"effectiveness of plumbata and martiobarbuli" Topic

How good were they? Sources are scarce. In my skirmish rules, I am giving them limited combat effectiveness (they will just cause confusion and possible recoil on unarmored or lightly armored targets). I wonder if they should do a bit more…

Well, the Romans did move from the pilum to use them and they did it for some reason. Perhaps it was simply because they were smaller, cheaper, and easier to manufacture plus the legionary could carry more of them.

Also Vegetius (1.17) has this to say about the martiobarbuli:

"The exercise of the loaded javelins, called martiobarbuli, must not be omitted. We formerly had two legions in Illyricum, consisting of six thousand men each, which from their extraordinary dexterity and skill in the use of these weapons were distinguished by the same appellation. They supported for a long time the weight of all the wars and distinguished themselves so remarkably that the Emperors Diocletian and Maximian on their accession honored them with the titles of Jovian and Herculean and preferred them before all the other legions. Every soldier carries five of these javelins in the hollow of his shield. And thus the legionary soldiers seem to supply the place of archers, for they wound both the men and horses of the enemy before they come within reach of the common missile weapons."

So the martiobarbuli (basically a powerful dart) was a thrown weapon that had a decent range (enough to cover for archers in a pinch) and had the ability to wound both men and horses.

So maybe it fits in a niche between bows and pilum. It doesn't have the range of a bow or the hitting power of the pilum, but it has a nice mix of the two? The pilum had an effective range of 15-20 yards and the short bow up to 50 yards. The martiobarbuli could have a range of 20m and the hitting power of a bow?

Thanks. This would make them more or less as effective as regular Javelins in my system.

No problem. I love your games and I can't wait to see what you're up to. Plus I do have those 15mm Rebel Romans who might see the light of day some time.

Hi

I threw jav in high school and college but wasn't that good.

Much later reading about these, I made and tested them. A good high school athlete can do 40m with a jav, and pretty much expect to hit a formed company(which is mostly empty space or shielded).

With the martiobarbuli, I found that throwing technique wasn't very important as it is with jav. Neither is body size or muscle power! I had small women tossing them with effect. The physics is similar to that of an atal-atal. The grasp essentially adds a "lever" to the toss turning it to a mechanical advantage.

Rocky
So, with the ones I made, pretty much everyone could get 80 plus meters with them.

The real problem was that they were less accurate. Hitting a formed century, not much of a problem, hitting an individual, not so much.

Missile weapons are largely hunting weapons used in war. Martiobarbuli is not useful for putting a rabbit in the pot!

I would agree with Rocky here, and add that what you are looking at is an area weapon. Don't worry about the accuracy of one guy with these. Understand that you are throwing hundreds of them at a time, on effect a shower of these darts coming down as an area denial weapon, and type of "airburst" shrapnel if you will.

If you have 6K legionary with 5 each, that's 30,000 of the suckers available to bombard your enemy with. I can see real advantages to using these against massed infantry and cavalry.

We hates them, Precious – nasty, pointy, tricksy stickers – we hates them ALL. And they has too many of them, my Precious, way too many. They makes us look like pin cushions!…

I just hijack that interesting topic and ask:
Are there any 15mm minis with these weapons out there ??

Greets
WCT

hmm I still wonder how to best stat them up in a skirmish game where a figure is one man. Probably less accurate than javelin, but giving a bonus if used to attack a formed group (who would be 2 to 5 men in a small game and 4 to 10 men in a large game).

Hi

Double range of a jav, but very small hit rate!

Rocky

OK I think I have them…

In my system, javelins can also be thrown as a free action at the end of a movement; with martiobarbuli/plumbata this will not be allowed. But Javelins have a max range of 3 x Short and Darts (we'll call them like this to save space) a range of 3 x Medium.

While javs can not really wound on their last range band, darts can.

I think this works…

The older versions of the WRG rules used to treat the darts and the javelins the same as the greater ammo supply of the lighter darts, 5 or 6 per soldier, offset the greater impact of the javelin, 1 or 2 per soldier. YMMV.

hmm I still wonder how to best stat them up in a skirmish game where a figure is one man. Probably less accurate than javelin, but giving a bonus if used to attack a formed group

This is exactly the conclusion I have adopted for this weapon in my own skirmish rules.
Re-enactors told me that replicas can be thrown at the other end of a football ground – not thrown as javelins, but under arm – without much accuracy but certainly effective against a group.

Hi

I have always disputed the underarm throw. Simply no reason for it except as a reflection of an old game called "lawn darts". Just grabbing and tossing by the tail works without special anything like steps or spacing or anything.

Rocky

Again… Rocky beat me to the concept. I can see NO good reason for an underarm throw, and a number of reasons to NOT throw like that.

Interesting. I did not know there were disagreements about that.

It was a short arrow with a big lump of lead. Very uneasy to handle. Tossing it by the tail would certainly work well at close range, but if you wish to throw it as far as possible an undearm throw seems better ? Why not ?

Hi

If you make the same throw you would as with a rock, which everyone had done, holding it by the tail, you get lots of range!

Underarm requires that only the front row of a close order century can throw unless you create some new drill where the rows are spaced out somehow. And underarm doesn't get longer range.

Here is the advantage of underarm, wobble. If you throw for range underarm the weapon stays pointed at the target the whole way. But again, it requires a lot of room.

Overarm, by the tail, the weapon tumbles a couple times in the first 5 meters, then straightens out. Again, however, it doesn't require special training or drill to throw.

In that respect, it is actually easier than a javelin in that for maximum range with a jav, you need to learn a "step" where you are running towards the target, then go into a cross over side ways step at the throw.

Rocky

Indeed, it would be dangerous to attempt underarm throws in close order with anyone but the first rank. Plus, it takes more practice to learn just when to release it so it doesn't go up and come back down in front of you. A split second off/late and you endanger your own guys/self.

Thanks for this.

However, one of the links above (testing plumbatae) gives a greater range for underarm throws.

Late Roman Infantrymen also had skirmish training in open order, and large-scale battles in close order did not happen so often. I would suppose that they threw their weapons according to the situation.

Hi

And in the past, the critique of that was the odd presumption they made about overarm throwing. Anything, any issue can be subject to "overthinking".

Rocky

Sorry to awaken a zombie thread. I have performed extensive research on plumbatae and I must state that both Rocky Russo TKindred are correct…overhand is the best way to throw plumbatae.
I have even written a paper on the subject, available here:

link

One thing to add, if your plumbatae tumble then the shaft is too thick and/or the fletching is much too large.

Hi Bruce,

thanks for pointing us to your paper on a very interesting subject, and all the best for your plans on writing books.

But please please please don't start your papers/books with how the other researchers got it all wrong and you will now present the truth. Although it pains me a lot I stopped reading your paper on page 3. Please let the reader decide on what his/her opinion on any subject matter will be after reading your work. Please present your motivation at the start, your thoughts about previous work that you will built upon, then your reasoning and any data, information and whatnot, and then draw a conclusion in the end that will present the reader an interpretation of all the afore mentioned information that might or might not be more satisfying than what has been published before.

And then hopefully a discussion starts, and that's the best anyone can try to achieve.

No offence meant, I really appreciate your ambition to augment our understanding of history.

Olivero

Thanks for your advice.

I do call a spade a spade…and I provide evidence. If you only read three pages, then you never got past the introduction. Should I not be able to say in the introduction that my report will indeed prove all the previous researchers to be wrong? I prove it in my work, a fact you would have ascertained by reading further.

Perhaps there is a lesson to be learned by both of us.