Good resource for travel distances/day?

[Narf the Mouse]

Walking, on a ship, a-horse, good roads, bad roads, no roads, mountains, etc....

 

Thanks.

[AliceTheOwl]

Re: Good resource for travel distances/day?

 

Daily Life in Medieval Europe. A book; I recommend taking it out from your local library.

 

Off the top of my head: peasants took a full day to walk 20 miles. On horse, one could go 45 miles in a day. A ship could take one 100 miles in a day with a good tailwind. An army or large retinue generally traveled 10 - 12 miles per day; they had a lot of stuff to schlep.

 

In the medieval ages, if there were no bridges, or there were mountains, they went around. One did not risk losing everything down the river or the side of a mountain for shaving a week off the journey.

[Outsider]

Re: Good resource for travel distances/day?

 

45 miles a day on horse would only be if you were not going all that far, could change horses every so often, or were travelling with several remounts. AIUI, A man on horseback (no remounts) travels about the same speed as a man on foot, long term. Travelling great distances on horseback (no remounts) was more about ease than speed.

[mayapuppies]

Re: Good resource for travel distances/day?

 

Yup, and you could theoretically carry more lewtz with the horsey.

[AliceTheOwl]

Re: Good resource for travel distances/day?

 

Hey, I was surprised at the number, too, but that's what it said.

[gojira]

Re: Good resource for travel distances/day?

 

Yes, this is one area that is sorely lacking in FH, in my opinion. Steve goes into some movement rates based on movement inches and Speed, but that's pretty unsuitable for many fantasy games. It's too hard to calculate long distance travel, apply long-term endurance, etc. Not to mention kind of impractical when every PC has a different move and score, which always happens in a points based system.

 

I think some vaguely realistic movement rates would be a great addition to FH. I'm waiting for it to come up for 6e to suggested it.

 

Right now your best source for realistic movement is other game systems, unfortunately. Twilight 2000 provides a really good movement table for various sorts of movement -- foot, horse, vehicle -- and over varied terrain. If that sort of thing could be incorporated into FH, it would be awesome.

 

Here's some other sources I've been thinking of, if perhaps Steve is reading.

 

Katherine Kerr is an excellent source of information on movement rates. She was a contributor (and editor?) for Dragon magazine back in the 80's, and also of course is a prolific fantasy author. I'm reading some of her old Deverry books now (great stuff for Tuala Morn inspiration, btw). In one, the bad guy speeds off with his army on horse back after nearly being beaten. At 3 miles per hour. Meanwhile, the good guys mount a furious persuit on fresh horses. At 5 miles per hour. You get the idea.

 

One source that I remember Kerr citing is a book Alexander the Great and the Logistics of the Macedonian Army. This isn't hard to find any more with Amazon. The books cites, with historical examples, of a small group of cavalry that rides ahead of the main army to scout and secure supplies. That small group can move 50 miles in one day. Once. The horses are exhausted after that and must be stabled and rested for at least two days or the horses are basically going to die. It requires a skilled rider to know how to push a horse to this; the horses must be walked, cantered, and trotted at the right times or they won't have the stamina to make it the whole way.

 

Like wise, I think in Last of the Mohicans, Hawkeye claims to be able to travel 50 miles per day through virgin forrest. This is an amazing feat and probably requires a very high level of skill (Survival) or similar. Maybe STR and CON too.

 

So that's upper limit of muscle powered travel, imo. 50 miles a day.

 

As mentioned, 20 miles per day is the normal figure I see for someone walking. It's useful to lay out your large scale maps on a 20 mile hex grid, since then each hex is one days travel. This requires decent roads and roughly level ground. Grades, forest, broken ground or inclement weather will reduce this.

 

12 miles per day sounds very reasonable for sustained travel on horse. Horses must be fed and watered, and won't forage at night because they're naturally wary of predators. So part of your daylight gets eaten up feeding and grooming horses, even on the road. This assumes there is forage available. One normally doesn't carry horse food on the road. If you do, then the horse can carry about 6 days of food, with out any additional weight at all, including a rider. People can also carry about the same -- 6 days of food. After that, you're basically done for.

[Lawnmower Boy]

Re: Good resource for travel distances/day?

 

That thing about foot travellers and mounted travelling at the same speed? It may be correct for some terrains, but by and large it's an internet meme.

There are some pretty impressive forced marches in military history: 60 miles in 24 hours comes to mind, but may not be accurate.

At one point in his Histories, Herodotus estimates the width (sea to sea) of modern Turkey as "three days travel for [young] men, travelling light." He's probably exaggerating. The point here is that, even in his day, shealthy young folk sometimes put on a knapsack and made for the horizon. And on a warm summer day when they could sleep outside, and with letters of introduction so that people would feed you, could easily walk/swim from Copenhagen to Nineveh and back in two moons.

That said, 20 miles a day sounds about right for normal travel, where you have to make and break camp, cook for yourself, etc.

[Markdoc]

Re: Good resource for travel distances/day?

 

At one point in his Histories' date=' [/i']Herodotus estimates the width (sea to sea) of modern Turkey as "three days travel for [young] men, travelling light." He's probably exaggerating.

 

Not without reason was Herodotus nicknamed "Father of Lies".

 

Cheers

[gojira]

Re: Good resource for travel distances/day?

 

One correction: Twilight 2000 lists one day's travel on foot as 20 kilometers, not miles. Converting gives 12 miles per day, same as horses. No, I don't think that's an internet meme.

[Cancer]

Re: Good resource for travel distances/day?

 

I will be editing this post over the next quarter-hour or so dragging in other useful threads.

 

Assuming a single-masted ship in the North Sea circa 1250 AD, the ship can make a sustained speed of no better than 6 knots, and go no closer than one point into the wind.

 

One thread about ships.

 

Another thread, though the ship-related content starts on the 2nd page (linked). I list several references I found useful in a post near the end of the thread.

 

I put a couple bits of useful trivia about one of Columbus's ships in a post in an irrelevant thread.

 

Not really relevant but included for convenience

 

Galley fleets (historical Mediterranean) made no more than 2 to 2.5 knots on extended cruises. This gross transit time, including all the hassle of forming up the fleet, slowing down so stragglers could keep up, and so on. It is also fair conditions, and with the prevailing wind, but it was a sustained speed through water. That last part means a "straighter" route than any road is likely to be.

 

BTW, in case you are concerned about deserts, camels move at the same speed as people and horses. In general they require the same water per day as a horse, but can go a couple of days without water in a pinch. They need to recharge that at the end of the dry run, and then they need the full amount of the deficit they ran up.

 

About provisions while traveling. I also highly recommend the book Alexander the Great and the Logistics of the Macedonian Army for army-scale logistics in the ancient era ... that will work pretty well until Renaissance tech comes relevant with multi-masted ships. Minor improvements are possible if you have the Roman Empire's road net, too.

[Matt the Bruins]

Re: Good resource for travel distances/day?

 

That said, 20 miles a day sounds about right for normal travel, where you have to make and break camp, cook for yourself, etc.

 

I had a co-worker who was pretty big on wildreness hiking with her husband. They once doubled up on a hike against the Parks Department's advice and pressed on to the 2nd following campsite, about 23 miles down the trail in one day. She said it was a grueling hike and they both collapsed exhausted when they made it to the campsite and had to deal with a lot of muscle pain the next day (remember, these were both experienced hikers). Modern people generally do those 26-mile marathons on paved roads with no obstacles to avoid or uneven ground to trip over.

[CTaylor]

Re: Good resource for travel distances/day?

 

20 miles is quite a ways to walk, but if you're doing it for travel, it's a plausible number on decent roads... for a hero. For an ordinary person that's going to be a pretty gruelling rate. If you're off on trails it should be reduced considerably (maybe 12-15 miles) and offroad at most 5-10 miles. If you stop to hunt up food (fish, snares, hunting) you'll have to cut back by 10-25% of the distance as well.

 

And yes, a man on foot can catch a horse in the long term, horses can move faster short term but they have to rest and eat and if you run them all day they won't make it far the next day. Horses will obediently run themselves to death.

[Lawnmower Boy]

Re: Good resource for travel distances/day?

 

I had a co-worker who was pretty big on wildreness hiking with her husband. They once doubled up on a hike against the Parks Department's advice and pressed on to the 2nd following campsite' date=' about 23 miles down the trail in one day. She said it was a grueling hike and they both collapsed exhausted when they made it to the campsite and had to deal with a lot of muscle pain the next day (remember, these were both experienced hikers). Modern people generally do those 26-mile marathons on paved roads with no obstacles to avoid or uneven ground to trip over.[/quote']

 

I've done 23 mile days in the Rockies, and while they were tough, I did't find them gruelling beyond belief. They could easily have been, of course. This was on a valley floor, which is exactly why we made good time. Factors like elevation gain/loss, weight carried, and weather all enter into the equation along with road surfaces.

The scenario that Herodotus arouses in my imagination is quite another thing. Imagine a noble boy with good connections just taking off down the road one day. At a run/walk/swim/run/walk pace, I do not think that a 6 mile per hour (10 minute mile/4+ hour marathon) is at all unreasonable, and that's just less than 100 miles/day if at the end of the day you run into the manor house of some helpful relatives who feed you and doss you down. Scaling down for obstacles and allowing for breaks and some comfort and you're sill in the range of say, 50 miles a day. If anyone reading this knows the road, consider that British Columbia Highway 3 between Hope and Princeton (120 km over a mountain pass) used to be counted as a two day hike in the days when young men walked over it to save train fare.

 

These are extreme scenarios. So is 6 miles a day up and over a mountain range (or through a jungle) carrying 50lb packs. As practical advice for the GM, I would count paces against a watch to get a fingertip feel of what walking speed is (or just take 4mph as a reasonable estimate) and make a CON roll against it on the basis of terrain: -0- for level road, -3 for mountains/jungle, and adjust the speed up by half-a-mile-per-hour to a max of 3 for every point they make it by. Allow, say, 6 hours for sleep and 3 hours for camp time, and Bob's your uncle!

(Or get a used copy of Viscount Garnet Wolselely's Soldier's Pocket Handbook and/or Horace Kemphart's Camping and Woodcraft. Great books, chock full of answers to questions like these.)

 

On humans on foot versus humans on horses: Internet meme, I'm saying. Horses, even horses carrying a human load, are far faster than humans walking; can jog faster than humans jogging, and so on. There's any number of races that pit humans against horses these days, all with substantial handicaps to help the humans keep up. I've linked to them before in another thread. For now, I would suggest going to the Long Riders' Guild webpage.

[Beast]

Re: Good resource for travel distances/day?

 

the old spanish missions here in california are about 16 miles apart on average

as the story I had been told was that was the distance a normal man could walk in a day

starting at sunrise and ending at sunset(not sure if this was done in the winter when the days are the shortest)

[Cancer]

Re: Good resource for travel distances/day?

 

My memory is that 16 miles was a day by ox-cart. Oxen are slower than just about any other form of transport that was ever widely used, but they do have heavy-load capacity that other medieval-class modes of land transport don't have.

[gojira]

Re: Good resource for travel distances/day?

 

My memory for medieval armies using oxen was 6 miles per day....

[Cancer]

Re: Good resource for travel distances/day?

 

I think that's right for an army going down roads, departing in the morning from one assembly point, single file, collecting at the next assembly point in the evening. A single oxcart just goes from A to B without the milling around on each end.

[Lawnmower Boy]

Re: Good resource for travel distances/day?

 

Rereading Wolseley's Soldier's Pocket-book for Field Service on Google Books, I notice that Wolseley gives 2--2.5 mph as the normal road speed of an ox-cart. Given that the oxen have to be unhitched and given time to graze, 8 hours (thus 16 miles) seems reasonable. He also recommends a 6 mile morning march for armies early in campaigns, while the soldiers are being put into condition (the context for Narf's figure?), and 15--20 miles later in the campaign.

Note that army marches are supposed to take care at all times that the men have enough gas in their tank to fight a battle at the end of the march, which may or may not be important for an adventuring party.

[Markdoc]

Re: Good resource for travel distances/day?

 

Imagine a noble boy with good connections just taking off down the road one day. At a run/walk/swim/run/walk pace' date=' I do not think that a 6 mile per hour (10 minute mile/4+ hour marathon) is at all unreasonable[/quote']

 

Except that your noble boy is making the same time as an experienced marathon runner. Said runner has people waiting for him along the route with energy drinks and water, is carrying nothing heavier than a singlet and is wearing modern running shoes on a good flat surface. And at the end of 4 hours, said runner is usually close to the end of his tether. We're not talking about "moving at a good pace". At 6 miles per hour, we're talking about moving at a jog/run the whole time, the whole time, or walking interspersed with fast running.

 

It's certainly possible for your well bred boy to keep this up half a day under optimal conditions. It's not reasonable to assume he can move at that speed for a full day, and utterly implausible that he can keep it up for several days.

 

and that's just less than 100 miles/day if at the end of the day you run into the manor house of some helpful relatives who feed you and doss you down. Scaling down for obstacles and allowing for breaks and some comfort and you're sill in the range of say' date=' 50 miles a day. If anyone reading this knows the road, consider that British Columbia Highway 3 between Hope and Princeton (120 km over a mountain pass) used to be counted as a two day hike in the days when young men walked over it to save train fare. [/quote']

 

Hmmm. How do I put this politely ... ridiculous? Crazy? The world record over 100 miles is nearly 12 and a half hours. The holder is not only a professional runner who does nothing but run, and is prepared by the best medical team his sponsors can afford, but he also got support along the way, continual rehydration, trained for the event for years in advance and required rehydration and therapy afterwards. There have been accounts from antiquity of people who ran astonishing distances - over 50 miles in some cases. Many of them died.

 

Essentially you are suggesting your well-bred boy can casually outperform the very best professional sports and careful preparation, plus excellent nutrition can produce today. You assume humans run like machines (a common assumption in the era of cars). It's not true. Here's an example. The US 100 mile record holder also runs different length races, so we have his time. In a marathon, he can do 2 1/2 hours, for an astonishing speed of over 12 MPH. Over 62 miles, he took 7 hours, cutting his speed to a bit under 9 MPH. Over 100 miles he took 12 1/2 hours, so the speed is now down to under 8 MPH and over a multiday race, he managed 150 miles in 24 hours of running for a bit over 6 MPH. And at that speed he is literally one in a hundred million - there's very, very few professional runners who can turn in those kinds of performances.

 

In other words, your 6 MPH sustained speed is at the absolute cutting edge of what a human - under optimum conditions, carrying nothing and with assistance all along the way - can manage and not die.

 

These are extreme scenarios. So is 6 miles a day up and over a mountain range (or through a jungle) carrying 50lb packs. As practical advice for the GM, I would count paces against a watch to get a fingertip feel of what walking speed is (or just take 4mph as a reasonable estimate) and make a CON roll against it on the basis of terrain: -0- for level road, -3 for mountains/jungle, and adjust the speed up by half-a-mile-per-hour to a max of 3 for every point they make it by. Allow, say, 6 hours for sleep and 3 hours for camp time, and Bob's your uncle!

(Or get a used copy of Viscount Garnet Wolselely's Soldier's Pocket Handbook and/or Horace Kemphart's Camping and Woodcraft. Great books, chock full of answers to questions like these.)

 

Infantry speed. Well, there's plenty of information there. The infamous Ruck March that applicants to US rangers or US Navy SEALs have to pass is 18 miles with a 50 lb pack in 4.5 hours. Obviously, US special forces are made of much feebler stuff than your well-bred Greek boy!

 

What's interesting is that when we look back across history, the numbers are pretty consistent. Lord Robert's famous forced march on Kabul - in which troops traveled as lightly as possible, using pack animals for their loads and which took no wheeled transport managed 15 miles a day, sometimes as much as 20. They lost men along the way - a few couldn't bear the pain and committed suicide, others dropped out and were never seen again. Hundreds of camels were bought on route to cary those who could no longer walk. That was double the standard day's march for the British army of the time.

 

It's also the exact same speed that Alexander the Great and his troops managed on the famous forced march from Harran to the crossing of the Tigris, which outmaneuvered his enemies: 215 miles in 14 days, or about 15 miles a day. There's plenty of similar examples (Alexander's forced march to Gaugamela over 287 miles, took 21 days - also a speed of about 14 miles a day).

 

Basically, over the last 3000 years the speed of infantry marching on foot without wagons has topped out at 15 miles a day - 20 on a really good day, and that's a punishing regimen that only the best manage. More normal speeds for large groups of men are about half that.

 

Soldiers on foot can manage better, over short periods. Stonewall Jackson's famous forced march to Mannassas managed 54 miles over 2 days - a pretty respectable 26 miles a day, but for a much short period than Lord Robert's troops. He was also marching around the enemy's flank and not expecting much combat - which is probably a good thing. As Grant said in his memoirs (chapter 28) "I did not believe this possible because of the distance and the condition of the roads, which was bad; besides, troops after a forced march of twenty miles are not in a good condition for fighting" This is on the same scale as the famous light infantry march to Talavera (56 miles in just under two days) during the Peninsula wars, or General mile's forced march in the capture of Geronimo.

 

That suggests that light order soldiers - or soldiers in smaller groups - can manage 25-30 miles a day and as much as 50 if they are not carrying much and really push it to the limit of human endurance, but that's not a speed that can be sustained.

 

On humans on foot versus humans on horses: Internet meme' date=' I'm saying. Horses, even horses carrying a human load, are far faster than humans walking; can jog faster than humans jogging, and so on. There's any number of races that pit humans against horses these days, all with substantial handicaps to help the humans keep up. I've linked to them before in another thread. For now, I would suggest going to the Long Riders' Guild webpage.[/quote']

 

There's no question that horses are faster - if you are pushing the horse. However to maintain high speeds, horses need plenty of rest, and lots of food and water. Over long trips (more than a day or two), the amount of fodder and rest required will keep cavalry to a speed not very different from infantry. That's not an internet meme, but a constant observation from thousands of years of warfare.

 

If you look here, you get a list of many famous mounted forced marches. They are further than the infantry can manage - but only by a factor of about 1.3 without remounts and 2 with remounts over short periods - and accepting losses in animals. Groups like the Pony Express, which covered huge distances, swapped horses out every hour or so, so to cover 150 miles, a rider might use 9-12 horses.

 

More normally, light cavalry could go 24-30 miles in a day and 50 odd in a forced march - or up to 75 miles if they wanted to maintain a killing pace - though these numbers drop dramatically in bad going or if supplies are not available en route - Alexander's infantry got to Tigris ahead of Darius' light cavalry and the British light infantry got to Talavera ahead of the light cavalry (even though they started together) - in both cases a road over a mountain pass had to be negotiated, and in both cases, the cavalry were slowed by a shortage of fodder.

 

cheers, Mark

[CTaylor]

Re: Good resource for travel distances/day?

 

That Greek boy died at the end of his run, and because the average guy couldn't do it doesn't mean no one in any condition or ability could. It's improbable, but it's also improbable that someone could swim as fast and as well as Phelps does either: he's a genetic freak. Nothing stops that greek kid from being that way either, and for all we know he was a running fanatic, ran every day for miles to keep in shape: we know next to nothing about the guy.

 

There's a reason he was picked and decided he could attempt to deliver the message, you know.

[Markdoc]

Re: Good resource for travel distances/day?

 

That Greek boy died at the end of his run' date=' and because the average guy couldn't do it doesn't mean no one in any condition or ability could. It's improbable, but it's also improbable that someone could swim as fast and as well as Phelps does either: he's a genetic freak. Nothing stops that greek kid from being that way either, and for all we know he was a running fanatic, ran every day for miles to keep in shape: we know next to nothing about the guy.[/quote']

 

Uh, if you read my post, you'll note that I was responding to the idea that someone - Lawnmower boy's example was a "A greek lad" - could run 100 miles in a day, and then freshen up at a friend's house.

 

We know people actually can run 100 miles. We also know that's a) not possible with equipment and at the raw, bleeding edge of human capacity.

 

cheers, Mark

[teh bunneh]

Re: Good resource for travel distances/day?

 

Bah! You kids today with your "walk-mans" and your "plumbing"! When I was a boy, we ran 100 miles just to get to school every morning! And we were thankful for the opportunity! These Greek lads today act like running a hundred miles is something they should get a medal for, with all their moaning and complaining and dying afterwards! Soft is what they are, I tell you! Soft and girly, not like we were when we were kids. :crotchety:

[Blue Jogger]

Re: Good resource for travel distances/day?

 

To boil it down to the oversimplified basics:

 

2 miles per hour, 6 hours/day of traveling by land.

 

Multiple by 2 if running at breakneck speeds. (This risks damaging the vehicle, losing troops, twisting one's ankle if done too often)

 

Divide by 2 if heavily burdened (more than 50 lb of gear for a normal adult male). (Thanks, gojira)

 

Pick one:

Multiple by 2 for ideal conditions (good paved roads with inns) * (suggested by Markdoc)

Multiple by 1.5 for really good conditions (good paved roads) *

Multiple by 1 for average conditions

Divide by 2 for rough terrain (forest, rough grounds, hills)

Divide by 3 for really poor conditions (heavy snow, swamps, mountains)

 

* This reflects being able to travel longer in such conditions (9 and 12 hours respectively) and not (necessarily) an increase in speed. (clarification)

 

One can travel longer than this, but this also risks damaging the vehicle, losing troops, twisting one's ankle if done too often.

 

 

Now all we need is a system for calculating how much damage for exceeding the recommended limits.

[gojira]

Re: Good resource for travel distances/day?

 

Also consider encumbrance, like "Divide by 2 if heavily burdened (more than 50 lb of gear for a normal adult male)."

[Blue Jogger]

Re: Good resource for travel distances/day?

 

Consider it added.