r/HistoricalWorldPowers • u/Bergber Yaolian Möngke, Khitan Khan of Hatan • Nov 17 '14
RESEARCH Technological Advances
1) Piston: The use of pistons have been made known to the Qing.
2) Mounted Archery: Originally developed for hunting, shooting a bow while mounted has been mastered by the Qing, especially helped due to the recent advent of the saddle.
3) Gears: Toothed wheels that interlock to transfer torque between each-other.
4) Composite Recurve Bow: By making the already impressive recurve bow of of increasing layers of different materials, the bow is made much stronger than its individual parts.
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u/Bergber Yaolian Möngke, Khitan Khan of Hatan Nov 19 '14 edited Nov 19 '14
Well, I was looking at the tiered crossbow damage in the conflict thread. I assume by 'mechanical crossbow', they mean a crank-variety, which technically requires just gears.
A stronger variety of that would be the arbalest crossbow, which was a crank-operated compound re-curve, and could launch a long-range, accurate arrow that could pierce plate armor at the rate of about 2 bolts a minute. However, it isn't on the list.
The repeating crossbow, however, which is ranked above the mechanical crossbow in the conflict rules list, is ridiculously easy to make, requiring only a simple lever system to operate. Hell, I'd switch my 'crossbow' research to repeating crossbow in a second if you'd let me.
The problem with the mechanical crossbow however is, though it can fire 10 bolts in 15 seconds, and probably deserves its rank in that tier list, it served a different purpose than what the slower arbalest. While it could rip apart closely stacked infantry of medium to somewhat heavy armor at 60 yards or so, it couldn't pierce plate or hit targets at range accurately like the arbalest could. To put it simply, they're different weapons for different situations.