Captain Anorak's Guide to Gaming
Combat Systems:
3. The Realities of Missile Combat
SOURCES

[1] Shooting to Live (original text 1942) is a textbook on pistol combat by two officers in the Shanghai police, WE Fairbairn and EA Sykes. It describes their view of the realities of pistol combat, mainly from the perspective of police operations, based on evience from twenty years of real experience in battles against armed gangs. Reprinted (1987) by Paladin Press (www.paladin-press.com), ISBN 0-87364-027-6.

[2] Sappho and Alcaeus (first edition 1955) by Professor Sir Denys Page of Trinity College, Cambridge, is a book of Lesbian poetry from the 7th-6th centuries BC. It details the historic background of Lesbos and more broadly the East Mediterranean in this period. Clarendon Press, Oxford University, paperback edition 1979, ISBN 0 19 814375 0.

HITTING

How often do shots fired hit? Opinions vary. These are two extremes:

1. Shots fired generally hit, so the first person to shoot wins.

2. Shots fired generally miss, and there will be many misses before a hit happens.

I am aware of differing views on this from various historians and servicemen. Sykes and Fairbairn [1] wrote this of pistol combat in police operations in 1930s Shanghai:

In the great majority of shooting affrays the distance at which firing takes place is not more than four yards. Very frequently it is considerably less... the necessity for speed is vital and can never be sufficiently emphasised. The average shooting affray is a matter of split seconds. If you take much longer than a third of a second to fire your first shot, you will not be the one to tell the newspapers about it.

On the opposite side, I have heard from a military historian that in the Vietnam war, tens of thousands of rounds were fired for each casualty inflicted; another told me account of a shootout in the Old West in which two men approached to a few metres, emptied their weapons at each other without hitting, and then rode off again; I read once that US police statistics indicate that gun battles between police and criminals usually involve many more misses than hits.

Perhaps these apparent differences can be resolved by a few considerations. Untrained shooters may lack the skill to hit. Shooters not used to combat may panic and shoot wildly. Military operations tend to involve longer ranges than police work (I've heard 200m as a typical range for engagement in warfare after WWII). Military weapons may fill an area with fire, and thousands of rounds might be fired like this simply on the suspicion of an enemy being nearby.

Still, the disparity between the Shanghai experience and the US statistics (if they are true: I only read about them) seems hard to reconcile.

WOUNDING

In his decription of Lesbian armour, Professor Page [2] discusses the function of greaves (shinguards):

The special function of greaves was to protect the warrior against arrows and stones. The spear, whether thrust or thrown, was aimed at more vital parts, especially the neck and abdomen; and the first line of defence against it was the shield, the second the helmet and corselet. The archer, comparatively ineffective against the shielded body, aimed as a rule at the legs, in order to provide crippled victims for his comrades with sword and spear.

He provides evidence for this from texts and from illustrations on Greek pottery.