Primitive and early weapons, Kinda T2K......

[StainlessSteelCynic]

I did say "modern" world, not dirt poor farmers in the Third World.

The reality is, this game is a hobby indulged in typically by people who don't have to worry about subsistence living. They have the leisure time available to indulge in these sorts of hobbies.
We have to accept that the game was written for these people and that the game designers were going to provide a framework that is familiar to those players, the game was designed by people in the First World to be played by people in the First World, typically running characters from the First World.
More specifically, the game was designed by Americans, for Americans and the game was built with an Americanocentric point of view.

Twilight: 2000 2.2 is no more guilty of providing an abundance of special forces type soldiers as any other military game. Even when you tell players that there will be no special forces types allowed in the game, there's always one who will still try to con you into allowing them to have their 125 year old rocket scientist, battlefield surgeon, construction engineer, SAS marksman with Green Beret command training, while being a Ranger leader in the Navy SEALs with 80 years of experience in combat zones from World War One to Desert Storm plus a sideline in being a black marketeer who has contacts with the Mafia, Yakuza and Triads who once saved the life of Princess so-and-so's personal dog walker's favourite cousin during a mid-air hijack where they had to jump from one plane to another so the Princess owes them a favour or forty...
Or worse, they want all those things for a character who is barely 21 years old.

Maybe I exaggerate a little... however, most players want to play something exciting, interesting or exotic. The worst of them want to play something utterly outlandish.
They are less likely to want to play a busted-arse, dirt-poor farmer from the Third World even if they do get Early Firearms as a career skill.

[Raellus]

Thanks to Swaghauler for bringing this thread to my attention.

Are there any official rules for the use of slings? I thought I remembered seeing a slingshot (not the same weapon, I realize, but perhaps a starting point) in the v2.2 BYB, but I just checked and there's no such entry. Slings were have a significantly greater range and damage than a slingshot, I am sure.

Besides being a direct fire infantry projectile weapon that would be easy to manufacture c. 2000 (same for its ammunition), slings could also be used to hurl incendiaries or possibly explosives over walls and such.

Here are a couple of brief articles on the history of the sling in warfare:

https://warfarehistorynetwork.com/20...-sling-weapon/

https://www.dangergoods.com/slinghistory

-

[.45cultist]

You will need the velocity for the sling's wind up, I think.

[Vespers War]

Yeah, either velocity or measured distance and time of flight, which would allow average velocity to be calculated. I haven't run across much in the way of experimental archeology or physical anthropological studies of slings - one experiment with Peruvian shepherds, but they only recorded distance and didn't record details about the projectiles or slings that were used. I'd roughly guesstimate them at Dam 1 or 2 and BR around 35, but that's just a semi-educated guess. I also have no clue how they'd interact with modern armors and whether flexible vs rigid armor would make any difference.

[swaghauler]

Originally Posted by Vespers War

Yeah, either velocity or measured distance and time of flight, which would allow average velocity to be calculated. I haven't run across much in the way of experimental archeology or physical anthropological studies of slings - one experiment with Peruvian shepherds, but they only recorded distance and didn't record details about the projectiles or slings that were used. I'd roughly guesstimate them at Dam 1 or 2 and BR around 35, but that's just a semi-educated guess. I also have no clue how they'd interact with modern armors and whether flexible vs rigid armor would make any difference.

I've used both paracord and leather Shepherd's Slings as well as Slingshots. Modern slings often use ball bearings as ammo or you can use a SMOOTH rock around 100 to 200 grams in weight. Lead fishing sinkers (200 grams) for ocean rigs are also used. These almond-shaped projectiles resemble historic lead sling bullets. The first mistake many novice slingers make is using too light of a rock. You need some mass to keep that rock in the sling for the windup. The leather slings provide much better control while the paracord slings generate more velocity due to their "elasticity." We used a radar gun to measure speed and our stones and ball bearings ran between 30m/s and 50m/s out of our shepherds' slings. The Slingshots were definitely slower at around 30m/s but you can actually shoot arrows from a Slingshot. Dave Canterbury (of dual survival fame) has a couple of videos on this.
On the range and accuracy side, these are just like bows. The POINT ACCURACY is much harder to achieve than lobbing rocks into a skirmish line and ranges are shorter for point targets than area targets (just like bows). The true irony is that optimum accuracy occurs at a slower release speed than most people anticipate. The modern slingers compete at around 40m and I would say this is into a Long range band for Twilight2000 V2.2. So I'd say a base Range of 10m to 15m is about average. The range for a Slingshot is around 10m, but even with the toughest rubber band you can buy, a Slingshot will not match the range of a Shepard's Sling.
The Slingshot is easy to get accuracy with. You center your target between the "Y" arms of the Slingshot with the arrow or ball bearing located in the rubber pocket just under your dominant eye. You then center the ball bearing so it covers half of the target and release the rubber band. At longer ranges, you hold the ball bearing OVER the target to hit it. To give you an idea of the Slingshot's accuracy, people hunt SQUIRRELS with them.
The Shepard's Sling requires LOADS of practice to get hits with. You must time your release of the end of the cord with the stone's alignment on target. I was given this tip which does work... "when the string wrapped around your finger 'tugs' on it, release the knotted end." This does work and you will be in the vicinity of the target. I'd say the DIFFICULTY for a Shepard's Sling should be at least a DIFFICULT if not a FORMIBABLE test of skill. The Slingshot would be an AVERAGE test of skill.

[Olefin]

all depends on where you grew up and what you did as a kid too - we made slingshots in the Boy Scouts and I got my archery badge both in the Scouts and at a YMCA camp as well as hunted with bow. And we made rubber band zip guns as well - and if you know what you are doing with them you can actually make them into one shot pistols

[Vespers War]

Originally Posted by swaghauler

I've used both paracord and leather Shepherd's Slings as well as Slingshots. Modern slings often use ball bearings as ammo or you can use a SMOOTH rock around 100 to 200 grams in weight. Lead fishing sinkers (200 grams) for ocean rigs are also used. These almond-shaped projectiles resemble historic lead sling bullets. The first mistake many novice slingers make is using too light of a rock. You need some mass to keep that rock in the sling for the windup. The leather slings provide much better control while the paracord slings generate more velocity due to their "elasticity." We used a radar gun to measure speed and our stones and ball bearings ran between 30m/s and 50m/s out of our shepherds' slings. The Slingshots were definitely slower at around 30m/s but you can actually shoot arrows from a Slingshot. Dave Canterbury (of dual survival fame) has a couple of videos on this.
On the range and accuracy side, these are just like bows. The POINT ACCURACY is much harder to achieve than lobbing rocks into a skirmish line and ranges are shorter for point targets than area targets (just like bows). The true irony is that optimum accuracy occurs at a slower release speed than most people anticipate. The modern slingers compete at around 40m and I would say this is into a Long range band for Twilight2000 V2.2. So I'd say a base Range of 10m to 15m is about average. The range for a Slingshot is around 10m, but even with the toughest rubber band you can buy, a Slingshot will not match the range of a Shepard's Sling.
The Slingshot is easy to get accuracy with. You center your target between the "Y" arms of the Slingshot with the arrow or ball bearing located in the rubber pocket just under your dominant eye. You then center the ball bearing so it covers half of the target and release the rubber band. At longer ranges, you hold the ball bearing OVER the target to hit it. To give you an idea of the Slingshot's accuracy, people hunt SQUIRRELS with them.
The Shepard's Sling requires LOADS of practice to get hits with. You must time your release of the end of the cord with the stone's alignment on target. I was given this tip which does work... "when the string wrapped around your finger 'tugs' on it, release the knotted end." This does work and you will be in the vicinity of the target. I'd say the DIFFICULTY for a Shepard's Sling should be at least a DIFFICULT if not a FORMIBABLE test of skill. The Slingshot would be an AVERAGE test of skill.

Just to provide a point of comparison, Jorg Sprave has gotten over 100 m/s with a slingshot. Despite that, he was only getting around 130 joules because the projectile mass wasn't all that high.

The current world record for distance from a sling (not a slingshot) is 437.10 meters using a 52 gram projectile from a 129.5 centimeter sling, back in 1981. Effective ranges would of course be lower, and as you mentioned would vary depending on whether one was firing at a single point target or "just" flinging projectiles in the direction of a massed block of opponents. I think 15m sounds fair for point targets, since it puts the maximum effective range as being roughly a football field.

[swaghauler]

Here's a video comparing the Brown Bess to a "Kentucky Long Rifle" (most of which were made in PA).

https://youtu.be/R2bNV9e17Ko

[swaghauler]

Here's a video from Tod's Workshop on what I'd call a Swiss Arrow (throwing dart) and Plumbatta.

https://youtu.be/dSIrR0Jo09Y

If that's a capital I instead of a lowercase l, look for a refined post below

Swag

[swaghauler]

I want to bump the Primitive Technology Channel again. And no, he doesn't speak in ANY of his videos... The same as above... if the I is really a lowercase L, I'll repost the link below.

https://youtu.be/rrlr02YDr5A

[swaghauler]

Here's Dave Canterbury's Slingshot Bow shooting arrows.

https://youtu.be/6LxKfpAPYA