&D on replacing something that you already have that works? What is on hand may not be the best solution but it works good enough to push replacement down the priority list.