One miss-read I would like to correct is the 1 inch iron: he said that iron armor was dented in by 1 inch, not that 1 inch thick armor was dented by a sling bullet. No one in historical times was using 1 inch thick armor.

Second, your assertion that “slings [sic] bullets have very little overall penetrating power” is false. They have less power than hypersonic bullets, true, but not all bullets are hypersonic. They absolutely will penetrate unarmored flesh though. See the Roman sources or ThegnThrand on Youtube for examples.

Third, your assertion that it “takes a large sling, usually a staff sling, to reliably bring down a human” is just plain wrong. A baseball sized rock doesn’t need any sling to be able to kill a man; you can throw it with your bare hand and kill him. Heck, a thrown baseball can kill if it hits the unprotected head or chest (there are documented cases of baseballs to the chest stopping people’s hearts). A sling simply gives you more power which extends your lethal range quite a bit.

The rest of your arguments are well thought out and I agree. Though I still think RPGs could find more uses for them.

Great comment Shannon, thank you for sharing with us. So are you saying that the sling wouldn’t even dent the metal? I like your analogy of the sniper, you make a good point about the type of scenarios most rpg characters find themselves in.

I’ll see if Shorty is able to pop over and add anything to your comment 🙂

Slings bullets have very little overall penetrating power. Firstly, they are subsonic so their relative kinetic energy compared to a firearm bullet is very low. Secondly, the bullet has a high probability of tumbling in flight because its very hard to put much spin on it with a sling. That in turn means the bullet will likely either tumble in flight or flip sideways if it impacts on the tip. Either way, the actual contact patch formed that transmits the energy of the bullet to the target surface is almost never the “point” of the rugby ball shape but some portion of the sides. Thirdly, the very best bullets are heavy but soft lead (or gold) with carries a lot of kinetic energy but which will absorb energy deforming itself against the target while increasing the contact patch. Both will blunt penetration

It’s very hard to punch through metal with muscle powered weapons without concentrating all the weapons kinetic energy onto a single, sharp hard point. That is why historically, there have been specialized armor piercing arrowhead.

Instead of penetrating, slings kill by shock transmission e.g. causing a shockwave in the armor that transmits the energy of the impact through the armor and to whatever is contacting it on the other side. Slings are most effective against skulls where the bullet fractures the bone, usually without breaking the skin, and drives the bone fragments into the brain. Strikes on hard joints, ribs clavicles, sternums etc have similar effects but are seldom immediately fatal.

(I stopped hunting rabbits and squirrels with a sling when I was kid back on the farm owing to the difficulty of getting a clean kill. Strikes on the haunches or sides would often merely visibly cripple the animal which would escape before I could reload or otherwise catch it.)

Sling hunters always target the head and the body of a one shot kill often looks perfectly undisturbed without any skin breakage, until you touch the skull and find it all squishy. The only sign of injury is often just blood seeping from nose and ears.

The historical limitations on slings in combat wasn’t just a matter of finding the talent although that was an issue. Every boy on the planet might have had a sling but it really takes a large sling, usually a staff sling, to reliably bring down a human. Training in those was much more rare, largely because they were military grade weapons and the local aristocrats frowned on the peasants having them.

The major limitation on slings is the amount of room it takes to use one. The power of the sling is directly dependent on the length of its lever i.e. either the cord, a rod or a cord rod combination. Moreover, most slings operate by releasing one side of the sling throng and that length will snap out often to its full length, stricking like a whip at comrades or presenting an entanglement hazard.

It takes at least a 6ft/2m lever to power a man killer bullet a slinger will need at least that much room either left-to-right or back-to-front. As a practical matter, they need 50%-100% more. Even the famous North African slingers who kicked the bullets with their own feet (using their legs as levers) had to have enough free space to perform a kind of hop and then a pivot kick.

Slingers also need firm footing, more so than even archers and they can’t shoot from horseback since the sling is not rigid and the motion of the horse will distort the lever.

The space and footing factors mean that force density of slingers was low compared to every other weapon bearers on the battle field. In melee combat, they were toast. If slingers tried to stand and hold any particular patch of ground, they would get overrun.

D Instead they were employed much like modern snipers, as scouts, skirmishers, flank guards and harassment (especially in sieges.) Whatever, their employment, they always had to have room to spread out to employ their slings and have either protection of other types of warriors or have space to retreat.

Those last requirements are what make the sling a poor role playing weapon under most circumstances. Slings can’t be used in doors or even in the streets and alleys of historical settlements and they can’t really be used in melee combat (which is most role playing combat.) The analogy of a sniper applies here as well. Few people would want to play a sniper who has to lug a heavy long rifle around that is useless in melee combat and any other circumstance other than firing by surprise from a distance.

Slingers probably make better NPC weapons where their range and surprise present a challenge to players.

hehe glad you enjoyed the article Realmwright! Shorty does have some great articles and is a pretty swell guy too. Plus his knowledge on history and RPG/GMing is admirable. I’ve had the pleasure of playing in a few games along side him.

So I’ve been thrilled to publish his articles here and recommend everyone go and read his blog 🙂

All the best,
Nate

I can’t assuredly say my ex-army ranger/scout is going to put down his longbow and take up the sling…but he might well switch to a crossbow 🙂