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Pirates: Cannons (Require loading, ammo, powder and crew.) Guns (Highly Inaccurate at their time, and I highly doubt, a bead of led in that day could pierce most chain mail or if the viking couldn't take it.)
Vikings: Arrows (Fast, require skill, can be equipped to become flaming arrows.) Throwing axes (Not likely, but someone might hit.) Spears (Still used today, just like arrows.)
The Golden Age of piracy was between the 1650's and 1720's. Rifling was invented back in the 1450's. Their guns weren't as inaccurate as you seem to be making them out to be. There is no conceivable way to twist things so that vikings win at ranged. You just can't.
Ships:
Pirates: Ships were bigger, and potentially faster, but they lacked the quality to be able to board on to enemies within moments. They also require a highly active crew to maintain movement.
Vikings: Ships varied in sizes, were man powered, could change course on a dime, were designed for boarding enemies.
Okay, pirates commonly operated in small fleets and ship size varied greatly. From sleek three or four masted clippers and vast merchantmen and galleons to smaller ships such as corvettes or brigs. Clippers could outstrip the fastest ships of their day easily, and would have no problem out running a viking longboat. An East Indiaman or decked out ship of the line could blow a longboat to smithereens with a single broadside. And a small double masted schooner would run circles around any longboat all the while peppering it with small cannon and musket fire.
And speaking of needing a highly active crew to maintain guess what all the vikings had to do if they needed to travel against the wind? They had to row.
The majority of the afore mentioned craft could sail into the wind. The vikings with their square sailed cogs had to make do with oars.
Pirates:
Vikings:
The vikings' longboats were impressive vessels, but there is no way you could argue that they could stand against the craft piloted by most pirates.
Close Combat:
Pirates: Guns & Swords (Brawled not really all to skilled.)
Vikings: Shields, armor, axes, swords, maces, etc. (Lived to fight.)
I rest my case...
I will concede that in close combat, vikings have the upper hand. But they first have to get into close combat.
That's still two to one in the pirates' favor.
This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2010/09/27 21:20:33
The_Savior wrote:Pirates: Cannons (Require loading, ammo, powder and crew.) Guns (Highly Inaccurate at their time, and I highly doubt, a bead of led in that day could pierce most chain mail or if the viking couldn't take it.)
The invention of the handgun brought an end to the age of armor. Guess what? People did not stop wearing armor because it was so effective against bullets.
Pirates: Ships were bigger, and potentially faster, but they lacked the quality to be able to board on to enemies within moments.
Vikings: Ships varied in sizes, were man powered, could change course on a dime, were designed for boarding enemies.
This is the exact opposite of reality.
Longships were not designed for boarding at all, while galleons were. You know the phrase "Make him walk the plank!" Well, they didn't have planks just so they could make people walk off them. The proper name for those planks is a boarding plank. It, along with boarding hooks and boarding cannons were part of the set of dedicated tools found on a galleon specifically for (you guessed it) boarding.
Chibi Bodge-Battle wrote:Since when did vikings not have parties?
They had raiding parties.
Festivals.
Beaches
Scandanavian women
Aqua vita and Mead
Extremely competent seagoing credentials
Founded many a city
Founded the world's first parliament
and a had better knowledge of history than Roobiks
Aren't they the same? Vikings were just early pirates without the rum. Poor Vikings never having rum. That must have sucked.
They had Mead. Thus they win.
Mmmm. Mead. Yet another reason to move back South, as I know where to buy it there!
Although Mead is part fo the reason I am now married, IT IS NOT RUM! BLASPHEMER!
-"Wait a minute.....who is that Frazz is talking to in the gallery? Hmmm something is going on here.....Oh.... it seems there is some dispute over video taping of some sort......Frazz is really upset now..........wait a minute......whats he go there.......is it? Can it be?....Frazz has just unleashed his hidden weiner dog from his mini bag, while quoting shakespeares "Let slip the dogs the war!!" GG
-"Don't mind Frazzled. He's just Dakka's crazy old dude locked in the attic. He's harmless. Mostly."
-TBone the Magnificent 1999-2014, Long Live the King!
Gailbraithe wrote:
Longships were not designed for boarding at all, while galleons were. You know the phrase "Make him walk the plank!" Well, they didn't have planks just so they could make people walk off them. The proper name for those planks is a boarding plank. It, along with boarding hooks and boarding cannons were part of the set of dedicated tools found on a galleon specifically for (you guessed it) boarding.
Technically galleons weren't designed specifically with boarding in mind, they were more of an all purpose swiss army knife kind of ship. Equally useful for commerce or as a warship. They were very successful at both.
Vikings are clearly much more awesome (although pirates are good too).
Early guns were unacurate, had difficulty going through tough armour and had a chance of blowing the users hand off. Pirates mainly attacked ships that transported goods so didn't need to be great fighters. While they did get into fights with actual soldiers, a lot of the time they just intimidated unarmed sailors. Cannons were not that acurate but the main problem was they are slow. Against a few large ships they worked great but if used against a large fleet of small ships they just won't be able to fire at many of them.
Pirates do have (overall) better gear but the Vikings were much more skilled and had much higher numbers.
You forgot Pirate ships can ram a wussy longboat and cut it in half. They are larger by orders of magnitude.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
LordofHats wrote:
Warboss Imbad Ironskull wrote: Now talking about fire arms the guns used by pirates where not only innacurate they where also unreliable and prone to missfire. Someone said they could pearce armor? WRONG, blunderbusses could but that's a point blank weapon. The smaller hand held cannon wasen't numerous enough for every pirate to carry.
I suppose that could be true of plate armor, but vikings weren't really packing plate armor. They were packing chain mail if they could afford it. Pistols could break that, and pistols were a fairly common weapon among pirates as far as I know.
Also there is a question of numbers, viking forces wern't small raiding parties they where actual armies
That depends on what we're talking about. Vikings going out and conquering, or viking raiding parties. I thought that we were assuming that when viking was said we were referring to raiding parties rather than armies.
And what age pirates? 1700s pirates with steel swords multiple flintlocks each? Or are we talking Somali pirates with AKs are RPGs?
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2010/09/27 21:38:20
-"Wait a minute.....who is that Frazz is talking to in the gallery? Hmmm something is going on here.....Oh.... it seems there is some dispute over video taping of some sort......Frazz is really upset now..........wait a minute......whats he go there.......is it? Can it be?....Frazz has just unleashed his hidden weiner dog from his mini bag, while quoting shakespeares "Let slip the dogs the war!!" GG
-"Don't mind Frazzled. He's just Dakka's crazy old dude locked in the attic. He's harmless. Mostly."
-TBone the Magnificent 1999-2014, Long Live the King!
4M2A wrote:Vikings are clearly much more awesome (although pirates are good too).
Early guns were unacurate, had difficulty going through tough armour and had a chance of blowing the users hand off. Pirates mainly attacked ships that transported goods so didn't need to be great fighters. While they did get into fights with actual soldiers, a lot of the time they just intimidated unarmed sailors. Cannons were not that acurate but the main problem was they are slow. Against a few large ships they worked great but if used against a large fleet of small ships they just won't be able to fire at many of them.
Pirates do have (overall) better gear but the Vikings were much more skilled and had much higher numbers.
Yes. Very true. However, the guns used by pirates were not as early as you think. The barrels of the muskets they used would have been rifled, not smooth bore and the pistols were quite effective at close range. And even if you have dozens of longboats versus a few well armed pirate vessels, that's still a lot of fire power, and it wouldn't take but one shot to punch through the side of a viking ship. And if it came down to it, the pirates could ram the longships, utterly destroying them, while potentially suffering damage to their own vessels.
4M2A wrote:Early guns were unacurate, had difficulty going through tough armour and had a chance of blowing the users hand off.
If we are assuming pirates from the Age of Piracy, then they were not using "early guns." By the sixteenth century guns were quite sophisticated and reliable.
Pirates mainly attacked ships that transported goods so didn't need to be great fighters. While they did get into fights with actual soldiers, a lot of the time they just intimidated unarmed sailors.
Vikings mainly attacked coastal villages full of unarmed peasants, so they didn't need to be that great of fighters either. Viking rarely engaged in battle with soldiers, their successes was dependent on their ability to strike fast and disappear before local forces could be mustered. Try to remember that Vikings were basically pirates of their day.
Some of the confusion seems to stem from what kind of Viking. The raiding parties were not equipped for battle but for pillage. Viking armies were very different from the raiders that terrorized Europe's Northern coastline even though they came from the same culture.
Pirates RARELY had a full sized "Ship-of-the-Line" Galleon. They preferred smaller, faster, and more maneurerable ships like Brigs. Ships like the "Dutchman" and the "Black Pearl" were extremely rare. Most pirate ships ran one or two gun decks with a likely compliment of less than 32 guns. I learned this from a practicing "Pirate" in NC called 'Captain Sinbad'. His ship, found here>>> http://www.pirate-privateer.com/index.html <<< is a 2/3 - scale replica of an 17th Century, two masted pirate brigantine armed with 8 cannons, that was historically researched. The original ship was @81 feet with 14 cannons. (For the PotC fanboys, The Meka II was in all 3 movies, as was the Captain and his Lt.)
Viking longships ranged from 56 feet to 118 feet in length.The long ship lasted as a primary war and trade vessel until 1429..... 63 years before Columbus. Oh nad they did employ a sail..... which, working with the design of the hull allowed the ship to travel at great speed due to the shallow draft of the keel.
It should also be noted that the Vikings gave us .... The basis of parlamentry procedure, trial by jury, and the "Germanic" language base whose derivitives includes English.
Of all the races of the universe the Squats have the longest memories and the shortest tempers. They are uncouth, unpredictably violent, and frequently drunk. Overall, I'm glad they're on our side!
Office of Naval Intelligence Research discovers 3 out of 4 sailors make up 75% of U.S. Navy.
"Madness is like gravity... All you need is a little push."
helgrenze wrote:Pirates RARELY had a full sized "Ship-of-the-Line" Galleon. They preferred smaller, faster, and more maneurerable ships like Brigs. Ships like the "Dutchman" and the "Black Pearl" were extremely rare. Most pirate ships ran one or two gun decks with a likely compliment of less than 32 guns. I learned this from a practicing "Pirate" in NC called 'Captain Sinbad'. His ship, found here>>> http://www.pirate-privateer.com/index.html <<< is a 2/3 - scale replica of an 17th Century, two masted pirate brigantine armed with 8 cannons, that was historically researched. The original ship was @81 feet with 14 cannons. (For the PotC fanboys, The Meka II was in all 3 movies, as was the Captain and his Lt.)
Viking longships ranged from 56 feet to 118 feet in length.The long ship lasted as a primary war and trade vessel until 1429..... 63 years before Columbus. Oh nad they did employ a sail..... which, working with the design of the hull allowed the ship to travel at great speed due to the shallow draft of the keel.
True, pirates rarely had the biggest and best ships, but a double or triple masted schooner or brig would still blow a viking longship out of the water (both literally and figuratively.)
They were faster, had more sail, could sail into the wind, and had cannons aboard. A swift pirate ship could pull up along side a viking longship, blow a few holes in said longship, and zip off. The vikings wouldn't have a chance.
4M2A wrote:Vikings invaded other countries and were quite successful. They began just raiding small towns but quickly moved onto other things.
Even the guns used in the 16th century had a chance of exploding in your hand if they weren't very carefully looked after.
You still have to move it forward about two centuries to get to the heyday of pirates. We're only talking about 50 years before the American Revolution.
Besides Pirates had parrots. Parrots are epic cool.
-"Wait a minute.....who is that Frazz is talking to in the gallery? Hmmm something is going on here.....Oh.... it seems there is some dispute over video taping of some sort......Frazz is really upset now..........wait a minute......whats he go there.......is it? Can it be?....Frazz has just unleashed his hidden weiner dog from his mini bag, while quoting shakespeares "Let slip the dogs the war!!" GG
-"Don't mind Frazzled. He's just Dakka's crazy old dude locked in the attic. He's harmless. Mostly."
-TBone the Magnificent 1999-2014, Long Live the King!
4M2A wrote:Vikings invaded other countries and were quite successful. They began just raiding small towns but quickly moved onto other things.
Even the guns used in the 16th century had a chance of exploding in your hand if they weren't very carefully looked after.
You still have to move it forward about two centuries to get to the heyday of pirates. We're only talking about 50 years before the American Revolution.
Besides Pirates had parrots. Parrots are epic cool.
yeah, the 16th century was the 1500's. The high point of the age of the pirates was the late 1600's into the 1700's.
I think we all are missing the point. Pirates and Vikings should be working together! Against the people who appear on Disney Channel!
Viking storming a Hanna Montana episode. Pirates raiding the stage of the Jonas Brothers.With the Pirates ships and guns, and the Viking attitude and uncanny ability to consume massive amounts of alcohol while remaining combat effective we can finally be free of screaming tweens and their pop idols!
4M2A wrote:Vikings invaded other countries and were quite successful. They began just raiding small towns but quickly moved onto other things.
Even the guns used in the 16th century had a chance of exploding in your hand if they weren't very carefully looked after.
You still have to move it forward about two centuries to get to the heyday of pirates. We're only talking about 50 years before the American Revolution.
Besides Pirates had parrots. Parrots are epic cool.
Considering that the Vikings were a seafaring people, would it be possible that there were...
LordofHats wrote:I think we all are missing the point. Pirates and Vikings should be working together! Against the people who appear on Disney Channel!
Viking storming a Hanna Montana episode. Pirates raiding the stage of the Jonas Brothers.With the Pirates ships and guns, and the Viking attitude and uncanny ability to consume massive amounts of alcohol while remaining combat effective we can finally be free of screaming tweens and their pop idols!
Lordofhats has the way of it. Raise the Red Flag!
-"Wait a minute.....who is that Frazz is talking to in the gallery? Hmmm something is going on here.....Oh.... it seems there is some dispute over video taping of some sort......Frazz is really upset now..........wait a minute......whats he go there.......is it? Can it be?....Frazz has just unleashed his hidden weiner dog from his mini bag, while quoting shakespeares "Let slip the dogs the war!!" GG
-"Don't mind Frazzled. He's just Dakka's crazy old dude locked in the attic. He's harmless. Mostly."
-TBone the Magnificent 1999-2014, Long Live the King!
4M2A wrote:Vikings invaded other countries and were quite successful. They began just raiding small towns but quickly moved onto other things.
Even the guns used in the 16th century had a chance of exploding in your hand if they weren't very carefully looked after.
You still have to move it forward about two centuries to get to the heyday of pirates. We're only talking about 50 years before the American Revolution.
Besides Pirates had parrots. Parrots are epic cool.
What you never heard of the Norwegian Blue Parrot?
Of all the races of the universe the Squats have the longest memories and the shortest tempers. They are uncouth, unpredictably violent, and frequently drunk. Overall, I'm glad they're on our side!
Office of Naval Intelligence Research discovers 3 out of 4 sailors make up 75% of U.S. Navy.
"Madness is like gravity... All you need is a little push."
Well, the fact that I have over 2/3 of my troops left due to my tactical geniu...........CREED!!1!
(in all seriousness, I destroyed them. Though, I give them credit. They managed to get 2 'brutal shots' on their own troops)
battle Brother Lucifer wrote:Also, In 1066, the Vikings just felt a horrible defeat at the hands of the English.
Given that there are 315 localities in just the Yorkshire region of England that have names of Viking origin..... were the Vikings truely "defeated"?
Of all the races of the universe the Squats have the longest memories and the shortest tempers. They are uncouth, unpredictably violent, and frequently drunk. Overall, I'm glad they're on our side!
Office of Naval Intelligence Research discovers 3 out of 4 sailors make up 75% of U.S. Navy.
"Madness is like gravity... All you need is a little push."
may I just point out that although we are all miniature gaming enthusiasts I'm impressed by the historical/nautical knowledge shared by my fellow Dakkaites. Some of it isn't that accurate but alot of what is being said is spot on
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